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Fifty Years of Rapid Transit · James Blaine Walker
First Rapid Transit Bill Passed by the Legislature and Vetoed.
IN November, 1864, one of the most momentous general elections ever held in the United States took place. At it Abraham Lincoln, after a campaign in which he was vilified and ridiculed shamelessly not only by the opposition press but by papers which called themselves loyal to the Union, was triumphantly re-elected to the Presidency. New York State had given him its electoral vote and with it had elected a Legislature strongly Union in both branches and a Governor, Reuben E. Fenton, also a strong Unionist. The majority in the Legislature was composed of Republicans and Union Democrats, all of whom were known and spoken of as Unionists. The opposition was composed of Democrats entirely.
Hugh B. Willson's first bill for a charter for the Metropolitan Railway Company to build an underground railroad in Broadway, as we have seen, was defeated in the Senate of 1864. It was not introduced until towards the close of the session, and Mr. Willson made no great effort to press it. "It was, however, too late in the session", he wrote later, "to hope to get it passed through both houses, and I did not attempt to press it at that session." It is probable, too, that he foresaw the election of a new set of Legislators and felt that nothing he could do at the session of 1864 would help him with the session of 1865. So he made up his mind to lay the project before the new Legislature, and meanwhile devoted himself to laying the foundations for a successful appeal to that body.
"During the recess of the Legislature of 1864," he wrote, "I devoted myself with untiring energy to the popularizing the subject of an underground system of railways, and frequently discussed with Mr. Robinson (A. P. Robinson, the engineer) the engineering and other features of the project. He became convinced of its feasibility and regarded it as superior to any other system that had yet been presented to the world for city traffic. In the autumn he was engaged to investigate the various routes and make a report on the undertaking. I gave him all the aid in my power, and the result was the production of a report almost exhaustive of the subject."
This report Willson had printed and circulated, and with it he went to Albany and had introduced a bill to give the Metropolitan Railway company the legal right to build and operate a subway as therein planned. The bill was carefully drawn so that it infringed no private rights. It was introduced in the Senate on February 7, 1865, by Senator Laimbeer, a Union Senator from New York City. At the same time Senator Laimbeer introduced another bill for a pneumatic tube line for freight traffic, to run underground in Nassau, the Bowery and other streets. Thereafter both bills were considered together.
On February 15 the Senate Committee on Railroads held a hearing on both bills. This committee was composed of Senators Angell, Williams and Beach, Unionists, and Hobbs and Woodruff, Democrats. There was no opposition, everyone appearing being in favor of the bills. On March 15 friends of the bill had a hearing before the Assembly Committee on Railroads. At this time the Albany correspondent of the New York Times wrote as follows to his paper:
"This proposition to construct an underground railroad is ably advocated before the committees of the two houses and has thus far met with no opposition. The Senate committee reported the bill for the consideration of the Senate last week, and the Assembly committee express themselves as favorably impressed with the arguments advanced in favor of the project, although they have not yet taken any action in regard to their report."
Within a few days, however, opposition appeared. Stories were circulated to the effect that the scheme was impracticable and that the men who put any money into it would lose; also that the new line was not needed and could not get traffic enough to make it pay. On March 20 the New York Times in an editorial attacked the shallowness of such arguments. "The only persons to whose interests it can prove in the slightest degree prejudicial, " said the Times, "are the street railway companies and the omnibus proprietors." The writer then pointed out that these interests were always complaining that they did not have conveyances enough for their traffic, yet when any effort like the underground project was made to relieve them of a portion of their burden, they rushed up to Albany and used every means, fair and foul, to defeat it. "The one point for the Government to satisfy itself about", said the Times, "is whether the proposed excavation will affect the houses, sewerage or streets of the city injuriously; whether the line is needed and whether it will pay are not matters for the consideration of the Legislature. It is no part of its business to prevent speculators from sinking their money in unprofitable enterprises. It may be satisfied that people who propose to invest their money in digging a tunnel seven miles long have good reason for believing they will get it back again; and if they are disappointed, nobody else will suffer."
The bill came up in the Senate for passage on March 24th. Seventeen votes were required for passage. The vote was 14 to 12, and although the affirmative scored the 14, the bill failed for lack of the required number. Senator Laimbeer, who voted for the bill, moved to reconsider and to lay that motion on the table, which was carried. Friends of the measure at once exerted themselves to save it. Some of the negative votes, it was said, came from Senators who resented the previous turning down of a bill to give the New York & Harlem rights to build a railroad in Broadway. These differences were smoothed out, petitions for the bill were received from New York City, and on April 3 it was reconsidered and four days later came up again for passage. This time it was passed by a vote of 19 to 7. It came up in the Assembly on April 27 and was passed by that body by a vote of 89 in the affirmative. In the debate preceding its passage by the Assembly the opposition was led by Assemblyman Brandreth, of Westchester county, who expressed the fear that the construction of the underground would "disturb" the surface of Broadway. Even in those days the country member was solicitous for the streets of the metropolis! Assemblyman Creamer, of New York, also spoke against the bill, while it was championed by Assemblyman Van Buren, of New York, and Assemblyman Veeder, of Kings County.
Friends of the underground railroad were naturally jubilant, and the prospects for a subway seemed bright. But they reckoned without the Governor, Reuben E. Fenton, who astounded the community by vetoing the bill. On May 20 some weeks after the Legislature had adjourned, he sent it to the Secretary of State, Chauncey M. Depew, without his signature and with a note of disapproval. His reasons for withholding his approval were set forth in his veto message, which was included in a general letter transmitting other vetoes and was as follows:
"Neither can I approve the 'Act to authorize the Metropolitan Railway company of the City of New York to construct a tunnel under Broadway, and for other Purposes.' This bill appears to have been elaborately drawn and seems to have provided against any improper infringement of private rights. I am inclined to think that the structure contemplated, or something occupying the same prominent route from the foot of Broadway to the upper part of the city, may be made practicable and may be deemed necessary. Rapid access to and from the business center of New York is of vital importance, and it is not improbable that some more systematic, direct and well-guarded measure will finally be inaugurated. My objections to this bill are that, although a specified route is laid down, there is no requirement that the road thus authorized shall be speedily completed. There being no obligation that it shall be constructed with reasonable rapidity (the General Railroad Act allowing five years for the construction of the road from the date of commencement) it might be possible that, through financial disasters or other causes, the central thoroughfare of our commercial metropolis would be obstructed or unsettled for a vexatious period. Even should the work be vigorously prosecuted, Broadway must be rendered, at intervals and for short distances, for a short time, unpleasant and uncomfortable to travel and business, and it seems to me, therefore, that the Legislature should have provided against the contingency of prolonging the inconvenience through the financial vicissitudes to which such enterprises are too often subjected.
"But a controlling objection to the approval of this bill is found in Section 4, which authorizes the transfer of State and City property for the use of this company. It reads as follows:
"'The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York are hereby authorized to permit the use by said Metropolitan Railway company of such portion of any lands heretofore granted by the people of the State of New York to the said Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty, or of such other public lands or places in the said city, as they may deem proper, to allow the said company to occupy either temporarily or permanently for the public convenience, in the construction, operation and use of the said railroad and tunnel, and upon such terms and under such regulations as may be prescribed by the said Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty.'
"By the provision of that part of the section cited it will be perceived that the whole of the Battery, if so much shall be deemed necessary, which is in one sense the property of the State, may be converted into a passenger and freight depot. The same use might be made of the other public parks and places of the city along or near the contemplated route. I can see grave objections to such a diversion of the parks or public grounds, which are designed for the benefit of the people, and which are essential to their health and conducive to their pleasure. I cannot consent, on my part, to such use of these grounds, without feeling that I had violated the trust reposed in me by the people."
For similar reasons the Governor also vetoed the bill for a pneumatic tube underground express line, which had passed the Legislature with the Metropolitan bill.
It is difficult to imagine a Governor in these days vetoing a subway bill on any such grounds. The Battery park, for which Fenton displayed such solicitude, was later turned over to the elevated railroad, which now maintains there a structure infinitely more unsightly than the station and bridge which the Metropolitan Railway Company of 1865 planned to build there. In those days, however, criticism of the Chief Executive was not as common as it is now, and the newspapers, with one exception, were silent as to this veto. That exception was the New York Times, which on May 22, the day the veto message was published, contained the following editorial:
"The Underground Railroad -- We are sorry that Governor Fenton has refused his signature to the bill authorizing an underground railroad in this city. We have always regarded such a road as the only measure which would afford substantial relief to our over-crowded streets and facilitate transit from one part of the city to another. It is perfectly certain that there is not room on the surface of the city to accommodate the traffic which its business requires. Being situated on a long and narrow island, its surface is restricted and its streets are narrow. A careful calculation shows that, even with its present population, enough railroads cannot be placed in its streets to accommodate all who wish to ride, without stopping its business traffic. This evil, of necessity, increases from year to year, and will absolutely compel, sooner or later, resort to such a road as that which the Governor has just refused to permit. We think his action will be regretted by all classes of people in this city, except those who are interested in existing and prospective street railroads."
The writer has italicized the last sentence, which is the only one casting any reflection, and that by implication, upon the Governor. The sting, however, was there, and it immediately brought forth a defense of the Governor in the New York Tribune, then edited by Horace Greeley and as pro-Fenton in State politics as it was pro-Union in national affairs. In an editorial published the next day, May 23, Horace rebuked the Times and asked if such criticism was fair in view of the Governor's reasons for vetoing the bill. "Now, we favor an underground railroad," continued the Tribune, "and hope to see it constructed under Legislative charter and by the company which procured the passage of the bill just vetoed." It defended all the Governor's vetoes and suggested that they be published and generally circulated in pamphlet form. It also criticized the Legislators as corrupt and impugned the motives of those who voted for the measures vetoed by the Governor.
There was some truth in the Tribune's remarks. Its fault lay in failing to distinguish between good and bad bills. Many, perhaps most, of Fenton's vetoes were justified, notably that of the bill to allow the New York Central to increase its rates from two cents to two and one-half cents a mile, but a study of the Metropolitan underground railroad bill reveals nothing to warrant its disapproval.
The Times did not reply to the Tribune, further than to repeat its previous expression of regret at the defeat of the underground project. Both papers, like all their contemporaries, were absorbed with the closing scenes of the Civil War, reporting the Mrs. Surratt trial and discussing the appropriate punishment for Jefferson Davis, the recently captured President of the Confederate States. Possibly in more normal times the underground railroad promoters would have been given more consideration. Certainly the veto of Governor Fenton caused much less stir then than a similar step would now.
There was one man in New York City, however, who resented the Tribune's harsh criticism of the men who voted for the underground bill, and that was Thomas B. Van Buren, Assemblyman from the Fifteenth district, New York City, who not only voted but spoke for the bill. He wrote a letter to the Tribune, which gave it space without comment in its issue of May 27. After a general introduction Van Buren wrote:
"Now, sir, although under the ban of so severe a punishment as never being returned to the Assembly, and fearing that the present city railroads, having succeeded in their opposition to the underground road, may not see fit to invest in the pamphlet you propose, I wish to state through your columns that I am one of those who voted not only but labored zealously to pass the bills creating an underground railroad and a pneumatic express.
"The opposition to these measures came from these representing the interests of the existing city railways, and I venture the assertion that no bill creating a corporation has for years been presented or passed, which so thoroughly guarded public and private rights as the bill creating the Metropolitan or Underground Railway....
"I believe that no projects have been before the Legislature for years which would have proved of such benefit and advantage to the public as these two railways. They were to interfere with no vested rights, obstruct no streets, violate no contracts. They would have provided cheap, clean, rapid and safe means for carrying passengers and freight, and would have made the upper portion of our city the most delightful residence in the world.
"For Governor Fenton personally and for his motives and independence I have the very highest regard, but I claim for myself the same purity of motive and the same right of independent action. The grounds upon which the veto of the underground road are based do not seem to me sound. The right given to the Mayor and Common Council to allow the said company to use 'either temporarily or permanently, for the PUBLIC CONVENIENCE, such portions of the public lands in the city as they may deem proper and under such regulations as they may prescribe', does not seem to me fraught with such dread consequences as to demand the exercise of the veto power; and I do not believe that the public of New York entertain such a holy reverence for the Battery as to regret its being used, or a part of it, for such purposes."
To the unprejudiced reader of this chapter of Legislative history it would appear that the first underground railroad bill was defeated by the corporations then owning the street railroads, who did not want the competition of a subway. Fenton's action gave the opponents of the scheme time to organize rival projects and ultimately to defeat it. He thereby deferred underground transit in New York City for almost half a century.
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