CORRESPONDENCE

LETTER TO MR. DE BERARD RELATIVE TO THE WATER SUPPLY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

STATE OF NEW YORK

Executive Chamber

Albany, April 6, 1900

FREDERICK B. DE BERARD, Esq., Merchants' Association, New York City:

MY DEAR SIR: I thank you for your letter of the 29th ultimo. The veto by the mayor of the Fallows bill, and the passage over his veto of the bill against the practically solid opposition of his party representatives in the Legislature, has emphasized the wisdom of following out just the course we followed this year.

The work already done by the Merchants' Association has brought about two most valuable results: first, the Fallows bill, the principle of which was suggested by you in November last, and the passage of which your agitation made practicable; and, second, the exposure of the true character of the Ramapo scheme, whereby you have checked its present consummation and made future remedial legislation certain. You have thus achieved present protection for the city, so that the immediate urgency is

past. I very earnestly hope that you will continue your work and will co-operate through your committee on water supply with the Charter Revision Commission, so that it may profit by your wide and exhaustive study of the question of the water supply of the city of New York a study wider and more exhaustive than has ever before been made, and wholly free from any official bias or prejudice. You can supply the Charter Commission with data of the utmost value, and I hope that your special committee will continue its work with this end in view, for you would thus render an additional and important service. Your work should be continued; for at the next session of the Legislature laws must be passed which will afford not a temporary, but a permanent remedy. I also hope that your committee will. push for a judicial decision both as to the precise powers under the extraordinary grants to the Ramapo company and as to the exact effect of the phraseology in the charter which brought about the belief in the necessity for the Morgan bill. Personally I trust that next year we can have legislation taking away the excessive and unhealthy powers granted to the Ramapo company, especially under the act of 1895. Even if it be necessary to award compensation for whatever has actually been done under these grants, I hope that the grants can themselves be withdrawn.

As it turned out, it was wise not to endeavor to push through the Morgan bill, especially in view of the differences between your engineers and those of the Comptroller differences which were more seeming than real, but which rendered it utterly impracticable to get the measure through at this time.

Let me point out to you also that there were very real objections to the Morgan bill in its original form. In your letter you show the grossest and most culpable misconduct on the part of the city officials. Their acts as described by you verge on actual criminality. You show that they attempted to bring about an artificial water panic and that the aid of the State had to be invoked to prevent them from turning waters from polluted ponds into conduits, and that they were barely prevented by an explosion of popular indignation from entering into a most grossly improper contract with the Ramapo company. You show that the city authorities of New York have themselves prepared the laws which disqualify the city from obtaining water through municipal ownership. Such being the case, it was but natural that the country members should object to seeing these same officials, against whom so heavy an indictment is framed, made supreme over the water systems of the country counties. You have shown that the only hope lies not in the action of the city authorities but in the action of the State Legislature and Executive; and finally that the danger is not only to the city of New York but to all of the counties in the eastern part of the State. When it is necessary thus to invoke the aid of the State, and when the legislation asked for is to benefit a city by means of works carried into various country counties, then it is well worth considering whether or not the legislation should be of such a character as will permit these counties a voice in the matter. If Manhattan and Brooklyn are to draw their water supplies from Dutchess or Rockland, or Suffolk or Essex, then the question of home rule is quite as

important to these country counties as it is to the two great metropolitan boroughs. The water can be obtained only through special powers conferred by the State, and the State has a right to impose such conditions as it deems wise in granting these powers. It might be well, while studying the general question, to examine into the methods by which in Massachusetts the city of Boston obtains its water supply.

Let me congratulate you on the masterly manner in which you have exposed the facts in connection with the effort to produce a fictitious water famine, hoping that the panic thereby produced would result in securing a contract for the Ramapo company. The Comptroller

believes that the waste of water in New York is so excessive that proper economy will guarantee the city against any possible water famine in the immediate future. You have clearly shown that the immediate danger is not of a water famine, but of an attempt on the part of the city authorities to create a panic by reason of an artificial water famine in order to force a contract with this Ramapo Water Company. In view of this exposure any such effort would now be discounted from the outset.

New York will in the lifetime of men now living be the largest city on the globe, and we should build a water system not for one summer but for half a century to come

a system that shall once for all meet the needs of the future city and be capable of almost automatic expansion as these needs increase.

Yours very truly,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

LETTER TO MR. DE FOREST GIVING REASONS FOR A TENEMENT HOUSE COMMISSION

STATE OF NEW YORK

Executive Chamber

April 16, 1900

ROBERT W. DE FOREST, Esq., New York City:

MY DEAR SIR: After much thought I have decided in accordance with your suggestion to appoint a large Tenement House Commission of fifteen men. I do this for these reasons: In the first place, because I find that I wish to represent many different interests; that is, I wish to have lawyers, architects, builders, men prominently connected with charitable work and other forms of philanthropy, men who have taken part in political work of an administrative kind, men who have been owners of tenement houses and men who have been practically interested already in securing a change for the better in tenement house conditions. Moreover, I find that some of the men whom I especially desire to have on the commission will be unable to spare as much time as they would desire for it, but they can take part in a big commission which would delegate certain branches of the work to sub-committees.

I hereby request you to call the first meeting of the commission at an early date so that the Commission can elect a chairman and promptly get down to work.

Faithfully yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT