USA > New York > New York City > Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ; > Part 15
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If in any direction St. Michael's Parish has struck out in new lines during the rectorship of the present incumbent, it is in relation to social and neighborhood work. In this, however, the rector has only developed
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somewhat more fully the principles of the past. It was no new thing to throw St. Michael's Church open freely for meetings to advance new thoughts and ideas, or to bespeak sympathy and succor for the poor and oppressed of this or any nation. Peculiar conditions have led to a somewhat freer use of such meetings in later years. So in 1895 and 1896, at the time of the persecution of the Armenians, meetings on their behalf were held in St. Michael's Church, and their appreciation of the activities of this parish and its members in their distress is witnessed by the rug presented by the Ar- menian Protestant Church of this city to St. Michael's Church at its Centenary. Similar meetings were held in 1904 in behalf of the persecuted Macedonians, and in 1906 in behalf of the negroes of the Congo Free State. But perhaps the most interesting of all these meetings was one held in St. Michael's Church in 1895, on the occasion of a clothing strike on the East Side. On that occasion the Bishop presided in his robes, seated in the chancel, while Jewish workmen stood before him and told the congregation of their conditions and their needs. It was interesting to see how men of this different faith, out of courtesy to the church which had thrown open its doors that they might present their cause to the Christian community, joined lustily in the singing of the Christian hymns in the service which preceded and followed their appeal.
This meeting, and another which followed it in the in- terest of tenement house reform, was held at the instiga- tion and under the auspices of C A I L, the Church Asso- ciation for the Advancement of the Interests of Labor. This association, under the leadership of Miss Harriet A. Keyser, a member of the church, was for some time a most efficient factor in developing the social work of
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the parish, with its tenement-house, sweat-shop, labor, and other similar committees, and its varied activities and agitations for better conditions in bake shops, for motormen, etc. Of late years, owing to the removal and death of some of its formerly active members, and the development of the general society at the expense of St. Michael's branch, which at one time constituted almost the whole of C A I L, those particular committees have disappeared, and the social activities of the parish are manifested and expressed in different forms and by other agencies. This social work again did not originate in the present rectorate. St. Michael's
branch of C A I L was organized before Dr. Peters's death, and in his last annual sermon he laid it upon the conscience of the parishioners of St. Michael's that, the work of Church extension in which the parish had been engaged for seventy years being now completed, it was its next duty to provide for the needs of its own immediate and rapidly growing neighborhood.
The theory of the Church's obligation in this regard, under which the various works above described were undertaken, was set forth by the present rector in a little pamphlet published by the Church Social Union in 1896, entitled "What One Parish is Doing for Social Reform," from which I venture to quote the closing words:
It seems to me clear that we cannot content ourselves with missionary societies, Dorcas societies, boys' clubs . Girls' Friendly societies and the like, but that the field of Church work is far broader still than this. Not that these things should be left undone, but that other things should be added to them. I am sure that the day is coming when it will be regarded as a legitimate and necessary part of the activities of a well-organized parish to have a school com-
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Social Reform
mittee for the purpose of looking into the condition of our schools, disclosing and reforming abuses, and procuring for the parish what the parish needs in the way of public school equipment; to have a street-cleaning committee, which shall make it its duty to see that the streets of the parish are properly cleaned, for the sake particularly of the health and comfort of the poorer persons and the little chil- dren who reside in our parishes; to have a tenement-house committee; or if not precisely these committees at least guilds and societies and clubs to work for social reform, which guilds, societies and the like will take their place in our parish work side by side with missionary societies, Dorcas societies, and so forth.
There are to-day young men and young women who are willing to work, but who do not find any satisfactory out- let for their energies. They are full of the spirit of self- sacrifice, but rightly or wrongly they feel that there is no place for them in what is ordinarily known as parish work. They wish to deal with the social and economic problems of the day, and they complain that the Church makes no provision for such work. This material we need to utilize and organize in our churches, in the same way in which we have utilized and organized other material to care for the sick, the needy, the aged and infirm, the orphans and the fallen. Work for better social and economic condi- tions is as much a work for the spread of Christ's Kingdom on earth as any of these.
In general, St. Michael's Parish has been kept pretty clean, free from objectionable resorts, and the laws have been on the whole well enforced, thanks in part, cer- tainly, to the activity and wakefulness of members of St. Michael's Church. About the beginning of the present century, however, owing partly to the famous "scattering of vice," the neighborhood was invaded by a number of objectionable and law-breaking saloons,
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and the neighborhood of IIoth Street came to be known as "little Coney Island," on account of its congrega- tion of low dance halls and similar resorts. Had the churches, then united in Auxiliary D of the Federation of Churches, stood firmly together in opposing this evil, and demanding a rigid enforcement of the law, such a condition would probably never have arisen, or at least the evil would never have reached such propor- tions. Moreover, by serving the community in this regard, the churches would collectively and individu- ally have strengthened their hold on the community. Unfortunately some of the churches declined to co- operate in law-enforcement work, holding that this was outside of the proper functions of the Church, and Auxiliary D was finally dissolved, to be revived, how- ever, a couple of years later, in 1904, under another form and with a larger territorial field. A new or- ganization of property holders was formed to meet the situation thus created, the Riverside and Morningside Heights Association, which in so far represented the church membership of the neighborhood that the pastors of three Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian churches were made vice-presidents of the association, and after a struggle of a couple of years with the dance hall proprietors, the Excise Department, and the local authorities, "little Coney Island" was finally cleaned up.
No description of the social and neighborhood work connected with St. Michael's Church would be complete without some account of the famous Amsterdam Avenue fight. In 1893 the Good Government Clubs were organized in this city for the purpose of bringing together men of both parties and no party on the common platform of good business administration of
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Amsterdam Avenue Fight
the affairs of the city. The originator of that move- ment started the first club, A, in the upper Fifth Avenue neighborhood. The second club, B, was or- ganized in this neighborhood. In the autumn of that same year Club B held a convention in Lyceum Hall, then used as a parish house, and put in nomination its own candidate for the Assembly, as a protest against the corrupt party politics represented in the nominee of the then dominant party. It succeeded in electing its candidate that year and the next. Twice after this it was compelled to put up independent candidates, but in general it may be said that, as a result of its activities, the candidates for the Senate and Assembly from this part of the city nominated by both parties have been men of unusual capacity and independence, and those elected have been on the whole worthy representatives of the citizens, instead of mere repre- sentatives of political bosses or organizations.
Somewhere in the fifties a city charter had been given for a railroad company to run up Tenth Avenue, one of the conditions being that it should continue to the Harlem River. In 1873 this charter was acquired by the Forty-Second Street, St. Nicholas, and Manhattan- ville Railroad, which, however, instead of building on Tenth Avenue, built on the Boulevard (Broadway). About 1880 the Ninth Avenue Railroad Company ob- tained a charter from the State for a horse-car railway on Tenth Avenue, and proceeded to build the same. In 1891 the Forty-Second Street, St. Nicholas, and Man- hattanville Railroad, reviving its long forgotten charter and consents, commenced to constructanother horse rail- way on Amsterdam Avenue, laying the tracks outside of those of the Ninth Avenue on either side. The sexton of St. Michael's Church, Mr. S. J. Luckings,
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commenced suit to enjoin the railroad from laying tracks on Amsterdam Avenue, representing in this not only his own property interests, but also the inter- ests of the church, which at that time deemed it expedient that individuals rather than the church should act in the matter. He was defeated in the court of first instance, appeal was taken but not pressed, and the railroad was built. From that time until 1897 two lines of horse cars ran up Amsterdam Avenue, the one on the inner tracks under the control of the Metropolitan Railway Company, which had absorbed the Sixth Avenue system, to which the Ninth Avenue Railway belonged, and the one on the outside tracks under the control of its rival system, the Third Avenue Railroad Company, which had absorbed the Forty- Second Street, St. Nicholas, and Manhattanville Railroad.
In 1897 both of these railroads applied to and ob- tained from the State Railroad Commission-an utterly inefficient body, supposed to exist to serve the interests of the people but in reality merely a tool of the poli- ticians and railroad corporations combined-permission to change the motive power on their roads on Amsterdam Avenue to electricity; and the former obtained also per- mission from the then Commissioner of Public Works, General Collis, to open the street for the purpose of insti- tuting the new system. This was done in midsummer, the advertisements required by law never meeting the eye of any one. At this point, by chance, Mr. Luckings learned what had been done and called the attention of the Rector of St. Michael's to the danger in the community which would result from four tracks of electric cars on such a thoroughfare. Not only would a railroad avenue with four tracks of electric cars prove
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Slaughter House Avenue
an irreparable injury to the property interests of this part of the city, it would also be a serious menace to life and limb, especially of those who could not protect themselves. There were at least 10,000 children in the public schools along that portion of Amsterdam Avenue which it was proposed to change into a four-track rail- road avenue, besides numerous churches and institu- tions for aged people. It was on this ground, as one responsible for the care of little children and poor and feeble folk, to prevent Amsterdam Avenue from being turned into "Slaughter House Avenue," that the Rector of St. Michael's took the matter up. There was a meeting at its club house on 105th Street that night, August 30th, of the Executive Committee of Good Government Club B, of which Hon. W. B. Ellison was then president. The situation was laid before this meeting and a committee at once appointed to endeavor to prevent the outrage, of which Mr. Thomas A. Fulton, business agent of St. Michael's Parish and assistant to the Treasurer, was chairman. This committee soon organized a much larger committee, containing representatives of the West End Association and various local clubs, as well as the churches of the district, and St. Michael's Parish House became the headquarters of the "Amsterdam Avenue Anti-Grab Committee." The public agitation commenced with a series of mass meetings held in the various churches along the avenue, September 9th. Red lights burned in St. Michael's tower, which were answered from the West End Presbtyerian Church on the north and Park Presbyterian Church on the south, giving the signal for the opening of the campaign to educate and arouse the community to what was going on, and the meaning of it. This was only the beginning of a series of mass
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meetings which gradually aroused the whole city and attracted the attention of the State and country. As soon as the matter was brought to his attention, Mayor Strong announced himself emphatically opposed to the four tracks. The school board, the fire com- missioners, and other departments of the municipal government joined in denouncing four electric tracks on Amsterdam Avenue as a menace to life, limb, and property. Real estate men and property holders' associations of all kinds, labor unions, and other or- ganizations took part in these protests, and the press of the city, in various degree-the Mail and Express and the Herald leading in energy and effectiveness-by presentation in cartoons, editorials, interviews and the like, laid before the community the details of the proposed spoliation of the public, among other things representing the railroad companies as Herods planning a modern massacre of the innocents. The Railroad Commission made a ridiculous and futile demonstration of its own utter incompetence by publicly and officially announcing that had it known the facts it would never have granted to the roads permission to change their motive power, and calling on some one to restrain it through the courts. But the courts decided prac- tically that a permission once granted was a sacrosanct property right, which could not be touched or tampered with.
Fortunately, the Third Avenue Railroad had been slow in applying for the requisite permit to open the streets, and now General Collis, as a result of the storm of indignation which had been aroused, refused to give the company a permit, without which it could not proceed to change the motive power on its tracks. At the same time, however, he refused to withdraw the
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A Mandamus Refused
permit already granted to the Metropolitan Railway Company, or even to enforce the terms of that permit, or to take advantage of their violation of the same to hold up or stop the work. Fearful of interference the Metropolitan Company pushed the work of the change of power on its line with almost feverish haste, and the inner tracks were electrified and electric cars run- ning on them before the close of the year. The Third Avenue Company went into court to secure a mandamus to compel the Commissioner of Public Works to grant it a permit to tear up the streets, in which it was defeated. Many members of St. Michael's Church and Vestry were by this time taking an active part in the fight and Mr. John A. Beall, the junior warden, being a lawyer, not only gave the rector the value of his unstinted legal aid and advice free of cost, but became the chief counsellor and adviser of the whole movement, assisted by Mr. John McDonald and Mr. John C. Coleman of the West End Association. Mr. Luckings's appeal of 1891 was revived, and the whole question of the rights of the Third Avenue Railroad Company on Amsterdam Avenue reopened. It was on the basis of the evidence which the lawyers presented that the courts refused to grant the Third Avenue Railroad the mandamus asked for. This was, however, only a temporary advantage. It was necessary to secure in Albany legislation permanently to prohibit the four tracks, and for this purpose a bill was drawn up, orig- inally by representatives of the Independent Club of the Twenty-First Assembly District (this was the new name and title of the former Good Government Club B), and introduced by the Senator and Assemblyman of the district, John Ford and T. J. Murray.
The church practically put Mr. Thomas A. Fulton,
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its business agent, at the disposition of the committee which was fighting for the protection of Amsterdam Avenue, and the greater part of his time was devoted not to the work of the church, but to the work of the committee, either at Albany or in this city, the church conceiving that it could in no way better serve the public than in protecting and preserving Amsterdam Avenue. The corporations and the politicians laughed at the idea of a popular agitation defeating their pur- poses of public spoliation. They had seen too much agitation of this description set at naught with im- punity, even when backed by the whole press of the city, to be afraid of this new expression of public indig- nation. The bill introduced at Albany was never allowed to come to a final vote, being held up by the Railroad Committee until the last moment, and then allowed to pass the Senate only to be choked in the Assembly by the Committee on Rules. At the same time, by way of showing their power, the railroad corporations passed the infamous Eldridge bill, giving them practically everything belonging to the people still unseized.
The agitation against the four tracks on Amsterdam Avenue was continued through the summer and autumn of 1898. Prominent gentlemen of the West Side, like Mr. Isidor Straus and Mr. Cyrus Clark, working with the committee, endeavored to bring about an agree- ment between the corporations by which both roads should run over the same tracks. The Third Avenue Railroad had at first professed itself willing to do this, while the Metropolitan, being in possession, had been unwilling, claiming that such double use of the tracks was physically impossible. Conferences were held with the directors of the Metropolitan at their board room,
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Negotiations with Railroads
and later at the house of Mr. W. C. Whitney. Mr. Elihu Root, counsel of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, showed conclusively that the Third Avenue Railroad Company had no charter rights on Amsterdam Avenue and in many other places, and Mr. Lauterbach, counsel of the Third Avenue Railroad, showed conclu- sively that the Metropolitan Railroad was operating its roads in many places without a charter. Mr. Vreeland estimated, at Mr. Whitney's request, the cost of a railway from 7Ist to Manhattan Street as $250,000, and Mr. Whitney authorized us to offer the Third Avenue Railroad the sum of $300,000 for its rights on Amsterdam Avenue, which offer the latter spurned as ridiculous. It became plain that nothing was to be accomplished by negotiations with the railroads, and in point of fact those concerned came to believe that they could not trust the words or assurances of the railroad companies. One day's words were repudiated the following morning; each charged the other with fraudulent methods, but both stood together against the people. In matters of fact the representatives of the roads were guilty of abso- lute falsehood, unless they were singularly misinformed; for instance in the autumn or early winter of 1898-9, after the electric cars of the Metropolitan Railroad Company had been running for about a year on the avenue, the responsible representatives of those com- panies declared publicly in a hearing before the Com- mon Council and elsewhere that the electric cars would be much less dangerous than horse cars on Amsterdam Avenue, and as evidence stated that during the year in which one line of electric cars had been in operation on Amsterdam Avenue there had been but one serious accident. An examination of the blotters of the police
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stations along the avenue, made by Chief Devery at the request of the rector of this church, showed that there had been, in point of fact, fifty-one serious acci- dents during that period, practically none of which, however, had been reported in the press.
That autumn the candidates for the Legislature on both sides all through the West Side were pledged in advance to advocate the Committee's bill for the protection of Amsterdam Avenue; for so strong had feeling become that no one who did not publicly and unhesitatingly stand for such protection had any chance of election. With the usual reaction after a reform administration, Tammany elected the city ticket, and the unspeakable Van Wyck administration took office on January 1, 1899. The Commissioner of Highways, who had power under the new greater New York charter to issue permits for street openings, gave the Third Avenue Railroad the permit to open the streets which General Collis had refused, and that company began at once to turn the lower part of the avenue into an open trench preparatory to the work of electrifying the outside tracks. The papers openly declared that the permit was issued because the com- pany had agreed to give the contract to a henchman of the "man who owned the city." Certainly the con- tractor commenced operations in a manner which seemed intended to show his belief in his own ownership of the avenue, putting residents and property holders to as great inconvenience as possible. Indeed, through- out this struggle the insolent attitude of the representa- tives of the Third Avenue Railroad was an important factor in rousing the popular indignation.
The Committee's bill to protect the avenue was introduced in the Legislature early in the session,
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The Church Commences Suit
by John Ford in the Senate, as before, and in the Assembly by Edward H. Fallows, who had succeeded Murray as the representative of the 21st Assembly district. But it was now clear that, even should the Legislature pass the bill, which seemed unlikely, the injury would already have been done and the four electric tracks be an accomplished fact. It was neces- sary to find some speedy means of stopping the prosecu- tion of the work. The only means available was a new suit against the railroad, with an injunction to pre- vent them from going on with the work in the mean- time. But no private individual or organization could be found ready to take the risk and expense of such a suit against so powerful a corporation politi- cally, with a possible chance of heavy damages to be paid afterwards. After careful consultation, not until, however, a contingent pledge of $1000 each had been obtained from Mr. W. R. Peters, of St. Michael's Church, the Hon. Seth Low, Mr. W. Bayard Cutting and Mr. V. Everit Macy, the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of St. Michael's Church, on January 9, 1899, commenced suit to restrain the Third Avenue Company from changing the motive power on its tracks on Amsterdam Avenue, applying also for an injunction pendente lite. Mr. John A. Beall was appointed counsel, with author- ity to engage other counsel as he saw fit. The Blind Home on 104th Street joined St. Michael's in the suit, with Judge Howland as its counsel; Simon Sterne was engaged as special counsel by St. Michael's, and the lawyers of the West End Association assisted as before. A temporary injunction was obtained, which was made permanent on March 6th, so far as the avenue in front of the property of the complainants was concerned. This action was of inestimable value, both in blocking
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the further progress of the change of power until time could be had to secure the necessary legisla- tion at Albany, and also in arousing and crystallizing public feeling. The press and the community at large felt that the action of the church in going into the courts had given a solid backbone to the whole move- ment, and men like Recorder Goff commended in public meetings the action taken for its wisdom and its public spirit. During the greater part of the month of January the Vestry may be said to have been in continuous session. Meetings were held night after night, and the vestrymen willingly gave up their business and pleasure to attend in the service of the people. It was necessary to raise money for the legal fight, as well as for the agitation. The church con- tributed $100 to the general fund, and appealed to the other churches and institutions along the avenue to do the same, which most of them did, Columbia College, St. Luke's Hospital, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine giving much larger sums. Property holders on the avenue were asked to contribute $25 a lot. At first the Rector of St. Michael's gave his personal receipt for these contributions; then the committee was organized to handle money matters also, and a treasurer appointed for that purpose. The West End Association contributed $500, the Good Govern- ment Club of the Nineteenth Assembly District $250, and ultimately some thousands of dollars were collected.
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