USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester county in history; manual and civil list, past and present. County history: towns, hamlets, villages and cities, Volume III > Part 33
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His practice became large and he had to labor hard to keep up with demands for his services. In many
cases of conspicuous importance he appeared as attorney, and he took a position at the bar equal to his high attainments as a lawyer.
His legal labors proved so arduous that the strain began to tell upon him and his friends, fearing for his health, advised a rest, and the tak- ing of time to build himself up; but faithfulness to clients was his first consideration, and he kept at work; at last he went to his home in Yon- kers an ill man; he had overtaxed his strength; he rallied by spells and then the end came on August 22, 1910, on the fourth day after his return home; ptomaine poisoning was given as the cause of death.
Proceedings of the meeting held in memory of Judge Silkman, under auspices of the Bar Association and a committee appointed by the Su- preme Court and the Surrogate's Court, will be found printed else- where, under proper title, in this volume.
UNITED STATES COURTS.
The proposal that the membership of the United States Su- preme Court be changed from nine to eleven involves no start- ling innovation. The legal number has varied at various periods in the country's history.
The Constitution of the United States merely provides that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The first Su- preme Court, appointed by Washington in 1789 in accordance with an act of the First Congress, consisted of a Chief Justice and five Associate Justices, of whom four should make a quorum. Since then the legal membership of the court has ranged from six to ten, as Congress saw fit to provide. At present it is nine, not because of any constitutional requirement but by statutory provision.
In the beginning there was little need for a large court. In the first year of Chief Justice Marshall's term only ten cases were filed. A century later, in 1901, 383 cases were filed.
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What experience has most thoroughly demonstrated is the necessity of an uneven number of Justices, a fact that Wash- ington and his contemporaries did not realize. Neither could they foresee the place the court was to occupy in the coming years in the Government of the United States.
SUPREME COURT LIBRARY AT WHITE PLAINS.
(Continued from page 162, volume 2)
Governor Sulzer, January 21, 1913, appointed Frank V. Mil- lard as Trustee of the Supreme Court Library, to succeed him- self; William A. Sawyer of Port Chester, Surrogate of the County, as a Trustee of the Supreme Court Library, to succeed J. Addison Young, of New Rochelle, whose term of office had expired ; and ex-County Clerk John M. Digney, of White Plains, as Trustee of the Supreme Court Library, to succeed David H. Hunt, of White Plains, who was appointed as librarian of this Library.
The Supreme Court Library at White Plains is one of the few libraries of that character open to the general public. It has all the advantages of a library of the Appellate division because all the cases and printed points used in all appeals are furnished this library where they are bound under the direction of the librarian. The indices to these volumes are very valuable as affording a key to briefs made by eminent counsel.
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
It has been officially determined, to settle disputes, that the Civil War ended in 1866, though claimed to have closed June 1, 1865. It is really said to have closed at different times in dif- ferent States. By an act passed in March, 1867, Congress, for certain purposes it had in mind, even decided that the war ended officially on August 20, 1866.
OLD AND NEW SOURCES OF WATER SUPPLY.
CROTON AQUEDUCT.
A public celebration of the completion of the Croton Aqueduct took place October 14, 1842, in New York City and Westchester County.
In the year 1793 Dr. Joseph Brown proposed to supply the City of New York with water, by bringing the river Bronx to Harlem in an open canal, raising it to the required height by steam and conducting it to the city in a six-inch pipe. Propo- sitions were subsequently made by William Weston and others with reference to the same source. The Croton, in Westchester County, was first recommended in the year 1832 by Col. De Witt Clinton. In 1833 the State Legislature authorized surveys. In 1834 a permanent board of Water Commissioners was organized. In 1835, on February 18, the Commission reported recommend- ing the work of construction. On March 4, 1835, the proposed plan was adopted by the New York City Common Council. On April 13, 1835, the citizens decided by a distinct vote that the work should be constructed; May 7, following, the Commis- sioners were directed to proceed. Water was introduced July 4, 1842.
The Croton Aqueduct in 1842, at time of its completion, was described as follows: "The Aqueduct commences at the Croton River, five miles from the Hudson, in Westchester County. The dam is 250 feet long, 70 feet wide at bottom, and 7 at top; height 40 feet; built of stone and cement. It sets the river back 5 miles, covering 400 acres, and holds five hundred millions of gallons. From the dam the Aqueduct proceeds, sometimes tunneling through solid rock, crossing valleys by embankments, and brooks by culverts, until it reaches Harlem River, a dis- tance of thirty-three miles. It is built of stone, brick and cement, arched over and under, 6 feet, 9 inches wide at bottom, 7 feet, 5 inches at top of side walls, and 8 feet 5 inches high. It will discharge in twenty-four hours sixty millions of gallons, descent thirteen and one-quarter inches per mile. It will cross
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the Harlem River on a magnificent bridge of stone, 1,450 feet long, with fourteen piers, eight of 80 feet span and seven of 50 feet span. From high tide to soffit of arch 100 feet, to top of bridge 114 feet, cost about nine hundred thousand dollars. Water is for the present conducted across in an iron pipe laid as an inverted syphon. The Manhattan Valley at Harlem is passed by two inverted syphons of cast iron three feet in diameter, descending 105 feet below the grade line, two and a half miles from termination of Aqueduct of Masonry, it passes Clendening Valley, with arches, over streets and side- walks, about ten feet high. The Receiving Reservoir is at 86th street, New York city, thirty-eight miles from the dam, it covers thirty-five acres and contains one hundred and fifty millions of gallons. The water is conveyed to the Distributing Reservoir on Murrays Hill, 40th street, New York city, in iron pipes. It is forty-one miles from the dam, covers four acres, built of stone and cement, height forty-three feet above the street, resembling a spacious castle or fort. It holds twenty millions of gallons. From this reservoir iron pipes are laid, underground, through the city. Water will rise in any part 114 feet above tide, nearly as high as the clock of the City Hall. Over one hundred and ten miles of pipes are already laid. The whole cost will be about Twelve Millions of Dollars."
THE GREAT ASHOKAN RESERVOIR.
In August, 1913, it is expected, the great Catskill reservoir will be flooded, and a new water supply will be provided for New York city; water passing through mains laid almost the entire length of Westchester County.
One of the greatest reservoirs in the world is the one at Ashokan, which is so soon to go into commission. The daily supply of New York city-500,000,000 gallons-could be drawn from it without causing anybody to notice it.
The authorization to begin the Catskill water reservoir con- struction was given in 1907, and the work progressed rapidly. The main reservoir, fourteen miles from Kingston, is now prac- tically completed, as is the great aqueduct which is to convey water to New York. The tunnel under the Hudson river has been completed. A large portion of the great water tunnel under New York city hundreds of feet below the surface, cut in rock, is completed as far south as Union Square, in May, 1913.
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The water which is to course through these tunnels is to be gathered from the Esopus Creek watershed, which drains into the great Ashokan Reservoir. Using the four drainage areas in the new water system for New York designed to supplement that of the Croton, in Westchester County, it is estimated that even in the driest kind of weather 770,000,000 gallons of water a day can be easily dispensed to the city, more than 127 miles distant.
It is estimated that from the reservoir at the foothills of the Catskills it will take the water three days to reach Staten Island, in Greater New York, to which it is the intention to convey water through a continuation of the tunnel. The journey of the water to the Borough of Richmond involves a passage under the Hudson river, under mountains and deep below the sur- face of busy Manhattan and then under the Narrows.
It is estimated that the cost of the Ashokan Reservoir, includ- ing the expense of relocating highways and paying for eleven miles of railroad track, is nearly $18,000,000. If all the water which this great repository can hold were turned over New York it would cover the city under twenty-eight feet of flood. The whole area of the reservoir is about equal to that of New York city from the Battery to 116th street. Around the reser- voir highways are being graded. It is estimated that the capacity of Ashokan Reservoir is 132,000,000 gallons, resting upon 8,180 acres. This volume of water is held in place by dams and dikes. The main dam, a structure of reinforced con- crete and rubble, is 4,650 feet in length, or nearly a mile; 220 feet in height, 190 feet thick at its base and 23 feet at its top. The maximum length of the great reservoir is three miles and its average width one mile.
There is a natural basin at the point where the reservoir is built, but in order to complete the work 2,960,000 cubic yards of earth and rock were excavated, 8,069,000 cubic yards of embankment set and 984,000 cubic yards of masonry laid. The City has so far bought 1,187,000 barrels of cement to use in the concrete construction. On an average 3,000 men a day have been employed on this gigantic task.
Sixty-four miles of highways were discontinued and forty miles more were built. One of the last big tasks of the enter- prise was the removal of eleven miles of tracks of the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, which was diverted in order to give room for the reservoir. The railroad had to build new tracks
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around the reservoir. Up to the last, however, it was permitted to send its trains through a gap in the walls.
All inhabitants of eight villages and many farms had to evacuate by May 1, 1913, and go their way to other abodes, to make room for the main feeder of the great aqueduct system by which the big metropolis is to be provided with necessary water.
According to reports submitted in March, 1913, the total cost of the Catskill Aqueduct system was $184,000,000.
To give New York city an additional and adequate supply of water, many millions of dollars are being spent. The new sup- ply is to be obtained from the Catskills, ninety-six miles away ; carried under the Hudson river, through tunnels down along the east bank of the river, stored mostly in Westchester County and distributed in the greater city through a mighty aque- duct-running through the heart of the city.
The proposed aqueduct will be 171/2 miles long and 14 feet in diameter.
It will run through solid rock through the heart of the city and at an average depth of 400 feet below the surface of the streets.
At some points the depth below the street will be 600 feet.
The aqueduct is to run from Hillview reservoir, Yonkers, under Jerome avenue, under the Harlem river opposite Dyck- man street, under Amsterdam and Eighth avenues to One Hun- dred and Tenth street, diagonally under Central Park to Fifty- ninth street and Sixth avenue, under Sixth avenue to Broadway, under Broadway to Union Square, under the square and Fourth avenue to the Bowery, to Canal street, to East river, and under the river and Flatbush avenue extension to Willoughby street, Brooklyn.
It is estimated that the aqueduct will add about $25,000,000 to the cost of the Catskill water system.
The extra supply of water which New York city expects to get from the Catskills is to be carried through a tunnel bored through Bull Mountain (or Mount Touris) and an aqueduct under the Hudson River, estimated to be constructed about eleven hundred feet below the surface of the river, crossing from the west to the east side at a point just south of Cornwall, on the west side, and running to a point about 2,000 feet north of Cold Spring, in Putnam County, on the east side; the river here is known as the Narrows, and is the deepest point, about 400
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feet in depth. The preliminary surveys for the work have been made. The proposed aqueduct is to be constructed through Putnam and Westchester Counties. The distributing plant passes in this County through the towns of Cortlandt, York- town, New Castle, Mount Pleasant and then into North Castle and the Kensico Reservoir, which is to be the main receiving reservoir. The second principal reservoir will be at Hillview, in Yonkers.
ELECTING A PRESIDENT.
At a joint session of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, held February 12, 1913, Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, and Thomas R. Marshall, of Indiana, were declared elected President and Vice-President of the United States. At a joint session of the Senate and House the electoral votes of the several States were counted and the choice of the people announced. The official vote, as announced, was divided as follows: Wilson and Marshall had received 435 electoral votes, Roosevelt and Johnson 88, and Taft and Butler 8.
The mode of electing a President and Vice-President of these United States has been characterized as "a dangerous farce."
Prior to the date fixed for Congress to act in announcing the names of those elected, since the popular election held in November, 1912, it has been known that Wilson and Marshall were duly elected and they have been treated as President and Vice-President-elect. According to existing law bearing upon the subject, neither was entitled to the distinction. Neither had been elected. Neither had any constitutional right to assume his election. No one of the 15,034,800 men who went to the polls in November had voted for them or the other Presi- dential tickets. Constitutionally speaking, the men actually elected in November as Presidential electors were not bound to vote for any of these tickets. Constitutionally they were bound to exercise their judgment regardless of these tickets.
How these chosen electors actually voted was not officially known until February 12, 1913. Their votes, cast in the several States early in January, 1913, were kept under seal in the care of messengers and in the vaults of Congress, until February 12. Some of them were miscarried and arrived later than the legal time. Others might have been lost. Others might have been
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tampered with or tangled up in legal snarls whose fine points are temptingly challenged by a process so indirect and circuitous.
As a matter of form the ceremonial in Congress was im- pressive. As a matter fact, is it not as solemn a farce as ever appealed to the humor of a great Nation.
What think you, is it not time to end this quadrennial comedy so fraught with the possibilities of tragedy as at times past it has proved to be. This should be the last time the antiquated and dangerously cumbersome machinery of the Electoral Col- lege be used to pound and rattle out an election of President and Vice-President of these United States.
POLITICAL PATRONAGE.
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, the day after his inauguration, in 1913, found it necessary to issue the following statement :
"The President regrets that he is obliged to announce that he deems it his duty to decline to see applicants for office in person, except when he himself invites the interview. It is his purpose and desire to devote his attention very earnestly and very constantly to the business of the government and the large questions of policy affecting the whole nation; and he knows from his experience as Governor of New Jersey-where it fell to him to make innumerable appointments-that the greater part both of his time and of his energy will be spent in personal interviews with candidates unless he sets an invariable rule in the matter. It is his intention to deal with appoint- ments through the heads of the several executive departments."
Every American citizen is a sovereign, and holding office is one of the perquisites of sovereignty. Hence the siege of the President of the United States who has patronage to bestow.
Yet it is easy to overestimate the patronage troubles of a Chief Executive, especially a Chief Executive who has no ambi- tion to construct a personal political machine. The country does not take the Federal office-holder so seriously as it once did. No newly-elected President would now be likely to suffer the fate of Taylor, who was practically killed by the pressure of patronage. Nor would it now be possible even for a Conk- ling to disrupt a great party over the Collectorship of the Port
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of New York, as when William H. Robertson, of this County, was appointed Collector. Nor would a Lincoln be obliged to divert his mind from civil war to the postmasterships.
A President who can make himself a leader of the American people has little to fear from disappointed politicians. The Presidents who have had the most trouble with patronage are those who were made with patronage or who relied upon patron- age to carry out their policies.
President Wilson, otherwise all right, may not meet the ex- pectations of the office-seekers. No President ever did. Jeffer- son was forced to write one of his matchless letters on the subject. The elder Harrison was hurried to his death by importunity. The easy-going Garfield was murdered by a dis- appointed applicant. How shall this craze for position be mitigated ?
Exclusive of the army and navy and the laborers at Panama, the Government service embraces 391,000 persons. No doubt somebody wants to displace every one of them. Is it possible to imagine a President of the United States newly in office attempting in a week or a month to meet and to pass upon the claims of all these aspirants? Is it even conceivable that he could do so with the assistance of every member of his Cabi- net and every member of Congress ?
The new President takes refuge behind the Civil Service laws, behind the tenure-of-office law and behind his high sense of duty, but most of all behind his ideas of right and decency and order. Everything in this world is relative, especially in high places. The greater must not be sacrificed for the less. Details must not destroy essentials. The interests of indi- viduals must not be pleaded as against the general welfare.
U. S. PRESIDENT'S CABINET.
The Cabinet selected by President Washington in 1789 com- prised Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, Alexander Ham- ilton as Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox as Secretary of War, Samuel Osgood as Postmaster-General and Edmund Ran- dolph as Attorney General. The first Secretary of the Navy was named in 1801 under President Jefferson; the first Secre- tary of the Interior in 1849 under President Taylor; the first
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Secretary of Agriculture in 1889 under President Cleveland. The Department of Commerce and Labor was created during President Roosevelt's first administration, in 1903, bringing the Cabinet up to nine members. In 1913, at the extreme end of President Taft's administration, the Department of Labor was created, and it was President Wilson's duty to appoint the first Secretary of Labor, the tenth member of the President's Cabinet.
THE EXECUTIVE-CABINET-APPOINTMENTS.
The Executive branch of the United States Government, at the head of which is the President, known as the Chief Execu- tive, is divided into nine divisions, called the Department of State, Treasury, War, Navy, Post Office, Justice, Interior, Agri- culture and Commerce and Labor. The Constitution mentions executive departments in only a few instances, but these allu- sions show that the framers of that instrument contemplated the creation of these departments as necessity might require. The heads of these several departments constitute the Presi- dent's Cabinet. This is an advisory body, which holds regular meetings to give the President information concerning the sev- eral departments and to recommend the methods to be em- ployed in dealing with the numerous questions constantly arising in the governmental affairs of our wealthy and populous nation. The existence of the President's Cabinet is due rather to cus- tom and necessity than to any provision of the Constitution or any law of Congress. While all of the offices held by members of the Cabinet have been created by laws of Congress, these laws make no provision for the association of the heads of the departments as a Cabinet. Therefore, as a body, the Cabinet has no powers and duties except to advise and assist the President.
The power of appointing to office is vested by the Constitu- tion in the President, unless Congress provides for their appoint- ment by the heads of the departments. History tells us that in the early days of the Republic civil officers who were honest and competent retained their positions through successive adminis- trations, but even then the temptation to fill the offices with political friends caused some of the early Presidents to swerve from the strict line of duty. As an example, we are told that President John Adams spent the last hours of his term of office
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in making appointments to important public positions, in order to forestall the action of Mr. Jefferson, who was to succeed him as President within a few hours. So zealous was Adams to com- plete the work that when the clock struck the hour which ended his term of office he was still at his desk, signing commissions as rapidly as they could be placed before him. When Andrew Jackson became President, in 1828, we are told he at once re- moved a large number of clerks and subordinate officers and appointed in their places persons belonging to his own political party ; and with a zeal equally as strenuous his example has been faithfully imitated as far as possible by nearly every President who has succeeded him. The excuse was in former days as it is to-day, probably; which is, " to the victor belongs the spoils," and, " an active politician is worthy of his hire."
After many years of discussion and agitation, Congress, in 1883, enacted the Civil Service Law, which requires that certain minor appointments to public office shall be based upon merit alone and that they shall not be distributed as rewards for political services. Whether or not this last command is observed to the letter of the law, at this present day, is an open question. There are said to be many ways by which a law can be avoided, and probably this Civil Service Law is not an exception. Civil Service Commissioners receive their appointments from officials elected by a political party and are interested in the success of their particular political organization. As a general rule, Civil Service Commissioners, especially in municipalities, go out of office with the power which appointed them, and new Commis- sioners, representing other politics, succeed them. This mode of proceeding doubtless gives color to the belief that preference is given, when possible, to political friends of the party then in power.
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STATE ELECTION RESULTS.
The State of New York, politically speaking, has swung from one side to the other with almost the regularity of a pendulum in its general elections. The results show the oscillation since 1872:
REPUBLICAN.
DEMOCRATIC.
1872-President.
53,524
1874-Governor 50,317
1879-Governor
42,727
1876-President. 32,818
1880-President. 21,033 1882-Governor 192,854
1883-Secretary State. 18,583 1884-President
1,047
1888-President ..
13,002
1888-Governor
19,171
1893-Secretary State. 24,484
1889-Secretary State.
20,527
1894-Governor
156,108
1891-Governor 47,937
1896-President. 268,469
1898-Governor
17,868
1897-Judge .. 60,889
1906-All State Officers except Governor.
1904-President .. 175,552
1906-Governor .. 75,734
1907-Appeals Judges (only State Officers) union candidates.
1908-President .. . . . 202,602
1910-Governor .....
67,401
1912-President, Governor and all State Officers.
In 1912 the vote cast for Presidential Electors in the State, was as follows:
Democratic, 655,475; Republican, 455,428; National Pro- gressive, 390,021; Socialist, 63,381; Prohibition, 19,427; Social- ist Labor, 4,251.
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