AN ACT to Authorize the Selection, Location and Appropriation of Certain Lands in the Village of Niagara
Falls, for a State Reservation, and to Preserve
the Scenery of the Falls of Niagara.
SPEECH
OF
Hon. ERAISTUS BROOKS,


OF RICHMOND COUNTY,
IN THE
ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,


TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1888.


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SPEE CH.
MR. SPEAKER.-I ask the attention of the House while I give
some reasons in favor of the passage of this bill. In regard to the
amendments which have been offered, I may say they are in the
interest of those who oppose the act. They embody suggestions
from Mr. Porter and others, of Niagara Falls, and from the gentleman who regarded the original bill as too stringent in its character.
The very earnest opposition which has been made to this act by the
gentleman from Ulster, by the gentleman from Herkimer and by
other gentlemen upon this floor, prompts me to give some reasons,
for at least the faith which is in me, why this act should become a
law. This bill was reported by the Committee on Ways and Means.
Every member of that committee, except the gentleman from
Ulster, who was absent, but dissented from the report of the committee, gave his approval of the bill which is now under consideration. This act, in my judgment, is in the interest of the people at
large.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
First. I propose to answer, as briefly as I can, the argument of
the gentleman from Ulster and the argument of the gentleman
from Herkimer, and my friend from Westchester county. This is
no new measure. It was presented to the Legislature many years
ago. The Governor of the State in 1879, at the commencement of
the session, in his annual message, made this statement in regard
to this bill:
In one sense the sublime exhibition of natural power there witnessed is the prosperity of the whole world. It is viewed by tourists
from all quarters of the globe, and it seems to be incumbent upon
both governments to protect such travelers from improper annoyances upon either side. Contemplating no attempt at landscape
ornamenting, in the vain hope of adding anything to the natural
attraction of the place, each government desires a sufficient area to
be kept sacred to the free use of those coming from all parts of the
world, and who desire to view the grand scenery without molestation
The Governor then recommended the appointment of a Commission to carry out this purpose, with power to confer with a similar
Commission on the Canadian side of the river with reference to
questions which are of mutual interest. The Legislature appointed
such a Commission, and gave its members power to survey,
examine and report in regard to this work. This Commission con



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sisted of Horatio Seymour, Lieutenant-Governor Dorsheirner,
William A. Wheeler, who was at one time, as we all know,
the Vice-President of the United   States, Henry  A. Barnard, the President of Columbia College, and of Serator
Geddes, the father of the gentleman who now represents
one of the districts of Ouondaga county    upon this floor.
This comrinisssion appointed as their director, first having applied
to appropriate officers of the Federal government as to the best
man to discharge the duty —the gentleman who is now director
of this State survey, and who had served the government of the
United States for thirteen years and more before he was selected
by this State Commission. He was selected after due inquiry upon
the recommendation of the Federal authorities as a specialist for
this kind of work.
In regard to the expense and economy of the proposed improvement, I wish to say that, if I have any reputation as a member of
this and previous Legislatures, or if I have any reputation in the
State, outside of the Legislature, as a public man, and if I have
ever received any severe criticisms for my course as a member
here upon one subject more than another, it has been as an economist in the interest of the State upon the floor of the House and
in the Committee of Ways and Means. That provision of the
State Constitution, article 3, section 18, and that provision of the
Constitution which allows the Governor of the State to give his
dissent to any provision in any appropriation bill, I say with pride -
I hope not with vanity -is largely the work of my own hands
in presenting and urging these two provisions to the Constitutional
Commission, of which I was a member; and I undertake to say
here that those two provisions of the Constitution, the one named,
and article 4, section 9, which were presented by me to the Constitutional Convention, assembled in Albany in 1870 and 1871, have
saved this State already millions of dollars, and will save it millions upon millions more in the future.
When, therefore, I cansent to give my support to a provision of
law like the one before us, it is because I regard it as not adverse to
any real principle of true State economy, but a measure for the
public good.
A LESSON FROM THE ABORIGINES.
Mr. Speaker, let us not be less civilized in the love of nature
than the aborigines of the forest themselves. I recall as an inci



dent of one of my many visits to Niagara Falls, not many years
ago, the presence there of Red Jacket, a descendant of the Niagara tribe of Indians, and when lie saw there the miserable show
made up of attractions, temptations and material obstructions in
every form of human ingenuity and device to make money out of
everything that was visible and almost everything that was
invisible, with a huge Indian oath, Red Jacket turned his back in
honest disgust upon the Falls of Niagara. This Indian became
utterly offended with the evidences everywhere around him  of
what was called civilization, as they were then and are now seen at
Niagara Falls; and this upon the land which was once not only
Indian territory, but the hunting grounds and homes of the tribes
of men who, step by step, have been driven from Niagara far
beyond the Mississippi. The name Niagara is their name, and it
is one of the very few names of Indian origin presented in our
vocabulary of wretched names and imitations borrowed from the
old classics and from the historic names of the old world.
Once, Mr. Speaker, all this land and water upon the American
shore were the property of the State, and now, with a limited
reservation of not more than one hundred acres of land at most, and
sixty of these acres islands, it is proposed that this border front shall
be owned, reserved, and forever retained by the old commonwealth.
Niagara, sir, is also historic ground, for upon its borders was
fought the memorable battle of Lundy's Lane, under Gen. Scott, in
the war of 1812 and 1815, and it is in the vicinity of the old Chippewa battle ground.
From the visit of Father Hennepin, in 1679, until this day,
Niagara has been, in every sense, classic ground-classic for its
beauty, for its grandeur, in its associations, and for the lessons it
has written upon the hearts and minds of the millions of men who,
within the century past, have visited this marvellous handiwork of
Almighty God.
A little provincial government in Canada has sacredly set apart
fifty feet of the border land upon the brink of these falls, free from
innovation, free from all buildings, free from all traffic upon the
British side of the river, and this great State of ours, upon which
we write "Empire" and "Excelsior" upon her escutcheon, and
which has so far failed in public spirit tip to the present time, is now
urged upon this floor to do what a little province upon the other
side of the river has done with great cheerfulness, and it is pledged




through a royal commission to continue to performnto any extent,
what New York will consent to accomplish.
THE ARGUMENT APPLIED.
But, Mr. Speaker, I may be asked what has all this to do with
the State, and State money. Some of my friends object to taxing
their constituents to save even Niagara Falls from the growing
desecration which, in the love of money, seeks to hide this marvellous work of the Almighty fiom hu man observation. Mr. Speaker,
my answer for the State is this, and I speak as one believing more
in a strict than in a liberal construction of Constitutional power.
The State exists for the people as a whole.    No member
can justly limit his action here to the one district of the State
which he represents. To secure the greatest good of all is a public duty. When necessary we can set aside local lines and borders
and restrictions. The common benefit means "the greatest good
of the greatest number."  Of the fifty or seventy-five thousand
people who visit Niagara Falls every year, not one in a thousand
may be citizens of this State; but this is also true of the millions
who come among us to buy and sell, and for pleasure, travel and rest.
The State canals, which cost so many millions of State money,
the thousand and more miles of railroads, some of which by money,
and all of which by law, the State started into their very existence,
the exclusion from sale of millions of acres of State lands to protect the forests of the State as the source of water supply, at this
very session of the Legislature, the money we give for the National
Guard, and for armories, and monuments, as at Saratoga, Newburgh and elsewhere, the large sums expended for State charities
and hospitals, for universities and academies, for Regents and
libraries, for commissioners, for prisoners and paupers; all these
in no tangible way may at once reach the people who sent me here.
Nevertheless, the moral force of what is asked for may be to me as
strong as the sun which warms the earth where I live, or as the
rainfall which saves the land from blight and ruin. The less than
40,000 people here represented by me are but, an infinitesimal part
of the 5,000,000 in the whole State, but in soul, body, mind and
estate this 40,090 are part and parcel of the whole people; and I
have been asked by many far from this distant border of Niagara
Falls in my island home, to speak for the commnon good in their
behalf. A like appeal has also come to me to support this bill




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from seventeen members representing this State of New York in
the Congress of the United States. The same appeal also comes
from the old citizens of the Commonwealth all the way from Florida to the Hudson, and with like petitions from intelligent taxpaying citizens in all parts of the State. So far as I know, the
voices of the people are in favor of the information called for in
the act now before us. As the grandest work of the Almighty in
the State, thle people will, if they can, save Niagara Falls from the
hands of the destroyer. I defend this measure then, Mr. Speaker,
as one of public wisdom. I speak for it in behalf of the people
who ask to be untaxed, untrammeled, unvexed by money fees, hindrances, annoyances and physical obstructions, and who desire to
look through nature up to nature's God without paying for the
privilege.
THE MEASURE AS A MORAL TEACHER.
I see in the preservation of the Falls of N'iagara, at least, one of
the moral influences which protect the State from some, if not
many, sources of crime and sin which surround us, and which,
when unrestrained, impose taxes upon communities which every
month in the year, if not every week in the month, exceed the
small tax in this bill.  I speak for it also as a wise suggestion for
inter-State and international hospitality.  I shall vote for it as I
vote for books for schools and State libraries, for State surveys as
as in the Adirondacks, and for decent and intelligent maps, to
enlighten the people as to the boundaries of the State. We have
expended in the past vast sutms of money to penetrate the bowels
of the earth, in pursuit of mineral knowledge and wealth. We
have measured the mountains to discover their altitude, outlines
and distances. We have surveyed 12,000 square miles of land in
thirty of the sixty counties of the State, to regulate the metes and
bounds between only a portion of our fourteen hundred towns, villages and cities, and the work thus begun should be completed.
We have aided and established State museums of art and science
here, and inspired like work elsewhere. We spend millions annually for our common schools, and from $100,000 to $200,000
annually for higher education in the State Normal schools.
To-day, Mr. Speaker, we are asked, in answer to the prayers of
very many intelligent and public spirited citizens, for full information, the beginning of which will cost the State only a small sum
of money, and the end of which will be this very limited expense,




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unless the final acquisition of the object prayed for is approved of
by another Legislature and by the sober second thought of the
people of the State.
One thought more and I have done. Because of the folly of a
small class of rather small men, who seek in their costumes to
rival the extremes between the lilies of the field and the sunflowers of the barnyard, there are men, now and then, and here and
there, and everywhere, who talk sneeringly of what is called
seshetic taste and culture.
Stripped of all its folly, sestheticisn means the science or knowledge of our sensations, and this sentiment is born of that common
sense, the study of which reveals to us in form and substance the
pleasures and pains of our sensations. It opens to our eyes what
is grand, beautiful and improving in nature, as at Niagara, and
what is attractive, beautiful and effective in art. It is the Divinity
that stirs within us as we behold, with awe and reverence, the sun
in its rising, setting and meridian glory. It is the rainbow in the
sky, the star spangled heavens in the night, symbolized and associated in the star spangled flag of our glorious ensign of national
liberty. It is the earth carpeted with green fields, the trees adorned
with blossoms and fruits and radiant with the beauties of the forest.
It is the gardens clothed in the richest foliage and countless flowers, perfuming the air, charming the eyes and delighting all the
senses. It belongs to one's best perceptions which are external,
and to the best feelings of the heart, the soul and the miind within.
You may call this a mere sensation if you will, but what is sensation but perception and feeling? In a word, it is the power
within us, by which we behold and comprehend and enjoy what is
around us.
CONCLUSION.
Mr. Speaker, when you see the green leaves and the bright flowers at the doorways and windows of the humblest homes in the
land, whether in the cottage of the country or in one or more
crowded tenement rooms of the city, you will find in the hearts of
those within a sense of inward pleasure that neither wealth can
buy nor the keenest sense of poverty take away.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Here, at least, is a beginning of that peace and health, which
brings comfort to the possessor, and which promises competence to
those who are inspired to strive for a happier, wiser, and grander
life.        I....II.         n, "ltfl,,lA,