THE 
 
 REASONS WHY. 
 
 By EDWARD C. GRAVES. 
 
 SHOWING why Brooklyn rent-payers, mechanics and working 
 people should favor the consolidation of New York and Brooklyn 
 into one city. Also showing the great benefit to New York from 
 such consolidation. SEQUEL to the consolidation pamphlet 
 <* How Taxes in Brooklyn can be reduced one-half." 
 
 CONSOLIDATION PAMPHLET No. 2 
 
 COPIES FREE: 
 
 To l)e had at Headquarters CONSOLIDATION LEAGUE, Room 314, No. 189 Montague Street, 
 Brooklynj Headquarters CONSOLIDATION COMMISSION, 214 Broadway, New York, and at the 
 BROOKLYN REAL ESTATE EXCHANGE. 
 
lEx IGtbrtfi 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 "t ' ~Tort nivuw ^Amfltrda-nu of Je Manhatarus 
 
 When you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
 OLD YORK LIBRARY - OLD YORK FOUNDATION 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gii r of Seymour B. Durs i Old York Library 
 
THE 
 
 REASONS WHY. 
 
 By EDWARD C. GRAVES. 
 
 SHOWING why Brooklyn rent-payers, mechanics and working 
 people should favor the consolidation of New York and Brooklyn 
 into one city. Also showing the great benefit to New York from 
 such consolidation. SEQUEL to the consolidation pamphlet 
 " How Taxes in Brooklyn can be reduced one-half." 
 
 CONSOLIDATION PAMPHLET No. 2. 
 
 COPIES FREE. 
 
 To be had at Headquarters CONSOLIDATION LEAGUE, Room 314, No. 189 Montague Street, 
 Brooklyn ; Headquarters CONSOLIDATION COMMISSION, 214 Broadway, New York, and at tht 
 BROOKLYN REAL ESTATE EXCHANGE. 
 
COMMISSION 
 
 OF 
 
 Municipal Consolidation Inquiry. 
 
 Chapter 311, Laws of 1890 
 
 Campbell W. Adams, . 
 John H. Brinckerhoff, . 
 George R. Cathcart, . 
 Frederic W. Devoe, 
 Andrew H. Green, 
 George G. Greenfield, 
 John L. Hamilton, 
 Edward F. Linton, 
 Charts P. McClelland, 
 J. S. T. Stranahan, 
 Calvert Vaux, . 
 William D. Veeder, 
 
 5IONERS. 
 
 State Engineer and Surveyor 
 . Queens County. 
 
 New York. 
 . New York. 
 New York. 
 Richmond County. 
 New York. 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 Westchester County. 
 . Brooklyn. 
 
 New York. 
 . Kings County. 
 
 Andrew H. Green, President. 
 
 J. S. T. Stranahan, Vice-President. 
 
 Albert E. Henschel, Secretary. 
 
 H. A. ROST, PRINTER, 14 FRANKFORT ST., N. Y. 
 
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Consolidation Commission : 
 
 In response to your request for a continuation of the argument 
 before you, which led to the publication of the consolidation pamphlet 
 "An Appeal to Reason;" or, "How taxes in Brooklyn can be reduced 
 one-half," I will start at the point where that pamphlet leaves off, viz., 
 the reduction of Brooklyn taxes one-half by the consolidation of the 
 cities. 
 
 While it is true that the bill (Chapter 64, laws 1894) submitting 
 the matter to a popular vote does not contain a clause providing that 
 the taxes of New York and Brooklyn shall be equalized as a condition 
 of the consolidation, yet we all know that New York has never yet 
 annexed any territory without equalizing the taxes of the annexed 
 territory with its own. This was the case with the annexation to New 
 York of the Towns of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge, in 
 1874. In each of which cases a popular vote was first taken under a 
 special act (Chapter 613, laws 1873), which vote resulting in a majority 
 in favor of annexation, was followed the next year by an act of the 
 Legislature absolutely and permanently annexing to New York the 
 towns voting in its favor. See Chapter 329, laws of 1874. 
 
 . Precisely in the same pathway Brooklyn and Long Island City are 
 now proceeding, viz. : First, the passage of a law providing for the 
 ascertaining of public sentiment by taking a vote "For" and "Against" 
 consolidation in the localities affected by it, so that it may be known 
 which side has the most supporters, to the end that being known 
 and officially declared, the fundamental principle of the American 
 Government, "the majority shall rule," may then be followed. The 
 law has been passed, the die cast, and in November, 1894, the vote wili 
 be taken, upon the result of which the future of New York and Brook- 
 lyn so largely depends. If such vote shows a majority in its favor, 
 then in the winter of 1895 such further legislation will be had as will 
 carry out the wishes of the majority and cause the careful pre- 
 paration of a proper charter to govern the consolidated city. 
 
 The first question that arises to the mind of the Brooklyn tax- 
 payer then is: if he votes for it, will his taxes in case of such con- 
 solidation certainly be lowered to the level of New York taxes without 
 a clause to that effect being in the bill submitting the matter to a vote ? 
 
 To which I unquestionably answer, Yes. When the cities come to 
 be actually united all necessary laws providing for but one and a 
 uniform rate of taxation in the consolidated city will certainly be 
 
4 
 
 enacted. Any other kind of consolidation would be a crime towards 
 Brooklyn. Again, with the precedents of the three towns above quoted, 
 having been taken into New York, and their taxes not only equalized 
 with New York, but the towns presented with a part ownership of the 
 Brooklyn ferry and water front franchises, it is not to be supposed for 
 one moment that Brooklyn itself will not be equally as well treated. 
 
 You may therefore take it for granted that when New York and 
 Brooklyn are merged into one city it will be upon a basis of equal 
 taxation, equal rights to all. Any other kind of consolidation would 
 not stand one year before it would be repealed and made equal, or 
 the political party opposing it be wiped out of power by the voters 
 in Brooklyn. Assuming, as I undertand to be the case, that you are 
 now convinced of two things : first, by the facts and figures set forth in 
 the other pamphlet spoken of, that equalizing the New York and 
 Brooklyn tax rates and tax valuations will reduce Brooklyn taxes about 
 50 per cent, without perceptibly increasing New York taxes ; and 
 secondly, that such equalization will certainly be had and fully provided 
 for as a part of the legislation necessary to carry out and effect a 
 union of the cities j I will in this pamphlet start at that point and 
 endeavor to show you how the rent-payer, the working man, the working 
 woman, the mechanic, the laborer, of both cities will be benefited; 
 and in particular how New York will gain advantage. 
 
 Before picking up the threads of argument and weaving them into 
 one harmonious whole, let us give a hasty glance backward and view 
 the rise and progress of the consolidation movement from its start down 
 to the present day. So that Ave may know where we stand and why it 
 is that these two great cities now about to be joined have not before 
 been made one. The East River is almost as wide to-day as it ever 
 was. The residents of Brooklyn are no more dependent on New York 
 now than they have been at any time for ages past. Indeed, in many 
 respects they are not nearly as much so as in former years ; yet we all 
 admit that these two great cities are now on the eve of becoming one, 
 and that for the first time in the long and tortuous history of the con- 
 solidation movement, success is within its grasp and its object about to 
 be accomplished. 
 
 II. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CONSOLIDATION MOVEMENT. 
 
 No man can say who first suggested consolidation of the cities. 
 It is not a new idea, but one very old, having been discussed more 
 
5 
 
 than one hundred years ago. In fact, the idea suggests itself from the 
 close proximity of the two cities. As late as the years 1830 to 1834 
 Brooklyn was refused a city charter by the Legislature of the State of 
 New York, because the Legislature said that the annexation of Brooklyn 
 to New York was a case of manifest destiny, bound to occur so very 
 soon, that there was no object in giving Brooklyn a city charter, as it 
 would simply be a waste of time. That was sixty years ago and 
 Brooklyn has not been annexed yet. Let me quote from history. 
 
 Stiles History of Kings County on page 145, says: 
 
 " 1834, January, the Brooklyn people, undaunted by their previous defeats 
 and confident in their own resources and the justice of their claims, again 
 renewed their application to the Legislature for a city charter. The city of 
 New York still threw the whole weight of her wealth and influence against the 
 movement, objecting that the limits of the city of New York ought to include 
 the whole of Kings County and Richmond County; that the period was not far 
 distant, when a population of not less than 2,000,000 would be contained 
 within New York, Kings and Richmond Counties; that all commercial cities 
 are natural rivals and competitors, and that contentions, inconvenience and other 
 calamities grow out of such rivalries; that a previous act of the Legislature 
 passed in 1821, incorporating the village of Brooklyn, was an encroachment on 
 the rights of New York." 
 
 A hard struggle then took place in the Legislature, the New York 
 City members clamoring that Brooklyn should be annexed to New York 
 and not made a separate city, fought the charter and did their best to 
 defeat it. Public feeling ran high, meetings were held, speeches made, 
 and excitement grew to fever heat. New York to a man willing to 
 annex Brooklyn, but vehemently opposed to a separate charter for it, 
 and Brooklyn, taking exactly the opposite position, viz., to a man in 
 favor of its separate city charter and vehemently opposed to annexation. 
 
 At length, with the aid of up country Senators and Assemblymen 
 Brooklyn triumphed, and on April 8, 1834, after a Legislative battle of 
 three months and an actual fight of over three years, Brooklyn secured 
 the coveted city charter; and that was the last that was heard of 
 annexation to New York for over twenty years. 
 
 In 1856, Cyrus P. Smith, then State Senator from Kings County, 
 introduced a resolution in the State Senate looking towards the con- 
 solidation of New York and Brooklyn; the New York newspapers spoke 
 well of it; but Brooklyn, as usual, showed itself vehemently opposed, 
 and after a little discussion the resolution was defeated and the matter 
 dropped. 
 
6 
 
 On April 23d, 1857, while Fernando Wood was Mayor of New 
 York, the " Metropolitan Police Act" went into effect, whereby New 
 York and Brooklyn police with those of surrounding Country towns 
 were by law merged into one, placed under a single control and called 
 the "Metropolitan Police Department." It was afterwards followed by 
 similar "Acts," merging into one the fire and health departments of the 
 cities. The hopes of consolidationists then ran high, for it was believed 
 that these "Acts" would effect speedy annexation of the cities them- 
 selves. But, alas, for human hopes, they did not have such effect; and 
 on April 5th, 1870, after a fitful existence of thirteen years, the "Met- 
 ropolitan Police Act" with its co-acts were repealed, and Brooklyn 
 given control of its own departments. And with it all visions of con- 
 solidation of the cities again faded into thin air. 
 
 About the year 1872, Mr. John Winslow of Brooklyn secured 
 the names of several thousand people, residents of New York and 
 Brooklyn, to a petition, asking that the matter of annexing Brooklyn to 
 New York be submitted to a popular vote and presented the same to 
 the Legislature; the newspapers casually mentioned it, showing that 
 the drift of public opinion in New York was favorable, but that in 
 Brooklyn was opposed; a bill was introduced in the Senate and after 
 discussion was defeated by the Brooklyn members and the matter again 
 passed out of sight. Occasionally since then some New York news- 
 paper has contained a vigorous editorial or a column of interviews with 
 leading citizens favoring consolidation of the cities, only to be followed 
 by some equally vigorous editorial in a Brooklyn newspaper and another 
 column of interviews opposing it. Other newspapers would then 
 comment in a listless manner on Brooklyn's stubborness, and the breeze 
 which sprang up would die out. Various spasmodic attempts have 
 been made by different people to merge the two cities into one, but 
 all without avail, for while New York was in favor of it, Brooklyn 
 continued to be vehemently opposed. 
 
 For over thirty years, Andrew H. Green of New York, and James 
 S. T. Stranahan of Brooklyn, have battled bravely for consolidation of 
 the cities, at times standing almost alone in the movement, suffering 
 defeat upon defeat, yet they have never faltered or flinched in the perform- 
 ance of their great work. After repeated attempts by Mr. Stranahan 
 and Mr. Green, the Legislature in 1890 passed a bill authorizing the 
 formation of this commission to inquire into the expediency of consoli- 
 dating the various municipalities located around the Bay of New York, 
 
7 
 
 and report their opinion to the Legislature. Several such reports have 
 been made from time to time, but until 1894 none of them were adopted 
 or favorably acted upon by the Legislature. 
 
 In 1891, the Brooklyn tax question, a problem hitherto unsolved, 
 began to receive attention as a consolidation measure, and was forced 
 to the front by those who believed it to be the key of the situation. 
 From that time public sentiment in Brooklyn began to grow. In 
 1893, a consolidation league was formed in Brooklyn by those con- 
 verted to the support of the movement through the new treatment 
 of the Brooklyn tax question. A public meeting was held and a 
 committee of two hundred Brooklyn citizens appointed, who chartered 
 a special train, and on March 8th ? 1893, journeyed to Albany, made 
 speeches before the Legislature and asked that the matter be sub- 
 mitted to a popular vote. A bill to that effect was introduced but, 
 through the vehement opposition of the Brooklyn representatives in the 
 Legislature, failed to become a law. The consolidation league undis- 
 mayed kept up their good fight, distributed their literature, confined to 
 the single point of the reduction of Brooklyn taxes j 30,000 copies of 
 the pamphlet spoken of were distributed, and public sentiment in Brooklyn 
 grew in favor of consolidation with amazing rapidity. State senators 
 and members of Assembly favorable to the movement were elected, and 
 in 1894 a bill submitting the matter to a popular vote was passed by 
 both houses of the Legislature with scarcely a dissenting vote. So great 
 was the change in public sentiment on this point. 
 
 During all previous years, while New York had been passively in 
 favor of consolidation of the cities, Brooklyn had been vehemently op- 
 posed to it. Brooklyn people said they could see where New York would 
 be benefited by its aggrandizement from, the absorption of Brooklyn, the 
 addition to its population, to its many miles of streets, etc. ; but they could 
 not see where Brooklyn would gain anything in return for being wiped 
 out of existence. Any man having a fortune of a million is always 
 ready to add another million to it. And what is true of a single indi- 
 vidual is true of a city. Any city of a million or two million of inhabi- 
 tants is always ready to increase its fortunes by the addition of another 
 million. It is human nature the world over. But it is also human 
 nature for the other fellow to be unwilling to give up his million, or any 
 part of it, to oblige his more wealthy neighbor, or the other city to 
 surrender its charter at the request of a competitor. 
 
 4 
 
8 
 
 What practical benefit will consolidation be to Brooklyn? or to 
 use a commonplace expression: What is Brooklyn "going to get 
 out of it?" is a question that until within the last three years 
 has never been successfully answered. Whenever the subject 
 has been agitated, like Banquo's ghost, up came that question: 
 "What benefit will it be to Brooklyn?" Never an answer. For 
 over one hundred years that question has been repeated, and 
 for over one hundred years deep silence has been the only reply. 
 Therefore, Brooklyn opposed consolidation or annexation, as it was then 
 called, and continued to oppose it, as by right it should, if no benefit 
 would result. It is no light thing this, asking a great city to surrender 
 its charter and voluntarily go out of existence. For hundreds of years 
 charter rights have been zealously guarded, great wars have been, 
 carried on and thousands of people slain defending charter rights. Our 
 own "Charter Oak" of Hartford, was a tree made famous the world 
 over, because a handful of English colonists in Connecticut risked their 
 lives and hid their charter in the old oak tree, rather than surrender it 
 or alloAV one single line of its provisions to be cancelled; yet we, a city 
 of one million people, numbering more souls than one-third the total 
 white popidation of America at the time the charter oak, within its 
 shaggy bark, preserved for Connecticut those sacred rights, are asked 
 peaceably to surrender our charter rights and without protest give up 
 our charter, go out of existence forever, and wipe the name of Brooklyn 
 off the face of the earth, as one would wipe it from a slate with a damp 
 sponge, merging it into and making it part of the "Greater New York." 
 And while I am most earnestly in favor of such course, believing it to 
 be Brooklyn's only salvation from impending bankruptcy and financial 
 ruin, yet it is not a matter to be lightly considered or hastily done. 
 That question, that eternal question: "What practical benefit will it be 
 to Brooklyn," having now for the first time been successfully answered 
 by the demonstration that it will reduce taxes about one-half on every 
 foot of real estate in Brooklyn, whether owned by man, woman or child,, 
 it remains to be shown what benefits other than the dollars and cents 
 thus saved to the Brooklyn tax-payer will accrue from consolidation 
 of the cities, and who it is that will receive those benefits? To ascer- 
 tain this we must take up the Brooklyn and New York sides of the 
 question separately, and treat them from different standpoints, each side 
 having its own separate benefits; which, however, when the cities are 
 consolidated will redound to the benefit of all concerned. 
 
9 
 
 III. 
 
 BROOKLYN BENEFITS. 
 
 And first as to Brooklyn: So far as Brooklynites are concerned, 
 we must take that most perplexing problem, the Brooklyn tax question, 
 and its successful solution by consolidation of the cities as our starting 
 point or fountain-head from which the other benefits flow. All the 
 evils of which Brooklyn complains, either spring from and grow out of 
 its excessive taxation or they are remediable without consolidation. 
 Dishonest city government can be remedied by simply voting "the 
 rascals out'' to whatever party they may belong. But the terrible 
 incubus, the crushing weight that Brooklyn labors under of an excessive 
 and constantly increasing rate of taxation, notwithstanding honest 
 administration of city affairs, can only be remedied by consolidation of 
 the cities. Like all other political changes the consolidation movement 
 is one of slow growth in Brooklyn. It is no easy task to convert a 
 million people. 
 
 Brooklyn is to-day one of the most excessively taxed cities in the 
 United States. Its average taxes for year 1893-1894 are $2.85-^- per 
 $100 of property, on a tax valuation of from 70 to 100 per cent, of the 
 actual value of the property; while New York tax-rate is but $1.82 per 
 $100, on a tax valuation averaging less than 50 per cent, of the actual 
 value of the property taxed. The State Board of Tax Assessors, after a ' 
 most searching examination on this point, certify under oath that the 
 average assessed valuation of property for taxes in New York County 
 is only 44^- per cent, of its actual value, and that in Brooklyn it is 70 
 per cent, of its actual value (see page 22 of the pamphlet before referred 
 to). Since the State Board made their report on this point in 1890, 
 Brooklyn taxes have been increased three times successively; to wit, in 
 the years 1891, 1892, 1893, and New York taxes have been corres- 
 pondingly reduced three successive times in the same years, so that the 
 difference in the taxation of the two cities is now twelve per cent, 
 greater than it was when the State Board made their report in 1890. 
 
 Why this situation is bound to exist even with honest administration 
 of city affairs in both cities, I have endeavored to point out in the pages 
 of the other pamphlet. 
 
 Without going over the same ground it is sufficient to say that the 
 geographical situation of the two cities and the widely different nature 
 of taxable property situated in them, caused by that geographical 
 
10 
 
 situation, is such, that it gives New York the business property, great 
 corporations, and water front franchises properly belonging to both 
 cities ; therefore, the great difference in the tax rates is bound to exist 
 and will continue to exist until the two cities are merged into one. 
 And the longer they remain separate the worse the present state of 
 affairs will be. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE RENT-PAYER BENEFITED. 
 
 Having settled in our minds that the Brooklyn tax-payers will be 
 benefited by consolidation of the cities, the next question is, who are 
 the tax-payers? 
 
 The rent-payer is the tax-payer, not the real estate owner. The 
 owner adds his taxes on to his rents, divides it among his tenants, 
 collects it back from them; so that the rent-payer and not the landlord 
 is the actual tax-payer. 
 
 Extortionately high taxes on real estate give a place a bad name. 
 Nobody will lend money or do business in a town loaded to death with 
 taxes if he can help it. Brooklyn has to pay one-half to one per cent, 
 higher interest on its bonds than New York, simply on that account. 
 The men who suffer most by it are comparatively one real estate 
 owner, one real estate agent, a thousand brick-layers, carpenters, 
 •plumbers, masons, painters, paper-hangers, and others engaged in the 
 building trades, who with quarry-men, the stoneyard men, brick-maker, 
 lumber-yard keeper, and others engaged in manufacturing building 
 materials, the teamster who hauls them, and the butcher, baker, candle- 
 stick maker and other store-keepers who sell goods to them and receive 
 pay out of the money earned by them in the building trades, with the 
 families of all of them, compose the entire city of Brooklyn. So then 
 when you say that nothing but real estate interests and its dependencies 
 in Brooklyn will be benefited by consolidation, you state the truth. 
 But that's all there is, you have got the whole, how can you have any 
 more ? To say that nobody in Brooklyn except those thus directly or 
 indirectly interested in real estate matters will be benefited by con- 
 solidation of the cities, is equivalent to saying that nobody except every 
 man, woman and child in Brooklyn will be benefited by it. 
 
 Who then oppose it? Only certain office holders and city con- 
 tractors engaged in getting rich out of the public crib, and who fear 
 that consolidation of the cities will cnuse the loss of their jobs, oppose 
 
J 1 
 
 it! And even these, with honest administration, do not need to fear 4 itj 
 there must of a necessity be just as many policemen, firemen, and 
 other placemen then as now, and they would be paid the same salaries 
 as the New York policemen, firemen, school teachers, and other place 
 holders of the same class; and be furthermore placed beyond danger of 
 oss of their places or loss of their chance of promotion by accidental 
 loss of political pull. 
 
 High taxation of real estate affects the poor even more than it does 
 the rich. It reaches further than any other one thing on this earth 
 and radiates in a thousand different directions, each direction working 
 a separate injury, the land or building taxed being only the smallest 
 part of it. Let us see: Excessive taxation prevents building, because 
 no person will buy a building which, when completed, will be loaded 
 down with taxes so heavy as to make it an unprofitable building. 
 Therefore the mason, bricklayer, carpenter, plumber, painter, tin- 
 roofer, and others engaged in the building trades must go unemployed. 
 And earning no money they cannot pay their butcher, baker or grocer ; 
 he not getting his dues in time fails or is driven out of business. So 
 also with all others whose occupations depend on building, such as the 
 lumber-yard keeper, stoneyard men, lime and plaster mill men, day 
 laborers, teamsters, &c. These all being in hard lines purchase no 
 goods of the big merchant, who, in his turn feeling the lines tighten and 
 knowing of his own increased taxes, reduces his expenses, discharges 
 clerks and cuts down salaries, thus producing more distress. The poor 
 tired clerk and shop-girl, through no fault of theirs, then go home 
 discharged or with but half salary, there to disappoint the loved ones 
 depending on them. Like the unemployed mason and carpenter across 
 the hall they have no money for the landlord, dispossession for non- 
 payment of rent stares them in the face, they become sick at heart and 
 so thoroughly discouraged that the very stones in the streets appear 
 their enemies and gay colored pictures on dead walls they pass seem to 
 mock them. The biting wind whistles and howls around their little 
 attic home as it surely never did before. It tells the wife that she is a 
 tax-payer, because her husband being out of work on account of such 
 high taxes on real estate that it renders his trade unprofitable ; she must 
 therefore go without the comfortable sacque promised her for this 
 winter as her contribution to the tax on real estate. It tells the child 
 that it also is a tax-payer ; because, for the same reason, it can have no 
 toys for Christmas. It tells them all of grim gaunt hunger and want in 
 
12 
 
 store, and some times whispers that the only escape from payment of 
 those taxes is the river — the black and silent river. 
 
 Why ! The babe in the cradle, who for such reason must go without 
 its Sunday frock, is one of the real tax-payers of Brooklyn. Xot the 
 landlord who drives by in his carriage, collecting his taxes back in his 
 rents or dispossessing the tenants for non-payment of them. His wife 
 and child are not troubled with taxes; his child will never be deprived 
 of its Christmas toys, nor his wife go without her sealskin wraps and 
 diamond earings on account of the taxes on this flat building or that 
 tenement house. Oh, no ! It is the rent-payer in those buildings, not 
 the landlord, who pays the taxes, — oftentimes by skimping and pinching 
 the rent-payer's family to do it. Few, and you may say none of those 
 rent-paying people know that high taxation, not only of the house they 
 live in but of other houses and other lands in the same city with which 
 they have nothing to do, and probably never saw, is the real cause of 
 their distress. 
 
 Such is the history of excessive taxation, not in Brooklyn alone, 
 but in every city and in all countries on the face of the earth. 
 
 Every kind of business and property except real estate has its own. 
 separate vicissitudes, which do not affect or concern to any great extent 
 other kinds of property or other trades or lines of business. Not so 
 with real estate, on which we are all dependent in one way or another 
 for a home and a roof to shelter us. Its excessive taxation paralyzes 
 all industries doing business in the community so taxed, and affects 
 most those who, like the babe in the cradle, are most helpless against it 
 and least able to stand it. 
 
 That man is a fool who says that because he does not own the real 
 estate he rents that he does not therefore in one way or another pay 
 the taxes on it and is not concerned in the reduction of its taxes one- 
 half by consolidation of the cities. What effect the reduction of 
 Brooklyn taxes fifty per cent, by consolidation, in addition to the re- 
 duction obtained by honest administration of city affairs will be, you 
 can judge as well as I. Suffice it to say that exactly the opposite 
 picture will be presented, buildings by the hundreds of every kind will 
 be seen going up, thousands and tens of thousands of mechanics will 
 be employed at good wages, in turn patronizing those around them, 
 shopkeepers again busy ; the wife, the child, and the babe, having paid 
 their taxes, are again happy. And this prosperity, mark you ! will not 
 be a temporary boom like a world's fair: but permanent, necessarily 
 
13 
 
 permanent, because the inducing cause of that prosperity, the con- 
 solidation of the cities, will be permanent. The persons who will, there- 
 fore, receive the greatest and most immediate benefit from consolidation 
 of the cities and its consequent fifty per cent, reduction of Brooklyn 
 taxes are the wor king men and working women, the mechanics, 
 laborers, and rent-payers of both cities, and to them, far more 
 than to the land oivner, the consolidation of the cities ivill be a veritable 
 Godsend. 
 
 It is possible that rents in certain localities near the Brooklyn 
 Bridge may go up somewhat. But with the certainty that new and 
 better accommodations, for even less rents, can then be had by riding ten 
 minutes further out on the elevated roads, where now are vacant lots ; and 
 that thousands upon thousands of mechanics will be thereby given 
 steady employment. Who, under such circumstances, would not be glad 
 to have these rents near the bridge go up? even if they doubled in 
 price, a thing utterly impossible. 
 
 V. 
 
 PER CAPITA COST OF THE CITIES. 
 
 The fact that the per capita cost of the Brooklyn city government 
 may be less than the per capita cost of the New York city government, 
 and the cost of running the Brooklyn fire and police departments less 
 per head of Brooklyn population than the cost of New York fire and 
 police departments is per head of New York population, which the 
 opponents of consolidation so dearly love to use as arguments against 
 it, have really nothing to do with the case. There is no such thing as 
 a per capita tax to support either city government; therefore, the per 
 capita cost of running that city government is not relevant, or at least 
 only remotely so. 
 
 Let us, however, for argument's sake suppose a case. Suppose 
 that half of the population of New York city should some fine day sud- 
 denly take it into their heads to move over to Brooklyn. The per 
 capita cost of governing the remaining population of New York would 
 immediately be doubled in consequence, and the per capita cost of 
 governing Brooklyn would immediately become less than half what it 
 now is; but the taxes in Brooklyn would jump up amazingly, because 
 while the people (per capita) had moved to Brooklyn, the taxable prop- 
 erty remained in New York. 
 
14 
 
 Suppose further, for argument's sake, that the other half of New 
 York's population should then take it into their heads to also move over 
 to Brooklyn, leaving nobody as residents behind them but the watch- 
 men, janitors and keepers employed to look after the property, the per 
 capita cost of governing New York would then be towards ten thousand 
 dollars per head of its population, but for the very same reason New 
 York taxes would be almost nothing, while Brooklyn per capita cost 
 would be almost nothing, but its taxes would be frightful. In fact, it 
 would not be taxation, but confiscation. Brooklyn would have the 
 people but not the property, and New York the property but not the 
 people. New York and Brooklyn taxes and per capita cost are then 
 in the two opposite scales of a pair of balances — as one goes up the 
 other comes down. If per capita cost is low, taxes are high and vice 
 versa. You may say that I have drawn an extreme picture. Not so, 
 for except the tenement houses east of the Bowery, there are very few 
 residents now in New York below 4th Street, but the janitors, watch- 
 men and keepers of the property and taxable wealth stored there. 
 These people are moving away, crowded out by business, and as they 
 move to Brooklyn its taxes go up and per capita cost comes down. 
 
 The per capita argument then so far as it is relevant, instead of 
 being an argument against consolidation, when closely examined is an 
 argument in favor of it. Nothing is more certain than that Brooklyn 
 taxes mount higher and higher each year and New York taxes as 
 steadily grow lower. And, further, that this state of affairs is bound to 
 continue so long as the two cities remain separate, notwithstanding 
 honest government of both cities, for the reasons given in the other 
 pamphlet which will not be repeated here. 
 
 VI. 
 
 BENEFIT TO NEW YORK. 
 
 That New York will be greatly benefited from annexation of 
 Brooklyn, by reason of New York's aggrandizement being placed in 
 one instant in the proud position of second city in size in the world, is 
 conceded. The consolidated city will at once have a population 
 500,000 greater than Paris, and be three-quarters as large as London; 
 for we will have, by the act of consolidation, a population exceeding 
 3,000,000, and that, too, without the annexation of far distant suburbs, 
 a process that we ridicule in western cities, but by the simple process 
 of welding New York, Kings County and Long Island City into one 
 
15 
 
 city, even if no other territory should be included. And, furthermore, 
 create a city so large that no Bing or Hall can possibly control it. 
 Therefore, the natural tendencies of the consolidated city will be towards 
 good government. 
 
 Now comes a new feature in the consolidation movement, a feature 
 never before contemplated, because until recently it did not exist ; but 
 which now exists and is destined to play an important part in the con- 
 solidation movement, viz., the wonderfully rapid growth of Chicago, 
 the danger of its shortly passing New York and becoming the first 
 city in the land, compelling New York to play second to Chicago for- 
 ever after in everything, no matter what — business, music, society, 
 politics, the drama, everything. Much against the New Yorker's will, 
 he is obliged to admit that Chicago is growing very much faster than 
 New York, and in fact it is destined to overtake New York in from 
 three to five years. But it is not growing so fast as New York and 
 Brooklyn together. This young city on the shores of Lake Michigan, 
 like a great overgrown boy, as big at the age of 16 as his father, and 
 still growing, you may sneer at all you like, but it is there every time, 
 and with a capacity for getting there wholly unknown here in the east. 
 A hard working youngster who is never idle, who perhaps lacks finish 
 and polish, but who does not lack public spirit and vehement energy 
 in everything it undertakes, in which spirit New York is sadly lacking. 
 Covered with soot and dirt, ragged and very, very "sassy," its wonder- 
 ful growth is not only a standing menace to New York's pride and 
 prosperity as the metropolis of America, but its growth upon growth 
 has caused the Chicago menace to become an imminent danger so near, 
 so great as to be startling. A danger not distant, not far off in years, 
 but here now at hand. Just as certain as that New York is on Man- 
 hattan Island, just so certain will Chicago pass New York and become 
 chief city of the United States, the metropolis of America within five 
 years, without New York annexes Brooklyn. No price is too great for 
 New York to pay rather than lose its commercial prestige and standing 
 as chief city of America; $50,000,000 per year would be a small 
 amount for New York to pay to save itself from such humiliation and 
 loss of business. And when you consider that the total taxation of 
 Brooklyn is only a little over $12,000,000 annually, New York might 
 far better pay it all and guarantee to us in Brooklyn exemption from 
 all taxation of every kind for one hundred years to come rather than 
 lose its prestige. 
 
16 
 
 Imagine for one moment New York second to Chicago in every- 
 thing it did, the sneers, taunts, gibes and insults that the New Yorkers 
 now have to submit to from this Chicago would be multiplied a thou- 
 sand-fold, and New York would be told of it, jeered at, twitted of it and 
 taunted with it by Chicago every hour in the day, to say nothing of 
 loss of business that always follows loss of prestige. New York lost the 
 World's Fair, which is but a drop in the bucket compared to the loss 
 which it will sustain if Chicago takes New York's place as chief city 
 of America. 
 
 To show you how close Chicago is on to New York and what great 
 benefit the World's Fair of 1893 has been to that city in matter of popu- 
 lation, look at the total vote that Chicago polled for its Mayor at a special 
 election on the 19th of last December (1893), when each side was cutting 
 down the vote of the other side to the lowest possible degree, then com- 
 pare it with New York's total vote of one month before. As there has 
 been no general census of both cities since 1890 you will have to judge 
 by their total vote, always considered a fair criterion. The following 
 are the official figures, the New York vote being the one declared for 
 Common Pleas Judge: 
 
 1893, New York total vote, - - 238,157 
 " Chicago " " - - - 227,350 
 Difference only - 10,807 
 At the same election Chicago registered 282,040 votes, or 16,193 
 more votes than New York did 
 
 Note. — This difference of only 10,807 between the total vote of New York and the 
 total vote of Chicago, at the usual general average of one vote to every seven of population, 
 indicates that this year, (1894), Chicago's population is only 75,649 behind New York. 
 
 There is but one avenue of escape for New York from the impend- 
 ing calamity that surely awaits it. And that avenue happily offers 
 not temporary escape, but permanent for all time to come, as you will 
 see by the table on page 30 of this pamphlet, viz., consolidation with 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 Have you ever stopped to think what the loss of New York's 
 position as chief city of America would amount to ? What its effect on 
 both New York and Brooklyn would be and ivhy it would prove disas- 
 trous? No! Well, then let us for a moment examine into this matter, 
 and to do this intelligently we must first understand why it is that 
 being chief city of a nation is so very important to that city. 
 
17 
 
 In every nation on the faee of the earth is some one city which, 
 being very much larger than any other city in that nation, is not only 
 accorded by all other nations the fame and prestige of being chief city 
 of that nation, but is looked up to all over the world as the leader, and 
 its markets and prices quoted as the ruling markets and prices govern- 
 ing trade in that nation, hence the name Metropolis (Mother city.) In 
 England it is London ; in Germany it is Berlin ; in Franco. Paris ; in Hol- 
 land, Amsterdam; and in the United States it is at the present time New 
 York. This chieftainship over all other cities in a nation brings to that 
 city all of the business of a metropolitan nature, which of a necessity 
 must be located in the chief city of that nation, generally a wholesale 
 banking business, or banking for other banks and trust companies of that 
 nation, and the importing and exporting agencies of such foreign business 
 houses of all kinds, as have but one agency or but one general agency 
 in that particular nation, which agency must necessarily be located in 
 the chief city of that nation. All of that class of strictly metropolitan 
 business in this country is now located in New York, and it is the life, 
 the main-stay and the support of New York. Following it and located 
 near it are the thousand and one other and smaller concerns, which manu- 
 facture for or sell to the metropolitan trade and are dependent upon it, 
 and, which being deprived of that trade by reason of its going to another 
 city, either go with it or losing their chief support, struggle along for 
 awhile, languish and fail. ... It is a very low estimate to say that this 
 class of metropolitan business with its following, is worth to the cities 
 of New York and Brooklyn to-day not less than one thousand million dol- 
 lars per annum. That New York's prestige as chief city, the metropolis 
 of America, is now, for the first time, seriously threatened by Chicago, 
 no one can safely deny. If New York should for any reason fail to con- 
 solidate with Brooklyn it would be the beginning of its downfall, for as 
 it then will no longer be the metropolis of America, its metropolitan 
 business must of a necessity go to the city that is. The change would 
 not be sudden, but very gradual. Foreign banks and business houses, 
 before taking their American banks and business houses away from New 
 York, would wait until they were absolutely certain that New York 
 was no longer chief city of America, then one by one those houses would, 
 
 "Fold their teats, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away." 
 
 The seats in its public exchanges would gradually become of less and 
 less value, its great marts of trade would one by one close their doors, 
 dry rot would set in and like " Great Ca?sar, it falls." from its high estate 
 
18 
 
 as the greatest of American cities and will then slowly sink into the 
 oblivion of second and third place. 
 
 Take the case of New York and Philadelphia: Up to about the year 
 1803 Philadelphia was chief city, the metropolis of America, having all 
 of the metropolitan trade above described. 
 
 It was admitted on all sides that Philadelphia was not only the 
 greatest city of America, but that its situation and its great wealth were 
 such that it necessarily would continue to be chief city, growing as the 
 country grew, expanding as the nation expanded. It had not only the 
 wealth, but the business, the manufactures, the trades, the brains, the 
 society of this country. Its position was apparently so secure as to be 
 impregnable. William Cullen Bryant's History of the United States, 
 Vol. 4, page 91, says: 
 
 "At the close of the Revolutionary War, (1783), Philadelphia was chief 
 city of this country, its population of forty thousand being double that of Bos- 
 ton, and three times that of New York. In a parade of Philadelphia tradesmen 
 and mechanics fifty distinct trades were represented in the procession. It was 
 built upon a solid foundation of manufactures and trade. New York was 
 paralyzed from occupation of the British and from ravages of fire." 
 
 But New York began creeping up and passed Philadelphia some 
 time about the year 1803. The primary cause of Philadelphia's loss 
 of position was undoubtedly the determination of Congress to remove 
 from Philadelphia, which it did, going to Washington some fifteen years 
 later. But whatever the cause, the result is the same — New York got 
 ahead and began to draw Philadelphia's metropolitan business away. 
 It absorbed it more and more each year, as foreign banks and busi- 
 ness houses became assured that New York's position as chief city of 
 America was secure; until finally New York took it all, still has it, and 
 will keep it for all time to come on one condition, viz., that it consoli- 
 dates with Brooklyn, not otherwise, for it is self-evident that it cannot 
 continue to have this metropolitan business and not be the metropolis. 
 New Y^ork can't afford to voluntarily surrender its high position as 
 chief city of America and meekly take second place, with the avenue 
 of escape so close at hand; because, forsooth, it might cost a few pen- 
 nies to avail itself of that avenue of escape, — consolidation with 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 When New York ceases to be first city in the land it ceases to be 
 of importance, it ceases to be New Y r ork. The loss of business that 
 such calamity would entail on New Y^ork would simply be frightful. 
 
19 
 
 Following that loss would of course come the great shrinkage in real 
 estate values j thousands of workmen and rent-payers would be thrown 
 out of employment, and they and their families compelled to move to 
 cheaper quarters to save rent, if indeed they were able to pay any rent. 
 Hundreds of stores and houses would in time become tenantless that 
 never were so before. And then as New York real estate decreased in 
 value, the tax rate upon it would of course be increased, in order to 
 collect the same gross amount of taxes from it. So that whatever the 
 cost to New York of consolidating Brooklyn with itself may be, it will 
 cost New York tex times as much if it don't do it. New York is not 
 now in the position to dictate terms or quibble about price. Quite the 
 contrary for its continued supremacy, it is wholly dependant upon 
 annexation of Brooklyn. 
 
 If you will examine the statistics you will see that while the census 
 shows that from 1880 to 1890, considering the aggregate population of 
 New York, Kings County, and Long Island City; Chicago, notAvith- 
 standing its wild grab for population by annexation of far distant suburbs, 
 gained nothing on the population of the Greater New York, but actually 
 fell behind (see page 30 this pamphlet) over 200,000, and that, too, 
 without allowing the consolidated city to annex any of the suburbs 
 that now cluster around the Greater New York, such as the cities 
 of Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Newark, Mt. Vernon, Yon- 
 kers, &c, all within 7 miles. New York, that is the New York on 
 Manhattan Island, has reached the point where, owing to lack of rapid 
 transit facilities, its growth as a city is not only greatly retarded, but 
 at times almost at a standstill. The danger that Chicago will surpass 
 New York is not only then greater than ever, but it is absolutely certain 
 to occur in five years, and some say within three years, unless New 
 York annexes Brooklyn. But with such annexation the consolidated 
 city will have a population of over 3,000,000 to start with, and growing 
 very much faster than Chicago, is not only placed forever out of the 
 power of any other city to overtake it, but so extremely out of the 
 power and so very far ahead of every other city that none will ever 
 again make the effort to supersede the "Greater New York" as the 
 Metropolis. It is then a case where New York and Brooklyn must 
 apply to themselves the well known motto of the United States, 
 
 "UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL." 
 
20 
 
 VII. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE CITIES. 
 
 Brooklyn, unlike New York, is a city of small homes, the taxes on 
 which are getting to be unbearable. New York on the other hand is 
 an aggregation of giant corporations, huge buildings, and vast landed 
 estates, the taxes on which are so low as not to be noticed. For every 
 large building put up in Brooklyn, New Y'ork erects a dozen, each of 
 the dozen generally worth five or six times what the Brooklyn one is; 
 the New York building being also very quick to sell, while it is nearly 
 impossible to sell the Brooklyn building even at cost price, asking no 
 profit. It is said that twenty men and corporations pay one-half of 
 New York taxes. Not so with Brooklyn: we have no Trinity Church 
 Estate, no Sailor Snug Harbor Co., Rhinelander or Astor Estates, 
 Vanderbilt or New York Central properties, paying taxes on over one 
 hundred million dollars each year and collecting those taxes back in 
 their rents, largely from Brooklyn people. In Brooklyn it takes 
 20,000 people, each paying on $5,000 worth of property to pay the 
 taxes on $100,000,000, which any one of a dozen great landed estates 
 in New Y^ork are valued at, the two Astor estates alone being put 
 down by experts as worth $400,000,000. And, mark you! the State 
 Board of Tax Assessors certify that those great estates are assessed for 
 taxes at an average of only 44J per cent, of their actual or selling 
 value, and on that they are taxed, this year of 1894, only $1.82 per 
 $100 of property taxed; while Brooklyn, a poor man's city, a city of 
 small homes, is assessed at for taxes at 70 to 100 per cent, of its actual 
 value, and on that taxed, this year of 1894, an average of $2.85^- per 
 $100 of property taxed; thus making the Brooklyn property pay more 
 than three times as much in taxes as the New York property per $100 
 of its actual or selling value. New Y r ork also owning and controlling 
 all of our ferries and water front franchises as shown in the other 
 pamphlet. 
 
 Is it any wonder that the Brooklyn man complains? Is it not a 
 greater wonder that there are not riots and bloodshed in the streets of 
 both New Y r ork and Brooklyn as the result of such an outrageous state 
 of affairs? Consolidate the two cities and equalize both the tax rates 
 and tax valuations and you see for yourself that it will necessarily 
 reduce Brooklyn taxes more than 50 per cent., while creating no 
 perceptible increase in New York taxes. New Y T ork need not, therefore, 
 fear that it is going to be loaded down with Brooklyn taxes ; for while 
 
21 
 
 New York can well afford to pay all of Brooklyn taxes rather than lose 
 its prestige, yet we in Brooklyn don't ask it. The $6,000,000 or 
 thereabout reduction of Brooklyn taxes that consolidation will effect, will 
 not be accompanied by a corresponding increase of New York taxes. 
 Nothing of the kind! All that we ask is an equalization with New 
 York. If, perchance, a slight increase in New York taxes should follow 
 as the result of the consolidation, such increase at the most would be 
 very slight and would not last over three years. Figures demonstrate 
 this beyond question. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 BONDED INDEBTEDNESS. 
 
 By Article 8, Section 11, of the Constitution of the State of New 
 York, amendment of 1884, the indebtedness of any city in this State, 
 having a population over 100,000, is limited to ten per cent, of the 
 assessed value of the real estate in that city, taxable personal estate not 
 being considered. All indebtedness of any such city in excess of ten per 
 centum of its taxable real estate, at the assessed valuation thereof made 
 last previous to the incurring of such indebtedness, the Constitution says 
 " shall be absolutely void," except revenue bonds issued in anticipation 
 of the collection of taxes, and water bonds issued to procure a supply of 
 water for such city, which are not included in the ten per cent, limit. 
 Now then! By the annual message of the Mayors of New York and 
 Brooklyn, sent to the respective Common Councils on January 1st, 1894, 
 coupled with the last previous report of the tax department of the two 
 cities, the following appears, viz. : 
 
 On January 1st, 1894, New York had taxable real estate at 
 assessed valuations aggregating $1,562,582,393, and a total outstanding 
 indebtedness of $100,762,407, leaving a margin between its total in- 
 debtedness and its constitutional limit of exactly $55,495,832. And on 
 the same day Brooklyn had taxable real estate at assessed valuations 
 aggregating $486,531,505, and a total outstanding indebtedness of 
 $47,337,499, leaving a margin of only $1,315,651, before reaching its 
 constitutional limit. 
 
 A very slight margin, you will say. Aye, so slender indeed, that 
 clerks, teachers, policemen, firemen and other employees of Brooklyn are 
 compelled to have their meagre salaries pared down and fifty dollars 
 kept back from this man, one hundred from that man, and their 
 families correspondingly deprived of necessaries in order that the great 
 
22 
 
 city of Brooklyn may make both ends meet and, if possible, avoid 
 having its bonds rejected by banks and other owners as worthless for 
 having exceeded the constitutional limit. Despite which, when the 
 obligations that the city has assumed for the purchase of the Wallabout 
 Market lands, the improvement of Liberty Street, etc., are considered, 
 it is a very serious question whether the constitutional limit of Brooklyn 
 indebtedness has not already been reached, with no margin whatever 
 left. 
 
 If New York was assessed for taxes as high in proportion to the 
 selling value of its property as Brooklyn, it would have a margin of 
 over tivo hundred million dollars between its indebtedness and the con- 
 stitutional limit. Mayor Gilroy of New York goes even farther than 
 this. In an article published over his signature in the September, 1 893, 
 number of the u North American Review" Mayor Gilroy says: 
 
 a New York is probably the richest community on earth; there is no other 
 city that can borrow money in the open market as cheaply as New York. It is 
 because we are richer and our good faith unquestioned and unquestionable." 
 
 And in the October number of the same magazine, he inserts tables 
 showing that New York City in addition to the taxable real estate 
 within its limits, owns in its own right available assets of the value of 
 five hundred and fifty-nine millions of dollars. And on page 410 of 
 the same magazine he says: 
 
 u New York has ample real estate security to offer for a debt four times the 
 size of the present obligations, or four hundred million dollars, if any extraor- 
 dinary combination of circumstances should make it necessary to incur such a 
 debt." 
 
 Following this up in the November, 1893, number of the u North 
 American Review" Mayor Gilroy says: 
 
 u The closest estimate of the actual market value of such property as the 
 New York tax commission have been able to find on which to lay taxes, is five 
 thousand millions of dollars." 
 
 And, of course, the ten per cent, constitutional limit on the latter 
 amount would be five hundred millions of dollars, or thirteen and one- 
 half millions more than the total assessed real estate valuations of the 
 entire city of Brooklyn. A thing almost incredible, viz., that the actual 
 value of New York is so great that by simply increasing its assessed 
 valuations on the tax books up to the actual value of the property 
 taxed, as it has a perfect right to do, and is done in many instances in 
 Brooklyn and other cities of this country, it could then legally incur an 
 
23 
 
 indebtedness sufficient to buy every building, every vacant lot, every 
 piece of real estate of every kind until there was in all Brooklyn, as it 
 existed January 1st, 1894, not one inch left unpurchased — pay for it all 
 at its full assessed valuation, and have thirteen and one-half million 
 dollars left before exceeding New York's constitutional limit of in- 
 debtedness. And that even this does not include the $559,000,000 of 
 property that New York owns in its own right, capable of being 
 made security for still further and stupendous sums of money: Yet 
 here are the figures, examine them yourselves and be convinced 
 that such is the case. 
 
 On page 543 of the same magazine, Mayor Gilroy in speaking of 
 the New York tax department, further says: 
 
 u In a general way it is understood that the assessment made by the Tax 
 Board is fixed, as nearly as may be, at 40 per cent, of the real or market value 
 of the property taxed." 
 
 As the Mayor of New York speaks officially for the city, it is not 
 necessary to go behind his figures for further proofs. 
 
 In this pamphlet, as in the other, all figures and quotations given 
 have been carefully compared with the official reports and originals 
 referred to, so as to avoid any errors: It is possible that annexation 
 of the county towns of Kings County to Brooklyn may bring in 
 sufficient additional real estate to enable Brooklyn to issue a few more 
 bonds and so stave off bankruptcy for a while longer; but not to any 
 material extent, as those towns are loaded down with debts already. 
 
 So far as the present outstanding indebtedness of the two cities are 
 concerned, Brooklyn does not ask New York to pay one penny of her 
 former bonds. Each city will pay its own debts outstanding up to the 
 time that consolidation takes effect. Like two men going into partner- 
 ship with each other, neither one pays the former debts of the other. 
 The probability is that the consolidated city will issue bonds covering 
 the taxable property of both cities, and use them to take up and redeem 
 the outstanding bonds of both cities in such proportions of each as will 
 be equitable j say, for every one million dollars of Brooklyn's bonds and 
 debts thus paid off, let two millions of New York's outstanding debts and 
 bonds be paid, or whatever other amount the finance department of the 
 two cities should find and certify to be the proper and exact proportion 
 between the two cities. In that way Brooklyn can take up its outstand- 
 ing bonds, paying 31 and 4 per cent, interest with bonds of the consoli- 
 dated city issued at 2 \ to 3 per cent, interest, the same rate that New 
 
24 
 
 York now pays, with no possibility of running against the constitutional 
 limit, for at the start there would be, as above shown, over $55,000,000 
 margin under the constitutional limit of the consolidated city, with 
 an extreme possible limit of four hundred to five hundred millions 
 ($500,000,000), as shown by Mayor Gilroy above quoted. The present 
 figures also showing that New York side alone increases in value 
 of its taxable property from one hundred to one hundred and forty 
 million dollars per year, assessed for taxes as before stated at only 
 40 to 44^- cents on the dollar, and the constitutional limit, therefore, 
 even at that low rate enlarges and increases each year from ten to 
 fourteen millions ($14,000,000.) 
 
 IX. 
 
 NEW BRIDGES AND IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 The great expense of building the proposed new bridges over the 
 East River is such, that private companies organized to build them 
 cannot show probable dividends from bridge receipts sufficient to make 
 it an object for stockholders to invest their money in building them — 
 hence ; no bridges: New York City does not want the bridges unless 
 the cities are consolidated, and Brooklyn City is so close to the consti- 
 tutional limit of its indebtedness, that it could not safely undertake to 
 build a single bridge pier. But one course remains — consolidate the 
 cities and let the bridges be built by the consolidated city and made 
 passage free, the same as any other street or highway in the same city. 
 And what is true of the new bridges, is also true of other much needed 
 Brooklyn improvements; its rough cobble stone streets, its wretched 
 sewers and miserable waterworks can only be improved by the outlay 
 of vast sums of money, which it cannot get because the city has about 
 reached its debt limit. 
 
 Inadequate fire department apparatus causes immense confla- 
 grations, and no money can be had to buy first class machinery and 
 modern appliances. No person will trust the city when there is great 
 danger that the debt may be declared void. 
 
 As the situation is to-day, every time that the city issues a new lot 
 of bonds for money to pay for absolute necessaries, it must, like a servant 
 girl looking for a situation, take its certificate of good character along, 
 (from the courts,) so as to prove that the bonds are not void for having 
 exceeded the ten per cent, debt limit. And if, perchance, buyers are 
 
25 
 
 found without the city being sent back to the courts for a new certificate 
 of good character, Brooklyn public officials clap their hands in high 
 glee at the discovery that the city's credit is still good. 
 
 But when the cities are consolidated all this will be changed, when 
 Brooklyn is part and parcel of the Greater New York, so that it has the 
 unlimited New York credit described by Mayor Gilroy in the last 
 chapter, more Brooklyn streets will be well paved and properly sewered 
 in one year than will otherwise be done in ten years. And in five years 
 time, the arches of at least three new bridges will be seen spanning the 
 East River, which it is now evident will not be seen until then. 
 
 Are not the thousands of working men who will build those bridges, 
 pave those streets, lay those sewers, and the countless other thousands 
 of working men who will build the stores, houses and flats then made 
 saleable and rentable along the lines of those bridges and streets, the 
 persons most deeply interested in consolidation of the cities? 
 
 X. 
 
 WATER SUPPLY. 
 (a suggestion.) 
 
 The scant supply of water in Brooklyn, each year growing less 
 and less, not only threatens the city with loss of health and possible 
 pestilence spreading to New York, but sooner or later with a terrible 
 conflagration which may lay half the city in ashes from simple lack of 
 water to put out the fire. The present supply is obtained by pumping 
 from small lakes, creeks and ponds on Long Island into reservoirs 
 leading to the city street mains and pipes. Any attempt to extend this 
 pumping process is but a make-shift soon exhausted: Why? Because 
 it is known that there is not fresh water enough on all Long Island to 
 supply two million people ; and the little lakes, ponds and creeks not 
 yet engaged in supplying the Brooklyn Water Works are already 
 depended on, and in many cases pre-empted by some one or more of 
 the scores of villages and Long Island Towns scattered along their 
 lines. You cannot rob those villages and towns of their water supply. 
 What then can be done? Let us see! New York has just completed 
 an aqueduct 31 miles long, which its engineers and the aqueduct 
 commissioners in their report state cost, including all dams, approaches, 
 feeders, &c, $28,576,775.10, up to May 31st, 1894, and which they 
 certify is alone capable of supplying 300,000,000 gallons of water per 
 day; in addition to which the former Croton system still supplies 
 80,000,000 gallons per day and the Bronx River system 20,000,000 
 
26 
 
 gallons, making a total of 400,000,000 per day, which allowing one 
 hundred gallons per day to each inhabitant, man, woman, child or babe 
 in arms, will supply four million people with all of the water that they 
 can use-, or one million more people than there are in both New York 
 and Brooklyn. 
 
 By connecting the New York and Brooklyn water systems with 
 pipes laid across the East River at several crossings, probably on the 
 river bottom anchored and protected in the usual manner, an abundance 
 of water can be immediately obtained. And while it is true that in 
 very dry weather the present New Y'ork supply may not be sufficient 
 to fill the aqueduct to its carrying capacity, yet in ordinary weather it 
 is capable of temporarily supplying both New Y T ork and Brooklyn, 
 while Brooklyn would still have its present system and pumping 
 process, only calling on New York for deficiency or in case of accident. 
 
 To thus hitch the Brooklyn water supply system unto the New 
 Y ork system as one of the results of Consolidation of the cities, would 
 give immediate relief to Brooklyn without endangering New York. 
 Then, by uniting with that city in extending the aqueduct to the 
 Housatonic River, Lake George or Champlain, an inexhaustible supply 
 of pure water for both cities could be obtained, each side paying only 
 its proper portion of the expense, and many millions of dollars be thus 
 saved to the tax-payers of both cities. 
 
 XI. 
 
 PRIDE OF LIVING IX NEW YORK A FACTOR. 
 
 You may tell the New Y'orker it is only his pride of living in New 
 York that makes him pay $200 per month for a stuffy flat an hour's 
 ride uptown from City Hall, when he can get a brown-stone front on a 
 nice street in Brooklyn, but a half hour's ride from the same City Hall, 
 for $75 per month, or buy it at the rate of $100 per month ; or, if he 
 desires to save money, can get a smaller brick or stone-front house having 
 all modern conveniences, and on a good street, for $25 to $30 a month 
 rent, or buy it for $4,000 or $5,000. And in the outskirts of Brooklyn 
 can buy a wooden house for even $2,000 to $3,500. He will probably 
 deny your assertion; but that does not alter the fact, it is his pride. 
 And in one sense it is a justifiable pride. All over the world, wherever 
 it is known that such a country as America exists, there it is known 
 also that America has one great city so situated with its neighboring city 
 of Brooklyn, that by the simple process of the consolidation of the two, 
 
27 
 
 will make it the greatest city in the world before another generation 
 passes, and that that city is named New York. Every American takes 
 a pride in the fact and calls it all New York. Three thousand miles 
 away you will find Americans boasting of what our New York is and 
 what is going to be. And this very fact, his pride that New York is 
 known all over the world as the largest, the richest, the most powerful 
 and influential city of America, holds the New Yorker a resident in that 
 city when he knows that he can get better accommodations for one- 
 quarter the money in Brooklyn. Pride is one of the strongest of all 
 human motives, so strong indeed, that it has starved many a man and 
 woman to death rather than make their wants known. What's the use 
 of ignoring it? It's an element in the case, — bank on it and use it. 
 I make the bold assertion that the pride of living in New York controls 
 and fixes the price of every foot of residence property on Manhattan 
 Island. If it were not so, Brooklyn residence property, easier of access 
 and in as good a location, would be just as valuable as New York 
 residence property; while we all know that it has not one-quarter the 
 value of New York property, simply because it is not New York. 
 
 Pride of living in New York and in the best part of New York, 
 caused a vacant lot on Fifth Avenue, 50 X 125 feet, to sell for $540,000; 
 while a lot of the. same size in the best part of Brooklyn brought but 
 $18,400, and all of the talk and ridicule of the world does not affect it. 
 
 Note. — In May, 1891, a vacant lot 50x125" feet on Fifth Avenue, New York, S. E. 
 corner of 55th Street, was sold by Mrs. Hammersly, known as the Duchess of Marlborough, 
 to W. J. Astor, Jr. for $540,000. The same week a lot the same size in best part of Brooklyn 
 Heights sold for $18,400. See Real Estate Record of that date. Since which time New 
 York residence property has increased in value and Brooklyn residence property has de- 
 creased in value. 
 
 It was pride that made this great difference in the value of the 
 two lots of land, for the Brooklyn Heights property is even more eligibly 
 situated, nearer to business, easier of access, surrounded by just as good 
 a class of residences as the New York lot and having no objectionable 
 features near at hand. u Pride," in this particular case, upon a lot 
 50x125 feet was then of the exact marketable value of $521,600 — 
 the fortune of a lifetime. To consolidate Brooklyn with New York 
 under the name of New York, is to extend that pride to Brooklyn, and 
 have it influence and enhance the value of Brooklyn property as well, 
 and that without injury to New York. Here, again, is where the 
 workingman and mechanic will be most benefited by consolidation of the 
 cities: because with the increased values of Brooklyn property caused 
 
28 
 
 by a greater demand for New York houses and lots in Brooklyn, will 
 of course come a building boom to supply that demand. That building 
 boom will necessitate the employment of thousands of mechanics. It 
 can't be otherwise. Where now a dozen mechanics are employed in the 
 building trades, then there will be a thousand, and where now a thousand 
 are at work, then there will be twenty thousand. And this will benefit 
 New York as well as Brooklyn, because it will increase the taxable 
 property of the city. 
 
 If the New Yorker now has reason to be proud of New York as 
 chief city of Amercia, he will then have greater reason to be proud of 
 it as second city in size in the world, having certainty that in the near 
 future it will be chief city of the world, as it is now of America. The 
 equalization of values between New York and Brooklyn property will 
 therefore not be by the shrinkage of New York values, but by the 
 permanent rise in Brooklyn values. The owner of Brooklyn vacant 
 property, in order to obtain benefit of his rise in values, must then 
 either build upon it or sell out to some one who will j otherwise the more 
 money the vacant property becomes worth, the more money the owner 
 is losing every day by holding it idle. The $540,000 vacant lot on 
 Fifth Avenue, New York, is money lost to its owner unless he sets at 
 work hundreds of mechanics and workingmen building a mansion upon 
 it in keeping with the price of the lot and its surroundings. This rise 
 in Brooklyn real estate, by reason of its becoming part of New York, 
 will then of a necessity give employment for several years to countless 
 thousands of poor people, mechanics and workmen who are not now 
 employed, in building upon and improving Brooklyn property; other- 
 wise the owners will never get any benefit of the rise in values, and it 
 would soon cease to exist. With the completion of those new buildings 
 the working people, rent-payers and others will be enabled to get better 
 quarters, better homes at cheaper rents, in the new flats, tenements 
 and houses built on vacant property now held down and kept idle by its 
 present excessive taxation and by the fear of still more enormous 
 future taxes. Keduce those taxes one-half by consolidation of the 
 cities, with no need to fear excessive future taxation, and every foot of 
 that property is immediately worth improving. The $10 or $20 per 
 month rent which will now not pay the taxes on a property, will then not 
 only pay the taxes but interest on the money invested also, and of course 
 the owner can afford to improve it. If, as has often been stated, 
 there is danger of too much building then being done in Brooklyn, it 
 
29 
 
 wculd only make rents come down and the poor man, the mechanic, the 
 laborer, and the building material man, having received their pay for 
 the buildings, have no cause to worry. Turn this question which way 
 you will, look at it on all sides and in every light, the fact becomes 
 more and more apparent and undeniable that the class of people who 
 will receive the greatest and most immediate benefit from consolidation 
 of the cities are the workingmen and ivorldngivomen, the mechanics and 
 laborers and rent-payers of both cities together, with the people who are 
 dependent upon them. 
 
 To the New Yorker, Lnen, consoliaation of the cities means the sal- 
 vation of all that he holds dear, his pride in New York as greatest city 
 of America, together with the salvation of all of the metropolitan trade 
 and business now in New York because it is the metropolis, the loss of 
 which would mean ruin to New York and excessive taxation of its real 
 estate as before described. To the Brooklynite it means reduction of 
 taxes from 50 per cent, upwards, whereby the terrible blight, the curse 
 of Brooklyn's excessive taxation, will be forever removed. And to the 
 workingmen, mechanics, laborers, building material men of both cities, 
 together with those engaged in trading with and selling to them, it 
 means a degree of prosperity and permanent employment that they 
 have never before enjoyed. 
 
 Then let one and all, whether residing in New York or Brooklyn, 
 on next election day make sure to vote the ballot which reads: 
 
 For Consolidation. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Edward C. G-raves, 
 
 234-235 Broadway, 
 
 New York. 
 
 Brooklyn, July 2d, 1894. 
 
 (FOR TABLE REFERRED TO SEE NEXT PAGE.) 
 
30 
 
 TABLE. 
 
 (Referred to on pages 16 and 10.) 
 
 Showing the comparative growth of the consolidated city of New 
 York and of the city of Chicago, including all of the latter's annexations 
 during the period of ten years, from 1880 to 1890, taken from census, 
 reports of those years. 
 
 Chicago population, 1890, - - - 1,099,850 
 
 1880, - 503,185 
 
 Chicago gain in ten years, - - 596,665 
 Consolidated City of New York : 
 
 New York population, 1890, (October census,) - 1,710,715 
 
 Kings County " " " " - 892,058 
 
 Long Island City u " - - - - 30,5t)6 
 
 Total, 1890, - - - 2,633,279 
 The same territory in 1880: 
 
 New York population, 1880, - - - 1,206,577 
 
 Kings Coimty 599,549 
 
 Long Island City " " - 17,096 
 
 Total, 1880, - 1,823,222 
 
 Deduct population of 1880 from that of 1890 shows 
 that consolidated New York without annexations 
 gains in ten years, - - - -810,057 
 
 Deduct from it Chicago's gain in ten years, including 
 
 all annexations, - 596,665 
 
 Chicago in 10 years falls behind, - - 213,392 
 
 Note. — To the total population of Chicago in 1890 must now be added, not only its 
 natural growth since then, but the immense influx of population caused by the World's Fair 
 of 1893, as indicated by the vote given on page 16 of this pamphlet. It will therefore be 
 seen that while Chicago has gained and is gaining tremendously on New York alone, yet 
 notwithstanding its annexation of far distaut suburbs, its boom received from the World's 
 Fair, it falls greatly behind the increase of Greater New York population in the same years. 
 If we then add to the population of New York, Kings County and Long Island City, their 
 natural growth since 1890, in the same ratio shown by the census of 1890 over that of 1880, 
 it gives the consolidated city in the year 1895 a population of 3,038,307, not counting other 
 territory likely to be annexed. Therefore the consolidation of cities into the Greater New 
 York not only saves New York its prestige and metropolitan business, but secures it for all 
 time to come : And the persons who will be the most benefited are the working classes and 
 rent-payers. 
 
31 
 
 TESTIMONIALS. 
 
 The following testimonials selected from several hundred are printed 
 for the purpose of showing that the proposed reduction of Brooklyn taxes 
 by equalizing them w r ith New York taxes in a consolidated city, having 
 been the means of overcoming Brooklyn opposition to consolidation, de- 
 scribed on pages 5 to 9 of this pamphlet, the Brooklyn voter may therefore 
 safely take it for granted that a vote for consolidation means for consoli- 
 dation of New York and Brooklyn into one city, having an equal and 
 uniform rate of taxation. 
 
 For Brooklyn to vote against consolidation, would put an end to all 
 possibility of obtaining reduction of Brooklyn taxes by equalizing them 
 with New York's in one city: And for New York to vote against con- 
 solidation would be suicidal, for the reasons given on pages 15 to 20 of 
 this pamphlet. 
 
 Hon. Andrew H. Green, President of the Consolidation Commis- 
 sion, in a speech before the Brooklyn Real Estate Exchange, said : 
 
 "That your taxes are disproportionately large and that they can be reduced is clearly 
 shown by the able pamphlet wf Edward C. Graves, Esq., who has kindly volunteered to aid 
 the Commission by a thorough investigation of this subject of taxation in Brooklyn." 
 
 What Judge Wm. J. Gaynor says: _ _ 
 
 ° •/ Supreme Court Chambers, 
 
 My dear Mr. Graves : Brooklyn, April 5th, 1894. 
 
 I understand that you are going to get up a second pamphlet. I know of no one so 
 competent to get out a pamphlet on consolidation, and especially on that phrase of the 
 question which involves the comparative taxation of New York and Brooklyn, as yourself. 
 
 You were the first one to direct attention thereto in connection with the question of 
 consolidation. There will not be many in Brooklyn in favor of consolidation for any mere sen- 
 timental or fanciful reasons. v . , 
 
 To Edward C. Graves, Es q . ^ ^ *• «~ 
 
 From the President of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank of 
 New York, Treasurer of the Consolidation League of Brooklyn : 
 
 Edward C. Graves, Esq. : 
 
 Bear Sir : During a thirty-five year residence in Brooklyn, I have always believed 
 in ultimate union of these two cities. But the consolidation movement has needed leaders to 
 agitate the question. In your first pamphlet you show the practicability of this movement 
 and the great benefit that will flow to the tax-payers and rent-payers from such union, and 
 that the time has arrived when this union should take place. 
 
 This is admitted on all sides. I have just read your second pamphlet. I consider your 
 treatment of the subject most admirable. I had believed myself thoroughly well informed on 
 the merits of the consolidation of these two great cities, New York and Brooklyn, and thought 
 that I had thoroughly weighed, analyzed and duly considered the advantages that would 
 accrue to each, but you have thrown so much new light on the subject that I am amazed. 
 
 Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, 1 am ' veiy tru1 ^ yours ' James McMahw. 
 
 May 8th, 1894. 
 
 From President of Sprague National Bank : 
 Edward C. Graves, Esq. : Brooklyn, April 16th, 1894. 
 
 Dear Sir : Rumors have reached me that you intend writing a second pamphlet on the 
 advantages to be derived from consolidation of the cities of New York and Brooklyn. 
 
 I want to say that your first pamphlet was a grand success. It caused every reader to 
 stop and reason with himself upon the benefits of such annexation with equal taxation as a basis. 
 I am pleased to find that almost without exception the masses believe it is for the benefit 
 of each city, and should receive practically unanimous consent of the voters of both cities. 
 
 Yours sincerely, N> ^ SpRAGUE . 
 
32 
 
 From Chairman Executive Committee, Consolidation League: 
 Edward C. Graves. 
 
 Dear Sir: — Your first pamphlet "How to reduce Brooklyn taxes one-half by consoli- 
 dation of the cities," was a complete discussion of the matter as it then stood. In the dis- 
 cussion of the past two years it has been the general text-book and encyclopedia. It was 
 especially valuable because in it you were the first to intelligently develop the facts about 
 Brooklyn taxation, and to show their relation to consolidation, or more exactly that consoli- 
 dation is the only remedy for Brooklyn's tax difficulties. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 - ' Edward M. Grout. 
 
 From the rubber manufacturing firm of Parker, Stearns & Sutton. 
 Edward C. Graves. 
 
 Dear Sir : — I desire to say that I have lived in Brooklyn about forty years, and until you 
 brought out and developed the Brooklyn tax and water front questions, and in your famous 
 pamphlet "An Appeal to Reason or How Taxes in Brooklyn can be reduced one-half," showed 
 and proved that the only possible cure for Brooklyn's constantly increasing tax-rate is consolida- 
 tion of the cities, there never w r as any consolidation sentiment in Brooklyn worth mentioning. 
 
 That pamphlet is doing the business. The fact that up to January 1st, 1894, sixty 
 thousand copies have been distributed in Brooklyn from hand to hand without any adver- 
 tising, and that so far as appearances show those copies were not destroyed, but were care- 
 fully read, then put away by the reader for future reference, and that not a single opponent 
 of consolidation has been able to contradict one line of it, tells the story. Awaiting the pub- 
 lication of your second pamphlet with anticipation of great pleasure in reading it, I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Very truly yours, RUSSELL Parker. 
 
 From the Secretary of the Brooklyn Real Estate Exchange: 
 
 Edward C. Graves, Esq. 
 
 Dear Sir : — I desire to express to you my appreciation of your efforts to educate the 
 people of Brooklyn to a proper understanding of the advantages to be gained by consolida- 
 tion. The facts as presented in your first pamphlet have carried conviction to hundreds and 
 thousands of our people, and as a reference book it has proved almost invaluable. 
 
 Yours truly, George w ChaunckY . 
 
 From the Secretary of the Brooklyn Consolidation League. 
 
 Edward C. Graves, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir: — On the first day for payment of the Brooklyn taxes for year 1894, I placed 
 two men on the steps in front of the tax-collectors office, and as each tax-payer, man or 
 woman, walked up to pay his or her taxes, then found to be higher than ever before, he or 
 she was handed a copy of your now famous pamphlet "How taxes in Brooklyn can be 
 reduced one-half by consolidation of the cities." In that way I placed in the hands of tax- 
 payers only, in one week, from December 1st to December 8th, 1893, 11,500 copies of your 
 pamphlet. No person was permitted to have more than one copy. The effect of this was truly 
 marvelous. At one time I saw more than one hundred people standing around the City Hall 
 Square reading your document. I watched carefully and so far as I could see or learn not a 
 single copy was thrown away or wasted. On the contrary, the people demanded them and 
 struggled to get them. And from the determined look on each face and casual remarks 
 made by the people, one could see that it was good seed well sown. 
 
 It was most interesting, indeed, to stand one side and witness the slow formation of 
 that mighty power. American public opinion. 
 
 Your successful solution of the Brooklyn tax question is certainly the key to the consoli- 
 dation movement, overcoming Brooklvn opposition and slowly but 6urely uniting the cities. 
 
 Very truly yours, Sanders Shanks, Sec'y C. L. 
 
 A highly interesting and instructive pamphlet. — JY. Y. World. 
 
 Thirty thousand copies of Edward C. Graves' consolidation pamphlet: "How taxes 
 in Brooklyn can be reduced one-half" were distributed by the Consolidation League in 
 Brooklyn during the fall campaign of 1893, and greatly aided in the result. — X. T. Recorder. 
 
 We print on another page several columns of extracts from Edward C. Graves' con- 
 solidation pamphlet: "An Appeal to Reason, or How to reduce Brooklyn taxes one-half."" 
 Mr. Graves begins at the other end as it were, and limits his observations to the single point: 
 " How to reduce Brooklyn taxes." Ask any person what he thinks of such possibility and 
 practically the entire body of citizens would reply with Artemus Ward : "it would be a 
 6weet boon." Its style is clear, straight -forward and simple, that of a man who knows 
 thoroughly his subject and believes what he knows. There are no theories or speculations- 
 in Mr. Graves' paper: the facts, nothing but the facts are there, and they must be met if met 
 at all by material of the same sort. — Brooklyn Standard Union.