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CHAPTER V
POLITICS AND THE PARK
1861
The Central Theme of Olmsted’s letters during the first half of 1861 is his frustration over Andrew H. Green’s increasing control of the process of construction and maintenance of Central Park. Green’s authority concerning expenditures and his reluctance to spend any more money than absolutely necessary greatly hampered Olmsted’s independence of action at just the time when considerations of art, rather than those of construction and engineering, were coming to the fore. At the same time, Olmsted was being harried by the park commissioners, who ordered him to calculate the past and future cost of park construction but refused to hire the assistants he felt he needed to carry out the task.
In early 1861 Olmsted decided that he could not continue as park superintendent unless the commissioners gave him greater authority to direct the work. His impassioned resignation letter of January 22 expresses his dissatisfaction with the policies of the park board and outlines in detail the way that Green’s reluctance to authorize expenditures had hampered the construction process. In his letter of resignation, Olmsted assumes for the first time the role of an artist whose work as administrator is to realize an artistic conception born of his own imagination. The letter to John Bigelow of February 9 and that to the park board of March 28 fill out the picture of Olmsted’s difficult relations with the commissioners and his determination to gain more control or resign.
Other letters in the chapter reflect the resurgence of Olmsted’s concern with slavery and the South. His letter to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., revives the theme of combatting slavery in the South by circulating antislavery literature in that region. The letters to John Olmsted describe how Olmsted undertook to [296] compile The Cotton Kingdom from the three volumes on his travels in the South. They also show how, by mid-April 1861, secession and the sectional crisis had begun to overshadow his own “deferred crisis” on Central Park.
Rights of Men Employed
CENTRAL PARK.
A copy of this notice is to be kept posted on the outside of every tool cart, and is to be read aloud to each gang once a fortnight.
Rights of Men Employed
Every man should understand that he is employed solely to work, on the Park, for his regular wages, and for no other consideration whatever. Nothing but his labor, compliance with the rules of the Park, and a civil behavior to all engaged on it, can be required of him.
No one has a right to receive a payment, in any form, for having procured any man’s employment, or for retaining any man on the work. If any such payments are made, or any presents or treats are offered, which can be considered as payments or bribes for such favors or services, they will be deemed proper ground for the discharge of the person offering them. Foremen and assistant foremen are forbidden to propose to their men to take tickets for raffles, or to offer them any articles for sale, to act as agents for landlords or boarding house keepers, or to collect debts, due to others, of their men.
It is entirely contrary to the intention of employing men on the Park that any influence of any sort should be brought to bear upon their political opinions or actions. Officers and foremen on the Park are required, therefore, to abstain from talking with the men upon political topics, and are forbidden to solicit their votes for any person or measure, on any pretense whatever. Men are requested to inform the Superintendent if they are ever told that it is their duty to vote one way or another because they are employed on the Park, or that it is necessary for them to vote one way or another in order to be kept at work on the Park.
Men who are absent three working days in succession, or who are habitually irregular in their attendance, will be discharged. But men bearing a good character, who have been absent on account of illness or for other good reasons, more than three days, may obtain from their foreman a certificate, on presenting which at the office, they will, if vacancies exist, be restored.
Men who consider themselves to have been improperly reported, unjustly treated, or otherwise aggrieved by the action of their foreman, or any other [297]officer of the Park, or who wish to make a complaint against any one, or to answer any complaint made against themselves, may call at the Superintendent’s office, between twelve and two o’clock each day, or may address the Superintendent directly, in writing.
Superintendent.