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Memorandum on New York Capitol Patronage
| 1877 |
Early this year an elaborately organized attack on the administration of the State Capitol & expressly upon the revised plan & the architects or Advisory Board suddenly appeared in the legislature and public prints. I was called to Albany & attended several sessions of the Joint Committees of Finance & Ways & Means at which the matter was discussed very violently, with great exaggeration & misstatement. While there I was told by half a dozen men of high & low standing and of both parties that the sole object of the attack was to get patronage. The Chairman of the Capitol Commission said, "There is not a single member of the legislature who is not dissatisfied with us, not even one of our own party — not because of our plans, that is only a pretext; not because of our administration, for that has been unprecedentedly economical and efficient & everybody knows it, but simply because not one thinks we have given him as much patronage as he ought to have had.” Again he said, "I could settle all this opposition in a moment, if I would simply consent to give up the patronage.”
We (E. R. & Co) were asked at the outset to see two members whose favorable influence it was thought desirable to gain. We were, if good opportunity offered, to remove any false impressions they might have adopted. I called on one, a man of wealth and good education who went to the legislature purely from patriotism, a man of the highest character. Within two minutes after I entered his room he introduced the subject of the Capitol by remarking that he had been to the Capitol to see if he could not get a few men put on the work. (The work was wholly stopped by order of the legislature; nevertheless applications were incessant from members who had voted for the stoppage). Eidlitz went to see the other, a young man of good and rapidly rising reputation.
"Well,” said I, "how have you succeeded with him?”
"Oh, he has a man who must be taken care of before he can take any favorable interest in the matter and I had to promise he should be.” Next day he said "Well I have taken care of—’s man and now I find him quite open to argument.”
"How did you take care of him?”
"I told him to go to a stonecutter in New York and gave him $5 to pay his passage & then I wrote to the stone cutter that he must try him and if he could not earn his wages for a week I would pay them. If he is a good man he’ll keep him. If he is not he’s had his chance & can’t complain.”
Of another member of the legislature of uncommonly good standing I asked the President of the D.P.P. "Is he a friend of yours?”
"That depends on how much patronage I have.”
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To Charles Eliot Norton
| My Dear Norton; | 209 W. 46th St. NYork. 15th Feby 1877. |
Miss Theodora arrived this evening to our pleasure, after a rather more than usually fatiguing journey from Boston, (the train being nearly an hour behind time), but apparently unfatigued & in good spirits.
I am very warmly engaged in the fight upon the Capitol just now, having been most of the time during the last two weeks in Albany. The question of tearing down what we have done and returning to the old plan is before a Joint Committee and we have been for several hours daily attending its sessions but have not yet had a chance to say one word for ourselves. Fuller is present with a sharp and brassy lawyer who opened with a very violent and extravagant attack upon us, accusing us of falsehood & knavery; Two or three members of the Committee also took active part against us. The Commissioners replied and so effectively in the end that it became ludicrous & the Committee retreated into Executive Session. It was then agreed, as we are told, to send for Renwick and Hunt, and a country architect who has built a block of stores for one of the members of the Committee & who, as this member said, assured him that our work was barbarous.
Every charge will be abandoned except that of passing from Roman to Romanesque in the exterior and that of "making a dungeon” of the Assembly Chamber. As there is something new in this I will tell you of it. The Assembly Chamber is a hall nearly 150 feet long, 100 wide & 50 high, with two tiers of windows on each of its longer sides—very light. Fuller narrows it at the bottom, shuts out half the light by partitions, hangs a cast iron ceiling over it and covers its walls with Parian marble—viz. a form of "hard finish” with that name, and large plaster "decorations.” In our plan the walls are of three tints of sand stone, (ashlar of the lightest Ohio quarry) with polished red [285] granite columns supporting a grand vaulted ceiling. It is admitted to be a much more conveniently arranged room for its purposes as far as floor and galleries are concerned. But one questions if such a ceiling can be made safe?—Think of sitting right under a great piece of stone without a strap or bolt to hold it up! Then it would be so gloomy with stone walls all around. Moreover, we are told, that some of the Committee think that the sand stone would absorb the air that had been breathed in the room and retain so much of the poisonous exhalations from the lungs of the Assembly that it would soon become dangerous to sit near the walls. Finally Mr Renwick has already told the Chairman of the House Committee that a vaulted ceiling would render the room wholly useless for its purposes on account of its echoes. It would be impossible to speak intelligibly in it.
This chairman of the House Committee, when it was first stated against us that we intended to make a ceiling of stone, interrupted the speaker, with an exclamation of incredulity and when again and again assured that it was so, threw up his hands with a great groan, then sank back, closed his eyes and said "That is enough for me!” Actually, the possibility of such a construction seems to be doubted.
The Committee is strongly against us but so far we have gained in the debate and in the canvass. Apparently the majority of the Democrats are disposed to sustain the Commissioners who are now all state officers of their own party. The reform republicans, the soberer country members, are also at least disposed to give us a hearing, being jealous of the men who are leading against us who are notoriously corrupt & who are after the patronage. How it will be when the authority of the profession is brought against us and the rural member has been sufficiently educated in the cant of schools and styles I don’t know. We are now chiefly anxious that when Hunt & Renwick are examined, we may be present and allowed to question them.
I am glad to hear that you like Richardson’s church.
Fred Law Olmsted.