It’s a rather ungrateful task you propose to me, but as I am sure you must have a good reason for your request, and as I happen to feel myself more at liberty to speak my mind freely about the Commissioners than I have before for three years, I shall answer you with entire frankness.

The reports to which you allude are not unfounded. The Commission has in it so many cross-sticks that from the start very little business has been done directly and with a clear understanding and conviction of the rightfulness of its true bearing in the minds of a majority—almost none indeed. In the first place, I got three thousand men at work before half of them really understood that I had the authority for it. No one would take the responsibility of urging their discharge, and before winter we had got such a start that in the spring following, the park became a popular enjoyment, and the public demand to go ahead with the work carried the Commission in some way along with it.

Still, the real business of the Board was done and has always been done indirectly, under some questionable, discretionary authority. There is not a man of leisure in the Commission, and but one man is paid for his services in it—that is, Green. No one but Green knows or will take the trouble to inform himself of the facts bearing on any question of policy sufficiently to argue upon it effectually. Thus Green has it always all his own way in any debate, and therefore, as his own way is generally the most cautious, the safest way, the way least open to superficial objection, gradually this third year the result has come to be that actually nothing is done in the Board unless Green has prepared it. Nothing is carried that Green does not approve. Nine tenths of all the business of the Board [324] has recently been done by reference with power to a committee, and by reference of the Committee with power to Green. And no duty on my part, no appropriation for supplies or labor, has been authorized without a clause “with the approval of the Comptroller” or of a Committee which practically re-delegates the trust to Green.

Really, at last, I have found that I could not act in the smallest detail, absolutely and literally, could not direct a matter involving an expenditure of 12½ cents, without I took the trouble to see Mr. Green personally and perfectly satisfy him that the said expenditure was unavoidable. The practical effect is that my hands are often tied just where it is of the highest importance that I should act with an artist’s freedom and spirit—namely, in the last touches, the finish of my work.

Finally I found that my character & standing, not only as an artist and a manager of works, but as a man of honesty & honor, was at stake. It is unnecessary that I should explain now. Of course I tendered my resignation. The President refused to present it to the Board, but called in an informal meeting of a majority, including Green, acknowledged the justness of my statement of personal wrong, and promised to remedy it as soon as possible. A majority of the Executive Committee being present, in fact, at once authorized my most essential demand, and I am only waiting to secure some record of the general acknowledgement, from the President, to withdraw my resignation.

Now as to the Commissioners: to do justice to Green, he is fully entitled, not only to all the emoluments, but to nearly all the credit, which attaches to the Commission. As Treasurer, not a dollar, not a cent, is got from under his paw that is not wet with his blood & sweat. His tenacity in holding to it operates hardly on some poor fellows who earn the amount of their small bills ten times over in the labor necessary to overcome his constitutional reluctance to pay where it is possible to avoid or postpone or neglect payment. His intentions are good, and [in] spite of his strong natural proclivities, he is honest and sensible in the main. He does, and always has done, a hundred times more work than all the rest together.

Russell, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, works well with Green and has been very useful—has done more for the park than anyone else, although during all the important part of the year he is at Newport. Gray has at times worked hard and effectually to carry important points for the park, both in & out of the Board. He is much interested & moves always impetuously, often erratically and inconsiderately. Grinnell is excellent, what we have of him. He rarely stays out a meeting & never sees the park. Hutchins does not attend one meeting in fifty. Few people in New York know so little of the park. Blatchford is a capital presiding officer, dispatches routine business rapidly and well. He is nothing—or does nothing—out of his seat. Butterworth is fearfully crotchety and has done more harm than good in the Board. Belmont & Fields have both been doing all the harm they could from the adoption of the plan. They [325] have thrown every possible obstruction in the way of business, and this with direct and avowed intention. Of the two, Fields has the most generous and manly impulses and is the least malicious. Belmont has been an unmitigated nuisance as regards the business of the Board. Stebbins is the only man of strong good taste in the Commission. He is valuable on that account, but is too busy with other matters and can’t be depended on. Strong has left his resignation, I believe. He has been a useful Commissioner in spite of his froth.

I think there have been some advantages attending the number of the Commission, but it is now unquestionably desirable that it should be reduced. I wish it could be made three instead of six. Either of the Democrats after Green & Stebbins will be sure to weaken it, and none of the Republicans will do anything except Blatchford & Russell. I doubt if Grinnell has been in the park but once since his appointment, and when in the Board room he scarce takes his eyes off the clock. He has a capital business instinct though & never delays anything. With the “Charity” business & the Insurance business & a yacht & a home in the country, it’s perhaps a wonder that he ever gives a thought to the park. But it’s much the same with all the rest. Except Green, who dines with me about every other Sunday, I don’t see a Commissioner on the park on an average once in two months.

If you ask how it happens that they have, on the whole, been so successful in their administration of the park-affairs, unquestionably the answer is, that that is the best government which governs the least. It is evident, however, that as the park approaches & takes on in points its finished condition, and as it comes more into use, that a little more sympathy with the daily wants of those who use it is very much wanted in the Board. We have recently had, day after day, from 75,000 to 100,000 people in the park daily. Not one of the Commissioners is able to testify from personal observation of the wants of, or of the restraints required by, this multitude. Of the intense anxiety with which I sometimes watch the movements of this throng, no one in the Board has the most remote perception. The chief good which I hope to see result from the reduction is an increased individual responsibility & consequent interest & knowledge of the wants of the public in the park, among the Commissioners.

Glancing back at what I have written, some of it appears, I’m afraid, rather flippant than frank. If so, it is because I know that I can trust to your personal knowledge to supply what is lacking to complete truth.