Though your personal acquaintance with me, (which began just 23 years ago with my appointment as a “Times Commissioner”) has been but slight you probably know that as a public servant I have been in the habit of minding my own business and strictly avoided the service of any political party, clique, faction or individual speculator in legislation. If you would assure the present editor of the Times of this and of your confidence in my sincerity, he would not, I hope, think it impertinent that I should wish him advised that the recent attacks of the Times on the Department of Parks are based in some important respects on a misapprehension as to the facts.

For example, the few defects which are obvious in the drainage and sewerage of the Central Park originated and should have been repaired years ago. The present Commissioners are not only not responsible for them, but as the Times has assured, but may claim credit for being the first to see about their remedy. This they did some months ago.

Again, the water of the lake ran low this summer as it always has done whenever the Department of Works has found it necessary to cut off the supply from the reservoirs. When at the lowest, the forms of vegetation usually seen in stagnant waters made their appearance. They did so at the same moment in the Croton water and, unless you were more fortunate than most citizens you must have seen traces of them even in ice water which had passed through ordinary filters. I have drawn them within three weeks from-pipes in my own chamber. They disappeared from the park waters but little if any later than from those of the reservoirs.

But if the condition of the park lakes in this respect is reprehensible, as it certainly is objectionable, the present Commissioner:; are again entitled to credit at the expense of their predecessors, for they have taken all practicable measures to remedy this evil—measures such as have been neglected under their predecessors.

As to the actual sanitary condition of the park, the general health of the men and women employed upon it should afford the best evidence. As to this, I have, at the request of President Stebbins, made particular enquiries and I am confident, not only that there has been no special suffering this year from malaria but that since operations began 18 years ago, there has been no year in which there has been so little illness. Notwithstanding the statement of the boatman quoted by the Times I must even say that I much doubt if there has this year been a single case of fever and ague originating within the year on the Central Park. I doubt even more whether there is an acre of ground elsewhere in New York or its suburbs in which a man is as little likely to be poisoned [161] by malaria of local origins as he would be at any point within the improved parts of the Central Park. I say that while clearly recognizing some conditions of possible danger still existing, a remedy for which I have long desired.

At the lowest stage of water in the lake I may mention that I repeatedly took my own children out upon it in the evening with no bad consequences.

As to the turf question, all I need to say for my present purposes is that the public has had a longer use of it during the last summer than was ever had under the old Commissioners of the Central Park whose administration has so often been held up as a model by the Times.

Frankness, however, may require me to add something upon a question which it is almost useless to attempt to deal with as one of definite facts, since those most important to a full understanding cannot in this case as in the others be easily established by the inquiry of any intelligent reporter. As a matter, then, in which weight of opinion should be considered I will remind you that I have given the best and largest part of my life to a study of the various elements—sanitary, horticultural, political and social—of this question, visiting and examining and watching closely the management of every notable public park of Europe and America for the purpose. Also that in connection with Mr Vaux I laid out and superintended the formation of both New York and the Brooklyn Parks and have been the professional adviser of both Commissions.

As such I urged the Brooklyn Commission to try the experiment, an experiment which, so far as I know, was at that time essentially untried in this climate, of allowing the public unrestricted use of a certain piece of turf (about five times larger than any piece in the Central Park) which had been specially designed and prepared with reference to this purpose from the outset. Four years ago, also, the Commissioners of the Central Park were induced by Mr Vaux and I to allow the public a much larger use of the turf than had been before thought prudent, (Comptroller Green earnestly protesting against the policy).

I mention my special responsibility in the matter in order that it may be seen that with a certain foundation of knowledge and study I have had a strong bias of personal disposition and that my pride and selfish interests have been all engaged on the side advocated by the Times. I regret nevertheless to say that the manifest results of each experiment are in my judgement not simply unfavorable but absolutely disastrous to the hope that the turf of the Central Park can ever be made use of by the public more unrestrictedly than it has been. I know that this opinion strikes almost all who have not given special study to the matter as preposterous but whenever those who shall be in trust of the Park shall have been led to yield to the popular opinion I shall be glad to have my conviction remembered that not many years will pass before the results will be recognized as a grave public calamity and the unseemly and [162] offensive expedients will be vainly advocated for recovering the ground which has been lost.

Although I have said that this can hardly be made a question of facts, still with a certain amount of labor I am disposed to think it practicable to put the facts, by observation of which my conviction has been fixed, in such connected, exact and statistical form that no intelligent man who would take the trouble to candidly and thoroughly weigh them could avoid adopting the same conclusion.

I trust that you will recognize the motive of this letter which is written without the knowledge of any Commissioner and is, of course, strictly personal and private.