Let me say a few words in explanation of my short reply to your inquiry in the State House this afternoon.

1. The purpose of the Back Bay work is already so far accomplished that there is no longer a nuisance there nor any danger to private property through freshets or tides. The property is already paying a good interest on its cost to the city; the policy and the plan are vindicated. They cannot be set aside to further any private or party interest. There is no danger that they will not be carried out. If the City Council compels the end to be reached two or three years later than it may be profitably, the result will neither be much less valuable nor much more costly.

2. But the result of such causes, as there is every reason to expect will be pursued without some such provision as is offered by the loan project, in the case of the main park and the arboretum, are likely to be very different. For years to come the public will lose more than it will gain from these undertakings; the ultimate outlay upon them will be much greater, the value of the results much less. With the civil service law in operation and such provisions as might be incorporated in a Bill limiting the purposes for which the money to be obtained by loan would be available and requiring the parts of the work not mainly horticultural to be done by contract, the objections that I believe to have the most weight against the proposition might, it seems to me, be overcome.

3. When all that is possible to be done under a loan limited to Back Bay, shall have been accomplished, the result, so long as it stands by itself will be disappointing and unsatisfactory. It will injure the prestige of the Back Bay district. As the opening feature of an obviously extended system of suburban recreation the Back Bay ground will be recognized as a good thing, it will escape the strictures and {…} that, regarded as a local “park”, it will inevitably provoke and the locality will gain solid and enduring advantages from it.

Yours respectfully,