The Streets Of New York

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Title:     The Streets Of New York
Author: George William Curtis [More Titles by Curtis]

Even the Pan-Americans protest that the streets of New York are dirty. It is very comical, but it is true, that all our marvellous prosperity, our genius of invention, our quickness of wit, and profusion of resource; all our patriotism and pride, our great traditions of liberty and heroism, our free soil, free speech, and free press; and all the force and intelligence of our free government--cannot keep the streets of New York clean. Miss Edwards, the most courteous and friendly of visitors, is compelled to say: "I found on all sides nothing but holes of mud, gutters, and dirt piles, an endless rush and a block of street traffic. There are so many dangers and the state of the highways is such as to make it incomprehensible to English people that enterprising Americans would long endure it."

Miss Edwards is familiar with the dirt of Egypt, which is universal and intolerable, but even that does not mollify or alleviate the awful impression of dirty New York. Then a Pan-American, perhaps from Bogota, from Callao, from Lima, from Santiago, from Buenos Ayres, from Rio de Janeiro, from Guayaquil--cities in which we had not supposed impeccable highways to be--politely flagellates us, and ignominiously discrowns Broadway. "It was impossible not to notice the deplorable condition of the streets. Our carriages plunged terribly into the holes which at frequent intervals were met with, and the wheels at every turn sent whirls of mud, which compelled the passers-by to keep at a respectful distance."

We may indeed reply that this is the fling of a Pan-American. And who, forsooth, is a Pan-American? Is he the superior--nay, does he presume to be the peer--of a North American? Are we not notoriously the greatest nation in the world? Does not our population reduplicate incalculably? Have we not carried civilization from sea to sea? Have we not the largest lakes, the longest rivers, the broadest prairies, the greatest cataract, in the world? And shall the minions of monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics snap their ridiculous fingers at us, and presume to say that the streets of New York are dirty? The idea is preposterous. It is contemptible. Moreover, it is insulting, and the streets of New York are--

It is plain sailing--or slipping, as chance may determine whether we go in the water or the mud--so far, but it is a little difficult to end that sentence in the same key. Let us try another, possibly a little less perfervid. The population of the United States is some sixty millions. Taken altogether they form undoubtedly the most intelligent community, with the highest average well-being, in the world. They are self-governing down to aldermen and coroners. More than in any country at any time in history, the will of the majority of the adult male population determines the government. The city of New York is one of the three or four chief cities of the world. It is confessedly the metropolis of this blessed and absolutely self-governing country, and the streets of New York can't be kept clean.

Is there any possible method of describing the unquestionable greatness and undoubted glory of the country, its resplendent history and its miraculous achievements, in an ascending and cumulative series of epithets and epigrams which shall end truthfully in the resounding allegation, "and the streets of New York are kept clean"? Indeed, is not this little joker worse than that of the thimble? Does he not grin at us from every pile of mud, and laugh out of every hole, and snicker and sneer on every side of the unremoved and apparently irremovable dirt and disorder?

It is absurd, as the boys say, to "blame" this situation upon somebody else--some street commissioner, or scavenger, or other officer, or employé. Nobody is ever guilty of misrule in this country but the rulers, and the rulers are the people. The citizens of New York elect the city officers who are to do the city work which the citizens pay for. They give some of those officers authority to dismiss others who are derelict in their duty, and the governor can deal with the chief officers who do not obey the command of the people. If the taxes are outrageously heavy, if the money is squandered, if the streets are dirty and city government a farce, nobody is to blame but the citizens. They have as good a government as they choose, and the kind of government they desire.

Then they desire dirty streets? Certainly. That is to say, they don't desire clean streets strongly enough to secure them. Then popular government has failed in cities? Rather there are some things in cities in which popular government is not especially interested. If there are two hundred and fifty thousand voters in the city of New York, how many of them really care enough for clean streets and proper municipal administration to spend time and trouble to secure them?

Consider the lilies of the field--that is to say, look at the aldermen and the municipal officers, the representatives in the State Legislature and in Congress that the city of New York elects. Do they represent what we call its intelligence and character? Yet undeniably they are representatives of the majority of the voters, and if that majority be corrupt or stupid, it is either because there are more knaves and fools than intelligent and honest citizens among the voters, or because such citizens do not care to take the trouble to vote and to be represented; in which case the Aldermen and Co. that we see are, morally speaking, true representatives of the city. The minions of monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics, as they bump and wallow and flounder, bespattered and contemptuous, through the streets of New York, may truly say that they are such streets as the citizens desire, because if the people desired clean streets, unless popular government be a failure, they would have them. If the mayor did not appoint officers who would clean the streets, they would require the governor to deal with the mayor.

Does it necessarily follow, because popular government is, upon the whole, the best government, that the governing people desire all good things that government can supply? Liberty they want, and equality, and fair play; but do they, because they are self-governing, desire beautiful buildings and clean streets? Might not a good-natured despot of fine taste and sanitary enlightenment and a sense of order give his dominions nobler public works and a better municipal administration than a republic which is neither tuppenny nor temporary, but in which there is easy and indolent indifference to public beauty and public order?

"Above all," said the English bishop to the young catechumen, "don't mistake zeal for knowledge." Above all, says the good genius of America, don't confound national bumptiousness with patriotism.

[The end]
George William Curtis's essay: Streets Of New York

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