Chauncey Depew 150th anniversary - Trains Magazine

Chicago Tribune, Sept. 22, 1930

Platt, Depew and Cinders Won 1902 Fight

How Roads Staved Off Electrification

By Arthur Sears Henning

In the historical perspective produced by the passage of nearly thirty years, the events leading to the electrification of the steam railroad terminals of New York City stand forth as dramatic episodes in the age-old struggle between the populace and entrenched privilege.

On the one hand was the public fighting to drive the tracks below ground and the smoke and cinder belching steam locomotives from the tracks, with the railroads footing the entire bill for the change. On the other hand were the railroads resisting, yielding little by little to what they characterized as the attempted despoliation of their property by conscienceless demagogues to further political interests.

The public won in the end, though not without making some concessions to the railroads and not till many a captain on each side had gone down with the scars of the thirty year war upon him.

Tunnel Disaster Big Impulse.

If to any one incident may be attributed the success of the movement for the electrification of the New York railroad terminals it was the Park Avenue tunnel disaster on the New York Central in January, 1902. William K. Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan the elder, and Senator Chauncey M. Depew saw the handwriting on the wall of the New York Central board room.

They knew they must electrify eventually; indeed, they asserted after the accident, which cost the lives of 17 persons, that Mr. Vanderbilt had approved partial electrification plans two days before the catastrophe. But they were determined to electrify in their own way and in their own time, in order to hold the cost down to the minimum.

The Pennsylvania railroad at this time was opening negotiations with the city for a terminal on Manhattan Island to be reached by a long tunnel under the Hudson. The motive power from the terminal through the tunnel to a point well beyond its western end in New Jersey was to be electricity. If any Pennsylvania official had any notion at the time that the public would tolerate steam locomotives in the terminal he was disillusioned after the Park Avenue tunnel accident.

Public Was Suspicious.

In the weeks following the accident the public was not satisfactorily impressed with the professed intentions of the New York Central to electrify. Hence there developed a movement to force electrification by legislative action, which grew like a snowball rolling down hill.

When the action was transferred to Albany there appeared on the scene the figure of a young fighting man to whom in after years Seth Low was to accord the chief credit for bringing about the electrification of the New York terminals. This man was Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who had just been elected to the assembly. Mr. Wainwright had served with distinction in the Spanish- American war. He was to serve with no less distinction In the world war, in which he won the D.S.M. and after which he was appointed assistant secretary of war, retiring from that position in 1923 to enter congress, from which he is now voluntarily retiring.

A First Class Fighting Man.

Young Wainwright proved a fighter in peace as well as in war. He was a New York lawyer, living at Rye, a suburb on the New Haven road that had contributed some of the victims of the Park Avenue tunnel disaster. Rye, like all the other suburbs, was up in arms against the New York Central. which the commuters were denouncing as a soulless corporation twice a day, as they slammed the car window shut in the smoke and cinder choked Park Avenue tunnel. Their denunciations were crystallizing in resolutions and memorials of mass-meetings petitioning the legislature to compel the company to remedy the conditions endangering life and limb in the approaches to its New York terminal.

Young Wainwright leaped to the leadership of the army of commuters storming the legislative citadel. His first shot was the introduction of a resolution providing for a legislative investigation of the tunnel disaster, which never got anywhere.

A Political Heretic.

Col. Wainwright, sitting in his law office the other day, a grizzled, bronzed veteran of war and politics, recalled from the mists or thirty years ago the memory of the tolerant or pitying disregard which he encountered in the legislature when he essayed a move that might be unwelcome to a powerful railroad.

At that time the railroads were in the saddle at Albany, at least in the legislative branch of the state government. Boss Tom Platt was in all his glory. He controlled the legislature. He was the colleague of Senator Depew at Washington. The railroads contributed handsomely to the New York Republican campaign funds distributed by Boss Platt. Senator Depew contributed handsomely whether of his own or of New York Central funds to the campaigns of senators, particularly members of the interstate commerce committee. Uncle Shelby Cullom, who was chairman of that committee, accepted Depew's contributions, but always insisted that Depew never asked a legislative favor therefor.

Resolution Is Buried.

Wainwright was unable to get a hearing on his investigation resolution from the assembly railroad committee, the majority of whose members had been named by Boss Platt and were amenable to his dictates. It looked for the moment as if the New York Central had nothing to fear in the legislative quarter. Boss Platt was on guard.

Mr. Wainwright could recall few of the details of the battle that ensued. I had to dig them out of the record. It appeared that after being rebuffed in the matter of the resolution, he returned to the fray with a bill introduced on Jan. 27, 1902, authorizing the state railroad commission to compel the New York Central to substitute electric for steam operation through the Park Avenue tunnel by a date to be fixed by the regulatory body.

This proposed legislation was enthusiastic indorsed by the commuters in scores of suburban mass-meetings. The suburbs put pressure on their assemblymen to support the bill.

Mayor Low Supports It.

Mayor Seth Low of New York City came out for it on Feb. 4. The most important thing said the mayor, was to fix a date by which time the railroads should be required to complete electrification. He thought the date should be fixed in the legislation instead of being left to the discretion of the railroad commission.

By this time the Wainwright bill had enlisted such widespread popular support that none of Boss Platt's lieutenants in the assembly dared to pigeonhole it. Hearings were accorded the measure by the railroad committee. At the public hearing the New York Central opposed the bill, particularly with reference to the fixing of a time limit on electrification. In the light of engineering testimony presented by the commuters' organizations that two years were ample to allow, Wainwright amended his bill to fix Jan. 1, 1904, as the deadline on completion of the change in motive power.

Railroad Alarmed.

Such was the state of public feeling at the close of these hearings that the railroad directors were thoroughly alarmed. Particularly were they worried by the fact that Mayor Low, rich, influential, formerly president of Columbia, whom Platt claimed to have made mayor, was lined up against them. There was a meeting on the crisis in the New York Central boardroom. It was decided that Morgan and Depew should see what could be done to detach the mayor from the forces supporting the Wainwright bill.

So, it fell out that on Feb. 18 Mr. Morgan and Senator Depew appeared by appointment at the mayor’s office on a mysterious errand and were shown right in. The incident created a sensation. It was the first time that the most famous nose and the most illustrious mutton chop whiskers in America had ever been seen at the city hall. The reporters camped there till the callers emerged but got nothing but a reference to the mayor, who issued a statement that Mr. Morgan and Senator Depew had promised the cooperation of the railroad with the city on the electrification project.

Opposed to Time Limit.

It transpired years later that the two master minds of the New York Central had told Mayor Low that while the railroad was willing to electrify it was opposed to a two year, three year or any other time limit which would enable real estate pirates to hold them up for the additional ground they would need for the expanded terminal. Mr. Low was favorably impressed and forthwith asked Wainwright to agree to postponement of action on his bill, stating that as a result of the call of Messrs Morgan and Depew it looked as if "all would be able to get together.”

Mayor Low was seeking to delay the legislation until after the submission of formal electrification proposals by the railroad company, which Mr. Morgan and Senator Depew had promised him would be forthcoming. Mr. Wainwright consented to a postponement of action for the time being.

Proposal Proves Vague.

Six days later the formal proposition of the company materialized in the shape of a letter to Mayor Low signed by Vanderbilt, Depew, Morgan, and six other directors of the New York Central, in which they protested against the move to compel electrification by law within a prescribed time, and promised that "in lieu of such legislative action" the company would proceed without delay to electrify its suburban service and would extend the electrification to the through service tracks "whenever a practical plan can be prepared which gives reasonable promise of producing satisfactory results."

Mr. Low immediately sent the letter to Chairman Bedell of the railroad committee of the assembly, with the observation that the communication from the company’s directors constituted "a good foundation for the waiving of a fixed date" for electrification of the Park Avenue tunnel.

“In any private relation of life," wrote Mr. Low, "the personal assurance of these gentlemen would be considered as being in every respect as good as their bond."

Wainwright Incensed.

In the meantime Wainwright had offered a substitute bill providing for electrification by May 1, 1905, and allowing the railroad commission to extend this time six months if necessary. Mayor Low's consent to waive the time limit Wainwrlght pronounced "an extaordinary and complete about face within a month."

The change of attitude on the part of Mayor Low doomed the Wainwright bill. Immediately after receiving Mr. Low's letter accepting the proposal Chairman Bedell handed Wainwright a bill providing for electrification within three years unless the railroad commission should grant additional time, and asked that Wainwright introduce it. This bill was acceptable to the New York Central. Wainwright declined, and Bedell eventually induced Assemblyman Apgar, who had been Senator Depew's secretary, to father the measure, which was passed.

Two Bills Contrasted.

Wainwright contended that under his bill the company would be compelled to electrify within three years under penalty for noncompliance, whereas under the Apgar bill the railroad could continue to use steam in the tunnel indefinitely with impunity. He demanded why Mayor Low should be willing to “accept the personal, informal, and unofficial word of a few gentlemen who at present happen to be on the board of directors of the New York Central railroad in place of the state of New York in a matter of this urgency."

“At the bar of public opinion," Wainwright said in a speech to the assembly, "this company has been held responsible for the recent accident. It has been the subject of a presentment by a coroner’s jury. For years the thousands of people who have passed through the tunnel have been placed in danger of their lives. Yet Mr. Low, in view of this record, is willing to let this matter rest upon the pledge of a few gentlemen who are now directors of the company."

Spokesmen for the railroad argued that the Wainwright bill was unreasonable and demagogic and that the Apgar bill represented the utmost compulsion justifiable in view of the difficulties the electrification project presented.

At the same time the New York Central was able to procure the passage of a bill granting it almost unlimited power to condemn adjoining property for the enlargement of its terminal. A great outcry went up against this measure, which was attacked as an unprecedented example of special privilege.

Gov. Odell, who had revolted from the Platt bossdom, vetoed the land condemnation bill, pronouncing it highly objectionable from the viewpoint of public interest. He also vetoed the Apgar electrification bill, on the ground that electrification was dependent upon enlargement of the terminal. Inasmuch as he had vetoed the land condemnation bill and thereby rendered electrification unfeasible he deemed it his duty “in justice to all concerned," he said to veto the electrification bill also.

So, the first session of the legislature following the tunnel accident ended with assurance of electrificatIon resting solely upon the pledge of the company, without time limit.