StevenWarRan

Walter Arndt: My Hero.

2012-02-01T07:35:00.004-05:00

From the: 1910 The New York Red Book

Albany Legislative Correspondents

The Associated Press
John F. Tremain, Manager
Edward R. Ankler
Frederic T. Cardoze
George H. Boothby
S. C. Dermott
Frank E. Vaughn

United Press Associations
Jos. J. Judd, Manager
F. J. Lockner
Robert A. Delaney
H. E. Cole

Albany Times-Union, F. A. Tierney
Albany Times-Union, Harry Gott
Albany Evening Journal, W. H. Brainerd
Albany Evening Journal, John C. Crary
Albany (Evening?) Journal, William H. Owen
Albany Argus, George E. Griffin
Albany Argus, H. W. Smith
(Albany) Press-Knickerbocher, John Roger
Albany Freie-Blatter, Albert Kaestner

Brooklyn Standard-Union, Joseph J. Early
Brooklyn Citizen, George M. Janvrin
Brooklyn Eagle, Chas. F. Kerrigan
Brooklyn Times, H. F. Guest
Brooklyn Freie Presse, Otto Cruewell

Buffalo Times, W. A. Marakle
Buffalo Express, S. H. Evans
Buffalo News, F. G. Whiston
Buffalo Commercial, H. W. Smith
Buffalo Courier, J. E. MacBride

Glen Falls Star, J. T. McNally
Little Falls Times, Harold J. Hichman
Lockport Sun, A. E. Hoyt

New York American, J. E. MacBride
New York American, Louis D. Lang
New York Herald, W. H. Brainerd
New York Herald, Don Martin
New York Evening Journal, Samuel J. T. Coe
New York Evening Mail, H. C. McMillan
New York Evening Post, W.T. Arndt
New York Evening Sun, W. E. Harg
New York Sun Bureau, Jos. L. McEntee, Manager
New York Press, P. T. Rellihan
New York Times, W. Axel Warn
New York Tribune, F. W. Crone
New York World, Fred W. Wose
New York World, Louis J. Seibold
New York World, Chas. S. Hand

Rochester Democrat Chronicle, W. A. Marakle
Staats Zeitung, Franz Richter
Syracuse Post Standard, Fred W. Wose
Troy Record, George W. Franklin
Troy Press, E. C. Cuyler
Utica Press, E. C. Cuyler

January 2, 1932, New York Evening Post, Obit,
WALTER T. ARNDT
One of New York's most useful citizens is lost in the death of Walter Tallmadge Arndt. With the background of a wide and exact knowledge of public affairs gained in his years of distinguished service as Albany correspondent of the EVENING POST, he fought valiantly in one position after another for higher standards in politics and government. If his most notable activities were those in connection with his duties as secretary of the Citizens Union, he also played an important part in the Constitutional Convention of 1915 and in the historic work of the State Reorganization Commission, of which he was secretary. At the time of his death he was secretary of the Committee of One Thousand. In all these places he displayed a practical ideality which left its impress not on upon legislation but also upon the framework of government and was a dynamic force in enlightening public opinion.

The story of the Arndts: the life, antecedents and descendants of Bernhard Arndt who Emigrated to Pennsylvania in the Year 1731, By John Stover Arndt, Philadelphia: Christopher Sower Co., 1922; page 370.

"[U]ntil a wonderful change occurred during the last few days of the session."

2012-01-24T18:15:00.000-05:00

March 14, 1866, New York Times, FROM THE STATE CAPITAL.; OUR ALBANY LETTER. Debate on the New Capitol Bill--Speeches by Messrs. Cochrane and D. P. Wood -- A Charge of Fraud, [extract]

The bill appropriating $500,000, to enable Commissioners, to be appointed by the Governor, to commence building a new Capitol, has occupied much of to-day's session in the House. It was supported in an able speech by Mr. Cochrane, of Albany, who exhausted all arguments against the inconveniences and defects of the old building, and the reasons which impel the people of Albany to ask for a new edifice more in keeping with the power, wealth and importance of the Empire State.

D. P. Wood, of Onondaga, replied with much earnestness and ability, arguing that taxation had already reached an unprecedented figure, and that the present was an exceedingly inopportune time to ask for a new Capitol. He argued that it was only sought to commit the State to the project by making an appropriation, however small, in order that it might be urged hereafter that the work had been commenced and must be gone through with. He estimated that, including the amount of town and county obligations for payment of bounties, which would, with interest, reach over thirteen millions to be raised this year, the annual tax for 1866, State and local, would amount to the enormous sum of $24,600,000. Was any tax ever before imposed upon the people of this State calling for twenty-four millions in a single year? Was this the time to build a new Capitol? Would an individual build a new house with an immense debt hanging over him? Mr. Wood further charged that a base fraud was perpetrated in the passage of the bill last year. As that bill passed the House, it simply located the new Capitol in Albany, but made no appropriation whatever. When it got into the Senate, however, by some manipulation, it contained another section, which the House never acted on, making an appropriation of $10,000. Mr. W. showed by the journals of the two houses that his charge was correct.

Progress was finally reported on the bill, which has been made the special order for next week, Wednesday. Had the vote been taken to-day, the Capitol Bill would have been defeated by a large majority. Such, however, was the condition of affairs last year, until a wonderful change occurred during the last few days of the session. Possibly a similar change may yet be brought about by the Albanians who are wonderfully clamorous for the bill, and who, it is charged, have raised the "sinews of war" to put it through.

Floor Plans

2012-01-18T01:19:00.002-05:00

The Funeral of Old Tammany

2012-01-10T09:51:00.000-05:00

The sort of thing the New York State Library should have been filled with if had it ever been a "real" library, legitimated foremost by a proper focus on chronicling and protecting the political history of the State. Instead, it was the whim and the feeding trough of a revolving door of self-aggrandizing gangsters, originally at the service of a landed aristocracy, then in cahoots with robber barons and corporate thieves. Given the balance of corruption that is America's two-party politics, it's doubtful any attempt was ever made to document criticism of the system, unless of course, it was to gather up all the original and primary sources and then torch them in the night, and then sing gleefully about it a few weeks later at an annual political roast held by a group of Albany legislative journalists.

Title: The Funeral of Old Tammany. Printed Broadsheet, published in New York, by H. R. Robinson, circa 1836.

For sale by James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, in New York City. Price: US $1250.00

The Funeral of Old Tammany. Printed broadside showing a funeral procession with the hearse in the lead being driven by the editor of the Courier and Enquirer. Among the mourners are also the editors for The Times and The Truth Teller. From various of the mourners are inscriptions inside balloons. To the right in the background is a view of Tammany Hall with a flag at half mast. Printed under the title is "This mournful ceremony took place in the City of New York on the 10th day of November 1836. The lamented individual had been long subject to a vast complication of disorders, whic[h] though combatted with great skill and perseverance by, Doctors, Humbug, Monopoly & Office, at last carried him off. The symptoms became extremely alarming on Robinson, H[enry]. R

The comments of the mourners include a fireman in the background asking "Who killed Old Tammany?" Another fireman beside him answers "James Gulick." This is a reference to the excitement of the election of Tammany opponent James Gulick, deposed Chief of the Fire Department, to the office of Register. Relatively little is known about Henry R. Robinson. He was located at 48 and 52 Courtlandt Street in New York in 1836-7, where he worked largely as a caricaturist. His primary output was graphic humor and political cartoons, and he drew on stone most of the unsigned prints he published. His cartoons "are important, and spirited, have long speeches in 'balloons,' often appear colored, but are sometimes difficult to understand without delving into detailed history of the politics of the times." (Peters, American on Stone, pp. 337-8.) The only known historical reference to Robinson is in Frederick Hudson's History of Journalism in America (1873), which notes that Robinson "lined the curbstones and covered the old fences of New York with his peculiarly characteristic caricatures during Jackson's and Van Buren's administrations . ." Image area is approx. 19 1/4" l x 11 1/4", in 27 1/4" x 15 3/4" frame. . Some minor chipping, trimmed with minor loss to text, inked stamp in upper right corner above Tammany Hall ("From the United States Bazaar. No. 324 North Market St. Albany N.Y."), otherwise a very nice piece. See A History of American Graphic Humor, pp. 171-2. Bookseller Inventory # 234396

January 4, 2012, Associated Press / Albany Times Union, Key NY document from 1775 on display at Capitol, by Chris Carola,

I Don't Know What the Naked Intergenerational Male Thing In Masonry Is All About, But I Think It's Hot.

2012-01-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

Draper's Mentally Ill Education Building. "The Wall Between Church and State."

2012-01-10T08:03:00.000-05:00

Designs

2012-01-09T02:22:00.012-05:00

At what stage did the fifth-story windows in the corner towers get built with the three pairs of small square windows in each face along with that fat band of masonry that looks almost like a balcony?

As built, it differs from the symmetrical treatment of five windows as seen on the plan below. All the work was ripped out subsequently

The American Architect and Building News, March 11, 1876

SERIAL ARCHIVE LISTINGS for The American Architect

American Architect and Building News. (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.) Various issues- 1876-1878.
Library of Congress Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room.

American Architect and Building News. NA1.A322 Microfilm 05422 (1876-1908) MicRR

2012-01-08T19:25:00.004-05:00

Fate of the New York State Collections in Archaeology and Ethnology in the Capitol Fire.

2012-01-08T18:10:00.018-05:00

January-March, 1911, American Anthropologist, Vol. 13, Part 1, pages 169-171. Fate of the New York State Collections in Archaeology and Ethnology in the Capitol Fire.

— In the New York State Capitol conflagration of March 29 the archeological and ethnological collections of the State Museum were almost totally destroyed by fire and water. The collections were installed in vertical wall and square alcove cases about the corridors at the head of the western staircase. The location seemed to insure singular protection from fire, there being nothing inflammable in the vicinity save the molding that held the cases together. The damage seems to have been done by the long sheets of flame that burst through from the large corridor windows of the library bindery on one side and of the Education Department offices on the other. The immense amount of inflammable material there fed the flames once established and the draft caused by the breaking of the heavy plate windows that opened out into the hall about the staircase carried the blast directly against the cases, shattering the glass and exposing the specimens within. The archeological cases suffered most from breakage brought about by the crumbling of the sandstone ceilings that had been subjected to the intense heat.

The falling of the ceilings in great blocks broke the shelves that had so far resisted the fire and spilled the specimens into the water and debris. The continual dropping of masses of cracked rock from the walls made work of rescuing valuable objects most hazardous. However, despite the choking smoke, the sudden blasts of heat, and the falling walls the majority of the more valuable articles, untouched by the fire, were carried to safety. The ethnological exhibits consisted principally of three large collections; one made by Lewis H. Morgan before 1854 and embracing some 200 objects, the Harriet Maxwell Converse collection of about 350 specimens, and the collection made by Arthur C. Parker embracing nearly 200 rare objects, exclusive of silver ornaments. The famous Morgan collection of old Iroquois textiles and decorated fabrics went up in the first blast of flame, and the cases were burned to their bases. About 50 Morgan specimens were in the office of the archeologist of the museum for study purposes, and fortunately have been preserved. The Converse collection of silver articles was rescued intact.

Many of the less inflammable objects were rescued during the fire and carried out of the danger zone. None of the wampum belts of the Six Nations was injured.

One of the odd features of the calamity was that hardly a single object connected with the ceremonies of the Iroquois totemic cults or the religious rites was injured. The hair of the 30 medicine masks that hung in a line across the westernmost cases was not even singed.

Of the 10,000 articles on exhibition, including about 3500 flints, only 512 have been identified by their catalog numbers. One thousand other articles, more or less ruined by the action of flame and water, will entail a great deal of work to identify. In this connection it is interesting to note that catalog numbers applied directly to the surface of the stone, bone, or clay specimen with waterproof ink, withstood the action of fire and water better than the numbers painted on white varnish or on paper labels. Even when the object had been considerably heated the ink number on the surface was still legible. Paper labels proved valueless especially those with typewritten numbers. Those with numbers written in waterproof ink came through better. Arthur C. Parker.

March 27, 2011, Associated Press / Huffington Post, 1911 Fire Commemorated In NY, by Chris Carola,

State Regains Houdon Bust of Washington.

2012-01-07T09:19:00.022-05:00

You may want to start reading at the bottom of this blog, with a New York Times article published on a Thursday preceding the Monday in 1929 when the Binghamton Press broke a story about the "recovery" of a missing bronze bust of George Washington, which had vanished from New York State's possession 18 years before, looted in 1911 following an apparent incendiary act which destroyed much of the historical and legislative record housed in the State Capitol at Albany. In the Times' article, the newly-elected Governor, Franklin Roosevelt announces a proposed $100 million bond initiative to build a campus of state office buildings in downtown Albany. A tactic to sweeten the plan appears to be his inclusion of a $3,500,000 public amenity, a structure to house a public art museum, as part of the multi-block redevelopment. Then in what can only be described as very odd timing and synchronicity, four days later Roosevelt is again in the press depicted on the receiving end of a proffer of the prodigal artwork's return at the hands of a retired legislative reporter from another newspaper, the New York Evening World, who acts as both the agent of the object's return, and as an intermediary with a condition--that whoever had expropriated the bronze, their identity must remain a secret---from the press, public and law enforcement, in any event---even should this public-spirited volunteer face criminal sanction for his effort.

The man, Irwin Thomas, worked as a legislative reporter in the Capitol at the time of the fire 18 years earlier, where Roosevelt also was present as a newly elected 28-year-old State Senator leading an insurgent charge against the entrenched Tammany machine's choice of a hand-picked U.S. Senator. That implausible dynamic went on for over 70 days, and some observers speculated that on the morning of the fire a "boozy" Democratic caucus in the Assembly Chamber lasting well past midnight might have played an accidental role in starting the conflagration. The New York Times article covering that evening's caucus is datelined March 29, 1911, 1:30 A. M. and says the legislators "adjourned at 12:50 o'clock this morning until 10 o'clock to-day." The fire took lite about half an hour after the Times' correspondent had filed his story and presumably left home for bed.

The Binghamton Press has Roosevelt responding to the art work's return by saying, "'I shall place [the bust] in my office at the capitol until we get a state museum, where it will have a proper place. I was here during the capital fire and remember the loss of the bust. The state appreciates its return.' The Governor expressed his thanks and said he would have it placed in the Executive Chamber in the Capitol until a State Museum should be erected." The Times writing the following day, carried a verbatim message: "the Governor expressed his thanks and said he would have it placed in the Executive Chamber in the Capitol until a State Museum should be erected."

Roosevelt was ignoring the fact that there already was a publicly accessible State Museum occupying a full floor in the State Education Building next door to the Capitol. And both the Binghamton Press, which said the piece "had not been destroyed as supposed," and the Times' summation that the "general opinion leaned to the more charitable view that the valuable bust had been melted to a lump by the heat," ignore a crucial piece of evidence contained in a news photograph that the iconic bronze had indeed survived the fire unscathed. Although many news reports mention the extensive looting of valuables from the Capitol in the aftermath of the blaze, no paper mentioned a word in print about the disposition of this famous bust.

Perhaps that was because it had to have been an inside job---lifted by either a fireman, a National Guardsman, or a pertinent government employee, who were the only people having access to the scene of the actual destruction. Its representation in a news photograph in the first place seemed calculated to serve as a coded talismanic signal, and both that miscue, and the resulting silence, point to an enmeshment of the news media with the political establishment they cover. Not a single newspaper dared hint at what would appear to be obvious questions concerning a possible case of arson, which taken together adds up to a vast conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers of millions of dollars, but more importantly, a manipulation of the authentic historical record, and hence, the very nature of reality.

None of these players could fall into the category of a "useful idiot" where a dense denial might force an unwilled participation into the intricacies of a deceptive plot. But this exposure of one of the biggest names in our national history as being a prime player in a very crooked game leads directly to other examples of similar crimes, and inextricably to the unaddressed arsons that took place on September 11th, 2001. What comes next, pray tell? More Jewish or Dutch lightning?

February 4, 1929, Binghamton Press, State Regains Houdon Bust of Washington.
Famed Sculpture, Stolen at Capital Fire, Found Near Binghamton. HIDDEN ON A FARM
Irwin Thomas of Evening World Restores Rare Work to Gov. Roosevelt.

After being buried in a farmyard near Binghamton for a decade and a half, a valuable Houdon bust of George Washington, stolen during the state capitol fire, March 29, 1911, was brought to Govenor Roosevelt today by Irwin Thomas, Legislative correspondant of the New York Evening World.
Mr. Thomas learned three years ago that the bust, said to be worth more than $10,000 had not been destroyed as supposed but had been carried out of the blazing building during the excitement.
He questioned relatives of the supposed "collector" and learned the bronze had been given into the custody of a farmer about 18 miles from Binghamton. He went there and persuaded the custodian he should return the "white elephant" into the keeping of the state.

The name of the man who held the bust during all those years is kept secret by Mr. Thomas, who said to the Governor when he turned the art treasure over at the mansion today:

"If I am charged with receiving stolen property, I shall expect executive clemency."

The bust was identified today by Dwight Gooway, Legislative Librarian, [the Legislative reference section was headed by William E. Hannan during this period.] as the one which stood in the old library prior to the fire. He was greatly interested in this find, as was Governor Roosevelt.

"I am mighty happy to get this back," said the later, "I shall place it in my office at the capitol until we get we get a state museum, where it will have a proper place. I was here during the capital fire and remember the loss of the bust. The state appreciates its return."

A bust of Lafayette by Houdon was sold in New York City last week for more than $9,000. It is believed the Washington bust is worth more than $10,000 and that its desirability has been enhanced by its queer recent history.

Jean Antoine Houdon came to the United States with Benjamin Franklin in 1775, especially to make the Wahington bust. The one returned by Mr. Thomas is made from life and is one of a handful extant. t was made at Mount Vernon.

The man who took the bust from the capitol, it is understood, tried unsuccessfully to dispose of it with New York City art collectors, but they refused to take the stolen piece.

If you study these two images closely you'll see that when the firemen's faces are turned away from the camera so is the face of Washington. Likewise, when the firemen face the camera the bust has been turned to face as well, which indicates a self-conscious art direction not in keeping with spontaneous news photography at the epicenter of disaster.

And for the historical record--the Houdon bust of George Washington sat on top of the telephone booth near the main entrance to the Central Reading room. It looks as though it were brought down and set on the table in preparation for heisting it if nothing else.

Finally, Mercer and Weiss have been of some use to the truth. This development could easily have slipped down the memory hole, coming as it did in a coda eighteen years after the Fire That Dared Not Speak Its Name. Nobody could confuse such abject thievery with souvenir or relic hunting. That such a prominent and symbolic object went quietly missing is evidence that the state capitol was open to be stripped of anything of value in the aftermath of the higher-level arson with its painfully obvious agenda. No trespasser took a fall for this systematic looting of the treasures therein, but at least someone had to give something back nearly two decades later.

The yellowed images are from 'Sparks! From the New York State Capital Fire, a two-bit pack of misspelled "Sovenir Views" which came out shortly after the fire, and which, say Mercer and Weiss, with their high-level academic positions and utter lack of irony, "remains one of the chief sources for research on the fire." I might have preferred the official findings resulting from a promised full-scale investigation, which didn't happen.

Adding insult to injury, Mercer and Weiss report that "In 1941, [the bust] was returned to the state library, [where it] is now prominently displayed in the Manuscripts and Special Collections research room."

February 5, 1929, New York Times, ROOSEVELT ACCEPTS WASHINGTON BUST,
He Thanks Newspaper Man for Recovering Houdon Life Cast Stolen in 1911 Fire. IT WAS IN STATE LIBRARY. Statue, Traced to Binghamton Barn, Will Be Kept in Executive Chamber of the Capitol. RECEIVES LONG-LOST BUST.

ALBANY, Feb. 4.--Missing for eighteen years and long ago given up as destroyed in the Capitol fire of 1911, the famous life cast Houdon bust of George Washington was returned to the possession of the State today.

It was put into the hands of Governor Roosevelt at the Executive Mansion by Irwin Thomas, legislative correspondent for The New York Evening World at the time of the fire. He traced its possessor and compelled its return.

The bust formerly stood on a pedestal in the State Library, which was located on the third floor of the Capitol. One night in the Winter of 1911 fire broke out inthe library and many articles of value disappeared in the resulting confusion. Governor Roosevelt was a State Senator at that time.

General opinion leaned to the more charitable view that the valuable bust had been melted to a lump by the heat. Even those associated with activities at the Capitol had long since forgotten the incident, however, when Mr. Thomas three years ago was informed that a man had carried away the bust in his arms.

On one vacation the newspaper man retraced the thief's course. He learned that after the unlawful possessor had unsuccessfully sought to sell the bust, he had become afraid and had caused it to be hidden in a barn near Binghamton, N. Y.

Mr. Thomas forced the surrender of the bust to him in Albany last week. When he brought it to the Executive Mansion today and related the story of its recovery, the Governor expressed his thanks and said he would have it placed in the Executive Chamber in the Capitol until a State Museum should be erected.

The Washington bust is stamped with the words, "Houdon life cast." It is supposed to be an exact resemblance of the first President and noticeably differs from the more idealized portraits of him which are commonly seen.

The sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon, came to the United States from France in 1788 and was the President's guest at Mount Vernon. A marble statue of Washington, which he also fashioned, is in the Virginia State Capitol at Richmond.

January 31, 1925, New York Times, $10,000,000 PLAN STATE OFFICES,
Commission Recommends to Governor Group of Buildings Crowning Capitol Hill. INCLUDE NEW MUSEUM. Five-Story Structure. Cost $6,500,000 Would Be Principal Unit. $100,000,000 IS INVOLVED. Program Calls for $10,000,000 Bond Issue Every Year for Ten Years If Voters Approve.

ALBANY, Jan. 30.—The expenditure by the State of $10,000,000 for a group of buildings on, which with the Capitol as their center, would dominate the city and crown Capitol Hill with a display worthy of the Empire State, in addition to furnishing needed office facilities for expanding activities and checking the encroachments of business, is recommended to Governor Smith in a report, made public today, by a special commission which has been considering such a project for a year.

A five-story office building of classical design to match the Educational Building and to cost, with land, $6,500,000, and a structure to house the State Museum, now located in the State Library section of the Department of Education Building, are included in the project which would involve the purchase by the State of an entire residential block to the south of the Capitol building and the better part of two blocks to the north and west. The proposed museum would cost, with the site included, $3,500,000, according to an estimate furnished by the commission.

$100,000,000 Bond Issue Involved.

Ability of the State to carry out this proposal without delay is contingent on the willingness of the present Republican Legislature to lend its approval to the $100,000,000 bond issue for permanent improvements which had been urgently recommended by Governor Smith. The Republican Assembly of last year fell in with the Governor.

An Awesome Reception.

2012-01-07T01:03:00.014-05:00

To hear the tape recording that you'd listen to if you were walking through a self-guided tour of the actual Capitol, play the following link in a new tab while silently reading the text below to yourself. You'll hear a testy female narrator; an earnest current "State Architect" of New York, Jim Jamieson; as well as a crusty actor giving voice to the artist William de Leftwich Dodge. Their effort at rationalizing the appalling architecture and weird interior decoration only makes matters worse, in what was a doomed fiasco starting in its planning stages, as evidenced by the mess of allegorical nonsense. The subsequent re-purposing of this space by modern political occupants seems a lost cause at justifying something looking both expensive and half-aborted, which is a true reality of the Capital building at Albany.

LINK: Governor's Reception Room.

Stop 16: Governors' Reception Room

NARRATOR:
This is one of the most beautiful and colorful spaces in the entire Capitol, with a history to match. Originally, it was meant to be an open space, part of a domed tower that never got built. Plans were made to remove the floor you're standing on to create a 40-foot-high rotunda with murals, meaning you would have viewed the ceiling above you from much farther away. Again, here's Capitol Architect Jim Jamieson:

JIM JAMIESON:
"They hire William de Leftwich Dodge, to paint murals. He paints these murals over a period of years from 1920 to 1925, even though they're actually not installed till 1929. That should be a buzz year – 1929 – because now we have the murals installed, but we have the Great Depression. There's not enough money to complete the project. So even though the ceiling and murals are in, they never remove the floor. So we're in the top half of what should be a two-story space, in an area where the floor should be removed, but it's not."

NARRATOR:
The Dodge murals consist of 25 paintings on canvas that are attached to the plaster and four decorated areas that were painted directly onto the plaster—the bright blue sections with flags and stars. The murals depict the military history of New York and commemorate battles with the English, the Dutch, the French, the Iroquois, through to the Civil war and World War One. The artist used his daughter Sara as the model for the central figure: the spirit of New York and the Goddess of Harmony—a symbol of both war and peace. In her memoirs, Sara recalls her father saying:

ACTOR:
"The subject is the history of New York State, treated allegorically. In the central ceiling panel is a fourteen-foot female figure representing New York, with one hand on the state's shield and the other on a sword. She is supposed to be symbolic of all industrial, educational, humanitarian, and militaristic activities. I don't know how in thunder I'm going to put all that in one damn figure, but that will be the idea."

NARRATOR:
If you look to the around the central figure, you will also see the representations of the five nations of the Iroquois. Additionally, naval battle scenes are painted in gray in the corners. They hang above images of Theodore Roosevelt, Revolutionary War General Richard Montgomery, Civil War General Kemble Warren, and the Unknown Soldier. Today this room serves as the Governor's Reception Room for visitors and guests of the Executive Chamber. Beyond the glass doors is the working office of the Governor and his staff.

Think of the collective mind that was halted from building a high tower due to an unstable foundation, which then conceives of taking out the very floor beneath them---as if the Capitol needed yet another grandiose spectacle of wasteful utilization. Remember that this is all taking place only a few years after the destruction by arson of the State Library in the western wing, when the grand, 50-foot high central reading room was subdivided into two floors, whose rooms on each were still an unwieldy 25-feet high. This sort of mentation seems to place the expenditure of an appropriation ahead of the rational objective of creating something beautiful and long-lasting, And though they're loath to admit it, here is a shrine to comeuppance.

The 82nd Annual State Library Report, for 1899, on page 62, quotes H. H. Bender, the Superintendent of Public Buildings, who had been directed by the State Legislature to report on the Library's current and anticipated space needs in the Capitol. Although the Library had occupied its quarters for barely a single decade, the winds of political change seemed about to blow:

"It should be borne in mind that if the location of the state library is changed from its present quarters, all the metal shelving, book cases, elaborate carving, and special appliances, extending, as they do, through two or more stories, with numerous galleries, must be removed and the regular floor levels of the building carried through the space they now occupy, to adapt those quarters to other purposes; and that but an inconsiderable proportion of such fixtures and appurtenances could be utilized elsewhere."

An article in the Corning, N.Y., Evening Ledger on April 28, 1949, describes a $5,000,000 job underway to renovate "the massive old state capitol," which practically rebuilt the "third, fourth and fifth floors of the 66-year-old building," and principally consisted of "installing mezzanines throughout the three floors to utilize some of the space which up to now has been unused because of extremely high ceilings." The writer explained that the "Representatives formerly had been crowded into huge, high-ceiling "workrooms" throughout the building."

[Original source. April 28, 1949, The Evening Ledger [Corning, N.Y.] Page 14, Push $5,000,000 Job Of Renovating State Capitol, by Bill Davidson, with a transcript of text at Google Docs.]

On the Surface, the State Can be Such a Strict Sugar Daddy.

2012-01-06T22:41:00.007-05:00

It's no wonder that the little people have to sometimes sacrifice their scruples if they choose to succeed. It's all a Ponzi scheme anyhow, rigged for only the top one-percent to glean the glory returns. As for the rest of us, barring cooperative Masonry perhaps, we get war, poverty, incarceration, or just ennui. Let's make a fundamental change in this system for the better, shall we?

July 18, 1901, Wyoming County Times, Laws of New York State--By Authority.
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

For painting and other incidental repairing necessary to the preservation of the buildings and premises in charge of the superintendent of public buildings, and to be expended in his discretion, the sum of five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For additional new flooring, painting, concreting, furnishing and further necessary labor and expenses, for the completion of the improvement and betterment of Geological and Agricultural hail, to be expended in the discretion of the superintendent of public buildings, with the approval of the state architect, the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For the repairing, improvement and renovation of the toilet room on the first floor south side of the capitol, and the ladies' toilet room adjacent thereto and for the necessary repairing of other toilet rooms in the capitol, the sum of, two thousand six hundred dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For repairing the sidewalks and driveways about the executive mansion, and for furnishings to replace those worn out or broken, the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For raking out joints and caulking and pointing up the same and for cleaning the granite work generally on the. east, north and south approaches of the state capitol, the sum of three thousand dollars or so much thereof as may b e necessary. For compensation of the secretary to the trustees of public buildings, one thousand dollars. For carpets and furnishings for the senate chamber, the lieutenant-governor's anteroom, the senate finance committee room, one passageway and three lobbies connected with the senate, the sum of four thousand two hundred dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For alterations, additions, building of cases and partitions, plumbing, decorating, furnishing, electric lighting and all other necessary labor and materials, to equip rooms in the state capitol for the state tax commission, the state commission of prisons, the fish, forest and game commission, the civil service commission, the department of labor and the state architect, made necessary by the consolidation of state departments, the sum of ten thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For extending a mezzanine floor over the assembly elevators, in the state capitol, connected with the rear lobby of the assembly chamber, and raising the present cases therein, and all other necessary labor and materials, the sum of ten hundred and. fifty dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary.

July 19, 1901, Penn Yan Democrat, State Laws, No. 4. Page 2, Column 5,
Building.

For salary of janitor, nine hundred dollars; watchman, eight hundred forty dollars; two messengers at six hundred dollars and five hundred forty dollars respectively; clerk, four hundred eighty dollars; and for services of elevator men, porters, laborers and cleaners, for the care and cleaning of the regents office, college and high school departments, state library and other rooms occupied by the university of the state of New York in the basement, on the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh floors of the capitol, eight thousand five hundred dollars; for power and for running two elevators and for necessary repairs, fittings and supplies, to be paid on vouchers duly authenticated by the regents as for their other expenses, five thousand five hundred forty dollars; for new shelving and for new card catalog case, two thousand dollars.

Column 6, State Library.

For salary of senior librarian, two thousand four hundred dollars; law librarian, two thousand one hundred dollars; education Iibrarian, two thousand one hundred dollars; reference librarian, two thousand dollars; director's assistent, one thousand eight hundred, dollars; sociology librarian, one thousand, eight hundred dollars; archivist (manuscript division), one thousand two hundred dollars; sub-librarian (reference) one thousand two hundred sixty dollars; head cataloger, one thousand two hundred dollars; head classifier, one thousand two hundred dollars; sub-librarian (accession), one thousand two hundred dollars; one assistant, one thousand two hundred dollars; two assistants, nine hundred dollars each; two assistants, eight hundred forty dollars each; three assistants and one shelf clerk, seven hundred twenty dollars each; one clerk, six hundred sixty dollars; four clerks, one messenger and one page, six hundred dollars each; one clerk, five hundred forty dollars; one sub-cataloger and six clerks, four hundred eighty dollars each; seven clerks, three hundred sixty dollars each; and for temporary services and for keeping the library open evenings and holidays (except July and August), and for maintaining the duplicate department, and for fittings supplies, printing, and for other expenses pursuant to chapter three hundred seventy-eight of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-two, three-thousand two hundred dollars, of which sum not more than two thousand dollars shall be used for temporary services; also fees of one thousand dollars or so much thereof as may be received in this account, involving no expense to the state under section forty-nine of chapter three hundred seventy-eight of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-two.

For books, serials and binding, pursuant to chapter three hundred and seventy-eight of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-two, eighteen thousand seven hundred dollars, of which sum not more than thirty-six hundred dollars shall be used in paying for services of binders and other persons necessarily employed in binding books. For the state medical library, for books, serials and binding and other expenses of maintenance exclusive of salaries, pursuant to chapter three hundred seventy-seven of the laws of eighty hundred and ninety-one, two thousand dollars. For books to be lent free to the blind of the state, one thousand dollars

September 12, 1906, The Wyoming County Times, Page 6, Column 6,
Supplement, State Laws No. 4.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

For the compensation of the secretary to the trustees of public buildings, one thousand dollars ($1,000).
For the extraordinary repairs and ordinary maintenance of the senate house at Kingston, to be expended in the discretion of the superintendent of public buildings, three hundred dollars ($300), or as much thereof as may be necessary.
For painting and other incidental repairing and furnishings necessary to preserve and renew the buildings, premises and property in charge of the superintendent of public buildings, and to be expended in his discretion, five thousand dollars ($5,000), or so much thereof as may be necessary.
The sum of fifty thousand dollars (re. $50,000), being the unexpended balance of an appropriation made by chapter seven hundred and twenty-eight, laws of nineteen hundred and four, for lighting and necessary fixtures and appliances therefor, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby reappropriated for the same purposes.

For new carpets or other suitable covering for the floors of the senate chamber and lobbies, and the assembly chamber and lobbies, six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars ($6,250).
For repairs to veranda and roof of the executive mansion, one thousand dollars ($1,000).
For replacing the water pipe system in capitol park, one thousand two hundred dollars ($1,200).
For removing about thirty-two feet of masonry from the top of the main capitol tower, forty-eight thousand dollars ($48,000).
For removing the present columns and piers on the first floor of the assembly staircase and replacing—the same, fifty thousand dollars ($50,000)

September 12, 1906, The Wyoming County Times, Page 6, Column 1,
Supplement, State Laws No. 4.

For the purchase for the state library thirty-nine original muster rolls and lists of men in the service of the New York colony during the French and Indian war and prior to the Revolutionary war, five hundred dollars ($500), or so much thereof as may be necessary.

September 12, 1906, The Wyoming County Times, Page 6, Column 2,
Supplement, State Laws No. 4.
STATE ARCHITECT.

The sum of one thousand and eight dollars and sixteen cents ($1,800.16), being a portion of the unexpended balances of the appropriations made by chapter seven hundred and two of the laws of nineteen hundred and four and chapter seven hundred of the laws of nineteen hundred and five, for services of employees of the state architect's office, is hereby reappropriated for compensation of employees in said office during the current fiscal year.

For services and expenses of expert engineer in making examination and report on ventilation of the assembly chamber, adjoining rooms and corridors of the capitol, three hundred and fifty dollars ($350), or so much thereof as may be necessary.
The sum of one thousand dollars, being a portion of the unexpended balance of appropriation made by chapter six hundred and ninety-nine of the laws of nineteen hundred and five for services of assistant chief draftsman in the office of the state architect, is hereby reappropriated for draftsmen and tracers in the same office.

August 5, 1910, Auburn Weekly Bulletin, Page 8, Column 2,
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

For extending the inclosure on the west side of the entrance corridor of the State street side of the capitol, eight hundred dollars ($800), or so much thereof as may be necessary.
For the purchase and installation of one feed water filter and grease extractor in connection with the steam plant of the capitol, under the direction of the superintendent of public buildings, six hundred dollars ($600), or so much thereof as may be necessary.
For the payment of premiums for fire insurance on the executive mansion in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars for the term of three years, four hundred thirty dollars ($430), or so much thereof as may be necessary.
The sum of one thousand five hundred fifty-six dollars and fifty cents (re. $1,556.50), being the unexpended balance of an appropriation made by chapter four hundred, thirty-three of the laws of nineteen hundred nine for the rewiring of the executive mansion and all incidental expenses in connection therewith, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby reapproprtated for altering, improving and enlarging the capacity of a portion of the electric wiring in the capitol including the installation of cables, to be expended in the discretion of the superintendent of public buildings.
For reimbursing the general salaries fund of the superintendent of public buildings the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars ($3,500), being the amount expended therefrom for the cleaning and restoring of the senate and assembly staircases and that part of the western staircase above and including the fourth story level, in the capitol.

August 5, 1910, Auburn Weekly Bulletin, Page 8, Column 2 ,
TRUSTEES OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

The sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000), or so much as may be necessary is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for continuing the construction of the state educational building at Albany, now under contract, to be expended pursuant to the provisions of chapter six hundred seventy-eight of the laws of nineteen hundred six, as amended by chapter thirty of the laws of nineteen hundred eight.
The sum of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the acquisition of a site and for the construction and equipment of a power house, coal pockets, conduits, for furnishing heat, light and power to the state capitol and state education building at Albany, to be expended pursuant to the provisions of chapter thirteen, laws of nineteen hundred ten.
The trustees of public buildings are hereby authorized to enter into contracts for an amount not to exceed in the aggregate the sum of six hundred twenty-five thousand dollars ($625,000) for furniture, equipment and decorating for the state education building at Albany, to include book-stacks, book cases, lighting fixtures, decorating, sculpture and for such other expenses incidental thereto as may be necessary, of which amount the sum of three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the purposes herein mentioned, to be expended pursuant to the provisions of chapter six hundred seventy-eight, laws of nineteen hundred six, as amended by chapter thirty of the laws of nineteen hundred eight.

A Terrace That Looks Like a Cross Between a Flying Buttress, a Slalome, and a Sumo Wrestler.

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Versailles Complex: An Infilade of Nine Rooms That Ran for 300 Feet; with Ceilings 30 Feet High. Apres Moi?

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Senate Finance Committee Room. No. 31.

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Page 57 top.

Joseph Gavit avails himself of some fireproof document storage, finally.
Page 32, Mercer and Weiss: "In 1896, Joseph Gavit, the 19-year-old son of an Albany engraver, joined the state library staff as a junior clerk in the shelf section. Some 50 years later, having risen to the position of associate librarian, he retired from state service. For much of his career, he was superintendent of the stacks and was reputed to know personally where every book in the library was to be found. His intricate knowledge of the collections and workings of the library were put to the test in the aftermath of the fire. As the first library employee on the scene, his eyewitness accounts, written in the succeeding months and years, are invaluable in understanding the events of March 29, 1911, and afterward."

New York State Library 81st Annual Report, 1898,

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1898 Annual Report, Volume 81,

Western Approach State Library End of Capitol.

Room 35 Central Reference Room, Looking Southeast.

Room 35. Central Reference Room, Looking North.

Room 51, Library School. Study Room, Looking Northeast.

Room 59 Home Education Department. Traveling Pictures

Room 55, History Division, looking southeast

M. W. Robert Judson Kenworthy; William Judson Minor; and (Herman) Leroy Fairchild;

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May 20, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 10, Column 1, Fraternal News.

Calender for next week:
Monday---Masters lodge No. 8. Work. Entered Apprentice.
Tuesday---James Ten Eyck lodge No. 233. Work. Master Mason. Temple chapter No. 5. Work. Mark Master.
Wednesday----Wadsworth lodge No. 417. Work. Fellow Craft.
Thursday — Washington lodge No. 35. Work. Master Mason. Albany Sovereign Consistory reunion, 19th to 32d. inclusive.
Friday—Capital City No. 242. Work. Mark Master.

Among all the institutions known to man at the present day, Freemasonry and the power behind it are the only ones that undertake with clear intelligence to define man's duty to himself and to his fellow men, and to point out the lines of self-protection, liberation, and higher evolution by exact ethical formula, free from all dogmatism, superstition, fear, or any other motive whatever. Freemasonry thus stands as the epitome of human wisdom, and of man's highest achievement at the present time.

Next Thursday evening the annual meetings of the lodge, council and chapter of Scottish Rite Masonry of the Valley of Albany, for election of officers and other important business, will be held at Scottish Rite hall, Masonic Temple. Every member of those branches of masonry should be present and take part.

The appointment of M. W. Robert Judson Kenworthy, grand master, will be announced about June 1.
The new chapel of the Masonic Home, Utica, will be dedicated on St. John's day, Saturday, June 24, and it is expected that the fraternity will be present in large numbers. The grand master, M. W. Robert Judson Kenworthy, will perform the service, asisted by his associate officers. The members from this, the seventeenth district, ever loyal to the fraternity and the grand master, will no doubt attend in greater numbers than at any ceremony in the past, and due notice will be given later as to full arrangements.

Petitions for Kaa-Rheu-Vahn Grotto No. XX, M. O. V. P. E. R. are being sought for by many of the younger members of Masonry. As any master Mason is eligible for the order no doubt a large class will be ready for the session of May 29. The grand monarch, Prophet Hatch of Rochester, and assistant prophets will be present to witness the work, and at the close a banquet will be served.

In an effort to verify the precise spelling of "Kaa-Rheu-Vahn Grotto No. XX, M.O.V.P.E.R.," which the atrocious text of the Albany Evening Journal provided by FultonHistory.com left exceedingly unclear, I came upon the following biographical entry for William Judson Minor. I don't know if it's necessarily pertinent, although I felt a half-synchronicity---certainly with the shared "Judson" middle names. There could very well be a history of Satanic necrophilia at The Little Church Around the Corner. I wouldn't put it past the thin blooded Mayflower descendants, the original religious freaks kicked out of Merry Old England, and for good reason. Given the unreal niceties found here in the projection of public image, to know the truth, we must first understand the sound of lies. The acronym stands for--The Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm,--founded in Hamilton, New York in the summer of 1889, by Leroy Fairchild, who most likely is Herman Leroy Fairchild, although the Wikipedia entry doesn't note any role in Masonry. Said to reside in Hamilton, Herman Leroy was an "Early Promoter and Defender of Meteorite Impact Cratering." In other words, this Fairchild may be the original earth daddy of Area 51! The Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, was originally named the "Fairchild Deviltry Committee."

"Encyclopedia of biography of New York, a life record of men and women whose sterling character and energy and industry have made them preëminent in their own and many other states," (1916) Page 248, MINOR, William Judson, Progressive Man of Affairs.

There is always valuable lessons to be gained in perusing the life histories of such men as the late William Judson Minor, for many years a progressive man of affairs of New York City during the generation that has just past. His life forcibly illustrated what energy, integrity and a fixed purpose can accomplish when animated by noble aims and correct ideals. Wherever he was known Mr. Minor held the unequivocal esteem of those with whom he came in contact, for he was a man whom to know was to trust and admire, owing to his many commendable attributes of head and heart, and when "the reaper whose name is Death" gathered him in his sheaves he was greatly missed by a wide acquaintance. Whether as a business man, sportsman or churchman he was always the high-minded, straightforward and genteel gentleman, adhering strictly to the sublime precepts of the Golden Rule ; therefore he merited the high esteem in which he was universally held.

Mr. Minor was bom at Cairo, Greene county. New York, November 13, 1844. He was a descendant of two excellent old families of the Empire State, being the son of Oliver P. and Laura Eliza (Lennon) Minor, of English and Irish ancestry. The father devoted his active life to general agriculture pursuits.

William, J. Minor received his early education in the common schools of Cairo, growing to manhood in his native community. In later life his education was greatly enlarged by wide miscellaneous home reading and by contact with the business world. During the Civil War he offered his services to the government, becoming a member of a military organization and remained ready to lend what assistance he could to the Union. When a boy he assisted his father with the work on the farm, the elder Minor dying when the subject of this sketch was twenty-two years old, whereupon the latter left the homestead and went to New York City where he secured employment in an undertaking establishment and there learned the embalming business, later engaged in the business on his own account at No. 112 East Twenty-ninth street, remaining in the undertaking and embalming business until his death, being very successful and becoming one of the best known men in his line in New York, maintaining an extensive and modernly equipped establishment.

For many years Mr. Minor was closely identified with the Church of the Transfiguration, the famous "Little Church Around the Corner," of which Dr. Houghton is pastor. It is located on Twenty-ninth street, near Fifth avenue. He was the official "sexton" of this wealthy Episcopal congregation, and as such had charge of all entertainments, weddings and funerals there. He was active in the general work of the church and took a deep interest in religious affairs. He was well versed in the Bible and his daily life was that of a man of high religious sentiments. He was charitably inclined and took delight in assisting the needy and helpless. He was personally acquainted with many of the noted men of the country during his day and generation, and everyone always reposed implicit confidence in him, knowing him to be a man of high principles. He was quiet and unassuming, yet a genial, companionable man who made friends easily. He never was known to meddle, always attending strictly to his own business.

Mr. Minor was a prominent Odd Fellow and Mason, the former lodge presenting him with a very fine regalia and a beautiful loving cup. He belonged to Warren Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, also the encampment and veterans of this order; also Excelsior Lodge, No. 1905, Free and Accepted Masons; Amity Chapter, No. 160, Royal Arch Masons; the United States Council, Royal and Select Masters; Palestine Commandery, No. 18, Knights Templar; Mecca Temple, Azim Grotto, No. 7, M. O. V. P. E. R.; Masonic Veterans, Masonic Club, and he was a member of the Greene County Society, Nassau Driving Club, New York Driving Club, Road Drivers' Association of New York City, the New York State Driving Club, and the Undertakers' Society.

On November 21, 1909, Mr. Minor was married in New York City by Dr. Houghton in the Church of the Transfiguration, to Elizabeth Wood, a daughter of Laurin and Elizabeth (Cole) Wood, of English ancestry and Revolutionary stock. Mrs. Minor's progenitors came to America on the "Mayflower'' in 1620. She was of great assistance to her husband in his work, at the same time has always been active in church affairs and is a deep Bible student. She is a charity worker and known to a large circle as a helpful, kind, generous and noble character. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Minor was without issue.

The death of William J. Minor occurred after a brief illness, on Sunday, December 3, 1916, in his seventy-third year. Among the many tributes to his memory was the following letter of condolence received by Mrs. Minor from W. Gartrell, secretary of the Nassau Driving Club:
MINEOLA, New York, December 29, 1916.
Mrs. W. J. Minor:
Be it and it is hereby resolved, That the members of the Nassau Driving Club on the ninth day of December, mourn the loss of a brother, W. J. Minor, and tender their deepest sympathy to the bereaved widow, trusting that she will be able with Divine help and strength to bear the sorrow with fortitude and patience, and assuring her that the virtues of the deceased will ever be cherished in the memories of the members of this club.
Mr. Minor was an expert amateur driver and his hobby was fine horses. He won ten cups as prizes on the speedway. We quote, in part, as follows from an article on the death of the subject of this memoir, which appeared in one of the leading turf publications of America:

The death of William T. Minor, last Sunday afternoon, after a short illness, came as a distinct shock to his many friends in light-harness circles in this city (New York), and the news of his demise brought much sadness and regret to all those who had valued his friendship as a fine gentleman, a good fellow-sportsman and a keen lover of the light-harness horse.

For a number of years Mr. Minor's health had been slightly failing, and during the past year he had given up driving in the matinees on that account, but it did not prevent him from taking an active interest in local light-harness affairs.

For many years Mr. Minor has been a notable figure in local amateur racing in this city, and with his favorite pacer, "Hiram Abiff"—a horse that he loved as much as any man can love a horse—he started in various races on the New York Speedway, the Parkway track, at the Empire track and finally at the Mineola track. Although during the last ten years of his activities as an amateur driver, (Mr. Minor was more than seventy years old) his skill as a reinsman was as keen as that of a professional driver of younger years, and many of the ribbons and cups that he won were secured as much through his ability as a reinsman as through the merits of the horses he drove.

While Mr. Minor owned a number of fast horses, his pacer, "Hiram Abiff," was his favorite, and although the son of "A. L. Kempland," he had had an extensive racing career before Mr. Minor secured him, his speed abilities and his endurance never waned. Like his departed master, "Hiram Abiff" was on the firing line at all times, never willing to give up the battle right to the wire. Mr. Minor used him to drive summer and winter and there was never a time when both were not ready for a spirited race.

Other horses that Mr. Minor owned were as follows: "Starmoor," a handsome black stallion with which he won many ribbons on the Speedway and other horse shows, and "Nellie R.," a former Speedway cup winner.

According to the web site dreamwater.org 'hiramdiscovered,' even though the name sounds Jewish, "Hiram Abiff," was the King of Egypt, circa 1554 BC. The page's self-description says: "This Masonic site offers 'Light' not found on many other Masonic sites. It investigate the origin of the 'Brotherhood' from Enoch to Jesus."

Labor News.

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May 20, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 10, Column 2, In Labor Circles,

Wednesday night's meeting of the Central Federation of Labor was one of the most exciting sessions ever held by that body. It was also of gravest import to organized labor of this city, as it may result in the formation of a second central body in Albany. The trouble has been brewing for the past two or three years, but the situation became active a few weeks ago when electrical workers came to Albany from New York and displaced the Albany electrical workers who were employed at the capitol after the fire. The claim is made by the Albany men that these outsiders were not union men. If they were, the Albanians ask, why was it necessary for them to organize a union in this city before they could obtain recognition from organized labor? War was immediately declared against the two Albany Unions of electrical workers, and the climax was reached when Organizer Pierce of the American Federation of Labor at Wednesday night's meeting of the General Federation notified that body that its charter was revoked. The central body lost its charter because it deliberately refused to unseat the two Albany locals, and seat delegates from the new local. The matter was threshed out by the delegates. Organizer Pierce for the A. F. of L. and Vice President Myers for the Albany unions.
Secretary Dillon reported concerning the Danahy memorial fund. Over 3,000 circulars and letters have been sent to the unions of New York state. Responses are coming in every day, and the amount received to Wednesday was about $230. The boilermakers reported progress in their strike.

September 13, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 1. WHALEN MAN KEEPS JOB ON CAPITOL WORK. Contractors Reinstate Edward Donnelly, Who Lost His Place Because He Was Against McCabe.

Callanan & Prescott, the firm which has a contract to reconstruct the state capitol, reinstated a man today who trains with the Whalen faction of the Democratic party. Edward Donnely is the employe. He was discharged a few days ago by the superintendent. This action followed a threat which it was declared had been made by Max Kurth, McCabe leader in the fourteenth ward, to the effect that unless he worked for the McCabe interests in the primaries Donnelly would lose his place.
When this report reached James J. Nolan, of the state excise department, the Whalen leader of the fourteenth, a protest was made to Callahan & Prescott. The firm granted a hearing to-day and Messrs. Kurth and Nolan were present. On the presentation of the case by Mr. Nolan the firm ordered Donnelly reinstated and he reported for duty again this afternoon. The contractors took the position that the work under their direction should not be made a matter of politics.

October 26, 1911, Albany NY Evening Journal, Page 13, Column 1, WILL GO TO LAW FOR FRED LUBY, United Spanish War Veterans Are Indignant at His "Suspension" at the Capitol.

NO COMPLAINT HAD BEEN PREFERRED AGAINST HIM
Committee Called on Superintendent Bowe and Read the Law to Him---Legal Steps Taken and Department Headquarters Notified.
Capt. Frank R. Palmer camp No. 28, United Spanish War Veterans, held a special meeting this week at which the case of Fred Luby, a veteran of the Spanish War, who had been "suspended" from his position as elevator man in the state capitol without any charges being preferred or without a hearing was taken up. Mr Luby has been operating an elevator in the east end of the building for about nine years, and two or three days before his dismissal was removed to an elevator in the west end of the building, which was to be abandoned on account of the repairs being made in the burned portion.

Parapraph 22, section 1, chapter 264, laws of 1910, states that "no person holding a position by appointment or employment in the state of New York having served in the army of the United States during the late war with Spain shall be removed from such position except for incompetency or misconduct shown after a hearing upon due notice upon stated charges, and with the right to such employe or appointee to a review by a writ of certiorari. If the position so held shall become unnecessary or be abolished for reasons of economy or otherwise, the said employe holding the same shall not be discharged from the public service, but shall be transferred to any branch of the said service for duty in such position as he may be fitted to fill, receiving the same compensation therefor, and it is hereby made the duty of all persons clothed with power of appointment to make such transfer effective."

A committee was appointed to call on John Bowe, superintendent of public buildings, to see what could be done. The committee called on Mr. Bowe Tuesday morning, and asked him to reinstate Mr. Luby. He stated that he could not do this. The committee asked Mr. Bowe if there were any charges preferred against Mr. Luby, or if any complaint had been made against him, and he stated there had not. The committee then read to Mr. Bowe the law as quoted above and asked him if he would grant to Mr. Luby the rights to which he is entitled under the law, and he absolutely refused to do so. Legal steps have already been taken in the matter, and department headquarters of the United Spanish War Veterans notified.

The Spanish War Veterans will fight to a finish against such ruthless trampling of the rights which the law accords them. They understand that this suspension is really a discharge. Four other men also were laid off. All are Republicans.

Criminal Malfeasance.

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August 5, 1890, New York Times, REPAIRING THE CAPITOL. MANY DEFECTS DISCOVERED
-- THE GOLDEN CORRIDOR A THING OF THE PAST.

ALBANY, Aug. 4. -- The restoration of the north central section of the Capitol is well under way, with prospects of its completion by Fall. The work was begun none too soon, for bad workmanship, together with frost disintegrations, had rendered six of the granite dormer windows and the heavy stone balustrade at the base of the steep roof over the Assembly Chamber unsafe, and the mass was ready to fall apart. These have been reset and made secure.

One of the greatest defects was found in the construction of the gutters. These were carved out of granite and the joints cemented. By degrees the water worked its way through the cementing, and as a result the walls were damp continually and frescos and expensive decorations were ruined. Commissioner Perry had just finished lining all the gutters with copper, and hopes thereby to preserve the walls from further damage. When he constructed the west end the gutters of it were all protected with copper.

The big chimneypieces in the Senate Chamber contained flues 8 inches square. These have been enlarged during the Summer to openings 18 inches by five feet. These, it is considered, will be sufficient to remove the vitiated air from the chamber and keep it pure. In other parts of the building the smoke flues have been enlarged and ventilating ducts and shafts cut in the solid masonry floors and walls, measuring from 8 to 10 inches to 5 by 6 feet. There was heretofore almost an entire absence of any ventilation.

The golden corridor, whose beauties were extolled during the early life of the Capitol, remains only in memory. Its space, with a little of that which was in the room originally set apart for the Court of Appeals, has been made into six spacious committee rooms. The corridor on the second floor floor north was broken by the old Court of Appeals room. Now it is carried continuously from east to west ends of the building.

In the execution of this work, which necessitated the tearing away of many hundred cubic feet of masonry, two discoveries were made. One was that the wall on the north side of the open court was never "tied." Experts who examined this wall at different times gave decisions that it was forced out by the pressure of the original stone ceiling of the Assembly Chamber. This proved to be not the fact. Now that the fractured work has been removed, it is shown that the wall was crowded out by the great east and west walls of the Assembly Chamber, which stands at right angles. These walls extended from the big arches in the golden corridor up to and on a line with the roof trusses.

It is evident that the weight of these walls was so great as to compress the arches, and thereby force the walls out. Four large wrought-iron tie rods extending through the granite wall of the court and connected with the four great plate girders which carry the Assembly floor, will hereafter hold the wall in position without doubt.

The Governor's Message, 1867.

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January 8, 1867, The World: New York, Page 4, Column 5, THE NEW STATE CAPITOL

Governor FENTON'S message devotes ten lines of nothings to the subject of the erection of the new Capitol at Albany. As ten million dollars are to be used in the construction, it might be expected that the finest building of the kind in the country, and one fit for the seat of government of such a State as NEW-YORK, would be the result. The Capitol at Nashville, confessedly the most pretentious outside of Washington, cost but two millions; yet such a course has been pursued as to bar the competition of all architects whose designs are worthy consideration.

The Commission to whom was entrusted the construction advertised last year for specifications, the highest price attached to which was only three thousand dollars, and no assurance was given that he whose design was accepted should be appointed the architect of the building. In this miserly attire the embryo capitol has gone a-begging among the principal architects of the country. They refuse to consider such an impecunious proposition.

The American Institute for architects, among whom are included some of the best in the country, and to whose members are attributable such structures as our recent Academy of Music, that in Philadelphia, Mr. STEWART'S residence, the buildings at Jerome Park, and all constructions whose reputation is national, have unanimously issued a circular to the effect that the terms offered by the Capitol Commission are such as no capable designer can afford to entertain. They state to Hon. HAMILTON HARRIS, the Chairman of the Commission:

According to the established custom of business in our time, a building worth three millions of dollars pays to the architect employed to design it at least a commission of three per cent., one third of which would be due when the design and specifications, upon which the cost can be estimated, are fully prepared. This would probably amount, in the case before us, to a sum of thirty thousand dollars.

As a result of this short-sighted policy, we understand that the Commission has received no plans commensurate with the purposes of the new Capitol, but are inundated with ambitious specifications from inferior architects. The enterprise of securing fit designs seems to have died before it was born, from the miserable penuriousness we have indicated.

If the Legislature has time to spare from the congenial and compatible duties of governing New-York City, reconstructing the South, and repealing the neutrality laws, it would be well could they shake some common sense into the Capitol Commission, and arouse them to the fact that the new building will require more breadth and expenditure in design than the construction of a candy store or the erection of a Freedmen's schoolhouse.

More Freemasonry Bashing. It Didn't Start With Me.

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(Where's Jimmy Buffett when you need him?)

June 19, 1871, New York Times, THE NEW CAPITOL.; Preparations for the Laying of the Corner-Stone.
A Chapter from History Sketch of the Old Capitol. Origin of the New Movement and its Progress.

ALBANY, N.Y., Thursday, June 15, 1871.--The near approach of the time when the corner-stone of the new Capitol is to be laid invests with some interest the proceedings that marked the construction of its predecessor, the present well-known building.

Up to 1804 the people were satisfied that the old structure, on the corner of Broadway and Hudson streets, in the City of Albany, was sufficiently capacious to do all of the business necessary to run the State of New-York, and they, therefore, made no movement toward superseding it by a better. In that, however, the citizens possessed themselves with the idea that the building was not large enough to properly honor the assembled wisdom of the State of New-York, and they therefore moved the Legislature to pass a law appointing Commissioners to proceed and build a State-house that should properly accommodate the demands of the State. This bill entitled "An act making provisions for improving Hudson River below the City of Albany, and for other purposes," was passed on the 6th day of April, 1804. It named John Tayler, Daniel Hale, Philip S. Van Rensselaer, (then Mayor of Albany,) Simeon De Witt and Nicholas N. Quackenbush, Commissioners to project and erect a building suitable for the public purposes of the State, and for the Courts and offices of the City of Albany. It authorized the levying of a tax upon the County of Albany of $3,000, and upon the City of Albany of a like sum. This is explained by the fact that at this time the building was intended to be built by and belong to the Corporation of Albany. The bill further authorized the managers of lotteries, created in "An act for the encouragement of literature," to raise the sum of $12,000, in addition to the sums already provided, and when such sum was raised to pay it over to the Commissioners. Each Commissioner gave a bond in the penal sum of $30,000 to the people of the State to faithfully perform his duties under the act, and to account every six months to the Controller. They were also empowered to sell the old State-house.

Having now a certain capital on which to proceed, the Commissioners proceeded to engage their architect, one HOOKER, and to make estimates of the probable cost of the venture. The amount upon which they finally proceeded appears in an estimate in the handwriting of Simeon De Witt, filed in the office of the State Engineer, to have been $120,000. Ground was broken, and for two years the work went on. On the 7th day of March, 1807, the available money having been expended, the Commissioners report to the Legislature as follows:

AMOUNT REQUIRED IN CONSTRUCTION OF THE STATE-HOUSE.

To inclose building...$16,000
To complete interior...$20,000
Portico...$6,800
Total...$42,800

This proposed a wooden cornice and roof, and if the work was done in stone and slate, then $10,000 additional would be needed

AMOUNT RECEIVED BY COMMISSIONERS.

From sale of City Hall...$17,200
Tax on City and County of Albany...$6,000
Given by Corporation of Albany...$10,000

This sum of $33,200 had already been expended, and there only remained provided for by law, the $12,000 authorized to be raised by lottery. The Commissioners report that not less than $30,000 more will be required. The report goes on to say that the work could have been done for a less sum if brick had been used instead of stone, but that the Commissioners would have considered that they had erred in their duty had they used less substantial material. That the State has as yet made no contribution, the whole burden of the building so far, except the $3,000 taxed upon the County of Albany, having been borne by the city. The Commissioners close by asking further aid, and saying that the strictest economy had marked the construction of the work. This was referred to a Committee composed of Messrs. Rudd, C. Platt, Sheldon, Van Olinda and Roseboom, on the 27th of March, 1807. This Committee asked to be discharged from further consideration of the report. This was done, and upon motion, a joint Committee were appointed, and they recommended that the State advance $20,000 to the Commissioners, to be repaid by a lottery. This was done, and the pot was kept boiling for a while longer.

On the 24th of March, 1808, the Commissioners made the following detailed report of the sums received by them:

From tax on City of Albany...$3,000
From tax on County of Albany...$3,000
From Corporation of Albany...$10,000
From sale of Court-house...$17,200
From proceeds of lottery...$12,000
From the State, to be reimbursed by a lottery...$20,000
From extra donation by Corporation of Albany...$4,000
Total...$69,200

They estimate that $25,000 more will be required, and state hat if that sum is given by the State the City of Albany will level and beautify the grounds about the building. This was referred to a committee, and on the 29th of March, 1808, they reported a bill, which was passed on the 8th of April, giving the $25,000 required on condition that the corporation of Albany secure to the people of the State the use of such apartments in the new buildings as the Legislature may require for public purposes, and that they further execute a bond to the people of the State, in the penal sum of $50,000, to faithfully perform such act; and also, that the Corporation of Albany immediately proceed to level and ornament the grounds. This was evidently done, for on the 11th day of March, 1809, the final report of the Commissioners is made, and they say nothing of any neglect by the City of Albany. The report is as follows:

Expended in erecting the State-house, furnishing, &c....$97,000
On hand in money and material...$3,000 00

and closes by saying, that the furniture to be used will vary in quality, so that no estimate can be made upon the additional amount required to complete the work. The report is signed by John Taylor, Chairman Board of Commissioners.

The Legislature in the Supply bill of 1809 appropriated $5,000 to complete the furnishing of the building. This failing to accomplish that result, on the 30th of March, 1809, the last act relating to the erection of the old Capitol was passed, and $5,000 was appropriated to finally end the job. Up to the date of this act the building had been known as the State-house, it now became known as the Capitol. According to these figures the entire cost of the building, furniture and all, was not less than $110,000. The Capitol building remained the property of the city until about the time the present City Hall was built, when for $20,000, and the privilege of quarrying marble from the Sing Sing Works, the city sold its interest to the State. Very little is said about the corner-stone of the Capitol building, and it is impossible to find any record of its situation or contents. In the Albany Gazette of April 23, 1806, the following appears:

"Yesterday the corner-stone of the new State-house, to be erected in this city, was laid by Hon. P.S. Van Rensselaer, in presence of the Chancellor, Judges of the Supreme Court, members of the Corporation, State-house Commissioners, and other respectable citizens. The site upon which this edifice is to be erected is at the head of State-street, on the west side of the public park. It is to be built of stone, is 100 by 80 feet, on an improved plan, embracing much elegance with convenience and durability."

And this is all that was said in the papers of that day of the laying of the corner-stone of the venerable building now the head-quarters of the Tammany organization. It was not considered necessary in those days to call in the Masons to perform the duty that lay directly in the province of the Mayor, as Mr. Van Rensselaer then was; and it is very unfortunate that Mr. Hoffman does not feel qualified to perform a duty which he, as the representative of the people, is justly called upon to perform.

The history of the new Capitol, since the time when it became an established fact by the action of the Legislature, may not be uninteresting. Certainly the vast sums of money already spent to bring it to a position when the first layer of superstructure may be laid interests the taxpayers of the State. The quarrels over appropriations, the jealousies of Commissioners---all these things have been frequently written; but now they are all to be buried under the corner-stone, and the work go on to an early completion. On the 27th day of January, 1865, the Senate adopted the following resolution, and thence-forward the building of a Capitol became a State burden:

Resolved, That a select committee of three be appointed by the President of the Senate, to ascertain by correspondence or otherwise, with the City of Buffalo and other municipalities of the State, on what terms the grounds and buildings necessary for a new Capitol and public offices can be obtained, and that said committee report as soon as possible.

On the Committee were appointed Wm. Lamibeer, Jr. C. J. Folger, O. M. Allaben, who, on the 16th of February, 1865, sent to the different cities and towns in the State a circular, stating the nature of their appointment, and asking that reports be made from different portions of the State of the premises available for the purposes of a new Capitol, the cost and ease of procuring building materials, facilities of travel, statistics of health, size and population of town, and other matters. An answer was required as early as the 1st of March. This was sent to the Mayor of the cities in the State and to two hundred villages. It not bringing the desired responses, another circular was sent on the 11th of March, asking that the request be attended to, and that the replies be sent in by the 20th inst. Further saying that a meeting would be held by the Committee on the 22d of March to hear any parties interested. On the 30th of March the Committee reported that they had received numerous letters in reply to their circular, that the City of New-York offered a site on the Battery, City Hall Park, Tompkins-square, Mount Morris-square, Central Park or Washington Heights, and to erect, free of expense to the State, all the necessary buildings, and to furnish a plot on Fifth-avenue one hundred feet square, opposite the Central Park, and to erect an executive mansion thereon. Yonkers tendered three beautiful sites for Capitol and State-houses, Saratoga Springs offered sites and such a sum of money as the State should think proper. The village of Whitestown proposed to donate any quantity of ground. The City of Albany offered the square known as the Congress Hall property. Buffalo, Oswego and Utica declined to have anything to do with the matter. The village of Athens, better known as the end of Vanderbilt's White Elephant Railroad, made liberal propositions, and one Alonzo Greene appeared before the Committee and made arguments in its favor. The strongest argument being that he was the only person who had attended the call of the Committee. The Committee say that if the capitol is removed they consider that the City of New-York is the proper place for it, but they doubt the propriety of its removal; and conclude with a recommendation that the bill for the erection of a new Capitol in Albany be passed. The Committee publish in an appendix twenty-four communications from different portions of the State. One from Margaretville. Delaware County, breaks into verse and opens thus:

"Amid the wilds of Delaware,
From politics and war afar, Encradled by the snow-clad hills,
And culled by trickling mountain rills,
There sleeps a little village white,
And from that pretty town I write.
What is its name? Well, if you will,
The people call it Margaretville."

This writer goes on to say that the postman, as usual, went his rounds that afternoon with a letter directed to the village President. The place had no President, and so the postmaster must break the seal. Then comes the picture of Margaretville, as the centre of hurrying crowds and the hope of future Legislatures. This fades away as the material questions of the Committee are appreciated. The poet offers everything:

"Take what you will--we'll naught refuse--
Pay when you will, and as you choose;
Or, like Van Rensselaer of old,
Possess the lands and keep your gold."

Closing with an appeal for the health of the Governor and the State officers who are to be saved by the air of Delaware, the poet subsides.

The other communications are tame and commonplace. On the 1st day of May, 1865, the Legislature passed a law providing that when the City of Albany shall donate to the State the plot of ground known as Congress Hall Block, then the Governor is authorized to appoint three Commissioners, who shall proceed to procure plans, &c., at the expense of the City of Albany, for a proper building to be used as a Capitol. The building to be located on the site of the present Capitol. Ten thousand dollars were appropriated by the State for general purposes. The city having made the donation of the property in the following February, the Governor appointed Hamilton Harris, Jno. V. L. Pruyn and O. B. Latham Commissioners. On the 14th of April, 1866, a bill was passed that stated that, inasmuch as the City of Albany had complied with the terms of the original act, the site of the Capitol is hereby ratified and confirmed. No money was appropriated this year. On the 23d of April, 1867, the sum of $250,000 was appropriated, followed May 19, 1868, by another amount of $250,000, and an increase in the Commission of five members, namely: J. S. Thayer, A. B. Cornell, W. A. Rice, James Terwilliger and John T. Hudson.

Constant quarrels had existed since the forming of the Commission between Messrs. Harris and Latham, resulting in memorials from the latter gentleman to the Legislature, in which he charged waste of public money, &c. This, however, did not avail anything, and in 1869 the Legislature appropriated $400,000 for buying lands and proceeding in the construction of the building. There had been a constant endeavor upon the part of the people from several localities to effect a change of location after it was found that the new Capitol was a certain thing, and bills were introduced to change the site, at every session. Endeavors to block the appropriations, &c., were the common labors of the Assembly. On the special bill of 1870 to levy a tax to raise $1,300,000, this opposition became very strong. But the danger blew over, and the appropriation was made. Up to this time, therefore, the account stands:

Appropriated by chapter 210, Laws 1863, to buy lands...$70,000
Donated by the City of Albany...$6,000
Appropriated by the State for plans, &c., 1865...$10,000
Donated by City of Albany, (Congress Hall) 1866...$65,200
Appropriated by chapter 445, laws 1867...$250,000
Appropriated by chapter 830, laws 1868 $250,000
Appropriated by chapters 645 and 824 laws 1869...$400,000
Appropriated by chapter 492, laws 1870...$1,300,000
Total...$2,351,200

Amount paid for land...$410,200
Expenses of building to Jan. 1, 1871...$1,941,000

This year the Legislature appropriated $650,000 and appointed a new Commission, composed of W. A. Rice, H. Harris, W. C. Kingsley, E.A. Merritt, Delos De Wolf and C. Depew. The Superintendent claims that he can finish the work so that the Assembly of 1874 can hold their sessions in the building, only asking for money. The law of 1868 limited the expenditure to four million dollars, but since the corner-stone rests on two million dollars, it is hardly possible that the intention of that body will be carried out. The Masons over the State are making every preparation to have the ceremonies of the 24th the most august that have ever illustrated the records of the country. Every Lodge in the Commonwealth will be represented by a committee, and the uniforms will be as gorgeous as the possibilities of Masonic properties will allow. At first a feeling of opposition developed among the anti-Masons of the State, but as the show is of no political significance, and the Order claim to have officiated at the inception of Solomon’s Temple, it has been judged best to let them go on and play their play.

This Shit Doesn't Stop.

2011-12-26T05:24:00.001-05:00

And who the fuck is paying for it?

December 18, 1873, The Sun, Page 1, Column 5, A GREAT WORK BEGUN.
Laying the Corner of the New Bridge Across the Hudson at Poughkeepsie.

POUGHKEEPSIE, Dec. 16.--An immense concourse witnessed the laying of the corner stone of the proposed bridge to cross the Hudson at this place, A special train reached here from Hartford about noon, bringing the Major of that city and representatives of the Common Council and about one hundred of Hartford's influential citizens. The fast train up on the Hudson River road brought leading Pennsylvania Central Railroad folks, including J. Edgar Thompson, Mr. A. L. Dennis, John J. Blair, A. Carnega, [Carnegie perhaps?] G. F. McCandlaas, J. H. Lindville, and others.

At noon a grand procession was formed of all the military and civic societies--George Parker, Grand Marshal--and marched to Reynolds's Hill, where the corner stone was to be laid. Here thousands had congregated to witness the ceremonies, which were conducted by Grand Master James W. Husted of Westchester. The exercises were entirely Masonic, and similar to those which surrounded the laying of the corner stone of the new Capitol at Albany, After the corner stone was laid cannon were fired and the bells of the city were rung. The procession moved up town again, and there the distinguished guests were tendered a banquet at the Opera House. The welcome speech was made by Mayor Eastman. The Opera House was handsomely decorated, and the tables, which were provided for three hundred persons, were loaded with good things. After the speech-making and eating the most of the guests returned to their homes on the early evening trains.

When completed this bridge will save over one hundred miles of railroad track between the New England States and the Pennsylvania coal fields. The entire length will be about one mile, of which about half--a trifle less than 2,500 feet--is over the channel of the river, and the other half consists of approaches, being mainly on the east side. The height of the bridge from the water to the bottom chord of the huge trusses is 130 feet, and the trusses themselves will be about sixty-five feet high, so that the entire elevation of the track above high water mark will be nearly two hundred feet. There will be four piers in the channel, and one on each side close to the bank, so that the main bridge will consist of five immense spans, each five hundred feet long. The land approaches will be made up of shorter spans.

A Glaring Impropriety

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The Sun., June 27, 1871, Page 2, Column 1, A Glaring Impropriety

At the laying of the corner-stone of the new Capitol at Albany, last Saturday, an impropriety was committed which admits of no excuse but a want of perception of its nature and extent on the part of the persons concerned in it. A private organization, known as the Freemasons, were not merely permitted to be present as spectators, but were invited to perform and did perform their peculiar rites as a part of the public ceremonies of the occasion. We have nothing to suy against Masonry as an institution, nor against its symbolic observances; but that its votaries should be thus officially recognized by our State authorities, is a thing of which all the rest of the commuuity has a right to complain.

If the Masons were, as they profess to have originally been, bona fide workers in stone and mortar, it would undoubtedly be fitting for them to do something like what they did on Saturday. They, and all the other mechanics whose skill and labor will be employed in erecting the new Capitol, might properly participate in the formal commencement of the building. But it is notorious that they are not masons at all, and that the technical jargon they make use of has only an allegorical meaning. Grand Master Anthon is a lawyer, who never did a day's mason work in his life; and the other Worshipfuls and Most Worshipfuls, who assisted him, are as innocent as he is of practical experience in the trade. They went through the form of applying the square and the level to the stone, but they would probably be puzzled to tell whether it was really well laid or not, notwithstanding their glib declaration that it was all right. The whole concern is secret and quasi-religious in its nature, and it is a gross assumption for it, on account of its name, to claim a prominent part in a ceremony of such general interest as the laying of the corner stone of a State Capitol.

Besides, there is a strong feeling of opposition to Masonry among a large and influential class of our people. The Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches formally condemn it as inconsistent with true religion, and other denominations view it with distrust if not with enmity. It was an open affront to all these citizens to thus conspicuously honor the object of their dislike. It is an if an Orange Lodge should be invited to assist in laying the cornerstone of a corporation building in this city. The other faction might well say that this was an insult to them, and so may the anti-Masons say of the prominence just given to the Masons at Albany. The whole thing was a blunder, which we hope will never be repeated.

Is it Wise?

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June 3, 1871, New-York Tribune, Page 4, Column 2, Link:

A dispatch, the, the other day, announced that the corner-stone of the new Capitol at Albany was to be laid with the ceremonial of the Masonic Order on their honored day, the anniversary of St. John the Baptist. There are some reasons why such a programme may seem at first view appropriate. The Freemasons are a large and powerful body, embracing a great many of our most trusted and honored citizens, having no political affiliations, and generally respected for their charitable deeds and useful purposes. Their gorgeous regalia and impressive ritual add a splendor to all public observances in which they take part, and under their auspices we may be sure that the beginning of the new State House will be honored with becoming parade. But is it wise to place the matter in their hands?
If it had been proposed that the Right Rev. Horatio Potter, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York, should lay the corner-stone, with a procession of his Clergy in surplices and stoles; or that Dr. Conroy, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Albany, should bless it with holy water and incense and the sign of the cross; or that the Presbyterian General Assembly should take it in charge, and appoint some of their leading divines to conduct the ceremonies, all parties and denominations would have objected. The Capitol is built for the whole people, without distinction of politics, creed, or opinion. The Freemasons, highly as they are esteemed, do not represent the whole people. To the majority their rites are incomprehensible. To a number not inconsiderable, especially among the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, the order is, on general principles, offensive. Intrusting the ceremony to them seems to us scarcely less unwise than it would be to give it to a religious denomination, or the Sons of Temperance, or the Ancient Order of Hibernians, or the Anti-Slavery Society, or the Union League Club.
We say here no word against the Freemasons. The praise of their goods deeds is in the mouths of all men; if there are features of their organization to which some good citizens have objected, the time is long past since these were the topic of political dispute or any general bitterness. But we are sure that the most zealous Masons will agree with us in holding that this is an affair that can only be properly conducted by those fairly representing all the people of the State. It is not a work for any benevolent organization, howver holy, for any political party, however pure, for any private association whatsoever, however numerous and honored. It is the work of the people of the State, through the officers holding the certificate and seal of their elections.

A State Capitol On Steroids.

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July 11, 1866, Albany Evening Journal, Page 1, Column 6,

From the N. Y. Evening Post, The New Capitol of this State.

The legislature of this State having fixed the location of the Capitol at Albany, the "New Capitol Commissioners," Messrs. Hamilton Harris, John V. L. Pruyn and O. B. Latham, have issued a circular containing instructions and details for architects who may prepare plans and designs for the proposed structure. The circular is accompanied by a map of the Capitol grounds and places surrounding them, prepared by Mr. R. H. Bingham, city surveyor of Albany.

The accommodations which are required in the New Capitol are as follows:

Executive Department—Five rooms for the Governor—one about twenty-two feet by thirty, a private room of about four hundred feet area, two rooms for his secretaries and clerks, each with about five hundred feet area, and an anteroom to each of about four hundred feet area. Four rooms for the Adjutant General, each of about five hundred feet area, with small anteroom attached, and two of about four hundred feet area each. The other members of the Governor's military staff will require six rooms of about four hundred feet area each, with small ante rooms. This department will require a record room, fire-proof, of about six hundred feet area, for books and papers.

The Senate —The Senate chamber must contain suitable arrangements for a body of thirty-two members, with galleries for spectators, and a reporter's gallery. A room will also be required of about four hundred feet area for the president; a cloak-room for senators of about six hundred feet; a reception room for visitors of about five hundred feet, with a suitable ante room; a library of about six hundred feet, two rooms for the clerk of about four hundred and fifty feet each; a room for the post office of about four hundred feet two rooms, one for the Sergeant-at-Arms, and one for doorkeepers of about four hundred feet, with a document room of about the same size; two committee rooms of about six hundred square feet each, and eight of about four hundred; a record room; fire proof, of about five hundred feet area. The committee rooms and president's room to have recesses in the walls for book shelves.

The Assembly --This chamber will have accomodations for one hundred and twenty-eight members, galleries for spectators, and a reporters' gallery. A room will be required for the Speaker; a cloak room for members; a reception room for visitors; a library; two rooms for the Clerk; a room for the post office; a room for the Sergeant-at-Arms; a room for Doorkeepers—most of whom are gentlemen of leisure; a document room, two eight hundred feet and fifteen four hundred foot committee rooms; a record room—all of about the same character as those of the Senate.

Court of Appeals.—The Court-room should contain about 2,000 feet, with a gallery and other suitable arrangements for reporters and visitors; a library of 800 feet area, and a consultation room of 600 feet, with an ante-room. There should be two rooms for the clerks of the court, and a record room, each 600 feet in area; also, a room of 400 feet for the officers of the court and the accommodation of counsol. Also one other court room is required, about 35 feet by 25, with an anteroom of 20 by 15.

Department of Public Instruction.—Three rooms are required for the Superintendent of Public Instruction—one of 600 and two of about 600 feet area, with an ante-room to one of them about 65 by 18.

Insurance Department.—This department will require one room of about 600 feet area, and two of 450 area each, one of them with an ante-room of about 15 by 18 feet.

The State Library.—It is desirable to keep the State Library in two separate apartments with one or more reading rooms attached to each. The law library will require room for about twenty-five thousand volumes; and the general library for seventy-five thousand. Requisite capacity is desired, by galleries or otherwise, to contain, the former fifty thousand and the latter one hundred and fifty thousand volumes.

A room of about five hundred feet area is wanted for the Regents of the University, in case the Constitutional Convention shall not do away with them; another for the Secretary; and another of about four hundred foot, for records, &.c; a packing-room and a room for duplicates, about four hundred feet area.

A range of about four rooms will be wanted in some retired part of the building for storing books and papers that will accumulate in the various departments. They should have each an area of about six hundred feet.

Suitable rooms will be required for the keeper of the Capitol, and for three assistants and watchmen; also storerooms for fuel and miscellaneous purposes.

The ground area of the proposed building gives a front of about 280 feet, a depth limited to 365 feet. The grounds are such as to render a sub-basement desirable. An inner court or quadragle is suggested. Special attention must be given to the best mode of ventilation, heating and lighting; any apparatus for the purpose which requires the use of steam power to be placed outside of the building in the reserved area of twenty-five feet, and extended under the sidewalk if necessary. Storerooms for fuel may be provided outside or in the main building. In addition to any other mode of heating that may be proposed, the system of open fire places is considered desirable.

The sad experience of the last quarter of a century, during which many members of the Legislature have been disabled and hurried to the grave by the pestilential atmosphere of the Chambers, appears to have fixed the Commissioners in the purpose to secure ventilation by the old-fashioned fire-place, till the discoveries of science shall have provided sure means of relief in other ways.

Among the suggestion's offered are the use of stone or iron for floors, groined arches and Iron girders to hoId the structure together, ample provision for water and gas, "hoists" to facilitate access to the upper stories, safes seven feet high by seven wide and four deep, for the Insurance Department, the offices of the clerks and the State Library, smaller safes for other rooms, written statements by each architect of his plans and designs, together with the building material to be employed, &c.

Drawings should be in outline only on white paper or card board, on a scale of one-tenth of an inch to the foot, with such internal views as the architects see fit to furnish. No colors should be used except to indicate materials of different kinds. Perspectives, if preferred, may be presented in color, and written descriptions may accompany drawings. An elevation of each of the fronts of the building should be given, and a prospective view showing the main front and the northern side of the building.

A premium of $2,500 will be awarded to the plan and design to which the Commissioners shall award the first place; and of $1,000 each to the two plans to which they award the second place. They reserve the right to purchase for $600 any set of plans having merit, but not entitled, in their judgment, to an award. They also reserve power to declare that none of them, or only one or more, are satisfactory; and to reduce or apportion between several parties any premium or premiums, as their merits may warrant. Rejected plans will be returned.

The legislature having made no appropriation for the work, it is left for future sessions to determine when it shall begin. It is estimated that about $500,000 annually will be required from the beginning till the completion of the undertaking; and that the aggregate will be about the same as the cost of building the Court House in this city.

No intelligent person will for a moment question the necessity of an early commencement of this work. The present accommodations are insufficient for the wants of the public service, and proper provisions should be made at as early a say as possible. Despite the insalubrity of the place and the defective accomodations for sojourners, the general sentiment appears to have fixed upon Albany as the most suitable point for the capital of the State. A metropolian city like New York seems to be considered as unsuitable; and only a minority favor removal to any western town. The legislature has accordingly accepted the situation, and what remains is to proceed to the work as soon as may be expedient.

June 24, 1871, The New-York Tribune, Page 1, Column 6,
HISTORY OF THE NEW CAPITOL—ITS ARCHITECTURE.

From The Albany Evening Journal, June 22

In the latter part of January, 1865, the Senate passed a resolution appointing a committee of three to ascertain from the different municipalities of the State, "on what terms the grounds and buildings necessary for a new Capitol and public offices can be obtained." The Committee appointed, in accordance with this resolution, at once proceeded to inquire by circular, of all the leading cities and towns of the State what they were willing to do in the way of "eligible offers." The responses to this circular were numerous from all parts of the State. Albany was among the cities that made overtures. She offered what was known as the Congress Hall property for the site of the proposed building. The Committee recommended a bill providing for the erection of a new Capitol at Albany. On May 1, 1866, a law was passed providing that whenever, within three years from the passage of the bill, the City of Albany should convey to the State the Congress Hall block, the Governor should appoint a Board of three Commissioners, to be known as " The New Capitol Commissioners," for the purpose of erecting a new Capitol. Ten thousand dollars was appropriated for the commencement of the work. In the year following, the City of Albany having complied with the requirements of the bill, the Governor appointed Hamilton Harris, John V. L. Pruyn, and O. B. Latham, Commissioners, and on the 14th of April, an act confirming the location of the Capitol at Albany was passed.

In 1867, $250,000 was appropriated toward the erection of the new Capitol by the legislature. In 1868, $250,000 more was appropriated, and the number of Commissioners increased. Hamilton Harris, V. L. Pruyn, Obadiah B. Latham, James S. Thayer, Alonzo B. Cornell, William A. Rice, James Terwilliger, John T. Hudson, constituting the then Board. In 1869, $400,000 was appropriated; in 1870, $1,300,000 This year the Commission was changed, and Hamilton Harris, William C. Kingsley, Wm. A. Rice, Chauncey M. Depew, De los DeWolf, and Edwin A. Merritt appointed as the new Board. The appropriation for 1871 is $650,000. On the 9th day of December, 1867, the work of excavating for the foundations of the new Capi tol was commenced, since which time the work, with occasional necessary and unavoidable interruptions, has been prosecuted with all energy. The Superintendent is said to affirm that if allowed to "push things" without lot or hindrance, he will put the Legislature in possession in 1874. The cost of the building is restricted by the statute of 1867, and also that of 1868, to "four million of dollars." It will probably not be built without considerable addition to those figures, but, as the Commissioners remark in their Annual Report for 1870, the matter is under the control of the Legislature, and any amount appropriated will be disbursed in any way the Legislature may direct.

The new Capitol is designed in the Renaissance or modern French style of architecture, the prevailing mode of modern Europe. In the exterior composition of the design there is a general adherence to the style of the pavilions of the New Louvre, of the Hotel de Ville of Paris, and the elegant hall or Maison de Commerce of Lyons. The terrace which forms the grand approach to the east or principal front will form an item of striking architectural detail nowhere else attempted on such an extensive scale, at least in America. The exterior is 290 feet north and south, and 390 east and west. The floor immediately above the level of the plateau of the terrace will be entered through the porticos on Washington-a ve. and State-st. and through a carriage entrance under the portico of the east front. The first, or main entrance floor, will be reached by a bold flight of steps on the east front and also on the west leading through the porticos to the halls of entrance, each having an area of 60 by 74 feet, and 25 feet in hight. Communicating directly with these halls are two grand staircases which form the principal means of communication with the second floor. On the left of east entrance hall are a suite of rooms for the use of the Governor and his secretaries and military staff. On the right are the rooms for the Secretary of State and Attorney-General, with a corridor leading to the rooms apportioned for the Court of Appeals, which is 70 by 77 feet.

On the second or principal floor are the chambers for the Senate and Assembly, and for the State Library, all of which (in elevation) will occupy two stories, making 43 feet of hight. Rooms for the committees and other purposes will occupy the remainder of these floors. The Senate Chamber will be 75 by 55 feet on the floor, with a gallery on three sides of 18 feet width. The Assembly Chamber will be 92 by 75 feet on the floor, and surrounded by a gallery similar to that of the Senate Chamber. The Library will occupy the whole of the east front of these stories, and will be 283 feet long and 64 feet wide. These chambers will all be lighted from the roof as well as from the side windows. Ample provision is made for the Board of Regents for packing and store-rooms required by the two Houses, and for a spacious and comfortable refreshment-room for the use of the members. When the building is completed the old Capitol, Library and Congress Hall will be removed, leaving a park on the east 472 feet long and 330 feet wide, or of a little more than 2 1/2 acres.

January 2, 1875, New-York Tribune, THE NEW STATE CAPITOL.

"...on the north side, is the room of the Court of Appeals, which is 70 feet by 77."
"The Governor's reception room is in the south-east corner, and will be a very handsome apartment, 35 by 52 feet."

Rembrandt Who?

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Whatever became of the front runner, do you suppose?

March 15, 1866, The New York Sun, Page 2, Column 2,

The New Capitol Building at Albany.

The discussion in the Legislature upon the erection of a new Capitol building at Albany, is a subject of great interest to the people of the Empire State, who have for many years been convinced that some suitable building should replace the miserable apology now used as the Capitol of the first State in the Union. When the Legislature first considered the question of erecting a new building, various plans and models were submitted by different architects; and there is now on exhibition a number of these miniature representations of what the new Capitol will be, provided the Legislature adopt any one of the number now presented for inspection. At the present time only one complete model appears to embrace all those features which we think should be introduced into a public building designed for the occupation of our Legislative Assemblies and other State officers. As we believe the Empire State can afford to erect one of the handsomest structures---this side of the Capitol in Washington---we do not think the people will object to being taxed for as perfect a building, for such purposes, as our architects and builders are skillful enough to plan and erect.

The model of REMBRANDT LOCKWOOD, Esq., an architect of this city, combines grandeur and beauty with usefulness. According to the plan this building will cover an area of 170,714 square feet---having four fronts. The principle front will be 312 feet wide, the walls being carried up in the Roman Corinthian style of architecture to a height of over one hundred feet, and these ornamented with a cornice exceedingly rich and beautiful. An immense dome rises two hundred feet higher, being 317 feet above the pavement, and from its summit will be seen an extensive view of the country around Albany. The dimensions of this dome are said to be only a few feet smaller than those of the dome on the Church of St. Peter in Rome, but unlike the latter, this dome will appear self supported in the air by immense figures, or caryatides designed in harmony with other pieces of statuary, placed in niches and pedestals around the building.

The design of Mr. LOCKWOOD has received the unqualified praise of all who have visited it, and the indications are that it will be adopted, many of the members of the Legislature and the State Government having expressed themselves favorably. We presume the work of building will not be long delayed by the discussions that are going on in the Legislature, for as soon as our law makers understand that the people of this State desire a Capitol building that shall be worthy of our position in the Union, they will not hesitate to take the final legislative action necessary to produce such a structure.

Ouch! Scathing!

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So, apparently there was yet a third ceiling in the Assembly Chamber, one which predated the groin-vaulted stone ceiling which began to fail in its first season, and the fake-oak papier-mache ceiling with which it was replaced ten years later. This original ceiling is here criticized as a cheap, fraudulent conception in an ostensibly authentic structure, although the issues of acoustics were not addressed with the second ceiling, nor fire-proofing with the third, when the fire of 1911 sent a massive, 800 pound chandelier crashing to the floor when its supports burned away---or so we were told. Why such a heavy fitting would not have been attached to the iron-beam rafters herein described remains an architectural mystery.

Feb. 29, 1876, New York Times, HOW A CAPITOL IS BUILT.

The history of our State buildings for the Capitol at Albany is thus far one of the most instructive that has been offered of our system of carrying our public works of taste. Most intelligent men understand what a public building representing a wealthy and powerful community like the State of New-York ought to be. They can see that it should approach in its dignity, simplicity, and practical arrangement the great buildings for legislative or civil purposes which have become models for all succeeding ages. Above all, it should be genuine throughout, and, as in all good architecture, no ornamental feature should be introduced which was not a part and an expression of its practical character as a building. Then, whatever its external architecture, we had a right to expect that within its should be light, convenient, and suitable for its legislative and public purposes.

We have not space to relate the history in detail of the way in which the construction of the Capitol fell into the hands of its present architect and superintendent. It is no discredit to him to say that he does not in the least represent the best talent of the profession, and is not even an American. The Legislature have for some time been increasingly anxious as to the expense of the structure, and more and more doubtful as to its internal plan and external design. That they were reasonably so will appear from a few facts. Up to last year the building had only been finished to the main floor, and yet the cost had been $5,000,000. The architect had not even had the prudence or the ability to make an exact computation of the necessary expense of the remainder, but a careful professional estimate has shown that the building could not have been finished with the present designs for less than $14,000,000. The extravagance of this expense might have been paid for and forgotten. But the design itself was most defective.

In the elevation, as shown in the published designs, it presents a most singular and confused appearance. A Grecian pediment on the eastern front is relieved by semi-Gothic towers and a Renaissance roof and half tower. Though the foundation is as massive and genuine as anything known in modern architecture, yet here the roof ornaments are counterfeit, being of sheet-iron to represent stone, with a sort of cornice to represent stone-coping which turns out to be galvanized iron. The copper ornamentation around the half-towers is exceedingly tawdry and poor. The architect had a grand opportunity for a facade, so large is the plan, and yet the whole eastern and the southern sides are so broken as to lose all dignity, and yet not to attain picturesqueness. The balconies are uniformly put where they are not needed, and left out where they should be placed. Little of the ornamentation seems added where there is any architectural reason for it. The whole of this immense and almost tasteless structure is surmounted by a gigantic cupola, 313 feet high, of a singularly composite and unpleasing character. But bad as is the exterior, the interior arrangements are still worse. The ground plan, it will be remembered, is an immense cube, with a square hole in the middle. The corridors run the length of this cube, and it will hardly be believed by our readers, that there are two dark halls, each 340 feet in length, only lighted by a window at each end. Several rooms have no external means of lighting.

The legislative halls are not made conspicuous, and are difficult to find. The Assembly room is 141 1/2 feet long, 85 1/2 wide, and 42 high. The ceiling is a poor fire-proof cement ceiling, on iron rafters, and so hung as to make its acoustic properties very doubtful. The committee-rooms are double the size of those of the Capitol at Washington, very high, and dark, except near the windows. A number of the committee-rooms are two stories below the Senate and Assembly rooms. Throughout the interior the ornamentation is tawdry and poor, being of cheap plaster instead of wood or stone. The immense windows, with seventy-pound weights, are set in wooden (instead of iron) jambs, and are almost sure to warp under the sun, and give great annoyance. Nowhere within is there a dignified access to that which constitutes the object of the building--the legislative halls.

We have not space to criticise further the defects of this expensive structure, which are manifold. The Legislature, it will be remembered, finally referred the whole matter of the construction of this building to a committee, of which Mr. Dorsheimer was Chairman. These gentlemen initiated a reform in such proceedings, by referring the whole question to experts. They selected for this purpose Mr. F. L. Olmsted, well known for his taste, integrity, and knowledge of the expense of public works, Mr. Leopold Eidlitz, the builder of some of the most beautiful structures in this City, and Mr. Richardson, an architect in Boston of high repute. These gentlemen, for almost a nominal sum, have prepared a new plan, new specifications, and, while of course preserving the general character of the building, have corrected some of the defects, and now in their report to the committee of the Legislature, offer a new Capitol two millions of dollars cheaper than the former one, and a building of some taste and dignity. For the sake of the whole public, it is to be hoped that their plan will be adopted.

AUTHUR GILMAN.

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January 9, 1875, New-York Tribune, Page 2, Column 2, THE COST OF THE NEW CAPITOL.

REMARKABLE CARD FROM THE FORMER ARCHITECT--

AUTHUR GILMAN SHOWS THE ENORMOUS WASTE WHICH HAS OCCURRED--THE BOARD Of COMMISSIONERS' SYSTEM RADICALLY WRONG.

Fluellen--There is occasions and causes why and wherefore, in all things. King Henry V. Act V., Scene 1.

To the Editor of The Tribune.

Sir: The tax paying publie of the State of New-York will read that portion of the Controller's Annual Report which relates to the cost of the New Capitol at Albany, as published in The Tribune of this morning, with no very tranquil or comfortable reflections. It is here stated that "there has been expended upon the New Capitol, to the present time, including $500,000 for the purchase of lands, and excluding unadjusted claims contracted by the Commissioners, fully $5,800,000.'' What the amount of those unadjusted claims may be there is no means of ascertaining from the report; but aside from these, we have an admitted expenditure of $5,300,000 upon the structure alone. And it is understood that the work has been carried but little, it any, above the first of the three stories which make up the elevation of the principal fronts.

Under such an official exhibit of waste and imbecility, it would be wrong for any one who is thoroughly conversant with all the facts of the case to remain silent. The original Board of Commissioners repeatedly pledged themselves to an expenditure not exceeding the appropriation of $4,00,000 for the entire structure---with the single exception of the ornamental sculpture alone. I was at that time one of the two "joint architects" of the Capitol, and furnished the design which was adopted by the Board, and which, in most of its leading features, is now being carried out. That the design has been somewhat changed by the present architect in charge, and perhaps with a material increase of expense, I am not disposed to deny. This fact is well alluded to by the Controller, in the concluding portion of his remarks on the subject. But I deem it a duty to inform the public that I procured at that time not estimates merely, but written tenders of contract from not less than three Separate firms of experienced builders in New-York to do and complete all the works on the plans as thus adopted, in each case for a sum within the said approptiation of four millions of dollars. And these tenders were accompanied in each case by the offer to furnish ample and undoubted security for the satisfactory completion of the whole work. Bills of quantities, exhibiting every item of the proposed contracts, were carefully taken out; and as a single instance of the ample eviidence that the sum named was abundant for completion of the design, I quote from the sworn testimony of one of the contractors referred to before a Committee of the Senate, as reported in The Albany Argus of the next day after, "that he estimated the cost of the new Capitol, according to the present plans, at $3,800,500, and he was willing and ready to furnish ample bonds, provided he could obtain the contract, to build it at that price."

But these tenders, although eagerly quoted by the then Commissioners as an inducement to the Legislature for further grants of ready money, seemed to be regarded by them as of no further consequence. Indeed, I rescued one of them from a waste-basket in the Senate Committee room within ten days after the foregoing testimony was given. And it very soon became evident to me that a majority of the Commissioners, at least, had no wish or intention to contract for the work. It even seemed to me---and to many others who were cognizant of the facts, now for the first time publicly stated---that some of the most active of the Board had not the slightest idea of limiting the expenses of the building. To secure a handsome annual appropriation appeared to be the limit of their intentions, and a distiguished citizen of Albany remarked to me at the time that "they would make a placer of it yet." How well this gentleman estimated the probable result appears from the official report of the Conroller as published in The Tribune of to-day.

It is due to the truth to state that there were gentlemen in the minority of each of the Boards of Commissioners under whom I served, who were sincerely and conscientiously anxious for a different mode of procedure. But their voices and influence were powerless to effect a change, and they, one after another, resigned, or were left out in successive reorganizations of the Board. And the only reply to my own often repeated and urgent applications to the Commissioners to put the whole work under a definite and satisfactory contract ---so as to assure its completion within the sum at which I had estimated the proper cost, as proved by the bids above mentioned---was to drop quietly my name from the "joint" design, and to dispense with my further services.

I hope that this simple and direct statement of facts will suffice to throw some light on the worse than folly of the prcsent system of executing important public works under the direction of a "Board of Commissioners." In this respect the message of Gov. Dix last year hit the exact point of the difficulty when he recommended the appointment of some known and tried, efficient, professional architect, whose whole character and reputation would be at stake in the proper conduct of his work, and who would be held strictly accountable in the public eye for the honest and economical discharge of his duties. If the State of New-York had occasion to send a ship and cargo to sea valued at $4,000,000 or $5,000,000, it is scarcely to be supposed that they would appoint a "Board of Commissioners" to dictate how she should be navigated. They would rather select a careful and experienced commander, with second and third officers of a like judicious selection, and confide the precious venture to their trained and habituated skill. Now, to build a Capitol well is a more arduous and difficult piece of work than to sail any ship in the world. And the public may be well assured that never will a straightforward administration of their public works, or an unembarrassed and economical execution of fine and creditable designs be secured to their service until some such course as that recommended by Gov. Hill be steadily, faithfully, und intelligently carried out. Yours, Arthur Gilman.

New-York, Jan. 7, 1875.

The Sword of Damocles, or Giving Toppled Themis Her Due.

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November 18, 1882, The Sun, Page 2, Column 2, Will the Roof of the Assembly Chamber Tumble on the Assembly?

The architects of the Capitol at Albany have replied to the report of Gov. CORNELL'S expert Commission as to the question whether the vaulted ceiling of the Assembly Chamber ought to be taken down. There is no conclusive agreement of professional opinion in regard to the stability of the roof, nor is there likely to be such an agreement. The public must draw its own conclusions from the facts as it gets them.

The point of immediate interest is whether the Assembly can safely use the Chamber at the coming session. Is the vaulted ceiling likely to go to pieces "all at once and nothing first," like a soap bubble or the deacon's wonderful one-hoss shay? [a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes] There is a vague apprehension to this effect. Some of the gentlemen whom Gov. CORNELL has consulted on the subject evidently fear that the ceiling may tumble in without warning, covering the floor with flattened legislators. Harper's Weekly observes that the Assembly is not likely to sit next winter in a room with a stone roof which may fall upon it "at any moment." Probably not. That would be adding unnecssary solemnity to the responsibilities of office.

But this apprehension of a sudden collapse of the structure is sheer absurdity. The vault could give way only through a failure in itself, a failure in its abuttments, or a failure in its supports. Let us look briefly at the three possibilities in turn, to see whether common sense affords the members of the Assembly any ground for expecting a catastrophe next winter.

If the vaulted ceiling itself gave way, it would be because it was defective either in material or in form. Sandstone is the material of which this ceiling is constructed. The present Capitol Commissioners, we believe, make a mistake of not using sandstone in their work, but the fact remains that the great and lasting achievements of architecture, from Karnak to Cologne, are in sandstone. The Governor's Commision have tested the sandstone used in the Capitol. It is found to be "not uniform in quality or strength." But if it has been found that any particular piece of sandstone is not of the quality or strength required by the particular work assigned to it, the fact is not reported. Nor is it shown that the central vault is improperly constructed as to form. There is abundant evidence to the contrary. The side vaults, those over the walls on which Mr. HUNT'S paintings need some attentions: but the Commission agree that the defect in their construction can be readily remedied. As far as the vault itself is concerned, the ceiling is all right. There is no danger that it will suddenly tumble of its own accord.

Will it fall through any fault in the abuttments? The immense weight of the vaulted roof tends to spread or crush the walls and piers supporting it. The Governor's Commission criticizes the system of half arches and iron rods by which the lateral pressure of the vault is resisted; and as an original proposition there is much force in their criticism. They do not, however, express any fear, or intimate that there is the slightest reason for fearing, that the system will suddenly give way through the failure of the abutments. The Commission have discovered no indications of such an event; and the indications would be unmistakable were it impending.

The remaining source of danger is in the unequal settlement of the foundations. Here there is always danger when a huge mass of masonry is based upon anything but solid rock. The Capitol at Albany is built upon a bed of wet clay. The Commission report that the inequality of settlement has not as yet gone far enough to "imperil the safety of the structure." On the contrary, they find evidence that the settlement of the foundations has ceased, at least for the present. Since a year ago there has been no change perceptible by instruments.

The Commission are of the opinion that the foundations of the Capitol may yield when the bed of wet clay is finally dried out. But that remote possibility, depending upon a gradual geological process, affects not only the roof of the Assembly Chamber, but also the whole Capitol, and the whole town of Albany. If this possibility furnishes sufficient reason for taking down the vaulted roof of the Assembly Chamber, it affords equally good reason for taking down the entire Capitol, and, indeed, for removing Albany itself to some other and securer site. Nobody imagines that the foundations are going to dive suddenly into the clay after remaining motionless for a year. Even it they are sinking gradually and sinking unequally, the legislators will have plenty of warning—they will have weeks and months, and probably years, in which to escape from underneath the falling roof. They need not be alarmed now. From all that has appeared thus far in the technical discussion about the vaulted roof, there is no more reason to believe that it will collapse suddenly than there is to expect that it will violently explode. Whatever may be the verdict of remote times in regard to the stability of the roof, there is no immediate danger of its coming down on the heads of the legislators. It would be folly for them to abandon the Chamber in a panic. And it would be a grotesque piece of folly for them to leave it and occupy, as is proposed, the room directly underneath, where they would be in precisely the same, danger, if there was any danger.

It was a great mistake to build the Capitol where it stands. The vast structure is in several respects a monument of costly blundering. Jobs, changes of plan, professional jealousies, artistic inconsistency, and practical uncertainty have combined to give it a most unfortunate character. It ought to represent the best art of the age; it is, in fact, an architectural hybrid, like the TWEED Court House, with its remarkable addition. It ought to stand as solid as the Pyramid of Cheops; architects and builders are debating whether the roof will tumble in, and how soon the foundations will sink into the bowels of the earth. There is nothing assured and irrefutable about the new Capitol except the fact that it has cost the people of the State an enormous sum of money. It would be a gain every way if the undertaking were abandoned even now, and the seat of government transferred to this city, where it properly belongs.

The panic about the roof of the Assembly Chamber gives new force to these truths. So far as the safety of the Assemblymen this winter is concerned, however, the alarm is unnecessary.

THE FALLING CAPITOL.

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October 18, 1882, The Sun, Page 2, Column 5, THE FALLING CAPITOL.

What a Taxpayer Saw in a Recent Visit to Albany.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN—Sir: By to-day's papers I see that Gov. Cornell has called upon the New Capitol Commissioners, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Finance Committees of the two Houses of the Legislature to meet him in Albany to-morrow to consult as to the propriety of calling an extra session of the Legislature on "the condition of the Capitol." It is high time not only to consult, but to take some positive action in regard to this building, so aptly described by Gov. Lucius Robinson, in a message vetoing an appropriation to continue its construction, as "a great public calamity." I was present when this monstrosity was first occupied by the Legislature for business. Then the painting, the gliding, and the carving were all fresh, the brass chandeliers, weighing in some instances hundreds of pounds, were bright, the two pictures by Hunt on the walls of the Assembly Chamber were new and attractive. Everything was in the finest trim when the gas was lighted on that opening night. The Assembly Chamber was crowded with the elite of Albany, and distinguished men and women from nearly every county in the State were present to give eclat to the occasion. Lieut.-Gov. Dorsheimer, Thomas G. Alvord, who had voted for the original appropriation for a new Capitol when the limit of cost was fixed at $4,000,000 and also for nearly all the subsequent appropriations, swelling the cost to over $12,000,000 before a single room was fit for occupancy, the Hon. Erastus Brooks, and others vied with each other in lauding the building and the architect.

In THE SUN soon afterward there appeared, in its regular Albany despatches, criticisms upon the acoustics of the Assembly Chamber and the wasteful extravagance in the matter of ornamentation. This was received with howls of indignation by the friends of the architect and the local press. But before the Assembly had been in session a month the criticisms upon the acoustics of the chamber were justified by numerous resolutions offered by members for the appointment of committees to improve them it possible. The circles of seats for the members were moved forward, nearer the Speaker's desk, and fine wires were stretched midway in the air over the heads of members. At the close of the session a committee was appointed to sit during the recess and devise, if possible, some further method of improvement. That committee closed up the two immense vaults at each end of the chamber, known as the ladies' and gentlemen's galleries. It was all they could do. They shut of from public view perhaps $50.000 or $100,000 worth of carved sandstone and gaudy painting. But the acoustics of the chamber were improved a little, and the rough boards still stand in strong contrast to the gaudy painting and carved stone of the rest of the chamber.

Last week I again visited the Capitol. The contrast with its appearance on that first night was painful. Though it was high noon and a bright sun was shining, the corridors were dark, gloomy, and dirty. A lighted gas jet here and there only partly revealed the too evident lack of proper care, and, what is still worse, the criminal faults in the construction of the building. On the floor, on the window sills, on the glass, everywhere, in fact, the dust of months seemed to have settled. Occasionally I met a group of young men who wore blue caps and coats with gilt trimmings, supposed to be there to take care of the building. All that I saw them do was to run the elevator, chaperone visitors about the building, smoke cigars, and entertain each other telling stories. No sign of a brush or a broom was to be seen. I presume it would have been beneath their dignity to handle such articles.

On the first floor in the grand corridor I noticed that one of the granite base stones, over a foot square, was cracked entirely through. The crack could be traced ten or twelve feet up the ceiling. The sandstone steps of the grand staircase were worn and the edges were rounded. Through the dust on some of the chandeliers spots of verdigris were plainly visible. The ceiling in many places was stained, as though the rain had leaked through the roof. The sandstone in the corridors was damp and slimy. and the air was as chilly as the air of a vault. The Assembly Chamber was closed to all visitors, but through the courtesy of one of the blue-capped attendants. I was permitted a peep through one of the doors. Scaffolding hid the ceiling from view, and on it were workmen getting ready, as I was informed, to take down the stone ceiling before it should fall. These stones, it may not be generally known, had been finely carved, some of them polished, and then painted after the vault was put up. The paint was peeling from the polished stone in many places. I caught a glimpse of the painting of "Discovery." by Hunt, on one of the walls. It looked as though the dampness from the sandstone had struck through and nearly destroyed it. but the appearance may have been due to the accumulated dust. This picture and its companion. "Progress." cost the taxpayers $15,000, as I am informed. Albanians tell you proudly that the total cost of the Assembly Chamber is over $1,000,000, and invariably wind up with the assertion that it is the "most magnificent meeting room in the world." The closed doors prevented my making a close inspection of the room, but from my peep hole it looked as though the same general lack of attention and care visible in other parts of the building was to be seen there. In the Senate Chamber some little effort has been made to protect the leather upholstery by hanging cotton cloth in front of it to keep out the dust. But elsewhere about the room dust and neglect had full sway. The gaudy tinselling on the walls above the blocks of Mexican onyx had begun to peel off in places; two of the agate window panes in the rear of the Lieutenant-Governor's desk had disappeared, and the whole chamber had a sort of a run-down-at-the-heel appearance. Climbing to the story above the Assembly Chamber, the dust on the floor seemed never to have been disturbed since the roof was put on. Mingled with it were cigar stubs, old quids of tobacco, and other filth.

I retraced my steps down stairs and to the street, figuring upon the probable cost of the building when finished—if it stands long enough to be finished—which it is believed will not be less than $20,000,000, and wondering at the patience of the taxpayers who had submitted to this great swindle. Gov. Robinson was right. It is, indeed, a "great public calamity." The only portion of the building that showed any care was that in the immediate vicinity of Gov. Cornell's chambers and the rooms occupied by other State officials. I spoke to a well-known citizen of Albany of what I had seen. His indignation excelled my own.

"It is," said he, "a disgrace. The men who are placed in charge of that building are political bummers, put there through the influence of State officials, Senators, Assemblymen, and political bosses. They never did, and they never will, do any legitimate work. But even if they were the best men in the world, they could do nothing to counteract the mistakes that have been made in its construction. Gilding and painting carved and polished marble is not the worst thing about it Perhaps some day the whole thing will tumble down, and then the dear people will find out how they have been swindled.

To-morrow, when Gov. Cornell gets the Commissioners, Lieut.-Gov. Hoskins, Speaker Pattcrson, and the financial Solons of the Legislature together, would it not be well if he and they should make a minute inspection of the "public calamity," and, if as bad as pictured, why not recommend that it be abandoned, the stone that is good taken down, and another building erected suitable for its intended purpose? This can be done at a less cost than to go on and finish the building, if the plans and systems that have thus far prevailed in the construction are to be continued. I am told that the cost of heating, lighting, and caring for the building, as now planned, will not be far short of $50,000 a year.

I am neither an architect nor a builder. What I noted in my visit was entirely superficial. I believe that if competent architects and builders who were friends of the people, and not cronies of the supervising architect and the Commissioners, were to visit and critically inspect this building, they would find it much worse than I have pictured it.

Away with the "Public Calamity."

NEW YORK. Oct. 17. H. B. W.

"The Crack of Political Doom."

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January 31, 1888, The Daily Graphic, Page 1 Illustration,

January 31, 1888, The Daily Graphic, Page 2, Column 2, THE CRACKED CEILING.

The cracked Assembly ceiling at Albany still menaces the pates of the august lawmakers who sit under it.

The possible catastrophe, introspectively treated on the first page of to-day's GRAPHIC, is, we hope, far distant. The gentlemen who sit under that ceiling and watch the widening crack as they lean back to listen to the eloquent address of the member from the Thirteenth District on the subject of sidedoors, must feel some degree of perturbation. When the member from Wayback arises to introduce a resolution against the use of lardine and feels a chunk of plaster glide down between his shirt collar and his neck he is in all probability slightly chilled and unable to properly present his views or the views of his constituents. When there is any little business being transacted between members which has nothing to do with public measures the sifting of a pint or two of dry mortar into their eyes is a reminder that they are there to look after the public interests and not their own affairs.

In several respects the cracked ceiling at Albany has its uses. It is a constant reminder of things done and undone, and while chunks of plaster and pints of pulverized mortar are not particularly pleasant interruptions, they serve to keep before the legislators the fact that the crack of political doom will menace them if they don't behave themselves.

Mr. Strahan Gets an A For Double Entendre, and the New York Times Gets One For Prescience.

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March 7, 1889, The Olean Democrat [Olean, Cattaraugus Co., N.Y.] Page 5, Column 1, THAT ASSEMBLY CEILING.

The more light that is thrown upon the assembly ceiling steal at Albany the more interesting the investigation grows. The whitewashing report made by the appropritions committee was extremely unsatisfactory to all honest men and even the republican assembly at last has decided to probe the matter farther and attempt to find out where that missing $105,000 has gone to. A bomb exploded in the assembly chamber when the report of the appropriations committee was being discussed. Some of the republican members were criticizing Chairman Ainsworth pretty severely when he retorted: "I am not responsible for a fraud in the bill. I did not draw it. There was politics in it thicker than the panels in the ceiling. I will confess that the only reason the appropriations committee was given charge of the bill last year was to take care of politics on the eve of a presidential election. It was unwise for the appropriations committee to have taken charge of that bill and it should have refused to take it. But if it had refused we would would have elected a democrat instead of a republican president." Ainsworth had been driven to the wall. This last startling statement which had been wrung from him sent a flutter through the galleries, and caused a loud buzzing of surprise in the crowd about the bar.

In speaking on the report General Batcheller declared "that it was a sham ceiling and an outrage to put in such a building as the capitol. It been wrong to let any member of the assembly have anything to do with its construction." Since the carelessness of the ceiling commission had been exposed he had been approached with appeals to shield them from censure of a political and personal and family nature that had been hard to withstand. Yet they had caused to be erected in a magnificent chamber a ceiling composed of eighty per cent plaster of paris, fifteen per cent of wood pulp and and five per cent of alum water. The committee has been taken in like a countryman at a country fair. Mr. Ainsworth tells us if Perry had been chose for the work Cleveland would have been elected. Then Andrews selection must have elected Harrison. "That is the only redeeming feature of the work."

When republicans themselves make such confessions of trickery and dereliction of duty the matter must be in a pitiable plight indeed. The whitewashing report was adopt however by a strictly party vote. Messrs Fish of Putnam, Aspinwall of Brooklyn, King of New York, McMaster of Stuben, republicans; Creamer of New York, McCann of Brooklyn and Bush of Ulster, democrats, were appointed a special committee to reinvestigate the whole sorry business, with power to select counsel, send for books and papers and to sit where it chose for the sole purpose of finding out, if possible, where the $105,000 or any portion of it has gone. The new committee is generally considered to be made up of clean, level headed men who will make the investigation thorough and complete. It is very evident that the assembly must discover and punish the offenders or imperil the popular confidence which is already pretty badly shaken.

"Mr. Strahan criticized the staining of the marble capitals surmounting the great pillars, which were originally white, but by the use of some material had been made to represent terra-cotta."

The Assemblymen had occupied their new quarters for less than six weeks at the point the Times article below was reporting on 132 years ago, and already the occupants were getting sick from drafts in the impossible-to-heat, fifty-seven-foot-high, acoustically-unreasonable legislative chamber, but imagine the failure of faux-craftsmanship a good ten years before the famous "papier-mache ceiling" had ever been installed---as a corrective to the stone-vaulted ceiling which failed in a decade instead of a century. Imagine how much it's cost over the years to keep that insane symbol still standing, but with sugar-taxpayers footing the bill and turning the other cheek, where's the checks and balances? There is an extensive pattern underlying the behavior in public officials who undertook this all, and it only got a tad more sophisticated with today's politicians, who have also been given a license to steal from common citizens by a ruling one-percent junta who fed their wallets and egos with this Versailles-complex.

February 19, 1879, New York Times, NEW-YORK'S LAW MAKERS. ANIMATED DEBATE ON THE NEW CAPITOL APPROPRIATION.
Tomorrow afternoon the Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation of the Mutual Life rebate plan. Prof. Elizur Wright will oppose the rebate system. It is doubtful whether Mr. Strahan will be able to attend. He is ill to-day, and all his neighbors in the upper left hand row of seats in the Assembly are and have been suffering from severe colds contracted by exposure to drafts of cold air that poured in through the cracks between the window casings and sashes. So uncomfortable had all the exposed members round this part of the room, that to-day Mr. Stratum's resolution, calling upon the Capitol Commissioners to attend to the matter, was adopted with alacrity. The chamber was not warm either to-day or yesterday, and it is probable that other resolutions pointing out sundry omissions, will follow that adopted to-day.

At the opening of the night session, Mr. Knowles, of Albany, provoked an animated debate about the new Capitol. He obtained consent of the Assembly to have the bill introduced by Senator Harris, and appropriating $500,000 for continuing work on the new Capitol through the Winter and Spring of 1879, considered in Committee of the Whole. With Mr. Chase, of Oswego, in the chair, the bill was discussed, first by Mr. Sloan and afterward by Mr. Hepburn, Mr. Strahan, Mr. Braman, Speaker Alvord, Mr. Brooks, and Dr. Hayes. Mr. Sloan explained that a part of the amount appropriated was needed to pay a debt of $300,000 incurred; after the debt was paid, $160,000 would remain to carry up the south section and to get it ready to roof on. The Committee of Ways and Means had considered it judicious, wise, and even absolutely necessary, to take provision for the work alluded to. In reply to questions by Mr. Hepburn, he explained that the amount would not provide a roof, but would only raise the walls of the section corresponding to that now occupied to position to receive a roof.

Mr. Strahan, who spoke at some length, took occasion to remark that the Capitol Commissioners had excavated a sort of "cave of the winds," and decorated it very beautifully. But until they made it comfortable by stopping up the drafts that threatened serious illness to some of the members of the House, he felt inclined to say that the Assembly ought to stop the Commissioners' drafts, at least until the Commissioners had stopped up the drafts of hot and cold air which no one could control or regulate.

Mr. Hepburn forbore to go into criticism of the building, although he admitted that he was tempted to do so. He insisted that the Commissioners had exceeded last year's appropriation of $1,000,000 without authority of law. Mr. Sloan admitted that Mr. Hepburn was technically correct, but he understood the law of 1878 as directing the Commissioners to complete the part of the building now occupied, even if it were necessary to exceed the appropriation. The authorization was: "To enter into contracts in anticipation of the appropriation therefor." Mr. Strahan, reading the section of the law alluded to and quoted, said that he believed that the language used had been adopted in order that the appropriation might be exceeded. There was no limit to the excess to which they might have gone if the logic of the gentleman from Albany was good. He not only criticized the crafty phraseology used, but be cautioned the Legislature against permitting laws to pass that were susceptible of such interpretation.

Mr. Fish argued with Mr. Strahan and Mr. Hepburn, but he saw no way out of the present difficulty but to pass the bill, with the Senate amendment. He believed that large amounts of money had been extravagantly expended. During the last four months $420,000 had been expended for sandstone for the building. He deprecated the constant cry of the Albany Representatives on behalf of the laboring men. That was merely a local cry, not heard 50 miles away from Albany.

Mr. Hepburn said he would vote for the appropriation asked for, but for no other this Winter. Mr. Varnum hoped the bill would pass, and believed the Capitol Commissioners had been justified in some of their expenditures. He did not believe there were 50 men in the House who would vote a larger appropriation this Winter. The Capitol should be completed gradually. Mr. Terry could not justify the Commissioners for exceeding the appropriation of last Winter, although he favored the passage of the bill before the House, Mr. Knowles returned to the fight bravely, hoping the bill would not be periled by extraneous criticisms. Mr. Hayes justified the expenditures of the Commissioners, and would approve them. He defended the Commissioners, who, he said, were not to be held accountable for the defective acoustics or the lack of adaptability complained of in the building. Mr. Strahan thought it was a trifle serious to justify and approve the entire action of the Capitol Commissioners. He knew Dr. Hayes would do it, "for there was nothing mean about him."

Mr. Strahan criticized the staining of the marble capitals surmounting the great pillars, which were originally white, but by the use of some material had been made to represent terra-cotta. That the money had not been judiciously expended was plain. He illustrated his assertion by calling attention to the oak water-tanks, which would contain water but not emit any, and which cost $95 each. He also pointed at the clock, which had stopped since the session had opened, and asked if $500 was not too much for such a piece of work. The house was frequently provoked to hearty laughter, which was general when Mr. Hepburn interrupted Mr. Strahan to call for an explanation of the allegories on the wall and made some ridiculous allusions to them.

Mr. Brooks took up the allegories, and in his turn criticised them, and at the same time complained of the criticism which sought to make them intelligible. He would have suggested that in their place historical subjects should have been selected. The Capitol Commissioners had done just what they had been ordered to do by the last Legislature. He alluded to the efforts he had made in the Constitutional Convention to limit the cost of the building to $5,000,000. Having been overruled, he could not but defend the Commissioners, who had done the best they could under the circumstances. The act of January and the amended act of April gave the Commissioners the authority to put the Senate and Assembly Chambers into condition for occupation. After an hour or more had been consumed in very entertaining discussion, the bill, on Mr. Sloan's motion, was progressed. When the committee rose it was ordered to a third reading without opposition.

Wipe Out Tammany Jobs

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January 9, 1879, The New York Evening Express, Page 1, Column 3, THE GOVERNOR’S MESSAGE.

STATE OF NEW YORK. EXECUTIVE CHAMBER. ALBANY, January 7, 1879.

To the Legislature:

The event which first claims attention is your removal into the new Capitol. The condition of the appropriation of last year has been so far fulfilled that the Assembly chamber is substantially completed. The room intended for the Court of Appeals has been fitted up for temporary use of the Senate, the court in the meantime occupying the old Senate chamber. All the rest of the building, except the Attorney-General's office, remains unfinished. Many millions of dollars and years of time will be required to complete it, although the sum already expended upon it amounts to $9,276,615.36. My views in regard to the extravagant cost of the building, its ostentatious exterior and most inconvenient interior, have been frequently expressed, and they remain wholly unchanged. The subject of further appropriations for the work will be presented in another part of his message.

I sincerely hope that you will find the finance conducive to your health and comfort, and in every way so agreeable and convenient that you will not regret it. If the occupation of their new and gorgeous apartments shall lead the two houses of the Legislature to so emulate the exalted virtues which have, at different times, and on many occasions, adorned the history of the old chambers, that they shall enact only wise and good laws, that they shall honestIy and faithfully execute the great trust committed to them by the people, that they shall strictly obey the Constitution and the laws, that they shall establish and maintain a higher tone of public morality, the enormous cost of the building will be repaid in something better than money. But if, on the other hand, no such effects appear, if the lamentable vices which have too often marked the legislation of the old building shall stain that of the new, if the extravagant expenditure made upon it is to stimulate profuse and wasteful appropriations to other objects, if instead of encouraging a plain and honest republican simplicity, it is to cultivate a weak and vain desire to imitate the manners of European courts or to rival regal magnificence and imperial splendors; nay, more, if bribery and corruption, following naturally in the wake of such influences, shall soil the new chambers, the people will have cause to regret the erection of such a Capitol, and to wish that the earth might open and swallow it up.

I trust that you may be so enlightened and guided of the Divine wisdom, that you may choose and follow the better path.

THE GOVERNOR'S VETO OF THE CAPITOL APPROPRIATION

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May 19, 1887, New York Times,

DEMOCRATS AND THE WORKINGMEN.

THE GOVERNOR'S VETO OF THE CAPITOL APPROPRIATION—AN EFFORT TO PROVIDE FOOD FOR IRISHMEN DEFEATED—CHEERS FOR REPUBLICANS AND GROANS FOR THE GOVERNOR—AN UNUSUAL SCENE.

Special Despatch to the New-York Times.

ALBANY, May 18.—The majority report of the Ways and Means Committee on the Message of the Governor vetoing certain items in the Supply bill was presented in the House this afternoon by the Chairman, Mr. Husted. Messrs. Bradley, Cozans, and Maynard, of the minority, made no report, but had their dissent entered upon the journal. The first step in the proceedings was the raising of several points of order by Messrs. Spinola, Ecclesine, Mitchell, and Cozans, to prevent the report being brought before the House at all. The Speaker ruled that the report of the committee was of the highest privilege, and could come before the House at any time. Mr. Husted was given permission to read the report himself instead of having it read at the Clerk's desk. During the reading there was the most profound stillness in the Chamber. When he had finished he moved that the report, with the testimony accompanying called upon Mr. Husted's motion, and when Mr. Cozans' name was called, he rose and made a powerful party speech, calling upon all the Democrats upon the floor to vote to sustain the Governor's veto. The roll-call proceeded slowly, one member after the other explaining his vote, and the motion prevailed. Mr. Husted then moved the appropriation for the new Capitol be passed notwithstanding the Governor's veto. This was the question on which the excitement rose to fever heat. It was now past 6 o'clock, and the news having spread around the city, the lobby and galleries had become jammed to suffocation. All work had stopped upon the Capitol building this afternoon, and the dis-charged workmen were present in force. Speaker Sloan, seeing the condition of affairs, warned the spectators that any demonstration would be immediately followed by the clearing of the House.

The debate which took place was very heated. The position assumed by the Republicans was briefly stated by Mr. Alvord and Mr. Gilbert, of Franklin. It was substantially this: We have an enormous building on our hands, which is, as the Governor says, a public calamity; but it is nearly two-thirds finished, and no one, not even the Governor, suggests that it be abandoned. If we must go on with it, let the work proceed as rapidly as possible, and let us get it ready for use, that we may get some return for our money. The Democratic argument was substantially this: The Governor of the State is a Democrat. We must stand by him, and all this money will be spent for contractors, none for the laboring men. An immense amount of pure buncombe [a variant spelling of bunkum] was poured out on both sides. Neither Republicans nor Democrats had any advantage over each other on this score; but the former voted as they talked, and the latter walked one way and voted the other. When the roll-call was completed it was found that 48 members had voted against passing the item over the Governor's veto and 76 had voted for it, just 12 short of the necessary two-thirds; so there to was sustained. The only Republican who voted among the 46 was Mr. Fish. Mr. Bradley, of Kings; Healy, of New-York; Barns, of Troy, and the two Democrats from Albany voted with the Republicans. With the declaration of the result, the Speaker declared the House adjourned.

A minute after the adjournment the Iong-pent excitement of the crowds of workmen broke forth. From gallery and lobby they poured forth the most dreadful imprecations on the men and the party that they declared had first deceived and then abandoned them. They cursed Tammany Hall; they cursed the Democratic Party; they cursed the individual members of it on the floor; they yelled, hooted and hissed Spinola, Ecclesine, and Grady above all the others. They called them by name, and invoked frightful curses upon them, for it seems that these-members had been lately attending the meetings, making speeches to the workmen, and promising to stand by them to the end. They had even gone so far as to head delegations to the Governor, asking him to sign the appropriation. The rage of these men was, therefore, specially directed against them, and they went so far as to threaten personal violence. The crowd formed in a solid body outside the Assembly Chamber, and the obnoxious members did not dare to come out. Mr. Childs, of Seneca, another Democratic member who had made speeches and then voted the other way, was quite roughly handled, and had to run back into the Chamber. No one seems to have been threatened except those members who had made themselves conspicuous as "friends of the working man," and when the time came to vote the way they talked had done the other thing. It was at last found necessary to bring up a strong force of Police and clear the Capitol building. It is an unfortunate affair, but certainly a most signal example of chickens coming borne to roost. The whole Winter long certain New-York members have absolutely nauseated the house with their everlasting talk to the galleries about their friendship for the working man. The galleries have now seen its value and expressed their appreciation. Lieut.-Gov. Dorsheimer was so frightened that he sent for a posse of Police to protect the Senate from the "unterrified."

ANSWER OF THE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE.

The following is the text of the report of the Ways and Means Committee:

To the Assembly:

The Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred the Message of the Governor, transmitted a statement of the items of appropriation objected to by him in Assembly bill Su. 267, with his reasons for the same, beg leave respectfully to report: That while we have no recommendation to make for the action of the Legislature, beyond that of taking the usual votes on such occasions, we desire pointedly to dissent from the Message as to the importance, property, and urgency of many of the items objected to, and to point out some inconsistencies which are conspicuous in the Message.

The Governor objects to certain items for Mr. Eaton, for the sole reason that they had not been considered and approved by the Board of Audit, and yet be approves items in the bill of exactly the same class, to wit, for attorneys' fees, expenses of experts and stenographers originating out of the same transaction, and having no better claim to the favor of the Legislature and the Executive than the former. They also had not been adjudged by the Board of Audit. It may be insisted that the claims approved by the Governor are contained in an item for the Attorney-General for the benefit of the parties interested, and that no part of the appropriation will be paid to them except upon the audit and approval of that officer. But this cannot in the one case more than in the other authorize the appropriation until after the audit. The truth is that Mr. Eaton has no claim against the State which the Board of Audit can consider and allow.

&c.

"A Great Public Calamity."

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May 17, 1877, The New York Times, Page 2, Veto of Supply Bill Items. Gov. Robinson Rejects to Appropriations in the Supply Bill Amounting to Over a Million and a Half Dollars--The New Capitol...Rejected.

This item is objected to and not approved. The new Capitol is a great public calamity. At its commencement the people of the State were assured that it would be completed for $4,000,000. There have already been expended upon it $7,723,685 16. No reliance can be placed upon any estimate which can be obtained as to the cost of completing it. There is no probability that it can be fully finished, according to the original plans, for less than from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. If the tax-payers of the State had not been deceived; if they had supposed that the whole expenditure would reach what it has already reached, it is not likely that they would have permitted the commencement of the work. It is without a parallel for extravagance and folly. It covers more than three acres of ground. Its proportions are enormous. It is more than double the size needed for a Capitol. At every step of its progress one idea has held supreme control, which was to make its exterior a great and magnificent architectural display, which should dazzle the eyes of all beholders, without the least regard to the interior arrangements for practical use. Indeed, but for the improvements in the interior plans made by the present Commissioners, the two houses of the Legislature would scarcely have been able to occupy it at all. Even now, after they have made all the changes for the better possible in a building already spoiled, it can only be used with very great inconvenience and discomfort. The legislative chambers must be reached by ascending to a height of 62 feet from the first steps of the main front, and this extraordinary elevation must be attained either by long stairways or else by steam power and elevators, such as are used to reach the fifth or sixth stories of first-class hotels. The halls are long, damp, and dark, the rooms badly lighted and ventilated. In cloudy weather very few of the rooms can be used without gaslight during the day as well as at night. When this great and useless structure can or will be completed it is idle to conjecture. When we consider the unlimited expense of heating and lighting three acres of a building 108 feet high; of its cleaning, care, and attendance, with six or eight steam engines, and their engineers and firemen, no one can feel in any haste to have it completed. The best estimate which I have been able to obtain of the amount of these expenses makes it about $250,000 per annum. In making the appropriation the Legislature directs the Commissioners to "build and complete the exterior of the new Capitol building in the Italian Renaissance style of architecture adopted in the original design," and according to the style upon which the building was being erected prior to the adoption of the so-called "medieval [?].....design." There are very great differences of opinion among eminent architects as to which style should be adopted. The direction of the Legislature compelled the Commissioners to return to the former style, and I understand that the change will involve a loss of at least $300,000. The new Capitol, like all other public buildings upon which the State has recently expended such extravagant amounts of money, was the outgrowth of a vicious system of finance and of the folly and madness which accompanied it. The inevitable disasters which come of such follies are now upon us in full force, and are everywhere felt with crushing effects. They admonish us, if we proceed at all, to do all with moderation. It is surely no time to increase appropriations when the power to pay taxes is so greatly diminished, yes, on examination of the supply bill, it will be found that in this period of financial embarrassment the appropriations for all the public buildings, and consequently the taxes to believed for them, are very largely in advance of those of preceding years. It is surely time to pause in this career. All prudent business men in the management of their own affairs move more slowly, and thousands are unable to move at all under the present circumstances. However convenient or desirable it maybe to complete the Capitol and the other public buildings, we can do without them for a time, as we have heretofore. They are not absolute necessities. In any event, it seems better to wait a year, even if it be finally decided that this building must be completed, to the end that it be devised by which better accommodations may be secured, at less expense than now appears inevitable.

The Syracuse Post-Standard.

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Fire Fiend!

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March 30, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 4, Editorial,
Pernicious.

Throughout this state, and beyond it among those who ever saw the capitol of this state, there is deep regret because of its partial destruction.

The massive, imposing structure has come to be a source of pride to the people of this state.

The sentiment which has been aroused by yesterday's calamity is generally reflected in press comments.

The New York "Sun," alone makes of the misfortune an opportunity for the publication of an editorial article, one column in length, in which memory of scandal which developed in the course of the construction of the capitol is revived, and the structure itself is described as "hideous," "dingy," "lacking in dignity" and resting "upon a foundation of quicksand." It says even that "it is perhaps a cause for regret that the fire did not complete its work, make restoration impossible and the building of a new capitol necessary."

It is surprising, and to be deplored that a newspaper usually credited with conservatism and not given to the exploitaton of any event for yellow sensationalism, made this disaster a basis for such comment. It is difficult to form a conception of the state of mind from which came the impulse to such treatment of the subject.

Though there are architectural faults in the building, as a whole it is a magnificent, imposing, massively beautiful structure. At least so it has always impressed all who have viewed it with eyes not trained to discover technical faults. The many beauties of its interior are widely known and appreciated.

But criticism of its architectural harmony and appearance is a matter of personal opinion, and not really important, since it will not affect the popular opinion, which long ago became fixed.

It is the labored effort to impress upon the minds of the present generation the belief that the whole record of its construction was permeated with fraud and scandal that is to be deplored and condemned. Such effort has a tendency to create in the minds of the people, and especially in the minds of the rising generation, suspician and distrust of all men who have to do with the government.

Such effort is without excuse. It is pernicious.

The Assembly-ceiling scandal is cited as if it were typical of the whole work of construction. Of course it was not. The very fact that it was a great scandal proved that it was exceptional. The men involved in it were sent, disgraced, into oblivion.

Again the "Sun" says:

In all the administrations from 1870 to the Hughes administration, the state capital at regular intervals has obtruded itself upon the attention of the people of the state by the sudden discovery of some new scandal, some new betrayal of faith, some larceny of public money. A ceiling fell, a staircase cracked, architects, engineers, state officials hurriedly undertook to bolster up, to change, to remedy evils which were in fact inherent and irremediable, for the capital at Albany was founded upon a quicksand and stood as a monument not merely to the incoherence of a dozen different architectural designs but to the political morals and the party sins of 40 years of the history of this state.

That is partly misstatement, partly exaggeration. That a ceiling fell, we do not recall. If one did, it was doubtless such an accident as might occur in any building. That a staircase had to be strengthened is a fact, but there was no scandal about that, though there may have been a miscalculation in the original cpnstruction. In any event, the fault was not "irremediable," since it was remedied.

And while there were detestible incidents in some of all those years during which the capital was in course of construction, there is in the main a record of creditable action. From the legislative halls has come a great deal of legislation which proved to be for the public good—the abolition of the direct state tax, the liquor-license law, the law creating the Public Service commission and the highway commission, laws for the betterment of the condition of workingmen, better laws for the regulation of insurance companies and banking institutions, laws insuring the purity of the ballot, and many others equally as good.

Upon all this [rtrca*] should be laid, for it represents the rule of action.

There is no state in which the record of several decades does not hold something discredable, something that proves the rule of honesty by the qualities created by departure from it; but never can good be acomplished by dragging it out of the past and spreading it out conspicuously as if it were the [ ] of this house and not the exception. To do that is unpatriotic. It creates [five illegible lines.] and magnify it greatly, cannot be too strongly condemned.

March 30, 1911, The Sun, Page 8, Editorial
The State Capitol.

The first impression that must come to every one who reads of the fire in the State Capitol at Albany is that whatever has been saved, that which was of greatest value, in fact that which alone had permanent value, has been destroyed. The collection of documents, the written records of the State and of the colony which was before the State, the surviving evidence of Dutch and British as well as of State administration, those are gone, lost, it would seem, because of the same carelessness, the same folly, which finds its manifestation in every State, neglect to provide the protection which in these days of fireproof vaults is so simple and inexpensive for things at once priceless and easy to preserve.

After this positive and definite emotion there must come to every citizen of New York who has reached middle life a panorama, a sort of moving picture of the generation and more of State history which has left its most accurate and its most depressing evidence in that huge and hideous building on the Albany hill, every stone, every chamber, every hall of which has an intimate association with some scandal that once shook the State. The mere catalog of the rooms reached by the fire in its march must awaken the recollection of some half forgotten disgrace.

The fire seems at last to have been checked in the Assembly Chamber after the flames had destroyed the papier-mache ceiling. To-day after nearly twenty years there are still men in retirement, forgotten, men whose public life opened with promise and ended because they shared in that conspiracy by which there was substituted for quartered oak poor papier-mache, which in its turn replaced a splendid vaulted stone ceiling, removed to make way for this job. The Assembly staircase, which year after year has cracked and sagged, rests upon a foundation of quicksand, over which the earliest builders spread puddled clay to deceive the inspectors.

A house that never was completed was this State Capitol, for if one penetrated into the upper corridors there were yards and yards of unfinished work, boarded over, left rough and incomplete, because no administration, no party dared again to reopen the long chapter of scandal and shame which had attended every building operation since the Legislature of the middle 60's first authorized the construction of a capitol building to cost $4,000,000. To-day it has cost more than $25,000,000, and when yesterday's fire swept it there was still on all sides the proof of how much remained to be done, while the great tower which was to dominate all, like the City Hall tower in Philadelphia, had long been abandoned because the foundations of the structure could not bear the weight,

In the political history of the State the Capitol in some fashion connects itself with all the administrations from Lucius Robinson to John A. Dix. Alonzo B. Cornell, was inaugurated in the Assembly Chamber, which a year before had been dedicated. Cleveland went from the Executive Chamber to the White House, and Roosevelt followed him after a few years. The whole rise and fall of the Hill machine, of the Platt machine and the final decay of Republican rule in the State itself, these were the result of the planning and the plotting which moved backward and forward in the narrow halls between the second and third stories; even the secret stairway from the Executive Chamber, recently abolished, had its share in the unwritten history of those days.

But always, in all the administrations from 1870 to the Hughes administration, the State Capitol at regular intervals has obtruded itself upon the attention of the people of the State by the sudden discovery of some new scandal, some new betrayal of faith, some larceny of public money. A ceiling fell, a stairway cracked, architects, engineers, State officials hurriedly undertook to bolster up, to change, to remedy evils which were in fact inherent and irremediable, for the Capitol at Albany was founded upon a quicksand and stood as a monument not merely to the incoherence of a dozen different architectural designs, but to the political morals and the party sins of forty years of the history of the State.

As for the architecture, it presents only a jumble, a beginning by one architect, abandoned by a second, adopted again by a third. A building it was without even the most primitive provision for ventilation, hot in summer beyond the description of an inferno, in winter swept by the gales which come down from the Adirondacks. The rooms, ill planned for the purposes for which they were used, crowded, dingy, the structure itself lacking any dignity, despite incidental beautiful details, it was, and since so much remains it must survive, a permanent witness to the spirit and to the political conditions of the years in which it was erected. And if one sought a contrast, none more eloquent could be found than that supplied by the simple, dignified old State Hall across the narrow park.

It is inevitable, presumably, that the State Capitol should be "restored." Such a restoration will unquestionably preserve all the hideous, unsanitary, clumsy details which render it unsuited for the purposes for which it was built. For the simplest and least ambitious of modern office buildings furnishes a luxury of appointment and a machinery of efficiency utterly lacking and impossible to attain in the State Capitol. Since it was impossible to save the records or the memorials of that history which the State may remember with greatest pride, it is perhaps a cause for regret that the fire did not complete its work, make restoration impossible and the building of a new capitol necessary.

Nor is there reason to believe that such a total destruction would have been more expensive in the end than this "restoration," to which the experienced taxpayers and the citizens of reasonably long memories must now look forward with apprehension and disgust.

An Unheeded Warning Two Years Before the Fire in the New York State Capitol in Albany Destroyed the Authentic Legislative and Historical Record, With the Theft of $ Millions.

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February 3, 1909, The Evening Telegram, Page 1, CROWDED ALBANY CAPITOL ON FIRE AS COOK IS BEATEN BY 31 TO 17

ALBANY, Wednesday.—Paying no attention what ever to a fierce but brief blaze that filled the corridors with such dense smoke that it drifted through closed doors into the crowded Senate Chamber, the members of the Upper House this afternoon, by a vote of thirty-one to seventeen, refused to confirm the Governor's nomination of Herbert E. Cook as member of the New York State Highway Commission.

The proceedings had been of a most enlivening nature all day, the galleries were crowded and the Assembly members stood several deep at the rear of the chamber when the fire came up as one of the day's doings. As the Capitol is fireproof, there was no alarm in the Senate Chamber, although after a time the smoke filled it to an uncomfortable degree, Senators were even inclined to joke over the affair.

"I guess some one must have carelessly thrown the Wallis correspondence among the waste paper," said Senator Allds.

"No, it looks to me as if the Governor was trying to smoke us out," replied another Senator.

During the roll call on confirmation, Senator Grattan arose and assured the Senate and galleries that there was not the slightest danger from the fire. It was, in fact, under control in a few minutes.

Spread to Lumber Pile.

The flames, starting among some waste under the Lunacy Commission offices, spread rapidly among lumber stored in the basement, and the corridors of the entire building were soon filled with dense smoke. The Fire Department was hindered in its efforts to subdue the blaze by its inaccessible location.

A number of Capitol employes were overcome by the smoke and the stenographers and other female employes of the various departments were driven outdoors. The Department of Lunacy and the offices of the Attorney General and of the Adjutant General were ordered closed, and the occupants turned out. The damage by smoke will be considerable.

On roll call on the motion to confirm Mr. Cook the Senators voted as follows:
For Cook (Aye)-- Senators Agnew, Allen. Brough. Cobb. Conger. Cordes. Davenport. Davis. Heacock. Hill. Hinman. Hubbs. Newcomb. O'Neil. Ross. Travis. Wainwright.

Against Cook (Nay)—Senators Allds. Alt. Bayne. Burlingame. Caffrey. Cronin. Colllen. Emerson. Frawley. Gardner. Gledhill. Grady. Grattan. Hamilton. Harte. Hewitt. Holden. Kissel. Mackenzie. McCarren. McManus. Meade. Platt. Raines. Schlosser. Stitwell. Wagner. White and Witter.

Significance of Line-Up.

There was especial interest in the line-up of the new republican Senators. Allen, Brough, Conger, Davenport, Hubbs, Newcomb and Ross stood by Hughes. Allds, Burlingame, Gledhill, Hamilton, Hewitt, Holden, Kissel, McKenzie, Platt, Schlosser and Witter stood by the "machine," under the leadership of Senator Raines.

It is impossible to tell what effect this fight will have on direct nominations, but those opposed contend that the last chance

(Continued on Page Two,)

Walter Arndt at The Evening Post, April 8, 1911.

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April 8, 1911, The Evening Post, Page 1, DIX ACTS ON FIRE DANGER.

Has Already Set Men at Work to Make Albany Buildings Safe.

ALBANY, April 8.--Gov. Dix to-day took summary action to put the Capitol and every structure in which State property is housed or stored in an immediate condition of safety from fire loss. He will not even wait for the return of the Legislature.

He has employed an expert electrician to rewire the capitol building, and this man had a force of employees at work this morning. The expense, estimated at $75,000, will be carried by an appropriation.

The Governor had not heard of the dangerous condition surrounding the State geological collections, which are stored in an old wooden structure on the river front, which is used also by a firm that manufactures washing powder from potash. [A full account of this will be found in another column.] When this fact was called to his attention, however, he said at once that he had called for a full report from every State department in regard to State property stored in private buildings.

"I am going to see that the Capitol and all the other State buildings have as complete protection from fire as any modern factory," he said, "the buildings will be at once supplied with every safety appliance, stand pipes, fire extinguishers, and so on, and a systematic and competent corps of watchmen will be installed. We were fifty years behind the times, and it took a calamity to awaken us; but we shall soon be so amply safeguarded that a recurrence of a fire such as that of last week will be impossible."

April 8, 1911, The Evening Post, Page 6,

STATE MUSEUM AMID SOAP

HOUSING AT ALBANY A MODEL OF HOW NOT TO IT.

Half-Million-Dollar Geological Collection Stored in a Fire-Trap -- Documents from Capitol Fire Blowing Around Streets -- Final Vindication of Sheehan Paper Ceiling.

(Special Correspondence of The Evening Post.)

ALBANY, April 7.--That the bulk of the valuable collection of geological specimens owned by the State, and at a conservative estimate said to be worth between a half and three-quarters of a million dollars, is stored in a ramshackle old fire-trap, part of which is also used by a concern that manufactures washing powder, a constituent part of which is potash, a highly inflammable material, was the astounding fact brought out to-day by the searching inquiry as to the safety of the State's collections that is being made as a result of the fire in the State Capitol.

This geological collection constitutes only a part of the State's large scientific collections. All are under the control of the science division of the State Department of Education, of which Commissioner Andrew S. Draper is the executive head. In addition to the geological collection, the State possesses botanical, biological, paleontological, ethnobiological, and anthropological specimens of great value. None of them is properly housed. It is planned in the course of time to place them all in the new State educational building, now in course of erection, which was also to have sheltered the burned State library. At present these collections are necessarily scattered around the city in all sorts of places, some parts of them are on exhibition in the Geological Hall on State Street. Others are displayed in the Old State House. Some are stored in the basement of the State Capitol. Still others are packed away in a deserted church.

MIXING GEOLOGY AND SOAP POWDER.

For some time the greater part of the geological specimens were stored in an old malt house. About a year ago the malt house was leased to a manufacturing firm, and the collections had to be removed. An old wooden warehouse on the river-front was rented--or, rather, space in it was rented--and the specimens removed there. A few months ago A. Mendleson Sons, a firm which makes a washing powder from potash, rented that part of the warehouse which the State did not occupy, and set up their manufactory therein. This firm had recently been burned out of their last home, and needed a new place to carry on their business at once. They did not mind the geological specimens a bit.

Their "process," or patent, provides for the use of large quantities of potash, with which a quantity og rosin is mixed. They begin their work alongside the State geological collections, and set up a large vat in which the rosin was cooked. It happens that on the very same floor are stored many specimens from all parts of the world, valued, it is said, at several thousand dollars apiece. On the same floor, also, are stored some 30,000 volumes of valuable reports and other geological works, and possibly a hundred thousand duplicate volumes, for which there was no room anywhere else.

Several times within the year the Mendleson firm had had serious fires before they were finally burned out of their old factory, and they have had at least one blaze, it is reported, since they established themselves in the warehouse with the geological collections. These facts came to the knowledge of the authorities, and Commissioner Draper, after having an investigation made, protested. The Mendleson people declared that there was no danger of fire. The commissioner laid the matter before the attorney-general with the request to see what could be done about it, and there it was when the3 Capitol fire occurred.

Meanwhile, the powder-makers have stopped up some holes in a brick wall that separated the main part of their plant from the warehouse where the State's property is stored. Dr. Draper was not sure that this was a sufficient safeguard, and he called in an insurance expert to advise him. The expert reported that the danger was less with the holes stopped up. And there the matter rests. Whether the commissioner will now take steps to have the collections removed to a place of greater safety, or whether he will allow them to stay where they are, trusting to luck that they will not burn, as he did in the case of the archives has not yet been decided by him.

GROSS CARELESSNESS IN THE SALVAGE.

Gradually some idea of what the salvage from the recent fire amounts to is being obtained. At first this was not possible, and, indeed, there can be no final adjustment of the enormous property loss until what remains has actually been checked off against what was known to exist before the catastrophe. As a matter of fact. It is becoming more apparent every day that the grossest carelessness has been shown in the method of sifting and sorting the heaps of debris and partially burned refuse from the fire. It would have been a comparatively easy thing to have fenced in that part of the street into which the remains of the library were dumped, and to have had it carried thence to some covered enclosure where it could have been dried out and sorted later on. Instead of that very little effort was made to save anything from the debris that was carried from the building. Great heaps of burned books and papers were cast from the windows and allowed to blow about the street. Curious souvenir seekers were allowed to maul and overhaul the heaps to their hearts' content.

Finally it was all dumped in carts — or so much of it as had not blown away — and carried off to the public dumping ground in Beaver Park. There every day a crowd of men and boys has been at work poking over the pile, and it is known that several books, papers, and other things of value have been recovered. How much has been appropriated by the finders will never be known.

ENLISTED CHILDREN TO FIND COINS.

The case of the State coin collection is worthy of mention as showing how the affair has been mismanaged. In the delivery room of the library there was a collection of several thousand valuable coins, both foreign and American. It was known perfectly by the library assistants where this collection was located, and it would have been a comparatively simple matter to have saved entire such parts of it as were not melted. Part of it to be sure, was saved, and some two thousand coins have been recovered so far. On the desk of Gov. Dix there is a lump of silver as big as two fists which is composed of melted silver coins. But when all the melted metal and all the entire coins were counted it was found that there were many hundreds missing. Commissioner Draper therefore sent word to the principal of the public school near the dumping-ground and at recess and after school all the children turned in and hunted for coins in the debris. Last night the principal sent to the commissioner some twenty specimens that had been found during the day. And there are probably hundreds more either lost or in the hands of those who will consider them lawful spoils of the fire.

DOCUMENTS BLOWING AROUND THE STREETS.

Many documents of value have been picked up in the streets. Two land patents dating from the first half of the eighteenth century were found a block from the Capitol building. Only yesterday several papers of the Revolutionary Committee of Safety, dated 1777 and 1779, were picked up in the street. The papers and documents have blown far down State Street. Some of them have been carried by the wind as far down as Broadway, seven or eight blocks from the burned wing of the Capitol. One manuscript dated 1842 was picked up in front of the Hotel Ten Eyck. Yesterday the librarian received from a man in New York a pre-Revolutionary manuscript of considerable value. It had been found by an Albany friend and sent to the New Yorker as a souvenir of the fire, but he had recognized its value and returned it. These are only a few instances of the many "finds" that the careIessness of the authorities alone has rendered possible.

There is a grim humor in some of the discovered letters and papers. Many hundreds of letters on file in the Senate finance room were scattered broadcast, and some of them have turned up. One man has in his possession two letters of more than ordinary present interest. One letter from Prof. Charles A. Collin, the Governor's late bill drafter, written some years ago in regard to a legislative hearing at which he, as the registered lobbyist of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, was anxious to appear. Another is a characteristic letter written to Jotham F. Allds, asking him to include an appropriation for a friend of his in the appropriation bill, which Allds, as chairman of the Finance Committee, was helping to draw. A significant part of this epistle was the postscript, in ewhich the writer asked Allds to be his guest on an Adirondack fishing expedition.

PAPIER-MACHE CEILING JUSTIFIED ITSELF.

There is humor to be found in some other aspects of the disaster, too. Forty squares of the famous Sheehan papier mache ceiling in theAssembly chamber were so badly burned that they had to be removed. The contractors who are doing the job are Sheehan & Feeley. Commenting on this coincidence, "Packy" McCabe, the Senate clerk, remarked rather irreverently the other day, as he watched the workmen:

"Verily, a Sheehan putteth up and a Sheehan taketh away."

As a matter of fact, the Sheehan ceiling burned very slowly, much more slowly than the oak that it was at first supposed to be would have burned under similar conditions. And that circumstance has led certain optimistic persons who insist on looking at the bright side of things to evolve the theory that the State has really turned out to be the gainer by the ceiling scandal, after all.

"There were about two hundred thousand dollars' worth of books and so forth stored in the lofts over that ceiling," said one of these philosophers. "If the ceiling had been oak, they would have all have burned. The papier mache wouldn't burn worth a hang, and they were all saved as a result. The grafting contractors are reported to have made about eighty thousand dollars out of the State in 1886. The ceiling they gave us saved the State two hundred thousand in 1911. So the State is about one hundred and twenty thousand to the good, after all. It's pretty poor graft that don't benefit some one."

The repair contract calls for papier mache, and the State's inspectors are going to see to it, it is said, that no contrctor attemps to foist carved oak panels on the State. W. T. A.

March 29, 1911,The Evening Telegram,

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April 4, 1911, The Canton Commercial Advertiser, Editorial, Page 4, THE CAPITOL FIRE

The people of the State of New York are so accustomed to hearing startling things about the home of the legislature at Albany, that fire incident did not arouse the deep and startling interest that might have otherwise. There is grave doubt whether there are many residents of the state who have taken pride in the pile of masonry on capitol hill that for nearly forty years has been the cause and occasion for every form of trickery and dishonesty. For forty years the taxpayers of the state have poured the golden millions in to complete the Capitol, but the spigot has been as busy as the bunghole and the result has been a dead man's dream, a nightmare in granite, a grotesque practical joke on the people of the state, A building that should have had all the beauty lines of a renaissance palace, follows no pure line of architectural beauty. It is a structure that meets no approving eye of artist or architect.

The remark has not been infrequent since the fire that it were better that the heap had gone down in ashes, for a new capitol building could be constructed on sane lines that wouldn't cost more than the repair of the old and the enormous expense of maintaining the present folly would pass with it. This may be true but it didn't and now the only thing to do is to repair it and let it stand as a monument to political graft, not of one party but of both of the old parties which have from time to time shared in the fruits of office.

In this connection it is not amiss to call attention to the constant and recurring desire from certain quarters to have every thing centralized in Albany. We have it in the matter of highway construction and we have noted the fearful waste of money in the building of highways; we see it in the manner of conduct of the armories of the state and the increased expense of running these buildings; it may be seen in the running of state charitable institutions generally. We believe the people of St. Lawrence County are not unaware of these things and the action of the St. Lawrence County Board of Supervisors last fall in the matter of a tuberculosis hospital would indicate that that body understood.

This latter may seem short of the mark in connection with the fire at the state capitol. But it is not when one considers that there has always been waste in the construction of state buildings or of state works; that state institutions have been a constant source of graft---the trough at which many have fed at the public expense. Hence the building of the state capitol may be taken like the old Erie Canal as one of the big storm centers of graft and the wise county will steer cleal of the fountain head and do so far as possible its own business.

State Architect Louis F. Pilcher

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April 15, 1921, New York Tribune, Page 1, Senate Asked to Probe Office of State Architect, Towner Offers Resolution Charging Contracts Have Been Given at Excessive Prices, Violating Law.

Action Expected To-day Pitcher, Who Holds Post, Incumbent Since 1913; Belonged to Both Parties

ALBANY, April 14.--An investigation by a legislative committee of the office of the State Architect, of which Lewis F. Pilcher, of Brooklyn, is the head, was asked for in a resolution introduced in the Senate to-night by Senator James Towner, of Dutchess County.

The resolution charges that contracts for public buildings have been let at excessive prices, and that many of the buildings have been built in violation of law.

Mr. Pilcher, who was appointed by Governor Sulzer in 1913 after the Tammany machine refused to confirm two other men that Sulzer wanted appointed, has been under fire before. The last time was when President F. H. La Guardia of the New York City Board of Aldermen made charges against him.

For one year after his appointment Mr. Pilcher was enrolled as a Democrat. He worked for the election of Governor Glynn, Democratic candidate against Charles S. Whitman. After Mr. Whitman's election it was given out by Mr. Pilcher's friends that he had become a Republican. He was reappointed by Governor Whitman. Then, when his term expired last year, he was reappointed by Governor Smith, a

Democrat. The term is for five years at $10,000 a year.

Mr. Pilcher has powerful friends in both parties. Last summer there was talk of investigating his relations with the New York City contracts, but the proposed investigation never got beyond the stage of discussion. His predecessor was removed after an investigation conducted by Governor Sulzer.

The resolution will not be acted on until to-morrow. The resolution reads:

"Whereas, It is alleged and generally believed that many contracts for the erection of public buildings, designed by the state architect have been erected in behalf of the state in violation of the statutes in relation thereto, and,

"Whereas, Those contracts so illegaily made may cause large losses to the state, and,

"Whereas, It is generally believed that some of these contracts so illegaily executed have been awarded at sums largely in excess of the reasonable cost of the construction of the buildings provided for in such contracts, and,

"Whereas, The interests of the state should be protected by the securing and preserving the facts and evidence in relation to the execution and validity of the contracts so alleged to have been unlawfully made in behalf of the state, and also the reasonable value of the work already performed thereunder so that the state may be enabled properly to resist and defend claims which may hereafter be made against the state on account of said contracts or for the value of the work done and materials furnished by reason thereof;

"Resolved (if the Senate concur), That a joint committee of the Senate and Assembiy be hereby created, consisting of four members of the Senate, to be appointed by the President of the Senate, and five members of the Assembly; to be appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly, whose duty it shall be to investigate the affairs of the state architect's office, and particularly the letting and execution of contracts for the construction of public buildings of the state.

"Resolved, That such committee report to the Legislature of 1922 on or before February 1,"

******************

April 17, 1921, New York Tribune, Page 9, Inquiry Into State Building Contracts Is Voted by Senate

Adopts Resolution to Check Up Alleged Irregularities Despite Opposition of Tammany, Led by Walker.
From a Staff Correspondent

ALBANY, April 16.--The Senate to-day adopted the Towner resolution providing for an investigation of the letting of contracts on public buildings by the State Architect's Department, of which Louis F. Pilcher, of Brooklyn, is the head. Mr. Pilcher was originally appointed at the instance of John H. McCooey, the leader of Tammany's Kings County annex.

Senator James J. Walker, leader of the Tammany minority, fought the adoption of the resolution, and declared that if there was any wrongdoing it should be investigated by Governor Miller under the Moreland act and by the Legislature.

In this he was supported by the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Charles J. Hewitt.

This brought Senator James E. Towner, Republican, the introducer of the resolution, to his feet protesting.

"I charge," said Senator Towner, "that a contract was entered into by the State Architect's office in the Middletown State Hospital for $80,000, without public letting, in violation of law, and that contracts for the prison at Wingdale and on other state buildings have been over-certified."

Senator Alvah Burlingame, spokesman for Jacob Livingston in the upper house rushed to the rescue by demanding a slow roll call. and the resolution was finally adopted by a vote of 28 to 14.

When Senator Towner's name was called he amplified his charges, saying:

"My charges are based on records which I obtained in the Attorney General's office, and which are to be had in a case where the state sets up a defense when sued on an illegal contract. Contracts at Wingdale and Sing Sing, have been over-certified. That is not all. I gave those facts to the chairman of the Finance Committee. He didn't see fit to examine these figures. I asked him if he had shown them to the majority leader. He said he had not. Then I took the matter up with Senator Lusk, who told me to introduce a resolution, which I have done."

This bought Senator Hewitt to his feet in protest.

"The statement of Senator Towner," he said, "is partly correct. He said there were things in the State Architect's department. I was busy and didn't have time to examine them. I told him I would tell the Governor when the Legislature adjourned. He said that Mr. Henderson, of the Attorney General's office, knew about it."

"The statement just made by Senator Hewitt is not true," Senator Tower responded. "I did tell him I had the figures and got them from the Attorney General's office. My statement was not only partially correct, but entirely correct."

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January 30 1906, Auburn Journal, Page 1, ASSEMBLY STAIRCASE TO BE EXAMINED CLOSELY

Investigation Will be Under Direction of State Architect Heins Be -- Approaches Barred Up to Protect the Public

Albany, Jan. 29—A thorough investigation of the condition of the assembly staircase will be made immediately to ascertain the exact cause of the cracks and other evidences of disturbance apparent in that structure. This will be done under the direction of State Architect Heins. Determination will also be leached as to the necessary steps to be taken to correct the defects. When this is done the legislature will be called upon to provide for the work.

State Architect Heins, accompanied by former Deputy State Engineer Herschel Roberts and Engineer Fitzgerald, who investigated the condition of the staircase in 1887, after which it was believed to have been rendered completely stable, made an examination today. William Barclay Parsons and Daniel E. Moran, the expert engineers of New York city, who made the examination last week and upon whose recommendation the staircase has been closed to the public, will return here within a few days to begin an exhaustive investigation. Governor Higgins and those directly concerned do not believe that there is any immediate danger, the closing up of the assembly approaches, which was completed today, being simply a precaution to the public and the employes of the building.

A story was in circulation in the capitol today to the effect that the calling in of the expert engineers followed a report that an employe of the building had heard a load report in the cellar followed by a crushing sound and that investigation showed that the walls at this point had opened up about an inch. This was two weeks ago. Governor Higgins today stated that he had heard nothing of such an incident.

"When was the condition of the staircase called to your attention?" Governor Higgins was asked.

"Several months ago I had the matter called to my attention and I observed the cracks in the lower part of the staircase," replied the governor.

Continuing he said: "At a meeting of the trustees about two weeks ago we called in Mr. Heins and asked him to make a report. Later Mr. Heins asked me if he could employ expert engineers and I told him, if he wanted any assistance in that direction to go ahead. He secured the services of Mr. Parsons and Mr. Moran of New York city and on their report to him, the trustees on Saturday decided to have the staircase closed as a precaution.

"The cost of removing and rebuilding the staircase has not been considered. The first thing to do is to determine where and why the structure is weak. It is very regrettable, but it is one of those things that we have to meet. Mr. Heins, the State Architect, is in charge of the matter and from what he tells me I am convinced that there is no danger of other portions of the structure being affected."

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August 24, 1905, Albany Evening Journal, Page 1, CAPITOL CLERKS HAD A LUCKY ESCAPE MONDAY,

Portion of Ceiling in Record Room of Agricultural Department Crashed to Floor.

CAUSE OF THE COLLAPSE.

Supports Had Been Removed Some Years Ago --No Effect on Rest of Building

The fact that the ceiling in the record room of the state agricultural department at the capitol had fallen Monday afternoon of this week, and that the lives of the clerks employed there had been in jeopardy, was not generally known around the big building until this morning. Coming as it does so closely on the discovery that the Assembly staircase was not in the safest condition, the employes throughout the structure are having not a little concern about their safety.

That no one was under the heavy masonry when it fell was fortunate, and the five clerks employed there, one of whom is a woman, have good reason to be thankful. The room is on the south side of Commissioner Wieting's department, on the second floor, and faces Washington avenue, being about thirty foot square, with a handsome groined arch ceiling about 30 feet high. The portion that collapsed me assured, about three feet and was bulky information.

As soon as the crash occurred the clerks were hurried from the department and Superintendent Hill of the department of public buildings was summoned. His workmen made an investigation and as a result the room is now closed for an indefinite period. Experts say the collapse is purely a local one and has no bearing whatever on the fact that some parts of the building are believed to be decaying.

If the room had been left as it was originally constructed the collapse would not have been possible.

The peculiar formation of the ceiling made it essential to have pillars of masonry supporting it when it was erected in the early stages of the capitol construction, but about 12 or 15 years ago the four central piers were removed to make room for filing cases, which were built against the walls, with a gallery running around the upper part to make the records up there easy of access. The removal of the main supports naturally weakened the heavy ceiling, which remained intact only through its solidity.

These fact were not apparent to Commissioner Wieting or anyone else in office in recent years, as the filing cases hid all evidence that the piers had been removed. That the whole ceiling and not dropped before is miraculous as it is at present nothing more than a web gridironed by huge cracks and fissures. The gallery caught the most of the plaster and stone that fell, and this was another fortunate thing, for it gave the clerks chance to leave the room.

The room is directly under the Assembly chamber, and with the constant traffic overhead during the session it is difficult to conceive how the ceiling kept in place. It was the general opinion among those who witnessed the gaping hole to-day that if the tons of masonry had fallen together the debris would have crashed through the floor and gone through the ceiling of the first floor.

Without delay superintendent Hill got in communication with McCaffrey & Hughes, local contractors, and their men ran up a substantial temporary structure to hold the ceiling in place.

The work of taking down the ceiling began to-day. State Architect Heins made an inspection and is already at

Continued on second page. Page 2

work on plans for a ceiling that when put in place will be safe and substantial in every respect it is probable, in view of recent developments, the next Legislature will direct a thorough overhauling of the building. During the work of repairing, another room has been placed at the disposal of Commissioner Wieting.

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This must be the newspaper of record for the dark side. It makes the New York Times read like something off the afternoon schedule of the Lifetime Network. None of this needed to make it into print back then, yet here it is -- 100 years later.

March 29, 1911, Utica Herald-Dispatch, Page 1, (Transcript.)

MAGNIFICENT STATE CAPITOL AT ALBANY PARTIALLY DESTROYED BY FLAMES TO-DAY

DAMAGE WILL REACH AN ENORMOUS SUM

Assembly and Senate Chambers Rendered Unfit for Occupancy and the State Library With Its Priceless Records Was Wiped Out, Together With Other Departments of State Government—Defective Wires Blamed for Fire Which Caused Financial Loss Mounting Into the Millions.

Albany. March 20.—Fire to-day destroyed a large section of that historic $25,000,000 pile, the State Capitol. Three wings of the building were gutted, the main structure was badly damaged and its million dollar staircase wrecked. The State Library, one of the greatest in the United States, went up in smoke with hundreds of thousands of costly books and numberless priceless documents. The Senate and Assembly libraries were also destroyed. The flames caused monetary damage of fully $10,000,000, but no money can replace the records and documents destroyed.

Night Watchman Samuel Abbott was burned to death while attempt ing to fight the flames.

The legislative business of the State was halted and the Senate and Assembly, which for weeks have been trying to elect a United States Senator, had to shift their sittings to the City Hall, the building being tendered by the municipality as a temporary Capitol.

Several Persons Injured.

Several of the Assemblymen were injured by falling debris, but none was seriously hurt Three men who were injured were taken to the Homeopathic HoepitaL They are: John Brennan, John Whitmyer and William Rogers. The latter may die.

For more than ten hours the firemen have been fighting the flames under the direction of Chief Bridgeford and are utterly exhausted.

Though the fire has been brought under control, sporadic outbursts of flames have kept the department on the jump. It is believed that by to-morrow part of the eastern section, will be rendered habitable, the largest part of the damage there having been caused by water.

The fire started at 2:30 this morning in a room on the third floor used by Assemblyman A. J. Levy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and was swept by a high wind across intervening courts to the other wings. The northwestern and southwestern wings were destroyed. At 8 o'clock the fire was still burning in the west wing, but the firemen had it under control.

The fire, which was well under way when discovered by a night watchman in Washington avenue, was fed by tons of paper in the library rooms and spread rapidly. The doomed wings were a seething furnace when the firemen arrived. Legislators; aroused from their beds by the excitement, aided the fire fighters. Many of them rushed to the building to carry out documents and books.

Night Watchman Abbott, the missing man, was employed to patrol the library wings. The firemen battered down doors and searched the corridor for him while the flames raged, but they were so filled with smoke and the terrific heat that firemen were driven back after a futile quest. Assemblyman Terry of Kings County and Assemblyman McDaniels of Tompkins County assisted the firemen.

Adjutant General Verbeck saved a number of valuable papers from his office on the second floor.

Insulation Was Defective.

Employee of the building had been complaining for several days that the insulation was worn from some of the electric wires. The superintendent of the building had requested that this be attended to to-day. The wires are believed to have started the fire. As the flames leaped for hundreds of feet into the air from the library windows, the citizens were awakened and thousands gathered about the hill on which the Capitol stands. All the available police were necessary to prevent the citizens from hindering the firemen. The high wind carried live sparks and caused tongues of flames, which curled from the windows, to stretch across intervening courts of the adjoining wings.

It was half an hour after the flames were discovered before a stream of water was turned on the burning building. By the time the firemen had arrived the fire had gained such headway that it was believed the entire group comprising the State Capitol was doomed. It was difficult to reach the windows of the apartments where the fire was blazing most briskly because of intervening buildings. Lines of hose were hauled through the legislative chambers and streams were directed from the windows.

Priceless Records Destroyed.

The fire was the most spectacular Albany has ever known. The flames could be seen for miles from Capitol Hill. Many of the pecords destroyed dated back from colonial and Revolutionary War days. The fire around the famous $1,000,000 red stone staircase, which was adorned wi th paintings of men famous in the history of the State. The wings were constructed of stone and were supposed to be fireproof. However, the partitions and finishings in t he interior were of wood and there were many pieces of inflammable material which helped feed the flames.

The intense heat caused the upper parts of the walls to bulge and the stone coping and glass from the windows in the upper floors of the six stories of the main structure caused an incessant rain of missiles. Search of the ruins was ordered in an attempt to find the remains of Abbott, and also to discover if, by any chance, any of the records had escaped destruction from the fire.

State Superintendent of Public Works Treman had practically all the records removed from his office while the fire was raging in the library wing and these are all safe.

Fed by tons of paper, the flames filled t he building and it is believed that Abbott, in trying to fight his way back to the street to turn in an alarm, found his way cut off by the swirling clouds of smoke. The high wind fanned the flames and imperiled many nearby buildings. Live sparks were carried through the air and the crowd was repeatedly driven back. Each time, however, it surged forward again and stood spellbound watching the handsome building being destroyed.

Rash Legislators.

Fire Chief Bridgeford, alarmed by the rashne ss of some of the legislators, gave orders that none should venture near the burning buildings until the firemen were assured that it was safe to do so. Bridgeford directed the fight against the fire in person and assured Governor Dix that it was being well handled. At 6:30 the western wing was still smouldering, although half a dozen streams of water were being poured upon it.

There was no insurance on the Capitol, as it was thought impossible that the structure could be destroyed by fire.

One of the most spectacular incidents of the blaze was the collapse of the roofs of the three wings. A squad of firemen, manning a number of lines of hose, entered the building a few minutes before and were stretching the hose up the stairway to reach the flames on the upper floor. There was a crash as a pillar supporting one of the wings collapsed. The firemen were ordered out and had just reached the court yard when, with a terrific roar. the three roofs came down at the same time.

To the crowds in the street, it seemed that some of the firemen had been buried under the wreckage. They were cut off from view by the clouds of dust and it was some time before it was learned that all had escaped. A mighty cheer went up from the crowd when the fire fighters again returned to the battle. The records destroyed consisted not only of a great bulk of books, reports and original documents of both houses of the Legislature and of the State executive offices, but thousands of manuscripts of every conceivable source which have been accumlating ever since the Dutch first landed at New York. The value of these from a historical standpoint is incalculable.

Court of Claims Records Destroyed.

Among the records of the Court of Claims destroyed were valuable papers bearing upon cases in which millions of dollars are involved. The loss of the records of the Court of Claims may lead to many legal entanglements. In the section given over to the State Board of Regents were the school records for this State accumulated for many years back, and upon which thousands of doctors and lawyers depend for their right to practice. State Architect Frank B. Ware.

(Continued on Page 8.)

MAGNIFICENT STATE CAPITOL AT ALBANY PARTIALLY DESTROYED BY FLAMES TO-DAY

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1.)

after looking over the ruins, said that it would require a careful investigation to fix definitely the monetary loss.

A squad of troops from the Tenth Regiment Armory, this city, was summoned by Adjutant General Verbeck to keep the people out of the corridors. The soldiers began to arrive at 9 o'clock. They were stationed about the halls on the second and third floors to protect the departments and hold the crowd in check.

Owing to the altitude of Capitol Hill it was difficult from the first to get a good water pressure. The firemen were criticized, but they were not to blame.

Arrangements were underway to hold to-day's joint ballot for the election of a United States Senator, which must be taken under the law, at the City Hall in the Common Council chamber. Senator Roosevelt was notified to this effect and an effort was made to reach all of the members, which was a most difficult task.

Up to 9:15 the body of Abbott had not been found.

Flames Continue Damaging Work.

An immense crowd surrounded the building on all sides and remained awaiting developments. Thin wreaths of smoke crept through the towers of on the central portion of the Capitol shortly after 3 o'clock. By this time firemen had scaled the walls to the second floor and were fighting the flames there. While apparently under control at 9:30, the flames were still continuing their dmaging work.

A glance through the gutted walls disclosed heaps of debris which had once been treasures of literature beyond price.

Destruction of State Library.

The State Library was destroyed, the spacious department being a seething furnace when the firemen arrived. The fire quickly destroyed all bills, documents and papers, some of them dating as far back as 1776. These are irreplaceable. The library also contained all the works, documents of the Codes and Judiciary Committee of the present session.

The fire soon entered the document room which was quickly doomed. The flames ate up to the roof and swept over it, lighting the heavens and igniting other parts of the Capitol.

Five minutes after the fire leaped into the State Library with a roar its inflammable contents were licked up like oil in a furnace. The great oaken door was partly burned through and the firemen were unable to penetrate to any point of vantage that would enable them to train their hose on the flames with success.

The firemen were badly hampered in their early operations and the flames, fanned by a north wind, ate their way through the corridors and up to the very doors of the Assembly chamber. In fact, the fire was within ten feet of the chamber before the firemen could drag a hose around from State street.

Employees Aid Firemen.

Every employee of the Capitol who could be mustered into service joined the firemen in fighting the flames, which swept along the corridors in great licking torches that ate up the expensive furnishings of the various rooms wherever it touched.

At 4:45 o'clock the flames had swept across the entire west section of the building and were bursting into the Senate Finance Committee room and the adjoining office of the temporary president of the Senate. At that time the fire threatened to reach the onyx Senate chamber.

The flames lighted up the whole city and had it not been for the fact that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction would have threatened then new State education building across Washington avenue, to the north, which is being erected at cost of $4,000,000.

By 5 o'clock flames were shooting above the roof on the south west corner of the building and the roof over the State Library had fallen in.

Entire West Section Swept.

The flames quickly made their way to the State Excise department on the second foor, directly under the Assembly library, and the Court of Claims on the floor above was quickly destroyed.

State officials were routed out of their beds and hurried to the blazing building to rescue State records in other departments should they become endangered.

Senate Chamber Badly Damaged.

At 5:50 the firemen believed they would prevent the flames from getting into the Assembly chamber, but the Senate chamber on the other side of the building already had been damaged by the flames. The windows were broken and the long Senate lobby with its handsome furnishings was flooded with water.

State employees hurried in and out of the burning building carrying records and documents but no efforts were made to save the valuable furnishings.

The Attorney General's department on the second floor, with its library and legal documents, was threatened and water poured down in to the offices of the State Commission on Lunacy on the ground floor.

By 6 o'clock thousands of people had gathered about Capitol Square watching the flames as they forced their way through the magnificent building sending showers of sparks flying blocks away.

The newspaper men who entered the building had to grope their way through water and smoke and the advancing flames in the Assembly chamber threatened to drive the workers from the newspaper men's quarters on the "Midway."

Andrew H. Draper, State Superintendent of Education, who has direct charge of the library, was sleeping when the fire broke out, and his son, a physician would not allow him to be disturbed.

He said, however, that t here was no means of ascertaining the loss, as he had heard his father say that many of its contents were of in estimable value and could not be replaced if destroyed.

The library was on the third floor and extended completely across the western wing of the Capitol. It contained the first record of genealogical works in the United States. All of these were destroyed, as were everyone of its 167,000 volumes.

Flames at Door of Senate.

As the flames sped on across the south wing they burst forth almost to the very doors of the Senate chamber, entering into the gallery from the fourth floor.

Despite streams of water directed against the fire fiend in the Assembly chamber the flames continues to defy the firemen and threatened to destroy it.

At 6:30 o'clock the fire had reached the papier-mache ceiling of the Assembly chamber and the big chandelier in the center fell to the floor with a crash.

Meanwhile the flood of water, began to drip down into the office of the Governor's secretary on the second floor on the southeast corner of the building and help was hurriedly summoned to remove the valuable paintings in the executive chamber. Several of the big oil paintings in the Senate lobby were also removed.

Governor Dix aroused at 4 o'clock.

Governor Dix was aroused shortly after 4 o'clock, when it became apparent that great havoc would be wrought by the flames.

Attaches of the executive department hastened to the building to remove documents and papers it the fire threeatened the chamber. The Governor was kept in constant touch with the situation by telephone.

Captain Storey and several firemen were fighting the flames in the Senate Judiciary Committee room, when the fire eating through the supposedly fire proof doors, trapped them in a corner. They dropped their hose and managed to escape.

The firemen who were battling at the State library were overcome shortly after 5 o'clock, nine of them being made deathly sick by the great quantities of smoke they inhaled. They were forced to abandon their operations at this point.

Other Firemen Have Narrow Escapes.

Assistant Chief Walsh and several men also had a narrow escape from death. They were nearly caught by the falling roof of the north wing, but managed to run back in time when warned of the trembling walls.

Engineer Glavin of steamer No. 6 was reported to be seriously injured by falling glass on the senate side of the building.

As the flremen labored to keep the flames out of the Senate chamber the crash of breaking glass could be heard at frequent intervals, but so far as known Glavin was the only one hurt.

The firemen experienced great difficulty in coping with the fire in the Assembly chamber. At 6:30 they were hopeful it would be confined largely to the ceiling, although the place has been flooded.

At 6:45 part of the roof on the northwest corner of the building fell in with a crashing shower of burning embers in all directions.

Sudden spurts of flames wearied the firemen and they were worn out after seven hours of work. When flames were suddenly discovered issuing from the ceiling of the Assembly chamber, the firemen rushed in, but the blaze proved a stubborn one and it was sometime before it was extinguished. Much of the woodwork and ornamental work of the roof was destroyed or blackened by the fire and smoke.

All of the business of the State was tied up as a result of the fire The routine of the directing heads of the various departments was thrown into confusion which will require months to readjust completely. Among the offlces which were out out of commission were those of the executive chamber, the Attorney General, the State Board of Tax Commissioners, State Excise Department, the State Treasurer and the State Commissioner of Education.

Men Who Discovered Fire.

Stories as to the discovery of the fire differ. According to one told by Fred Luby and Andrew Lynch, elevatormen, who had been detained by the Democratic caucus until after 1 o'clock, they were about to leave the building when they smelled smoke. They started to investigate and the fumes led them toward the State Library which is next to the rooms of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. They said they found Benjamin F. Freund of New York attempting to stamp out a blaze which he declared had started in some mysterious manner between the committee room and the adjoining apartment. Almost instantly, said the men.=, the flames burst into the committee room driving the three occupants into the corridor. Freund, Luby and Lynch ran toward the State Library elevator to descend to the main floor but the fire made such headway that their exit in that direction was cut off and they had to turn and flee in the other direction. By the time the three men got to the street the fire had been seen from the outside.

Governor Dix's Office Flooded.

The tons of water which the firemen threw into the structure covered the floor of the Governor's office to the depth of a foot. It is estimated that the damage to the executive chamber will run close to $5,000, most of it being done by water and smoke.

The fire was rapidly eating its way into the room of Majority Leader Wagner when checked by the firemen. Considerable damage was done in the adjoining room occupied by the Senate Finance Committee by the water.

State Commissioner of Education Andrew Draper announced after the fire that his foresight had been the means of saving several invaluable documents. Mr. Draper said that while numberless documents of rare value can never be replaced it will take more than $3,000,000 [?] to have duplicates made of other State papers, of which facsimiles exist.

The Commissioner of Education has made arrangements to carry on the work of his department in the State Normal School, which is under his jurisdiction, and notified his employes to report there for duty until further notice.

The magnificent ceiling constructed over the famous $1,000,000 stairway was proved by to-day's fire to have been merely papier mache and was consumed in the flames. The stairway was also destroyed.

Broke Open Governor's Desk.

Governor Dix congratulated George P. Decker, an attache of the office of William Church Osborn, for his work in saving valuable papers from the Governor's desk in the executive chambers. Although the room was filled with smoke and water was pouring into it, Mr. Decker rushed in and broke open the Governor's desk and seized as many papers and documents as he could carry, then made his way out, almost overcome by the fumes.

Souvenir Hunters Shut Out.

Because relic and souvenir hunters were busy to-day in the Capitol, a premptory order was issued by Superintendent of Buildings John Bowe to put every one out except the firemen. To carry this order into weffect a number of national guardsmen were called into service.

There was much pilfering: done it is alleged, around the Senate and Assembly chambers and this caused the order to be issued. Stenographers and clerks were thrust out of the building, as well as other State employees. There was a good deal of protest over the order, but Superintendent Bowe said it was necessary.

That the fire was caused by defective wiring in the Assembly Judiciary room, is the opinion of Assemblyman A. J. Levy of New York, who has had occasion to report the fefects in the wires. Assemblyman Levy in an interview with a National News correspondent to-day, said that the electric facilities there were in a poor condition.

"Several times I have received shocks from them," said he. "I made up my mind that I would not touch them and I kept my word."

Assemblyman Levy said further that a complaint had been filed against the condition of the switches yesterday morning.

Building Cost $26,000,000.

The New York State Capitol has been termed "the costliest public building in America" and it probably deserved the name for it was started in 1867 and additions have been made from time to time increasing its cost to $26.000.000. Although the Capitol was originally designed to cost only $4,000,000 it has alfready cost more than the Capitol at Washington and the Congressional Library together. Even at the present time the Capital is not complete according to the elaborate plans which have been formulated. The Capitol at Albany covers three acres of ground. The structure is 400 feet long and 300 feet wide and its walls are 100 feet high.

The National Capitol at Washington has cost approximately $14,000,000 less than the New York State Capitol, so lavish have the legislators been in adding to the great group.

Scandal has been attached to the construction ever since the first spade full of earth was thrown. In 1879 a pamphlet wsa issued reviewing the history of the work as far as it had gone then and alleging irregularities. The State Library contained in all 167,000 volumes. There were also many costly relics from the early Indian wars and the War of the Revolution in the library.

May Have to Rebuild Big Section.

It is feared that the whole western section of the Capitol will have to be rebuilt. According to architects who viewed the ruins to-day, this will take from three to four years.

Governor Dix and legislative leaders will confer to-day on some plan for the future sessions. There is no place other than a theater or hall in Albany big enough for the Legislature to meet in and do business. It is believed that the suggestion that a portion of the new State Educational building be prepared immediately for the use of the Legislature will be considered to-day.

The books of the State Treasurer, the State Fiscal Supervisor and of other State departments were removed to the City Hall, where temporary offices have been established.

Investigating the Cause.

The conflagration exposed the fact that the Capitol was without fire fighting equipment. Even a fire alarm apparatus was lacking.

Among the thousands of sightseers who insisted on getting by the police lines and into the danger tone this afternoon were hundreds of women who were indignant when turned back.

An investigation of the structure to ascertain definitely the cause of the fire is already under way, although it is expected that the legislature will adopt a resolution calling for a broad inquiry and appropriating a sum for that purpose. If the most persistent report of the day turns out to be true it will be found that an electric push button was responsible for the disaster. Fifty State militiamen stayed on the ground during the day assisting in the salvage work and helping the police keep back the crowds.

An Inspection of the structure by the fire chief showed that further damage from the fire and smoke had been done than was at first reported. The Lieutenant Governor's room, it was found, had been flooded to the depth of over a foot. In the official apartments of the State bill drafting department, the bureau of weights and measures and the Forest, Fish and Game Department smoke had blackened the walls and water had damaged the furniture and furnishings.

LEGISLATION HELD UP.

Lawmakers Will Work Under Difficulties for a Time at Least.

(Special to the HERALD-DISPATCH.)

Albany. March 2J.—With the City Hall of Albany designated as the Capitol of the State of New York until such other designation is made, the legislation of the State is being transacted under difficulties. The Senate and Assembly met there to-day. the former in the Common Council chambers and the latter in the Supreme Court room, and a joint session and ballot for United States Senator was taken. As an emergency measure the pairs of last week's end were put in force that there might be no quorum balloting and a vote of 46 among a dozen candidates was recorded. The fire in the Capitol did not penetrate into the Assembly and Senate chambers, but water is all over the building and the State architect has advised that until the walls on the west side, where the State Library was located, cool sufficiently to make an examination, he cannot tell whether the building to its center line, within which the two legislative chambers are situated, is safe for occupation, and the legislators will not come back till it is declared safe. The Assembly chamber regular transaction of legislation.

The Democrats will attempt to hold to-night in the Common Council chamber of the City Hall the caucus they scheduled for this morning and it is understood that the conflict between the regulars and insurgents over candidates- has narrowed down to three—D. Cady Herrick, Isadore Straus and Martin H. Glynn. In the balloting of the joint caucus to-day John D. Kernan received the insurgent votes, 28 in all. The regulars and Republicans though present paired themselves which left only four votes for Sheehan and seven for Depew.

A regular session will be held in the City Hall to-morrow and by that time it will be determined what legislative business may be transacted and then it is expected that pairs will be arranged and no quorum sessions held till such time as the Legislature may get back into the Capitol or into quarters which can be arranged for the regular transaction of legislation.

The State Armory here has been offered to the Legislature but its drill hall would have to be fitted up for the legislators. The entire west end of the Capitol is burned out within the walls and flooded with water. State departments which have been damaged or cut off are occupying offices in the City Hall temporary and other places.

New York Herald March 30, 1911

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New York State Library 81st ANNUAL REPORT 1898

TRANSMITTED TO THE LEGISLATURE JANUARY 4, 1899, BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY. ALBANY: UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

BUILDING

Needs. Few realize the great amount of space required for the administrative work of the six departments of the University, and for housing, even inadequately, the great collections of the state library and the state museum. Most people think of the University as merely one of the state departments requiring only a few rooms. Our critics often complain that we occupy something like a third of the immense capitol. As pointed out in previous reports, the great space now used is wholly inadequate for our needs and the congestion is each year becoming more serious. We have now over 150,000 volumes boxed for lack of shelving, and while every effort has been made to keep this accumulation out of sight by storing it in the basement and attic spaces instead of leaving it where it would be thrust on the attention of the public, the dilemma is growing daily more serious. It is impossible to hope for any increase of room in the present building as the other departments are clamoring for more space and have long been jealous of the large proportion given to the library. They justly say that the only solution is an adequate fireproof building to which our more than 400,000 volumes and our very large scientific collections can be removed. Before that building can be completed, even if it were started this year, we shall be seriously crippled in our work, and our usefulness to the public will be greatly diminished.

Care. It must be remembered that the University is on a different plane from any other department, being a corporation created in 1784 and included in the state constitution of 1894 as a permanent feature of the state organization. This fact, together with the responsibility of the regents as trustees for the extensive property of the library and museum made necessary the usual rule in similar cases, that the ordinary custodians of the building, the cleaners, repairers and other employees are not admitted to the rooms where the valuable books and specimens are kept. It was at the request of a former superintendent of public buildings that he was relieved of all responsibility. As he justly said, it was entirely impracticable to hold the regents responsible as trustees for loss or injury to this peculiar and exceedingly valuable property if another department carried the keys and various employees over whom the regents had no control were sent in and out. We therefore have not only the supervision of the rooms but we have our own force of janitors, watchmen, elevator men and repairers and have the sole responsibility and expense of caring for our section of the building, except that the steam for heat and the electricity for lights come in from the mains without being charged to our appropriation. All our rooms are equipped with the best time-detectors and a responsible night watchman visits every room every hour from the closing at night till the opening in the morning. We have equipped the rooms with the best chemical fire extinguishers and secured for our watchman the powers of a policeman, and are able to report a greater degree of safety than ever before.

Elevators. We are promised for the coming year that the western staircase elevator will be regularly run so that the private library elevator shall be available for getting and returning books on the various floors, and that we may be freed from the unavoidable noise occasioned when all readers must come up through the main reading room. The need is urgent for changing both the staircase and library elevators to electric power as recommended, in order that they may be used on Saturday afternoons and other holidays and in the evening after the general elevator service of the building is closed.

Ventilation and Ceilings. There is the most serious need of proper ventilation, specially on the upper floor, which is now fully occupied from State street to Washington avenue. As it is directly under the roof, the need is intensified. A proper system has been laid out and the legislature will be asked for the modest appropriation necessary to carry it into effect the coming year. Besides ventilation we must also have the omitted ceilings placed over the rooms to protect from the extreme heat of the summer and from the waste of our steam heat in winter. The roof over the western section of the building is leaking in many places to the great danger of some of our most costly books, which we have been compelled to move about to escape the falling water. Our exceedingly valuable set of the London Times (274 volumes), one of the most complete sets in this country, is for lack of shelving piled on the upper floor, where it is peculiarly exposed to danger from the leaking roof. More floor shelving suitable for sets like this is urgently needed.

Improvements made. Lest readers of this report unfamiliar with the facts should infer from the continued statement of our needs that little is being done to improve and enlarge our quarters, I submit the brief mention of what has been done during the past year in the building department, besides the regular cleaning, repairs and police duty of the janitor and watchman. It will be clear from this that we are very rapidly approximating a reasonable ideal, and that while certain needs are still urgent we have abundant cause to be grateful to the legislature for its appreciation of our work and its liberality in its maintenance.

Most important of course is the occupancy of the fifth floor, formerly the attic, giving us a suite of rooms extending 300 feet from State street to Washington avenue and the width of the entire western section of the building. This includes rooms from 51 to 59. The system of numbering adopted gives the floor for the first figure and the number of the room, beginning on the south end, for the second. Where there are two or more rooms on the same east and west line, the room on the west front bears the number, and the rooms at the east have A, B and C added. Closets are indicated by adding lower case a, b, c, etc. to the designation for the room. Capital N, S, E, W are used for north, south, east and west galleries. In the numerous cases where the mezzanine floors, have been introduced, they are indicated by a .superior 2, 3 or 4. In this way the number specifies exactly the location of a room to one who has never seen the plan of the building or visited the room before, thus 41A2 is the second or mezzanine floor in the room east of the first or corner room on the fourth floor.

I give a mere catalogue of the more important additions and changes of the year. Room 15, wood floors for the storerooms to protect against cold and dirt; 31, new catalogue cases holding 3½| cm cards, for the alphabetic index of classified annotations to books; 31A, shelving replaced where removed when finance committee took rooms; 32, new removable stairs on iron hangers to reach the manuscript room and biography shelves without going up two flights and down one as heretofore. These stairs are temporarily removed during the session of the legislature but restore the convenient use of these rooms for eight months of each year. 333 and 34A3, a second story of iron stacks added for British patents; 33 and 34 new cases for the records of the accession department and for the sets of American and English catalogues; 35, atlas case with roller shelves, and reference bookcase for most constantly used dictionaries, gazetteers etc. adding greatly to convenience of use as well as to the durability of the books; 35N3, space inclosed on north gallery for janitor's supplies; 442 iron shelving for folios on north wall and in two cases; 46, coat closet for binders; 51, aisle to elevator widened to admit large furniture; 54 to 59, steam heat, electric light, carpets for aisles, Birckhead portfolio cabinets for photographs and plans, book-lift shaft inclosed in oak, outside ventilation for women's coat room; 55, end pieces for iron shelves, all iron work painted, two new fireplaces and mantels, floor sloped for trucks through library elevator, storm windows and shades added to rooms 55 and 59; 55A, partition and door shutting staircase elevator from reading room and increasing safety of library property, iron and glass ceiling to protect heat from waste, transom lifts to east windows for ventilation; 56, shelving completed for traveling or home education libraries; 59, walls whitened, floor finished, oak wall cases, cupboards and cabinets, fireplace and mantel, oak doors to shut off assembly attics and allow library territory to be securely locked; 65, perforated iron floor covered to prevent escape of heat from history reading room and dust from sifting through.

We have added on the east wall of room 65 an extensive rack for rolled maps. This consists of uprights 240 cm high and 40 cm apart. Each upright is provided with 22 iron brackets 12 cm apart, projecting 20 cm from the upright, the front of the brackets being 4 cm higher than the back. This rack furnishes a simple and inexpensive method of storing rolled maps. We have also built large skeleton pigeonholes for storing maps in rolls to test the comparative merits of the two systems. For flat maps a Birckhead portfolio cabinet has been provided. Our storage baskets for waste paper have all been replaced with galvanized iron cans with metal covers, an extra precaution enforced on us by the burning, with great attendant danger, of one of the storage waste baskets, probably through the carelessness of some smoker. Bentwood racks have been placed in the reading rooms as the most convenient, economical and durable accommodations for hats, coats and umbrellas. The public reading rooms have been beautified by the addition of potted palms and other plants. Having secured the needed partition so that, for the first time since occupancy of the new quarters, we have been able to lock the library rooms against approach from the attics of the main building, we have had permanent and trustworthy fastenings applied to all windows on the courts and staircases, and are now reasonably secure against forced entrance to our rooms.

On the whole the library was never in so satisfactory a condition, though much remains to be done. Obviously the additions named have made serious inroads on the appropriation which, while covering such expenditures of this kind as were found necessary, did not contemplate the extent to which we have been forced to make additions in order to use the new rooms. With the temperature in summer above 120° and in winter only 50°, it would have been nothing short of a crime not to have added the ceilings, partitions, storm windows, steam coils and ventilating ducts so that we can at least approximate in winter our standard of 20° centigrade (68° Fahrenheit) and in summer reduce the extreme heat due to the direct rays of the sun on the roof immediately over the new rooms.

PUBLICATIONS AND PRINTING

Legislation bulletin. With the present issue we complete the second volume of the annual bulletin of comparative legislation. As soon as practicable we hope to consolidate into a single book, with a single classification and index, the 10 bulletins already issued, thus greatly reducing the labor of reference, and meeting the growing demand for copies, which we can not much longer fill and which will continue to grow as new scholars and others interested in public affairs learn of the practical character of the work. In 1890 and 1895 we prepared a special financial bulletin showing comparatively the receipts and expenditures of each state in the union. This will be regularly published every five years, so that each volume will contain one financial bulletin. With experience we have broadened our scope and are including not only the actual laws passed, but a somewhat clearer indication of their character, and are adding all constitutional amendments and decisions of the court affecting the constitutionality of laws. In short, we are putting in the compass of our thin annual volume the information which a busy member of the legislature will find practically most useful in the preparation of bills or in the discussion either pro or con of proposed laws.

At the opening of the session we shall send to each senator and assemblyman the following statement signed by the director:

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE

The legislative sub-librarian, Robert H. Whitten, Th. D. has now completed the Ninth annual summary and index of legislation by states, covering the laws enacted in 1898. A new feature of the bulletin this year is a concise resume of the most important and distinctive legislation of the year, which indicates the general trend of legislation by reference to laws of previous years. The bulletin digests and organizes the enormous annual output of legislation so as to render available with a minimum of labor the most recent experience of other states, thus enabling those interested in any specific law to find readily what states have recently passed similar laws.

An outline of the bulletin is given on the back of this sheet with the number of laws recorded under each head. All these laws are in the library ready for immediate reference. The bulletin is sold at 25 cents, but a copy is furnished free to each member of the legislature and can be had from the Legislative division, State library.

A condensation of the resume" will also be sent out widely to inform the public of the trend of the legislation of the past year. The new legislative sub-librarian in charge of this work, Dr Robert H. Whitten of Columbia university, has given great satisfaction in the work thus far done, and we believe we have found a worthy successor to Dr E. Dana Durand, who was called from this position to a professorship in Stanford university, California.

Bibliography bulletin. During the past year 13 more bulletins were issued in this set. Four of them were bound with the report for 1897 according to our policy to include in each report all bulletins printed up to the time it is bound unless included in previous volumes. Bulletins no. 1 and 5 are out of print; no. 9-17 are appended to this report. Besides the bibliographies compiled by library school students, the series includes, as no. 12, a list of the Best books of 1897, with notes prepared by the public libraries division.

As no. 14, Index to subject bibliographies in library bulletins proves specially helpful, we index the subject bibliographies in the current numbers of all library bulletins as soon as received and insert them in the copy of the Index mounted on cards and kept in the main reading room. This consolidated index will be used in preparing a new edition.

This series of bulletins is mostly selected from original bibliographies presented by the library school students as a condition of graduation. Those not printed are available in manuscript at the library or may be borrowed by permission. The school is glad to receive suggestions from librarians, teachers, leaders of clubs, or specialists, as to subjects for which bibliographies or reading lists are specially needed, and contributions of available material are invited.

The nature of our work, as the library for some 1200 institutions of the state, compels us more and more to depend on the printing press to reach our constituency. The most serious problem in the smaller libraries is to be able to tell readers what has been published and to give practical assistance in hunting down material on almost every subject of human interest. It is fortunate that the work of our library school can be utilized in preparing these bulletins, which are of so great practical service, not only throughout this state, but largely in the most efficient libraries of the country, who eagerly add them to their working apparatus as fast as they are printed.

History bulletin. The library has issued no. 1-3 of its history series; i. e. Supplementary list of marriage licenses, a transcript of General entries, vol. 1 and Annotated list of the principal manuscripts in the New York state library.

It has long been a reproach that the richest state in the Union, having by far the largest and most valuable state library and the greatest collection of manuscripts bearing on American history, should not have published more largely in this field. The part that New York has taken in making the history of the nation, its geographic location, which made it the natural center for settling some of the gravest problems of our new country, seem to make it a clear duty to develop largely the work of the archivist. A beginning has been made and plans are laid out for adding each year substantially to our contributions to American history. To illustrate the feeling among students of history and literary men, I quote from an article in the Saturday review of books and art in the New York Times of Jan. 15, 18D8:

No one has ever attempted to investigate the colonial and revolutionary history of any part of the state without soon finding that much information he was in search of and ought to have could be obtained only from unpublished papers preserved in the capitol at Albany. Beyond the stately quartos published under Dr O'Callaghan's editorship and the few volumes Mr Berthold Fernow edited, there was little at his disposal in printed form. Calendars there were of state papers laid away there, but these simply told him what he might find by going to Albany; they served to emphasize still more the surprising indifference of state officers and legislators to the rich collections that are stored in the capitol.

The share of New York in the making of history on this continent has been far too great to make it any longer pardonable that any useful knowledge on the subject shall be concealed from those who wish to see it. Not only was New York one of the earliest places in the United States where Europeans founded settlements, but all through the formative history that embraced conflicts with the Indians, with the French, and with England, it was the vital center around which the long struggle, first between barbarism and civilization, next between Latin and Anglo-Saxon forms of government, and finally between English liberty and English personal government, was fought out and won. The valley of the Mohawk, the headwaters of the Susquehanna, the shores of lakes Champlain and George, and the valley of the Hudson supplied battlefields for a conflict extending over a full century and a half. Schenectady and German Flats, Lake George and Ticonderoga, Minisink and Cherry Valley, Elmira and Saratoga, Oriskany and Stony Point, Harlem Heights, Brooklyn, and White Plains recall those scenes and bring to mind the names of the men who on New York soil gave direction to the cause of humanity, which finally had its splendid triumph here— Sir William Johnson and Nicholas Herkimer, John Sullivan and Anthony Wayne, Israel Putnam and Nathaniel Greene, Philip Schuyler and George Washington.

There has never been lack of men competent and willing to undertake the laborious task of editing and printing these colonial and revolutionary papers. The thing lacking has been a legislature which would provide the funds for doing the work. No great sum would be needed whatever scale of typographic display might be proposed. Men whom the project has interested grow sick at heart when they reflect how small this sum would be, compared with expenditures that are constantly and easily made for less urgent purposes. Some years ago many thousands of dollars were expended on several resplendent quartos devoted to the Public service of the State of New York, volumes as striking in their form of manufacture as in their curious inutility.Those thousands of dollars expended in the publication of the colonial and revolutionary papers would have made a splendid start — something more than a start, in fact — toward their preservation for all time in print, and not only their preservation but their wide distribution.

In the stately edifice where these papers now find a resting place are staircases and corridors, vaulted ceilings, and wainscoted chambers to which the legislator points with pride, and upon which his untraveled constituents gaze with wondering eyes. But for men who think more of vital things in the life of a state, it is melancholy to remember how one of these show places represents outlays that might have saved New York from the disgrace which neglect of her historical manuscripts has fastened so deeply upon her. The stains of that neglect, though deep enough, are not indelible.

The regents have made the New York state library easily first in availability and usefulness to the public. They have also recognized their responsibility as trustees for the safety of its collections. In the face of no little popular criticism they have declined to allow manuscripts or books of which only one copy is in existence to leave the fireproof building and the constant watch-care of our own staff. The danger of fire, theft or injury in transportation is so great that the state might better afford to make the necessary investigations at its own expense rather than risk the total loss of any part of its treasures which from their nature no money could replace. This justifiable conservatism on the part of the regents in regard to sending our manuscripts to Washington or elsewhere to be edited and printed, throws on us a double responsibility to publish such parts as the public would most value. Only in this way can we justly meet the criticism that treasures are locked up that we neither publish nor allow others to publish. I am confident that the policy on which we have entered of making these resources available will command the approval and confidence of most intelligent citizens, who naturally take a warm pride in the position of leadership which New York has always occupied.

MANUSCRIPT DIVISION (page 29)

Established April 19,1881

The best estimates available indicate that we have upwards of 250,000 manuscripts. Obviously the fireproof state library is the best repository for all valuable manuscripts pertaining to the state. When historic or other material has been once printed and widely scattered, the destruction of any particular collection by fire is quite a different matter from the destruction of the only existing copy of a manuscript which no money can replace. As our country grows older and richer and its citizens have more leisure, interest in its early history constantly increases, and the value of manuscripts illustrating it is steadily enhanced. Nothing satisfactory will be accomplished with this great department till room is provided for work among its treasures. These are now crowded in an unventilated storeroom, cut off from the top of a blind corridor, 30 feet high. It serves merely to hold the manuscripts with reasonable safety till something adequate can be provided, but proper arrangement and accessibility to the public is quite impossible till more space is available. Then we shall have this room as the center of historical research and shall be able to collect and care properly for the manuscripts which in accordance with the statutes are to be delivered to the library from the legislature and from various departments and institutions controlled by the state.

For scope of the history series issued in connection with this division, see p. 20 and introductory note to History bulletin 1 appended to this report.

The archivist, George R. Howell, reports as follows for his division:

My time has for the most part been occupied in making searches, preparing certificates of service of soldiers in the revolutionary war, and in the correspondence involved in these inquiries or with other questions of history, geography or genealogy, referred to me for answer. During this period I have sent out about 150 official certificates of service in the revolutionary war and replied to hundreds of inquiries on this subject. So much time was needed to keep abreast of this work and in giving personal assistance to those consulting the library that I have been compelled to devote from one to three hours of the afternoon as well as the forenoon to library matters.

History bulletin 2 from this division, appended to this report, is a print of the earliest volume of manuscripts that relates to the colony subsequent to its surrender by the Dutch to the English in 1664, and contains matter relating to the transfer of jurisdiction and the adjustment to the new conditions in all parts of the colony. It is the first of a new series of publications of the original manuscripts in the,archives of the state in the library.

Several manuscript volumes in more or less frequent use have been indexed within the past year to save time in consultation. In addition to the two catalogues of the books in the manuscript room, one by author or title, and the other by subjects, I have made a shelf list to be able to determine at once at any time whether all the books are in place. Under these pressing claims for other work, I have done but little in indexing the Clinton manuscripts, but expect to continue this work as I find time.

I have made (entirely outside my office hours) a list of all the oil and crayon portraits in the capitol and, so far as possible, of all in the city halls of Albany and New York. This was done to facilitate answers to inquiries for portraits of our public men, often referred to me for answer.

As there has been a request from the New York historical society for the publication of the colonial manuscripts such as we have begun to publish, I would recommend the continuance of the publication of these for some time to come, or of a calendar to them, perhaps, inserting in many cases of important papers, the entire record.

MEDICAL DIVISION

Established May 21,1891

The number of medical books, serials and pamphlets published each year is startling in amount, and is rapidly growing larger. Only men of large means can afford to buy all these new publications; only those in the larger cities, and then in most cases to a very limited extent, have access to this important new literature. Yet the development of medical science makes it of the utmost importance that every practising physician should be able to know of the latest discoveries, for the life of any taxpayer of the state or of some member of his family may possibly be saved in a critical case through his physician's access to the recent information of the results of the experience of the rest of the medical world.

In view of the direct and practical importance of making medical literature available to every licensed physician in the state, it was proposed by the state library in 1891 that a department be maintained at Albany in the interests of the state as a whole. Even those who from time to time secured loans from the national medical library in Washington felt the great desirability of having a collection near at hand, which they could visit in person or from which they could get books, pamphlets or information more readily. The matter was presented to the legislature and when the Albany medical college generously offered to give outright its entire medical library, consisting of about 2500 volumes and an equal number of pamphlets, including many large and valuable sets, a law was passed establishing the state medical library and providing "that it should be open for consultation at all hours when the law library is open, and that it might lend books to every accredited physician residing in the state who should conform to the rules made by the regents for insuring proper protection and the largest usefulness to the people. The cost of transfer and of equipping rooms was estimated at $5000, and the expense of economical administration was estimated at $1500 for librarian and $3500 for subscriptions to serials, buying new books and for needed binding and repairs.new book. No physician for a moment begrudges the liberal provision made for the sister profession of the law, but as the medical library concerns an equally numerous profession and one so vitally important to every family, it may justly claim at least equal consideration. When we add to this that the honor of the state is at stake, after having accepted the splendid gift of the medical library with the distinct understanding that it was to be maintained on a par with the law library, good faith clearly demands that the needed appropriations, which every one admits have been most economically expended, should not be reduced below the $5000.

Appropriations. The first year the physicians received only sufficient appropriation for equipment and shelving, but were assured by prominent members of the finance and ways and means committees that there would be no difficulty in getting the regular appropriation of $5000 a year, since the state had accepted a gift with the distinct understanding that the physicians were to receive in future similar consideration to that shown the lawyers, for whom it had provided the finest law library in America. The medical profession was asked to delay for a year the practical work of its library, so that the appropriation might not exceed $5000 in any year. The money was economically spent, the rooms fitted up, the library transferred and the appropriation of $5000 was duly made in 1805 as promised. The next year on adjournment it was found that the needed $5000 had been reduced to $3500, and the library was seriously crippled. The next year the item was reduced to $1000, which was less than the cost of the annual subscriptions to serials (of which between 200 and 300 are taken) leaving nothing for binding them into volumes, for indexing, cataloguing, or the services of a librarian, and nothing with which to buy a single

Progress. Substantial progress has been made in the last year and, unless deprived of the proper appropriation, the future of the medical library is most promising. History and genealogy have been removed to the fifth floor, so that rooms 31, 32 and 33 on the third floor, originally intended for medicine, are now devoted to that subject, room 33 containing current serials and books issued since 1890, except bound periodicals. The student thus finds in a single room the freshest material on his subject. In each room sheets are bulletined showing the arrangement of the medical works. The state medical library now has on its shelves 8421 books and about 5000 pamphlets and is receiving regularly 222 serials, exclusive of annuals, biennials, etc. There has been received recently the largest gift since the library was established: 7346 volumes and 3661 pamphlets (including duplicates) from the State medical society. The state of New York can not afford to have this library take a second place. The system of sending books by mail and express to all points of the state is steadily growing, and is proving the most practical, convenient and economical, in fact, the only method by which many students can have free access to any needed literature.

Distant use. The state library was the pioneer in the system of paid help, by which any investigations desired will be carried on in the library at the mere cost of the time consumed by the librarian or assistant at the rate of his annual salary. This enables one at a distance, for a trifling fee, to save the time and expense of a long journey, and often the trained librarian can do more in an hour than one less familiar with the resources of the library could in a half day. The time is evidently near at hand when most of the physicians of the state will have long distance telephones, so that they will be in immediate communication with the state medical library whenever needed, and a competent medical librarian would be able to render most important services impossible before the invention of the telephone.

Traveling libraries. The system of traveling libraries started in our own state library and so widely adopted in other states may be applied also to medical literature. A collection of books, serials and pamphlets on any special subject can be sent out for the temporary use of a club or society, or even of a single physician who wishes more than could be conveniently given by abstracts or notes made in the paid help department; or a traveling library consisting of the newest books could be sent from city to city or to clubs of physicians, who should have a few days to examine the works, select such as they might wish, to buy, and then send on to the next club for similar examination. Wherever 10 or more physicians chose to organize in a club it would be practicable to afford these facilities for a monthly, or even more frequent examination of the most interesting new medical literature, which many of them might not otherwise have opportunity to see.

New York is the recognized leader in medical matters. Our standards of preliminary and professional education are in advance of those of any other state. Every year we are winning recognition as the center of medical education. The maintenance of our state medical library is an essential part of our comprehensive plan.

Brooklyn Eagle, April 6, 1911, Page 7.

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Editor The Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

The awful loss of this state library is the result, of course, of carelessness, more, or less criminal. No punishment can follow the crime. A portion of the loss can be repaired by the purchase of such books as were printed and a liberal use of money from the poor taxpayer, but the books without price—the early records of our villages and states—these we must forever regret and do without. Never was such a mass of rich historical lore so shabbily treated.

As for the building—good riddance! It had not a line of beauty—was filled with vulgar display of mere expenditure and, as the fire proves, was unsuitable for its uses. May it never be repaired. Possibly some of the new rich class might purchase itfor its money associations or its tawdry decorations; or it might be well to plant ivy over its remains—it would make a magnificent ruin.

Surely there ought to be culture and honesty enough in this great Empire State to erect a Capitol building on dignified, simple, beautiful lines that would be a credit to our commonwealth, and which would have sufficient space about it to emphasize its dignity.

The amount of money spoken of in connection with a restoration after the fire wreck would, under honest conditions, build a far more desirable structure, of 'which- we -would all be proud, and not "fireproof" as that word has come to signify, but something that "cannot burn."

As our records are gone, it matters little what provision is made for a library, but a central building for the state, suitably situated, properly designed and honestly constructed, would in a measure atone for some of the iniqulties attached to the old site.

F V. MORRELL.

177 Quincy street. April 3, 1911.

A Stain Indelible

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Jan. 15, 1898, New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art, Page 33,

New York State in American History

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The report of the State Historian, Mr. Hugh Hastings, from which passages are reprinted elsewhere in this issue, brings prominently to public attention the sad state of neglect in which important and valuable historical papers belonging to this State have remained for more than a hundred years. No one has ever attempted to investigate the colonial and revolutionary history of any part of the state without soon finding that much information he was in search of and ought to have could be obtained only from unpublished papers preserved in the capitol at Albany. Beyond the stately quartos published under Dr O'Callaghan's editorship and the few volumes Mr Berthold Fernow edited, there was little at his disposal in printed form. Calendars there were of state papers laid away there, but these simply told him what he might find by going to Albany; they served to emphasize still more the surprising indifference of state officers and legislators to the rich collections that are stored in the capitol.

The share of New York in the making of history on this continent has been far too great to make it any longer pardonable that any useful knowledge on the subject shall be concealed from those who wish to see it. Not only was New York one of the earliest places in the United States where Europeans founded settlements, but all through the formative history that embraced conflicts with the Indians, with the French, and with England, it was the vital center around which the long struggle, first between barbarism and civilization, next between Latin and Anglo-Saxon forms of government, and finally between English liberty and English personal government, was fought out and won. The valley of the Mohawk, the headwaters of the Susquehanna, the shores of lakes Champlain and George, and the valley of the Hudson supplied battlefields for a conflict extending over a full century and a half. Schenectady and German Flats, Lake George and Ticonderoga, Minisink and Cherry Valley, Elmira and Saratoga, Oriskany and Stony Point, Harlem Heights, Brooklyn, and White Plains recall those scenes and bring to mind the names of the men who on New York soil gave direction to the cause of humanity, which finally had its splendid triumph here— Sir William Johnson and Nicholas Herkimer, John Sullivan and Anthony Wayne, Israel Putnam and Nathaniel Greene, Philip Schuyler and George Washington.

There has never been lack of men competent and willing to undertake the laborious task of editing and printing these colonial and revolutionary papers. The thing lacking has been a legislature which would provide the funds for doing the work. No great sum would be needed whatever scale of typographic display might be proposed. Men whom the project has interested grow sick at heart when they reflect how small this sum would be, compared with expenditures that are constantly and easily made for less urgent purposes. Some years ago many thousands of dollars were expended on several resplendent quartos devoted to the Public service of the State of New York, volumes as striking in their form of manufacture as in their curious inutility.Those thousands of dollars expended in the publication of the colonial and revolutionary papers would have made a splendid start — something more than a start, in fact — toward their preservation for all time in print, and not only their preservation but their wide distribution.

In the stately edifice where these papers now find a resting place are staircases and corridors, vaulted ceilings, and wainscoted chambers to which the legislator points with pride, and upon which his untraveled constituents gaze with wondering eyes. But for men who think more of vital things in the life of a state, it is melancholy to remember how one of these show places represents outlays that might have saved New York from the disgrace which neglect of her historical manuscripts has fastened so deeply upon her. The stains of that neglect, though deep enough, are not indelible. A Legislature could at any time wipe them out.

On past Legislatures, however, stains must remain, and stains indelible. But shall the present and future Legislatures also bear them?

************************************************

January 15, 1898, New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art, Page 37, NEW YORK STATE IN THE REVOLUTION.

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Records of That Conflict and of Colonial Times Getting Published.

Men and women who have been seeking industriously for information concerning the part taken by ancestors of theirs in Colonial and Revolutionary times will be among the most diligent readers the State Historian of New York, Mr. Hugh Hastings, will have for his annual report, just published. It is a volume of more than a thousand pages, many of which are filled with muster rolls to which there is an elaborate index. The present volume, filled as it is with valuable records, is merely the beginning of a series that is to be devoted to Colonial records. How great the neglect of these papers has been by the State Mr. Hastings sets forth, as well as the demands that pour in upon him for the information they contain. Indeed, it is this topic and the extent of New York's contribution in men to the armies of the Revolution that form what are perhaps the most triking passages in the report. They are given below:

The declaration in the State Historian's report last year that New York State furnished forty thousand troops during the War of the Revolution was met with a storm of denials and criticism, that, beginning with a Philadelphia newspaper, swept through this State from Buffalo to New York. Several writers, with more presumption than judgment, even charged that such a "preposterous statement" utterly discredited the work of the department. Puerile State jealousy has in many ways and by many shallow writers striven to deny to New York credit for the exalted patriotism it has ever been her pride to display and her record to exert in the hour of her country's peril.

New York's placid indifference to exploiting her great achievements has encouraged a certain class of so-called historical writers of other States for a period running over a hundred years in belittling the Empire State at almost every historical crisis. From the adoption of the Federal Constitution New York has been exposed to virulent attacks from New England writers, not only for her position in the convention that adopted the Federal Constitution, but for her course during the second war with Great Britain.

And it seems perfectly appropriate that a writer from the sister State of Pennsylvania should ridicule New York's patriotism during the trying years from 1775 to 1789, but in the absence of positive proof to the contrary, the willingness with which certain influential newspapers in this State reproduced these denials and joined issues with New York's assailants to the detriment of their own State was as surprising as their motive was inexplicable. Fortunately, what was known by this department to be a fact a year ago will soon be established within the reach of the public generally, and the statement then made will be more than verified.

In order that all the records extant should be amalgamated, what co-operation New York rendered to her sister Colonies during the War of the Revolution, a project was set on foot last Spring which had in contemplation the consolidation of all the Revolutionary records in the possession of the State of New York and the War Department at Washington, D. C. Early in May, 1896, Col. D. S. Lamont, Secretary of War, put himself in communication with Gov. Morton and made a formal request that the State, through the Regents of the University, should loan the United States Government whatever Revolutionary muster rolls were filed away in our State Library. Gov. Morton's interest in the subject was at once aroused, ande without delay he submitted the matter to the Regents, supplemented by request that Col. Lamont's project should be consummated.

At the annual convocation in June last, the Regents failed to see the expediency of the request made by the Federal Government and the Governor, and declined to permit our Revolutionary records to leave the State, on the ground that the risk covered in transportation to Washington and return was altogether too hazardous. It was contended that the policy of the Regents never to permit the State archives to leave the fire-proof and water-proof vaults in which they were kept should not be broken. Besides, it was contended, a dangerous precedent would be established--that by loaning the records to the Government the door was opened to those of our sister States that might be disposed to make the same sort of a request. As a concession, however, the Regents offered the National Government every access, should the War Department see fit to detail a number of copyists for the purpose of transcribing the records. Inasmuch as the War Department had no funds fixed by statute--and therefore no authority--for the transportation of clerks from Washington to Albany and return, or for their maintenance while they remained in this city, the laudable enterprise fell through. This refusal of the Regents left New York State in any but an enviable position when the National Government determined to print its Revolutionary records. The State of New York would have had no position whatever commensurate with the services it ahd rendered to the cause. Its record, as a matter of fact, would not have appeared. The State would have been at a marked disadvantage.

Fortunately, however, State Controller Roberts had in the Summer of 1895 discovered in the attic of the old State Hall a great mass of Revolutionary records that had lain undisturbed for nearly eighty years. Realizing their value and the necessity of putting them in shape for public use, Controller Roberts, governed by a high sense of public spirit and patriotism, entered into an agreement with Secretary Lamont, through Col. Fred C. Ainsworth, United States Army, Chief of the Record and Pension Office, for the interchange of these records with those relating to New York State on file in the War Department. This patriotic demonstration of reciprocity has proved of incalculable value to the history of this State and of the United States. So that to-day in the War Department in Washington, D. C., and in the State Controller's office in Albany the muster and pay rolls of the troops furnished by New York State to the War of the Revolution are in more complete condition as to names and numbers furnished than at any previous time in the history of this State or of the United States. From documents and rolls whose authenticity cannot be questioned, of which each one bears the stamp of official accuracy, the statement can be iterated without the fear of successful contradiction that the number of troops furnished by New York State during the War of the Revolution will aggregate between 40,000 and 41,000.

In addition to these nuster and pay rolls there are other records bearing the name of regiments with their field, staff, and line officers, without the name of a single private, thus indicating that there were skeleton regiments, duly officered, whose ranks, it is safe to assume, were only partially filled. Then again, in the Controller's possession there are the names of pensioners whose claims are duly certified as New York soldiers, but whose names cannot be found on any of the existing muster or pay rolls. The fact that they obtained the pension is a sufficient guarentee that they must have seen service. In the consideration of the lists of regiments and organizations prepared from the official rolls there can be no question that if all the facts could be brought to light, it would be found that New York State supplied nearer forty-five thousand troops than forty thousand.

The resources of the department have been sorely tried during the past year by the many queries, letters, and demands for information from people interested in their ancestors who settled in this State during the Colonial period, or who enlisted from this State during the War of the Revolution or the War of 1812. These queries have come from nearly every State in the Union, demonstrating the constantly expanding interest in matters of this kind. The study of American history and of American ancestry has become a very prominent part of our political existence; a scarcity of material has only whetted the appetites of the people for more detailed information. To satisfy this demand, which is as healthy as it is natural, our sister States of Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Maryland are pushing forward the publication of Colonial and Revolutionary Records--records that have long lain neglected, and have only been accessible to a limited number of influential persons. Up to the present time the State of Pennsylvania has printed three series of her Colonial archives, embracing thirty volumes; the fourth series, constituting twenty volumes, is now in process or preperation. The example set by the three States mentioned above should certainly be followed by the State of New York, the peer of them all. Even the comparatively modern States of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Montana have printed their early archives.

It is a crying shame that this great State ever abandoned printing its records, so well begun and continued by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan. The Colonial records and other valuable manuscripts now in the State Library belong of right to the people, and the people will never have the true history of the early period of this State until these records are printed and distributed. The collection of manuscripts owned by the State of New York is more valuable and their contents are more interesting than those of any other collection in the country outside of the City of Washington. The longer this work is neglected the more difficult will be the transcribing of our archives. Year byn year the ink becomes less legible, and year by year the danger of mutilation and destruction increases. It is the fashion for a few alleged economists to decry the expense necessary in the preperation and publishing of valuable records of this character. The growth of patriotic societies in this State, male and female, the constantly developing interest manifested in our early history, would seem to indicate that a very large class of our people who are not active in politics except on election day beleive that the State should use its resources in giving the public in printed form all the historical records that are now under lock and key.

The American Historical Review for January contains many articles of exceeding interest. Among these are Edward Channing's "Justin Winsor," Charles H. Haskin's "The LIfe of Mediaeval Students as Illustrated by Their Letters," Herbert Tuttles's "The Prussian Campaign of 1758, II.," Herbert L. Osgood's "The Proprietary Province as a Form of Colonial Government, III.," Max Farrand's "The Taxation of Tea, 1767-1773," Gaillard Hunt's "Office Seekers During Jefferson's Administration," and Arthur M. Mowry's "Tammany Hall and the Dorr Rebellion."

West Elevation, Pre-1911, State Capitol in Albany.

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April 1, 1911, The Evening Post, Page 2, Column 1, SALVORS OF STATE PAPERS,

SEARCHERS IN CAPITOL RUINS FOUND REWARD.

Fire at Albany Passed Over a Number of important Dutch and English Colonial Documents, and After Much Labor These Were Recovered -- Washington's Sword Still Buried.

Although for the greater portion of the 300,000 manuscripts in the State Library are a total loss, as a consequence of the fire at Albany, a large number---besides the most valuable ones saved through the foresight of Dr. Andrew S. Draper, commissioner of education---were rescued from the debris after two days' work on the part of James I. Wyer, jr., director, and a corps of salvors.

By four o'clock yesterday afternoon the last of the drenched and charred manuscripts had been removed in baskets to a temporary asylum provided by the Rt. Rev. William C. Doune, bishop of Albany, in a house at No. 163 State Street. Arnold J. T. Van Laer, State archivist, to whom intimate knowledge of the exact location of the more valuable treasures was largely due the success of the work, announced that all the debris in the manuscript room had been gone over. For two days Mr. Van Laer and his assitants, including a squad of laborers furnished by the Governor and a guard of soldiers by Adjt.-Gen. Verbeck, had worked over the debris. When they started the books were still burning, and in spite of the liberal use of the hose fire kept breaking out among the papers. Twice Thursday night the soldiers on guard had to turn a stream on the debris dug up the day before, and even the manuscripts which had been removed by hand to the neighboring Senate Judiciary Committee room burst once into flame.

IMPORTANT RECORDS SAVED.

As a result of the two days' work about a hunderd of the most important early books of record, dating from the Dutch and English period, were saved intact, and several hundred more or less charred, but capable of restoration. In addition to these, many hundred books and documents were taken out, from which valuable material may be recovered. Three bucketfuls of medals and coins were also recovered. Stored with the manuscripts were five memorial swords. Four of these, those presented to Gen. Worth in the war of 1812, were rescued, but the fifth and most valuable, that presented to George Washington by Frederick the Great, was not found up to a late hour last night, although four men spent all day digging for it.

I. N. Phelps Stokes, an architect of this city, whose interest in old New York records led him to offer his services to the New York Public Library, went to Albany Thursday to report on the situation, and assisted Mr. Van Laer in the direction of the work.

"When we first looked over the burned building," said Mr. Stokes, "we thought it would be impossible to get into the manuscript room at all from the inside. The usual approach from the main library was entirely blocked by debris. We decided we should have to get in by a ladder to one of the third floor windows. Through Mr. Ware, the State architect, we had already obtained from the fire chief permission to do this when we discovered we could get in through a seldom-used side door.

"The manuscript room is about twenty by forty feet, divided into three stories by mezzanine floors. The bottom floor had apparently been used as an office or reference room, while the bulk of the valuable manuscripts were stored in shelves and bookcases on the second floor.

BIG CORPS AT WORK.

"It was about noon when we finally got into the room. The whole place was filled with smoke, and the fire was by no means all out, in spite of a steady stream of water from a fire hose which had been fastened to the doorr. Dragging the hose with us, we climbed up by a ladder---the wooden stairs had been burnt out---to the second floor. It looked at first a pretty hopeless job. The smoke here was so thick you could not see the length of the room, and the debris, which was piled six feet deep in the aisles, was still actively burning.

"We soon found that some of the books along the wall were still intact---slightly charred, but otherwise in good condition. That encouraged us. We went back and got the firemen and soldiers and the twenty men the Governor had given us. All material dug out of the aisles by the men was passed along by a line of soldiers to the Senate Fudiciary Committee room, where it was piled on the floor and roughly sorted. Mr. Van Laer had given instructions that nothing was to be thrown away, and everything was passed on personally by him before it was discarded.

"We started work in the aisles. The room had evidently been a regular flue, and the flames that swept along the ceiling had completely consumed all the material on the upper shelves. The lower shelves, however, had been protected by a heavy counter, as well as by the stuff which had fallen from above. It was from these that we generally obtained practically all the material that was saved.

"Every once in a while we had to stop work to play the hose. It was not always easy to keep the men working. They got discouraged by the steady rain that poured down on them from the hoses that were being played on the floors up above. Finally we had to ask permission to have the water temporarily turned off above our heads. The water in the corridors was by this time everywhere ankle deep, in spite of the efforts of the vacume cleaner, which had been going all day sucking the water out.

"Before night we had removed most of the books from the lower shelves. These were among the oldest and most valuable of the material saved. This was all stored temporarily in the committee room, left for the night under guard of soldiers and firemen. Twice during the night the fire broke out again in the manuscript room, in spite of its long soaking, and the material not yet removed had to be still further damaged by another flood. Even the material that had been removed started smouldering again during the night.

"The work was continued yesterday. The most valuable manuscripts were carried in baskets, two soldiers to each, down to a house at No. 163 State St., where space was put at the disposal of the library by Bishop Doune for temporary quarters. Stacks were built in the basement with shelves of laths, so as to allow a free circulation of air. On these the manuscripts were spread out, one at a time.

"Meanwhile, excavation was still going on in the manuscript room. Many more early records were discovered, notably one of the earliest books af Dutch patents, dating from about 1640, and some few of the Clinton and Johnson papers, all of which had been reported as lost. By four o'clock everything had been removed, and roughly sorted. To-day the rest of the material will be taken down to the temporary quarters in State Street, and the work of reassorting will be begun."

VALUABLE PAPERS THROWN AWAY.

ALBANT, April 1.—The State historian, Victor H. Paltsits, states that many valuable records in the State Library have bean lost through the haste of workman in casting debris from the burned Capitol into the street. Mr. Paltsits says he picked up yesterday about 500 feet from where the papers were being thrown from the building, a conveyance af land in the town of Groton bearing tha date of 1723. The writing was intact, and the State historian asserts that many of the papers which now litter the streets in the vicinity of the Capitol may have been documents of great value. Mr. Paltsits has tendered his services to the State librarian, Mr. Wyer, in the work of rehabilitating the library.

Commissioner Draper of the State Education Department estimates that only 10 per cent. of the 300,000 historical manuscripts will be salvaged from the wreckage of the library. The debris-strewn streets have become so unsightly that the city authorities asked John Bowe, State superintendent of public building., if something could not be done to prevent the paper from drifting about. Gov. Dix at once instructed Superintendent Bowe to arrange some other method for removing the wreckage.

The law provides that the court of claims may sit in any county in the state, and the sheriff of the county is expected to find adequate quarters. The Court of Claims rooms was one of those swept by the flames, and the judges have decided to hold their next term on April 17 in Syracuse. While it is planned to hold terms in various parts of the State until the repairs to the courtroom are completed, the clerical force will make its headquarters in Albany.

Relic hunters have become so active since the fire that all passes to the Capitol have been revoked and new ones are issued only to those who have business within the building.

2011-11-29T15:36:00.002-05:00

March 29, 1911, The Evening Post, Page 1, Column 5, RUIN IN CAPITOL,

Damage $5,000,000 or More by Fire

THE STATE LIBRARY DESTROYED

Priceless Documents, Relics, and Manuscripts, Besides 600,000 Volumes, Burned—Costly Grand Staircase, Assembly and Senate Chambers, and Many State Departments Badly Damaged -- Court of Appeals Escaped -- Flames Raged Four Hours Before Being Controlled -- No Fire-Fighting Appliances to Quell Outbreak, Trifling at Start.

(Special Dispatch to The Evening Post )

ALBANY. March 29.—Defective insulation in the Assembly Library on the third floor of the State Capitol started a fire early this morning that destroyed the west wing of the $27,000,000 building. The State Library was completely destroyed, and both the Senate and Assembly chambers burned out. The loss is variously estimated at between $5,000,000 and $8,000,000, but in some respects it is incalculable, for many of the records and documents in the State Library can never be replaced.

One watchman, Samuel Abbott, who was assigned to the State Library, is missing, and is believed to have lost his life. Several firemen were overcome with smoke, or injured by falling stones from the walls.

LACK OF MEANS TO FIGHT FIRE.

It cannot be too emphatically stated that, had there been any provisions whatever in the Capitol against fire, the loss would have been relatively small, and the fire itself could easily have been confined to the room in which it started. The Evening Post's correspondent was one of four men on the third floor when the fire was discovered, and was one of the first to reach the room in which the blaze started. At that time only a desk and book-case in the Assembly library were ablaze, and the fire could have been extinguished by a couple of hand-grenades or a few bucketfuls of water. But there were no grenades, no fire buckets, and no fire hydrants, save a few small ones on the sixth floor for sprinkling.

There was delay also in getting streams of water on the fire, even after the firemen arrived, and it was fully twenty-five minutes after the alarm was turned in before a fireman reached the floor where the fire was burning. It was almost three-quarters of an hour before the firemen had streams playing on the fire from the interior of the building. The firemen had the excuse, to be sure, that the fire was a difficult one to fight, and that it was a problem how to get the fire hose up to a point where it could be effectively used. But to the total lack of fire appliances of any sort is due the enormous and irreparable loss which the State will be called upon to sustain.

HISTORY OF THE FIRE FROM ITS START.

Here is the story of the fire, as seen by the Evening Post's correspondent from his point of vantage within the burning building:

At 2:20 o'clock the Capitol was practically deserted save for the night watchmen, who are supposed to be posted one to a floor; H. S. Gorham, the manager of the Postal Telegraph office in the Capitol. Dwight Gowey, a proof-reader to the Assembly, and two newspaper correspondents. At that time, Gowey, who had been working late in the Assembly document room, returned to the Assembly library, which was located in the rear of the Assembly chamber, and separated from it by the clerks' room and the stenographers' lobby. Gowey intended to close his desk, which was located in a corner of the library, and go home to bed. As he opened the library door he was met with a cloud of smoke, and saw that one of the high book-shelves, immediately behind his desk, was all ablaze. He rushed at once into the corridor, shouting for the watchman.

"What's the trouble," called one of the correspondents.

"There's a fire in the Assembly Library and I'm afraid it may be a bad one," Gowey called back.

Gorham and the correspondents ran around the corridor to the west wing of the building. Smoke at that time was pouring from the Assembly library, but it was possible to enter the room. When your corespondent caught a first glimpse of the fire. Gowey's desk was ablaze and the book shelves adjoining it were a mass of flames, which were rapidly climbing upward among the books, piled to a height of thirty feet from the floor. A balcony ran about the library, forming a sort of mezzanine floor some twelve feet from the floor itself, and the flames had already reached this balcony, although apparently nothing but the books were at that time on fire.

FIREMEN LATE AND HELPLESS ON ARRIVAL.

Meanwhile Gowey had found a watchman and he had turned in an alarm. It was fully twenty-five minutes before any firemen put in an appearance. By that time the fire had spread, with indescribable rapidity, among the book shelves; the electric light bulbs were exploding, and the whole room had the appearance of a furnace.

The firemen stood helplessly watching it for a moment, apparently unable to decide what to do. From the street, however, a feeble stream was soon playing against the Assembly library windows. Before the fire hose had been hauled up the winding million dollar staircase to the third floor, the flames had burst from the library into the hallway and lobby, and the firemen were forced back by the heat and dense, suffocating smoke before they could get a stream into the blazing library.

At this time, however, the fire chief expressed confidence that he would be able to confine the fire to the rooms adjacent to the Assembly chamber. He was emphatic in his statement that there was little or no danger of the fire extending to the State Library, which occupied the greater part of the west wing fronting on Capitol Place from the third floor up. Ten minutes later when the flames had already reached the head of the great western stairway and were swirling up the elevator shaft in that corner of the building, he changed his mind and declared that he feared the State Library was in danger.

STATE LIBRARY DESTRUCTION.

The fire entered the State Library wing by way of the binding room located on the fifth floor. But this was fully an hour and a half after the fire started, and, in that time, had there been anyone on hand to do the work, many of the priceless books and records in the library could have been saved. One of the most striking facts of the fire was the total inefficiency or inadequacy of the employees of the State superintendent of buildings. They stood about idly in groups on the first floor of the building, but they did not venture above stairs, and many thousands of dollars' worth of State property was needlessly sacrificed as a result.

Step by step the firemen were forced to retreat before the advancing flames, until, with a roar, the fire burst into the State Library. It was then a foregone conclusion that the whole library was doomed. The firemen confessed themselves helpless, and gave up any attempt to check the fiery advance. The books and papers, many of them resting on pine or walnut shelves, proved ready fuel for the flames, and within thirty minutes after the flames had passed the stone partitions, the library was afire from end to end.

At this time, with the entire west wing ablaze, the sight across the broad central court from the eastern part of the building was one never to be forgotten. The mass of flames reached higher than the eye could see from the windows looking out on the court. Within the court enclosure the sparks fell in showers. The smoke in the corridors was so thick that it was impossible to stand it long, and the few spectators on the third floor, as well as the helpless firemen, had to rush to the windows every few minutes for a breath of fresh air. It was impossible to recognize a person, even across the narrow corridors. The flames had driven the fire-fighters out of the western corridors altogether within five minutes after the spread into the library, and they were compelled to lay new lines of hose along the corridors running alongside the Senate chamber and on the fourth floor immediately above.

Here the fire was fiercest, and here the hardest and most successful fight against the advancing flames was waged. The fire chief realized that if the fire once got headway in the region above the Senate chamber the whole structure was doomed. But the fight was successful, and the fire was stopped before it had passed into the north wing.

NOTORIOUS ASSEMBLY CEILING ABLAZE.

On the Assembly side the fire, which had died down for a while, now broke out a new, and soon the notorious Sheehan papier-mache ceiling, which was the cause of so much scandal back in 1886, was seen to be blazing. A great section of it directly over the Speaker's desk, fell with a crash, and two of the enormous chandeliers fell with it. A body of volunteer firemen was organized among the half-dozen Assemblymen, Senators, and newspaper correspondents who had by this time put in an appearance, and a line of hose was hoisted and pulled in through the windows, and a stream of water was soon playing on the crumbling papier-mache. Almost every part of the building was soon flooded with water, and the loss from this cause is estimated to be extremely large.

IMMENSE LOSSES: NO INSURANCE.

The State architect roughly placed the loss on the structure alone at between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000. The loss on furnishings is many thousands if not a million, and that on the library and other public records is incalculable. A conservative estimate places the entire loss at $8,000,000. The State carried no insurance on any part of the Capitol or its contents.

Andrew S. Draper, commissioner of education, said that while the loss on the State Library was deplorable and included many documents and manuscripts which it would be impossible to replace, some of the more priceless of the States historic possessions, such as Washington's Farewell Address and other papers, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, had been removed to his fireproof safe on the first floor of the building and were unharmed.

W. T. A.

Roasting Dix, April 27, 1911

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Sung to the tune of "A Big Night To-night."

The Big Fire That Night.

Young Goldberg said to Levy: I have a fond desire.
Things are very quiet here, why don't we pull a fire.
We must have some excitement, what is it that we can do?
Why don't we send a lot of bills a-blazing up the flue?
Then Levy smiled with joy--a match is Aaron's toy.

Chorus--

O! it was grand how the fire burned that night.
Big light that night, big night that night;
O! but it was such an elegant sight.
Yes, it sure was a grand fire that night.

McCabe rolled out of slumber and gazed up at the flames,
Then he got his little notebook out and started writing names.
Of forty-seven hundred Albanians who would get
Some needed places on the works before the fire was wet.
As flames ate up the place, there was joy in Packy's face.

Chorus--

It looked to Pack, like a big night that night.
Big night that night, any thing that night;
He sat and sang: "There'll be work for the gang.
They'll be grateful for this fire to-night."

A million books were burning and they made lively fuel,
Including Draper's essays on "Why children go to school;"
The firemen worked like heroes, and smoke and flame endured,
Then when the stuff was all burned up they had it all insured;
And Levy said: "We guess--the fire's a big success."

Chorus--

O! it was grand how the fire burned that night.
Beautiful sight, O! what a sight.
And since, Packy's crew has had plenty to do,
It sure was a big night that night.

April 28, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 9, Column 1, GOV. DIX GOOD ON TAKING JOKES,

Albany Evening Journal

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Many Valuable Papers Saved at the Capitol.

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March 31, 1911, New-York Tribune, Page 3, MANY VALUABLE PAPERS SAVED AT THE CAPITOL,

WRECK OF THE STATE LIBRARY IN THE CAPITOL AT ALBANY.

(Photograph by the American Press Association)

Commissioner Draper Gives Out List of Priceless Historical Documents Recovered.

TALK OF LARGER BUILDING.

Abbott's Body Not Found -- Bayne Accuses Firemen of Inefficiency -- Assembly and Judiciary Records Gone.

(By Telegraph to The Tribune.)

Albany, March 30.--With the firemen still pouring tons of water into the smouldering ruins of the broad western section of the Capitol building to-night, the whole imposing front of the great structure was brilliantly lighted, an effect which dispelled, in a large measure, the gloom which hung over Capitol Hill the night before. Hundreds of workmen were employed in cleaning up the debris in the fireswept rooms where the floors had held and were not dangerous to work on. They threw the blackened and charred remnants of thousands of volumes from the Senate law library in shovelfuls out of the gaping windows. The yard and streets adjoining the western end of the Capitol were covered with the white remnants of documents and book leaves.

A more thorough examination to-day of the sections of the building in the fire zone by State Architect Ware and his corps of assistants found many of the inside walls in danger of falling, and the order went out to the workmen not to venture into the main section of the west wing where the state library was located and the roof had fallen in. There was also danger, it was said, of parts of the outside walls on the northwest corner falling. The police lines were extended and pedestrians not allowed to pass on that side of the building through State street. The massive tower on that corner of the structure crumbled and fell during the fire. The families occupying houses in State street opposite the Capitol were not allowed to reenter their homes.

A score of employes of the State Educational Department were rewarded in their explorations to-day of the outlying galleries of the great state library, where some of the many state archives and priceless historical documents were found to be intact.

Dr. Draper Greatly Pleased.

Dr, Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of Education, was highly pleased over the rescue of even a small portion of these irreplaceable records. He was hopeful that other books and records would be found in a fair state of preservation as the search was continued. Twenty-three volumes of the documentary records of the War of 1812, which had an inestimable historical value, were recovered practically unharmed. Fifty volumes of the Stevens set of facsimiles of English papers, bearing on the history of relations of the colonies and England, were also recovered.

But the great bulk of books and documents stored in the library were destroyed.

Dr. Draper gave out a complete list of the articles and manuscripts which were saved in this way. They include many valuable New York State documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The various constitutions of the State of New York, beginning with that of 1777, were among them. There were also the autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in a bound volume; the famous Major Andre papers., Washington's opinion of the surviving generals of the Revolution, written in the winter of 1791-92, various other Washington documents, and the invaluable Van Rensselaer papers.

The perilous condition of the Capitol ruins makes systematic search for the body of Samuel J. Abbott, the veteran night watchman of the State Library, who was lost in the fire, impossible. Mr. Abbott's son, who, with his sister, came here from West Newton, Mass., led the search to-day with several workmen who have been assigned to him for that purpose by Governor Dix. They dug all day on the edge of the pile of stone and twisted iron which fell to the third floor with the roof over the State Library. It is thought that Abbott was first suffocated by the smoke near his desk in the library and then buried there under the falling stone and iron. The searchers had to proceed cautiously on account of the danger of weakened floors and walls where they worked. No trace of the body had been found to-night.

Plans for Restoration.

With the various state departments, whose offices in the Capitol were rendered useless by the fire, fairly well settled to-day in new and temporary quarters, the wheels began to move in the direction of plans for the restoration of the damaged part of the building. An emergency appropriation bill for $100,000 for immediate repairs for the building and the tearing down of such walls as are in a dangerous condition, was introduced in both houses of the Legislature. The bills will be reported favorably by the Finance committees of the two houses, and will pass without delay. The State Trustees of Public Buildings, who are empowered to expend the appropriation, met this afternoon to consider the most pressing needs for which the money can be used.

Many suggestions by legislators and others as to what the state may do relative to rebuilding the burned portions of the Capitol are being made. Some believe that the state should acquire all the property as far west as Swan street, a block beyond the present Capitol grounds, and extend the Capitol to the present western limits of the park. They point out that the state departments are constantly spreading out and taking more room in adjacent buildings, and that even after the new Education Building is completed and occupied it will be found that the Capitol will be too small to accommodate all the requirements of the state departments.

State Architect Ware isn't concerned with these various suggestions, but is going ahead with immediate plans to remedy the present condition of the building. It was said that probably the building itself could be restored to its original condition at a cost of about $4,000,000. This is somewhat under the estimate made by the State Architect yesterday, before he and his men had an opportunity to make a more careful examination of conditions.

It is said that an appropriation of this size would practically wipe out the estimated surplus remaining in the State Treasury at the end of the present fiscal year. The state cannot bond itself for this rebuilding, and the money must be taken directly from the treasury.

State Architect's Statement.

The following statement was given out to-night on behalf of Mr. Ware as a result of to-day's examination of the burned portions of the Capitol.

The exterior walls of the pavilions on the northwest and southwest corners and the westerly gables appear to be plumb. Some of the interior walls of the library are in a very dangerous condition and should be shored up immediately. The dormers on the southwesterly pavilion are also in a dangerous condition and will require immediate shoring or tearing down. The State Architect gave instructions to the Superintendent of Buildings to keep all cellar drains and manholes open so as to afford easy outlet for the tons of water which are being poured into the building. All of this water is being taken off by the sewers, and, , so far as it can be ascertained, none of it can affect the foundations.

Examination of the Assembly ceiling made by the State Architect this morning shows that the westerly portion of it has been badly damaged by fire and water. The damage affects primarily the panels between the beams, which can be taken out and replaced, although in a few instances the beams themselves will have to be renewed.

The State Architect conferred with William Church Osborn, the Governor's counsel, regarding suitable steps to be taken by the trustees of public buildings to shore up the unsafe portions of the building, remove valuable furniture, manuscripts, etc., of the various state departments that have not been damaged, remove the rubbish and close off the damaged portion of the building pending the preparation of plans for reconstruction.

Governor Dix was at the Capitol early to-day and spent several hours at his office. He conferred with State Architect Ware and other state officials. The Governor, it was said, expressed the wish for an early investigation or inquiry into the causes which led up to the great destruction done by the fire. Senator Howard R. Bayne, of Richmond County, suggested on the floor of the Senate, when it met in the City Hall to-day, that the majority leader of the upper house should take steps to institute an investigation of the fire by the Legislature.

Senator Bayne, who was on the scene of the fire early and joined with the firemen in fighting the flames inside the Capitol, said to-day that the local fire department showed a serious inefficiency in handling the fire. They appeared to be utterly unable, with the equipment they had and from a lack of experience, to cope with a sizable fire like that at the Capitol.

Senator Bayne asserted that it was some time before other firemen appeared on the scene. They found that the hose was too short to reach the vital points of the fire after they got it in the building, he said.

Several of the state officials declared to-day that a rigid investigation should be made forthwith in order to provide better means for fire protection at the Capitol in the future. The Secretary of State, Mr. Lazansky, advocated the erection of a fire-proof vault in which to keep valuable documents. He suggested also the creation of a separate fire department to guard the Capitol against fire.

The destruction of the records of the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly will delay legislation more seriously than was at first realized. This committee had many of the most important bills introduced at the present session, including the direct nominations and women suffrage measures and all constitutional amendments. The committee will now have to consult each member of the Senate and Assembly to get a record of their bills before it, and it has no way of learning the objections to bills or of requests for hearings from outside organizations unless these organizations again communicate their requests and objections to the chairman of the committee. It may take two or three months to do all this, it was said.

The loss of the Assembly library will not handicap the lower legislative house to any great extent, since the files of bills can be replaced from the duplicates kept in the Senate library, which escaped unscathed. This applies only to the bills of the current session. The files covering the legislation of the last twenty years were kept on the Assembly side and were destroyed.

Elmer Blair, who was Deputy State Superintendent of Public Buildings until last February, gave out a statement declaring that his department had called attention to the inadequate wiring of the building in several of its annual reports, but that an appropriation for rewiring had been steadily denied.

"The electric wiring in the Capitol was installed years ago," said Mr. Blair, "and is out of date. I do not believe there is an insurance company in the country that would have taken insurance on a building wired as the Capitol was."

The colonial journals were turned over to the State Library 10 days before the fire.

2011-11-17T17:10:00.002-05:00

April 3, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 1, GUARD DOUBLED AT THE CAPITOL

James I. Wyer Jr., director of the state library, said, relative to the building up of a new library:

"I believe the state of New York will went to perpetuate the state library as one of the greatest libraries of the world. It was third in size and importance in the United States. To do that a large appropriation must be forthcoming at the outset to put this library on a working basis when it goes into the new state education building, If the staff of the library is to be kept intact, and the state library school eventually retained in Albany, this appropriation must come speedily, and the work of the rebuilding of the collection must be pushed with all dispatch."

The colonial journals which have been in the custody of the secretary of state since their publication, were turned over to the state library 10 days before the fire. They are believed to be entirely lost.

Transcript:

From Capitol Stories, by C. R. Roseberry (1982)

2011-11-17T04:32:00.017-05:00

From Capitol Stories, by C. R. Roseberry (1982)

page 119
Meanwhile the Assembly library had become a furnace. Flames exploded through its glass transom and also through rear windows to leap catercorner across an air-shaft into the State Library corridor. A wooden mezzanine which had been erected above the north portion of that corridor for extra book shelving took fire on the instant. The two newsmen beat a retreat to where the Senate corridor turns off at right angles, and watched from there.

page 120
Until now, Fire Chief William W. Bridgeford was confident of keeping the fire out of the State Library. The stone partition was thick between the corridor and the library, the only breach being the central door to the main reading room and a high row of window panes above it. Firemen played three streams into the wall of fire, expecting to confine it to the north half of the corridor. Chief Bridgeford had Mullins go back downstairs and fetch an emergency key to the library. Mullins was fumbling with the key at the heavy oaken door when a sheet of flame swept along the arched ceiling of the corridor. The high window panes burst and a strong draft seemed to suck the flames into the library, where they leaped from shelf to shelf. The Chief ordered his men to get inside the main reading room and work their way south, heading off the blaze, “if it were possible to live there.” They tried to rush in, but heat scorched their hands so they couldn’t hold on to their nozzles.

Once the fire had invaded the reading room, it was clear that the State Library would have to be written off. Its own carefully prepared firefighting apparatus was worthless. “A tidal wave of water was needed then,” wrote one observer.

According to Roseberry, the fire began in the Assembly library, (which is the room marked 346 on the plan below) then the "[f]lames exploded through its glass transom and also through rear windows to leap catercorner across an air-shaft into the State Library corridor." However, this would not have been simultaneous. The fire would have first had to break through the glass transom over the doorway to Room 346, and then enter into the east/west hallway that leads from the rear of the Assembly chamber to the Assemblymen's lavatory, indicated on the plan by a row of stalls. The flames would then have had to break through the small window fenestrating the lavatory into the air shaft, just north of the Great Western Stairway, in order to jump "catercorner" to break through the larger windows between the air shaft and the corridor marked on the plan as Room 344. However, at this point fire wouldn't have entered the State Library proper, those rooms to the west of the corridor marked 339 and 340 on the plan, and separated by thick masonry wall, and, one assumes, heavy oak doors. According to Roseberry's scenario, the fire extended out from Corridor 344 to enter into the stone hallway of the Great Western Stairway to the east of the entrance to the Main Reading Room of the State Library, marked as Room 338 on the plan (but most often referred to as Room 35 in the various literature about the Capitol and Library,) where "a sheet of flame swept along the arched ceiling of the corridor [and the] high window panes burst." This would be the fourth set of windows that the flames were able to penetrate. However, there is no indication that such "a high row of window panes" existed above the main door of the State Library.

In fact, within the highly limited body of historic imagery extant in the public record of the State Capitol and State Library, where very little else can be proven with any assurance, the absence of such a row of window openings between the Main Reading room of the library and the stair hall to the east can be ascertained with a great deal of certainty.

Even after fire had burned away the bookcases and mezzanine, we see nothing but the solid masonry wall which stood between the library and the stair hall.

March 30, 1911, The [Syracuse NY] Post-Standard, CAPITOL FIRE-SWEPT; PRIDE OF THE STATE IS QUICKLY A WRECK. COULD HAVE PUT OUT FIRE WITH A PAIL OF WATER

ALBANY, March 29.—L. M. Howe, one of the legislative correspondents, who was in the Capitol when the fire started, gave this description of it:

"At about 2:15 this morning another newspaper man and I were working on the third floor of the Capitol, when the clerk of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, accompanied by one of the night watchmen, ran through the corridor, shouting:

"There is a fire in the Assembly library!"

"Rushing over to the room," said, Mr. Howe, "which is in the rear of the Assembly, we looked in the room and saw the desk in the southwest corner a mass of flames.

"The fire at this time could have been easily put out with a pail or two of water. We searched in vain for anything to serve the purpose, and finally decided to close the door and keep out the draft. The night watchman ran downstairs to sound the alarm, there being no alarms in the building.

Flames Spread Rapidly.

"While we waited for the department we could see the flames through the glass transom rapidly filling the entire apartment, but we were helpless to do anything. By the time the department reached the building the room where the desk was located was a roaring furnace, but at that time it had not spread into the hall or adjoining room.

"Before a hose could be brought into use the fire, with a loud explosion, burst simultaneously through the transom into the hall leading to the main entrance to the State library; the transom of the door leading to the room immediately east of where the fire started; and through the large plate glass window into the street.

"The tongue of flame which swept out over the transom opening into the hall appeared to instantly set fire to the underside of the wooden floor, forming the mezzanine floor that occupies the northern half of the library corridor. So fast did the fire spread over this floor that we were obliged to escape to the Senate entrance to escape being caught by the flames. In less than twenty minutes the State library had caught and the flames were shooting through the roof at the northwest angle."