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The Water Act

About This Item

  • Title: The Water Act
  • Date: 13 February 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00629
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 13 February 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Jeff Hill Samantha Gilmore Kevin McMullen Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Water Act." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00629.xml (TEI)
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THE WATER ACT.—

We beg to record an emphatic dissent from the remarks of our Albany Correspondent in relation to the motives of those aldermen who urged the passage of amendments to the Water Act.1 Of every amendment calculated to lessen the supreme control of the seven directors over the work, we individually disapproved; but we are far from questioning the motives of those aldermen who advocated them. The three members of the Common Council who most strenuously supported the amendments—Messrs. Pierson, Kalbfleisch,2 and Fowler—are among the ablest and most incorruptible of our public men. That’s so.

Notes:

1. Passed by the New York State legislature on February 11, 1857, "An Act to provide for the supply of the city of Brooklyn with water" allowed the private Nassau Water Company to become a municipal public utility. The company's board of directors were established as the city's board of water commissioners and given full authority to supervise construction of the waterworks. [back]

2. Martin Kalbfleisch (1804–1873) was a Brooklyn alderman from 1855–1861, and in May 1858 was elected president of the Brooklyn Common Council. He then served twice as mayor of Brooklyn: from 1862–1864 and again from 1867–1871. In 1863, he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. [back]

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