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Ald. Backhouse's Report.

About This Item

  • Title: Ald. Backhouse's Report.
  • Date: 12 March 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00666
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 12 March 1859: 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: Elva Moreno Del Rio Kaylen Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Ald. Backhouse's Report.." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00666.xml (TEI)
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ALD. BACKHOUSE'S REPORT.

The Water Commissioners have prepared, and we shall publish on Monday, a reply to the report of Alderman Backhouse.1 That they should do so, was to have been expected, from the gravity of the charges made; and that they would do so, no one who knows the members of the Commission could have doubted. We have not the slightest idea as to the nature or tenor of the reply; but shall be satisfied if every question raised in Ald. Backhouse's report be left untouched, except the single one of the sufficiency and adaptability of the works to the purpose of giving the city a permanent and ample water supply. Whether Mr. Welles,2 or Mr. Van Cott,3 or Mr. Baylis, made large or small profits, the public care very little. They are satisfied, from the very much larger sums paid by other cities for similar works, that the price of four or even five millions is not exorbitant, if the work is well and durably executed. This is the single point on which distinct evidence is wanted. If Alderman Backhouse's report is not exaggerated and distorted in its assertions, the works are practically a failure. If Alderman Douglass's4 speeches have any sense in them, the work is not durable nor satisfactory. But where did Alderman Backhouse get the statements of his report, and Alderman Douglass the ideas of his speeches? It does not appear from the report that these gentlemen visited the works, and it does appear that the Engineer, Mr. Kirkwood,5 was singularly noncommittal or uncommunicative. No evidence is appended to the report, and many of the statements are such as laymen would hardly be justified in putting forth, except on engineering authority. We trust the Committee will be interrogated in the Common Council on Monday as to the sources of their information.

Notes:

1. Edward T. Backhouse (1808–1884) served on the board of directors of the King’s County Fire Insurance Company, and was elected as the company’s president in 1865. He also served as an Alderman for the Eleventh Ward in Brooklyn. [back]

2. Henry Spalding Welles (1821–1895) was a contractor whose company H. S. Welles & Co. was instrumental in constructing the Brooklyn Water Works. He also contracted railroad lines in both Canada and the United States. [back]

3. Joshua Marsden Van Cott (1815–1896) was a lawyer who served as the legal counsel to the Water Commissioners. [back]

4. John L. Douglass was a Democratic alderman for the Tenth Ward. [back]

5. James P. Kirkwood (1807–1877), a prominent civil engineer and cofounder of the American Society of Civil Engineers (1852), superintended the construction of the Brooklyn Water Works as chief engineer from 1856 to 1862. After his work in Brooklyn, he moved to St. Louis and designed the waterworks which Walt Whitman's brother Jeff would later help construct. Kirkwood eventually became a nationally known independent consultant and wrote the standard text on water filtration. [back]

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