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There was a distressingly long

About This Item

  • Title: There was a distressingly long
  • Date: 13 July 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00700
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 13 July 1858: 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 Conner Lynn Kaylen Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "There was a distressingly long." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00700.xml (TEI)
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☞There was a distressingly long debate in the Common Council last night on the open vs. the closed canal question, which has been on the tapis for some time. Ald. Pierson1 went in strong for a closed canal and made a very lengthy speech in which he was at times exceedingly felicitous. The Alderman did full justice to our magnificent water-front, which he characterized as the finest in the country, and showed that when our extraordinary manufacturing facilities were developed, that then and not till then would Brooklyn attain that commanding position in point of population and wealth for which she had by nature been so admirably fitted. All our hopes and prospects were dependent upon a water supply, and the speaker was unwilling to permit anything which the expenditure of a few dollars might obviate to pass—in the construction of the works which he described as among the grandest in the world—calculated to interfere with that supply presently or prospectively. While we were about it, he went in for doing the thing up right. Several other members took adverse ground, and when the Board divided, but two voted for the closed canal, which, therefore, is a dead cock in the pit.

Notes:

1. Henry Rufus Pierson (1819–1890) was an Alderman for the Third Ward of Brooklyn from 1858#8211;1860 and President of the Board of Alderman. He was also a member of the New York State Senate from 1866–1867. [back]

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