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The Water Commissioners

About This Item

  • Title: The Water Commissioners
  • Date: 19 February 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01338
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 19 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: Kaylen Michaelis Samantha Gilmore Kevin McMullen Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Water Commissioners." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01338.xml (TEI)
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The Water Commissioners.

Sec. 2, of Article 10, of the State Constitution, reads as follows:

Section 2. All county officers whose elections or appointment is not provided for by this Constitution, shall be elected by the electors of the respective counties, or appointed by the Boards of Supervisors, or other county authorities, as the Legislature shall direct. All city, town, and village officers, whose election or appointment is not provided for by this Constitution, shall be elected by the electors of such cities, towns and villages, or of some divisions thereof, or appointed by such authorities thereof as the Legislature shall designate for that purpose. All other officers whose election or appointment is not provided for by this Constitution, and all other officers whose office may hereafter be created by law, shall be elected by the people, or appointed as the Legislature may direct.

On this, Attorney General S. B. Cushing,1 as we stated yesterday, has given the opinion that "no officer whose duties pertain to cities and villages can be appointed directly or indirectly, by the Governor or Legislature."

A gentleman of long experience in our local affairs, and whose name if mentioned would at once ensure attention to his opinion, suggests that the opinion of Mr. Cushing is in direct conflict with the Brooklyn Water Act,2 since in the latter seven commissioners, whose duties pertain to the city, are "appointed, directly, by the Legislature"—an appointment which, in Mr. Cushing's judgment, the Legislature had no power to make.

Notes:

1. Stephen B. Cushing (1812-1868) was a lawyer, politician, and the New York State Attorney General from 1856 to 1857. [back]

2. 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]

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