Williamsburgh Word Portraits, No. 7

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WILLIAMSBURGH WORD PORTRAITS.

By Apelles.—No. 7.

PORTRAIT No. 19

To-day I have to picture a man for whom I entertain a sincere respect, though I am not blind to his faults, as my subsequent remarks will show. In order to place his personality before my readers without mistake, I will apply to him an epithet by which he is frequently known among his acquaintances—i.e., “the man with the gold specs.” The vigilant scrutiny of those same gold specs has been for years past dreaded by the Robert W. Lowber class—the people who make money at the expense of public treasuries. This man combines the energy and intelligence of a Fernando Wood¹ with the honesty of a Flagg,² and this combination of qualities made him an in valuable custodian of the public money. In that position he well earned the cognomen of “the watch dog of the treasury.” No simile could more ably describe both the good and the objectionable qualities which make up his character. He resembled the faithful animal who guards our household, not less by the dangerous teeth he showed when an actual assault was attempted on the precincts which he was set to guard, than by the confounded noise and clamor he kept up, even when there seemed quite disproportionate or slight cause for alarm.—In this way he earned a good many objurgations and denunciations, in addition to those which he inevitably provoked by his faithful defence of his post. To drop the simile, however, I may describe my subject as a tall, muscular, robust man, with a voice and manner indicative of his leading qualities of iron will and steadfast perseverance. Few men are more regardless of consequences; few men are more undeviating in their pursual of the plain, strict, narrow line of duty. No matter what obstacles encumber it—no matter what private feelings must be exacerbated—no matter what animosities will be engendered—no matter what interests or temptations seduce to a less thorny path—he marches unhesitatingly and vigorously to the point that his judgment indicates. His opinion is not infallible, and consequently, when he does commit an error, the very energy and impetus of his strong will carries him further in it than calmer, cooler, and less thoroughly conscientious men would go. Official life, which tarnishes the hitherto fair character of many men, conferred upon him the best of reputations and the greatest of honors—the respect of all good men and the gratitude of tax payers. Occupying a position which gave him almost unlimited opportunities for making a fortune, in ways which men of average honesty do not deem discreditable, he came out of office with a purse as light as when he went in, but at the same time rich in the universal sentiment of the city that had Diogenes the Cynic³ lived in these days, he would have found in this man the rara avis for whom he looked in broad daylight with a lantern—an honest man.

PORTRAIT No. 20

A comparatively young man, whose shaven chin makes him appear younger even than he is. One of extraordinary administrative ability—one who has in a small and quiet but philanthropic direction, accomplish a result which deserves to be ranked among the greatest successes of modern christianity. A man whose abilities never made him arrogant, and whose wealth never caused him to be ostentatious; who sits quietly and silently in a public body to which he was elected without effect or candidacy on his own part, patiently listening to long debates, generally by inferior men, on subjects and principles which he understands better than they; whose modesty and ability contrast and combine with each other to form a character of rare symetery​ . Though his energies and attention are mainly devoted to the promotion of the enterprise adverted above, his assistance is never asked in vain for the promotion of any object of a laudable description which may be on foot. And whenever he does take an interest in anything, it is with no laggard steps and by no half measures, that he advances to its completion. He is essentially an earnest, working man; and beneath the gentleness of his demeanor there exists a resolution as strong, and a will as firm and bold, as any that can actuate the man of roughest manners and exterior. Had not his zealous energy taken the direction of religion and philanthropy rather than that of public affairs, he would, with his ancestral position, his abilities, and the shadow of the mantle of his late distinguished progenitor and namesake falling upon him, have played no small part in the affairs of the village and the city of Brooklyn. As it is, the consolidation of the two cities, and the erection of a seperate​ ward out of the eastern portion of the 7th, have made him practically an Eastern District man; and as he has in all probability a long career yet to run, I look forward with confidence to his playing a most important part in the affairs of the District. Not in the “public affairs,” commonly so called—those he leaves to an indefatigable gentleman whose character I have already sketched, and who stands to him in the relation of Damon to Pythias. The wells and pumps, the local assessments, the engine company squabbles, in which the one takes a deep interest, have no attractions or interest for the other.—The characters of the friends are strikingly similar, though their modes of operation as well as spheres of usefulness are widely different. What the one is in politics the other is in matters social and philanthropic. While one addresses himself to lightening the taxes, the other strives to cut off the sources and causes of high taxation, by reforming the morals and informing the minds of the rising generation. In doing this he is tied to no stereotyped forms, but carries on his enterprises on a bold, comprehensive, and novel scale, which makes old fogies wonder and cry “heresy and innovation” But he goes on his course undisturbed, replying to his assailants only by displaying in a still augmented form the successful results of his peculiar and original ways of doing good. It was once finely said of the Emperor Augustus, that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble; but what shall be said adequately in praise of one who found an uninhabited desert and transformed it into a thriving locality, adorned by churches, and studded by comfortable dwellings; found hundreds of children ragged, and ignorant, and uncared for, and taught them intelligence and morality, furnished them the means and implanted in them the love and taste for acquiring knowledge and virtue. The monuments which men built of material substances, however solid or costly, moulder and decay; but the effects which men produce in teaching the unlearned, cultivating the wild, training the untaught and reforming the wicked, will live after them, and when the present generation of our adults shall have passed away there will stand in their places thousands, now children, whose every acquirement of wisdom and truth and self-reliance will be justly attributed by them to the earnest exertions on their behalf of the most successful follower and disciple of Robert Raikes⁴ that it has been the good fortune of this continent and of this age to produce.

PORTRAIT No. 21

I turn now to another part of the district, and select for portraiture a man of whom, though I were alone in the opinion, I could not but give a decidedly favorable opinion. A man of considerable reading and of more reflection; of strong will and ardent feeling, and therefore ultra in his political views and urgent in supporting and enforcing them. One who drinks not at all, but smokes a great deal; who, though not bred to the law, presided creditably for years in a court of Justice; and now is in a position counted inferior thereto, though not unimportant; who instead of despising his duties because they are not very exalted, so discharges them as to clearly evince his fitness and worthiness of promotion in the staff to which he is attached. Thin, wiry, active, in person; intelligent, vigilant, industrious, in his vocation; the appointment of such a man to the position he holds affords a gratifying yet rare proof that even the worst managed department may sometimes secure the services of a thoroughly competent man. Now that they recommence operations under better auspices, let it be hoped that they will rightly estimate and duly reward the abilities which he employs under their authority, for the protection of life, the safety of property, the maintenance of the peace, and the enforcement of the laws.

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