SPEECH OF MR. RICHARD H. DANA, JUN.

Fellow-Citizens,—I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this very kind welcome I have received at your hands to-night on coming upon the platform. I assure you, gentlemen, if I felt at liberty to waste the precious hours of this evening upon any thing relating to myself, I could say much more than I do to thank you for your great kindness.

But, gentlemen, we are met here on public business. You have heard what we are asked to do. We are asked to petition the city government, and send a committee of force to the city government (not as if the government were at all reluctant, but that they may know the feeling of the people of Boston), and ask the city government to go to work at once, and see that Boston has, as soon as possible, these necessities for her honor, her health, and her beauty. [Applause.]

In thinking of this subject, Mr. President and gentlemen, it occurred to me that it was a very singular fact, and not altogether to the credit of human nature, that great numbers of persons cannot live together without extreme inconvenience. Now, Robinson Crusoe, when he lived on the Island of Juan Fernandez alone, was not troubled with any question of public parks, or drainage, or health. Things took care of themselves. But when you get two or three or four hundred thousand Robinson Crusoes in a few square miles, you find the whole state of things is reversed, that you require all the patience, all the science, a large part of the money, and a large part of the industry, of the population, that you may live at all, and on any terms. The lower parts of our nature, the animal parts, tend to produce certain results which the intellectual parts are expected to meet and control. If they do not that, men become savages; if they do, they are enlightened.

Now, in this great and enlightened city of Boston, the pride of us all, the "Athens of America," as we all know we are [laughter], and, as our friend Dr. Holmes there has told us, the "Hub of the Universe" [laughter], it would hardly be respectful to say that one of the questions before us was, Which of those two roads we were going to take,—whether we were going to let the intellectual and moral parts have the upper hand, or whether we were going to sink beneath the material part. And yet, gentlemen, that is a good deal the question that is before us to-night.

Why, look at the progress which is inevitably made where you get great numbers of human beings together. You must have drainage, you must look to the health of the population, and then you must look to their recreation and their amusements (for they will have them); and, if they are not good and creditable and honorable, they will not cease to exist, but they will come before us in the most shameful and unwholesome form. We used to be told, gentlemen, that Boston had natural parks all about her, and she did not need any artificial parks. Well, now, I am not in favor of any artificial parks. All I ask is, that the beauty of the environs of Boston may be preserved. [Applause.]

We are on the defensive. We are defending the wholesomeness and the beauty of our beloved city against this encroachment of population. Why, the time was—Mr. Ropes will tell you when the time was—when the Back Bay was a beautiful sheet of water, filled at high tide, carrying the healthful air through the whole city. But then the necessity of population called for its filling up, and it is now piled in upon, and we have there now what Dr. Clarke called "a natural cesspool."

We changed the Back Bay from a beautiful bay, where the wholesome tides of the ocean swept in, to a natural cesspool.

Well, now, look at the lanes and roads in the suburbs of Boston—beautiful. As you ride over them, there are trees hanging over them, and there are bushes on each side: you say it is charming. Well, go out there the next year. The selectmen if it is a town, the city government if it is a city, have changed all that. They have made a straight line right through it, and widened the streets sixty feet; cut down every tree, and made it one of the most disagreeable and painful spectacles that the eyes could rest upon. It is their duty so to do: it is a necessity. And so you go on destroying the beauties of the city, destroying its wholesomeness, destroying its charm; and now we have got to meet that tendency, and we have the power to meet it. We have the intellect, we have the money, we have the will, and we have the taste; and we would be incensed if any one should suggest that we do not. And yet we have allowed every city in the United States to get in advance of us. [A voice, "That's so."] Chicago has three thousand acres of parks; Philadelphia, five thousand; New York, one great park of about one thousand acres; and almost every city in Europe has better, more handsome and attractive accommodations than the city of Boston. I am ashamed to say it; but it is so. I trust, however, gentlemen, that, before I ever have the honor of addressing you again, we shall have taken the first step to remove this odium from the city of Boston. [Applause.]

Some six years ago, I think it was, the people got greatly in earnest that this park should be undertaken. They saw that the progress of the manufactories was fast destroying the beauties of Boston; that they were taking up the land in the suburbs rapidly: and, when I said that your green lands were destroyed, with their beautiful curved lines, I forgot to mention that your beautiful sheets of water are in the same danger. Why, look at Fresh Pond, look at Jamaica Pond! They are beautiful objects to gaze upon: but when manufactories begin to surround them, when there are soap manufactories and tanneries, and I do not know what, draining into the pond, the result is, that the water is unwholesome, that the fish die, the water cannot be drunk, and then physicians begin to tell their patients, "You had better move out of that neighborhood." Are you aware, gentlemen, that that is coming upon us, that we must meet it, and avert it?

Some years ago, the people of Boston were earnestly in favor of a park, or system of parks. The legislature, for some reason or other, required that the project should receive a vote of two-thirds of the people. That was extraordinary and hard. But it did receive a vote of two-thirds of the people of Boston proper, and more than two-thirds; but from the accident of a newly added portion of the city, for some reason or other, taking a slant in a certain direction, they voted very largely against it, and it fell through. We must take warning from that; for land that would have made then a handsome park, which we could have had, we cannot have now at all. It would cost altogether too much to take dwelling-houses and factories and railroad beds, if we could, for a park.

Well, after six years of restlessness, at last we went before the legislature again; and we got an act passed, authorizing the appointing of commissioners with powers. That act passed, helped by our most able fellow-citizen, Mr. Ropes, chairman of this meeting; and it was submitted to the votes of the people of Boston; and the park project was carried by the votes of this entire population,—Boston, East Boston, Charlestown, South Boston, Dorchester, Brighton, which make, all together, a very large and most decisive majority. And therefore, gentlemen, the question is not, Shall we have parks? you have decided that; but the question is, Whether, having determined to have them, we shall rest content with saying so? whether we will have our paper parks, as we have our paper money, with nothing to rest upon [laughter], or whether we shall have genuine parks, with life and trees, and have sheets of water? Now we are here to-night to say it is the latter that we want. [Applause.]

Fellow-citizens, that statute authorized the appointment by the Mayor, subject to approval, of three commissioners. Well, that was wise. It was not nine, seven, nor five; but it was three. Well, his Honor the Mayor, who has presided with so much dignity, wisdom, and integrity [applause] over the city of Boston for two years,—and we would be glad to get him for a third year, if his health would permit it [applause],—his Honor the Mayor appointed three gentlemen as commissioners, in whom this community have entire confidence. There are no politics among the Board of Commissioners; there is no jobbery in the Board of Commissioners; and I will venture to predict, gentlemen, that, when they finish their task, there will be no investigation. [Great applause.]

I was amazed on looking over their charge. Why, I found an item of coach-hire for the whole period of their service, nine dollars. Why, it would not have been enough to take three common councilmen from Parker's or Young's. [Laughter.] But it is all they have charged; and how, on that sum, they succeeded in riding around Boston, I do not know. Their experience with persons who let carriages must have been much more favorable than mine has been. But not only have they done honorably, economically, and frugally, they have put into their work an amount of brain-labor, an amount of patient investigation and of good judgment, which no one can have an adequate opinion of who has not read their book; but, if he has not, I hope he will. And at least this I may be allowed to say, I do not think any citizen of Boston has the right to object to those parks, or to be silent or indifferent on the subject, unless he has read the report of the Commission, and knows what is proposed, and has been done. [Applause.] They have consulted the best authorities. They have consulted Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, who laid out Central Park in New York, and he is the highest authority on the construction of parks in the country; and he has been all over this neighborhood, viewing the localities, and they have taken every thing into consideration; and, gentlemen, what is the result? They do not propose to us one great park of a thousand acres, at an almost unattainable distance; they do not propose a great park that nobody can get to, unless he gives a day to it, and a good deal of money: but they have adopted a system based upon the natural characteristics of the neighborhood of Boston. And what better could they do? At East Boston, they have given them a park upon the water-side, where they will always have the fresh breezes of the sea. At South Boston, they have given them a park upon the water-side, one directly opposite Fort Independence, and then another one, called the South Park, larger; and Chester Park, which you are all familiar with, is already extended, and nearly ready to be used as far as Beacon Street; and thence it is to go over to Cambridge, and be the quickest means of access to the University. That same avenue is to be extended easterly till it strikes the farthest of the South Boston parks, opposite Fort Independence; and, when that is done, you will be able to drive or walk, according to your powers of walking, from the park opposite Fort independence, into the city, and across it, to Harvard University.

Now that is a good deal; but they have taken another step. They propose to take the water-front of the Charles River basin; and there is nothing in Nature so beautiful, so well adapted to the needs of a city, as a park, or boulevard, or promenade, directly on a water-front, especially if that water is sea-water,—if it is brought in and carried out by two daily tides. What more beautiful, what more wholesome, what more invigorating, during the hot season of the year, than to have an open boulevard, where you can sit, or walk, or ride,—a place for the fresh sea-water of the ocean brought in pure to you every day! Well, they mean to preserve that, and give us about two hundred feet for a driveway, a saddle-horse way (a saddle-pad, I think they call it), and footpath, a place for flowers and trees, as it extends along the water-side, beginning by Leverett Street, and going out as far as Brighton. Then from there they mean to take this great Back Bay, which Dr. Clarke properly called a natural cesspool, and keep a large part of it under water, the ocean to be let in and let out at our option, so that it can be always kept pure; and yet such a quantity of it, that it will be a sort of inland sea, where we can have regattas, and where every gentleman may keep his boat, and every boy may keep his scull; and perhaps it is just as well a boy's skull should be there as anywhere else a large part of the time. [Laughter.]

Then, gentlemen, they are going to take Jamaica Pond, and have a park or driveway around the pond; then the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, that has a parkway one hundred feet in width, where you can drive or walk at your pleasure. In West Roxbury they are to have a mountain-park, which will be the largest (about five hundred acres); and it is well called a providence, because it is high, it is rocky, it has a thoroughly sylvan look, like a forest. You would feel as if you were fifty miles from Boston, if you were where you could not see the city. At the same time, it is beautiful for a park. There are very few houses there; and it is difficult to make it salable for residences. But they have selected this spot; and they are going to give us the best park of the city, and then have all these parks connected by parkways, thus making them so convenient of access, that every poor man in Boston can take his child by his hand, and for five cents a head can be carried out to any one of those parks by the railroads. [Applause.]

And, when he gets there, he can show this poor boy or girl, who has passed all the winter, and all the opening spring, in an alleyway,—he can show them, by a wholesome ascent of two hundred feet only, slow, gradual, one of the noblest prospects in the world,—the ocean pouring up into these great bays, and floating the great ships that come and go, the Bunker Hill Monument and the Navy Yard, the University, and the great series of cities that surround us. And, more than that, he can show him or her Wachuset Mountain, and over the top of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire.

Now I ask you, fellow-citizens, if it is not worth while for the city of Boston to improve these opportunities. We have been most fortunate in our Commissioners,—in their wisdom, in their frugality, in their intelligence, and their public spirit; and I hope, gentlemen, you will study their Report. It is easy reading, pleasant reading; and if, when you get home, you find your boy or girl engaged over some novel, especially if it is a yellow covered one, take it right out of his or her hand, and ask them to read that Report.

You may think it absurd; but, ten to one, it will interest the children more than the novel would. It will certainly give them more valuable instruction; and I venture to say it will interest them more. I felt quite carried away by it. It seemed to me it must be a fancy; but, when I turned to their accounts (and they are all mercantile men), I was amazed to see at what small cost it could all be done. And, gentlemen, I want to detain you a moment longer on statistics, and show that it has increased the value of property in every city that has had a park, by bringing houses all about the parks, and by detaining as inhabitants of the city, to be taxed in the city, those men who skulk in small towns to throw the burden of the expense of their own city on those who stay behind. [Applause.] All we want to do to-night is to say to the city government that we are in earnest about this matter, and that we want the work done now. [Applause.]

I tell you, gentlemen, it is very doubtful, if this fails, whether you will have another Board of Commissioners to compare with the present. I tell you it is doubtful, whether there will be a state of things in Boston which will be any thing like as favorable as the state of things we are in now. But I can tell you one thing that is certain; and that is, if you postpone it, you cannot have the parks that they propose. The growth of population will be crowding over it; speculators will buy it; the ponds will become injured; and the expense will be so great, that you will shudder at the thought of it. And, more than that, the parks that you ask for in another ten years will be four or five miles from the centre of population now, and I confess that one great argument with me for instant action is, that I want the parks to be as accessible as possible to all those persons especially who do not own their private carriages, and cannot give a day to it. [Applause.]

And last of all, Mr. President and gentlemen, it should be done for economical reasons, as has been stated very well by the address and in the resolutions, because there never was a time, and I hope there never will be a time again, when the land was so cheap as it is now; and, when we take this land for parks, we take it at its present price. There has not been a time for many years, and I hope there never will be a time again, when the price of labor is as low as it is now [applause]; and that labor we would employ at once, and the laborers are begging for employment. Why, there is not one of you who has not often and often, within the last two years, perhaps it is not extravagant to say, felt his heart bleed when he has been stopped in the way by evidently honest men, who would say, "We can't find any thing to do. We have looked everywhere; and there is no work for us." [A voice, "That's so."] Yes, that is so. Now, some philanthropists, and some political economists, have told us that the government ought always to find employment for everybody; it is the duty of the city to see that everybody has work: but, though I do not advocate any such doctrine as that, I advocate this doctrine,—that whenever the community has any thing it ought to do, and which will employ laborers (and this is a hard time on the laborers), then is the time that they ought to do it. [Applause.] So that it is not only good economy, but it is humanity, that dictates an instant advance upon this work. To save the land that we can get now in a low market, and to employ laborers who are paid low wages, but are glad to get even that, and to prevent the entire failure of this scheme so carefully and beneficially made, we shall ask the city government to work at once.

Now, there are others much more able to speak of the finances of the city government than I am; but we always do find, that, when a thing ought to be done, there is a way of doing it; and we sometimes find, that, when things ought not to be done, there is a way of doing them. I wish to say one word more, before I take my seat, on the report and scheme of these Park Commissioners; and that is its entire equitableness in its attention to localities. It has left no part of the city that is not benefited. Charlestown cannot have a park, because it is built over, and there is no room for one. If there was room, they would have one. They must annex; and then they can have a park. [Laughter.] East Boston has a park; South Boston has a park; then comes the great West Roxbury Park; then comes the Bussey Farm, which I omitted to mention; and then comes Jamaica Pond and Chestnut Hill Reservoir Park, and the park roads connecting them all, and uniting them; and then the water-front on all that part of the city of Boston where the water-fronts are not needed for commerce.

I say, therefore, this plan is equitably divided among the citizens according to their residence; and it is accessible to all, and the plan is economical, and the time is auspicious. Therefore I hope that you will with unanimity adopt the resolutions, and call upon the city government to proceed at once. [Applause.]

The President. Allusion has been made to the "Hub of the Universe;" and you will all understand, that, when any thing is the matter with that Hub, the diagnosis must be made not only by an able physician, but by an able spokesman. [Laughter and applause.] I have great pleasure in introducing to you one who combines both, and a hundred other qualities, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. [Applause.]