"Brooklyn is a peculiar community. She differs from all others. The wits have long fed upon her. General Horace Porter has called her a city of 4,000,000, 1,000,000 of whom are alive. Another has said that there are two places to which every dead New Yorker goes, either to heaven or to hades and to Brooklyn. He may escape one or the other of the two former. He cannot escape the latter. Simeon Ford has declared that Brooklyn lies midway between the quick and the dead, midway between reckless, extravagant and wicked old New York and sober, sombre and serene Greenwood. McKinley ran for President upon the issue of the full dinner pail. The students of Princeton College recently asserted that Roosevelt was running upon the issue of a full baby carriage. The President must have secured his inspiration from the manner in which the cartoonists always pictured the Brooklyn man, behind the perambulator. We ourselves recognize that Brooklyn is peculiar and unusual. Her like is not known to the world. That fact is proved to an extent by my former assertion, that Brooklyn is the only community without municipal rank that will have here a day of her own. The fact that we are here in body and that she is here in spirit clearly shows that the old courage is still in her heart. Brooklyn may be only a borough, she may be only an 'abutment for bridges,' as President Littlejohn once feared she would become, but she is to-day the same independent Brooklyn she was back in her cityhood, and she is as proud of the things that make her great as many of the cities of the things that make them merely flashy.
"Her former spirit lives; it lives because since consolidation Brooklyn has assumed a commanding place in the councils of the greater city. Brooklyn has chosen as her three borough presidents men of force, who have been recognized as leaders by all the boroughs. At first the borough government was a mockery of a government. It was only a government in name. Our first president, Edward M. Grout, chafed under its restraint. He demanded that the boroughs be allowed a voice in city affairs, and that local improvements be given into the charge of borough officials. To him the State Legislature listened, and his successor in that office found himself with something beside the shadow of power, and his administration was a marvel to Brooklyn in what it achieved. Other boroughs looked on in envy, while J. Edward Swanstrom set a pace so rapid that its like will be difficult to produce. Our first president, Mr. Grout, became the comptroller in the second administration of the greater city. The comptrollership of New York city is as important as that of Secretary of the United States Treasury. Brooklyn was then and is yet the dominant force in the life of the metropolis. The entire city recognized Mr. Grout to be a man acquainted with even the minutest details of the city's government. Brooklyn's place at the table of the board of estimate was a commanding one with Swanstrom and Grout in their seats, and to-day her representation there is equally good. Mr. Grout is still there. In the place of Mr. Swanstrom sits Mr. Martin W. Littleton, and by him the name of Brooklyn has been made famous from ocean to ocean, and throughout the entire South, for in him Brooklyn has a mouthpiece that thrills, and through him she speaks with a tongue of eloquence.
"Since consolidation Brooklyn has been the second borough in point of population and of wealth, but in statesmanship, in oratory and in achievement she has stood pre-eminent. And while many believed that after consolidation she would lose her independent spirit, she has rather increased her old pride in herself, and this pride has been fostered and strengthened because of the worthy sons who have represented her in the government of the great city of New York, two of whom we have brought with us, that St. Louis, at times herself deceived by those she trusted, may look upon their like for once at least. Loyal to Brooklyn have been Grout, Swanstrom and Littleton, and thus inspired, has Brooklyn proved loyal to herself and faithful to her traditions.
"Brooklyn is a gigantic borough. She is three times as large as Buffalo, the home of the Pan-American Exposition. She is twice as large as St. Louis, the home of the present Exposition. Brooklyn territorially is large enough and properly adapted to hold a population of 7,000,000, and still remain less congested than the present borough of Manhattan. Brooklyn is devoid of many of the characteristics that mark other great cities. She is almost totally lacking in hotel life. A city of one-tenth her population would have more hotels. But municipal greatness never rested upon hotel life. It breeds corpulence, not courage. It discourages the rearing of children, a thriving industry in Brooklyn. Brooklyn has not the wealth in proportion to her size that she should have. Brooklyn sat for long years under the shadow of old New York, contributing to the wealth of the metropolis, but obtaining nothing in return. Her population contributed to the real estate values upon Manhattan island. Her factories and forges made many of the fortunes that were spent across the East river. Only since consolidation have we received any dividends upon that ever increasing investment. We now pay $14,000,000 into the city treasury and take $17,000,000 out annually. Brooklyn has often been described as the bedroom of old New York. The description was apt, for Brooklyn has always been a city of homes, a city of those of moderate means, a city of respectability. Brooklyn has never been able to boast of her wealth, as other cities, nor has she had to blush for her poverty and depravity as some other cities have.
"She has, however, been able to vaunt herself in the matter of those things which by nature are companions of the home. She has always been noted for her great churches, and has had the finest pulpit orators of the day, and now she is as strong in that direction as she ever was in the past. Her private schools have been known far and wide, while so long as she controlled her public schools, they, too, stood extremely high. Since consolidation they have fallen somewhat behind the march. In dividing government among the boroughs, Mr. Grout achieved much. Where the greatest good was done was where centralization was left with the least sway. In school matters centralization rules absolutely, and to that extent the schools have been forcibly drawn away from the people, and the development has lain in the direction of complexity of educational system, rather than in that of perfecting the children in the rudiments of scholarship. Of late years we have taught our boys how to sew, even if we did neglect their spelling. This increases the number of special teachers, adds to the city's bills, but enables the school superintendents to read splendid reports of new and special courses when they attend pedagogic conventions. Your Exposition loaded New York's educational authorities with medals and prizes and honorable mentions. I would not censure you for this. No men ever worked harder for such honors. The trouble is they work too hard over frills and neglect the essentials. Were your judges to-day to hold an examination among our grammar scholars upon the three subjects, reading, writing and arithmetic, I am inclined to believe that you would send hurry orders for the return of many of those prizes.
"In school matters Brooklyn is at a loss no further than are the other boroughs of the greater city. She is at a loss because Mr. Grout's advice was not taken. In short, we so highly prize our sewers, our streets and our pavements that we directed that they be given directly into our own charge and under our own borough president, and then we held our children in such light esteem that we surrendered them into the keeping of a centralized board of education, which is in turn in the keeping of the board of superintendents, in which body Brooklyn has but a small voice. It has reminded me of those people who personally care for their own dogs and horses and leave their children to servants and hired tutors. The system has been wrong. The wrong system has been made top-heavy. The results have been poor.
"Brooklyn has developed the home life of America to a greater extent than any other city has done. She has few palaces. She has few hovels. She has a great army of American mothers and fathers that are bringing up the next generation of men and women, and she is rearing them in thousands of comfortable homes, where body develops with mind and where the spiritual welfare is an important factor.
"Brooklyn has a park system of which she is proud to-day, and of which she will grow prouder. In Prospect Park she has a jewel, in the very heart of the community. In Forest Park she has a promise of great future development. That new park lies upon high ground overlooking a vast section of the borough and exhibiting to the eye the bay of Jamaica and the ocean beyond. Forest Park is richly endowed by nature, and it will in the days to come be in beauty above either Prospect or Central. Brooklyn has great driveways leading to the ocean along her harbor front and out into Long Island, and she has laid out many small parks and is still engaged upon that work.
"In library matters Brooklyn to-day is well supplied. The system is most extensive and has been rapidly developed. It is another indication of what can be done when a department is decentralized. The Brooklyn Public Library is under the control of Brooklyn men. The board of estimate makes it an annual allowance. Andrew Carnegie gave to Brooklyn $1,600,000 for library construction. With that money twenty branch libraries are to be erected in time. Five are up; one is in operation. To-day there are over twenty branch libraries; most of them are in rented quarters, and they circulate over one million books a year among the people.
"As another indication of the life of Brooklyn brief reference should be made to the Institute of Arts and Sciences, the great college of those beyond school years. It has been referred to as the intellectual bargain counter of Brooklyn. It offers at very moderate prices literary, historical, musical instruction and entertainment and lectures in all the sciences. It is well supported, and the city is building it a central building that will be the Mecca of the ambitious and the cultured. No other city in the land supports such an institution, and it is a great credit to us.