Letters and Literary Memorials of Samuel J. Tilden, v. 2

by Samuel J. Tilden

"An important item in the cost of this vertical wall was made up of the fictitious estimates to which we have already alluded. Assuming that the State was uniformly charged with fictitious excavation and embankment along the entire length of this vertical wall—and we have no satisfactory proof that a single rod of it was entitled to be excepted—the loss to the State from this source alone cannot be estimated at less than $230,000.

"We have found all the other more important provisions of these contracts as uniformly disregarded. We have torn down and carefully examined the work under more than forty contracts; and we cannot name one in which the work comes up, even approximately, to the specifications. The contracts define with great precision the size and character of the stone to be used, the mode of their disposition, the thickness and other dimensions of the wall, the character of the cement and sand, the quality of lining, and what else is needed to insure durability and a capacity to resist the shocks from loaded boats to which the walls of canals are constantly subjected. In no one of the forty-odd contracts that we examined did we find the stone either in size or disposition; the dimensions of the wall; the quality of the sand, lime, cement, and gravel, to correspond with the specifications. The consequences to the State are not only that it has been called upon to pay for a higher class of work than it has received, but that it is exposed to a large annual expenditure to keep these ill-constructed and for the most part worthless walls in repair. It has been a not uncommon circumstance for the superintendent to be called upon to repair the earlier work under a vertical wall contract while other portions of the structure were still in progress. To keep this class of walls in repair promises to be one of the principal sources of expense for the future maintenance of our canals.[5]

"Nor is this system of fictitious estimates confined to vertical wall. Since 1868 fifty-three and two-thirds miles of slope wall have been built. By the terms of the contracts these walls should have had an average thickness of at least fifteen inches, measured perpendicularly to the slope. None of the stone composing it should have been less than twelve inches in length at right angles to the face, and the rear of the wall was to rest on a base of clean, hard gravel nine inches thick. The engineers have uniformly estimated these walls at the specified thickness of fifteen inches, while in point of fact we have not found on any of our canals a single stretch of slope wall, constructed since 1868, that would average over ten inches. Of course, the stones are usually smaller than the minimum size required by the specifications, and we did not find a single specimen of the clean, hard gravel lining required by the contract; so that the State has been made to pay, throughout the whole forty-three and two-thirds miles of slope wall, for one-third more of constructed wall than it has received—full prices for a very inferior quality of stone—and for lining the whole work, though not a single yard of the required quality appears to have been ever furnished.

"To confirm our own judgments, and to be sure that we were not applying an erroneous standard to the work done in the prism of the canals, we invited Professors Peter S. Michie and J. B. Wheeler, of the United States Military Academy at West Point, to go over a large proportion of what we had already visited and to give us the benefit of their judgment about it. Their report is annexed, and will be found to accord in all substantial particulars with the opinions we have felt it our duty to express in our previous report to his Excellency the Governor, and in this communication, in reference to all the contract work on the canals that has fallen under our observation.

"Third, as to the facilities afforded by the Legislature to contractors for procuring legislative relief:

"These facilities appear to have been grossly and corruptly abused under the discretionary power conferred upon the Canal Board by the Legislature. Numbers of contracts have been cancelled when such portions of the work as were let on terms profitable to the contractor had been executed, while those portions of the work that were let upon terms more advantageous to the State were left unexecuted. In such cases it not unfrequently happened that this remaining work was let to the same parties, under a new contract, at much higher rates. When the Canal Board was found to turn a deaf ear to such appeals, these applications for relief would be addressed directly to the Legislature, where the fear of doing injustice, and the want of the time and familiarity with the subject necessary for investigating its details, often permitted the allowance of awards conceived in fraud and without a single legal or equitable merit.

"An illustration of this class of abuses will be found in the fifth and seventh reports of this commission to the Governor. For one of them—the case of the award for the relief of John Hand—George D. Lord, a member of the Assembly which made the award, is now under indictment, it appearing that the claim made in his behalf was altogether fraudulent and the alleged proofs fictitious. Another award was also made to George D. Lord of $119,000 for alleged losses under contracts with the State for work in Buffalo harbor. This was, to all appearances, as much greater an abuse of legislative credulity, as the amount exceeded that which was realized under the award to John Hand. The limited technical knowledge of canal administration possessed by a large majority of State legislators, and the claims of other important business upon their attention, make it impossible for them to properly scrutinize appeals of this character, which are usually pressed by designing men, perfectly familiar with all the resources for deception which our complicated canal system afforded, prior to the constitutional amendment of 1874.

"In view of the systematic infidelity of the agents of the State which this investigation has disclosed, is it surprising that the expenditures for extraordinary repairs alone on our canals have amounted, since 1867, to $8,444,827.24, or to nearly as much as the whole of our canal debt, less the sinking fund, which on the 30th of September, 1875, was $8,638,314.49? Of these expenditures for extraordinary repairs it is our belief that fully seventy per cent. have been inconsiderate, unwise, and unprofitable to the State.[6]

"The facts which have been brought to light in the course of this investigation have constrained us already to recommend rigorous proceedings to be taken against the following parties: