The New England magazine . 839 their personal comfort. With this class Bostonhas no future. To live in undisturbed possessionof their homesteads, to resist every encroachmentupon their mistaken idea that they own the streets,and to pour cold water upon any innovationwhich threatens their supposed invested rights ap-pears to be the aim and object of their Boston has spread out in spite of these ob-structionists, and will continue to do so; for thepresent generation of active, enterprising men have an idea that capital can find profitable in-vestment in Boston, and they propose to
The New England magazine . 839 their personal comfort. With this class Bostonhas no future. To live in undisturbed possessionof their homesteads, to resist every encroachmentupon their mistaken idea that they own the streets,and to pour cold water upon any innovationwhich threatens their supposed invested rights ap-pears to be the aim and object of their Boston has spread out in spite of these ob-structionists, and will continue to do so; for thepresent generation of active, enterprising men have an idea that capital can find profitable in-vestment in Boston, and they propose to try theexperiment of home expansion, even if they haveto fight for it. And after all, what are these tem-porary inconveniences compared with the generalprosperity of the whole city? It is disagreeable tohave the streets dug up for the different purposeswhich require it; but all this digging means breadand butter for the laboring classes, it means busi-ness for the city, and it means progress. We cannot BOSTON JOURNALISM 95. PHOTO 8Y PURDV Senator Winthrop Murray Crane, who, as Governor of Massachusetts, vetoed the Boston Elevated Railroad Bill and steadfastly resisted all schemes to allow the Elevated Company to control underground as well as elevated traffic combine the activity of a great city with the ruraladvantages of a village; and, if the noise and humof business life, if the blocked streets and crowdedsidewalks, are troublesome to the nerves of a fewthey can easily find relief by returning to some ofthe inland cities, where they can vegetate in melan-choly solitude. The Transcript is quite right inits comments upon the opposition offered to theenterprise of the West End Railway Company. The greatest local enterprise, involving a largeroutlay of capital than any single public improve-ment ever started in this city, has been most un-reasonably attacked, not by the business men ofBoston, but by a few active citizens who rep-resent the past rather than the future of Boston.
Size: 1300px × 1921px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidnewenglandma, bookyear1887
