My response to another's Blog about the New York Public Library...
http://bookseller-association.blogspot.com/
Wonderful article...As one of the many authors of Samuel Tilden I know from extensive research about him the reason he left millions of his estate to build the NY Public Library. As a child he was ill much of the time and books were his salvation--He scrimped and saved every penny he could just to buy a second hand book - His Aunt Polly also gifted him with many. As an adult he invested in a rare collection of books and spared no expense to obtain them.
While writing his will he bequeathed millions to create the "Tilden Trust" and had the building plans drawn up for the beautiful New York Public Library on 5th Ave. & 42nd St. He wanted to approve every last marble stone that went into the construction. I reprinted the building plans and published them in my Tilden book along with the list of rare books in the revision of "The Life of Samuel J. Tilden" written by his best friend John Bigelow who was one of the owners of the New York Post aka Evening Post.
After Tilden passed away, John Bigelow kept his promise to Tilden and ran into a roadblock in court when Tilden's greedy nephews challenged the estate to take the money for themselves. They actually won in court - but Bigelow along with Tilden's beloved sister Mary Pelton and her grand-daughter joined the lawsuit to get the money back for the library. Bigelow invested the funds wisely while the estate was being argued in court and even though the nephews won the orginal millions from the Trust they were not entitled to the new money from the investments.
It took John Bigelow, Mary Pelton and her grand-daughter from 1886 to 1905 to complete the library. It was Bigelow that also worked out the deal with the help of the Astor and Lenox private libraries combined their collections and money to complete the project. Bigelow was well into his 90's at this point, but he kept his promise to Samuel to complete Samuel's dream of a "free" public library. Tilden's will had also included 2 other libraries: one in Yonkers, where he had his farm, aka, Graystone (not Greystone) and one in New Lebanon, his hometown and burial place.
On his statue Tilden had engraved, "I Trust the People" and on his Tombstone, "I "Still" Trust the People." The American people loved him and stood by him and nearly started a 2nd Civil War during his 1876 Presidential Campaign where he lost the Presidency by one stolen electoral college vote. Tilden was also Governor of New York and known as the Great Reformer for taking down the corrupt Tammany Hall and Canal Rings. Had he known before he died that his Will would be challenged by his nephews he would have started the library well in advance of his death to prevent them from pilfering the money that he wanted to be his gift to New Yorkers - books and a beautiful place to read and borrow them.
I was saddened when I read the New York Public Library renamed the building in 5 places at every door with the name Steve Swartzman, a Library Board Member and Wall St. Real Estate Tycoon because he donated 100 million to help with restoration costs now in progress. Tilden should not be forsaken this way and his statue which stands hidden under the trees on 112th St along Riverside Dr. should be standing at the doorway of the New York Public Library in remembrance of him. A few years ago Rudi had the streets in front of the library renamed, "Bigleow Plaza"...which I agree was a wise choice because of his love for his good friend Samuel.
Thank you for writing your BLOG and recognizing Samuel Tilden for his contributions for free education for the people.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
KEY-NOTE OF FEDERAL POLITICS IN 1873 - Samuel J. Tilden
KEY-NOTE OF FEDERAL POLITICS IN 1873
" In the sixteen years during which it will have been in possession of the government at the expiration of the present Presidential term, all the evils which call so loudly for redress have had their origin, their persistent and daily growth. Nearly all its thinkers, speakers, and writers, its active intellect and its power of leadership are imbued with strong government theories of so extravagant a character that even Hamilton would have disowned and doubtless would have condemned them. The classes who desire pecuniary profit from existing governmental abuses have become numerous and powerful beyond any example in our country. The myriads of office-holders, with enhanced salaries, and often with illicit gains; the contractors and jobbers; the beneficiaries of congressional grants of the public property or of special franchises; the favored interests whose business is rendered lucrative by legislative bounties or legislative monopolies; the corporations whose hopes and fears are appealed to be the measures of the government; the rapacious hordes of carpet-baggers who have plundered the impoverished people of the South at least ten times as much as Tweed's Ring did the rich metropolis, and whose fungus growth is ' intertwined with the roots of the Republican party; all these classes are not only interested in perpetuating existing evils and existing wrongs, but they are the main agencies and instruments by which that work is done."
This is the key-note of Mr. Tilden's view of our Federal politics in 1873. Unhappily, there is nothing in this statement upon which we can boast to-day of any considerable improvement.
MR. TILDEN RESIGNS THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE*
"geneva, In Switzerland, Aug. 1873. " My Dear Sir,—As I shall not be able to return home in season to take part in the political canvass of this fall, I
* Mr. George W. Smith, Mr. Tilden's private secretary, informs me that, according to his recollection, Mr. Tilden did not cease to be chairman of the State committee until he was nominated for Governor in 1874.
desire through you to request the delegate to the State convention who will be chosen from my district to say for me that I decline a re-election as member-at-large of the State committee and as its chairman.
" What the country now needs in order to save it is a revival of the Jeffersonian democracy, with the principles of government and rules of administration, and with the high standard of official morality which were established by the political revolution of 1800. At that time the infant institutions of the republic were imperilled by the same evil tendencies which have to-day attained a larger development. The demoralizations of war—a spirit of gambling adventure, engendered by false systems of public finance; a grasping centralism, absorbing all functions from the local authorities, and assuming to control the industries of individuals by largesses to favored classes from the public treasury of moneys wrung from the body of the people by taxation—were then, as now, characteristics of the period. The party which swayed the government, though embracing many elevated characters, was dominated, as an organization, by the ideas of its master-spirit, Alexander Hamilton. Himself personally pure, he nevertheless believed that our American people must be governed, if not by force, at least by appeals to the selfish interests of classes, in all the forms of corrupt influence. I recently met here—in the birthplace of Albert Gallatin—a son of that great man, and himself a distinguished American. Speaking in the light of the unsullied traditions of that day, as well as of its public history, he said that the jobbery and corruption and laxity of official morals were as great, proportionally, then as now. If this be a true judgment, the reaction which was effected and which gave us half a century of comparatively pure administration is an encouragement that official morals and public life may be again lifted from degradation. As the means of the reaction of 1800, Thomas Jefferson founded and organized the Democratic party. He set up anew the broken foundations of governmental power. He stayed the advancing centralism. He restored the rights of the States and the localities. He repressed the meddling of government in the concerns of private business, remitting the management of the industries of the country to the domain of the individual judgment and conscience. He not only brought the administration into conformity with principles which lessen the occasions and the motives for corruption, but he enforced, by precept and by example, purity and disinterestedness in official life. He refused to appoint relatives to office. He declined all presents. He refrained, while in the public service, from all enterprises to increase his private fortune.
" The immense ascendency over the public opinion of the country acquired by Mr. Jefferson—the complete triumph of the party he formed and led, the acceptance at length by the whole people of him as the highest political authority— shaped the course of government in the United States for half a century. That period will stand in all history as the golden age of the republic.
" The reformatory work of Mr. Jefferson in 1800 must now be repeated. Organizations and names are important only as they are available for the result. Every patriotic citizen, sincerely desirous of reform, should discard all prejudices and accept the benefaction from any source which is capable of providing it.
" But it is quite clear that the Republican party now swaying the administration, although it embraces large numbers of honorable and patriotic citizens, is, as a whole, incapable of this specific mission. In the sixteen years during which it will have been in possession of the government at the expiration of the present Presidential term, all the evils which call so loudly for redress have had their origin, their persistent and daily growth. Nearly all its thinkers, speakers and writers, its active intellect and its power of leadership, are imbued with strong-government theories of so extravagant a character that even Hamilton would have disowned and doubtless would have condemned them. The classes who desire pecuniary profit from existing governmental abuses have become numerous and powerful beyond any example in our country. The myriads of office-holders, with enhanced salaries, and often with illicit gains; the contractors and jobbers; the beneficiaries of Congressional grants of the public property or of special franchises; the favored interests whose business is rendered lucrative by legislative bounties or legislative monopolies; the corporations whose hopes and fears are appealed to by the measures of the government; the rapacious hordes of carpet-baggers who have plundered the impoverished people of the South at least ten times as much as Tweed's Ring did the rich metropolis, and whose fungus growth is intertwined with the roots of the Republican party; all these classes are not only interested in perpetuating existing evils and existing wrongs, but they are the main agencies and instruments by which that work is done. They furnish organization, they supply numerous partisans who devote themselves to electioneering while the honest citizens are compelled to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow; they contribute and aggregate vast sums of money to be expended in conducting party canvasses, in influencing the elections and in corrupting the voters; sums which no number of disinterested citizens could furnish if equally unscrupulous in the methods of political influence. For the first time in our national history such classes have become powerful enough to aspire to be in America the ruling classes, as they have been and are in the corrupt societies of the Old World. They threaten to reproduce here a state of things often found elsewhere, in which the governmental machine, with its allies and dependents, is capable of setting itself up against and over the whole mass of unorganized citizens who follow the avocations of private life. These classes completely possess the organization of the Republican party. They have absorbed the Republican party. They are, for all practical purposes, the Republican party. They make its nominations; they shape its measures, they preserve its policy. Individual dissenters who preserve the original traditions of American free government there are, but their voices are not heard; they are generally paralyzed; they are always powerless. Hitherto no Democratic minority has been formed capable o*f exercising any practical power. No internal remedy can come for a disease which has incorporated itself with everything vital in the political body. It is too late to cut out the cancer without killing the patient.
" In the nature of the case, the remedy can come only from an opposition which shall grow strong enough to turn out the present existing administration and take its place. In such an opposition the Democratic masses must contribute a large element. They embrace three and a half or four millions of votes, and are of themselves within five per cent of a majority. They contain nearly all the thinkers, speakers and writers, all the trained statesmen who adhere to the traditions of Jefferson; and while individual members have been not unstained with the errors of the times, the body, as a whole, is sound; and a majority is sure to declare for the ancient faith of Jefferson and Franklin and George Clinton and Samuel and John Hancock.
" In the part I have borne in the administration of the Democratic party of the State of New York—now closed— I have aimed at three things:
" 1. To lead on public opinion in favor of the original ideas of the Jeffersonian democracy and in support of such current measures as secured valuable reforms.
" 2. To terminate a degrading strife in which they enlisted themselves, in comparing the leprous spots on their respective sides, and practically declared that the word only was wanting to incite an honorable emulation in which they should seek and apply effectual remedies and the- public mind stimulated to reform.
" 3. To prepare the Democratic masses to act their part in a general movement for reform in all the governmental institutions of the country." (Ccetera desunt.)
" In the sixteen years during which it will have been in possession of the government at the expiration of the present Presidential term, all the evils which call so loudly for redress have had their origin, their persistent and daily growth. Nearly all its thinkers, speakers, and writers, its active intellect and its power of leadership are imbued with strong government theories of so extravagant a character that even Hamilton would have disowned and doubtless would have condemned them. The classes who desire pecuniary profit from existing governmental abuses have become numerous and powerful beyond any example in our country. The myriads of office-holders, with enhanced salaries, and often with illicit gains; the contractors and jobbers; the beneficiaries of congressional grants of the public property or of special franchises; the favored interests whose business is rendered lucrative by legislative bounties or legislative monopolies; the corporations whose hopes and fears are appealed to be the measures of the government; the rapacious hordes of carpet-baggers who have plundered the impoverished people of the South at least ten times as much as Tweed's Ring did the rich metropolis, and whose fungus growth is ' intertwined with the roots of the Republican party; all these classes are not only interested in perpetuating existing evils and existing wrongs, but they are the main agencies and instruments by which that work is done."
This is the key-note of Mr. Tilden's view of our Federal politics in 1873. Unhappily, there is nothing in this statement upon which we can boast to-day of any considerable improvement.
MR. TILDEN RESIGNS THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE*
"geneva, In Switzerland, Aug. 1873. " My Dear Sir,—As I shall not be able to return home in season to take part in the political canvass of this fall, I
* Mr. George W. Smith, Mr. Tilden's private secretary, informs me that, according to his recollection, Mr. Tilden did not cease to be chairman of the State committee until he was nominated for Governor in 1874.
desire through you to request the delegate to the State convention who will be chosen from my district to say for me that I decline a re-election as member-at-large of the State committee and as its chairman.
" What the country now needs in order to save it is a revival of the Jeffersonian democracy, with the principles of government and rules of administration, and with the high standard of official morality which were established by the political revolution of 1800. At that time the infant institutions of the republic were imperilled by the same evil tendencies which have to-day attained a larger development. The demoralizations of war—a spirit of gambling adventure, engendered by false systems of public finance; a grasping centralism, absorbing all functions from the local authorities, and assuming to control the industries of individuals by largesses to favored classes from the public treasury of moneys wrung from the body of the people by taxation—were then, as now, characteristics of the period. The party which swayed the government, though embracing many elevated characters, was dominated, as an organization, by the ideas of its master-spirit, Alexander Hamilton. Himself personally pure, he nevertheless believed that our American people must be governed, if not by force, at least by appeals to the selfish interests of classes, in all the forms of corrupt influence. I recently met here—in the birthplace of Albert Gallatin—a son of that great man, and himself a distinguished American. Speaking in the light of the unsullied traditions of that day, as well as of its public history, he said that the jobbery and corruption and laxity of official morals were as great, proportionally, then as now. If this be a true judgment, the reaction which was effected and which gave us half a century of comparatively pure administration is an encouragement that official morals and public life may be again lifted from degradation. As the means of the reaction of 1800, Thomas Jefferson founded and organized the Democratic party. He set up anew the broken foundations of governmental power. He stayed the advancing centralism. He restored the rights of the States and the localities. He repressed the meddling of government in the concerns of private business, remitting the management of the industries of the country to the domain of the individual judgment and conscience. He not only brought the administration into conformity with principles which lessen the occasions and the motives for corruption, but he enforced, by precept and by example, purity and disinterestedness in official life. He refused to appoint relatives to office. He declined all presents. He refrained, while in the public service, from all enterprises to increase his private fortune.
" The immense ascendency over the public opinion of the country acquired by Mr. Jefferson—the complete triumph of the party he formed and led, the acceptance at length by the whole people of him as the highest political authority— shaped the course of government in the United States for half a century. That period will stand in all history as the golden age of the republic.
" The reformatory work of Mr. Jefferson in 1800 must now be repeated. Organizations and names are important only as they are available for the result. Every patriotic citizen, sincerely desirous of reform, should discard all prejudices and accept the benefaction from any source which is capable of providing it.
" But it is quite clear that the Republican party now swaying the administration, although it embraces large numbers of honorable and patriotic citizens, is, as a whole, incapable of this specific mission. In the sixteen years during which it will have been in possession of the government at the expiration of the present Presidential term, all the evils which call so loudly for redress have had their origin, their persistent and daily growth. Nearly all its thinkers, speakers and writers, its active intellect and its power of leadership, are imbued with strong-government theories of so extravagant a character that even Hamilton would have disowned and doubtless would have condemned them. The classes who desire pecuniary profit from existing governmental abuses have become numerous and powerful beyond any example in our country. The myriads of office-holders, with enhanced salaries, and often with illicit gains; the contractors and jobbers; the beneficiaries of Congressional grants of the public property or of special franchises; the favored interests whose business is rendered lucrative by legislative bounties or legislative monopolies; the corporations whose hopes and fears are appealed to by the measures of the government; the rapacious hordes of carpet-baggers who have plundered the impoverished people of the South at least ten times as much as Tweed's Ring did the rich metropolis, and whose fungus growth is intertwined with the roots of the Republican party; all these classes are not only interested in perpetuating existing evils and existing wrongs, but they are the main agencies and instruments by which that work is done. They furnish organization, they supply numerous partisans who devote themselves to electioneering while the honest citizens are compelled to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow; they contribute and aggregate vast sums of money to be expended in conducting party canvasses, in influencing the elections and in corrupting the voters; sums which no number of disinterested citizens could furnish if equally unscrupulous in the methods of political influence. For the first time in our national history such classes have become powerful enough to aspire to be in America the ruling classes, as they have been and are in the corrupt societies of the Old World. They threaten to reproduce here a state of things often found elsewhere, in which the governmental machine, with its allies and dependents, is capable of setting itself up against and over the whole mass of unorganized citizens who follow the avocations of private life. These classes completely possess the organization of the Republican party. They have absorbed the Republican party. They are, for all practical purposes, the Republican party. They make its nominations; they shape its measures, they preserve its policy. Individual dissenters who preserve the original traditions of American free government there are, but their voices are not heard; they are generally paralyzed; they are always powerless. Hitherto no Democratic minority has been formed capable o*f exercising any practical power. No internal remedy can come for a disease which has incorporated itself with everything vital in the political body. It is too late to cut out the cancer without killing the patient.
" In the nature of the case, the remedy can come only from an opposition which shall grow strong enough to turn out the present existing administration and take its place. In such an opposition the Democratic masses must contribute a large element. They embrace three and a half or four millions of votes, and are of themselves within five per cent of a majority. They contain nearly all the thinkers, speakers and writers, all the trained statesmen who adhere to the traditions of Jefferson; and while individual members have been not unstained with the errors of the times, the body, as a whole, is sound; and a majority is sure to declare for the ancient faith of Jefferson and Franklin and George Clinton and Samuel and John Hancock.
" In the part I have borne in the administration of the Democratic party of the State of New York—now closed— I have aimed at three things:
" 1. To lead on public opinion in favor of the original ideas of the Jeffersonian democracy and in support of such current measures as secured valuable reforms.
" 2. To terminate a degrading strife in which they enlisted themselves, in comparing the leprous spots on their respective sides, and practically declared that the word only was wanting to incite an honorable emulation in which they should seek and apply effectual remedies and the- public mind stimulated to reform.
" 3. To prepare the Democratic masses to act their part in a general movement for reform in all the governmental institutions of the country." (Ccetera desunt.)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Samuel Tilden Imploded Dem Party to Save It
Samuel Tilden knew to Reform the Dem Party in 1870's he had to implode it! --review the video --
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Video Book Preview - Samuel Tilden the Real 19th President - Famous Gramercy Park Legacy Resident
I produced this Book preview for my Samuel Tilden books. I've also been producing Artists 3D Virtual Reality Art Galleries--If you have any interest or have a friend that would like a Book Preview or Art Gallery go to my production website at http://www.showbizeast.com/
These are great for posting on the Internet to promote your books -art work - music videos! The clips can be aired anywhere because they are digital.
These are great for posting on the Internet to promote your books -art work - music videos! The clips can be aired anywhere because they are digital.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
EMail I Sent to DNC When they Asked for Another $5 Donation Today
DNC sent me a email looking for a $5 donation --I unsubscribed so they won't send me any more requests. This is what I wrote back to them...
I am the Author of "Samuel Tilden the Real 19th President"...The $5 donation reminds me too much of Tammany Hall William Boss Tweed. You give me $5 and you get $1 -- The Dems have ignored Tilden's reform teachings...Therefore I'll keep my $5 and put i...t toward the documentary I'm producing about him & his reform message.
Tilden was a Bourbon Dem as was President Cleveland. Both believed in Laissez faire capitalism & opposed high taxes & wasteful spending. Since Democrats have turned their backs on Tilden & Cleveland's doctrine I will do what I should have done 15 years ago & only support candidates worthy of high office. I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of Democrats today even know who he was - but they will soon enough.
I am the Author of "Samuel Tilden the Real 19th President"...The $5 donation reminds me too much of Tammany Hall William Boss Tweed. You give me $5 and you get $1 -- The Dems have ignored Tilden's reform teachings...Therefore I'll keep my $5 and put i...t toward the documentary I'm producing about him & his reform message.
Tilden was a Bourbon Dem as was President Cleveland. Both believed in Laissez faire capitalism & opposed high taxes & wasteful spending. Since Democrats have turned their backs on Tilden & Cleveland's doctrine I will do what I should have done 15 years ago & only support candidates worthy of high office. I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of Democrats today even know who he was - but they will soon enough.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Samuel Tilden Summary of Thomas Jefferson Government
After the organization of the federal government, a powerful class sought to impress upon it in its practical working the features of the British system. Mr. Jefferson was the great leader of the party formed to resist these efforts, and to hold our institutions to the popular character which was understood to belong to them when the Constitution was ratified by the people.
"When Jefferson was elevated to the presidency, he put the ship of state," to use his own expression, "upon 'the Republican tack.' He arrested centralizing tendencies; and reinvigorated local self-government...He restored the rights of the States, and protected and enlarged the domain of the individual judgment and conscience. For eight years he administered the government, and for sixteen years after he administered the same by his pupils who were under his observation and advice. This established a habit which largely shaped the standards for the guidance of the popular judgment, the modes of thinking of statesmen, and the general course of government for sixty years.
" Mr. Jefferson gave to our administrative system an aspect of republican simplicity; he repressed jobbery as well as all perversions of power, and by his precepts, his influence, and his example elevated the standard of public morals. In his personal practice he was not only pure, but, to make his example more effective, he refrained, while administering the greatest of official trusts, from all attempts to increase his private fortune, even by methods open to every private citizen." ...Samuel J Tilden
"When Jefferson was elevated to the presidency, he put the ship of state," to use his own expression, "upon 'the Republican tack.' He arrested centralizing tendencies; and reinvigorated local self-government...He restored the rights of the States, and protected and enlarged the domain of the individual judgment and conscience. For eight years he administered the government, and for sixteen years after he administered the same by his pupils who were under his observation and advice. This established a habit which largely shaped the standards for the guidance of the popular judgment, the modes of thinking of statesmen, and the general course of government for sixty years.
" Mr. Jefferson gave to our administrative system an aspect of republican simplicity; he repressed jobbery as well as all perversions of power, and by his precepts, his influence, and his example elevated the standard of public morals. In his personal practice he was not only pure, but, to make his example more effective, he refrained, while administering the greatest of official trusts, from all attempts to increase his private fortune, even by methods open to every private citizen." ...Samuel J Tilden
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Samuel Tilden Documentary is "IN Production" Status --
The Honorable Samuel J Tilden was elected the 19th President of the United States with 51% of the peoples votes - Tilden had engraved on his Tombstone -"I Still Trust the People" and on the pedestal of his statue "I Trust the People" He was nicknamed the Greatest Democrat and the Great Reformer because he despised corruption - much of it in his own party. Before being elected as New York Governor - he reformed and took down the cronyism & thefts in Tammany Hall & the Canal Rings. He understood the importance of education & willed his millions to build the NY Public library. Corruptors despised him and wanted to destroy his efforts to do good for Americans...Currently a documentary is in production by Nikki Oldaker, (me) Author of "Samuel Tilden the Real 19th President" I have dedicated the past 16 years of my life to research Tilden's life because I believe ALL our elected politicians should have the same level integrity Tilden did.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
