Part 4 (1/2)

[7] Not all of this amount is represented in permanent endowments, since large contributions to cover deficits in annual income as compared with current expenses, or for special repairs and alterations, do not appear under that head. According to the balance-sheet of January 1, 1900, the total a.s.sets consist of $1,075,428.62, the appraised value of the building, furniture, and apparatus; and $947,021.39 in cash on hand or investments,--making a total of $2,022,450.01. Of the invested sum $953,159.30 is in ”special endowments,” of which the income only can be expended. This fund comprises $200,000 from Peter Cooper and $340,000 from the family of the late William Cooper, his brother; the remainder is made up of smaller gifts (the chief of which are a bequest of $30,000 from Wilson G. Hunt, one of the original trustees, and $10,000 each from Mary Stuart, J. Pierpont Morgan, Morris K. Jesup, and John E. Parsons), and one of $300,000 made in December, 1899, by Andrew Carnegie. In addition to the aggregate thus made up Hon. Edward Cooper, the son, and Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, the son-in-law of Peter Cooper, have undertaken to furnish a further income of $10,000 per annum; and finally, according to the 41st Annual Report of the Trustees (May, 1900), the Cooper Union, as residuary legatee under the will of the late John Holstead, will ultimately receive between $200,000 and $300,000.

These recent additions to the endowment of the inst.i.tution will enable the trustees to enlarge its usefulness in many ways, and especially (being no longer dependent for annual income upon rents) to utilize the whole of the building for educational purposes. Yet the total endowment will still be modest, as compared with that of many similar inst.i.tutions of later origin.

[8] Old New Yorkers will be reminded of the closing lines of Fitz-Greene Halleck's poem,--

”And there is music twice a week On Scudder's balcony.”

[9] There may have been more than a mere sentimental regret in his mind at that time; for his inventive intuition had struck out half a century before an idea to which the slow thought of his fellows had not yet attained,--the plan of utilizing roofs for the purpose of giving to all cla.s.ses an owners.h.i.+p of free air and far distance and boundless sky as complete as any landowner could command by fencing off a mountain for his own pleasure. As he looked down upon the vast wilderness of roofs and thought of the mult.i.tude laboring beneath them or trudging through the streets (”up one canon and down another,” as old Jim Bridger the scout said in St. Louis), ignorant of the upper sphere within reach, he might well have felt that one part of his original scheme would still be a physical and moral boon to the metropolis. In fact the disappearance of the ”vacant lots,” so numerous in his youth, and so freely available as informal parks and playgrounds, had created new necessity for air and s.p.a.ce. Whether he consciously recalled the hanging gardens of Babylon, or the flat roofs universally utilized for social and domestic purposes in eastern and southern countries, I do not know. At all events he had seized upon a similar idea, and now--nearly a score of years after his death--we are waking up to its value. Even the Cooper Union building some day, after more pressing needs of equipment shall have been satisfied, may be crowned with its garden of rest and outlook.

[10] Of the original board, Peter Cooper was the first to pa.s.s away. Mr.

Hunt and Mr. Tiemann have since died, and Mr. R. Fulton Cutting has been elected a trustee. The other vacancies have not been filled.

VIII

NATIONAL POLITICS

PETER COOPER'S prominent activity in national politics belongs to two periods,--that of the war for the Union, and that of the subsequent controversies over questions of financial policy.

As has been explained, he felt his life to be peculiarly identified with that of the nation born with him; and the idea that this nation should be destroyed in the midst of its triumphant progress was profoundly abhorrent to him. Like many other patriots, he was ready to save the Union by a compromise, if that were practicable. He advocated the purchase and liberation by the government of all the slaves in the United States; he promoted a ”peace conference” on the very eve of the war. But when South Carolina had formally seceded and the gauntlet had been cast at the feet of national authority, his course was not uncertain. He was a representative of the New York Chamber of Commerce in the deputation of thirty leading citizens of New York which visited Was.h.i.+ngton in order to discover what plan Mr. Buchanan (then still President) had in view. They got no satisfaction from the President, but a.s.sured themselves of the firm loyalty of Mr. Seward, then Senator from New York.

A few weeks later the bombardment of Fort Sumter put an end to all projects of compromise. At the memorable ma.s.s meeting held in Union Square, New York, shortly after the receipt of this news, Peter Cooper, then seventy years old, was among the first to mount the platform. His familiar white hairs and kindly face were recognized by the crowd, which vociferously called for a speech from him. Stepping to the front, he uttered a few ringing sentences which sounded the keynote of the meeting. I quote but one or two:--

”We are contending with an enemy not only determined on our destruction as a nation, but to build on our ruins a government devoted with all its power to maintain, extend, and perpetuate a system in itself revolting to all the best feelings of humanity,--an inst.i.tution that enables thousands to sell their own children into hopeless bondage.

”Shall it succeed? You say 'No!' and I unite with you in your decision.

We cannot allow it to succeed. We should spend our lives, our property, and leave the land itself a desolation before such an inst.i.tution should triumph over the free people of this country. . . .

”Let us, therefore, unite to sustain the government by every means in our power, to arm and equip in the shortest possible time an army of the best men that can be found in the country.”

From that day on his patriotism never doubted or faltered. When the war loan was announced he was the first man at the door of the subtreasury in New York waiting to make payment over the counter of all the money he had been able to collect without business disaster. ”In those days,”

says a friend, ”whenever he had nothing else to do, he would go down to the recruiting office and put in a subst.i.tute.” It is estimated that he must have sent, first and last, about a score of soldiers to serve for him under the flag.

From the first he urged the emanc.i.p.ation and enlistment of the Southern negroes,--a policy which was ultimately adopted with successful results; and when in 1864, at the darkest hour of the struggle, there was danger of a fatal compromise, he actively promoted that great ma.s.s meeting in the hall of the Cooper Union which marked the turning-point of the struggle, carried the State of New York for Lincoln, and secured the triumph of the Union.

After the war was over he presided at another meeting, called to favor aid to the disabled soldiers of the nation; and the following paragraph quoted from his remarks on that occasion forms a fitting close to this brief notice of his patriotic activity:--