Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 118, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1904 — NEW YORK’S SUBWAY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NEW YORK’S SUBWAY.

GREATEST ENGINEERING WORK IN AMERICA. | J Twenty-one Miles of Finely-Lighted t . Attractive Tunnel Under the Buai- | eat Part of the Metropolis -Wktt It I üblic. I ■ The greatest engineering work of this generation—perhaps of all time—has been completed and before long the New | Yoyk subway will be open. Oars will f soon be rushing underground from one i end of. New York to the other and ev- | ery morning the earth will virtually swali low up a large pa ft of the population lof the new world’s metropolis. It will relieve the overcrowded surface and elei vnted cars, although it will not wholly j obviate the present congestion of traffic. ■ It will be possible to speed from the -Bat- ■ tery to Harlem in half an hour, ou board ; an electric express run by the third rail system.’ The tunnel is 21 miles long. It will soon be connected with others now in process of building, until the

whole' city is honeycombed with subterranean passages. The subway lias been building since March, 1900. Two years ago the city was torn up from end to end. A spectator, looking up Fourth avenue from Union Square, saw before him a deep trench extending tip the street, peopled with hundreds of busy workmen. Intermittent blasts shook the air. Conveyors sailed along on overhead cables with loads of rock. Contractors’ wagons jolted here and there. The rapping of pneumatic hammers sounded with insistent shrillness. To-day, from the same viewpoint, he sees a long stretch of clean, asphalted pavement, and nothing whatever visible to show that a wonderful engineering feat has been accomplished. So in other parts of the city. Down one of the side streets lie-may observe inconspicuous hooded entrances rising from the sidewalk, which tell where the subway stations are located. Entering one of these a short flight of steps leads down hi the. cool, broad platform of the station, the walls of which are finished in glazed white tiles, with borders and decorations iu colors. Countless steel pillars march away in the dim light of electric bulbs, set at intervals in such a position between the pillars that they cannot blind the eyes of the rfiotormen who run the subway cars. The effect is like -that in the snow sheds of- the Sierras, when the sun projects pencils of light through the crannies of the boards. One looks down a long, rectangular box, with transverse beams from invisible lights illuminating the tracks far ahead. In the foreground one sees a maze of pillars; in the distance, the perspective merges rthe pillars into • walls. The air is dry and sweet. The cost to New York for the building of a subway will be about .$40,000,(XX). The contract was let to John B. McDonald and is the largest contract ever let to a ?€iigle individual. Mr. McDonald is the chief figure in the company which will operate the transit system under a 50-year franchise.* The company will spend $18,000,000 in equipping the road and will pay the city so that in 50 years the $40,000,000 which the city spends for the construction will have

been returned and the subway reverts to the city wlfile the equipment must be sold to the city at a fair price. The subway starts at the City Ilali and runs north through or near Fourth avenue to Forty-sebond street, where it crosses to Broadway and runs north to One Hundred and Second street. Here it diverges, one part running to the Bronx Park on the northeastern edge of the city; the other to Harlem ship canal at Kingsbrhlgo. The tunnel lias been built through a very maze of pipes and sewers, through underground springs and quicksands, through rocky hills and over deep-cut dales, and even under a river.

j LA FOLLETTE 18 VICTOR Supreme Court of Wisconsin Decides for Governor in Contest. By a vote of 3 to 1 the Supreme Court ' of Wisconsin has decided that the La Follette State ticket was the regular Republican ticket, and that the nominees of the La Follette convention should bo placed on the election ticket as regular Republicans. By this decision the entire machinery.- of the Republicans in the State for the present campaign is placed In the hands of the La’ Follette faction. The struggle between the follower* of Gov. Robert M, La Follette, who are i known as the “half-breeds,” and 'the “stalwarts,” who are beaded by Senator! Spooner and Quarles, originated sonio time prior to the holding of the State convention on May 18, 1904, when the open rupture between the two faction* occurred. The State central committee, which issued the call for the convention, was composed of a chairman and twentytwo members, sixteen of whom were adherents of Gov. La Follette. The State central committee in its call for the convention announced that it would act as a committee on credentials and determine what delegates were entitled to seats In the convention hall. The stalwarts assert that the State central committee, acting as a committee on credentials, excluded from the convention many properly accredited delegates who were antagonistic to La Follette and substituted men favorable to him. The La Follette followers and the majority of the State central committee declare this assertion of the stalwarts to be untrue, and say that no properly accredited delegate was denied a seat and that the delegates Who were finally admitted to participate in the convention were the only men from the contested districts entitled to the privilege. When the State convention met the stalwarts withdrew in a body and held a convention of their _nwn, nominating Samuel A. Cook. Both conventions named the same presidential electors. At the national convention in Chicago the stalwart delegates were seated. Then the stalwarts asked the Supreme Court to enjoin Secretary of State Houser from certifying the candidates named by the half-breed convention and placing their names on the Republican ticket. On this iPsue the decision was rendered.

CITY HALL SUBWAY STATION.

APPROACH TO A SUBWAY STATION.