Straus v. Pessimists

"New York has been building too fast. The boom is inflated. Rents are coming down. A severe and slow panic impends"--such was the concurrent drift of remarks made a fortnight ago by Walter Stabler, Comptroller of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., and of a wise old Manhattan banker, Clarence H. Kelsey, who has seen all the "hard times" in 40 years. They added that they would lend no more money for New York City building.

A slap in the face of smiling Prosperity could not pass unrequited. One of the world's largest real estate financiers, Simon William Straus, took notice, issued a statement which came quickly to the point:

"I deny most emphatically the moral and ethical right of these gentlemen to jeopardize so ruthlessly the progress of New York and a great and necessary industry such as building and construction. The effects of the utterances of these gentlemen, by reason of their high and dignified positions in the financial world, are more to be feared by the community in which we live than the utterances of Bolshevists. I say Bolshevists because the statements referred to are fundamentally destructive and carry possibilities of grave disaster to the progress of our city and to the nation."

He then marshaled the forces which underlie and, in his opinion, completely justify the incomparable building expenditures in New York City:

Increase in population; increase in standards of living and business, which has rendered many buildings obsolescent; new conditions demanding new types of construction such as moving picture houses and large garages; suburban development due to better transportation.

"We must take into consideration also the great expansion of American business, which means new commercial and industrial buildings of all types.

"Does any one think that America or New York, the imperial city of America, is going to stop growing? Or does any one think our standards of living will cease to advance?

"If any one can believe these things, then he is truly a pessimist, and is justified in joining these gentlemen in their assumption that New York is going to the dogs and that now is the time 'to sell America short.'

"We move rapidly today, and it may be difficult for those whose minds are still dwelling on the practices and events of the past, who are still thinking in terms of former generations and who move in keeping with the standards of buried years, to keep up with the rapid sweep of progress in New York and throughout America."