6 



A great English novelist, if your Honors please, has 

 said that no one preserves the imagination after 40 years. 

 He certainly could not have listened to these experts in 

 this Pelham Bay Park matter ; for here all of these 

 experts, far past 40, have shown that their 

 imagination was still very vivid. They have in 

 fact, given loose rein to the imagination and allowed 

 their fancy to ran riot. Now, what does their testimony 

 amount to ? This in brief : That we must pay for these 

 lands taken the enormous, monstrous sum of $5,050,000. 

 For what do they ask us to pay this sum? For 1,700 

 acres of land, with a few buildings, all lying three miles 

 beyond the confines of this county, and in the town of 

 Pelham. I do not assail the property-owners, for the 

 greed of gain or love of gold is one of the most potent 

 and all-absorbing of human passions. Auri sacra fames, 

 " The cursed greed of gold " is just as fierce now as it was in 

 the days of Yirgil. And possibly some of these land-owners 

 may really believe that the values they ask for are genuine. 

 Nor do I wish to attack the experts, because I am well 

 aware of the result of thinking for months in one particu- 

 lar train of thought, and I know that the facts that we 

 shall bring out will form a sufficient arraignment and in- 

 dictment of the views of these experts. Their estimates 

 have been so exaggerated that they have caused, not un- 

 naturally, a feeling of indignation throughout the whole 

 community, and this feeling has been so strong that even 

 some of the gentlemen who seek awards have come to me 

 and said : " What do these men mean by putting such 

 values on my property ; I want no such price for my land." 



Let me, for a moment, call the attention of the Court to 

 the peculiarities of some of the experts. Let us see upon 

 what they base their financial ideas. Let us take Mr. 

 Campbell. He has been called to the stand. He is the 

 superintendent of Larchmont Manor, and he bases his ideas 

 of the value of the property upon what he considers the value 

 of the property there in his own pet project, and one or two 

 other places along the Sound. It has been sufficiently 

 brought out in the evidence, and it will be strengthened 



