job, and he did it. He was backed up by his committee. He was fortunate in the choice of his architect, to be sure, and it seems to me that this Committee has done an admirable job, one that is hardly open to criticism even in minute particulars. But to come back to the point, we are under the greatest possible debt of obligation to the Building Committee and its Chairman, and I should like to have you express in some appropriate way the feeling of the Club when I introduce to you Mr. Rollins, the Chairman of the Building Committee." (Mr. Rollins was received with tumultuous applause and cheers, as he rose to address the members.) JAMES W. ROLLINS, ESQUIRE "Mr. President, Distinguished Guests and Members of the City Club. It is a pity to ask you gentlemen to listen to a speech from the Chairman of the Building Committee, for it must be in a way a technical one, and with the expectancy of all the good things from the orators who are to follow me, I fear your patience will be tried. "Most men who do things in this world do not get the credit that should come to them some few get more than should come to them; and I think I, standing here before you to-night, am one of these latter. "For the past two weeks you men have been congratulating me on this great Club House, and I had to thank you for your kind words. Of course, the Chairman of a Building Committee has a lot of work to do, to keep the general run of the work, of the finances and some other things but all the things which you see and admire are the work of other men. "I will accept congratulations in one way, that I helped pick out the architects, Messrs. Newhall & Blevins,-Louis C. Newhall the master mind and genius who has wrought out of steel and work this Club House which so pleases and satisfies us. To him give the great credit and honor! Then the furnishings-art works and fixtures; the selection of these was the work of a subcommittee-James P. Munroe and Carl Dreyfus. These are the things visible, and have been done by other men. "Another important matter was the insurance, of all kinds, on the building and contents. I have been aware from years of personal contact with insurance agents, that their numbers were legion; but I did not realize that about one-half of our total membership of 5,000 were insurance agents of some kind; and even some of their mothers and sisters joined the ranks of the men who wished to sacrifice themselves and place the insurance on our works. It was too big a job for the Chairman to tackle, and the entire proposition was turned over to Mr. John R. Simpson, who handled the matter with great skill and to the great interest of the Club. "Mr. James M. Head and Mr. Ellis have been our advisers on contracts and legal matters. Mr. John S. Lawrence, our diplomat with adverse interests. Mr. Blackall, and later, Mr. Rothwell, our general advisers. "My particular work on the building has been in the kitchen and basement, where you members don't go. I am now fully qualified as an expert on dish-washers, bain-maries, soup kettles and garbage disposal; and know something about ice machines, refrigerators, and sink drains. "I wish here publicly to acknowledge to you Club members — as I could not do at a meeting of the Building Committee - my personal indebtedness to the members of our committee, to their great interest and cooperation in our work, which, lasting as it has for more than three years, has been a great pleasure to me and has given me an opportunity to meet able men, discuss matters and settle them to the satisfaction of all concerned. "We also publicly wish to thank Mr. James E. Fee and the House Committee for their cooperation; Mr. Bacharach, the Superintendent, for all his help and suggestions; Mr. Gilmore, of the architects' office, for his able and faithful supervision of the work of construction; and also the builders, the Whitney Company, under the able direction of Mr. T. Eckford Rhoades and his assistant, Mr. John W. Reth. "Everybody has worked together, and the result is this building which we to-day dedicate. "I failed to mention one man to whom credit is due, for everything in the Boston City Club, and that is Addison L. Winship. (Applause.) I have always had a grudge against Winship because I always thought he was the man who suggested me as Chairman of the Building Committee; because I had to take it because it came to me. "The official report of the Building Committee is as follows: "At a meeting of the Boston City Club in the Fall of 1911, the President was authorized to appoint a committee of five, to consider and report on the following questions. "I. Is it necessary or advisable to build a new house for the Boston City Club? "2. If it is advisable to build a new Club House, to report on a suitable location, and a general plan for the house, and on the general question of financing. "This committee reported on January 31, 1912, to the Executive Committee: "I. On the first question the committee is unanimous in the opinion that a new Club House should be built. The Club was organized in 1904, with 500 charter members, and has grown with remarkable rapidity, until the present membership is 3,200, with a waiting list of 250, and applications coming in at the rate of 5 per day, while the resignations for the last year, for instance, have been 208. "The present accommodations for the membership are, in the opinion of the committee, entirely inadequate, and to maintain the usefulness and growing interest in the Club, in the City, and even in the Commonwealth, provisions should be made for a membership up to 5,000. Not to consider this phase, and to hold people on the waiting list for years, is, in our opinion, unwise, as the interest and enthusiasm in and widening influence of the Club, now steadily gaining, would be lessened by any such prospects. For these reasons, we believe that the Club should take immediate steps toward building a new Club House. At an estimated cost of $450,000, for the building only. "As a result of its investigations, the committee made the following recommendations: "That the dues remain at $15, but that the entrance fee be raised to $20. That the ultimate limit of membership should be 5,000, which number we are assured would be reached within a few months, if the new Club House project is adopted and begun. And, that, as will be seen upon a comparison of the financing of the two sites considered, the Boston University site, only, comes within the limits and scope of proper financing on the conditions above outlined. And the committee, therefore, believing this plan can be successfully financed, recommend that immediate action be taken to start the new Club House on that site.' 999 JAMES W. ROLLINS, Chairman, JAMES M. HEAD, "Several meetings of the Club were called in that year, 1912, to consider the question of the new Club House, and to discuss the merits of the two sites proposed-the old site, Beacon and Somerset streets, and the new site, at Somerset Street and Ashburton Place; and in December, 1912, the Executive Committee recommended the latter site, and asked for authority to purchase the same and proceed to erect a new Club House; which authority was given at the annual meeting in November, 1912. "In February, 1913, a campaign to raise $250,000 in debenture bonds was begun and the amount was raised with great enthusiasm in ten days. "The Building Committee was in charge of the finances, and to show the spirit of some of the members I want to tell you a little incident of that campaign. The Finance Committee, I believe, at that time, were always unanimous that we should build on the old site. The Building Committee was unanimous, on the other hand, that we should build on this site, and we had discussions without end and figures without end, but when the matter was finally settled, the morning following the announcement of the fact that we were going to raise the money for the new Club House, one member of the Finance Committee sent me, personally, a check of $5,000 to show his appreciation, even when we were embarking on a project which he did not at that time agree to. (Applause.) "Newhall & Blevins having been selected as architects, work was begun on the plans in the early spring of 1913, and proposals were asked for in May, with the result that the bids received were all too high for consideration. "Since the original plans were made in 1912, the membership and activities in all ways of the Club had so increased that the Building Committee changed the plans, to build to the limit in height and depth, and these changes made the increased cost of building. "After many revisions of the plans, keeping, however, the increased height determined on, and numerous conferences with lawyers, contractors and abutting owners; the Building Committee, having been duly authorized on July 21, awarded the contract for the building to The Whitney Company of New York, for the sum of $540,000; the building to be completed in ten months. "The work on the building was begun on July 24 by President Samuel J. Elder throwing the first shovelful of dirt; and the work progressed rapidly, so that the corner-stone was laid on October 9, by ex-President Taft, amid great enthusiasm. "Most of you gentlemen recall the financial conditions of the country in July, 1913, at the time the work was ready to be started on the new Club House. Having raised about $300,000 amongst our own members, we sought a first mortgage of $400,000 to complete the work, but no financial institutions at that time were interested in a big mortgage, even on a Boston City Club House at 42%, our maximum rate; and after many days of trial in Boston, New York, and other financial centres, the project of raising this mortgage was abandoned, until better times came. "After much study and consideration a scheme was developed to go ahead on a part of the contract, and build the foundations up to the street level, the Club having cash enough in hand or in pledges on debentures to warrant this action, which was endorsed by the Finance Committee and also by the Executive Committee. "This work was arranged for with the contractor as a supplementary agreement which allowed us to stop the work at the street floor if we so wished. The work on the foundations and basement floor progressed in a satisfactory manner, though it was not pushed, on account of the unsettled financial conditions. "On February 16, the Building Committee reported to the Executive Committee, asking for authority to order the steel for the balance of the building, as the steel contractors advised it would take ten weeks, i. e., until May 1, to deliver the material, and that serious delays would be entailed in the construction if this steel was not ordered at that time. The Building Committee had been advised of this condition on November 18, by the contractor, who generously offered to wait for his payment for this steel until April 1, 1914. "In March, 1914, a second financial campaign was carried out, whereby $150,000 more was raised amongst Club members; and a few weeks later the Finance Committee reported that they had at last succeeded in raising a first mortgage for $350,000, which completed the entire financing of the new Club House project. "On March 6, the Executive Committee authorized the Building Committee to proceed with the construction, but meanwhile the contractors, The Whitney Company, having had more faith in the City Club than its executive officers, had ordered the steel framework, and by substituting its order in the mills for some of their other work got very quick delivery; so that the work of erection was begun early in June. "The work from this time progressed rapidly and with no trouble to the Building Committee, until some time in October, when the stoves and ranges for the kitchen came along from St. Louis. "Now these stoves and ranges were perfectly good articles, made out of good iron, by good workmen - looked good and were good. But unfortunately they had been made by non-union labor; and by the dictate of some international dictator, could not be installed in Boston by any union labor, nor, as it finally eventuated, would any union men in any trade work on the building unless the apparatus already installed was removed, and "junked," as most of it was special and could not be used in any other place. "Such was the "ultimatum" given the Building Committee on December 27, at which time practically all the apparatus was in place. The Building Committee thought too much of those good stoves and ranges, and also thought that the Boston City Club should not be a party to any interstate labor row, and declined the "ultimatum"; and for three weeks all work stopped on the building, but began with great vigor in conferences with labor delegates. Fortunately we had on our committee one man who was a diplomat, and who was cool enough to talk to these delegates. This man was Mr. John S. Lawrence, who, together with our counsel, Mr. Henry H. Fuller, spent hours in conferences, with the result that the "ultimatum" was withdrawn and all matters settled to the satisfaction of everybody except Mr. Moriarty, of the Sheet Metal Workers' Union. "So our last sorrow was ended; and with the greatest cooperation of everybody on the House Committee, Mr. Bacharach and Mr. Westcott and the entire operating staff, the building was finally opened on February 15, 1915. "To account to you members as to our financial management, we would make the following report: "In July, 1913, when the final contract was made with The Whitney Company, the following estimates were presented to the Executive Committee: Proposal of The Whitney Company, house only. $378,400.00 and electrical work Allowances for refrigerating, lighting, vacuum, Making a total of... 97,000.00 $475,400.00 71,650.00 $547,050.00 "The total cost of the building alone, to date, and the Building Committee consider it practically finished, has been $541,650, or $5,400 less than the estimate made. (Applause.) |