[ 250 ] ROBERT MUCCIGROSSO bers in describing the League's condition as "disordered but enthusiastic" there was general agreement that the road to reform should be nonpartisan. To support candidates pledged to reform was one matter; to put forth an independent reform ticket was quite another.32 The City Reform Club was adamant in declining pleas for fusion from the moribund League. Occasionally the City Reform Club scored an impressive victory, but the victory usually pertained to nonpolitical issues. For example, on March 19,1892 George Washington Plunkitt, Tammany state Senator and advocate of "honest graft" introduced a bill into the legislature which would have permitted a speedway for horse riding to be built along the west side of Central Park, beginning at 59th Street and extending two miles northward. The previous law had limited the speed of horses in the park to seven miles per hour; the new bill fixed no speed limit for horses. Blessed by the City Park Commissioners, the bill passed by comfortable margins in both chambers at Albany and promised to disrupt the enjoyment of many park lovers to please a few fast riders. The City Reform Club now raised over $150,000 for publicity and meetings to fight the law. Welling, John Jay Chapman, Joseph Choate, Hamilton Fish, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Bigelow, and other prominent figures denounced it. Twice, trainloads of citizens of both parties went upstate to protest to the legislature. On April 14th the law was repealed.33 Public-minded citizens congratulated themselves for their smashing victory. More sober reflection, however, may have produced regret that the unity demonstrated in this instance had not been manifested in more crucial municipal matters. Exhausted by long hours spent in fighting the Central Park speedway bill and by the generally rigorous life he had been leading, Welling embarked in May 1892 on a world trip. He crossed the United States, visited the Orient, the Middle East, and Europe on a journey that lasted nearly six months. Aside from a keen sense of disappointment upon seeing the pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt and a strong attack of Asiatic cholera which struck him while in Jerusalem, he 32Minutes, H, November 8 and 15,1890. 33 Times, April 15, 1892; Welling, "The Fight Against an Ugly City" radio address delivered April 28,1937, Welling Papers, NYPL.