George Edwin Waring, Jr. [ 359 ] port, Rhode Island. Waring's early years left him with an enduring fondness for the countryside. Though his career led him away from the farm, he retained his sensitivity toward nature and his warm affection for rural people. These preferences are clearly evident in his many travel books.7 Yet Waring was no stranger to the city; his acquaintance with urban America was detailed and long standing, obtained during the course of his professional services for American municipalities. He gained added experience from his supervision of those gathering the social statistics of American cities in connection with the tenth census in 1880. Fortified therefore by the experiences of a varied career, George Waring, Civil War veteran, agriculturalist, sanitarian, author, linguist, and devotee of the arts8 eagerly prepared to do battle in the winter of 1895, intent on sweeping accumulated filth and favoritism from New York City. A rapid survey of conditions convinced Waring that the Department's problems of disorganization and inefficiency required the introduction of those military values he had always accepted—leadership and discipline. Given a free hand by Mayor Strong, Waring moved quickly to establish his authority and sever the lines of interest and influence that had traditionally extended into the Department from prominent Tammany politicians.9 Though he quickly dismissed a number of men for "inefficiency" and "intentional apathy" and replaced certain high-ranking officials with younger men who possessed military and technical backgrounds, he was determined to retain most of the employees. This would demonstrate that past deficiencies derived not from the quality of the staff, but from their subjection to political interference. Eager to assume the position of an impartial administrator, Waring explained that he was "making no criticism of Tammany Hall—only of politics as the ruling factor in city govern- 7For example, Tyrol and the Skirt of the Alps (New York: 1880); The Bride of the Rhine: Two Hundred Miles in a Mosel Row-boat (Boston: 1878). 8 Waring was well known in literary and social circles in New York, Boston, and Newport. He was in a large measure responsible for launching the career of George Washington Cable. See Henry Holt, Garrulities of an Octogenarian Editor (New York, 1923), 125; Arlin Turner, George W. Cable, a Biography (Durham, N.C.: 1956), 109-11. 0 New York City Board of Aldermen, Report on the Administration of the Street Cleaning Department of the City of New York (New York: 1906), 5; Fox, Report, 6; William Strong to Richard Gilbert, September 20,1895, Strong Mayoralty Papers, New York City Municipal Archives (hereafter cited as MA). See also Times, January 6,1895.