For the carriage trade, for the horses and the drivers, for the kids and the tourists and the lovers and animal people, these are once again the times that try men’s souls. A hard time for them, again. Still.
The people in the carriage trade are low again, anxious and tired and broke. They are worried about their families, their futures, their lives. For them, the American experiment – work hard, live freely, follow your notions of happiness – has become a nightmare.
The mayor says he was too busy doing more important things to get rid of the carriage horses, but he is free now and focused. He is, he he says, now moving ahead aggressively to wheel and deal, lobby, bargain and the cajole the members of the New York City Council – the most vulnerable of politicians, never known for their profiles in courage or stands of principle – to vote to ban the horses and carriages from the city of New York forever, and replace them with $160,000 vintage electric cars.
This conflict erupted into the open nationally earlier this year when the mayor said his first and most urgent priority upon taking office would be to ban the carriage horses. The public, the city’s newspaper’s, labor and business all rallied to the carriage trade’s cause, but it doesn’t really seem to matter what the people think, or that 300 innocent people and their families face the loss of their livelihood or way of life and reputations.
The mayor, who has never spoken with a single person in the carriage trade and hid from repeated offers to visit the horse stables, is taking his cause into the back rooms, out of sight and reach of the public and the people most affected. The political wizards say he has no choice politically but to prevail on this issue – he is way out on a long limb.
One City Council member told a reporter that he had already been offered two new playgrounds and a refurbished elementary school in exchange for his vote to ban the horses. He is wobbling. “We are very dependent on the mayor for our survival.”
One can only imagine what everybody else is getting. The cause has the mayor’s full attention again. The carriage trade people are back on the firing line again.
When I first began writing about this story in January, the horse’s cause seemed hopeless, but then the carriage trade awakened, recruited Liam Neeson, cranked up some web sites, got a good spokesperson, opened up the stables to public inspection, and rallied an enormous amount of support. They were just beginning to relax – the mayor had gone silent on the issue for months – until last week. Once again, this long and cruel campaign is taking it’s toll.
“We are not wealthy people,” one of the drivers told me, “we live each week on what we earn. If they succeed in banning us for even a few weeks, we can’t last, it could be all over. It doesn’t seem to matter that we’ve done nothing wrong and broken no laws, this all seems to have a life of it’s own. We are tired and worn down and worried. If they vote to ban us, we may not be able to come back and fight, we might not survive a court fight.”
So these are hard and testing times for the carriage trade, and for the people who support them. It is not my place to give advice or offer wisdom – no one has asked me. All I can do is ponder what I might do and what I hope might happen. All I can do is plea for strength and courage for them. The carriage trade is in so much stronger a position now than they were in January. There is so much more public awareness of the injustice and cruelty being done to them, of the truth about the well-cared for horses facing extinction at the hands of the mob.
Were it me, I would get a lawyer who likes to speak truth to power – there are many in New York. I would file suit against the mayor, and the City Council and the animal rights groups who have been libeling and slandering the carriage trade for so many years. I would seek an injunction against the mayor to block his wiping out an entire industry that is already heavily regulated and whose members are popular, engaged with the public, and who have broken no law, committed no crime and violated no regulations. I would ask the courts for protection from government overreach and abuse.
At the very least, I would force these self-righteous people to stand in the light of day and look me in the eye, and prove that what they say is true.
I would take a deep and legal look at all of those campaign funds spent to ban the horses – how much, who did they go to, and what for? My wish is for the mayor and his colleagues in the animal rights movement to be pulled from behind their nasty blogs and websites and fund-raising dinners and back-room meeting places and into the light where they can explain to all of us what they are doing and why they are doing it. It’s called democracy, and I believe it works. There is nothing more powerful than light and truth. It is the best friend of the horses and the people who own and drive them.
We are all grown-ups, I am sure most New Yorkers do not really care if the horses stay or not and would survive without them. Why shouldn’t they? Most never see them and can’t afford to ride them around the park. But New Yorkers do care about fairness and social justice and the need of working people to be left in peace to do their work and live their lives. I was a newspaper editor and reporter for some years, I know libel and slander when I see it, I would seek significant damages from the people who have been distorting the truth, leveling false accusations and harassing the carriage drivers wantonly for some years now. I’ve met a dozen carriage drivers who have been slandered, in public and on the record. I believe they would have a strong case in front of any New York judge or jury.
This is still America, and in America, ordinary people have rights and redresses, they can stand up to big and powerful governments, and to abuse of power and seek both legal protection and, when necessary, compensation. The animal rights groups are drunk on arrogance, they have overstepped their boundaries so many times in so many foolish ways. They offer themselves as a Christmas feast for a fired-up attorney looking to make a name for him or herself. It is the job of government to protect liberty and property, not to take both away for the most transparent political and financial reasons. If you don’t care about the horses, or the future of animals in our world, then perhaps at least you may care about truth and fairness.
No one can sit outside this evolving tragedy and tell the people inside the tent what they ought to do, surely not me, sitting on my farm in upstate New York. They have suffered enough, and suffered it for a long time. There is only so much anyone can take.
Some will tire and fade, some will run away and no one can point a finger at them. But he that stands by his cause deserves the thanks of every man and woman. For all of us who care about this issue, this is the crunch time, the moment. They will either drive the horses from New York and ruin the lives of hundreds of people for no reason, or they will not. This is a time to act, before all of those deals are made in the dark.
That means it is crunch time for me as well, and for anyone who understands the true important of this issue, what it means to people, what it means to animals. Horses and people have been together since the beginning of recorded history. They belong together now, more than ever.
It may be necessary to raise a lot of money to help pay lawyers to challenge this new kind of witch hunt. It may be necessary to go to New York City and shout in the streets. It may be necessary to raise money to help keep the people in the carriage trade going while they fight their fight and stand for their cause and ours. Because our own right to live freely is at stake, our own ideas about the lives of animals is in question, the future of animals in our world is in peril. If they take these people’s jobs and animals away from them in this way, we will all have lost something dear.
It is a time to weep for the tired and frightened people in the carriage trade. It is also a time to pat them on the back, a time for them and us to decide, once and for all, if they wish to pursue the fight to victory, or if it is simply too much for them and their families to bear. It is no small thing to take on a mob and a mayor and a city council all at the same time, only they can decide what they want to do.
I hope they will give rebirth and renewal to their fight. I am sorry to see them falling silent again, mostly out of confusion and exhaustion, not lack of conviction. The trade has not yet even responded to the mayor’s announcement that he is pursuing the ban again. They seem battered to me, a bit lost.
There are so many people now willing to stand with them, especially at this turning point. I hope to hear soon that they will challenge this outrageous injustice once again, and in the strongest, loudest and clearest way. I believe it is a signal they need to send themselves as well as the rest of us.
I am ready to hear it.
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;,” wrote Paine, “yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”
The horses speak to us of dearness, their cause is of great value.
