"There are some lessons that New York ought to learn from such an experience as that of yesterday. Nothing is to be gained by grumbling at the transportation companies as they now exist. Their shortcomings are many in ordinary times, but yesterday they were helpless. The storm had taken possession of everything above ground and would not be withstood. But what an argument it furnished for underground transit and underground wires! It is safe to say that the direct and indirect loss inflicted upon New York by yesterday’s paralysis would represent at least a year’s interest upon an enormous investment. Underground railways in any case must be a beneficence of slow growth, and we shall have to be satisfied if the present experience results in crystallizing public opinion into the demand which will not be denied for some available comprehensive plan to be undertaken as soon as may be."