A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 22

William M. Tweed had become a State senator in 1867. At this time he held seventeen city offices.[1222] But one more place did not embarra.s.s him, and in entering upon his new career he promptly invoked the tactics that strengthened him in the metropolis. Through the influence of a Republican colleague on the Board of Supervisors he secured appointments upon the important committees of Finance and Internal Affairs, the first pa.s.sing upon all appropriations, and the second controlling most of the subordinate legislation in the State including Excise measures. This opportunity for reviewing general legislation gave him the advantage of a hawk circling in the sky of missing no chance for plunder. By means of generous hospitality and a natural affability he quickly won the esteem of his fellow senators, many of whom responded to his gentle suggestion of city clerkships for const.i.tuents. In his pretended zeal to serve Republicans he had offered, during the recent contest for United States senator, to marshal the Democrats to the support of Charles J. Folger, the leader of the Senate, provided two Republican senators and twelve a.s.semblymen would vote for him.[1223] Persons familiar with Tweed's true character understood that a senator of Folger's integrity and ability would be less in the way at Washington than in Albany, but his apparent desire to help the Genevan did him no harm.

[Footnote 1222: New York _Nation_, September 30, 1869.]

[Footnote 1223: New York _World_, January 12, 1869.]

Thus intrenched in the good will of his colleagues Tweed, early in the session, began debauching the tax levies for the city and county of New York. His party controlled the a.s.sembly, and his henchman, William Hitchman, whom he had made speaker, controlled its committees.

What the Senate did, therefore, would be approved in the House. The tax levies contained items of expense based upon estimates by the different departments of the munic.i.p.al and county governments. They were prepared by the comptroller, examined by the city council and county supervisors respectively, and submitted to the Legislature for its approval. In the process they might be swelled by the comptroller and the two boards, but the Legislature, acting as an outside and disinterested party, usually trimmed them. Tweed, however, proposed to swell them again. Accordingly projects for public improvements, asylums, hospitals, and dispensaries that never existed except on paper, appeared as beneficiaries of county and city. The comptroller concealed these thefts by the issue of stocks and bonds and the creation of a floating debt, which formed no part of his statements.[1224] When the committee on appropriations reported these additions, "the increase," it was claimed in the progress of the discussion, "was called for only by plunderers."

[Footnote 1224: Gustavus Myers, _History of Tammany Hall_, p. 274.]

The pa.s.sage of these vicious appropriations, requiring the help of Republicans, gave rise to numerous charges of bribery and corruption.

"It was fully believed here," said the _Tribune_, "that tax levies supplied the means for fabricating naturalisation papers and hiring repeaters whereby Republicans were swindled out of the vote of this State."[1225] Other corrupt practices in connection with important railroad legislation, having special reference to the pa.s.sage of the so-called "Erie Bill," likewise attracted public attention. But Matthew Hale's investigating committee, after a long and fruitless session in the summer of 1868, expressed the opinion that the crime of bribery could not be proven under the law as it then existed, since both parties to the transaction were liable to punishment. This led to a new statute exempting from prosecution the giver of a bribe which was accepted.

[Footnote 1225: New York _Tribune_, July 24, 1869.]

However, the Legislature elected in November, 1868, proved no less plastic in the hands of the Boss, who again corrupted the tax levies.

After allowing every just item the committee coolly added six millions,[1226] an amount subsequently reduced to three.[1227] This iniquity was immediately denounced and exposed through pamphlets, journals, and debates. Men frankly admitted that no reason or economic principle justified the existence of such monstrous levies. Indeed, every honest influence, legal, social, and political, opposed it. The press condemned it, good men mourned over it, and wise men unmasked it. But with the help of twenty Republicans, backed by the approval of John T. Hoffman, the bill became a law. This time, however, indignation did not die with the Legislature. The _Tribune_, charging that the twenty Republican a.s.semblymen whose names it published were "bought and paid with cash stolen by means of tax levies," insisted that "the rascals" should not be renominated. "We firmly believe," it added, "that no Republican voted for these levies except for pay ...

and we say distinctly that we do not want victory this fall if it is to be in all respects like the victory of last fall."[1228]

[Footnote 1226: New York _Tribune_, July 24, 1869.]

[Footnote 1227: _Ibid._, July 22.]

[Footnote 1228: _Ibid._, July 24, and 29.]

Local party leaders, resenting the _Tribune's_ declarations, packed conventions, renominated the black-listed legislators, and spread such demoralisation that George William Curtis, Thomas Hillhouse, and John C. Robinson withdrew from the State ticket. As a punishment for his course the State Committee, having little faith in the election of its candidates, subst.i.tuted Horace Greeley for comptroller in place of Hillhouse.[1229] In accepting the nomination Greeley expressed the hope that it never would be said of him that he asked for an office, or declined an honourable service to which he was called.[1230]

[Footnote 1229: The Republican State convention, held at Syracuse on September 30, 1869, nominated the following ticket: Secretary of state, George William Curtis, Richmond; Comptroller Thomas Hillhouse, Ontario; Treasurer, Thomas S. Chatfield, Tioga; Attorney-General, Martin I. Townsend, Rensselaer; Engineer and Surveyor, John C.

Robinson, Broome; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Stephen F. Hoyt, Steuben; Prison Inspector, Daniel D. Conover, New York; Court of Appeals, Lewis B.

Woodruff, New York; Charles Mason, Madison.

Franz Sigel, Horace Greeley, and William B. Taylor of Oneida were subsequently subst.i.tuted for Curtis, Hillhouse, and Robinson.]

[Footnote 1230: New York _Tribune_, October 11, 1869.]

If corruption had demoralised Republicans, fear of a repet.i.tion of the Tweed frauds paralysed them. The plan of having counties telegraph the votes needed to overcome an up-State majority could be worked again as successfully as before, since the machinery existed and the men were more dexterous. Besides, danger of legal punishment had disappeared.

The Union League Club had established nothing, the congressional investigation had resulted in no one's arrest, and Matthew Hale's committee had found existing law insufficient. Moreover, Hale had reported that newspaper charges were based simply upon rumours unsupported by proof.[1231]

[Footnote 1231: Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1869, p. 486.]

Tweed understood all this, and his confidence whetted an ambition to control the State as absolutely as he did the city. At the Syracuse convention which a.s.sembled in September (1869) Tilden represented the only influence that could be vitalised into organised opposition.

Tilden undoubtedly despised Tweed. Yet he gave him countenance and saved the State chairmanship.[1232]

[Footnote 1232: The Democratic ticket was as follows: Secretary of state, Homer A. Nelson, Dutchess; Comptroller, William F. Allen, Oswego; Treasurer, Wheeler H. Bristol, Tioga; Attorney-General, Marshall B. Champlain, Allegany; State Engineer, Van Rensselaer Richmond, Wayne; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, William W. Wright; Prison Inspector, Fordyce Laflin, Ulster; Court of Appeals, John A. Lott, Kings; Robert Earl, Herkimer.]

The campaign pivoted on the acceptance or rejection of the new State const.i.tution, framed by the convention of 1867 and submitted by the Legislature of 1869. From the first the const.i.tutional convention had become a political body. Republicans controlled it, and their insistence upon unrestricted negro suffrage gave colour to the whole doc.u.ment, until the Democrats, demanding its defeat, focused upon it their united opposition. As a candidate for comptroller Horace Greeley likewise became an issue. Democrats could not forget his impatient, petulant, and, as they declared, unfair charges of election frauds, and every satirist made merry at his expense. To denunciation and abuse, however, Greeley paid no attention. "They shall be most welcome to vote against me if they will evince unabated devotion to the cause of impartial suffrage."[1233] But the people, tired of Republican rule, turned the State over to the Democrats regardless of men.[1234]

[Footnote 1233: New York _Tribune_, October 11, 1869.]

[Footnote 1234: Nelson for secretary of state over Sigel, 22,524; Allen for comptroller over Greeley, 26,533; Greeley over Sigel in New York City, 1,774; Sigel over Greeley in the State, 4,938; against the const.i.tution, 19,759; majority for the judiciary article, 6,006.--New York _Tribune_, November 23, 1869.]

Although this result was not unexpected, no one dreamed that the Democracy would win every department of the State government, executive, legislative, and judicial. For seventeen years the Democrats had twice elected the governor and once secured the a.s.sembly, while the Republicans, holding the Senate continuously and the governorship and a.s.sembly most of the time, had come to regard themselves the people's lawmakers and the representatives of executive authority. But Tweed's quiet canva.s.s in the southern tier of counties traversed by the Erie Railroad exhibited rare cunning in the capture of the State Senate. Until this fortress of Republican opposition surrendered, Hoffman's appointments, like those of Seward in 1839, could not be confirmed.

After this election William M. Tweed's supremacy was acknowledged. In 1867 he had captured the a.s.sembly and elected most of the State officials; in 1868, after forcing the nomination of John T. Hoffman, he made him governor by a system of gigantic frauds; and now in 1869, having employed similar tactics in the southern tier of counties, he had carried the Senate by four majority, secured the a.s.sembly by sixteen, and for the third time elected the State officials. This made him leader of the State Democracy. Seymour so understood it, and Tilden knew that he existed only as a figurehead.

Tweed's power became more apparent after the Legislature opened in January, 1870. He again controlled the a.s.sembly committees through William Hitchman, his speaker; he arranged them to his liking in the Senate through Allen C. Beach, the lieutenant-governor; and he sweetened a majority of the members in both houses with substantial hopes of large rewards. This defeated an organisation, called the Young Democracy, which hoped to break his power by the pa.s.sage of a measure known as the Huckleberry Charter, transferring the duties of State commissions to the Board of Aldermen. Then Tweed appeared with a charter. Sweeny was its author and home-rule its alleged object. It subst.i.tuted for metropolitan commissions, devised and fostered by Republicans, munic.i.p.al departments charged with equivalent duties, whose heads were appointed by the mayor. It also created a department of docks, and merged the election of city and state officials. Its crowning audacity, however, was the subst.i.tution of a superintendent of public works for street commissioner, to be appointed by the mayor for a term of four years, and to be removable only after an impeachment trial, in which the entire six judges of the Common Pleas Court must partic.i.p.ate. It was apparent that this charter perpetuated whatever was most feared in the system of commissions, and obliterated all trace of the corrective. It was obvious, also, that by placing officials beyond the reach of everybody interested in their good behaviour except the Courts, whose aid could be invoked only by the mayor, and by him only for the extreme offense of malfeasance, it gave a firmer hold to a Ring actuated by the resolute determination to enrich itself at the public expense.

Yet this measure encountered little opposition. The Young Democracy, backed by Tilden and the remnant of the Albany Regency, exposed its dangerous features, the _Times_ called it an "abominable charter,"[1235] and Manton Marble bitterly denounced it. But Tweed raised no flag of truce, and after the distribution of a million of dollars the Sweeny charter had an easy pa.s.sage through both houses, the Senate recording but two votes against it and the a.s.sembly only five.[1236] It was said that five Republican senators received $40,000 each, and six others $10,000 each. Six hundred thousand went to a lobbyist to buy a.s.semblymen.[1237] Within three days after its pa.s.sage (April 5) the Governor had approved it, the Mayor had appointed Tweed to the position of most power, and Sweeny had taken the place of most lucre. Thereafter, as commissioner of public works, the Boss was to be "the bold burglar," and his silent partner "the dark plotter." A week later the departments of police and health, the office of comptroller, the park commission, and the great law bureau had pa.s.sed into the control of their pals, with Connolly as "sneak-thief" and Hall "the dashing bandit of the gang."[1238] Indeed, a month had scarcely elapsed before the _ad interim_ Board of Audit, authorised by the Legislature as an additional scheme for theft, and composed of Tweed, Hall, and Connolly, had ordered the payment of $6,000,000, and within the year, as subsequent revelations disclosed, its bills aggregated $12,250,000, of which 66 per cent. went to the thieves.[1239]

[Footnote 1235: New York _Times_, March 25, 1870.]

[Footnote 1236: The Tweed Case, 1876, Vol. 2, p. 1212.]

[Footnote 1237: Doc.u.ment No. 8, pp. 84-92; Gustavus Myers, _History of Tammany Hall_, p. 272; James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 6, p. 395; New York _Tribune_, September 17, 1877.]

[Footnote 1238: Albert B. Paine, _Life of Thomas Nast_, p. 143.]

[Footnote 1239: John Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 185.]

John T. Hoffman approved Tweed's measures. During the earlier months of his gubernatorial career his veto of several bills granting aid to railroads gave promise of independence, but after Tweed and Sweeny became directors of the Erie he approved the measure enabling corrupt operators to retain possession of the road for an indefinite period in defiance of the stockholders. It is probable that the real character and fatal tendency of his a.s.sociates had not been revealed to him.

Nevertheless, ambition seems to have blunted a strong, alert mind. The appointment of Ingraham, Cardozo, and Barnard to the General Term of the Supreme Court within the city of New York, if further evidence were needed, revealed the Governor's subserviency. To avoid the Tweed judges as well as interruption to the business of the Courts, the Bar a.s.sociation asked the Executive to designate outside judges. Tweed understood the real object, and before the lawyers' committee, consisting of Charles O'Conor, Joseph H. Choate, Henry Nicoll, William H. Peckham, and William E. Curtis, could reach Albany, the Governor, under telegraphic instructions from the Boss, appointed the notorious trio. Such revelations of weakness plunged the _Evening Post_ and other admirers into tribulation. "The moral of Hoffman's fall," said the _Nation_, "is that respectable citizens must give up the notion that good can be accomplished by patting anybody on the back who, having got by accident or intrigue into high official position, treats them to a few spasms of virtue and independence.... Had Hoffman held out against the Erie Ring he would have had no chance of renomination, all hope of the Presidency would be gone, and he would find himself ostracised by his Democratic a.s.sociates."[1240]

[Footnote 1240: The _Nation_, May 27, 1869.]

Hoffman knew this as well as the _Nation_, and his obedience made him the favourite of the Democratic State convention which a.s.sembled at Rochester on September 21, 1870. It was a Tweed body. When he nodded the delegates became unanimous. Tilden called it to order and had his pocket picked by a gentleman in attendance.[1241] "We hope he has a realising sense of the company he keeps," said the _Nation_, "when he opens conventions for Mr. Tweed, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Sweeny."[1242] A week later it expressed the opinion that "Tilden's appearance ought to be the last exhibition the country is to witness of the alliance of decent men for any purpose with these wretched thieves and swindlers."[1243] The plundering Boss denied so much as a hearing to the Young Democracy whom Tilden encouraged, while their delegates, without vote or voice or seat, witnessed the renomination of Hoffman by acclamation, and saw the programme, drafted by Tweed, executed with unanimity. Mighty was Tammany, and, mightier still, its Tweed! The Rochester authorities urged the departure of the delegates before dark, and upon their arrival at Jersey City the next morning the local police made indiscriminate arrests and locked up large batches of them, including a Commissioner of Charities and Correction.[1244]

[Footnote 1241: The _Nation_, September 29, 1870.]

[Footnote 1242: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1243: _Ibid._, October 6.

The following officials were nominated by acclamation: Governor, John T. Hoffman; Lieutenant-Governor, Allen C. Beach; Comptroller, Asher P.

Nichols; Ca.n.a.l Commissioners, John D. Fay and George W. Chapman; Prison Inspector, Solomon E. Scheu.]

[Footnote 1244: The _Nation_, September 29.]

CHAPTER XVIII

CONKLING DEFEATS FENTON

1870