THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912
Wilson’s nomination in 1912 was equivalent to an election. The split in
the Republican Party made this a foregone conclusion. They forgot the
interests of the country in a bitter internal struggle for the control
of their party machinery. Roosevelt, furiously ambitious to regain his
power, was pitted against the old organization bosses, who were
determined to retain possession of the party. Led by Penrose they were
lost in an implacable rage against the “rebel” who had once unhorsed
them in the party councils. To them the election of a president became a
secondary matter. The supremely important issue was the control of their
party machinery. Penrose and his fellow bosses felt that their
future--their very existence as political leaders--was at stake. If
Roosevelt made good his position, that the Independents ought to
continue to control the mechanism of the party (as they had controlled
it during his tenure of office), what did it profit Penrose and his kind
to build up their state machines, only to be balked of the supreme prize
of national ascendancy? They would, like Othello, find their occupation
gone. With the fury of men blinded by hatred and ambition, they
preferred to wreck the party’s chances for the next four years if, by so
doing, they could destroy the Roosevelt rebellion against their
domination.
I really felt that my own connection with the campaign was at an end.
With the Presidency thus secure by reason of the Republicans’
internecine quarrel, we Democrats were in the position of a plaintiff
who had simply to go through the formality of entering judgment by
default and take possession of the Government on behalf of the people.
I had never participated in the active work of a national campaign, and
it did not appeal to me to do so. The offer made me by McCombs to become
chairman of the Finance Committee I had promptly declined, as I thought
that if I had anything to do with the finances of the National
Democratic Committee, I should be treasurer. So I prepared to spend the
summer in the Adirondacks. But the day that I was to take my family to
the mountains I motored down to Sea Girt to bid Governor Wilson
good-bye. The Governor had not yet come down to breakfast, and, as I had
to take an early train to make my connection for the mountains, I was
about to leave when word came down from him requesting me to wait a few
minutes longer, as he was anxious to see me. Shortly afterward he came
down the steps, as sprightly and active as a man of thirty, full of
energy and determination. When I told him I had come to say good-bye to
him, he was surprised and concerned.
“This is a great disappointment to me,” said Governor Wilson. “I had
hoped that you would accept the position of chairman of the Finance
Committee. This is a new position which I have asked the National
Committee to create especially for you, and I had relied upon your
willingness to accept it and render me a great service.”
I told the Governor that I was disinclined to be merely a money
collector, and unless I was appointed treasurer, or a member of the
Campaign Committee, I should not care to participate in the campaign.
The Governor answered:
“Of course I expect you to be a member of the Campaign Committee, and I
still hope that I can persuade you to accept the chairmanship of the
Finance Committee. My idea is that in this campaign the chairman of the
Finance Committee will have to perform the functions of the president of
a bank, directing the large financial policies and protecting me against
mistakes of accepting moneys from improper sources. The treasurer should
correspond to the cashier. He should be the custodian of the funds and
have charge of the clerical and bookkeeping details.
“I shall insist that no contributions whatever be even indirectly
accepted from any corporation. I want especial attention paid to the
small contributors. And I want great care exercised over the way the
money is spent. These duties will call for an unusual degree of
ingenuity and resourcefulness. I would not ask you to undertake this
task if I didn’t think you had the imagination to accomplish it; and I
would not expect you to accept it if I did not think it would be
interesting to a man of your experience and ability.”
The Governor seemed so genuinely concerned and showed so clearly that he
dreaded facing another financial canvass after the frequent worries he
had endured from this source in his pre-nomination fight, that I could
no longer resist. I accepted, and added:
“I shall take a few days to settle my family in the Adirondacks; then I
shall return and get to work. And now, Governor, having accepted the
responsibility, I want to assure you that you may dismiss all thoughts
of finance from your mind from now until election.”
The Governor took my hand and held it while he said:
“You do not realize what a load you are lifting from my shoulders. I can
now devote myself entirely to campaigning and to my duties as Governor.”
I considered the discussion closed and was about to leave, when the
Governor detained me.
“One thing more,” he said. “There are three rich men in the Democratic
Party whose political affiliations are so unworthy that I shall depend
on you personally to see that none of their money is used in my
campaign!”
I gave him my assurance, and he gave me their names. This was the only
occasion on which I discussed finances with Mr. Wilson from that day to
this. I made good my promise that he should have no cause to think again
of finances. And when he went into the White House he went without
obligations, expressed or implied, to any man for any money that had
been contributed during the campaign.
The principal reason I was able to make good my promise to the Governor
was that I instituted, for the first time in American political history,
a budget system both for collecting the funds and expending them. I
called to my assistance Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick, a budget expert; and in
consultation with the members of the Democratic National Committee, we
worked out an allotment of the amounts we expected from the various
states. We then worked out the kinds of legitimate expenditures which we
would encounter, weighed their relative values, and allotted to each its
corresponding proportion of the money we expected to raise. With minor
exceptions, we adhered to this budget throughout the campaign; and we
had the great pleasure of paying every bill in full before the first of
the following January, and of having $25,000 cash balance to the credit
of the National Committee in bank.
My financial work in the National Committee was novel to me only in the
sense that it was managing the use of money in a new field. But my work
with the Committee on its human and political sides was an entirely new
experience, and a very fascinating one.
On the human side, I found the same play of personal ambitions--of
jealousy and other evil passions--aroused by the prospect of advantage
in politics, that I had seen aroused by the prospect of material reward
in business. But, on the whole, the human picture in politics was as
pleasant as it was interesting. Our headquarters was, to be sure, the
scene of the ill-humoured rivalries of McCombs and McAdoo and their
adherents; but, on the other hand, it was the scene also of the touching
fraternal devotion of “Joe” Wilson, whom the Governor affectionately
called “my kid brother,” who gladly did all the tasks that came to hand
out of sheer regard for the Governor. The delightful friendships that I
formed with Rollo Wells, Josephus Daniels, Joseph E. Davies, Senator
O’Gorman, Hugh C. Wallace, Homer S. Cummings, and others, were a source
of enduring pleasure. We all soon fell into the genial habit of calling
one another by our first names--this is indeed a custom of the National
Committee. McCombs, who felt somewhat my greater age, began calling me
“Uncle Henry,” a name which has since stuck to me in the familiar
conversation of most of my close political friends.
As it ultimately turned out, the headquarters was a proving ground for
coming Cabinet members, senators, and diplomats. Josephus Daniels had
for the moment abandoned his paper in North Carolina and come to New
York to take charge of the national publicity. McAdoo dropped his
business temporarily to become vice-chairman of the National Committee
and forward the Wilson fortunes. Congressman Redfield, discarded by the
local Democratic organization in Brooklyn, found an opportunity for
usefulness which led to his later appointment as Secretary of Commerce.
At the Chicago branch of National Headquarters, Albert S. Burleson of
Texas was a field-marshal of our growing army. Colonel House did not
take an active part in the direction of the campaign; he was then only
in process of attracting Wilson’s confidence in him as a man above the
wish for personal advancement.
But on its political side I found my work a real revelation. Perhaps,
indeed, the biggest single lesson I ever got in politics I got through
the contact I then experienced with William Sulzer, who was Democratic
candidate for Governor of New York. This experience added so much to my
knowledge of the invisible government which stands behind government,
and was besides so picturesque and dramatic, that I think it worth while
recounting it at some length.
One morning as I sat at my desk at the headquarters in New York, an odd
though familiar figure was ushered into my office. I had known William
Sulzer for perhaps twenty years. His greatest pride was his resemblance
in face and figure to the immortal Henry Clay. This physical resemblance
was not fanciful. Sulzer had his high forehead, large mouth, and
deep-set eyes--he bore, indeed, altogether a quite remarkable likeness
to the Sage of Ashland. He had, too, the same long, slender, and
loose-jointed figure. This resemblance, with which Nature had endowed
him, Sulzer had cultivated with assiduous care. He had grown a long
forelock, and had trained it to fall over the forehead after the Clay
style. And he had cultivated a gift for ready speech into as near an
approach to the eloquence of Clay as his limitations of mind permitted.
But as I looked up at him that morning in 1912, I saw Sulzer garbed in a
strange departure from the elegance with which Clay, who was something
of a dandy, was used to adorn his person. Sulzer was made up--it is fair
to use this theatrical expression because Sulzer was evidently seeking a
theatrical effect--made up to portray the part of “a statesman of the
people.” His coat was of one pattern, and his vest of another. His
baggy trousers were of a third. The gray sombrero which he always
affected was rather dingy; his linen just a trifle soiled. Familiar as I
was with Sulzer’s political poses, through our acquaintance, I mentally
noted the skill of the morning’s costume in dressing the part of “a
friend of the people.”
Sulzer’s career had been of a sort possible only in America. A native of
New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, a graduate of Columbia
University, a man of good family, good mind, and good education, he had
taken up his residence on the lower East Side of New York City, had
joined the Tammany organization, and had struck out boldly for a great
political career in those untoward surroundings. Despite his religious
heritage, he had been greatly impressed, as a young man, with the
prophecy of a clairvoyant who had told him he should be Speaker of the
New York State Assembly, Governor of New York, and President of the
United States.
Sulzer had, indeed, made considerable progress on this path of political
advancement. Elected to the State Assembly as a young man in his early
twenties, he quickly rose to prominence, and at thirty he was chosen
Speaker--the youngest man, I believe, ever to hold that office. From the
State Assembly he was sent by Tammany to Congress, and now, in 1912, had
represented his district in Washington for seventeen years. He
constantly “played up” to the Jewish element. The ingratiating manner
which he carefully cultivated appealed to a people, proud, sensitive,
and accustomed to a lack of consideration from officers of Government.
In Congress he was indefatigable in the interest of his constituents;
and, on the whole, his attitude on public questions was satisfactory.
From the public viewpoint Sulzer was one of the most respectable of the
Tammany adherents. From the Tammany viewpoint he was “safe.”
The nomination of Governor Wilson and the assurances of Democratic Party
success in the national campaign gave Sulzer his great opportunity. From
the Tammany leaders came covert intimations to us members of the
Democratic National Committee, that we would be permitted to suggest the
Democratic candidate for Governor of New York. Fortunately we realized
the implications of this offer and declined it. It meant, in substance,
that Tammany, by permitting us to name the candidate for Governor,
thereby became fully affiliated with the national campaign and would be
in a position to demand, after election, special consideration in the
distribution of Federal patronage. We made a reply which did not offend
Tammany but which, on the other hand, left us entirely free of the
Tammany entanglement. We said that we were not interested in taking a
hand in the state situation; that we endorsed the then widespread public
demand for an “open convention” to nominate the Governor. We suggested
that Tammany refrain from dictating the nomination, so that the
Independents of New York would support the national as well as the state
Democratic ticket.
The Tammany leaders professed to accept this decision. The state
convention, when held, had the air of an open convention. They cast
about for a candidate, and settled on Sulzer. Without inconveniencing
Tammany, he had been able to make something of a reputation as a
political progressive. He had professed a great attachment for social
reforms, the kind which Roosevelt in Washington and Wilson in New Jersey
had made popular. He had built up a reputation as a friend of the common
man, and in New York he was still “strong with the East Side.” Tammany
manipulated the “open convention” at Syracuse, and Sulzer was nominated
for Governor.
I had followed Sulzer’s career with a good deal of interest. Though I
did not approve of his capitalizing politically his friendship for a
racial element, I felt, nevertheless, that he had been a useful public
servant; and he had been successful with me, as he had been with many
other political independents, in making me believe that he was sincerely
interested in the cause of civic reform. Consequently, I greeted him
cordially.
Sulzer began the conversation by thanking me for “what I had done in
helping him and bringing about his nomination.” This was a polite
generality as, of course, I had had no hand in that enterprise, except
that I had been a party to the “hands-off” policy of the National
Committee, and also, that I had shared in the request of the Committee
to McAdoo not to accept this nomination which some of his friends were
trying, with some hope of success, to secure for him. We had felt that
it was his duty to stay in the national campaign, as McCombs was still
incapacitated by illness.
Sulzer then went on to express the wish that I would be of use to him
after he was elected. He spoke in glowing terms of the reputation
Governor Wilson had made by his reforms in New Jersey, and expressed an
ambition to make a similar record as Governor of New York. He confided
to me the clairvoyant’s prophecy of his future and declared that he
believed that the path to the Presidency lay in championing “the cause
of the people.”
He wanted my coöperation, after he should be elected Governor, in
formulating plans to make his administration a success. As everyone
knows who is experienced either in business or politics, there are
“subtleties of approach” that suggest a man’s real meaning without his
even remotely mentioning the true subject in conversation. Sulzer’s
remarks were of this nature. I saw plainly that he was directing my
thoughts to a point where it would be possible for him without
embarrassment to solicit a subscription to his campaign fund. I wanted
to save the future Governor of New York from soliciting a subscription,
and consequently, I forestalled his intention by voluntarily handing him
my check for $1,000. His response to this action was in keeping with the
amenities of the situation. He said: “I did not expect that from you. I
don’t want it, because you are doing so much for the National
Committee.” But the check disappeared into a pocket of his dingy coat.
In the meantime, the march of political events led us on to Election Day
and victory. Woodrow Wilson was triumphantly elected President, with a
Democratic Congress behind him. The political ambitions of some of his
managers were gratified. McAdoo became Secretary of the Treasury;
Daniels, Secretary of the Navy; Redfield, Secretary of Commerce; and
Burleson, Postmaster-General. What my friends a few months earlier had
called a hopeless cause was now a dazzling success.
In April, 1913, Senator O’Gorman telephoned me from Washington that he
had been requested by the President to offer me the Ambassadorship to
Turkey. I apparently astonished him when I told him please to thank the
President for me, but that I would not accept. O’Gorman, whom I had
known for many years, urged me to come to Washington to discuss the
matter with him. He said that I had no right to refuse such a tender
over the telephone. I complied with his request, and we discussed the
matter one evening until well past midnight. O’Gorman used all his
persuasive powers, and told me that it seemed strange that I, an entire
newcomer in politics, without ever having rendered any other political
service, should have the temerity to decline to be one of the
President’s ten personal representatives, in the capacity of Ambassador
at one of the important Courts of Europe. He told me that the President
was very much disappointed at my decision; and urged me to see him
personally, and explain to him my reasons for declining. He said he knew
the President was very anxious to avail himself of my services, and
thought it ill advised for me to refuse to obey what amounted to a
command from the head of the Government. I called on the President, and
he said:
“I want you to take the Embassy at Constantinople. I am convinced that
the two posts that demand the greatest intellectual equipment in our
representatives are Turkey and China. Therefore, I am particularly
concerned to have, in these two countries, men upon whom I can
absolutely rely for sound judgment and knowledge of human nature. This
is the reason I am asking you to take the post at Constantinople.”
“If that is the situation,” I replied, “I should much prefer China,
although it is only a ministership. And for this reason: the Jews of
this country have become very sensitive (and I think properly so) over
the impression which has been created by successive Jewish appointments
to Turkey, that that is the only diplomatic post to which a Jew can
aspire. All the Jews that I have consulted about your offer have advised
and urged me to decline it. Oscar Straus has been criticized by some of
his co-religionists for accepting a second and even a third appointment
to Constantinople. I don’t mind criticism, but I share the feeling of
the other Jews that it is unwise to confirm an impression that this is
the only field for them in the diplomatic service.”
Mr. Wilson’s reply was aggressive in manner and almost angry in tone.
“I should have hoped,” he said, “that you had a higher opinion of my
open-mindedness and freedom from prejudice than this. I certainly draw
no such distinctions, and I am sorry that you should have thought so. I
think you will agree with me when I give you my further reasons for
this choice. In the first place, Constantinople is the point at which
the interest of the American Jews in the welfare of the Jews of
Palestine is focussed, and it is almost indispensable that I have a Jew
at that post. On the other hand, our interests in China are expressed
largely in the form of missionary activities, and it seems quite
necessary that our Minister there should be a Christian, and preferably
a man of the evangelical type; and I am sincerely anxious to have you
accept Turkey.”
Nevertheless, I remained firm in my refusal to accept the offer, and
told the President I would have to find some non-political path in which
to serve the people.
As I left the President, he gave me a look which is hardly describable.
He was sadly disappointed that he had not been able to dominate my
decision. He showed a deep affection for me, and it was evident how much
he regretted that his arguments had failed to persuade me. On the other
hand, I felt sorry, and probably showed it in my face, that I appeared
so ungrateful at not promptly complying with his request, and abiding by
his judgment that Turkey was the best place in which I could serve the
country.
Shortly thereafter, my wife, my daughter Ruth, and I embarked for
Europe, where we intended to spend the summer. While at Aix-les-Bains, I
met Ambassador Myron T. Herrick, and I mentioned to him that I had
refused the Ambassadorship to Turkey. He told me that I had made a
grievous mistake, and probably from ignorance; that I did not comprehend
what a splendid position that of Ambassador was; that not only I, but my
children and my children’s children, would be benefited by my having
held such a position. He ended by urging me that if I still could obtain
the post, I should take steps to secure it.
My friend, Dr. Stephen S. Wise (of the Free Synagogue of New York, of
which I was president), was then in Paris. I wrote him about the matter,
and asked whether he could come to Aix-les-Bains for a consultation. He
replied that he had but three days left in Europe, but that if I would
start to Dijon the following morning he would also start from Paris, and
we should both reach Dijon at noon. He would meet me at the station, and
we could have four hours together to discuss the matter before our
return to our respective bases.
We met at Dijon as arranged, and to my astonishment I found Wise
tremendously anxious to have me accept the position. He told me that he
had just visited Palestine, and that amongst the other services that I
could render in Turkey, would be a great service to the Jews in
Palestine. He reminded me of the happy experience, in the same office,
of Solomon Hirsch, of Portland, Ore., who had been president of his
congregation in that city. I knew the facts of that experience as Mr.
Hirsch was the uncle of Judge Samson Lachman, who had been my partner in
the practise of the law for twenty years. Dr. Wise urged me with all the
force of his eloquence to rescind my declination.
I told Dr. Wise that I would be back in America in September, and if the
position had not yet been filled at that time, I would reconsider it. On
the strength of this statement, Dr. Wise telegraphed the President that
I would accept. Within three days I received a cable from the President,
again tendering me the position, and I accepted it.
Meanwhile, on January 1, 1913, Sulzer had been inaugurated as Governor
of New York. A few weeks before this event, some of the leading social
workers of New York City came to me and asked me to secure them an
opportunity to have a conference with the President-elect. They wished
to put before him the kind of legislation that would be required to
carry out the social programme which they had been largely responsible
for having embodied in the Democratic and Progressive platforms. I told
them I did not see how the President could do much in this direction.
Most of their plans called for state legislation, and I pointed out that
it would be better and more effective for them to meet Governor Sulzer.
I offered to give a dinner at my house in New York, at which Governor
Sulzer would be the guest of honour, and I told them they might give me
a list of the people whom they wished to have meet him. The list they
gave me included the best-known social workers, such people as Homer
Folks, Owen R. Lovejoy, Mary E. Dreier, Lillian D. Wald, John A.
Kingsbury, and Edward T. Devine.
Sulzer accepted my invitation readily enough. One reason for his
acceptance became apparent when I heard that the state printer at the
moment was pressing him for the manuscript of his inaugural address,
which he had not yet written, though it was already late in December.
When the address was delivered some days later it embodied in his own
language many of the thoughts and proposals that were put forward that
evening by the social workers.
After the dinner the party adjourned to the library, and there I seated
Sulzer in a big carved oak chair, facing the others, who sat in a
semicircle before him. Each of the guests in turn made a presentation to
the Governor of the situation and needs in the field of social reform in
which he or she was an expert. These were really splendid expositions of
the improvements required in the health, child-labour, tenement-house,
and other laws. When Sulzer made his reply to their addresses, I was
astonished at the grasp he displayed of the principles involved in these
reforms, and at the eagerness with which he embraced their advocacy. It
really seemed as if he were going to go heart and soul into making a
record of progressive legislation for his administration.
I was not less delighted when, after a conference a few weeks later with
Messrs. Folks, Kingsbury, and Devine, concerning the most important of
these reforms--the drastic revision of the health laws--the four of us
went up as a delegation to see Sulzer, and secured his hearty support.
The situation was, that the health laws of New York State were being
administered by five or six hundred health boards in the various
villages, and an investigation had shown that a very substantial
percentage of the health commissioners in these places were undertakers.
We proposed a centralized state health board headed by a state health
commissioner. Sulzer agreed to back the plan. He went further and said
to me: “What’s more, you may name the Health Commissioner.” We thereupon
returned to New York, and my friends drew up a draft of new laws to
regulate the public health. This codification was enacted by the
legislature at Sulzer’s insistence, and has since been adopted by more
than thirty states. We agreed that Dr. Hermann M. Biggs was the ideal
man for Commissioner, and I asked Sulzer to appoint him. He then hedged
on his promise and selected another man, though Dr. Biggs was later
appointed and made a national reputation in the office. Sulzer did,
however, make good a part of his promise. He felt it necessary, for
political reasons, to appoint two or three men of his own choice to the
State Board of Health, but he allowed us to name the majority
membership.
Sulzer’s administration thus started auspiciously. He saw, what every
other shrewd observer also saw: the dazzling opportunity which lay
before any politician who stood out boldly for the people as against the
bosses, and who could embody this independent position in practical
measures of reform. The lesson of Roosevelt’s career had just been
confirmed by Wilson’s. But the experiences I am now narrating ultimately
convinced me that Sulzer did not have the courage which had carried
these two men of eminence. He “played politics,” and got no further than
an unconvincing imitation of their methods. He continued to assure us
Independents, on the one hand, that he was whole-heartedly converted,
and that he had broken entirely with his past. But later we found out
that he was at the same time assuring his friends in Tammany that “I am
the same old Bill.” He tried to imitate Roosevelt’s success in another
direction, in building up a personal “machine” in New York State by
coquetting with the up-state Independent Democrats, to whom he allotted
a share of the patronage which he controlled.
Ultimately, of course, both sides found him out for what he was. When
they did, the Independents simply dropped him. Tammany, however, exacted
a swift and terrible vengeance. If discipline were to be maintained
within the wigwam, not even the appearance of open revolt could be
tolerated, and Tammany proceeded to make a spectacular example of
Sulzer.
Sulzer’s first appearance at Albany as Governor was not, however, a
shock to Tammany alone. Albany is like Washington on a small scale. The
Governor’s mansion was, traditionally, not only the office of the chief
executive of the state, it had been likewise the social centre around
which revolved a sort of court of élite society. Heretofore every
governor of New York had been a very presentable social figure, and they
had all maintained at the executive mansion an atmosphere of social
distinction. Sulzer rudely overturned this tradition. He wished in every
possible way to dramatize his rôle of “friend of the people.”
Consequently, he always referred to the executive mansion as the
“People’s House,” and ostentatiously invited all who would to come and
call upon him in it. The staid Knickerbocker society of Albany was
aghast at the sight of throngs of what they termed “the rabble” invading
the hitherto exclusive chambers of the executive mansion. Great was
their anger toward Governor Sulzer. They, too, cherished hopes for
vengeance.
In the meantime, Sulzer was having other difficulties in maintaining his
rôle of independence. One day he telephoned me to come up at once to his
rooms at the Waldorf-Astoria. He had a matter of great importance to
discuss, he said, and we could talk it over at luncheon. When I arrived,
I found him in great excitement.
“The powers,” he exclaimed, meaning Tammany, “are trying to force me to
appoint a certain man chairman of the Public Service Commission, and I
am refusing to do it because I don’t think it a proper appointment. But
they are getting very angry about it, and I don’t know what to do.”
I told him there was only one thing he could do and that was to continue
to refuse to appoint him.
“But,” complained Sulzer, “it means my political death if I don’t name
him.”
“Well,” I said, “then you are going to political death anyway. Because
as surely as you yield to them, the public at large will become even
bitterer enemies than Tammany. On the other hand, if you at least prove
to the public that you have the nerve to stand out against the
organization, they will come to the rescue and stand firmly behind you.”
As we talked, a Tammany leader was announced. Sulzer had him ushered
into his bedroom while we continued our talk in the parlour. Evidently
the Tammany leader was waiting for his final decision, for at length
Sulzer said:
“Very well, I will go in there.”
He went into the bedroom and was gone for more than an hour. I had to
wait so long that I grew impatient and, ringing for a waiter, ordered my
luncheon. As I ate, I could hear the voices through the closed door, and
though I could not distinguish the conversation, it was violent, for
occasionally I could hear an explosion of vocal fireworks in the
bedroom. When at length Sulzer came out, his manner was one of excited
bravado. Throwing back the tails of his Prince Albert coat and assuming
the Henry Clay pose, he exclaimed, “Well, I have done it! I have
actually defied them!”
And he added:
“I did it on your account and by your advice. And now you have got to do
me a favour.”
When I asked what this meant, he replied: “It may come to this: Murphy
may press me so hard to name somebody else whom I ought not to nominate
that I may have to appoint you yourself as chairman of the Commission.
Even Murphy would not dare to prevent the confirmation of the
appointment of the chairman of the Finance Committee of the Democratic
National Committee. Will you accept the position if that situation
arises?”
This was a critical test of my willingness to serve the cause of good
government, as I had every reason to suspect that President Wilson would
soon offer me a position of a much greater distinction in the National
Government. But I was so wrapped up in the hope of achieving political
regeneration in New York, as we had just achieved it in the nation, that
I did not hesitate.
“If I can keep you from having to obey orders from Murphy in making your
appointments, I will even do that,” I replied.
Sulzer thanked me warmly and then added:
“Now you must do me one other favour.”
“What is that?” I inquired.
“You have got to make a speech at my birthday dinner down at the Café
Boulevard to-morrow night. I want you to show that you are back of me.”
“Governor,” I replied, “I will make that speech; but let me tell you
now, bluntly, that I shall say there what I have told you to-day, that I
shall continue to back you only so long as you adhere to your promises
to us to be independent.”
“I don’t care what you say,” said Sulzer, “if only you will come down
and prove that you are behind me.”
This dinner was quite a dramatic occasion. The old Café Boulevard was
the Delmonico of the East Side, and it had been the scene of many a
Tammany festivity. Sulzer here was among his own people, and this gave
him the feeling of confidence which came from having his friends around
him. The dinner was in celebration of his fiftieth birthday. People well
known in many walks of life crowded the tables. Sulzer was personally
still popular, and the feeling of the occasion was one of cordial good
wishes. Not only were his life-long friends of the East Side among those
present, but such other Democratic friends as Senator Stone of Missouri,
Frank I. Cobb of the New York _World_, John D. Crimmins, and myself; and
even representative Republicans, such as District Attorney (later
Governor) Whitman, Judge Otto Rosalsky, Louis Marshall, and Samuel S.
Koenig, were among the diners.
I resolved to take no chances of spoiling my speech, which I had
prepared rapidly but with great care the day before. So when I arose, I
read it. This address made a local sensation at the moment. It was
called by the papers “the wish-bone speech.” As it was very brief and as
it had some effect on the political situation at that time, I think it
worth quoting.
“Governor,” I said, “you have wished, and have been training all your
life to be a leader of the people; you have wished it so long that now
it has become true, and we want to see your wish-bone converted into
back-bone, for you will need much of it.
“You are now at the head of a mighty host that is marching onward in the
fight for good government. Picture to yourself the thousands behind you
in a solid phalanx, crowding you on so that you cannot turn back. If you
fail them as a leader the march will still proceed, and someone else
will be chosen.
“The combat is to be fought to a finish. The people have discovered how
near they were to losing their Democracy, how both great parties were in
danger of falling into the control of designing self-seekers who were
determined to secure control of the Government for their own selfish
ends. At Baltimore it was determined that they could not control the
National Government. It was you who, as presiding officer of the
Convention, gave Mr. Bryan the opportunity to throw the victory to Mr.
Wilson.
“At Syracuse, you were nominated in an open convention to lead the
Democrats of this state. We look to you to be the Governor of the Empire
State, and not to be the agent of undisclosed principals who hide
themselves from the public view. They can no longer govern this country,
state or city; and no office-holder needs to be responsible to or afraid
of them.
“There is but one master who will last forever and to whom all ought to
bow, and that is enlightened public opinion. If you enlist under its
banner, you can proceed unmolested by petty tyranny, and the harder you
fight, the greater will be the army that will enlist in your cause and
under your leadership. You are to be envied the opportunity you have to
advance the cause of good government. It is not an easy task; your
opponents are numerous and trained in the art of spiking their
opponents’ guns; but you must stand up, plant yourself firmly, saying:
‘Come one, come all. This rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as
I.’”
This address, with its unexpected note of blunt warning, became the
key-note of the evening. The other speakers discarded their prepared
addresses and spoke in a similar vein. Sulzer realized that he had to
meet this challenge, and in his reply he pledged himself anew to the
cause of the people.
“Long ago,” he said, “I made a vow to the people that in the performance
of my duty no influence would control me but the dictates of my
conscience and my determination to do the right--as I see the right--day
in and day out, regardless of political future or personal consequences.
Have no fear--I will stick at that.”
These were brave words. But Sulzer proved unequal to their promise. All
he did was to go far enough in the surface appearance of independence to
rouse the Tiger of Tammany to a fury of vengeance.
Tammany soon found an occasion to carry out this intention, and they
removed Sulzer from his office. This act of private vengeance cost
Tammany four years of control of the city government of New York, for
Hennessy’s disclosures made the public eager to administer a rebuke to
Tammany, and this rebuke took the form of electing Mitchel as Mayor.
The Tiger’s opportunity to impeach Sulzer came about in this way: When
Sulzer filed his sworn statement of campaign expenses, Tammany scented
some gross discrepancies and did some shrewd detective work. The result
was that they discovered that he had not included in his list of
contributions the $2,500 he had received from Jacob H. Schiff, nor the
checks of several others, including my own, which amounted in all to
many thousands of dollars. By careful investigation they had
established the fact that he had not applied these moneys to his
campaign expenses, but had deposited them to his personal account and
used the money as margin with a Wall Street broker for stock-market
speculation. Thereupon, Tammany leaders in the State Legislature arose
in the Assembly Chamber and impeached William Sulzer of high crimes and
misdemeanours. They charged him, among other things, with filing a false
statement of campaign expenses, with perjury, and with the suppression
of testimony; and demanded his dismissal from office. The Assembly
sustained a motion for his impeachment. When I returned from Europe in
September, 1913, I found that his trial was in progress, and I was
summoned as a witness to testify before the High Court of Impeachment.
It would take the pens of a Macaulay and a Swift to do justice to this
modern burlesque of the trial of Warren Hastings. I use the term
“burlesque” in no sense of disrespect toward the Court and its setting.
The dignity of the proceedings was almost awe-inspiring. But the
defendant lent no such exalted interest to the event as did the romantic
figure of Warren Hastings. The offences of Hastings had, at least, the
dramatic merits of their magnitude. Burke’s indictment of him was a
recital of crimes worthy of the treatment of a Greek tragic poet.
Hastings’s accusers were distressed queens, pillaged treasures, and
suffering peoples. Burke’s plea for a verdict was an appeal to the
conscience of mankind.
By this comparison the Sulzer impeachment was a travesty, the defendant
a petty misdemeanant, and the purpose of the trial a spiteful vengeance
on a rebellious henchman. The setting of the Court, however, gave the
event a fictitious dignity. The Senate Chamber at Albany had been
altered for the occasion by the state architect. A lofty seat had been
provided for the presiding judge of the High Court of Impeachment,
Judge Edgar M. Cullen, who, as chief judge of the Court of Appeals,
presided _ex officio_. Below him was a long seat for the associate
judges. Ascending tiers of seats were provided for the forty-four
members of the State Senate who, with the judges of the Court of
Appeals, constituted the High Court of Impeachment. Behind Judge
Cullen’s chair the entire wall of the room was hung with a dark red
velvet curtain in the centre of which was emblazoned the coat of arms of
New York in gold embroidery, flanked on either side by national emblems.
At one side of the court room, places were provided for the “Fourth
Estate,” the gentlemen of the press, to whom Burke had made so eloquent
an appeal on the greater historical occasion. The public balcony, which
at the Hastings trial had been crowded with the Sarah Siddonses and the
_haut ton_ of London, was, here at Albany, crowded with the vengeful
Knickerbocker aristocracy, who had come to gloat in triumph over the
final discomfiture of the demagogic desecrator of the executive mansion.
The Edmund Burke of the Sulzer impeachment was Edgar T. Brackett, late
of the New York Senate. Alton B. Parker and John B. Stanchfield were the
chief counsel of the managers for the Assembly which had presented the
indictment, but Brackett was the man who made the oratorical
impeachment. Sulzer stood upon the prerogative of early precedents and
refused to make a personal appearance before the Court. In compliance
with a judicial ruling he abstained from functioning as Governor while
the trial was in progress and, instead of facing his accusers, spent his
time in a frantic but futile effort to make political combinations that
would save him.
Witness after witness testified to Sulzer’s solicitation of
contributions for which he had made no accounting. My testimony was only
confirmatory of a mass of evidence elicited from men of eminence like
Jacob H. Schiff and many others. I appeared before the Court on
September 24, 1913. Replying to questions from the prosecutor, I
repeated the conversation I had had with Sulzer when I gave him my check
for $1,000, and I also testified to the fact that on the day I returned
from Europe, Governor Sulzer had telephoned me, “If you are going to
testify I hope you will be easy with me”--to which I answered that I
would testify to the facts.
The verdict of the court was “Guilty.” Sulzer was shorn of his high
office. His proud hopes, fostered by the soothsayer’s prophecy, were
sadly broken. Knickerbocker society had its revenge; the “People’s
House” became again the executive mansion. And Tammany had its
vengeance; it had crushed its rebel henchman and given all other
potential malcontents a spectacular object lesson.