"NEW YORK, _Dec. 25, '59_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--I wish you a 'merry Christmas!' It is the first
opportunity I have had to acknowledge your kind letter of condolence.
I take it up first of a bundle of letters which have waited for me to
get out of the ice-pack of engagements which collected around me in
ten-days' career in politics. I am just ill enough to be justified in
declining all dinners, and am having a quiet time to-day.
"If your curiosity to know the 'whys and wherefores' of our defeat
is not displaced by some later topic, I will drop you a hint or two
towards a theory.
"A modern invention practised in Tammany Hall is for the genl.
Committee to dispense with primary elections. It was introduced by
Wood and has continued since he was driven out. The effect of two
or three years' practice under the system has been to break off
relations between that body and the masses in the wards. It was no
longer necessary for the one committeeman and his four dummies, who
represented a ward in the committee, to keep up a vital party in his
ward. The ward committees fell into disuse, and in some cases what
remained of them were in hostile hands. Meanwhile the outsiders felt
that they had no chance, and antagonisms were multiplied in all the
captains of tens and fifties--the new men, the active elements of
fresh ambition. The chiefs of the general committee became totally
bankrupt, were split into two parties--about equal--had been occupied
for months in a scuffle for the assets, the real value of which they
did not see till the last moment. In a party twice as large as any
it had to contend with, and therefore tending to division--with its
central organization in this condition, and its ward all run out--Wood
hung up his sign over the outsiders. He made local organizations among
them; worked at it assiduously for two years. When I stepped inside the
ring and took a view I thought that in some wards, each having once and
half as many people as your county contains, we should scarcely have
machinery enough to run our ticket with--the 11th, for instance. We had
less than two weeks to get up our organization, beginning anew--in a
bad state of local nominations, many of the candidates running on both
tickets and being really against us. Wood had gained the lower stratum
of the Irish, combined many special interests, and at last had the aid
of the jobbing Republicans, two of whom voted for him to every one of
the other class for Havemeyer. Then the _Tribune_, in _bad_ faith,
and the _Post_ in good faith, succeeded in making the impression that
the way to beat Wood was to vote for Opdyke; and not only kept the
moderate Republicans to him, but drew many quiet citizens who preferred
Havemeyer, but were most anxious to beat Wood.
"In truth, the leaders of the Republican party and Wood were in perfect
concert, as they are partners in the gigantic schemes of plunder, which
will presently appear.
"Mr. Havemeyer polled a prodigious vote of the business classes and
of the silent people, but not enough to supply the defects of the
organization which, in my judgment, did not by its own strength give
him 15,000 votes.
"Enough of this. I should not have gone over the ground except for the
curiosity you expressed--that what appeared to be an immense public
opinion was ineffectual. It is a public opinion with a party, and not
without, that sweeps the stakes.
"For myself, while I am quite aware how different is the _prestige_ of
success from defeat, and how great was the part which might have been
attempted in reconstructing the administration of the government of the
city, I cannot but feel more comfortable as I am. The proper duties of
the office are one thing. A joint tenancy in the administration of a
city like this (if you really attempt to do anything); a reconstruction
of its government, which must be made from the very foundation, in
order even to palliate existing evils, is a different matter. Overworn
as I am with some heavy engagements, from which I cannot retire, yet
uncompleted--and some heavy cares unrelieved--I could not help seeing
the burden more than anything else. This may have been morbid. A little
more strength and health might have dispelled it. But it enables me to
accept the result with a sense that a great trouble is off my mind, and
leaves no personal regret to mingle with the disgust I feel at Wood's
election, and the disappointment and injury to our friends. At present,
I am content to live from hand to mouth, and take no thought for the
morrow.
"Notwithstanding your invitation to discuss the matter, I feel some
excuse necessary for a letter that has grown so long and so personal.
"With my best wishes for your continued health and comfort and progress
in the work which enlivens your retirement, and my kind remembrances to
Mrs. and Miss Van Buren,
"I am, very truly, your friend,
"_S. J. Tilden._"
"P.S.--I had almost forgot to mention that the prospect now is that you
will get your end paid in full. I should take the money."
* * * * *
The two succeeding communications to N. H. Swayne, afterwards one of
the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, are interesting
from their giving a sketch of the preliminary but comprehensive
preparations for the rescue and reorganization of the Pittsburg,
Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad during the early days of the Civil War,
and transforming it from a bankrupt corporation into one of the most
prosperous highways on this continent. It is doing injustice to no one
to say that it was mainly through Mr. Tilden's devotion, sagacity,
professional ability, and foresight that this transformation was so
successfully accomplished.