TWEED CONTROLS THE STATE
1869-70
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 embarrass
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 passing 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
constituents. 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 assemblymen
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 Assembly, 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 municipal 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 passage 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 passage 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 assemblymen 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, substituted 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; Canal 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 substituted for Curtis, Hillhouse, and Robinson.]
[Footnote 1230: New York _Tribune_, October 11, 1869.]
If corruption had demoralised Republicans, fear of a repetition 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 _Cyclopædia_, 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 assembled 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; Canal 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
constitution, framed by the convention of 1867 and submitted by the
Legislature of 1869. From the first the constitutional convention had
become a political body. Republicans controlled it, and their
insistence upon unrestricted negro suffrage gave colour to the whole
document, 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
constitution, 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
Assembly, while the Republicans, holding the Senate continuously and
the governorship and Assembly most of the time, had come to regard
themselves the people's lawmakers and the representatives of executive
authority. But Tweed's quiet canvass 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 Assembly 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 Assembly 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 Assembly 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 passage 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
substituted for metropolitan commissions, devised and fostered by
Republicans, municipal 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 substitution 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 participate. 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 passage through both houses,
the Senate recording but two votes against it and the Assembly 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 assemblymen.[1237] Within three days after its passage
(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 passed 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: Document 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 associates 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
Association 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 associates."[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 assembled 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; Canal Commissioners, John D. Fay and George W. Chapman;
Prison Inspector, Solomon E. Scheu.]
[Footnote 1244: The _Nation_, September 29.]