GREENBACKERS SERVE REPUBLICANS
1878
While Democrats rejoiced over their victory in 1877, a new
combination, the elements of which had attracted little or no
attention, was destined to cause serious disturbance. Greenbackism had
not invaded New York in 1874-5, when it flourished so luxuriantly in
Ohio, Indiana, and other Western States. Even after the party had
nominated Peter Cooper for President in 1876, it polled in the Empire
State less than 1,500 votes for its candidate for governor, and in
1877, having put Francis E. Spinner, the well-known treasurer of the
United States, at the head of its ticket, its vote fell off to less
than 1,000.
Meantime the labour organisations, discontented because of long
industrial inaction, had formed a Labour Reform party. This
organisation gradually increased its strength, until, in 1877, it
polled over 20,000 votes. Encouraged by success its leaders held a
convention at Toledo, Ohio, on February 22 (1878), and resolved to
continue the Cooper movement. It resented the resumption of specie
payment, favoured absolute paper money, and demanded payment of the
public debt in greenbacks. On May 10 the executive council, calling
themselves Nationalists, coalesced with the Greenbackers, and issued a
call for a National Greenback Labour Reform convention to assemble at
Syracuse on July 25. This sudden extension of the movement attracted
widespread attention, and although the convention was marked by great
turbulence and guided by inconspicuous leaders, it seemed as if by
magic to take possession of a popular issue which gathered about its
standard thousands of earnest men. Gideon J. Tucker, a former
Democratic secretary of state, who had led the Americans in 1859, was
nominated for judge of the Court of Appeals. To its platform it added
declarations favouring a protective tariff and excluding the Chinese.
The treatment of the Greenback question earlier in the year by the
older parties had materially strengthened the Nationalists. Democratic
conventions distinctly favoured their chief issue, and Republicans
employed loose and vague expressions. So accomplished and experienced
a politician as Thurlow Weed complimented the bold declarations of
Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, who had left the Republicans to
become the independent leader of a vast mass of voters that accepted
his Greenback theories and joined in his sneers at honest money.
Republican congressmen, returning from Washington, told how their
party held Greenback views and why Greenbackers ought to support it.
The Secretary of the Republican Congressional Committee practically
announced himself a Greenback Republican, and Blaine's position seemed
equivocal. During the entire financial debate in Congress, Conkling
said nothing to mould public opinion upon the question of sound money,
while the Utica _Republican_, his organ, thought it a "mistake to
array the Republican party, which originated the Greenback, as an
exclusively hard-money party.... It is not safe or wise to make the
finances a party question."[1606] As late as July 30, the evening
preceding the Maine convention, Blaine objected to the phrase "gold or
its equivalent," preferring the word "coin," which subsequently
appeared in the platform.
[Footnote 1606: The Utica _Republican_, July 1, 1878.]
The election in Maine, hailed with joy by every organ of the Greenback
movement, showed how profound was the political disturbance. The
result made it plain that the chief political issue was one of common
honesty, and that an alliance of Democratic and Greenback interests
threatened Republican ascendency. In the presence of such danger
Republican leaders, recognising that harmony could alone secure
victory, called a State convention to meet at Saratoga on September
26. As the time for this important event approached the impression
deepened that real harmony must rest upon an acceptance of the
President's plea for honest money and the honest payment of the
nation's bonds. The word "coin" seemed insufficient, since both coin
and currency should be kept at par with gold, and although this would
make Republicans "an exclusively hard-money party," which Conkling's
organ characterised as a "mistake," the common danger proved a
sufficient magnet to unite the two factions on a platform declaring
that national pledges should be redeemed in letter and spirit, that
there should be no postponement of resumption, and that permanent
prosperity could rest alone on the fixed monetary standard of the
commercial world.
To further exclude just cause of offence Conkling, in accepting the
chairmanship of the convention, broke his long silence upon the
currency question, and without sarcasm or innuendo honoured the
President by closely following the latter's clear, compact, and
convincing speeches on hard money. George William Curtis led in the
frequent applause. Speaking of convention harmony the _Times_ declared
that during the address "there seemed to be something in the air which
made children of strong men. Many of the delegates were affected to
tears."[1607] Curtis also stirred genuine enthusiasm. He had not been
captious as to the form of the platform. To him it sufficed if the
convention keyed its resolutions to the President's note for sound
money, which had become the Administration's chief work, and although
the spectacle of Curtis applauding and supplementing Conkling's speech
seemed as marvellous as it was unexpected, it did not appear out of
place. Indeed, the environment at Saratoga differed so radically from
conditions at Rochester that it required a vivid fancy to picture
these men as the hot combatants of the year before. The brilliant,
closely packed Rochester audience, the glare of a hundred gas jets,
and an atmosphere surcharged with intense hostility, had given place
to gray daylight, a sullen sky, and a morning assemblage tempered into
harmony by threatened danger. The absence of the picturesque greatly
disappointed the audience. The labour of reading a speech from printed
proofs marred Conkling's oratory, and Curtis' effort to compliment the
President without arousing resentment spoiled the rhetorical finish
that usually made his speeches enjoyable. But the prudence of the
speakers and the cordial reception of the platform proved thoroughly
acceptable to the delegates, who nominated George F. Danforth for the
Court of Appeals and then separated with the feeling that the State
might be redeemed.[1608]
[Footnote 1607: New York _Times_ (correspondence), September 27.]
[Footnote 1608: A single roll-call resulted as follows: George F.
Danforth, Monroe, 226; Joshua M. Van Cott, Kings, 99; George Parsons,
Westchester, 79. The Prohibition State convention, which assembled at
Albany on April 24, had nominated Van Cott.]
Meanwhile the Democratic State convention which assembled at Syracuse
on September 25 became more violent and boisterous than its
predecessor. Confident of defeat unless Tammany participated in the
preliminary organisation, John Kelly, through his control of the State
Committee, secured Albert P. Laning of Erie for temporary chairman.
Laning ruled that the roll of delegates as made up by the State
committee should be called except those from New York and Kings, and
as to these he reserved his decision. In obedience thereto the vote of
uncontested delegations stood 132 to 154 in favour of Tilden and
Robinson, whereas the admission of Tammany and Kings would make it 181
to 195 in favour of Kelly. Would the chair include these contested
delegations in the roll-call? To admit one side and exclude the other
before the settlement of a contest was a monstrous proposition. The
history of conventions did not furnish a supporting precedent.
Nevertheless, Laning, wishing to succeed Dorsheimer as lieutenant-governor
in 1879 and relying upon Tammany to nominate and elect him, had
evidenced a disposition to rule in the Boss's favour, and when, at
last, he did so, the angry convention sprang to its feet. For three
hours it acted like wild men.[1609] Under a demand for the previous
question Laning refused to recognise the Tilden delegates, and the
latter's tumult drowned the voice of the chair. Finally, physical
exhaustion having restored quiet, Kings County declined to vote and
Tammany was added without being called. This left the result 154 to
195 in favour of John Kelly. An hour later Laning, hissed and
lampooned, left the convention unthanked and unhonoured.
[Footnote 1609: "The Democratic convention at Syracuse was perhaps the
noisiest, most rowdy, ill-natured, and riotous body of men which ever
represented the ruling party of a great Commonwealth."--The _Nation_,
October 3.]
But having gotten into the convention Tammany found it had not gotten
into power. The Tilden forces endorsed Robinson's administration,
refused to dicker with Greenbackers, whom Kelly was suspected of
favouring, and assuaged their passion by nominating George B. Bradley
of Steuben for the Court of Appeals. While Tammany was looking for
votes to get in on, it bargained with St. Lawrence to support William
H. Sawyer, whose success seemed certain. On the second ballot,
however, Bradley's vote ran up to 194, while Sawyer's stopped at 183.
This left Kelly nothing but a majority of the State committee, which
was destined, in the hour of great need, to be of little service.
Throughout the State the several parties put local candidates in the
field. The Greenbackers, exhibiting the activity of a young and
confident organisation, uniformly made congressional and legislative
nominations. In one congressional district they openly combined with
the Democrats, and in several localities their candidates announced an
intention of coöperating with the Democratic party. In the metropolis
the various anti-Tammany factions supported independent candidates for
Congress and combined with Republicans in nominating a city ticket
with Edward Cooper for mayor.[1610] Kelly, acting for Tammany,
selected Augustus Schell. This alignment made the leaders of the
combined opposition sanguine of victory. It added also to the
confidence of Republicans that the Greenbackers were certain to draw
more largely from the ranks of the Democrats.
[Footnote 1610: Cooper had resigned from Tammany in 1877.]
The difference between the Syracuse and Saratoga platforms was
significant. Democrats declared "gold and silver, and paper
convertible into coin at the will of the holder, the only currency of
the country."[1611] Convertible into what kind of coin? it was asked.
Coin of depreciated value, or the fixed monetary standard of the
commercial world? The _Nation_ thought "this platform not noticeable
for strength or directness of statement."[1612] The Republican plank
was clearer. "We insist that the greenback shall be made as good as
honest coin ... that our currency shall be made the best currency, by
making all parts of it, whether paper or coin, equivalent,
convertible, secure, and steady."[1613] As the campaign advanced a
resistless tendency to force the older parties into the open made it
plain that if the Democrats did not say just what they meant, the
Republicans meant more than they said, for their speakers and the
press uniformly declared that the greenback, which had carried the
country triumphantly through the war, must be made as good as gold.
Meantime the Democratic leaders realised that "fiat" money had a
strange fascination for many of their party.
[Footnote 1611: Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1878, p. 624.]
[Footnote 1612: The _Nation_, October 3.]
[Footnote 1613: Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1878, p. 623.]
To add to Democratic embarrassment the _Tribune_, in the midst of the
canvass, began its publication of the cipher despatches which had
passed between Tilden's personal friends and trusted associates during
the closing and exciting months of 1876.[1614] The shameful story,
revealed by the _Tribune's_ discovered key to the cipher, made a
profound impression. As shown elsewhere the important telegrams passed
between Manton Marble and Smith M. Weed on one side, and Henry
Havermeyer and William T. Pelton, Tilden's nephew, on the other.[1615]
Marble had called McLin of the Florida board an "ague-smitten pariah"
for having charged him with attempted bribery, but these translated
telegrams corroborated McLin. Moreover, notwithstanding Tilden's
comprehensive and explicit denial, it sorely taxed the people's faith
to believe him disconnected with the correspondence, since the corrupt
bargaining by which he was to profit was carried on in his own house
by a nephew, who, it was said, would scarcely have ventured on a
transaction so seriously affecting his uncle's reputation without the
latter's knowledge. "Of their [telegrams] effect in ruining Mr.
Tilden's fortunes, or what was left of them," said the _Nation_,
"there seems no doubt."[1616] Whatever of truth this prophecy
contained, the revelation of the cipher despatches greatly
strengthened the Republican party and brought to a tragic end Clarkson
N. Potter's conspicuous failure to stain the President.[1617]
[Footnote 1614: New York _Tribune_, October 8 and 16.]
[Footnote 1615: See Chapter XXVII., pp. 350, 351, note.]
[Footnote 1616: October 24, 1878.]
[Footnote 1617: On May 13, 1878, Congressman Potter of New York secured
the appointment of a committee of eleven to investigate alleged frauds
in the Florida and Louisiana Returning Boards, with authority to send
for persons and papers. He refused to widen the scope of the
investigation to include all the States, presumably to avoid the
damaging evidence already known relating to Pelton's effort to secure
a presidential elector in Oregon. The _Tribune's_ timely exposure of
the telegrams turned the investigation into a Democratic boomerang.]
The result of the October elections likewise encouraged Republicans.
It indicated that the Greenback movement, which threatened to sweep
the country as with a tornado, had been stayed if not finally
arrested, and thenceforth greater activity characterised the canvass.
Conkling spoke often; Woodford, who had done yeoman service in the
West, repeated his happily illustrated arguments; and Evarts crowded
Cooper Union. In the same hall Edwards Pierrepont, fresh from the
Court of St. James, made a strenuous though belated appeal. Speaking
for the Democrats, Kernan advocated the gold standard, declaring it
essential to commercial and the workingmen's prosperity. Erastus
Brooks shared the same view, and Dorsheimer, with his exquisite choice
of words, endeavoured to explain it to a Tammany mass meeting. John
Kelly, cold, unyielding, precise, likewise talked. There was little
elasticity about him. He dominated Tammany like a martinet, naming its
tickets, selecting its appointees, and outlining its policies. Indeed,
his rule had developed so distinctly into a one-man power that four
anti-Tammany organisations had at last combined with the Republicans
in one supreme effort to crush him, and with closed ranks and firm
purpose this coalition exhibited an unwavering earnestness seldom
presented in a local campaign.[1618] It was intimated that Kelly having
in mind his reappointment as city comptroller in 1880, sought
surreptitiously to aid Cooper.[1619] Kelly saw his danger. He
recognised the power of his opponents, the weakness of Schell whom he
had himself named for mayor, and the strength of Cooper, a son of the
distinguished philanthropist, whose independence of character had
brought an honourable career; but the assertion that the Boss, bowing
to the general public sentiment, gave Cooper support must be dismissed
with the apocryphal story that Conkling was in close alliance with
Tammany. Doubtless Kelly's disturbed mind saw clearly that he must
eventually divide his foes to recover lost prestige. Nevertheless, it
was after November 5, the day of Tammany's blighting overthrow, that
he shaped his next political move.
[Footnote 1618: In reference to Kelly's despotic rule see speeches of
Anti-Tammany opponents in New York _Tribune_ (first page), October 31,
1878.]
[Footnote 1619: Myers, _History of Tammany_, p. 310.]
The election returns disclosed that the greatly increased
Greenback-Labour vote, aggregating 75,000, had correspondingly
weakened the Democratic party, especially in the metropolis, thus
electing Danforth to the Court of Appeals, Cooper as mayor, the entire
anti-Tammany-Republican ticket, a large majority of Republican
assemblymen, and twenty-six Republican congressmen, being a net gain
of eight.[1620] Indeed, the divisive Greenback vote had produced a
phenomenal crop of Republican assemblymen. After the crushing defeat
of the Liberal movement in 1872 the Republicans obtained the
unprecedented number of ninety-one. Now they had ninety-eight, with
nineteen hold-over senators, giving them a safe working majority in
each body and seventy-six on joint ballot. This insured the
re-election of Senator Conkling, which occurred without Republican
opposition on January 21, 1879. One month later the Utica _Republican_
closed its career. While its existence probably gratified the founder,
it had done little more than furnish opponents with material for
effective criticism.
[Footnote 1620: Danforth, Republican, 391,112; Bradley, Democrat,
356,451; Tucker, National, 75,133; Van Cott, Prohibitionist, 4,294.
Assembly: Republicans, 98; Democrats, 28; Nationals, 2. Congress:
Republicans, 26; Democrats, 7. Cooper over Schell, 19,361.]
The Democrats, who supported Lieutenant-governor Dorsheimer for United
States senator, protested against granting Conkling a certificate of
election because no alteration of senate or assembly districts had
occurred since the enumeration of 1875, as required by the
constitution, making the existing legislature, it was claimed, a
legislature _de facto_ and not _de jure_. This was a new way of
presenting an old grievance. For years unjust inequality of
representation had fomented strife, but more recently the rapid growth
of New York and Brooklyn had made the disparity more conspicuous,
while continued Republican control of the Senate had created intense
bitterness. In fact, a tabulated statement of the inequality between
senatorial districts enraged a Democrat as quickly as a red flag
infuriated the proverbial bull.[1621] Although the caucus refused to
adopt the protest, it issued an address showing that New York and
Kings were entitled to ten senators instead of seven and forty-one
assemblymen instead of thirty-one. These additional members, all
belonging to Democratic districts, said the address, are now awarded
to twelve counties represented by Republicans. The deep indignation
excited throughout the State by such manifest injustice resulted in a
new apportionment which transferred one assemblyman from each of six
Republican counties to New York and Kings. This did not correct the
greater injustice in the senatorial districts, however, and in
permitting the measure to become a law without his signature Governor
Robinson declared that the "deprivation of 150,000 inhabitants in New
York and Kings of their proper representation admits of no apology or
excuse."[1622]
[Footnote 1621: The following table gave great offense:
+------------+-----------+-------------+
| Democratic | | |
| Districts. | Counties. | Population. |
+------------+-----------+-------------+
| 3d | Kings | 292,258 |
| 8th | New York | 235,482 |
| 7th | New York | 173,225 |
| 2d | Kings | 172,725 |
| 9th | New York | 167,530 |
+------------+-----------+-------------+
+------------+------------------------+-------------+
| Republican | | |
| Districts. | Counties. | Population. |
+------------+------------------------+-------------+
| 20th | Herkimer, Otsego | 89,338 |
| 18th | Jefferson, Lewis | 90,596 |
| 26th | Ontario, Yates, Seneca | 91,064 |
| 16th | Clinton, Essex, Warren | 101,327 |
| 27th | Cayuga, Wayne | 106,120 |
+------------+------------------------+-------------+]
[Footnote 1622: Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1879, p. 672.]