THE CIVIL WAR AND AFTER
1859-1867
The stirring years of the Civil War were drawing near. In this
crisis, Tammany, ever pro-slavery, dealt in no equivocal phrases. On
November 1, 1859, at a meeting called to order by Isaac V. Fowler,
James T. Brady, acting as president, referred to John Brown’s raid as
“riot, treason and murder.” Brady and others spoke dolefully of the
dire consequences of a continuation of the abolition agitation and
prophesied that if the “irrepressible conflict” ever came, it would
result in an extermination of the black race.
But Grand Sachem Fowler was not to officiate at any more meetings. He
had been living for several years at a rate far beyond his means. In
one year his bill at the New York Hotel, which he made the Democratic
headquarters, amounted to $25,000.[1] He had spent $50,000 toward the
election of Buchanan. A social favorite, he gave frequent and lavish
entertainments.[2] President Pierce had appointed him Postmaster, but
the salary was only $2,500 a year, and he had long ago exhausted his
private means and much of the property of his family. It was therefore
a source of wonder whence his money came. The problem was cleared
up when, on May 10, 1860, he was removed from office, and an order
was issued for his arrest under the accusation of having embezzled
$155,000.[3] The filching, it appeared, had been going on since 1855.[4]
Isaiah Rynders, then United States Marshal at New York, upon receiving
orders to arrest Fowler, went to his hotel, but tarried at the bar
and by his loud announcement of his errand, allowed word to be taken
to Fowler, who forthwith escaped. He subsequently made his way to
Mexico. His brother, John Walker Fowler, who upon recommendation of
the “seven Sachems” had been appointed clerk to Surrogate Gideon J.
Tucker, subsequently absconded with $31,079.65 belonging to orphans and
others.[5]
In 1860 Tammany was greatly instrumental in inducing the Democrats
of New York State to agree upon a fusion Douglas-Bell-Breckinridge
electoral ticket. On the registration and election days the frauds
practised against the Lincoln electors surpassed anything the city
had known. In the Third Ward 63 fictitious names were registered
in a single election district. Five hundred of the 3,500 names
of the Twelfth Ward register were found to be fraudulent. In the
Seventeenth Ward 935 names on the registry books were spurious, no
persons representing them being discoverable at the places given as
their residences. An Irish widow’s two boys, six and seven years old
respectively, were registered, mother and sons, of course, knowing
nothing of it--and so on _ad libitum_. Fictitious names, accredited to
vacant lots or uninhabited buildings, were voted by the thousands.
The announcement of the result gave the Fusionists 62,611 votes, and
Lincoln 33,311.
At the outbreak of the war, Mozart Hall, for purposes of political
display, took a prompt position in favor of maintaining the Union,
although Wood, its master spirit, advocated, in a public message, the
detaching of New York City from the Union and transforming it into a
free city on the Hamburg plan.[6] Tammany, perforce, had to follow the
lead of Mozart Hall in parading its loyalist sentiments. The society
raised a regiment, which was taken to the field in June, 1861, by Grand
Sachem William D. Kennedy.[7] Tammany long dwelt upon this action as a
crowning proof of its patriotism.
The real sentiments of the bulk of Tammany and of Mozart Hall were to
the contrary. Both did their best to paralyze the energies of Lincoln’s
administration. In a speech to his Mozart Hall followers at the Volks
Garden, on November 27, 1861, Wood charged the national administration
with having provoked the war, and said that they (the administration)
meant to prolong it while there was a dollar to be stolen from the
national Treasury or a drop of Southern blood to be shed. At the
Tammany celebration of July 4, 1862, Grand Sachem Nelson J. Waterbury,
though expressing loyalty to the Union, averred that it was the
President’s duty “to set his foot firmly upon abolitionism and crush it
to pieces, and then the soldiers would fight unembarrassed, and victory
must soon sit upon the National banners.” Declarations of this kind
were generally received with enthusiasm in both halls.
At times, however, under the sting of severe public criticism, Tammany
Hall made haste to assert its fealty to the Union cause. In September,
1861, Elijah F. Purdy, chairman of its general committee, issued a
statement that “Tammany Hall had maintained an unswerving position
upon this great question from the time the first gun was fired to the
present hour. It has been zealously devoted to the Union, in favor of
upholding it with the utmost resources of the nation, and opposed to
any action calculated to embarrass the Government or to prevent all
loyal men from standing together in solid column for the country.”
Tammany put forth the claim that “three-fourths of the volunteer
soldiers enlisted in this city and at the seat of war, are Democrats
attached to Tammany Hall”; and on October 3, 1861, resolved that with
a deep sense of the peril in which the Union and the Constitution were
involved by the reckless war being waged for their destruction by armed
traitors, it (Tammany Hall) held it to be the first and most sacred
duty of every man who loved his country to support the Government.
The war, which so engaged and diverted the popular mind, served as a
cover for the continued manipulation of primaries and conventions,
and the consummation of huge schemes of public plunder. Wood himself
pointed out that from 1850 to 1860 the expenses of the city government
had increased from over $3,200,000 to $9,758,000, yet his tenure of
office from 1860 to 1862 was characterized by even worse corruption
than had flourished so signally in his previous terms. After his
installation, in 1860, it was charged that he had sold the office of
City Inspector to Samuel Downes, a man of wealth, for $20,000; that
Downes had paid $10,000 to certain confederates of Wood, and that he
had afterward been cheated out of the office. Another charge, the facts
of which were related in a presentment by the Grand Jury, accused Wood
of robbing the taxpayers of $420,000. The Common Council had awarded a
five-years’ street-cleaning contract to Andrew J. Hackley, at $279,000
a year, notwithstanding the fact that one among other responsible
persons had bid $84,000 a year less. Afraid to submit the contract to
the ordeal of public opinion, which might give rise to injunctions,
the Common Council sped it through both boards on the same night.
Waiting in his office until nearly midnight for the express purpose
of signing it, the Mayor hastily affixed his signature the moment it
reached him. The Grand Jury found that the sum of $40,000 in bribes had
been raised and paid for the passage of the contract. It was asserted
that the equivalent Wood received for signing the bill was one-fourth
the amount of the contract, or $69,750 a year, for five years, free of
any other consideration than his signature, the other beneficiaries
of the contract supplying all the money needed to protect the fraud.
Spurred on by public opinion, the police--when the work was not done in
compliance with the contract--had reported to the Controller, who had
refused to pay the monthly bills. Then the contractors reduced the pay
of their laborers from $1.25 to 95 cents a day in order to make good
their payments to Wood.[8]
Hiram Ketchum, in November, 1861, publicly accused Wood of promising
two men--Woodruff and Hoffman--Mozart Hall nominations for Judgeships,
upon which they each paid $5,000 in checks to Wood’s account for
“election expenses.” Pocketing the money, Wood then made an agreement
with Tammany to unite on two other men--Monell and Barbour--for Judges,
on condition that Tammany should not unite with the Republicans against
him in the December Mayoralty election.
S. B. Chittenden, a citizen of wealth and standing, charged, in Cooper
Institute, November 26, 1861, that the signature of the Street Cleaning
Commissioner necessary for certain documents could be bought for
$2,500, and intimated that Wood was not dissociated from the procedure.
Wood had spent an enormous amount in his political schemes. He himself
admitted, according to the testimony of A. W. Craven, Chief Engineer of
the Croton Aqueduct Department, before a committee of Aldermen, “that
his object in removing heads of departments was to get control of the
departments, so that he could put in those who would cooperate with him
and, also, could pay off his obligations.”[9]
It is possible to give only an outline of the “jobs” stealthily put
through the Common Council. Newspaper criticism was, in a measure,
silenced by appropriations of from $10,000 to $20,000 a year for
“advertising,” though occasional exposures were made in spite of this.
One of these related to the appropriation of $105,000 in July, 1860,
for a few days’ entertainment of the Japanese Embassy in New York. Of
this sum only a few thousand dollars were used for the purpose, the
rest being stolen.[10]
Never more than now was patriotism shown to be the last refuge of
scoundrels. Taking advantage of the war excitement, the most audacious
designs on the city treasury were executed under color of acts of the
purest patriotism. At a special meeting of the Common Council, on
August 21, 1861, called ostensibly to help the families of the poor
volunteers, a measure providing for the appointment of twenty-two
Street Opening Commissioners was hurriedly passed, upon motion of
Alderman Terence Farley, against whom several untried indictments
were pending. Without entering into details, it can be said that this
action represented a theft of $250,000, in that the Commissioners were
superfluous, and their offices were created merely to make more places
for a hungry host of political workers.
If the city was a richer prize than ever to the politicians, the
Legislature was no less desirable. Alien members of both branches of
that body were under the complete domination of political managers.
It was notorious that the Democratic and the Republican lobby lords
exchanged the votes of their respective legislative vassals, so that it
mattered little to either which political party had the ascendency in
the Legislature. One celebrated lobbyist declared that it was cheaper
to buy, than to elect, a Legislature. The passage of five franchises by
the Legislature, on April 17, 1860, over Gov. Morgan’s veto, cost the
projectors upwards of $250,000 in money and stock.[11]
Apparently hostile, the leaders of Tammany and of Mozart Hall soon saw
that it was to their mutual benefit to have a secret understanding
as to the division of the spoils. While Mozart had supremacy for the
moment, Tammany had superior advantages. It could point to a long
record; its organization was perfect; it had a perpetual home, and
the thousands of its disappointed ward-workers and voters who had
transferred their allegiance to Mozart, in the hope of better reward,
would certainly flow back in time. This changing about was an old
feature of New York politics. A successful political party was always
depleted by thousands of office-seekers who left its ranks because
disappointed in their hopes. Most important of all, Tammany had dealt
the decisive blow to Mozart Hall at the Charleston convention, in 1860,
and at the Syracuse convention, in September, 1861, when its delegation
secured the recognition of “regularity.”
Hence Mozart Hall, to avoid losing the State offices, willingly
bargained with Tammany, and in the Fall of 1861 the two combined on
nominees for the Legislature. They could not agree on the Mayoralty,
Wood determining to stand for reelection. But true to their agreement
not to ally themselves with the Republicans, the Tammany leaders
nominated independently, selecting C. Godfrey Gunther. Once more a
non-partizan movement sprang up to combat the forces of corruption.
The People’s Union, composed of Republicans and Democrats, succeeded,
despite the usual frauds, in electing George P. Opdyke, a Republican,
by less than 1,000 plurality, he receiving 25,380 votes; Gunther,
24,767; and Wood 24,167. In violation of the law, returns in ten
districts were held back for evident purposes of manipulation. When the
figures showed Opdyke’s election, attempts were made to deprive him
of his certificate on the pretense that the returns as published in
the daily newspapers were inaccurate. After much counting by the Board
of Aldermen, whose attempt at “counting out” Opdyke was frustrated by
the vigilance of his friends, the latter was declared elected by 613
plurality.
Newspaper accounts described a lively time, quite in keeping with a
long line of precedents, in Tammany Hall on election night. The crowd
was in unpleasant humor because of Gunther’s defeat. When “Jimmy”
Nesbit, a good-natured heeler of the Sixth Ward, was called upon to
preside, he tried to evoke cheers for Gunther. Chafing at the lack
of enthusiasm, he swore fiercely at his hearers. A shout was heard,
“Three cheers for Fernando Wood,” whereupon the eminent chairman lost
his equanimity and let fly a pitcher at the offender’s head. He was
on the point of heaving another missile, a large pewter pitcher,
but a bystander caught his hand. Cries of “Tammany is not dead yet,”
were heard, and then Chauncey Shaeffer regaled the crowd with the
information that he got his first meal, with liquor thrown in, at
Tammany Hall, sixteen years before, and he would never desert her.
Shaeffer told the Tammanyites how he had gone to the White House and
advised the President to let out the job of putting down the rebellion
to Tammany Hall. Cries broke forth of, “You’re drunk, Shaeffer!”
“You’re a disgrace to Tammany Hall.” After trying to sing “The Red,
White and Blue,” Shaeffer stumbled off the platform. Isaiah Rynders
then arose, and after denouncing the leaders for not being there,
assured his hearers that there were many respectable gentlemen present
and some d--d fools. This edifying meeting ended by “the chairman
jumping from the platform and chasing a Wood man out of the room.”
Though no longer in office, Wood was still a powerful factor, since
Mozart Hall, of which he was the head, could poll, or pretend to poll,
25,000 votes. Further overtures were made between him and the leaders
of Tammany in 1862, with the result that an understanding was reached
to divide the nominations equally. The partition was conducted amicably
until the office of Surrogate was reached. Besides this there was an
odd member of the Assembly not accounted for. The leaders could not
agree as to how these two offices should be disposed of, and on the
evening of October 2 the general committee met in the Wigwam to discuss
the profound problem. Crowds were gathered inside and outside the hall,
in the lobby, bar-room and on the stairs. The excitement was such that
a squad of police was sent to the scene to maintain peace.
Their services were needed. Heated discussions had been going on all
the evening. Richard B. Connolly had his “party” on hand, eager for the
fray. Francis I. A. Boole mustered his retainers by the score--“fine
strapping fellows, with upturned sleeves and significant red shirts
that told of former battles and hard-earned laurels.” At 11 o’clock the
fighting began. It had not progressed far, however, when the police
charged, and wielding their clubs right and left, drove the combatants
in disorder into the street. The committee was in session nearly all
night, but a renewal of the scrimmage was not attempted.
After much haggling, the factions finally agreed. Nominations
brought such great sums that the severe contention of the leaders
is easily explainable. A hint of the enormous sums wrung from this
source was given by Judge Maynard, when addressing a meeting of the
“Representative Democracy,” in Cooper Union, on October 27, 1863. He
stated that one man in Mozart Hall (doubtless referring to Fernando
Wood) was the chief of all the “strikers” in New York City, and that
this person made from $100,000 to $200,000 every year marketing
offices.[12] Nominations and appointments went to the highest bidders,
and some of the leaders held as many as thirteen different offices
each. At the same meeting W. R. Ranken stated that “the manner in
which these two organizations--Tammany and Mozart Hall--have packed
their preliminary conventions and organizations, has been of such a
character as to bring the blush of shame to every man of principle in
the party. No man, were he to poll 10,000 votes, under those primary
elections, could be admitted within the precincts of Tammany Hall
unless he came with the indorsement of the Election Inspectors who were
under the influence of the two or three men who held the reins of power
there.”[13]
The State and Congressional elections in November showed the power of
the combined halls. Seymour, for Governor, carried the city by 31,309
plurality. Among the Democratic Congressmen elected was Fernando Wood,
who, evidently despairing of again filling the Mayor’s chair, had
determined to employ his activities in another field.
The city election for minor officers occurred in December, and the two
halls again won. The apportionment of the offices, however, caused a
number of clashes. One of the offices filled was that of Corporation
Counsel, the nomination to which fell to the lot of Mozart Hall. Wood
had promised it to John K. Hackett, subsequently Recorder, but gave it
to John E. Devlin, a Sachem, supposed to be one of Wood’s bitterest
opponents. By way of smoothing Hackett’s ire, Wood promised to have him
appointed Corporation Attorney. This promise was also broken. Hackett
went to Wood’s house and was shown into his parlor. “Mr. Wood,” said
Hackett, as soon as the man who had been thrice Mayor of the metropolis
of America appeared, “I called to say to you, personally, that you are
a scoundrel, a rascal and a perjured villain.” Wood threatened to put
him out and rang the bell. As the servant was on the point of entering,
Hackett drew a revolver from his pocket and went on: “If that man comes
between us, I shall blow out his brains and cut off your ears. So you
may as well listen. On a certain night, in a room of the Astor House,
were four persons, Mr. D., Mr. X., Mr. Y., and yourself. One of these
four is a scoundrel, a rascal, a perjured villain and a hound. It is
not Mr. D., nor Mr. X., nor Mr. Y. Who he is, I leave you to imagine.”
The degraded state of politics, sinking yearly still lower, caused
unspeakable disgust, but the honest element of the citizenship seemed
powerless. The occasional election of a reform Mayor made little
difference in the situation, for either through the impotence of
his position or his personal incompetency, the spoilsmen managed to
prevail. The Common Council was the supreme power, and this body
Tammany, or Tammany and Mozart together, generally controlled. The
public money was spent as the Aldermen pleased. The Mayor’s veto became
a legal fiction, for a bare majority[14] sufficed to overcome it, and
this could generally be secured through deals and the trading of votes
on one another’s “jobs.” The veto, in the words of a later Mayor,
amounted “to nothing more than the publication of his remonstrance in
corporation newspapers, to cause a few hours’ delay and excite the
contempt of the members [of the Common Council] who have determined to
carry their measure in spite of his remonstrance.”[15]
Public indignation resulted in another anti-Tammany demonstration of
strength in 1863. The Wigwam nominated for Mayor, Francis I. A. Boole,
generally considered as nauseating a type of the politician as Tammany
could bring forth. Independent Democrats and some Republicans thereupon
rallied to the support of C. Godfrey Gunther, nominee of a new “reform”
organization--the “McKeon Democracy.” The Republican organization,
however, stood apart, nominating Orison Blunt. Gunther was elected,
receiving 29,121 votes, to 22,579 for Boole, and 19,383 for Blunt. At
this, as in previous elections, there were unmistakable Wigwam frauds,
such as repeating and altering election returns.
Hitherto, in Presidential conventions since Van Buren’s time,
the Democratic candidates had been nominated against Tammany’s
resistance, the organization having had each time a candidate of its
own whom it sought to force on the convention. In 1864, however, the
Wigwam shrewdly anticipated the action of the Chicago convention by
recommending McClellan as the Democratic nominee. On the night of
McClellan’s nomination, Tammany held a ratification meeting in the City
Hall Park, denounced “the imbecility of the administration of Abraham
Lincoln” in the conduct of the war and “its ruinous financial policy,”
and declared that it had “forfeited the confidence of the loyal States;
usurped powers not granted by the Constitution; endeavored to render
the executive, aided by the military, superior to the judicial and
legislative branches of the Government, and assumed to destroy life and
confiscate property by its unconstitutional proclamations.” Again, on
November 16, at a meeting of the general committee, George H. Purser,
a lobbyist and organization leader, offered a resolution, which was
unanimously approved, practically declaring the war a failure.
In this election the Republicans took precautions to prevent repetition
of the frauds of preceding years. An investigation disclosed illegal
registration on a large scale. To hold the lawless in check, Gen.
Benjamin F. Butler was ordered to New York. He brought 6,000 of his own
troops, with artillery and a regiment of regulars, which he kept within
call outside of the city until after the election, and he established
a civilian system of surveillance in every election district. An
unusually orderly election was the result, though fraud was not
entirely suppressed, and it was charged that both sides were parties to
it. McClellan received a majority in the city of 37,023, of the total
vote of 110,433.
In 1865 Tammany again nominated Francis I. A. Boole for Mayor. Boole,
as City Inspector, was the head of a department which embraced the
Street Cleaning and Health Bureaus. Daniel B. Badger testified before
the Senate Investigating Committee of 1865 that in the previous year
he had put in a written bid to clean the streets for $300,000, but when
it was opened, Boole announced loudly that it was $500,000, and gave
the contract elsewhere, with the consequence that it cost $800,000 to
clean the streets in 1864.[16] Many witnesses swore that they paid
various sums, ranging about $200 each, for positions under Boole, only
to be suddenly dismissed later.[17] A surprising number of men were on
Boole’s payrolls who had other business and who appeared only to draw
their salaries.[18] The filthy condition of the city entailed a fearful
sacrifice of life, the average deaths yearly being no less than 33 in
1,000.[19] Nearly all the 220 Health Wardens and special inspectors
under Boole were illiterate and unfit. One of them testified that he
thought “the term ‘hygienic’ meant the odor arising from stagnant
water.”[20]
Boole, about this time, was engaged in other activities than the
protection of the city’s health. In a suit brought by William Elmer
against Robert Milbank in the Superior Court, in 1867, Milbank
testified that he had called upon Boole to learn how he could secure
the passage of an ordinance allowing the People’s Gas Light Company to
lay pipes in the streets. Boole referred him to Charles E. Loew,[21]
a clerk in the Common Council, and later County Clerk, and a noted
Tammany figure. Milbank gave Loew $20,000 cash[22] and $30,000 in
stock, whereupon the Common Council passed the ordinance on the same
night.
Public criticism was so caustic that Tammany withdrew Boole and
nominated John T. Hoffman, a man of some popularity and considerable
ability. The Mozart faction nominated John Hecker, a religious and
political enthusiast of narrow views, but acceptable to the Mozart
“boys” or “strikers,” because of his willingness to supply an abundance
of money. Smith Ely, Jr., urged Hecker to withdraw, as his candidacy
was hopeless. “Mr. Ely,” said Hecker, “you form your opinions in
the ordinary way of a business man and politician, but I receive my
impressions directly from on High.” The Republicans nominated Marshall
O. Roberts, and the “McKeon Democracy” renominated Gunther.
Frauds were as common as ever. It was well established that 15,000
persons who had registered could not be found at the places given as
their residences. In the disreputable districts, upon which Tammany
depended for a large vote, a non-Tammany speaker was in actual danger
of his life. Hoffman received 32,820 votes; Roberts, 31,657; Hecker,
10,390, and Gunther, 6,758.
There is little to say of Hoffman’s administration. Frauds and thefts
of every description continued as before, though it is not possible to
connect his name with any of them. His popularity grew. The Tammany
Society elected him Grand Sachem, the Democratic State Committee named
him for Governor in 1866,[23] and toward the end of his term as Mayor
he was renominated for that office. Fernando Wood again came forth
as the Mozart Hall nominee, and the Republicans selected William
A. Darling. Hoffman swept everything before him (December, 1867),
receiving 63,061 votes, to 22,837 for Wood, and 18,483 for Darling.
The total vote was 104,481, an increase of 22,779 in two years. The
reasons for this astounding augmentation were no secret to any one.
Repeating was one cause, and false registration was another; in
one ward alone--the Eighteenth--in this election, 1,500 fraudulent
registrations were discovered. But the main cause was illegal
naturalization. In the Supreme Court and the Court of Common Pleas,
citizens were turned out at the rate, often, of about 1,000 a day.
The State census of 1865 gave the city 51,500 native and 77,475
naturalized voters.[24] The figures were doubtless false, probably
having been swelled to allow fraudulent totals at the polls to come
within the limits of an officially declared total of eligible voters.
Nevertheless, the figures are significant of the proportion of aliens
to natives. The predominance of the former, moreover, was daily made
greater through the connivance of corrupt Judges with the frauds of
the politicians. The bulk of these aliens added to the hopelessness of
the local situation. With their European ideas and training, and their
ignorance of our political problems, they became the easy prey of the
ward “bosses” and aided in imposing upon the city a reign of unexampled
corruption.
Heretofore the Tammany organization had been held in the control of
constantly changing combinations. Duumvirates, triumvirates and cliques
of various numbers of men had risen, prospered and passed away. The
period is now reached when the power became centralized in one man.
Fernando Wood had illustrated the feasibility of the “boss” system;
William M. Tweed now appeared to develop it to its highest pitch. The
“boss” was the natural result of the recognized political methods.
Where, as in previous times, three or four or half a dozen leaders
had put their wits together and dictated and sold nominations, Tweed,
astute, unprincipled and thoroughly versed in the most subterranean
phases of ward politics, now gathered this power exclusively in his own
hands. How he and his followers used it was disclosed in the operations
of the extraordinary Tweed, or Tammany “Ring.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] Statement to the author by Douglas Taylor, then his private
secretary.
[2] Fowler was an exception to the average run of the leaders who
preceded him, in that he was a college graduate and moved in the best
social circles. With a view of bettering the “tone” of the Wigwam, he
had induced a number of rich young men to join the organization.
[3] _Report of Postmaster-General Holt, Senate Documents, 1st Session,
36th Congress_, Vol. XI, No. 48. Also Postmaster-General Holt’s
communication to James J. Roosevelt, United States District Attorney,
at New York, _Ibid._, XIII, No. 91, p. 11.
[4] Nelson J. Waterbury, Grand Sachem (1862), was at this time, and had
been for several years, Fowler’s Assistant Postmaster.
[5] Statement by Mr. Tucker to the author. Confirmed by reference to
report of Charles E. Wilbour to the Board of Supervisors, May 26, 1870.
[6] _Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen_, Vol. LXXXI, pp. 25-26.
[7] This regiment was the Forty-second New York Infantry. Kennedy died
a few days after the arrival in Washington, and was succeeded by a
regular army officer. The Forty-second took part in thirty-six battles
and engagements. Its record stood: killed 92; wounded, 328; missing,
298.
[8] Hackley, in fact, received $279,000 for only six months’ work.
During the two years “for which he received full pay he has not done
more than one year’s actual work in cleaning the city, as the returns
in this department abundantly prove.” _Documents of the Board of
Aldermen_, 1863, part 1, No. 4.
[9] _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1860-61, Vol. XXVII, No. 18.
[10] The original appropriation had been $30,000. The joint Council
committee, of which Francis I. A. Boole was the head, submitted bills
for alleged expenditures aggregating $125,000. Boole explained that his
colleagues considered this sum excessive, and would therefore “knock
off” $20,000. _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1861, No. 17.
[11] For this and other instances see _The History of Public Franchises
in New York City_, by the author.
[12] This speech was reprinted in the New York _Herald_, October 28,
1863. The _Herald_ was known as Wood’s special organ.
[13] In a remarkable report handed down in 1862 by a select committee
of the Board of Aldermen, the admission was made that the “primary
elections are notoriously and proverbially the scenes of the most
disgraceful fraud, chicanery and violence. They are without legal
restraint or regulation, nor can such restraint or regulation be
imposed upon them. Peaceable and orderly citizens, almost without
exception, refuse to attend these meetings.” _Documents of the Board of
Aldermen_, 1862, Vol. XXIX, No. 7.
[14] The reformers of the city had unsuccessfully sought to incorporate
in the charter of 1853, a clause requiring a two-thirds vote to
overcome a veto.
[15] _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1865, part 1, No. 1.
[16] _Senate Documents_, 1865, Vol. II, No. 38, pp. 75-76.
[17] _Ibid._, pp. 166-70, etc.
[18] _Ibid._, pp. 252-56.
[19] City Inspector’s Report for 1863. The wretched condition of
the city about this time caused the Legislature to establish the
Metropolitan Board of Health, to have jurisdiction over the counties of
New York, Kings, Westchester and Richmond and certain other territory.
This board’s first report declared that the hygienic conditions of the
city were disgusting and horrible; that epidemics were frequent, and
that one-third of the deaths occurring in New York and Brooklyn were
due to zymotic diseases. See _Report of Metropolitan Board of Health_,
1866, p. 133.
[20] _Senate Documents_, 1865, No. 38.
[21] Loew was several times a Sachem, holding that rank as late as 1886.
[22] See Judgment Roll (1867) in the Superior Court docket and Exhibit
A, forming part of the bill of particulars.
[23] He was defeated by Reuben E. Fenton.
[24] From 1847 to 1860, 2,671,745 immigrants landed at the Port of New
York. _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1861, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5.
In 1855 the native voters in New York City had numbered 46,173, and the
aliens, 42,704.