THE DICTATORSHIP OF RICHARD CROKER (_Concluded_)
1897-1901
Now that Tammany was reinstalled in almost absolute power, Mr. Croker
set about choosing the important city officials to be appointed by
the Mayor. He frankly admitted before the Mazet Committee, in 1899,
that practically all of them were selected by him or his immediate
associates. Requiring a routine assistant in the work of “bossing,”
Mr. Croker selected John F. Carroll, who thereupon resigned the
office of Clerk of the Court of General Sessions, which yielded, it
was estimated, about $12,000 a year, to take a post with no apparent
salary. Mr. Croker then returned to horse-racing in England.
The public pronouncements of the organization continued to voice the
old-time characteristic pretensions of that body’s frugality, honesty
and submission to the popular will. In October, 1898, the county
convention in the Wigwam passed resolutions commending “the wise,
honest and economical” Tammany administration of Greater New York, and
denouncing the “corruption, extravagance and waste of the infamous
mismanagement” by the previous reform administration. Yet at this very
moment the Bar Association was protesting against Mr. Croker’s refusal
to renominate Judge Joseph F. Daly,[1] on the ground of his refusing
to hand over the patronage of his court. The convention itself, despite
its fine words, acted merely as the register of the will of one man,
with scarcely the formality of a contest; and the public had again
become agitated over the certainty of grave scandals in the public
service.
Tammany’s election fund this year was generally reputed to be in the
neighborhood of $100,000. As much as $500 was spent in each of several
hotly contested election districts. Tammany won, but by a margin
less than had been expected and, in fact, arranged for. The State
Superintendent of Elections, John McCullough, in his annual report
(January, 1899) to Gov. Roosevelt, gave good grounds for believing
that Tammany had been deprived of a large support on which it had
counted. Of 13,104 persons registered from specified lodging houses in
certain strong Tammany districts, only 4,034 voted. It was evident that
colonization frauds on a large scale had been attempted, and had been
frustrated only by the vigilance of Superintendent McCullough.
The state of administrative affairs in the city grew worse and worse,
nearly approximating that of 1893-94. The Legislature again determined
to investigate, and accordingly sent to the city the special committee
of the Assembly, popularly known as the “Mazet Committee.” This body’s
prestige suffered from the charge that its investigation was unduly
partizan. Moreover, it was generally felt by the public that its work
was inefficiently carried on. Nevertheless, it produced a considerable
array of facts showing the existence of gross maladministration.
It was disclosed that every member of the Tammany Society or of the
organization’s executive committee, held office, or was a favored
contractor. Over $700,000 of city orders went to favored contractors
without bidding. Various city departments were “characterized by
unparalleled ignorance and unfairness.” The payrolls in some of the
most important departments had increased $1,500,000 between July 1,
1898, and September 1, 1899, and the employees had increased over
1,000, excluding policemen, firemen and teachers. The testimony proved
the increasing inefficiency and demoralization of the Police and Fire
Departments. It further proved the existence of a ramified system of
corruption similar to that revealed by the Lexow Committee.
The disclosures attracting the greatest public attention were those
relating to the Ice Trust, the Ramapo project, and Mr. Croker’s
relations to the city government. On April 14 the committee exposed a
conspiracy between the Ice Trust and the Dock and other departments
of the city government, to create and maintain a monopoly of New
York’s ice supply. Six days after the exposure, Mayor Van Wyck, as he
subsequently admitted in his testimony before Judge Gaynor, acquired
5,000 shares, worth $500,000, of the Ice Trust stock, alleging that he
paid $57,000 in cash for them; but although urged to substantiate his
statement, did not produce proof that he actually paid anything. It was
shown conclusively before the committee that the arrangement between
the Ice Trust and the city officials was such as to compel the people
to pay 60 cents a hundred pounds, and that the trust had stopped the
sale of five-cent pieces of ice, practically cutting off the supply
of the very poor. Many other Tammany officials were equally involved.
Proceedings were begun some time after, looking to an official
investigation of the Ice Trust’s affairs, and charges against Mayor Van
Wyck were filed with Gov. Roosevelt. The latter were finally dismissed
by the Governor in November, 1900.
In August, the committee uncovered the Ramapo scheme. The Ramapo Water
Company, with assets “of at least the value of $5,000,” sought to foist
upon the city a contract calling for payment from the city treasury
of an enormous amount in annual installments of about $5,110,000,
in return for at least 200,000,000 gallons of water a day, at $70
per million gallons. This was proved to be an attempt toward a most
gigantic swindle. Had not Controller Coler exposed and frustrated the
scheme, the Tammany members of the Board of Public Improvements would
have rushed the contract to passage.
Mr. Croker’s testimony threw a flood of light upon his political
views and standards as well as his powers and emoluments as “boss.”
He acknowledged that he had a powerful influence over the Tammany
legislators at Albany, whose actions he advised, and that he exercised
the same influence upon local officials. He readily conceded that he
was the most powerful man he knew of.[2] “We try to have a pretty
effective organization,” he said; “that is what we are there for.”[3]
Mr. Croker also admitted that judicial candidates were assessed in
their districts.[4] In fact, some of the Judges themselves named the
respective sums to the committee. Judge Pryor testified that he had
been asked for $10,000 for his nomination for a vacant half-term in
the Supreme Court.[5] Other judicial candidates, it was understood,
paid from $10,000 to $25,000 for nominations.[6] Mr. Croker maintained
that the organization was entitled to all the judicial, executive,
administrative--in brief, all offices--because “that is what the
people voted our ticket for.”[7] Mr. Croker refused to answer many
questions tending to show that he profited by a silent partnership in
many companies which benefited directly or indirectly by his power.
“The man who is virtual ruler of the city,” said Frank Moss and
Francis E. Laimbeer, counsel to the committee, in their report, “can
insure peace and advantage and business to any concern that takes him
and his friends in, and can secure capital here or abroad to float
any enterprise, when he guarantees that the city officials will not
interfere with it.” Mr. Croker was asked many other questions touching
this subject, but gave little information. He declined to answer the
question whether $140,000 of the stock of the Auto-Truck Company had
been given to him without the payment of a dollar; it was his “private
affair.”[8]
“We are giving the people pure organization government,” he said. He
referred to the thoroughness of discipline in the Wigwam, and stated
that the only way to succeed was to keep the whip in hand over his
henchmen. It took “a lot of time,” and he “had to work very hard
at it.” Tammany was built up, he said, not only upon the political
principles it held, but upon the way its members sustained one another
in business. “We want the whole business, if we can get it”; “to the
party belong the spoils”; “we win, and we expect every one to stand
by us”; “I am working for my pocket all the time,” were some of Mr.
Croker’s answers, most of them told in anything but grammatical English.
The general opinion obtained that the committee’s work would have been
far more effective and free from charges of partizan bias if Thomas
C. Platt, the Republican “boss,” had been summoned concerning his
alleged political connection with the great corporations and financial
interests, as Mr. Croker had been.
Apparently the disclosures made no deep impression on the city
administration, for matters went along pretty much as before. On March
9, 1900, the New York _Times_ published a detailed statement, which
it later reiterated, that the sum of $3,095,000 a year was being paid
by the gambling-house keepers of the city to the “gambling-house
commission,” which, it said, was composed of two State Senators, a
representative of the poolroom proprietors, and the head of one of the
city departments. This commission, the account stated, received and
passed upon applications, established the tariff to be paid by the
applicants, and supervised the collections. Later, in the same month,
the Grand Jury handed down a presentment arraigning the city officials
for the sway enjoyed by the criminal and vicious classes.[9]
Neither the Grand Jury’s presentment nor the _Times’s_ detailed
statements had the slightest effect on the conduct of the city
administration. In November, however, a marked change occurred. For
several years certain reform societies and ecclesiastical bodies,
particularly the Episcopal Church, had sought to mitigate the open
flaunting of immorality in the tenement houses of a particular police
district on the East Side. The attempts had been resisted, not only by
those living upon the proceeds of this immorality, but by the police
themselves; and two ministers who had complained to certain police
officials had been grossly insulted.
Immediately after the Presidential election, Bishop Henry C. Potter,
of the Episcopal Church, in a stinging letter of complaint, brought
the matter to the attention of Mayor Van Wyck. It was the psychologic
moment for such an action, and it produced immediate results. Mr.
Croker paused in his preparations for his usual trip to England long
enough to give orders to put down the immorality complained of, and he
appointed a committee of five to carry his mandate into effect, or at
least to make some satisfactory show of doing so. He went further than
this, for his orders included a general ukase to the lawbreakers of the
city to “go slow,” or in other words, to observe, until further advices
from headquarters, a certain degree of moderation in their infractions
of law and their outrages upon decency.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Tweed testified in 1877 that Joseph F. Daly, with two others,
constituted the sole membership of the “Citizens’ Association” of 1870,
and that he had placated the three men by giving them offices, Mr. Daly
securing a Judgeship of the Court of Common Pleas.
[2] _Stenographic minutes_, p. 451.
[3] _Ibid._, p. 465.
[4] _Ibid._, p. 6806.
[5] _Ibid._, p. 523.
[6] _Ibid._, pp. 6891, etc.
[7] _Ibid._, p. 464.
[8] _Stenographic minutes_, p. 683.
[9] On December 22, 1900, Gov. Roosevelt removed Asa Bird Gardiner,
the Tammany District Attorney, who was popularly credited with having
originated the phrase, “To hell with reform,” for having encouraged the
turbulent element to open resistance of the law at the election. Eugene
A. Philbin, an independent Democrat, was appointed his successor. The
latter promptly demanded the resignations of many of Mr. Gardiner’s
assistants. Before his election Gardiner had long been chairman of the
Tammany Hall Legal Committee.