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[Illustration: STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR.]
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Volume I.—No. 12.] SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1858. [Price 2 Cents.
Bennett, Barnum, and Gerard.
_Three precocious villains stripped to the skin.—Precious, and
startling, and thrilling under-current revelations for the
people.—Read! Read! Read!_
_Bennett’s_ daily urgence of the immediate creation of a Tax Payer’s
Party is one of his old tricks, and is the detected burglar’s hoarse cry
of stop thief. Bennett got me to introduce Alfred Carson as a Candidate
for Mayor, just after his exciting Fire Report of 1850. I wrote several
articles in favor of Carson for the Mayoralty, and Bennett published
them, when lo! one rainy morning, I awoke, and opened the _Herald_, and
the hypocritical old villain had another Candidate. I asked him if he
intended to drop my old friend Carson, and he said no, but he thought he
would try to bring another candidate into the field, just for a little
fun, and that I could write about three editorials a week for Carson,
and flatter him as much as I chose, and he would publish them. This was
on Monday. On Wednesday, I caught him closeted with a formidable
candidate for the Mayoralty, and on Saturday, he very cautiously
introduced a third Candidate for the Mayor’s honors. As these were all
wealthy men, and as Carson was very poor, and perceiving that Bennett
unquestionably intended to sell Carson, and perhaps had already done so,
I went to him in a towering rage, and charged him with treachery to
myself and Carson. He smiled like Richard and Iago, and assured me that
he should support Carson down to the last hour of the election. But I
could not believe him; so I went to Carson, on Sunday morning, and wrote
his famous declination of the Mayoralty, which rocked the parties of
that day to their foundations with infinite delight, as every traffic
politician had trembled to his toes, since the introduction of Carson’s
potent and honest name for the Mayoralty. When I carried Carson’s Card
to the _Herald_ office, on Sunday evening, Mr. Bennett was absent,
having gone to the country with Judge Russell and his lady. But Frederic
Hudson was there—(his Aminadab Sleek Secretary,) who expostulated, and
strove by every artifice in his prolific resources, to induce me not to
publish Carson’s Card until I had seen Mr. Bennett. But I demanded him
to let the Card appear on the following morning, and told him that
himself and Bennett should be ashamed of themselves for striving to sell
Carson through me, and that I believed Bennett had already received
thousands of dollars for his contemplated sell of Carson, in favor of
one of the wealthy candidates. My withdrawal of Carson led to the
election of Ambrose C. Kingsland, a very illiterate man, and one of the
meanest of the human species, and the oiliest and biggest conspirator
and public thief since the days of the Roman Cataline. In 1853, Bennett
asked me to introduce the name of Alderman A. A. Denman, of the
Sixteenth Ward, as a candidate for Mayor, to whom I was imparting the
rudiments of the English language, at his house in Nineteenth street.
Denman was Chairman of the Committee that reported favorably at my
request, on awarding the Corporation Printing to the _Herald_ at $3,000
per annum, and the other journals at $1,000. Bennett seemed grateful to
Denman for his favorable Printing Report, and I really thought he was
sincere in his contemplated advocation of Denman for the Mayoralty; and
I saw Denman, and he permitted me to use his name in connection with the
Mayoralty, and I began to write articles, and published them in the
_Herald_, strongly recommending Denman to the Mayoralty. At this time,
Denman was one of the most popular men in the democratic party, and his
annunciation for Mayor, confused the leaders and aspirants of all
parties. Presto! Bennett announces another candidate, in a sort of a
half-and-half black mail way, and I instantly withdrew Denman, who was
sadly disappointed at the loss of the Mayoralty honors, and joined the
most bloated thieves of all parties, in the odious Common Counsel of
1852 and 1853, and he was soon forever lost as an honorable public man.
And now this Scotch reprobate comes forward, without a blush on his
vicious cheeks, and prates of a Tax Payer’s Party, in order to effect
some hellish thievish purpose. Perhaps his object is to nominate Judge
Russell, or Fire Marshal Baker, or Galbraith, or some of his roguish
go-betweens and thimble-riggers for Mayor, so that he can occupy the
pleasant relations of Peter Cooper to Mayor Tiemann, his amiable
son-in-law. But how the intelligent tax payers of the Metropolis can be
so easily and so often bamboozled by this superficial Scotch Juggler, is
a mystery to me, when they all know that he has always favored vice, and
stabbed virtue. And if there ever was a candidate for office, during
Bennett’s long editorial career, whom he did not sell, or if there ever
was a truly virtuous aspirant for public honors, whose election Bennett
ever sincerely advocated before the people, without a cash
consideration, I should like to see the most extraordinary anomaly.
Bennett very ingeniously plasters his victims with disgusting panegyric,
for a brief period, when he lets loose the dogs of Tartarus, and while
they devour them, he fills his coffers with gold from every candidate in
the field, to whom he has pledged his support. But he is very old, and
the devil will soon have him, and millions will rejoice when old Nick
drags him to his fervent realms, and begins his merited tortures. And it
will require wasteless years to burn the sins from his infamous and
loathsome and nauseous carcase. The creation of James Gordon Bennett’s
Tax Payer’s Party, after his cash advocation of all the abandoned scamps
of America to office for thirty years, is the most amusing proposition
of the age. And yet the omnipotent ballot stuffers may come to his
rescue, and adopt his plans. And why should they not? Is not Barnum
again abroad, and about to shake the world with another humbug. Barnum
has grown prodigiously affluent since the Hard times began, and since
money became scarce, and since people began to starve, and since the
elements of Pluto leveled his Oriental Palace to the ground, (which was
highly insured!) and above all, since he took as partner, that cunning
old rat, James W. Gerard, who, like Dick Connolly and Simeon Draper, is
ever found in all political camps. Gerard was the real originator of the
Joice Heath imposture, and all of Barnum’s humbugs, and has borne him
through all his financial clock troubles, for which he has got enough
from Barnum to enable him to sustain his chariots and postilions and
magnificent establishment in Gramercy Park until he dies. It was Gerard
who introduced Kingsland for Mayor, and other successful candidates,
and, in the dark, advocated Fernando Wood’s course down to his
disastrous exodus from public life. And it was Gerard who sustained
Matsell through all his infamous career, down to the famous meeting in
the Tabernacle, and in the Legislative lobby, even going into the seats
of members, and coaxing them in various ways to spare Matsell. And it
was Gerard who, after Wood had fallen, went into the camp of Tiemann,
where he is now, in order to cut the throats of Tiemann and the Coopers
the first opportunity, and is at this moment, in collusion with Bennett
in the formation of a Tax Payer’s Party. “All things to all men” is the
motto of Gerard, and he has played his card adroitly for nearly half a
century. But he has now probably got his last set of false teeth, and
his last wig, and will probably soon die of old age like his old friend
Bennett, who have operated together in ambuscade, for thirty unbroken
years, in all the political villainy that has been concocted during this
long and eventful period. No matter who succeeds in the elections,
Gerard and Bennett are in the triumphant camps, as now: Bennett in
Buchanan’s White House, and Gerard in Mayor Tiemann’s confidence, and
both playing into each others hands, like Draper and Connolly.
Picolomini is the last card that these jugglers will play. Gerard is a
snob and a dandy, and an Opera exquisite, and it was he, (through
Barnum,) who introduced Jenny Lind to the Americans, and got Bennett,
for a large sum, to abuse Barnum and Jenny Lind, as an advertisement.
Bennett did not get less than $20,000 from _Gerard_ and Barnum for his
daily abuse of Jenny Lind and Barnum. I was daily in the _Herald_ office
in those days, and I often saw Barnum closeted with Frederic Hudson, and
James Gordon Bennett. And Gerard and Barnum have already arranged with
Bennett, and paid him the cash down, to abuse Picolomini, while the
_Times_ and _Tribune_ and many other journals are to be paid to praise
her. And such a yell as we shall have on her arrival, will frighten the
rats and cats. For, in this funny world, blarney is regarded as sincere
praise and evidence of merit, while detraction is persecution, which
verdant people won’t tolerate, and especially when hurled at such
fascinating creatures as Fanny Elssler, or Jenny Lind, or Picolomini.
This is certainly a very curious world, and, like Dr. Franklin, I am
curious to know if our spiritual existence is to be as curious as our
material; and I am extremely anxious to learn if Bennett, Barnum, and
Gerard are to have an eternal abode in Heaven?
Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.
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