USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 39
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Cornell governor of New York in 1879, and in the following year he went to the Republican national convention determined to secure a third term for Grant. But once again he was defeated as the nomination went to James A. Garfield of Ohio, a Half-Breed. As a consolation prize for the Stalwarts, Arthur was made the party's vice-presidential candidate. In spite of Conkling's request that he refuse the nomination, Arthur ac- cepted it.
Garfield proved no more acceptable to Conkling than had Hayes. Not only did the new president make Blaine his secretary of state, but he also named William H. Robertson, who was the acknowledged leader of the anti-Conkling Republicans in New York, to the post of collector of the New York Customs House. Conkling, with the assistance of Platt, who had been elected to the United States Senate in January 1881, immediately set to work to block Robertson's confirmation by the Senate. But he was no more successful in 1881 than he had been in 1879. When he realized that he faced inevitable defeat, he decided to resign his seat, return to Albany, and vindicate himself by securing his immediate re-election to the Senate. He induced Platt to join him, and in May 1881 both men resigned. At this point their plans miscarried. To the surprise of almost everyone and in spite of a special trip that Vice-President Arthur made to Albany to support his fellow Stalwarts, the Republican legislature re- fused to re-elect Conkling and Platt.
Despite this defeat, Conkling retained enough power and prestige to control the Republican state convention of 1882. Cornell, who had been the organization's choice in 1879, had compiled a good, if not outstanding, record as governor, but three years later Conkling was prepared to go to any extremes to prevent his renomination. Cornell had refused to use his influence and prestige to secure Conkling's and Platt's re-election to the Senate in 1881, and now Conkling ruled that Cornell would not be allowed to succeed himself. Through the use of corrupt methods that reminded more than one observer of the heyday of the Tweed Ring, Conkling compelled the convention to nominate Charles J. Folger. Al- though Folger was personally honest, the fashion in which he had been nominated outraged the reform groups in the party, and the Republicans entered the campaign of 1882 hopelessly split.
The Democrats appeared as divided as the Republicans. The two lead- ing candidates were Roswell P. Flower, a banker from Watertown and New York City, whose principal political asset was his ability to make generous financial contributions to the campaign, and General Henry W. Slocum of Brooklyn, an inveterate office seeker, who had served un- der Sherman on the march to the sea. Slocum was backed by Boss Mc- Laughlin's Brooklyn machine and by the Tilden organization, which was controlled by Daniel Manning, owner of the Albany Argus. Flower was
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supported by diverse groups, but his preconvention strength was con- sidered equal to that of Slocum. Tammany, under the direction of Kelly, was prepared to jump to the winning side as soon as it was apparent which side that would be, while the County Democracy, an anti- Tammany organization, was opposed to both candidates. When the con- vention opened it was apparent that the supporters of Flower and Slocum were evenly divided. On the first ballot Slocum received 98 votes to Flower's 97, while on the second ballot they were tied at 123 with Grover Cleveland, a reform mayor from Buffalo, in third place with 71 votes. On the third ballot the County Democracy broke the deadlock by casting all its votes for Cleveland. The Flower delegates quickly followed, and Tammany belatedly jumped on the bandwagon. Although Slocum's sup- porters stood firm, they were unable to prevent Cleveland's nomination. The outcome of the campaign was a foregone conclusion, for even a weaker candidate than Cleveland proved to be would have been assured of a victory over the divided and dispirited Republicans. Out of a total of more than 900,000 votes, Cleveland had a plurality of almost 200,000.
Cleveland's early career was similar to that of many other young lawyers with an interest in politics. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he had been born in New Jersey, spent his youth in upstate New York, and became an able, if not distinguished, lawyer in Buffalo. Aligning him- self from the outset with the Democratic party, he served successively as ward supervisor, assistant district attorney for Erie County, and sheriff of Buffalo. It was, however, his election in 1881 as mayor of Buffalo which gave him an opportunity to gain more than a local reputation, for his administration was distinguished by its efficient honesty and the frequency with which he vetoed the bills adopted by a graft-ridden board of alder- men. Before his nomination for governor, he was widely known as the "veto mayor," and at the convention of 1882 his candidacy was supported by a well-organized group of experienced politicians from the vicinity of Buffalo.
In an age of spectacular politics and colorful politicians, Cleveland impressed most observers with his stolidity. A heavy-set man with a powerful physique, he had a personality that matched his appearance. Firm, forthright, and deliberate, he never hedged and he seldom com- promised. Cynics thought his honesty both old fashioned and naïve, but the voters considered it his outstanding attribute as a politician. He had a deep-seated sense of right and wrong, and this fact more than any other determined his stand on the questions that confronted him. At a time when almost every public figure belonged to this or that machine, he remained an independent.
During his first year as governor when both branches of the legisla- ture were Democratic, Cleveland maintained the reputation that he had
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earned as the "veto mayor" of Buffalo. He not only refused to approve innumerable private and local bills, but he also used the veto power to prevent the enactment of the various jobs and steals that were devised by either upstate Republicans or downstate Democrats. Of all his vetoes, none attracted more attention than that of the Five Cent Fare bill. Backed by Tammany Hall and several reformers, this measure lowered the fares on a New York City elevated railroad system that was controlled by the notorious Jay Gould and was as profitable as its management was cor- rupt. On the surface it seemed an eminently desirable bill, but Cleveland vetoed it on the ground that it violated the contract that had been made in the franchise issued to the company. Because of the cogency of the argument advanced by the governor in his veto message, many original supporters of the measure reversed their stand; and Theodore Roosevelt, who was serving his second term in the Assembly and who had voted for the bill, publicly stated that he had been wrong and that Cleveland was right. But Tammany was not prepared to make a similar admission, and within a short time there was open warfare between the governor and John Kelly.
The split between the governor and Tammany was precipitated by Cleveland's determination to increase the efficiency of the immigration department and the harbor masters. Both were branches of the state government in New York City, and both provided Tammany with patronage. After Cleveland's proposed changes had been adopted in modified form, he named a Mclaughlin lieutenant rather than a Tam- many man to the important post of immigration commissioner. The nom- inee's confirmation was blocked, however, by Senator Thomas F. Grady, a Kelly henchman, who was supported in his opposition to the governor's choice by a bipartisan alliance of Tammany Democrats and upstate Republicans. Refusing to be blackmailed into changing his nominee, Cleveland withdrew every Tammany name from his list of appointees for state jobs, and in October 1883 he wrote Boss Kelly: "I am anxious that Mr. Grady should not be returned to the next Senate. I do not wish to conceal the fact that my personal comfort and satisfaction are involved in the matter. But I know that good legislation, based upon a pure desire to promote the interests of the people and the improvement of legislative methods, are also deeply involved." Mr. Grady was not returned to the next Senate. Cleveland had earned the enmity of Tammany for the re- mainder of his term in Albany, but he had also won the respect of re- formers throughout the state and the nation.
As governor, Cleveland did not sponsor any basic changes in the framework of government, and he showed little interest in expanding the state's responsibilities and services. But he gave the citizens of the state an honest, efficient, relatively nonpartisan administration; and this was
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far more than they had received from most of his predecessors. During his first year in office, he set new standards for appointments to state positions, drastically reduced the number of officeholders, and supported a civil service bill which had been introduced by Theodore Roosevelt and was adopted by the legislature. In the following year, when Tammany was in open revolt and the Republicans controlled the legislature, he repeatedly co-operated with Roosevelt to promote reform legislation. Roosevelt sponsored and Cleveland approved bills to transfer several county officials from a fee to salary basis, to concentrate the appointive power for cities in the hands of the mayors, and to deprive the aldermen of the right to confirm a mayor's appointments. The same session of the legislature adopted a bill providing for the compulsory inspection of finan- cial institutions and appropriated approximately a million and a half dollars for the establishment of a state reservation at Niagara Falls. Cleveland's record as governor was impressive by both New York's and the nation's standards. It was the principal reason why he was named the Democratic presidential candidate in 1884 and why he attracted enough independent-Republican-or Mugwump-votes to be elected.
When Cleveland resigned as governor on January 6, 1885, he was suc- ceeded by Lieutenant Governor David B. Hill. Elected city attorney by the Democrats of Elmira in 1865 when he was twenty-two, Hill had served as a delegate to the Democratic state convention in 1868, as a mem- ber of the Assembly in 1870 and 1871, and as chairman of the party's state convention in 1877 and 1880. He was elected mayor of Elmira in 1882. In the same year he had received a larger plurality for lieutenant gov- ernor than Cleveland had for governor. Cleveland and Hill had little in common except their party affiliations. A man of undoubted intelligence, Hill lacked Cleveland's devotion to principle and willingness to sub- ordinate partisan considerations to the general welfare. He was a business- like administrator, who was personally honest in financial matters. But he was also a spoils politician who was willing to go to almost any extreme to ensure a victory for himself and his party. Unlike many other politicians of the day, he had no apparent desire to use his official position to acquire a fortune. Power was an end in itself, and he sought it relentlessly. Al- though he lacked the kind of outgoing personality that is usually the hall- mark of a political leader, this was more than offset by his industry, the ingenuity with which he united diverse interest groups, and his ability as a campaign strategist. Ruling his party and state for almost a decade, he was one of the most successful bosses in New York's entire history.
As soon as Hill assumed the governorship, he set to work to secure his election to a full term in the fall elections of 1885. At first few observers accorded him more than an outside chance, but he assiduously cultivated party leaders in every section of the state. At the same time, realizing that
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he would never receive the support of reform elements in the party, he appealed to the machine groups by openly encouraging the discontent arising from President Cleveland's refusal to turn the federal bureaucracy over to the Democratic regulars at the outset of his administration. When the Democratic convention met, Hill was backed by every major faction in the party except the County Democracy, and he was nominated on the first ballot. Throughout the campaign, he spoke to large and enthusiastic audiences as an unabashed partisan. His war cry, "I am a Democrat," announced to all that he had no sympathy with Cleveland's views on civil service and that he neither expected nor wanted the votes of the Mug- wumps. Although Ira Davenport, the Republican candidate, was no match for Hill as a campaigner, he undoubtedly would have carried the state if the Republicans had not lost approximately thirty thousand votes to the Prohibitionists. Many contemporaries considered Hill's election by a plurality of only eleven thousand more an accident than a victory, but he was re-elected governor in 1888, and he was elected to the United States Senate by the legislature in 1891.
Hill's success as a party leader can be attributed in large measure to his skill in bringing together diverse-and often hostile-groups that . had little in common besides their loyalty to him. New York's Democrats were divided up among machines whose leaders seldom agreed on any- thing except the desirability of supporting Hill. Tammany Hall, whether it was ruled by Kelly ( until his death in 1886) or by Richard Croker, his successor, repeatedly produced large majorities for Hill. At the same time he could count on the backing of Mclaughlin's Brooklyn organization, and he always maintained friendly relations with the party's upstate bosses. In addition, he was careful never to alienate the labor vote. In 1887 Henry George had campaigned for mayor of New York City on a labor ticket; and although he lost the election to Abram S. Hewitt, the Democratic candidate, he polled more votes than Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican nominee. The implications of this election were not lost on Hill. His campaign speeches contained many kind words for the work- ingman; as governor he consistently refused to approve any bill permitting prisoners to do any work that might jeopardize the jobs of free laborers; and during his two terms at Albany more labor bills were adopted than in any preceding administration.
In his campaigns against the Republicans, Hill was always able to capitalize on the liquor issue. The Republicans, caught between the up- state "drys" and the urban "wets"-particularly the Germans-were com- pelled to take a more or less equivocal stand on the question of the state's regulation of the sale of alcoholic beverages. As a consequence, the Pro- hibitionists were always able to attract some votes from the Republicans
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in the rural districts. The Democrats, with nothing to gain by temporiz- ing on this issue, openly appealed to the wets and took a strong stand for what they preferred to call "personal liberty" (or the right of any in- dividual to drink as much as he wished). Hill always received generous campaign contributions from the state's liquor firms, and the Republicans' loss of votes to the Prohibitionists was undoubtedly one of the important factors in his party's successive victories at the polls.
Although Hill could defeat the Republicans on a state-wide basis, he was not able to break their hold on the Senate and Assembly. During his two terms as governor he was in constant conflict with a succession of Republican legislatures that sought to embarrass him by passing reform bills that they knew he would veto. Hill, for his part, usually played the role assigned him by the opposition. Thus, in 1888 he vetoed a bill for the prevention of bribery at elections, and in both 1888 and 1889 he vetoed the Saxton bill for the Australian, or secret, ballot. Under the terms of the Saxton bill, official ballots that were to be marked in secrecy would replace the ballots which the parties printed in different colors and which enabled poll watchers to know how every vote was cast. Public opinion, however, favored electoral reform, and Hill soon realized that he would have to make some concessions. Accordingly, in 1890 he recom- mended that the Corrupt Practice Act, which required every candidate for an elective office to file expense accounts, be extended; and when the legislature followed his advice, he signed the bill. In the same year he approved a revised version of the Saxton bill. The amended bill provided that in addition to the official ballot every voter be issued a "paster," or party ballot, which could be pasted over the regular list of candidates. The "pasters," whose use had been proposed by Hill and which he de- fended on the ground that they were needed by illiterates, effectively circumvented the Saxton bill's requirement for secrecy.
Soon after Hill had assumed the governorship it became apparent that he considered himself Cleveland's rival for the control of the party. As a spoilsman he had no sympathy for the President's interest in civil service reform, and within a short time he had become the spokesman for those who complained that the party's regulars were not receiving a large enough share of the federal patronage. By 1888 Hill had undisguised presidential ambitions, but he was not yet ready to make his bid, and Cleveland was renominated by acclamation. Following the election, in which Hill was re-elected governor and Cleveland was defeated because of his failure to carry New York, it was charged-but never demonstrated -- that the governor had sabotaged the national ticket. In any event the breach between the two men steadily widened. Although Hill was elected to the United States Senate in the spring of 1891 (for the remainder of
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the year he served as both governor and senator), he was unable to dis- lodge his rival as head of the party, and in 1892 the Democrats for the third time selected Cleveland as their presidential candidate.
The Democrats did not lose control of the executive branch of the state government until 1895, but they had prepared the way for their own defeat some years before this. In 1891 they elected Flower gov- ernor and won the Assembly sixty-seven to sixty-one. The Senate, how- ever, remained in doubt, for each party had fourteen seats while the outcomes of the election in four districts-Troy, Onondaga, Steuben, and Dutchess-were in dispute. The Court of Appeals awarded the Troy seat to the Republicans and the Onondaga seat to the Democrats, left the Steuben contest to the Senate, and ruled that the Dutchess return ( which gave the seat to a Democrat) was illegal. Despite the court's decision, Deputy Attorney General Isaac H. Maynard and the state Board of Can- vassers awarded Dutchess to the Democrats. With a sixteen-to-fifteen majority the Democrats then organized the Senate and voted to seat their party's candidate from the Steuben district. The Democrats had achieved their immediate objective, but they had also managed to an- tagonize all but their most rabid partisans. In an apparent effort to enrage public opinion still further, Flower appointed Maynard a judge of the Court of Appeals. In 1893, when Maynard was a candidate for the same post, he was defeated by a plurality of more than 100,000. Democratic misfortunes were climaxed by spectacular revelations concerning the alliance between crime and Croker's Tammany machine in New York City. The Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst found ample evidence on his tours of the city that Tammany was filled with "a lying, perjured, rum- soaked, and libidinous lot," while the testimony before the legislature's Lexow committee in 1894 demonstrated that the police and Croker's henchmen exacted regular tribute from New York's prostitutes, brothel keepers, criminals, and saloon owners.
When the Democrats held their state convention in 1894, their "theft" of the state Senate, Hill's refusal to resign the governorship after his elec- tion to the Senate, the disclosures concerning Tammany rule in New York City, and the voters' inclination to attribute the hard times following the Panic of 1893 to the party in power all combined to make the outcome of the gubernatorial election a foregone conclusion. The delegates, who behaved as though they were attending a wake, turned to Hill in des- peration. Although he at first attempted to check the movement to draft him, he reluctantly agreed to be the party's candidate. In accepting the nomination, he stated that having been honored by the party when he "solicited its favors, in the days of its sunshine and prosperity," he would not "desert it now in the hour of its danger and this great emergency." Hill exaggerated neither the danger nor the emergency, and in November
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he was overwhelmingly defeated by Levi P. Morton, the Republican candidate. Morton's victory marked the end of twelve years of Democratic rule and the beginning of a decade and a half of Republican control of the state government.
In 1894 the voters approved a new constitution that had been drawn up by a convention which was presided over by Joseph H. Choate and whose members included Elihu Root, William C. Whitney, John Bigelow, and Andrew H. Green. The Constitution of 1894 (which, with amend- ments, is still in effect) reduced the governor's term to two years, in- creased the Senate's membership from thirty-two to fifty and the Assembly's from 128 to 150, provided for a new system of apportion- ment that continued in different form the rural counties' overrepresenta- tion in the legislature, and sought to divorce state from local politics by providing for state elections in even years and municipal elections in odd years. In an effort to speed up and standardize the administration of justice, the new constitution consolidated the minor courts in Brooklyn, New York City, and Buffalo with the Supreme Court, abolished the gen- eral terms, established four appellate divisions of the Supreme Court, and increased the number of Supreme Court justices in each district. An effort was also made to furnish cities with minimum guarantees against state encroachment. Cities were divided into classes, and any bill relating to less than all the cities of a class had to be approved by those cities that were directly affected. If approval was withheld, the measure could become law only if it was repassed by the legislature. Other important provisions of the constitution forbade the cutting of any timber in the state's forest preserve, set up rigid standards for voting, and provided for competitive appointments to the civil service under the merit system. Although the Constitution of 1894 did not increase centralization of ad- ministration by reducing the number of elective offices, it did remove a great deal of the chaos and many of the abuses that had been char- acteristic features of New York's government under the Constitution of 1846.
During the two decades preceding the adoption of the Constitution of 1894, New York had been almost continuously ruled by Democratic governors and Republican legislatures. The national reputations and executive abilities of Tilden, Cleveland, and Hill tended to obscure, but did not obviate, the fact that the control of the government was usually shared by the two parties. Although this division of power frequently provided the citizens of the state with nothing more rewarding than a stalemate, it should not be assumed that this was an entirely negative period. Every session of the legislature adopted,, and every governor approved, bills that in the long run were to be far more important than the innumerable jobs and deals that consumed so much of the time of
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a New York politician. Ranking high on any list of such bills was the act for civil service reform. Adopted in 1883, this measure followed closely the provisions of the law enacted earlier in the same year by the federal government. Many years elapsed before the merit system became firmly established, but the law of 1883 marked the first breach in the wall of partisan privilege that had been erected by the spoilsmen.
The state also showed an increasing interest in the regulation of eco- nomic affairs. In its famous report to the legislature in 1880, the Hepburn committee not only described in detail the effects of the various forms of rate discrimination practiced by the railroads, but it also anticipated most of the findings of the congressional investigations that preceded the enactment of the Federal Interstate Commerce Act in 1887. After con- siderable delay and protracted debates, the legislature of 1882 created a three-man railroad commission which had the power to investigate complaints and advise the legislature but was not given any regulatory functions. Several bills, all of which proved ineffectual, were also adopted to regulate insurance companies, and a statute in 1887 provided for the supervision and administration of trust companies. The members of the Senate and Assembly, moreover, revealed an increasing concern over the lot-and the votes-of the state's workingmen. The legislature estab- lished the office of factory inspector (1886), made twelve hours the maxi- mum work-day for employees on elevated and street railways in cities with a population of more than fifty thousand (1886), prohibited the em- ployment of children under thirteen in factories (1886), created a state Board of Arbitration to settle disputes between employers and employees (1887), and forbade corporations to pay their employees in "store orders" (1889).
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