USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 40
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75
An equally significant extension of state authority occurred in the field of conservation. Despite the creation of a state park commission in 1872, little was done to conserve New York's physical resources until 1883, when the legislature withdrew from sale forest lands that had been acquired in tax arrears. Within two years the legislature had authorized the estab- lishment of a state forest preserve in the Adirondacks, set up a state for- estry commission, and appropriated the funds for a park at Niagara Falls. Successive legislatures adopted bills regulating the forest preserves, and in 1892 Adirondack Park was created. Although timber cutting was per- mitted in both the forest preserve and Adirondack Park during Governor Flower's administration, this policy was reversed by a provision in the Constitution of 1894. New York was far more fortunate than most states in having officials who had enough foresight and courage to prevent powerful private interests from destroying some of the state's most valua- ble possessions.
Most of the progressive measures adopted by New York from 1874 to
375
DEMOCRATIC ASCENDENCY
1894 soon proved inadequate, and in subsequent years they were sub- stantially revised and expanded. But taken collectively, they add up to a program of considerable breadth and vision for the period in which they were enacted. In an age which is frequently remembered only for its party battles and bosses, New York began the erection of that struc- ture of social legislation that today is among its most distinctive features.
Chapter 29
From Platt to Progressivism
In New York State, United States Senator Platt was the abso- lute boss of the Republican party. "Big Business" was back of him; yet at the time this, the most important element in his strength, was only imperfectly understood. It was not until I was elected Governor that I myself came to understand it .- THEODORE ROOSEVELT
DURING the two decades preceding World War I reformers played a major-if not decisive-role in New York's government and politics. Although Thomas C. Platt bossed the Republicans until the turn of the century and Tammany continued its domination over the Democrats, both parties contained sizable blocs of progressives. Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Evans Hughes were outstanding Republican governors, while in the legislature Robert Wagner and Alfred E. Smith demonstrated that Tammany Democrats could also be reformers. By 1914 New York had not reached the millennium, but it had adopted a body of forward-looking legislation that placed the state in the front ranks of the progressive move- ment.
When Levi Morton defeated David Hill for the governorship in 1894, the voters of New York exchanged one machine for another. Morton was Platt's candidate, and Platt headed one of the most efficient political organizations in the state's history. On the other hand, his rule was of relatively short duration. He did not obtain control of the state govern- ment until the mid-1890's, and after 1900 his power declined rapidly. Before he died in 1910, he was completely out of touch with his party and his times, and to many he seemed an anachronistic symbol of a political age that had been destroyed by progressivism.
Like many other party leaders, Platt devoted most of his adult life to the business of politics. He was born in 1823 in Owego, Tioga County (one of the southern tier counties), and as a young man he opened a drugstore which soon became the informal headquarters for Tioga's Re-
376
377
FROM PLATT TO PROGRESSIVISM
publican politicians. After taking an active part in the Frémont campaign, he was made county clerk in 1858, and in the 1860's he became chairman of the county Republican committee. He used his position as the party's leader in Tioga to support Fenton, but within a short time he had shifted his allegiance to Conkling. He helped Conkling manage the state conven- tion in 1870, and for the next eleven years he faithfully followed his own and his party's boss. He voted as Conkling directed during his two terms in the House; he resigned from the Senate with Conkling in 1881; and he returned to Albany-and defeat-with Conkling in the same year. It was his willingness to stand by Conkling in 1881 that earned him the nick- name "Me-Too Platt."
Within a few years of their rejection by the New York legislature, Conkling had been relegated to political obscurity and Platt was boss of the state Republican machine. During Arthur's administration Platt ob- tained control over some of the federal patronage, and in 1884 he made peace with the party's national organization by announcing that he favored Blaine's nomination for the presidency. Four years later he helped to carry the state for Harrison. It was not, however, until 1894 that his ma- chine took over the state government. In 1897 he avenged the humiliating defeat of 1881 by securing his election to the Senate, and in 1903 he still retained enough influence in the organization for re-election.
Like every other boss, Platt derived his power from his ability to reward the faithful with jobs and favors. All the jobs went to loyal party work- ers, and the favors were granted to those business firms that helped to finance the Republican organization. As the state's Republican leader, he always attempted to distribute the largesse at his disposal in such a way as to promote party harmony and to prevent the organization from being disrupted by factionalism. Known to both his followers and opponents as the "Easy Boss," he preferred compromise to the type of intraparty con- flict that had led to his own and Conkling's downfall. He viewed irregu- larity as the gravest of political sins, but he also realized that the New York Republicans had to appeal to reform as well as machine groups to win elections. Thus in 1891 he unsuccessfully attempted to secure the nomination for governor of such a well-known Republican as Andrew D. White, and in 1898 he backed the unpredictable Roosevelt for the high- est office in the state. His answer to the curse of factionalism was not to crush rebellions but to appease the rebels.
The major decisions concerning the conduct of the Republican machine were invariably reached at conferences which Platt held every Sunday at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City. Party leaders from every sec- tion of the state regularly attended what came to be known as "Platt's Sunday school classes." Because Platt's suggestions were always approved by his lieutenants at these sessions, the corner of the lobby in which he
378
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
instructed his willing students was usually referred to as the "Amen Corner." It was at the Amen Corner that the party's nominees were se- lected, platforms drawn up, jobs distributed, and directives formulated for legislators and governors.
From 1895 to 1899 Platt was at the height of his power in New York. Republican legislatures unfailingly did his bidding, and the occupants of the governor's office were his personal selections. Morton, whom Platt considered the "safest governor that New York ever had," displayed some interest in civil service reform, but he never got out of hand, and in a crisis he always followed the boss's orders. Particularly consoling to Platt was Morton's belief that the legislature was an autonomous branch of the government and that the governor should use his veto power only under the most unusual circumstances. He also revealed his "safeness" by permitting the machine to revive the abuses in canal administration that had been eliminated some twenty years earlier by Tilden.
Frank S. Black, who was elected governor in 1896, equaled or surpassed Morton's loyalty to the machine. In addition to continuing his predecessor's canal policies, he substituted what he called "starchless civil service" for the merit system and appointed some of the organization's most disreputa- ble and notorious hacks to positions of responsibility. Of all his appoint- ments, that of Louis Payn as superintendent of insurance provoked the greatest public indignation. A veteran member of the "Sunday school classes" and an avowed lobbyist, Payn was such an obviously obnoxious selection that even some of the Republican regulars in the state Senate refused to vote for his confirmation.
When the members of the Sunday school class decided that a bill was a "party measure," legislative approval was a virtual certainty. High on any list of such measures was the Raines Liquor Tax bill. Although originally opposed by Republican senators and assemblymen with urban constituencies, it was adopted by the legislature in 1896 because of pres- sure exerted by Platt. It provided for high license fees for saloons and hotels in cities, restricted the sale of liquor on Sundays to hotels, divided the revenue from liquor taxes between state and local governments, and placed the administration of the law under state authority. Prohibition- ists favored the law as a temperance measure; Platt backed it as a device which would create additional state jobs for his followers and provide the state with funds that would be supplied in large part by cities in which there were many Democrats and few Republicans. In neither of these expectations was he disappointed. On the other hand, he did not antici- pate that the law would also result in a marked increase in prostitution. To circumvent the Sunday restrictions, many saloons bought a few beds and called themselves hotels. Having the beds, the "Raines law hotels" put them to use, and soon many saloons were also brothels.
The Greater New York bill was another "party measure" that was
379
FROM PLATT TO PROGRESSIVISM
adopted in large part because of Platt's influence over Republican officials in Albany. For some thirty years several interested individuals (the most persistent of whom was Andrew H. Green) had been agitating to enlarge New York City so that it would include all the communities in the state bordering on New York harbor. It was not, however, until Platt took up the cause that substantial progress was made. In 1890 the legislature authorized a committee to investigate the problem, but no move was made to implement the committee's report favoring the project. Although a plebiscite in 1894 revealed that a majority of the voters in the area affected by the proposal favored a consolidated city, the legislature continued to withhold its approval. But when word went out from the Amen Corner in 1896 that the organization favored consolidation, the legislature adopted a bill creating a commission to draw up a charter for Greater New York. Behind Platt's decision to support the bill was his conviction that the enlarged city would be ruled by commissions that would be appointed by the governor and staffed by Republicans.
The Greater New York bill aroused more opposition than any other measure sponsored by Platt. Several upstate Republicans were alarmed by the prospect of a single huge city that could dominate the state; many Brooklyn citizens objected to the destruction of their city's identity; the Mclaughlin machine viewed the bill as a device for extending Tam- many's authority to Brooklyn; and New York City businessmen feared that the annexation of relatively undeveloped areas would increase their tax burdens. In addition to those Republicans who took their orders from Platt, the bill was supported by Tammany politicians who looked forward to controlling the patronage of the greater city and by many New Yorkers who were thrilled by the idea of such a magnificent metropolis. Despite extraordinary pressure exerted by Platt, some Republican legislators re- fused to support the bill, and it was passed in 1896 only because of the votes it received from Tammany. When Morton expressed some doubts concerning the feasibility of a Greater New York, Platt had to "rowl" him "with a fierceness that hurt" to induce him to sign the bill. In 1897 a charter for the enlarged city was approved by the legislature and on January 1, 1898, Greater New York began its official existence. The orig- inal charter for Greater New York provided for the division of the city into five boroughs (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Richmond ), each of which had a president elected by the respective borough's voters. The Board of Aldermen, with sixty-five members, was the city's legis- lative body. The mayor, comptroller, and president of the Board of Alder- men were elected on a city-wide basis, and together with the borough presidents constituted the Board of Estimate and Apportionment which was empowered to make policy for the city and to have authority over the city's finances.
Platt's practically autocratic control over the state government ended
380
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
with the election of 1898. Although most of the party's regulars favored Governor Black's renomination, the Easy Boss realized that public indig- nation over the canal scandals, the Payn appointment, and starchless civil service required the selection of a candidate who was acceptable to in- dependent voters and who had not been identified with the Republican regime at Albany. Under the circumstances Platt felt compelled, however reluctantly, to back Roosevelt as Republican nominee. Above all else Platt needed a winner, and Roosevelt alone seemed capable of leading the party to victory. His exploits in the Spanish American War, following his service as assistant secretary of the navy, had made him a national hero; his record as a state assemblyman, federal civil service commissioner, and New York City police commissioner had established his reputation as a reformer; and his family background as well as his education at Harvard served to convince many independents that he was above the machina- tions of the organization supporting him. The hacks and wheelhorses in the Platt organization may not have liked him, but they had to put up with him. They could, moreover, console themselves with the thought that he had never broken with the party and that he had even stuck by Blaine in the Mugwump revolt of 1884. Events were also to demonstrate that in spite of his reputation as a reformer and moralist, Roosevelt could be as practical a politician as any veteran of the Amen Corner. The machine's leaders were to learn that the difficulty was not so much that he was a reformer, but that he was an ambitious man who would not participate in any movement which he could not also lead.
In the first weeks of the campaign of 1898, Roosevelt "fairly pranced around the state," giving speeches on the glories of the Spanish American War and imperialism. The voters clearly resented his refusal to discuss state issues; and although Augustus Van Wyck, the Democratic nominee, was a weak candidate, he seemed strong enough to defeat a thoroughly discredited Republican party. But in the middle of the campaign Croker played into Roosevelt's hands by announcing that Supreme Court Justice Joseph F. Daly, a veteran with twenty-eight years' service on the bench, would not be renominated. Reformers in both parties were shocked by this blatant attempt to make loyalty to Tammany the only qualification for election to the judiciary, and Roosevelt immediately made Crokerism the major issue of the campaign. In all likelihood it was his militant stand against Tammany that enabled him to win the election, with a plurality of approximately eighteen thousand votes.
Roosevelt considered himself "the best governor within my time, better than either Cleveland or Tilden." Although he was never as much of a reformer as he liked to imagine, he had considerable justification for this typically immodest estimate of his accomplishments. Some of his appoint- ments reflected Platt's influence, but many others did not. Despite the
€
FROM PLATT TO PROGRESSIVISM
381
opposition of the machine, he dismissed Payn as superintendent of in- surance, and he supported the enactment in 1899 of a civil service law which unified the state system and required appointing officers to fill any vacancy with the first candidate on the eligible list. In addition, a num- ber of labor bills were adopted during his administration. Laws were en- acted to regulate work done on a piece-rate basis by tenement-house dwell- ers in their homes, to safeguard women and children in industry, to create a tenement-house commission, to increase the number of factory inspectors, and to improve working conditions in the building trades, restaurants, hotels, and drugstores. Although Roosevelt was inclined to take all the credit for such legislation, he did in fact support many labor reforms, and on occasion his influence over the legislature proved decisive.
In Roosevelt's opinion the adoption of the Franchise Tax bill in 1899 was the most important contribution that he made as governor. Although he did not sponsor the measure, he gave it his enthusiastic support and deserves most of the credit for its enactment. Under the terms of this bill, public service corporations, which in the past had not paid taxes on franchises for the streets they used, were to have the value of their franchises taxed as real estate. For understandable reasons corporations affected by the bill did all within their power to defeat it. Because many of these corporations contributed to the Republican party, the Platt or- ganization also opposed the bill. But it was favored by the voters, and to appease public opinion the machine decided to let it pass in the Senate and then permit it to die in the Assembly. Roosevelt responded to these tactics with a barrage of special messages favoring the tax. Through constant pressure he was able to obtain its passage on the final day of the session. When it reached the governor's desk, it contained certain objec- tionable provisions that had been inserted by the measure's opponents in the hope that Roosevelt would disapprove of them and would therefore veto the bill. Roosevelt, however, called an extra session of the legislature and secured the passage of a measure satisfactory to him. The Franchise Tax bill was a victory for reform. Roosevelt, in this instance at least, had defied, outmaneuvered, and defeated Platt.
If Roosevelt was a reformer, he was also a politician who knew when and how to compromise. He eliminated fraud in the administration of the state's canals, but he made no move to punish the members of his own party who had profited from the canal frauds. He removed Payn as superintendent of insurance, but he named another member of the machine to the same post. He prided himself on his independence, but he never broke with the organization. Throughout his administration he and Platt maintained an uneasy truce. Each needed the other, for both realized that open warfare would wreck their careers. The result was a modus vivendi that gave the governor considerable latitude in the formu-
382
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
lation of policy and enabled the boss to retain his control over the day- to-day operations of the machine.
Although Roosevelt made several concessions to the party's professional politicians, he did not make enough to please Platt, and in 1900 the boss maneuvered the governor into accepting the Republican nomination for the vice-presidency. Roosevelt's shift from state to national politics did not, however, end Republican rule in New York. Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., a Platt lieutenant who had served in Congress and as chairman of the Republican state committee, was elected governor in 1900 and re-elected in 1902. In 1905 he was succeeded by Frank W. Higgins, an upstate Re- publican businessman who had been lieutenant governor during Odell's second term.
During the Odell and Higgins administrations there were a number of changes in the leadership of the Republican party. Odell took over the party's machinery in the state, and President Roosevelt rather than Platt distributed the federal patronage in New York. Deprived of the two most important sources of his power, Platt was reduced to a position of relative insignificance in state and national politics. Odell, however, was unable to maintain his hold over the state organization. When Higgins became governor, he indicated his independence by helping to defeat Odell's candidate for the speakership of the Assembly, and by the end of his term the party was controlled by a loose alliance of local bosses.
During the same years equally significant changes occurred in the high command of the Democratic party. Following Seth Low's victory in 1901 over the Tammany candidate for mayor of New York City, Croker re- linquished his position as leader and retired to his estate in Ireland. For a short time Tammany was ruled by a triumvirate, but by 1902 Charles E. Murphy had emerged as undisputed leader. Murphy, who was to hold this position until his death in 1924, exercised fully as much power as his predecessors had; but he was more sensitive to public opinion than were most Tammany leaders and he permitted the organization to back cer- tain reform measures that were designed-among other things-to im- prove the lot of Tammany's poorer constituents. One of Murphy's first acts was to extend Tammany's control to Brooklyn, and in 1903 his lieu- tenant, Patrick McCarran, overthrew the McLaughlin machine. But within a short time Brooklyn Democrats had driven the invaders from the bor- ough, and in subsequent years they were able to prevent the tiger from recrossing the bridge.
As governor, Odell provided the state with an unimaginative admin- istration that was characterized by its economy and efficiency. Under his direction, the number of state offices was reduced, several departments were consolidated, a roadbuilding program was undertaken, work was begun on the conversion of the Erie Canal to the Barge Canal, and Seth
383
FROM PLATT TO PROGRESSIVISM
Low's demands for home rule for New York City were supported. At the same time, Odell endeared himself to the taxpayers by cutting the state's expenditures (as well as its services) and by substituting indirect for direct methods of taxation. During Higgins' administration Odell's tax and economy programs were continued, and the government strength- ened its control over working conditions within the state. In 1905 the voters approved a constitutional amendment that permitted the legisla- ture to regulate wages, hours, and working conditions for laborers em- ployed by the state or on public contracts, and in the same year the legislature passed a law (which was later invalidated by the Supreme Court) regulating the hours of labor of men in bakeries. To contem- poraries, however, every other event of the Higgins administration was overshadowed by the results of the legislature's investigations of New York City's gas and insurance companies.
The inquiry into the conduct of the city's gas companies was under- taken in response to consumers' repeated complaints of high rates. De- spite the opposition of the gas lobby, the legislature in 1905 appointed a committee headed by Senator Frederick C. Stevens to investigate the companies' policies. Charles Evans Hughes, a New York City attorney, was made committee counsel. The testimony elicited by Hughes's skillful examination of witnesses revealed that the companies comprising the so- called gas trust had eliminated competition within the city, were grossly overcapitalized, charged exorbitant rates, made enormous profits, and sold an inferior product. In his report at the conclusion of the investigation Hughes proposed that in the future gas be sold at seventy-five cents per thousand cubic feet instead of at $1.00 or $1.25, that the price of electricity be reduced from fifteen to ten cents per kilowatt hour, and that the super- vision of the gas and lighting companies be intrusted to a public service commission "with inquisitorial authority, competent to make summary investigations of complaints, to supervise issues of securities and invest- ment in the stocks or bonds of other companies, to regulate rates and to secure adequate inspection, or otherwise to enforce the provisions of the law." Although these proposals were adopted by the legislature, the gas bill was not enacted until 1906, and then the statutory price was set at eighty rather than seventy-five cents.
Within a few months of the gas investigation the Armstrong committee began its examination of a group of New York City insurance firms. In the course of the hearings Hughes uncovered a trail of corruption and mis- representation that made the gas companies look like models of business ethics. Under Hughes's questioning a succession of highly paid and hitherto respected insurance executives admitted that they retained control over their companies through extralegal devices, made regular campaign con- tributions to the Republican party, bribed legislators of both parties, paid
384
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
out large sums to corrupt the press, maintained lobbyists at Albany and other state capitals, arranged illegal loans between their companies and banks on whose boards they served, speculated with their companies' funds in other enterprises, falsified their books, and knew virtually noth- ing about the actual conduct of the insurance business. By the time the four-month investigation had ended, several insurance executives had fled the country, almost all of them had been convicted by their own words of fraudulent practices, the superintendent of insurance (who had been ap- pointed by Roosevelt ) had resigned in disgrace, and Hughes had become one of the state's most prominent Republicans. In 1906 the legislature, fol- lowing the recommendations made by Hughes's report on the investiga- tion, adopted bills regulating the state's insurance companies, prohibiting corporations from contributing to political campaigns, and requiring lob- byists to register and make public the nature of their work.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.