USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 10
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10New York Tribune, November 5, 1872.
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[1872
ents. The Senate holding over consisted of 24 Repub- licans and 8 Democrats. Of the 15 Assemblymen from New York City, Tammany succeeded in electing only 4. Greeley carried the city by 23,157 plurality, and Kernan carried it by 21,625.
The regular Democrats nominated Abraham R. Lawrence for Mayor of New York City and Greeley supported him, but the Committee of Seventy and most of the active opponents of Tweed joined the Repub- licans in support of ex-Mayor William F. Havemeyer, who was elected Mayor by a narrow plurality, receiving 53,031 votes, while Lawrence had 47,133 and James O'Brien, the Apollo Hall candidate, 34,714. Noah Davis, who had resigned from the Supreme Court in western New York in the hope of getting to the Senate, was elected to the Supreme Court in the city to fill the vacancy.caused by the retirement of Cardozo.
Greeley had taken no personal part in the last few weeks of the campaign owing to the illness of his wife, whom he nursed day and night with devoted attention until her death on October 30. After the election he resumed the editorship of the Tribune with the an- nouncement that it would thenceforth be an inde- pendent paper. But the strain of the campaign and of Mrs. Greeley's illness and death had worn him out. Inflammation of the brain coverings developed and he died on November 29, 1872. The tragedy of his death following so soon on the disappointment of his hopes awakened universal sorrow. President Grant, Vice- President Colfax, and Vice-President-elect Wilson together attended his funeral and joined in paying
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1872]
tribute to the greatest of American editors and one of the purest and most simple-minded of men.
With the death of Greeley the future of the Tribune, with its great influence, became a matter of moment to politicians. Certain Republicans were eager to own it, and one of them, William Orton, succeeded in pur- chasing the controlling shares of stock. There was much satirical discussion in the press at this time over the rumored tender of the editorship to Schuyler Col- fax. Whitelaw Reid, John Hay, and others of the staff resigned their posts, Reid agreeing to stay on for a week or so to wind up office affairs. During this brief period he saw the chance to purchase the shares in Orton's hands and prevent the transformation of the paper into a Grant organ. He seized the opportunity, leaving only one share in Orton's possession, and thus entered upon the control of the journal with which his name was so honorably associated until his death while Ambassador to Great Britain almost exactly forty years later.
CHAPTER XI CONKLING SUFFERS A REVERSE
1873
T HE Republican victory made Roscoe Conkling the undisputed leader of the Republicans of New York and a great figure in the nation, with clear Presidential possibilities. No Senator was closer to the President, of whose policies he was recognized as the most powerful, if not the most persuasive, exponent. Chief-Justice Chase died on May 7, 1873, and Grant offered on November 8 to appoint Conkling Chief-Jus- tice, an office which he would have filled with distinction. He declined. After the Senate failed to confirm, first Attorney-General George H. Williams and then Caleb Cushing, the place was again open to him. Conkling, however, preferred the activity of politics. He gath- ered about him a body of adroit managers, including Thomas C. Platt, Chester A. Arthur, and Richard Crowley, and built an organization that completely dominated the Republican party until its overthrow eight years later in the Half-breed-Stalwart struggle. The Legislature of 1873 was completely under his con- trol. He made his former State chairman, Alonzo B. Cornell, Speaker. Cornell repeated the tactics of Speaker Younglove in the Senatorial contest of 1869
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and held back the appointment of committees until after the Senatorial caucus on January 8. This was an excess of caution, but Cornell meant to take no chances that any waverers should be drawn over to the Liberal- Democratic combination, which in caucus nominated Judge Charles Wheaton of Dutchess, a Liberal Repub- lican, by a vote of 24 to 11 for Henry R. Selden, also a Liberal. Conkling was unanimously nominated by the Republican caucus and reelected on January 21.
Governor Dix in his first annual message recom- mended the repeal of the Tweed charter as necessary to secure the fruits of reform in New York City. He took issue with his predecessor as to the constitution- ality of cumulative voting to secure minority repre- sentation in Common Councils and recommended the plan, and he proposed that the appointing power should be entrusted to the Mayor. This by no means suited the custom house ring, which had elected Have- meyer, a Democrat, in the name of reform, but had no intention of giving him a free hand that would deprive it of the spoils. The Republicans introduced a charter that, at various stages in one form or another, reduced the Mayor to a nonentity. At one stage it gave him merely a suspensory veto on the nominations of the Aldermen for department heads, leaving him as helpless as a Governor under the old Council of Appointment. At another stage, while the general power to appoint was conferred upon him, the Republican heads of de- partments, who had been in the Tweed ring, were continued in office by special provisions. The Mayor's power of removal was also made ineffective. A public
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meeting was held in Cooper Union on February 25, presided over by J. M. Brown, the chairman of the Committee of Seventy, and attended by such men as Jackson S. Schultz, Theodore W. Dwight, E. Ran- dolph Robinson, and Dorman B. Eaton, which pro- tested against forcing such a charter on the city. The Republicans made some concession to reform senti- ment, but, as finally passed and signed by the Governor, the charter placed beyond the Mayor's control the four important offices held by the Republicans, among them the Corporation Counsel, and also the office of Comp- troller, still held by Andrew H. Green.
The Legislature passed a bill allowing local com- munities to prohibit the liquor traffic, but the Governor vetoed it on the ground that it made no distinction between distilled liquors and light fermented bever- ages, and while pretending to give communities larger liberty to get rid of the evils of the traffic really hampered them. No community could rid itself of strong liquors until it could persuade its people to give up light wines and beers. This action was bitterly resented by the temperance people, and was an im- portant factor in consolidating the prohibition forces into a separate political party.
The Republicans, though they had just carried the State so overwhelmingly, took a heavy burden into the fall campaign. The Credit-Mobilier scandal and the Congressional salary grab had aroused indignation throughout the country, and the financial panic of 1873, precipitated by the failure on September 18 of Jay Cooke & Company, reacted against the party in
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1873]
power. Nevertheless, the Republicans entered the campaign in no spirit of concession toward reformers. They held their State convention at Utica on Septem- ber 24. Ten days before, the Tribune called upon them to renominate Comptroller Hopkins, who in the Canal board had opposed the ring, and also to renominate State Treasurer Raines. Although Raines had joined the Liberals, "his exposure last winter," said the Tribune, "of the manner in which millions of dollars were squandered for canal claims, damages, and re- pairs will not soon be forgotten. He then earned the hostility of every canal thief, and we know of no better title now to the confidence and support of every honest voter."1
The convention reluctantly nominated Hopkins, but in every other respect displayed a reactionary spirit.2 Partisanship could perhaps hardly be expected to rise to the nomination of Raines, since having been elected to office as a Republican he had left the party, but Attorney-General Barlow was still a loyal Republican who had rendered distinguished service in office. He forced restitution to the looted Erie treasury, coop- erated with O'Conor in the Tammany prosecutions, and fearlessly opposed the canal ring. To him the State owed the resumption of specie payment on its bonds in 1872. Comptroller Hopkins then proposed to pay in legal tenders, but Barlow, finally overcoming his oppo- sition, carried the Commissioners of the Canal Fund unanimously for payment in coin. Shortly before the
1New York Tribune, September 13, 1873.
2New York Tribune, September 25, 1873.
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convention he publicly denounced State Engineer William B. Taylor as a tool of the canal ring who ought not to be voted for by any honest man.3 B. Platt Carpenter of Dutchess was a candidate for Attorney- General, but the contrast between him and Barlow was too striking, and the managers turned to Benjamin D. Silliman of Brooklyn, a man of high character, to lend tone to the ticket. General Stewart L. Woodford, who presided over the convention, left the chair to say in a plea for Silliman's nomination : "We dare not leave Francis C. Barlow off the ticket unless we can place a man there to lift the ticket higher." Then, in the face of this tribute to Barlow and Barlow's own charges against the State Engineer, the convention proceeded to renominate Taylor.4
The platform was a conventional one, which pointed with pride to the Republican record in national politics and claimed credit for the overthrow of Tammany and the purification of elections. The friends of temper- ance who had been alienated by the local option veto were reminded that the party was committed to the policy of local option and was responsible for the statute allowing recovery of civil damages for injury sustained by the sale of intoxicants. The adaptation of the canals to steam navigation with the aid of Congress was advocated, the Senators and Representatives who
3New York Tribune, September 4, 1873.
4The ticket was: Secretary of State, Francis S. Thayer, Rensselaer; Comp- troller, Nelson K. Hopkins, Erie; Treasurer, Daniel G. Fort, Oswego; Attorney-General, Benjamin D. Silliman, Kings; State Engineer, William B. Taylor, Oneida; Canal Commissioner, Sidney Mead, Cayuga; Prison Inspector, Moss K. Platt, Essex.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Frederick Douglass; born in 1817 at Tuckahoe near Easton, Md .; his father was white, his mother a negro slave; escaped from slavery in 1838 in the disguise of a sailor; in 1841 spoke at an anti-slavery convention and showed such gifts of ora- tory that he was sent out as a lecturer; published an abolition- ist paper at Rochester, N. Y., 1847; appointed secretary to San Domingo commission, 1871; presidential elector from New York state, 1872; United States marshal, District of Columbia, 1877-1878; recorder of deeds, District of Columbia, 1889; ap- pointed minister to Haiti, 1891; died at Washington, D. C., February 20, 1895.
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had opposed the back pay grab were commended, and particular attention was drawn to the fact that Demo- crats and Liberals had participated in larger proportion than the Republicans in the back pay movement. The platform commended those who had refused to draw their pay and favored legislation to cover the undrawn amounts back into the treasury. Conkling voted against the salary bill, while Fenton had been absent at the time of its passage.
The Democrats met in State convention at Utica on October 1, and condemned the salary grab and all Con- gressmen, Democrats or Republicans, who had voted for or who had not renounced all share of the plunder. Congressman Thomas Kinsella, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, was kept off the State committee because he had drawn the back pay, though his friends denounced this show of austerity as hypocrisy. The platform also condemned the increase in the President's salary, denounced the Credit-Mobilier frauds, condemned the President for "bayonet government" in Louisiana, and opposed the return to specie payments, the abandon- ment of paper inflation, the protective tariff, and gov- ernment subsidies. The Supreme Court, which had recently sustained the Legal Tender act, was spoken of as a packed bench. The Republicans were denounced for trying to put the corrupt ring back in power in New York City, and legislation was proposed that would require officials to keep books of their business affairs, as merchants were required to under the tax laws, so that these might be examined to show corruption. Sey- mour made a plea before the convention for harmony
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[1873
with the Liberals, and the platform recognized them as "worthy coadjutors" and invited them "to unite with us in our efforts to restore pure government in our State and Federal administration." But the spirit of coop- eration went little farther than words. Raines was nominated by acclamation for Treasurer, while Horatio Seymour sat ready to take the floor in his behalf if the canal ring made any move against him, but for the rest a partisan ticket, headed by Willers for Secretary of State, was put forward.5
The Liberal Republicans were in a difficult position. Their place-hunters and camp-followers had largely deserted the movement, but it still enlisted the support of a considerable body of able men devoted to reform, who were by no means ready to call themselves Demo- crats because they objected to misgovernment under Republican rule. In July the Liberals, meeting at Saratoga, sent a letter to the Democratic State chair- man, Allen C. Beach, inviting cooperation in a call for a State convention.6 This was ignored. On August 31 Ben Field, the leading Liberal of Orleans county, wrote from New York to D. D. S. Brown : "It looks as if there is a growing disposition on the part of the Democracy to go back to their old 'ante-bellum' plat- form, and to compel every one who acts with them in the election this fall to come into the Democratic party.
5The ticket was: Secretary of State, Diedrich Willers, Seneca; Comp- troller, Asher P. Nichols, Erie; Treasurer, Thomas Raines, Monroe; Attor- ney-General, Daniel Pratt, Onondaga; State Engineer, Sylvanus H. Sweet, Albany; Canal Commissioner, James Jackson, Niagara; Prison Inspector, George W. Millspaugh, Orange.
6New York Tribune, September 12, 1873.
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1873]
This we can't do; at least I can't. And if I was willing to, and you were willing to, and Cochrane and his entire State committee, what would it avail? How many would follow?"7 Field proposed a movement among the trade unions to secure the election of a few members of the Assembly independent of both parties to make a balance of power in the Legislature. "This," he said, "is more important than which side has the State offices."
Failing to obtain a union convention, the Liberal State committee met in New York City on September 11 and issued a call for a State convention at Elmira on October 8.8 This call, signed by John Cochrane, Alfred Wilkinson, Samuel C. Tabor, D. D. S. Brown, Clark Bell, Henry C. Lake, Gilbert C. Deane, and Edward F. Jones, was addressed to all those who recog- nized "no virtue in any political party beyond its power to govern honestly and well," and declared that the issue that had theretofore divided the people into political parties had ceased to exist, while new interests, labor and industrial, required attention. At the Elmira convention a sharp difference of opinion arose as to the course of the party. Cochrane and most of the New York City delegates favored making a selection of the best men on the Democratic and Republican tickets, on the ground that neither ticket was entirely fit for reform support. On the other hand, D. D. S. Brown and other Monroe Liberals favored the indorsement of the full Democratic ticket on the ground that in many parts of
7Unpublished letter in the author's possession.
8New York Tribune, September 12, 1873.
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[1873
the State Liberals and Democrats had united organiza- tions and a split ticket would make trouble.9 They also argued that the only way to keep the Republicans from getting a majority of the Canal board and protecting the canal ring was by support of the whole Democratic State ticket. When the subject was threshed out in the State committee, however, all the members except Brown favored the eclectic ticket and the convention followed that plan, indorsing Raines and all of the Democrats, excepting the candidates for Comptroller and Prison Inspector. For these offices it took the Republican candidates, Nelson K. Hopkins by a vote of 100 to 12 for Nichols, and Moss K. Platt unani- mously. Seventeen delegates preferred a larger Republican representation and voted for Thayer for Secretary of State as against Willers.
In the midst of the campaign the Democrats were thrown into confusion and their advantage springing from the Republican failure to renominate reforming officers was seemingly lost by the discovery that a clerk in the State treasury had falsified his accounts and was a defaulter for a large sum. Raines dealt boldly and frankly with the difficult situation and found the elec- torate not disposed, despite newspaper attacks, to let the defalcation obscure the substantial issues of reform. At the election of November 7 the Liberals showed that their effective strength in the State was scarcely 10,000 votes. But it was sufficient to serve as a balance of power and elect the candidates picked out from the two tickets at Elmira. Hopkins was elected Comp-
9New York Tribune, October 8, 1873.
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troller by a plurality of 4,065 and Platt Prison Inspector by about the same vote, while Willers was elected Secretary of State by a plurality of 9,793 and Raines Treasurer by a plurality of 12,630. The Prohibition ticket received 3,272 votes. The Liberals were not successful in securing a balance of power in the Legis- lature. The Republicans in January chose James W. Husted for the first of his six terms as Speaker. Seven- teen Senators were Republicans, 12 Democrats, 2 Inde- pendents, and 1 Liberal Republican. The Republi- cans won 74 Assemblymen, while the Democrats had 49, the Independents 3, and the Liberal Republicans 2. The question of elective or appointive Judges was sub- mitted in accordance with the plan of the Constitu- tional convention of 1867, and the people by over 200,000 majority decided to continue the election of both their higher and lower Judges.
CHAPTER XII TILDEN ELECTED GOVERNOR
1874
T HE most important work of the Legislature of 1874 was the final revision of the constitutional amendments proposed by the commission that Governor Hoffman had appointed two years before. This commission met in Albany on December 2, 1872, with Robert H. Pruyn as chairman. Its membership included George Opdyke, Augustus Schell, William Cassidy, David Rumsey, Erastus Brooks, and Francis Kernan, all of whom had been members of the conven- tion of 1867. Other prominent members were John D. Van Buren, Benjamin D. Silliman, Daniel Pratt, George B. Bradley, and Sherman S. Rogers. The com- mission completed its work on March 15, 1873. As it was purely an advisory body its recommendations had to be passed on by two Legislatures before going to the people.
It reported amendments to provide against bribery and wagers at elections, to abolish the property quali- fication for colored voters, to establish a thirty-day election district instead of town or ward residence for voters, and to allow persons absent from home in mili- tary service of either the State or nation to vote, thus
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1874]
extending the right that had been given to citizens serv- ing in the war to those who might be called out for home service. It proposed to forbid extra compensa- tion to State contractors, to require two-thirds of all the members of each house to override the Governor's veto, to let the Governor veto individual items in appropria- tion bills, and to allow the sale of all the canals except- ing the Erie, Oswego, Cayuga, Seneca, and Champlain, thus opening the door to the disposal of the non-paying lateral canals, as Greeley had proposed in the conven- tion of 1867. All of these amendments were passed by the Legislature and submitted. A plan to extend the terms of Senators to four years was not submitted. Amendments to regulate legislative procedure, espe- cially to limit private legislation and forbid the audit- ing of private claims, were submitted with some modifications. The term of the Governor was increased to three years and his salary raised from $4,000 to $10,000. The salary of the Lieutenant-Governor, with a similar term, was raised from $6.00 a day and mileage -sometimes amounting to $1,000-to $4,000. The
Legislature increased this to $5,000 and submitted both changes. The commission, following the view of Hoffman and anticipating the policy of the Constitu- tional convention of 1915, proposed to make the Secre- tary of State, Attorney-General, and State Engineer appointive by the Governor, and also to abolish the Canal Commissioners, to create a Superintendent of State Prisons and a Superintendent of Public Works to be appointed by the Governor, and to confer upon the Legislature the election of the Treasurer, leaving the
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[1874
Comptroller to be elected by the people at the same time as the Governor. The Legislature blocked these changes as well as an article giving extensive home rule powers to cities. All the amendments as modified and finally passed by the two Legislatures were submitted on November 3, 1874, and adopted by majorities ranging from 20,000 to 360,000. Thus the State secured some of the reforms that the people had rejected a little time before chiefly because the Democrats had made a party issue against them while the Republicans failed to take any stand in support of the convention that they had controlled.
The first political convention of the year was held at Auburn on June 23 by the Prohibitionists, who nomi- nated ex-Governor Myron H. Clark for Governor. At the same time and place, a body of temperance Repub- licans held ,a convention and protested to the Republican organization against the renomination of Dix because of his veto of the Local Option bill. The nomination of Dix, however, was inevitable, though the Conkling organization had little enthusiasm for him and less for Lieutenant-Governor Robinson. Early in September at a meeting of the Republican committee of New York City, a resolution was passed favoring the renomination of Dix, and this was followed by one favoring Robin- son, which ran so far counter to Arthur's plans that the whole question was reconsidered and no indorsement given.1 On the eve of the State convention, which was held in Utica on September 3, the Tribune declared that the plan was to set aside Robinson for Cornell, and
1New York Tribune, September 19, 1874.
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then, if the party was successful, to send Dix to the Senate, making Cornell Governor.2 The politicians, it said, would like to name Cornell and William H. Robertson, but they did not dare retire Dix.
Theodore M. Pomeroy was temporary and Edwin D. Morgan permanent chairman of the convention, the most striking feature of which was Conkling's speech in eulogy of Grant. This, though it carefully avoided mention of a third term, was generally interpreted as preparing the way for one. The opposition was agi- tating the question, and Republican politicians were seeking disavowals of third-term ambitions by the President, which were not forthcoming. Some dele- gates had drawn up resolutions against a third term, but no one had the temerity to precipitate the discussion in the face of Conkling. The convention renominated Dix by acclamation. Cornell deemed it discreet to retire, and General Batcheller of Saratoga, who had also been an aspirant for the office, presented the name of Robinson, who was nominated without opposition.3 The platform pointed with pride to the party record as usual, indorsed Grant and Dix, and called for obedience to law and protection against the Ku Klux. With an eye to the Louisiana troubles, it declared that an armed attempt to subvert a State government was revolution. The resolutions favored the payment of the public debt
2New York Tribune, September 22, 1874.
3The ticket was: Governor, John A. Dix, New York; Lieutenant-Gover- nor, John C. Robinson, Broome; Canal Commissioner, Reuben W. Stroud, Onondaga; Prison Inspector, Ezra Graves, Herkimer; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Alexander S. Johnson, Oneida.
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