USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 25
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1892]
THE RETURN OF CLEVELAND
381
voting for Adlai E. Stevenson, who received the nomination.9
From the first the Republicans faced an uphill cam- paign. The rise of the Populist movement in the west threatened their ascendancy in States usually counted safe. The Populists nominated James B. Weaver of Iowa and James G. Field of Virginia, and in several States the Democrats fused with them more or less completely, indorsing their Electoral ticket or dividing the Electors between the two parties. The other minor tickets were: Prohibition-John Bidwell of Cali- fornia and J. B. Cranfill of Texas; Socialist-Labor- Simon Wing of Massachusetts and Charles H. Matchett of New York. In New York no conceal- ment was made by Platt of his dislike for the President, though he was induced to make a speech at Cooper Union supporting the ticket.10 The Mckinley tariff was unpopular, and strong financial interests favored Cleveland and were critical of the Republican at- tempts by large purchases of silver to arrest the decline in price, which threatened to depreciate the silver-based circulation. The Democrats sought to win the labor vote by attacks upon Reid, and they profited greatly from the strike and disorder at the Carnegie steel mills at Homestead.
The election returns showed a landslide for Cleve- land. His popular vote was 5,554,414. Harrison had 5,190,182, Weaver 1,027,329, and Bidwell (Prohibi-
9Curtis, The Republican Party, II, pp. 259-261. New York Tribune, June 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 1892.
10September 28.
.
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
tion) 271,028. The Electoral College stood : Cleveland, 277; Harrison, 145; Weaver, 22. New York gave Cleveland 45,518 plurality. The vote was: Cleveland, 654,868; Harrison, 609,350; John Bidwell (Prohibi- tion), 38,190; James B. Weaver (Populist), 16,429; Simon Wing (Socialist Labor), 17,656. The Demo- crats elected 20 of the 34 Congressmen and 74 of the 128 Assemblymen, thus retaining control of both houses of the Legislature. Three constitutional amendments were submitted. One, transferring jurisdiction over contested Legislature seats to the courts, was defeated by 5,352 majority. Another, providing for additional Justices of the Supreme Court, was defeated by 36,351 majority, and the third, permitting the sale of the Onondaga Salt Springs, was defeated by 677 majority. The only State officer elected was Chief-Judge of the Court of Appeals. Both major parties, through their State committees, nominated Judge Charles Andrews, who received 1,252,963 votes to 38,775 for Walter Far- rington (Prohibition), 17,856 for Francis Gerau (Socialist Labor), and 17,405 for Lawrence J. McPartlan (Populist).
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CHAPTER XXXII MAYNARDISM REBUKED
1893
N OTWITHSTANDING Cleveland's hand- some plurality in New York and his prospec- tive four years of power, the Democratic organization controlled by Hill was as far as ever from working with him. No President-elect could have received less consideration from his own party in his own State. No sooner was it clear that the Democrats would control the Legislature than the election of Edward Murphy, Jr., to the United States Senate was determined upon. He was more especially Croker's choice, on grounds of personal friendship. Croker had no wish to antagonize the administration, but his selection was particularly offensive to the Cleveland men. Murphy had for years been chairman of the State committee and used all his power against Cleve- land. Through his son-in-law, Hugh J. Grant, he had close ties with the Tammany organization. In an interview published by the Times and World on December 28, Cleveland came out squarely against Murphy, saying that the Democratic organization did not show a disposition to choose "a man of the kind that is needed." Whitney, Lamont (who was to be Secretary
383
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1893
of War in the new cabinet), and the "Anti-snappers" made a brave show of opposition but seemed unable to bring forward a candidate. The position of Hugh Mclaughlin was in doubt, and optimistic Cleveland men predicted that he would lead a fight either for David A. Boody, whom he placed in the Brooklyn Mayor's chair when Chapin became unavailable, or Congressman William J. Coombs, who had made some reputation as a business man in politics and was an advocate of a lower tariff. But they misread the wily Brooklyn leader. He was jealous of Croker's power and disposed to harmony with the incoming President, but no man was less adventurous for an ideal. An anec- dote, possibly apocryphal but true to the spirit of his leadership, relates that a young Assemblyman, after a ringing speech championing a popular measure of reform, returned to the Willoughby Street auction room where Mclaughlin held his court, in expectation of compliments, only to be met with the withering greet- ing: "Trying to be a statesman, eh !"
For Speaker, Croker and Hill picked William Sulzer, a young Tammany Assemblyman, while the minority supported George R. Malby, who defeated Hamilton Fish, Jr., in the Republican caucus. In making up the committees, Sulzer reduced the usual representation of the minority to make more good places for Democrats and please Mclaughlin, who secured the two best chairmanships and other com- mittee places, which reconciled him to the Murphy program.1 When the Democratic Electors met they
1New York Tribune, January 10, 1893.
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MAYNARDISM REBUKED
1893]
put upon Cleveland the extraordinary affront of passing first a resolution indorsing Murphy, as if it were their principal business, and then voted for President.2 This was a Hill scheme, which angered Croker, who declared that Hill had no business in Albany but should be in Washington. He declined to vote on the resolu- tion, and from that time drew away more and more from fellowship with Hill. When the legislative caucus met on January 10 it was clear that the Cleve- land forces had capitulated. Senator Parker of Albany, a Cleveland man, was made chairman. Jacob A. Cantor presented Murphy's name. Assemblyman Quigley of Kings said that his county had intended to present a candidate, but had changed its mind. Senator McClelland of Westchester presented the name of W. Bourke Cockran, who had voiced the Tammany protest against Cleveland's nomination, but who was now put forward as the forlorn hope of Clevelandism. But the only man who made any real fight on Murphy was Assemblyman Otto Kempner of New York, who said that when Cleveland had a few weeks before declared that Murphy ought not to be elected, he had been denounced for attempting to overthrow the organic law that placed in the Legislature the election of a Senator, but that law had been overthrown "when an irresponsible and unscrupulous regency weeks in advance of the meeting of the Legislature selected Mr. Murphy." The election of an avowed and bitter opponent of the President-elect, he declared, could only result in harm to the Democratic party. The majority
2New York Times, January 10, 1893.
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1893
was too well disciplined to be shaken by hard words, however, and Murphy was nominated by 85 votes to 5 for Cockran.3
When it came to the election, Kempner asked to be excused from voting and stated as his reason that Mur- phy's election had been decided upon by himself and three others in defiance of public sentiment, that he was not a statesman, was always opposed to the President- elect, and was unfit to represent the State. His explanation was shut off by the Speaker, and he then voted for Murphy, who received the full Democratic support of 90 votes. The Republicans cast their 61 votes for Hiscock, while Senator Edwards of Catta- raugus, the one Independent Republican in the Legis- lature, voted for Whitelaw Reid.4
General dissatisfaction with the scheme for a special election of Constitutional convention delegates in February and some doubt as to the constitutionality of the bill passed by the previous Legislature, caused the introduction of a new bill to elect delegates in Novem- ber, 1893, and postpone the convention until May, 1894. One bill providing for representation for the minor parties was passed and withdrawn, and then a new plan was adopted for a convention of 175 members, 5 from each Senate district and 15 at-large, who would all represent the majority party.5 The Republicans denounced this measure on the ground that it would deprive counties in rural Senate districts made up of
3New York Tribune, January 11, 1893.
4New York Tribune, January 18, 1893.
5Lincoln, Messages from the Governors, IX, p. 194.
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MAYNARDISM REBUKED
1893]
more than five counties of any representation whatever. Hill also advised his party associates against it, for he foresaw the coming storm, which their excesses and the Maynard issue had caused, and wished a large minority representation, feeling that it might be his own.6 But his friends in the Legislature were too eager. The Senate district apportionment was favorable to them. The State had acquired the habit of going Democratic, and the chance to get all the delegates-at-large was too good to be missed. But as Hill feared, they overreached themselves. In the convention the Republicans had 106 members and the Democrats only 69.
When the Democratic State convention met at Sara- toga on October 5, the "Anti-snappers" appeared with a large number of contests, but Hill and Croker had the situation completely in hand and either turned down the opposition or took it into camp. Cord Meyer, Jr., had come to the convention in outspoken opposition to the nomination of Maynard, on which the leaders were determined. But he was placated with the nomi- nation for Secretary of State. Smith M. Weed and General Charles Tracey of Albany, both Cleveland men, yielded silently to the inevitable. With Daniel N. Lockwood, a Cleveland man, in the chair, the program was put through. William Vanamee, a respected lawyer of Newburgh and a member of the New York Bar Association, which had condemned Maynard, was put forward as his apologist, and accepted the task out of personal friendship. James W. Ridgway of Kings seconded the nomination. The one courageous voice
6Conversation of Governor Hill with the writer in 1906.
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
raised against Maynard was that of Robert Weider- man, a delegate from Rockland, who protested against the nomination, declaring: "His act was a crime, and if it was to be rewarded it has been rewarded enough." Only the most strenuous exertions of the chair enabled him to finish, and in reply Thomas F. Grady summed up the attitude of the leaders in the phrase: "He stood by us and it is for us to stand by him."7 With the single exception of Weiderman, every vote in the convention was cast for Maynard.8
The platform took credit for the lowest general tax rate in a generation, for the increase of inheritance and corporation tax receipts, for the plan to protect the Adirondack and Catskill forests, for the establishment of the State Department of Agriculture, and for the abolition of the sweat shop system in the garment trades. It commended the Cleveland and Flower administrations, and recommended tariff reform and repeal of the Sherman law.
The Republicans met at Syracuse on October 6, determined to make Maynard the issue. The platform denounced his conduct and pledged the party to non- partisan canvassing boards, to reforms in the election laws, and constitutional provisions for home rule in cities. Platt fixed upon Edward T. Bartlett, a New York lawyer who had been president of the Republican
7New York Tribune, October 6 and 7, 1893.
8The ticket was: Secretary of State, Cord Meyer, Jr., Queens; Comp- troller, Frank Campbell, Steuben; Treasurer, Hugh Duffy, Cortland; Attorney-General, Simon W. Rosendale, Albany; State Engineer, Martin Schenck, Rensselaer; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Isaac H. Maynard, Delaware.
389
MAYNARDISM REBUKED
1893]
Club, for the Court of Appeals, and had nearly four- fifths of the convention at his back, although Justice William Rumsey of Bath had 98 votes in the convention and John Sabine Smith of New York 221/2.9 John Woodward of Chautauqua sought the Attorney-Gener- alship and had the largest vote on the first ballot over Theodore E. Hancock of Syracuse and Gilbert S. Hasbrouck of Kingston, but on the second ballot Has- brouck threw his strength to Hancock, who was nomi- nated.10
Maynard was the one issue of the campaign, and the condemnation of the Bar Association committee, which had been signed by Frederic R. Coudert, James C. Carter, John E. Parsons, Clifford A. Hand, E. Ran- dolph Robinson, John L. Cadwallader, William B. Hornblower, Elihu Root, and Albert Stickney, a majority of them among the most eminent Democratic lawyers in New York, was a campaign document difficult to meet.11 Flower attempted a defense of his original appointment in a statement12 that, by confusing dates, sought to convey the impression that Court of Appeals Judges had asked for Maynard's appointment with full knowledge of his acts, though his theft of the returns was not publicly known till afterward. Hill's
9New York Tribune, October 7, 1893.
10The ticket was: Secretary of State, John Palmer, Albany; Comptroller, James A. Roberts, Erie; Treasurer, Addison B. Colvin, Warren; Attorney- General, Theodore E. Hancock, Onondaga; State Engineer, Campbell W. Adams, Oneida; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Edward T. Bartlett, New York.
11The full text of this report was reprinted in the New York Tribune, October 7, 1893.
12New York Sun, October 15, 1893.
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[1893
tactics in a speech in Brooklyn on October 23 were to denounce the Bar Association as a degenerate body, which voiced the opinion of mugwumps and briefless lawyers.
But it was all in vain. The voters had made up their minds about the theft and in the election Maynard was overwhelmed by a plurality of 101,064. The vote was : Maynard, 478,158; Bartlett, 579,222; Silas W. Mason (Prohibition), 32,548; Lawrence J. McPartlan (Peo- ple's), 16,791; Francis Gerau (Socialist Labor), 19,659. All the rest of the Republican State ticket was elected by pluralities ranging from 21,000 to 25,000. The Republicans also carried both houses of the Legislature. The Senate stood: Republicans, 19; Democrats, 12; Independent Democrat, 1; and the Assembly : Republicans, 74; Democrats, 54. Hugh Mclaughlin was overwhelmed in the Brooklyn municipal election. Mayor David A. Boody, who was seeking a reelection, was beaten by Charles A. Schieren, fusion candidate of Republicans and Independent- Democrats, who received a plurality of 31,759. At the same time William J. Gaynor was elected Justice of the Supreme Court in the Brooklyn district on a Repub- lican and Independent ticket. Of the delegates to the Constitutional convention the Republicans elected the 15 delegates-at-large and 91 district delegates. The Democrats elected 69 district delegates.
Out of Gaynor's candidacy came the culmination of the lawless spirit that seemed to be driving the Democratic organization to its ruin. For a week before the election, Gaynor endeavored to get copies of the
391
MAYNARDISM REBUKED
1893]
registry list of the town of Gravesend, which was com- pletely under the domination of John Y. McKane, who had returned to his Democratic allegiance. McKane was known to be bitter in his opposition to Gaynor, and the large registration in Gravesend excited suspicion. After being prevented on one pretext and another from copying the lists, Gaynor obtained an order command- ing the registry officials to allow the lists to be copied. On Saturday night before election, a body of Gaynor's friends went to Gravesend to serve the order. On their arrival they were met by McKane and his agents, who arrested them and took them before Police Justice Sutherland, who ordered fourteen of them locked up on the charge of disorderly conduct, and they were kept in the Kings county jail over Sunday without being allowed to get bail. On Monday Justice Cullen set them all free. On the same day Justice Joseph F. Barnard granted an injunction restraining interference with Gaynor's watchers in Gravesend. When the watchers appeared with their injunction McKane declared : "Injunctions don't go here," and locked up the watchers. This outrage aroused the whole State, regardless of party, to demand the punishment of McKane.13 James W. Ridgway, the District Attorney of Kings county, had so plainly shown his sympathy with McKane when he appeared before Justice Cullen in the matter of the Sunday arrests, that Governor Flower felt compelled to designate George G. Reynolds and Edward M. Shepard as Deputy Attorneys-Gen-
13New York Tribune, November 2 to 8, 1893.
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1893
eral to conduct the prosecution.14 McKane, Sutherland, and others were indicted and convicted, and McKane was sent to State prison for six years.15
A dramatic supplement to the Gravesend election occurred in the next Legislature, when Lieutenant- Governor Sheehan attempted to prevent the unseating of John McCarthy, who had been, as the committee reported, a beneficiary of McKane frauds. After debate on the committee report giving the seat to Henry Wolfert had gone on for six hours, a vote was called for under the cloture rule allowing such call after six hours' debate on a question, including amendments. Sheehan ruled that the minority substitute had not been debated six hours, thus opening the door for unlimited debate by the offer of new amendments and construing the cloture rule into nullity. He refused to put an appeal from his decision or to order a roll-call, but on demand of Charles T. Saxton, the President pro tem., John S. Kenyon, the Clerk, did call the roll and the vote was taken unseating McCarthy. Then Isaac H. Maynard obtained from County Judge Clute an injunction restraining the Clerk from calling the roll, except under the direction of the presiding officer. When the Senate reconvened Sheehan attempted to prevent the approval of the journal recording the unseating of McCarthy, but Saxton, asserting his right as a Senator to prevent the usurpation of the Senate's power by the Lieutenant- Governor, himself called the roll. Sheehan and Clute both retired from their untenable position. A Senate
14New York Tribune, November 18, 1893.
15 Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1894.
WHEELER HAZARD PECKHAM
Wheeler Hazard Peckham, lawyer; brother of Rufus Wil- liam Peckham; born in Albany, N. Y., January 1, 1833; grad- uated from Union college; admitted to the bar and practiced law with his father in New York City, later in St. Paul and in 1864 again in New York. His growing fame as a constitu- tional lawyer and his argument on the constitutionality of taxing greenbacks won for him the friendship of his opponent in the case, Charles O'Conor who as deputy attorney general during the exposure of the Tweed ring made Peckhanı his assistant; district attorney, New York county, 1884; nominated by Presi- dent Cleveland in 1894 for judge of the United States supreme court but his nomination was not confirmed by the senate be- cause of the objections of the New York senators to his inde- pendent political tendencies; died in New York City, September 27, 1905.
ROSWELL PETTIBONE FLOWER
Roswell Pettibone Flower, 33d governor (1892-1895) ; born at Theresa, Jefferson county, N. Y., August 7, 1835; graduated from Theresa high school, 1851; engaged in mercantile and manufacturing pursuits; assistant postmaster of Watertown, N. Y., 1854-1860; moved to New York City and entered the banking business in 1869; elected as a democrat to the forty- seventh congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Levi P. Morton and served from March 5, 1881 to March 3, 1883; reelected to the fifty-first and fifty-second congresses and served from March 4, 1889 to September 16, 1891 when he resigned; elected governor of New York in 1891 and served until 1895; died in Eastport, N. Y., May 12, 1899.
1893]
MAYNARDISM REBUKED
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committee subsequently investigated Clute's action16 and recommended legislation to punish such inter- ference with the prerogative of the Legislature. But it was clear that the steadfast assertion of that prerogative met all requirements.
16 Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1894; New York Tribune, February 3-6, 1894.
CHAPTER XXXIII HILL SENT TO DEFEAT
1894
P ARTISAN differences between the Governor and the Legislature and the impending revision of the Constitution made the session of 1894 almost barren so far as political measures went, although a large volume of other legislation was passed. The spirited rivalry for the Speakership between Danforth E. Ainsworth, Hamilton Fish, Jr., and George R. Malby was settled by the withdrawal of both Malby's rivals before the Legislature met. The system of bipartisan election officials was extended to the whole State at this session and an act was passed sub- mitting to the people of the municipalities contiguous to New York harbor the question of consolidating into the Greater New York. Charges of police corruption in New York City led to the appointment of a Senate investigating committee under the chairmanship of Clarence Lexow. This grew out of the work of the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst. Dr. Parkhurst, as president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, had complained to the municipal authorities of the prevalence of gambling and houses of prostitution. Instead of responding to his suggestions, the officials
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1894]
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HILL SENT TO DEFEAT
asked for proofs on which to act. The clergyman, undeterrred by the reproaches and misrepresentations that were sure to follow such activities on his part, personally investigated these illegal resorts and pro- duced a mass of evidence that clearly indicated police partnership in crime. Taking up the case, the Lexow committee through the skillful examinations of John W. Goff, its counsel, showed clearly an organized sys- tem of police extortion and partnership with the most degraded lawbreakers, and paved the way for the defeat of Tammany Hall in the fall campaign.1 Tammany forced its nomination for Mayor on Hugh J. Grant after Nathan Straus had declined, and the Republicans joined with the Citizens' Union in support of William L. Strong. Strong was elected by 45,187 plurality, and John W. Goff had 54,748 plurality for Recorder over Frederick Smyth, the greatly respected criminal Judge, who fell a victim to his association with Tammany and the popular enthusiasm over Goff's work in the Lexow committee.
The Constitutional convention, which met on May 8 and closed its session on September 29, was presided over by Joseph H. Choate. Thomas G. Alvord was vice-president and Charles E. Fitch secretary. Among the leading Republicans were Elihu Root, Tracy C. Becker, Merton E. Lewis, Nathaniel Foote, Edward Lauterbach, Augustus Frank, Frederick W. Holls, Elon R. Brown, and Charles Z. Lincoln. Among the Democrats were Almet F. Jenks, W. B. Davenport, William C. Whitney, John M. Bowers, Delos
1Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1894.
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[1894
McCurdy, William Church Osborn, William D. Veeder, DeLancey Nicoll, John Bigelow, and Andrew H. Green. The Constitution proposed by the conven- tion was that under which, with slight amendment, the State government still operates. It reduced the Gov- ernor's term from three to two years, and fixed his election, together with that of all the other elective State officers, in the even years, so as to separate State from municipal elections, which were fixed for the odd years, and to allow city officers to be chosen without regard to considerations of State and national politics. Cities were divided into classes and legislative interfer- ence with city affairs was restricted by requiring the submission of any measure affecting less than all the cities of a class to the particular cities affected for their approval. If disapproved, the measure could only become a law if passed a second time by the Legislature. The Senate was increased from 32 to 50 and the Assembly from 128 to 150 members, and provision was made against hasty legislation by the rule that all bills must be upon the desks of the members in final printed form three days before final passage, except in emer- gencies certified by the Governor.
The judiciary of the State was reorganized by the consolidation of inferior courts in New York, Brooklyn, and Buffalo with the Supreme Court, the abolition of the general terms, and the creation of four Appellate divisions of the Supreme Court. The Forest Preserve was recognized in the Constitution and safe- guarded from invasion, even to the extent of forbidding any cutting whatever. This interfered with scientific
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