USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 26
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forestry, but scandals in the selling of lumber from State lands convinced the convention that the time was not ripe for the safe exploitation of the forests and that the wisest course was to keep them intact, at least until a proper system could be worked out and the Consti- tution amended to put it in force. The merit system was also embodied in the new Constitution by most sweeping provisions for competitive appointments to the civil service. The recurrence of such disagreements as had taken place between Governor Hill and the Republican Legislature over calling a Constitutional convention was guarded against by the insertion of a self-executing provision with regard to future conven- tions. Exact requirements were also prescribed with regard to apportionment, so that the task became theoretically mainly a problem in mathematics. Prac- tically, however, the work of making an apportionment that would stand the test of the courts became very difficult. The fear that a consolidated population representing one local interest might by force of mere numbers dominate the whole State to the sacrifice of the rights of diverse communities led, however, to the provision forbidding any two contiguous counties ever having more than half the Senate. The increase in the membership of the Legislature required a new appor- tionment, which the convention itself made.2 The Constitution was submitted in three parts. The people approved the general revision in November, 1894, by a vote of 410,697 to 327,402. The Apportionment article,
2Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of 1894; Lincoln, Con- stitutional History of New York, Vol. III.
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separately submitted, was carried by 404,335 to 350,625, and the article allowing the improvement of the canals was approved by 442,998 to 327,645.
Despite the tidal wave against Maynard, which gave the Republicans phenomenal majorities in almost every part of the State in 1893, many election districts in New York City cast no Republican votes. It was clear that the local organization was in many respects inefficient, and demands for complete reorganization were too strong to be neglected. The county committee itself decreed its own death and suggested that a Committee of Thirty should undertake to form a new organization. This the committee attempted to do on a plan of election district organizations based primarily on the old enrollment. On the plea that it was proposed to introduce what was not new machinery to administer the old organization, but new blood in the party and a new enrollment of elements that the old district leaders had ignored, John E. Milholland started what was known as the Anti-machine organization. Milholland was a member of the Tribune staff and had the support of Whitelaw Reid. He was also in close relations with Platt and the movement was represented by its critics as one to put the New York organization in Platt's control. On February 7 the Tribune published a long interview with Platt favoring the Anti-machine movement and ridiculing the pretensions of the Committee of Thirty to act on the authority of the old organization, which had no claim to respect. He said: "The county com- mittee has recognized the fact by gracefully furnishing its political coffin and cheerfully going off to the
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funeral prepared for it by the thirty undertakers." He contrasted its plan, based on the authority of the old committee, with the Milholland plan based on the authority of public sentiment.
The two organizations kept up a voluble controversy through the summer. On July 16 Mayor Gilroy appointed Michael Kerwin, chairman of the Mil- holland executive committee, Police Commissioner. Up to that time it was clear that Platt still favored this organization and it was expected that when the State committee met on July 25 he would recognize it. But a change came over his purpose. The Anti-machine organization had a considerable enrollment, especially in the downtown districts where Tammany had before had everything its own way. But the great body of leading Republicans not active in the machinery of politics, such as the contributors to campaign funds and the men connected with the Union League Club, were in sympathy with Colonel George Bliss, Cornelius N. Bliss, and William Brookfield, who directed the Com- mittee of Thirty.
Platt could clearly foresee that the recognition of Milholland would be regarded as an attempt to build up a personal machine and would alienate this influen- tial body. He had antagonized them before and, much as he wanted to carry the State, he might perhaps have done so again had he been sure that the Milholland organization when recognized would be his. Appar- ently he came to believe that it might be instead a Reid organization. In his "Autobiography" Platt attributes his decision to recognition of the superior claims of the
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Committee of Thirty, and says that this stand for convictions forced him to a break with Reid.3 In another chapter he gives a more cynical suggestion of his attitude: "Cornelius N. Bliss once inaugurated a campaign against regulars, too. He began it in New York county. After he had it, as he thought, pretty well established, it was captured, body, boots and breeches, by the regular organization. Later, 'Bliss became a good regular." According to Bliss, however, Platt continued to favor Milholland and "was only pre- vented from breaking up the party in this [New York] county by the shrewder members of the State com- mittee.">4 The State committee referred the rivalry to a sub-committee headed by James W. Wadsworth.5 The Anti-machine organization proclaimed this a vic- tory and predicted its own recognition, apparently with full confidence in Platt's friendship. But when the sub- committee. reported to the State committee on August 9, it favored the recognition of the Committee of Thirty and the incorporation of the Milholland enrollment into its organization.6 This report was adopted. At the same time the State committee took measures to con- solidate the two factions in Syracuse. James J. Belden led the regulars and Francis Hendricks the rival organ- ization, which had bolted the regular nomination for Mayor the year before and elected its own candidate.
3Platt, Autobiography, pp. 256, 257.
4Platt, Autobiography, p. 519; Statement by Bliss, New York Tribune, January 28, 1896.
5New York Tribune, July 26, 1894.
6New York Tribune, August 10, 1894.
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The Milholland forces appealed in vain to the State convention for recognition.
Early in the summer Platt picked Levi P. Morton as his candidate for Governor, and long before the State convention met at Saratoga on September 18 it was clear that he would dominate the situation. Neverthe- less, he faced much opposition. Fassett demanded a chance to run now that there was a prospect of success, and, when his plea was rejected by Platt, made a fight of his own. The Union League Republicans, though Platt had recognized them, were not friendly to him and put forward Cornelius N. Bliss. General Daniel Butterfield had a nucleus of support in New York. General Stewart L. Woodford appeared as an anti- Platt man, with one-third of the Kings county delega- tion, and Leslie W. Russell had the votes of St. Law- rence and Franklin. Lemuel E. Quigg, who had won a Democratic Congressional district in New York City at a special election after a spectacular fight, was tem- porary chairman and Warner Miller permanent chairman. Morton was nominated on the first ballot, receiving 5321/2 votes. Fassett had 69 votes, Woodford 40, Russell 20, Bliss 4012, Butterfield 29, James Arkell 1. Eight candidates were considered for Lieuten- ant-Governor. They were James W. Wadsworth, Charles T. Saxton, Francis Hendricks, Arthur C. Wade, A. D. Shaw, George W. Aldridge, A. C. Brun- dage, and Henry J. Coggeshall. Wadsworth, who had not been a Platt man, was generally regarded as Platt's favorite, but like Morton he was wealthy and many delegates expressed the fear that labor would antag-
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onize such a ticket. Saxton, moreover, as President pro tem. of the Senate and the champion of ballot reform, had made a name to conjure with, and the nomination went to him before the ballot was finished. A keen contest for Judge of the Court of Appeals was carried on among Albert Haight of Buffalo, S. Alonzo Kellogg, Irving G. Vann, Pardon C. Williams, and Jesse Johnson, and resulted in the nomination of Haight.7
The platform was a general indictment of the Democracy for hypocrisy-in the nation, for denounc- ing the Sherman Silver Purchase act and only repealing it with the aid of Republican votes, for arraigning protection and passing a protective tariff bill that barely escaped the President's veto, for pledging retrenchment and expanding the appropriations, for pretending to favor individual freedom and passing an inquisitorial income tax bill; in the State, for failure to make promised economies, to abolish useless commis- sions, to safeguard elections, or to establish home rule.
Hill kept his antagonism for Cleveland under some restraint after the nominations of 1892, although friends of the administration met with little or no coop- eration from the New York Senator in carrying out the President's legislative program. He was firm in his support of sound money, but opposed to the income tax. He was far from holding the uncompromising tariff views of the Cleveland and William L. Wilson school, and was much more in sympathy with Senator Gorman, who made the Democratic tariff one that Cleveland
7New York Tribune, September 19, 1894.
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characterized as a measure of "perfidy and dishonor" and allowed to become a law without his signature.
The death of Justice Samuel Blatchford of the United States Supreme Court, on July 7, 1893, led to an open clash. For the vacancy the President selected William B. Hornblower. No nomination could have been much more offensive to Hill. Hornblower was a member of the committee of the Bar Association that condemned Maynard. His selection was everywhere regarded as the President's pointed rebuke of May- nardism and of the party policy that insisted on defend- ing Maynard. Hill, as a member of the judiciary committee, succeeded in staving off confirmation at the extra session, and the nomination lapsed in November. When the Senate reassembled in December it was renewed and Hill, with the aid of Senators Pugh, George, and Coke of his own party, and the Republican Senators Wilson and Mitchell, obtained an adverse report despite the efforts of Senator Vilas, the adminis- tration champion, and the Republican Senators Hoar and Orville H. Platt, in behalf of Hornblower. On January 15 the nomination was rejected by a vote of 30 to 24.8 A week later Cleveland showed even more plainly his determination to snub Hill by sending in the name of Wheeler H. Peckham.
If there was any doubt about the President's intention in nominating Hornblower, who might have been selected without special thought to his relation with Hill, there could be none about the nomination of Peckham, who had been president of the Bar Associa-
8New York Tribune, January 9, 10, 16, 1894.
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tion and had appointed the Maynard investigating committee. Hill appealed with more force than before "to the courtesy of the Senate," and he found sympathy among some Democratic colleagues who were glad of an occasion to snub the President for forcing the repeal of the Silver Purchase act down their throats, and among others who, while they had no quarrel with Cleveland, disapproved of a policy of personal antagonism to any Senator. Republicans who quar- relled with Peckham's tariff views also aided Hill. They did not question Peckham's ability or character, but he had gone on record as giving his opinion as a lawyer that a protective tariff was unconstitutional, in the face of a century of practical construction of the Constitution in favor of duties levied for protection. Republican Senators argued that this showed a legal narrowness and lack of judicial poise. When the vote was taken on February 16 Peckham was rejected by a vote of 41 to 32.9 There was some talk that the Presi- dent might nominate Justice Edgar M. Cullen, whom he later asked to become Attorney-General when Olney took the State department on Judge Gresham's death. But Cullen, too, in the Emans case had shown his disapproval of the Senate theft. Judge E. H. Lacombe was also suggested, but the President was evidently unwilling to make any concession to Hill by naming a New Yorker agreeable to him. He turned away from the State, and on February 19 nominated Senator Edward D. White of Louisiana, who was promptly confirmed. New York had no representative in the
9New York Tribune, February 17, 1894.
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Supreme Court until December, 1895, when on the death of Justice Jackson the President appointed Rufus W. Peckham of the New York Court of Appeals, who had taken no part in the faction fights and whose con- firmation Hill did not oppose.
Thus divided, the Democrats looked with no bright hopes toward the campaign for Governor. Lamont, the Secretary of War, put aside suggestions that he might run. William J. Gaynor, whose reputation for work against the Brooklyn ring and McKane and whose election to the bench on the Republican ticket sug- gested his availability as a regular Democrat, declined.10 William C. Whitney was in Europe, and in his absence the consensus of opinion of both Hill and Cleveland men centered on him as the party's hope. But he returned just as the State convention was meeting and emphatically refused to be a candidate.11 The convention met at Saratoga on September 25 with David B. Hill in the chair. Hill, more astute than most of his associates, had read the lesson of Maynard's defeat and wanted to conciliate the reformers by admit- ting the anti-ring Kings county organization led by Edward M. Shepard, and the State Democracy of New York City, which under Charles S. Fairchild repre- sented the "Anti-snappers" and was in a measure the heir of the old County Democracy.12 But Croker and McLaughlin were implacable and shut them out. The platform commended the repeal of the Sherman law
10New York Tribune, September 25, 1894.
11New York Tribune, September 27, 1894.
12See Hill's speech of acceptance, Brooklyn Eagle, October 7, 1894; also Eagle, October 8, 1894.
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and the Democratic tariff legislation, and arraigned the Republicans for attacks on the government of Democratic cities while professing devotion to home rule.
Nominations for Governor were in order. The name of John Boyd Thacher of Albany was proposed. He was a man of respectable abilities, long active in the organization and a contributor to its funds. But he had absolutely no hold either upon the party or the people. No sooner had his name been presented than a shout went up for the nomination of Hill, and the stampede began. Hill tried to stem it and declined the nomi- nation. He maintained his self-possession and refused to allow the mob nomination. But when the convention proceeded regularly to carry out its wish, he yielded. He felt that he was being sacrificed, but he could not refuse to stand in the breach which he had himself made by his party management. In his speech of acceptance on October 6, he expressed exceeding regret over the nomination and more especially regretted that his "advice was not adopted in regard to representation in the convention itself." He said that he had sought for a week, as his intimate political friends knew, "not only to heal and harmonize political and factional differences, but to secure some other candidate wholly acceptable to every one" to take his place. But this had not proved feasible. So, he added: "Recollecting that the Democratic party has honored me in the past when I solicited its favors, in the days of its sunshine and prosperity, I cannot desert it now in the hour of its danger and this great emergency." He proposed to
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make his campaign on the issues "of democracy versus plutocracy," personal liberty, liberal excise laws, and opposition to "the centralization of all powers in the general government," although the centralization of the moment was that of his own party.13
The convention nominated Daniel N. Lockwood for Lieutenant-Governor and William J. Gaynor for Judge of the Court of Appeals.14 For ten days the leaders in private urged Gaynor to run, but he was obdurate. They prayed him to go to the head of the ticket in place of Hill, who was ready to retire, but in this also they were unsuccessful. Gaynor published a letter declin- ing and asserting his deep devotion to Hill.15 Justice Charles F. Brown of Newburgh was substituted by the State committee. ,
The Shepard and Fairchild Democrats, who had been shut out of the convention, on October 9 in the New York law office of Shepard nominated Everett P. Wheeler of New York for Governor, to make a rallying point for Democrats who did not wish to support Hill but indorsed Lockwood and Brown.16 Franklin D. Locke and Henry A. Richmond in Buffalo and Sey- mour Van Santvoord in Albany were active in carrying on this movement outside of the metropolitan district.
The Democrats made their campaign largely on the issues of Platt as the Republican boss and the duty of supporting Cleveland's policy on the tariff and money
13Speech published in full, New York Tribune, October 7, 1894.
14New York Tribune, September 27, 1894.
15Brooklyn Eagle, October 6, 1894.
16Brooklyn Eagle, October 10, 1894. 1
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questions. Whitney gave his aid in a long letter urging support of Hill.17 But the Democrats could not over- come the handicap of the Maynard controversy and the accumulated burden of Hill's unpopularity, which for the first time had a chance for unhampered expression. The fusion campaign against Tammany and police corruption in New York City likewise aided the Republican ticket. Morton was elected by 156,108 plurality. The vote was: Morton, 673,818; Hill, 517,710; Francis E. Baldwin (Prohibition) 23,525; Charles B. Matthews (People's), 11,049; Everett P. Wheeler (State Democracy), 27,202; Charles H. Matchett (Labor), 15,868. Saxton's plurality over Lockwood was 127,483, and Haight's over Brown 123,924. The Republicans elected 29 of the 34 Repre- sentatives in Congress and carried the Assembly over- whelmingly, electing 105 out of 128 members. In addition to the general constitutional revision, which was submitted and adopted, two constitutional amend- ments for additional Justices of the Supreme Court and a Judge of the County Court in Kings county were adopted. The proposal to create the Greater New York was voted on favorably by the people in all the larger constituencies concerned, and the city of New York voted to loan its credit for the construction of the underground rapid transit system.
17New York Times, October 9, 1894.
LEVI PARSONS MORTON
Levi Parsons Morton, 34th governor (1895-1897) ; born at Shoreham, Vt., May 16, 1824; attended the public schools and Shoreham academy; clerk in a general store in Enfield, Mass., 1838-1840; taught school in Boscawen, N. H., 1840-1841; com- menced mercantile business in Hanover, N. H., 1845; moved to Boston in 1850 and entered the dry goods business in New York City in 1851; engaged in the banking business in New York City in 1863; appointed by President Hayes an honorary com- missioner to the Paris exposition in 1878; elected as a republi- can to the 46th congress and served from March 4, 1879 to March 3, 1883; was vice-president of the United States, March 4, 1889 to March 3, 1893; governor of New York, 1895-1897; died, New York City, May 16, 1920.
CHARLES ZEBINA LINCOLN
Charles Zebina Lincoln, lawyer; born, Grafton, Vt., August 5, 1848; educated at Chamberlin institute, Randolph, N. Y .; taught district school; admitted to the bar, 1874; practiced at Little Valley and was president, trustee, village attorney and for 7 years member of the board of education; supervisor, Cat- taraugus county, 1886-1889; delegate to constitutional conven- tion, 1895; chairman of statutory revision commission and legal advisor to Governors Morton, Black and Roosevelt; in 1905 appointed by Governor Higgins as editor of Governors' Mes- sages under an act passed that year which provided for an annotated edition of the messages from the organization of the colonial assembly in 1683 to 1906; author of Lincoln's constitu- tional history of the state of New York.
CHAPTER XXXIV MORTON AS A FAVORITE SON
1895-1896
I HE Republican victory placed Platt in prac- tically complete control of the State government. Edmund O'Connor succeeded Saxton as Presi- dent pro tem. of the Senate, and the Speakership went to Hamilton Fish, Jr., whom Platt in 1890 had caused the State committee to read out of the party together with Frederick S. Gibbs, on the charge of partnership with Tammany in legislative matters.1 Morton took office with a deep sense of his responsibilities and a recognition that his victory came from a popular revolt that transcended party lines. Temperament and habit, however, kept him in harmony with Platt, and early in his term the organization adroitly suggested that he might be its choice for President and used this bait whenever he showed a disposition to break away from its policy.
The new Constitution required a great deal of legislation for reorganizing departments and making effective its provisions, and in all this the Governor cooperated effectively and intelligently. The long- debated Blanket Ballot law was passed, and the paster
1New York Tribune, May 28, 1890.
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ballot, in which eminent constitutional lawyers had been seeing the palladium of liberty, disappeared without the destruction of the franchise. Power was reluctantly given to Mayor Strong to remove heads of departments in New York City, and the Rapid Transit commission was instructed to proceed with plans for tunnel work. A commission was created to prepare general laws for third-class cities and a referendum was ordered on the proposal to spend $9,000,000 for canal improvements.2
The attempt of the reform administration in New York City to enforce the Sunday Excise laws projected the Sunday-closing question into the political cam- paign. Theodore Roosevelt, president of the New York Police board, with the support of Mayor Strong rigidly enforced the closing law, which had been passed by the Democrats but never observed by the city administration. Roosevelt believed, as indeed the investigations of the Lexow committee showed, that the privilege of violating the law was sold by the police and that the only way to break up organized corruption was to compel the police to enforce strictly the law as it existed. This policy was much disliked, especially by the Germans, but it was defended not as a measure of puritanism but as a necessary enforcement of law, which should lead to local option or such other legal relief as might suit the community. In Brooklyn, Mayor Schieren, who was not confronted by the same problem of police corruption, treated Sunday liquor
2Morton's first message and notes; Lincoln's Messages from the Gover- nors, IX, p. 536 et seq.
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selling as something that could not be stopped and only attempted to prevent openly offensive violations of the law.
The question was a dangerous one, especially for the Republicans, who had the rural vote to consider. Platt decided to ignore it, and in this course was supported by Hiscock.3 When the State convention, of which James S. Sherman was temporary and Clarence Lexow permanent chairman, met at Saratoga on September 17, the committee on resolutions, through its chairman, Hamilton Fish, Jr., reported a platform that denounced the Wilson Tariff law and "its income tax attachment- happily declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States," complained of the mis- management of the Democrats, which had added more than $165,000,000 to the national debt, dwelt on the good features of the new Constitution, and pointed with pride to the economies of the State administration while explaining that the increased tax rate was due solely to the State assumption of the care of the insane in New York and Kings counties. But it had not a word to say on' the Sunday question. In the committee Warner Miller had sought the adoption of a temperance plank and John E. Milholland had proposed a declaration in support of Roosevelt's policy, and also one favoring the enlargement and popularization of the State committee. They were both voted down. Milholland offered the minority report on the floor of the convention, which was rejected, and then Warner Miller, after attempts had been made to ignore him, forced recognition from
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