USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 27
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3New York Tribune, September 17, 1895.
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the chair and in spite of Fish's objections offered an amendment to the platform: "We favor the main- tenance of the Sundays laws in the interests of labor and morality." He finally said that he had been told that his indiscreet declarations on the temperance question lost him the Governorship in 1888, but he had no regrets. His amendment was supported by Senator O'Connor. The demand for courage in dealing with the only live issue before the State convention forced Platt's hand. He could not afford openly to run away from the subject when it was once precipitated upon the convention, and under his instructions Fish accepted the amendment.4 So far as New York City went, Roosevelt met the issue in a speech declaring that Hill's outcry against excise enforcement meant "personal liberty to commit crime" and was an incitement to anarchy.5
The old ticket was nominated without opposition, the only contest being over Associate-Judge of the Court of Appeals. Pardon C. Williams of Watertown, Jesse Johnson of Brooklyn, Henry A. Childs of Medina, William H. Adams of Canandaigua, and Celora E. Martin of Binghamton were aspirants: As the retiring Judge Finch came from the Southern Tier, Martin's claims were geographically strong, and had, more- over, the favor of Platt. The Adams vote went to him on the second ballot, and he was nominated.6
4New York Tribune, September 18, 1895.
5New York Tribune, September 25, 1895.
6The ticket was: Secretary of State, John Palmer, Albany; Comptroller, James A. Roberts, Erie; Treasurer, Addison B. Colvin, Warren; Attorney-
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1895]
Hill went to the Democratic State convention at Syracuse on September 24 once more an active advo- cate of concessions to his old opponents, but he found Tammany and Senator Murphy, who had come to be much closer than himself to the Wigwam, in oppo- sition.7 The Mclaughlin and Shepard organizations made a compromise by which the latter received one- third representation, with a stipulation that if they were not able to agree on local candidates the Mclaughlin people were to be recognized as regulars with the right to use the party emblem and control the election officials. Hill sought to secure the same terms for the Fairchild organization, but the most that Tammany would give it was a one-fifth representation coupled with recognition of Tammany's regularity for the future. This the Fairchild people would not accept, and they left the convention.8 Perry Belmont was temporary and Roswell P. Flower permanent chair- man. The nominations were made without provoking any serious contest.9 The platform commended the national administration and the Wilson Tariff law. It denounced the Republicans for increasing the State tax rate, ignoring the reason for it in the carrying out of the policy of State care of the insane initiated by the Democrats. On the liquor question it squarely joined
General, Theodore E. Hancock, Onondaga; State Engineer, Campbell W. Adams, Oneida; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Celora E. Martin, Broome. 7New York Tribune, September 24, 1895.
8New York Times, September 26, 1895.
9The ticket was: Secretary of State, Horatio C. King, Kings; Comptroller, John B. Judson, Fulton; Treasurer, DeWitt C. Dow, Schoharie; Attorney- General, Norton Chase, Albany; State Engineer, Russell B. Stuart, Onon- daga; Judge of the Court of Appeals, John D. Teller, Cayuga.
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[1895
issue with the Republicans, declaring that the people of different communities should by majority vote decide for themselves what Sunday regulations might best suit their special necessities and conditions.
The Republican organization was weak in New York City. Mayor Strong, a Republican, had been elected on a non-partisan platform, and, though Platt charged that he had a private understanding with him,10 Strong refused to turn over the patronage to Platt and was subjected to obstruction and ridicule for the three years of his term. The continued newspaper attacks made upon Platt could not shake his hold upon the party machinery, but they did seriously discredit his organization in the public mind. Nevertheless, disor- ganization of the Democracy was so complete and the popular drift from the party that had been in power through the hard times following the panic of 1893 was so strong that the Republicans carried the State by 90,145 plurality. The vote was: Palmer, 601,205; King, 511,060; William W. Smith (Prohibition), 25,239; Thaddeus B. Wakeman (People's), 6,916; Erasmus Pellenz (Socialist Labor), 21,497. The rest of the Republican ticket was successful by pluralities ranging from 86,000 to 94,000. The Republicans carried both houses of the Legislature, which stood : Senate-Republicans, 35; Democrats, 14; Independent Republican, 1; Assembly-Republicans, 103; Demo- crats, 47. The people by a plurality of 276,886, which came chiefly from New York, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, voted in favor of the $9,000,000 canal improvement.
10Platt, Autobiography, pp. 273 et seq. and 286 et seq.
1896]
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The truce between the Shepard and Mclaughlin Democracy in Kings county was short-lived. Gaynor, whom Mclaughlin wanted to run for Mayor, declined, but suggested his former law partner, Edward M. Grout, who was nominated.11 Shepard refused to support him and himself ran, polling 9,510 votes and throwing the election to Frederick W. Wurster, the Republican candidate, whose plurality was 2,095 votes.
In the face of great opposition Platt forced through the Legislature of 1896, where Fish was again Speaker and Timothy E. Ellsworth was President pro tem. of the Senate, two measures of great and lasting import- ance-the centralized control of the liquor traffic and the Greater New York plan.
The Raines Liquor Tax law established an entirely new policy of centralized control of the liquor traffic.12 It was distinctly a high license measure, imposing a tax for hotels and saloons ranging from $100 to $800, according to the population. It sought to solve the problem of the Sunday demand for liquor by allowing hotels to serve liquors with meals. This offered a premium on the transformation of saloons into hotels with bedrooms and led to unlooked-for evils. On the other hand, the centralized administration greatly diminished the unlicensed traffic. Two-thirds of the revenue was turned over to the local governments and the rest kept by the State. Later the State took half. The act was bitterly denounced as an attempt to establish a Platt machine and as being unfair to the great cities.
11New York Tribune, October 6, 1895.
12Lincoln, Messages from the Governors, IX, p. 666.
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But the system it established remained in force in spite of political changes until the coming of prohibition by Federal action in 1919.
Restriction of the liquor traffic is coeval with the State. A moderate and loosely enforced excise system · satisfied the people until the rise of the temperance agitation in the middle of the last century, which took shape in the "Maine law" movement. In 1854 retail sales for drinking on the premises were restricted to taverns with accommodations for travelers, while grocers might sell liquors to be taken away. Saloons were illegal, but they flourished owing to lax enforce- ment. In that year a severe act of search and seizure was passed and vetoed by Governor Seymour as uncon- stitutional. The result was the election of Myron H. Clark as Governor and the passage of the Prohibition law of 1855. This was declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals the following year, and in 1857 a new system of local licensing, which allowed practical local option in towns through the election of non-licensing Commissioners, was established and with several modifi- cations, especially with respect to New York City, remained in force until 1892. Attempts to put a consti- tutional amendment through the Legislature were made in 1856 and 1860 and one passed in 1861, but it failed of its second passage in 1862. The Constitutional convention of 1867 refused to recommend prohibition. Lax enforcement in New York City, where less than one-tenth of the dramshops were licensed, led to further restriction, which was resisted by the local authorities pending unsuccessful appeals to the courts.
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1896]
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In 1870 Governor Hoffman secured for New York City liberty to fix its own excise rates at an extremely low level. Governor Dix vetoed a local option bill because it made no distinction between spirits and light bever- ages. This encouraged the growth of the Prohibition party and the counter struggle for high license, which Warner Miller championed, while Governor Hill defeated all efforts for restriction. In 1890 a Prohi- bition amendment went through a second Legislature, but no law submitting it to the people was ever passed, and in 1892 under Governor Flower a low license law was adopted, which remained in force until the enact- ment of the Raines law.
The bill to establish the Greater New York was forced through only by the cooperation of the Tammany Democrats with the Platt Republicans. It passed in the Assembly, 91 to 56, with the aid of 27 Democratic votes, while 36 Republicans were against it.13 It decreed consolidation to date from January 1, 1898, without solving beforehand the intricate problems of government and adjustment between the united municipalities, but left all that to a commission, which was to report a charter for the next Legislature to pass. The Mayors of New York and Brooklyn both disap- proved of the measure, and a great mass-meeting, held in Cooper Union on April 28, presided over by Cor- nelius N. Bliss and addressed by William C. Redfield, James C. Carter, and A. Augustus Low, sent an address to the Governor declaring that it had been passed by a combination of the worst forces in State politics, over
13New York Tribune, March 27, 1896.
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the vetoes of the Mayors, and only by the vote of Assemblymen who were elected on the faith of written declarations that they were opposed to such consolida- tion. Three Assemblymen from Brooklyn, O. L. For- rester, Jacob A. Livingston, and Frederick G. Hughes, were declared from the platform to have made such a pledge and violated it.14 In the passage of this bill the domination of the machine was particularly apparent. Three Senators, Malby, Coggeshall, and Mullin, expressed their firm conviction that the act was bad public and party policy. Nevertheless they voted for it, never expecting to see the Republicans carry the State again if they turned over the control of half the State to Tammany Hall, as they firmly believed they were doing.15 Mullin and Malby later voted against passing the bill over the veto of the Mayors. The event proved, however, that Platt was wiser than his critics and that consolidation was a good thing for the city and harmless for the State.
Notwithstanding all the protests, Governor Morton signed the act. He was a Presidential candidate and he had been plainly warned by Platt himself what that implied. On January 3 Platt wrote to Morton :
"I put it mildly when I say to you that I was disgusted and dis- heartened when General Tracy handed me yesterday your letter to him of December 31st, relative to Greater New York. When we sought and had a conference with you at General Tracy's house on the question, it was for the purpose of having definitely settled what your position would be on this great question. . . . Now, at the very opening of the Legislature, as I have expressed it to you before,
14New York Tribune, April 29, 1896.
15New York Tribune, March 12, 1896.
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1896]
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you 'take to the woods' and are leaving us in the lurch. Nothing can be done in this matter if you are going to pursue the same policy that you did last year with reference to legislation in this State, and open a back-fire on our friends in the Legislature not only with certain members of the Legislature, but with the newspaper correspondents. I say to you that this whole business utterly discourages and demor- alizes me; and it makes we wonder what would be the result if you succeeded in becoming President of the United States [Platt's italics] and had to meet such issues as are involved in the questions of the present hour, for instance the Venezuelan question and the Bond question. . And if you are to persist in the policy which you have outlined in your letter, we might as well quit where we are and not introduce any resolution or bill for Greater New York, but I assure you that you will be the greater sufferer from such cowardly policy. In such case I will not feel like taking off my coat and doing the work I contemplated doing in the Presidential matter [Platt's italics]. I might as well be frank with you now. If matters of legislation are to be run on the issue of the Presidential candidacy, it will be impossible for us to accomplish anything upon any questions which involve sharp differences of opinion, however strongly the balance may be in favor of the course which the organization is recommending."16
Harper's Weekly of February 15, 1896, thus described Morton's situation :
"He will have to sanction all the legislation devised by Mr. Platt to the end of bringing about the political death of all of Mr. Morton's own respectable friends; to deliver the city of New York, bound hand and foot, into the hands of the Platt-Tammany robber partnership, and so on. He will have to do all this, and who knows what more? For we cannot repeat it too strongly-if he fail in anything, all he had done will go with Mr. Platt for nothing. This is the price at which, judging from present appearances, Governor Morton will be per- mitted to stand in the national Republican convention as the candi- date of New York. . Not only will such association repel from
16Platt, Autobiography, p. 307 et seq.
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him self-respecting people, but Mr. Platt, whenever he deems it to his advantage, will not hesitate a moment to sell off Governor Morton to the highest bidder, and to drop him as a miserable wreck by the wayside." ?
How true this was everybody but Morton saw with- out waiting for Platt's later acknowledgment that the whole thing was a game of bringing forward "favorite sons" to combine the field against Mckinley.17
17Platt, Autobiography, p. 403.
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