USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. IV 1896-1920 > Part 12
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Notwithstanding the hostile organization of the Legislature, the Governor pressed his reforms with the aid of a better public understanding of his purpose and increasing sympathy with it. He boldly ran counter to prevailing tendencies by advising the Legislature not to ratify the Federal Income Tax amendment because it did not provide against the taxation of State bonds. He believed in granting power to levy an income tax, but as guardian of the State's interests felt bound to oppose a measure so loosely drawn that it might interfere with the functions of the State. The Legislature followed his advice. The Hinman-Green bill, with some modi- fications, was reintroduced, but both party organiza- tions combined to defeat it. The committee appointed at the previous session reported what was known as the Meade-Phillips bill, in which was embodied its ideas of primary reform. The bill provided for a ballot on which all candidates for members of party committees were required to be voted for by making an individual X mark in the voting square at the left of the name. Other candidates could be voted for either individually or by making an X mark in the circle at the top of the column containing the names of the candidates repre- senting identical interests. This was passed by both
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houses, but before it reached the Executive chamber the Governor told the Legislature that he would not sign it because it was "not a grant, but a denial, of needed primary reform." He said: "It provides for statewide enrollment, but it gives to the enrolled voter, who does not make politics his vocation, scant oppor- tunity for effective participation in the decisions of his party. It provides for an official primary ballot, but its provision is of a sort to facilitate domination by party managers and thus to protect plans and purposes of those who seek, through the control of the nomination of party candidates, to make the administration of gov- ernment serve the interests of themselves and their allies."7
George H. Cobb, one of the more moderate organiza- tion Senators, sought to effect a compromise with a bill for direct nomination of Congressmen, members of the Legislature, and county officers. This bill was in effect the Hinman-Green bill limited in application to politi- cal units less in extent than the State and Judicial dis- trict. It was intended to meet the objection that on account of the necessity of distributing candidates for State and judicial offices geographically, the first on the ground of political expediency, the sec- ond necessarily for the convenience of the public, the application of the direct primary principle to those units was impracticable, a view that was repeatedly reiterated in the platforms of subsequent Republican State conventions. This bill introduced by Senator Cobb the Governor stood ready to accept. It passed
7Fitch, Official New York from Cleveland to Hughes, I, p. 262.
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the Senate by a vote of 34 to 13, but was killed in the Assembly by 94 to 46.
The joint committee appointed to investigate the sub- ject of placing the telephone and telegraph companies under the jurisdiction of the Public Service commission reported a bill for that purpose, which was passed with- out opposition and became a law.
Meanwhile the State had been thrown into a turmoil by charges of corruption which, if true, completely justified all that the Governor had said about the use of political machinery for the service of private interests. While the caucus was nominating Allds for leader, Senator Benn Conger declared to a conference of insur- gent Senators that he had personal knowledge that Allds was a bribe-taker. For some days the charge was apparently unnoticed. Then the New York Evening Post learned the details of the story and published it.8 The story was shown to Allds by a friend before publi- cation, and his friends urged him to read it himself to the Senate and discount its effect. But he refused to take the advice. The course of the Evening Post in- curred a serious liability, for Conger shrank from an investigation, and unless he could be forced to substan- tiate his story the newspaper risked heavy damages. Immediately upon the publication of the article Allds demanded an investigation, which was held, and testi- mony was given that Conger, who was interested in bridge-building, in order to protect his company and others from legislation restricting town boards with respect to building and repairing bridges and cutting
8New York Evening Post, January 18, 1910.
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off 60 per cent. of the business of the small bridge com- panies, had in 1901, with the assistance of Hiram G. Moe, his agent, paid Allds $1,000 to kill the bill. Tes- timony was also given that the bridge companies had through a series of years fought legislative attacks and had paid out money to other members of the Legislature who were dead, so no disproof was possible.9
Allds maintained his innocence but on March 29 the Senate found him guilty by a vote of 40 to 9, although he attempted to avoid a verdict by a resignation. Four Republicans, Coats, Grattan, Holden, and Kissel, stood by him to the last, and they were joined by five Democrats, Cullen, Frawley, Grady, C. D. Sullivan, and T. D. Sullivan.
Other troubles to the Republicans came from the investigation of insurance companies by Insurance Superintendent Hotchkiss. Lieutenant - Governor White was subjected to an attack because as a lawyer he had made the technical legal mistake, as a trustee, of participating in the sale of the People's Mutual Life Assurance Association to a group of speculators.10 The next incident was of more immediate political con- sequence, as it entered into the campaign to fill the vacancy in the Rochester district caused by the death of Congressman J. Breck Perkins, just as George W. Aldridge had decided himself to become a candidate. E. R. Kennedy, chairman of the legislative committee of the fire underwriters, testified that several years before Aldridge, at the instance of Rochester insurance
9New International Year Book, 1910.
10New York Evening Post, January 17, 1910.
WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST
William Randolph Hearst, publisher; born, San Francisco, April 18, 1863; student at Harvard, 1882-1885; editor and pro- prietor of San Francisco Examiner; Los Angeles Examiner, Chi- cago American, Atlanta Georgian, Boston American, Boston Advertiser, New York Evening Journal, New York American, New York Deutsches Journal, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Hearst's Magazine, Good Housekeeping Magazine, Harper's Bazar, Motor Magazine and Motor Boating Magazine; elected to congress and served from March 4, 1903 until March 3, 1907; candidate for mayor of New York on municipal ownership ticket, 1905 on independence league ticket, 1909; candidate for governor of New York in 1906 on independence league and democratic tickets.
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interests, had called on him and ably cooperated in securing some needed legislation and in defeating some attacks on the insurance business. He afterward gave Aldridge a check for $1,000 for his work.11 Aldridge turned the money to his campaign fund. The legislation in question was entirely proper; neither the giver nor the taker of the gift regarded it as open to censure at the time. Aldridge in an open letter to one of his critics12 defended it as a conventional contribution to the politi- cal war-chest. But the incident illustrated the view that politicians and business men-often while seeking good ends and without realizing its dangers-had come to take of the permissible relation between political influence and private interests. At ordinary times the sway of Aldridge in his county was scarcely challenged ; for his organization was intelligent and moderate and gave a clean, efficient management of affairs which pleased Democrats as well as Republicans. But this testimony, coming at a moment when popular feeling was already critical of political methods in general, produced a strong reaction. The Democrats nominated James S. Havens and carried the district at the special election held on April 19.
The charges against Allds pointed anew to a struggle for the Senate leadership. The organization backed Cobb, while the friends of Hughes supported Hinman and George A. Davis. Already the administration in Washington was frightened over the split in New York and was anxious to see the Republican party go before
11New York Evening Post, March 19, 1910.
12New York Evening Post, March 31, 1910.
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the people in the attitude of sympathy toward reform. Root wrote to Davenport, one of the Hughes Senators, in favor of Hinman, but Barnes, Wadsworth, and Woodruff would make no concession. Hughes had allowed the Tribune on January 17 to announce that he would not accept a third nomination for Governor because the expense of the office had used up most of his private resources and he must consider provision for his family. More than one of his admirers and supporters stood ready to make his continued service financially possible, as some other men had done for other states- men, but no one cared even to propose such aid to him.13 Although the organization might have yielded to a politically potent Hughes, it was determined by no means to yield to abstract political idealism. The reformers, without the prospect of a personality whose continuing leadership promised success, could not attract the indifferent. At a caucus on March 10. into which the insurgents entered, Cobb, despite the efforts of Root and Vice-President Sherman, was chosen over Davis and Hinman on the forty-ninth ballot.14 He showed independence both in regard to the Primary law and to a proposed wide legislative investigation of rumors of corruption, but the Assembly refused to per- mit an investigation of unlimited scope and confined the inquiry to verified charges, gave persons accused the right to appear by counsel and cross-examine wit- nesses, and forbade examination into charges against any candidate made after September 1.
13New York Tribune, January 17, 1910.
14New York Evening Post, March 11, 1910.
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On April 25 Hughes accepted President Taft's offer of a seat in the United States Supreme Court in succes- sion to Justice Brewer, but he continued at Albany until the appointment was actually made and only gave up the Executive office to Lieutenant-Governor White on October 6. Determined to make one more effort to carry his programme, he called the Legislature in special session on June 20, and asked it again to consider the direct primary, to enlarge the scope of the corrup- tion inquiry, and to provide additional revenue by amendment to the Inheritance Tax law. The desired revenue legislation was passed.
The rules governing the investigation were not broad- ened, and little came of it beyond more evidence of the character of the combination of business and politics, including testimony that the Lyons Beet Sugar Refining Company had paid $3,000 a year for three years to John Raines and $3,000 to Jean L. Burnett while they were members of the Legislature. It was assumed that these payments were made for the influencing of legisla- tion, but as both Raines and Burnett were dead it was impossible to submit the truth of this assumption to any test. The Primary bill found even less support than at the regular session, as its opponents began to whisper that Roosevelt, just back from Africa, was opposed to it. While the bill was pending, Hughes went to the Harvard commencement and there met Roosevelt, who had never really interested himself in the direct pri- mary question and convinced him that his leadership was needed if the reactionary forces in the party were not to drive it to its ruin. Roosevelt responded with a
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public declaration in favor of the Cobb bill, which had been amended to exclude candidates for city office and make municipal fusion campaigns possible.15
The opposition at once raised the cry of dictation, though they themselves had been using Roosevelt's name. On June 30 an attempt to secure a favorable committee report on the bill was beaten in the Assem- bly, 49 Republicans, 12 Democrats, and 2 Independents voting for it and 40 Democrats and 40 Republicans against. A Republican Senate caucus accepted the bill, but eleven members, this time organization men, re- fused to enter it, and on July 1, just before the final ad- journment, the Senate defeated the measure by one vote, 25 Republicans voting in its favor and 7 Republicans and 12 Democrats against it. The majority of the Re- publicans in both houses stood with Hughes and Roose- velt, and were defeated.16
The differences between Roosevelt and Taft were already a matter of common rumor, and following the special session the State leaders began to prepare for the line-up which they knew must ultimately come unless these differences were adjusted. The suggestion of Roosevelt for temporary chairman of the State convention gave his enemies a desired opportunity to show their hostility, and at a meeting of the State com- mittee on August 16 they designated Vice-President Sherman for temporary chairman over Roosevelt by a vote of 20 to 15.17 Lloyd C. Griscom, the New York
15New York Times, June 30, 1910.
16New York Times, July 1, 1910.
17New York Times, August 17, 1910.
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county chairman, wrote Taft that votes had been secured for Sherman by representations that the Presi- dent wished it, to defeat Roosevelt. The President replied that he had never expressed any wish to defeat Roosevelt or taken even the slightest step in that direc- tion. He added : ,
"I never heard Mr. Sherman's name suggested as temporary chairman of the State convention until I saw in the papers of August 16 that he had been selected at a meeting of the committee. When you called at my house on August 13, you told me that Mr. Roosevelt intended to go to the convention as a delegate, and you suggested, incidentally, his being temporary chairman, a suggestion in which I acquiesced. It did not occur to me that anyone would oppose it. This was the first time that the subject of the temporary chairmanship was mentioned to me by any one."
The President also said that he had telegraphed Sherman that he thought the New York situation demanded full conference with Roosevelt and reason- able concession as to platform and candidates. On August 15 Sherman had told him that it was proposed to oppose Roosevelt with Root, and he had protested.18
Roosevelt announced himself a champion who stood against bosses and in favor of genuine popular rule. He denounced the "alliance of corrupt business and corrupt politics," and declared, "We are against the domination of the party and the public by special interests, whether those special interests are political, business, or a combination of the two." He interrupted his campaign to make some speeches in the west and at Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, outlined his "New Nationalism" platform and criticised the attitude of
18New York Times, August 23, 1910.
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some Judges toward legislation to remedy social and industrial injustices. This alienated many conserva- tives who had no sympathy with machine politics. While Woodruff continued to declare that the issue in New York was the direct primary, Barnes assailed Roosevelt's radicalism and asserted that his success would mean the humiliation of the President and the advancement of doctrines menacing to social order. Before the State convention assembled at Saratoga on September 27, Roosevelt and Taft met, for the first time since the latter became President, at New Haven and on the surface appeared to be in harmony with respect to the New York situation.19 To the State committee meeting on the eve of the convention Sherman sent a request for inquiry into the charge that he had been chosen through misrepresentation, and the committee by a vote of 22 to 15, which represented the alignment of the two factions, assured him that there had been no misrepresentations.20
The next day Woodruff presented Sherman's name on behalf of the State committee, and Roosevelt was nominated from the floor. He received 561 votes to 445 for Sherman. Aldridge, Barnes, Hendricks, Brackett, and Payn supported Sherman, while among the old organization leaders who went to Roosevelt were Fassett, John F. O'Brien, and George W. Dunn. He had about one-third of the Kings and a large part of the New York delegation. No opposition was made to Elihu Root for permanent chairman. The vote on
19New York Times, September 20, 1910.
20New York Times, September 27, 1910.
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temporary chairman showed clearly that Roosevelt dominated the convention and would name the candi- date for Governor. The only aggressive aspirant was William S. Bennet, who as a result of an active canvass had a considerable personal following, but was backed by neither faction. Roosevelt did not consider him available and hesitated between declaring for Hinman and bringing forward a new man in the person of Henry L. Stimson, who had been a law partner of Root and United States District Attorney. In this office he had made a reputation for efficiency, but he had no standing in State politics, while Hinman in a peculiar degree represented the Hughes policies. Some of the leaders of the defeated faction intimated that Hinman would be the more palatable, since they knew him as a political leader and legislator. But from New York City came the objection that he had voted against the Eighty-cent Gas bill, and Roosevelt finally decided in favor of Stimson, who was nominated on the first ballot. The opposition did not unite on a candidate or seriously push one. Barnes threw his vote to Mayor McEwan of Albany, and Aldridge gave his to State Treasurer Dunn. The others divided between Stimson and Ben- net, and seemed willing to let Roosevelt take the responsibility of his victory. The ballot stood: Stim- son, 684; Bennet, 242; James B. McEwan, 36; Thomas B. Dunn, 38.21
21The ticket was: Governor, Henry L. Stimson, New York; Lieutenant- Governor, Edward Schoeneck, Onondaga; Secretary of State, Samuel S. Koenig, New York; Comptroller, James Thompson, Rensselaer; Treasurer, Thomas F. Fennell, Chemung; Attorney-General, Edward R. O'Malley, Erie; State Engineer, Frank M. Williams, Madison; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Irving G. Vann, Onondaga.
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The only contest on the platform was over direct nominations. Wadsworth, who led the minority, was able to marshal only 403 votes against 610 in his attempt to prevent a sweeping indorsement of the Hughes policy. The platform declared "relentless warfare upon official and legislative wrongdoing." It enthusi- astically indorsed "the progressive, statesmanlike leadership of President Taft," took pride in the achieve- ment of his first eighteen months as President, and said that each succeeding month "confirmed the nation in its high esteem of his greatness of character, intellectual ability, sturdy common sense, extraordinary patience and perseverance, broad and statesmanlike comprehen- sion of public questions, and unfailing and unswerving adherence to duty." The new Tariff law was strongly commended and future revision by separate schedules advised. As Taft was already at odds with the insurgents in Congress and had been much criticised for his loyalty to Secretary Ballinger and for signing the Tariff bill despite its failure to carry revision as far as he desired, this enthusiastic indorsement of the President personally and of the tariff legislation by a convention completely under Roosevelt's domination became interesting later when Roosevelt and his successor came to open hostility. Also significant in view of his later criticisms of some of the same trans- actions, notably his attack upon Canadian reciprocity in the campaign of 1912, were Roosevelt's words on taking the temporary chairmanship. "During the last eighteen months," he said, "a long list of laws, embody- ing legislation most heartily to be commended as
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combining wisdom with progress, have been enacted by Congress and approved by President Taft." He enumerated the amendments to the Interstate Com- merce law, progress toward taxation of corporations doing an interstate business, the plan to do away with over-capitalization, publicity for campaign expenses, the maximum and minimum Tariff law, "the exceed- ingly able negotiation of the Canadian and other treaties in accordance therewith," the Tariff commission and the Safety Appliance laws. All these, he declared, "reflect high credit upon all who succeeded in putting them in their present shape upon the statute-books. They represent an earnest of the achievement which is yet to come, and the beneficence and far-reaching importance of the work done for the whole people measure the credit which is rightly due to the Congress and to our able, upright, and distinguished President, William Howard Taft."
In dealing with the primary question the platform said: "To Governor Hughes is due the credit for arousing the interest of the people and convincing them of the need of directly electing their party officers and directly nominating their party candidates. We promise legislation which will enact these principles into law."
The defeat of the Democrats in two successive State campaigns carried on under Murphy's control accentu- ated the always existing country jealousy of Tammany and led to agitation for a reorganized Democracy. As early as September, 1909, a body of independent Demo- crats, led by Edward M. Shepard and Thomas Mott
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Osborne, met at Saratoga. They disavowed enmity to Tammany, but it was noticeable that no Tammany men were invited to attend. Out of this meeting sprang the Democratic League, which undertook, under the direction of John Alden Dix, to reform the party organization and make the party stand for a distinct body of what the reformers conceived to be Democratic doctrine. The gathering adopted a platform embodying traditional Democratic principles of strict construction, resistance to Federal encroachment, and tariff for revenue only, coupled with declarations for the popular election of United States Senators, anti- imperialism, and an income tax. The reformers disliked Murphy but they were even more hostile to Conners, who dominated the up-State organization. This hostility harmonized perfectly with the views of Murphy, who had fallen out with his former ally. The demand for Conners's retirement became so loud that in April he was forced to announce that he would step down, and at the meeting of the Democratic State com- mittee on June 2 he did so. For a new chairman of the State committee Murphy turned to his critics of the Democratic League and entrusted to Dix the task of reorganizing Tammany domination out of the party.22
The Democratic State convention met at Rochester on September 29, with Alton B. Parker acting as temporary and Herbert P. Bissell as permanent chair- man. Although the independent Democrats were there in large numbers Murphy was in complete con-
22New York Times, June 2, 3, 1910.
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trol of the situation. A correspondent of the New York Times wrote that, though he had attended many conventions, he had "never seen a more general air of distrust and suspicion" than prevailed in Rochester.23 In the general opinion, the most available candidate was Mayor Gaynor, who was just recovering from the shot of a disgruntled city employe, fired at him on August 9 as he was boarding a steamer for a vacation in Europe. Gaynor wrote two letters of declination. The first, to Dix, was characteristically equivocal in tone, but it was immediately followed by another to a per- sonal representative explaining that the first meant that, if nominated, he would decline.24
With Gaynor out of the way, an active movement was started for Shepard, but it made little headway. Murphy did not want him, and several lesser lights of reform had aspirations that they were not inclined to forego. Thomas M. Osborne and James S. Havens, whose success in the Rochester Congress election gave him some prestige, and William Sulzer were all active candidates. The Hearst influence was unsuccessfully exerted, first for James W. Gerard, then for William Sulzer, and finally for Martin H. Glynn. Murphy preferred, however, to work with the reformers of the Democratic League, but he was unable to effect union on any one of the avowed candidates. After unavailing efforts to induce Gaynor to change his mind, he turned to Dix, who had first declined lest he might seem to be using his place of State chairman to promote his own
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