USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 47
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
"WHO IS INGERSOLL'S CO ?: N.Y. TRIBUNE. MR. INGERSOLL. " ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU DON'T
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TWO GREAT QUESTIONS.
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J. W.SMITH
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WHO STOLE THE PEOPLE'S MONETI? - DO TELL . N.Y.TIMES.
'TWAS HIM.
TWEED CARTOONS BY THOMAS NAST.
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position. As member and later President (four times so elected) of. the Board of Supervisors of the County, however, opportunities opened and multiplied, for by this body the State tax was to be ap- portioned and raised. But a finer chance yet for theft was afforded by the position of Street Commissioner. Contractors were told to make out their bills with fifteen per cent. overcharge. If they did not do that they would not get their bills paid at all. Still there was dan- ger of being assailed by people inconsiderately and obstreperously honest; and to be perfectly nndisturbed in these operations, the idea of the " Ring " suggested itself. That is, there must be a number of officials playing into each other's hands, and thereby keep off the hands of a meddlesome public. To secure this result the voting- machinery as well as the voting masses, must be under the control of the robbers. The Board of Supervisors appointed inspectors of election. On a certain day when this duty was to be performed Tweed and two of his six Democratic fellow members bribed one of the six Republican members to stay away. The inspectors therefore were all made of exactly the kind that was needed. Now the heelers were given careful instructions how to vote. They were to assume several names, and give as many different addresses, and vote as often as the number of their names, and in as many districts. Tweed's house in 1868 harbored six voters; a certain Coroner's was supposed to contain thirteen. One Alderman's residence furnished twenty citizens, an- other's twenty-five. A State Senator, as became his superior dignity, registered from his house no less than thirty citizens of the United States with the sovereign right of the ballot. But these citizens were also created by the thousand by the process of naturalization. It took no more than five minutes to make fifteen naturalized citizens; and these people were driven in droves like cattle from polling place to polling place and bidden vote as they were told. The Inspectors of Election being secured, and obedient roughs standing ready to beat any decent citizen into insensibility who should show a disposition to interfere, well might Tweed sneeringly ask of a helpless public, "What are you going to do about it?" As a result of this skillful maneuver- ing, Tweed as Street Commissioner was flanked on one side by a Comp- troller, Richard D. Connolly, who paid the bills; on the other by a City Chamberlain, Peter B. Sweeney; while three judges were placed upon the bench to block the ways of justice when it sought to reach the robbers, viz., Barnard, Cardozo, and McCunn. The Mayor, A. Oakey Hall, afterward escaped all convictions as an accomplice, but he signed vouchers without closely examining them, or according to his own term, " ministerially," by which he meant that he was not obliged even to read them over.
Everything being thus complete, and the " Ring " in perfect shape for successful operation, there was no reason why the money should not be stolen by the hundred thousand and the million. In 1863 the
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expenses of the Street Department reached the sum of $650.000. In 1867 Tweed had made them $2.600,000. Twenty-six dailies, and fifty- four weekly papers were pampered with great fees for official adver- tising: when the ring was smashed, twenty-seven of these purveyors of information went out of existence at once. The County Court House remains to-day a monument of the gigantic transactions of this ring of thieves, and illustrates well how they operated. It was stipu- lated in the bill anthorizing its construction that it should not cost more than $250,000. Before work npon it was begun, in 1868, one mill- ion had been appropriated; while in 1872, when it was not yet finished. $8.000.000 had been expended, or four times the cost of the magniti- cent Parliament Buildings in London; and when it was finally done. the sum had grown to between twelve and fourteen millions of dol- lars. The bill for carpets alone was $4.829.426. Andrew H. Garvey, who died the other day in ex- ile, put in a bill for plastering amount- ing to $3.495,626; and the plumber's bill was $1,508.410. The city's debt rose into the scores of millions. Tweed seemed to grow more greedy from the very satisfaction of his COUNTY COURT HOUSE. lust for money. He boasted that his for- tune was now $20,000,000. and that it would soon approach Vander- bilt's in magnitude.
It was impossible, however, that such scoundrelism could go on with impunity for very long. The thieves, intoxicated by the very success of their inordinate rapacity, were bound to quarrel and fall ont among themselves, and then honest men would be sure to come by their dues. Somebody would eventually be dissatisfied with his share of the spoils and then there would be a break-up. The Sheriff, James O'Brien, gained possession of some papers which mimtely recorded cerfain pecuniary transactions of the ring. He had no intention of serving the public by an exposure of them, but Tweed had been some- what slow to allow a claim of his to a part of the spoils, and he threat- ened to publish the papers unless his demands were met. Negotiations failed at first by reason of Tweed's overweening confidence; and when prudence prevailed and terms were abont to be concluded other cir-
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cumstances intervened. Thus on July 18, 1871, O'Brien went to the of- fice of the New York Times, placed a copy of the damaging papers in the hands of the proprietor, telling him to do with them what he pleased, and left without even sitting down. On July 20 the Times be- gan the publication, continuing until July 29, and all the city knew how much and in what ways the Tweed Ring had stolen their millions.
Now followed indignation meetings, and indictments, and trials too tedious to follow in detail. Suffice it to say that the Ring was smashed effectually though not easily even now, so carefully had the raseals intrenched themselves. It is to be noted with regret that all but one member of the ring escaped imprisonment, although many were obliged to sacrifice a good part of their ill-gotten wealth by sudden flight to foreign parts, and some had to live in exile the re- mainder of their days. Nevertheless, there is satisfaction in the fact that the one member of the Ring who was caught and punished was the head and center of it, or Tweed himself. On October 28, 1871, he was arrested, and being put under one million dollars bail, Judge Cardozo allowed Tweed's son to become his bondsman with property transferred to him by his father. He escaped serious inconvenience in this way several times. In January, 1873, however, he was brought to trial on two hundred counts before Judge Noah Davis, when a jury's disagreement again favored him. At last, in November, 1873, he was convicted and sentenced by Judge Davis to twelve years' im- prisonment. He was sent to the Penitentiary, but was released in June, 1875, on a decision of the Court of Appeals that his sentence, be- ing cumulative, was illegal. He was at once re-arrested on suits of a civil nature to recover $6,000,000, and his bail was put at three mill- ions. This he could not raise and he was consigned to Ludlow Street jail. He was aided in an escape thence by his old friend Sheriff O'Brien, in December, 1875. He fled to Cuba, and was arrested there while living under an assumed name as a supposed filibuster, but was released by the American Consul, who failed to recognize him until too late, so that he escaped and reached Vigo, Spain. There he was identified by his resemblance to Nast's cartoons, which had gone all over the world; and by an act of courtesy the Spanish Goverment delivered him up, as there was no extradition treaty requiring it to do so. In November, 1876, he became once more an inmate of Ludlow Street jail; on March 8, 1876, a verdict for over six millions of dollars was obtained against him; and as this sum was now utterly beyond his power to pay, a prison was the abode assigned to him for another number of years. In 1877 he offered to turn State's evidence, and tes- tified to many of the frauds perpetrated by the Ring. He had hoped that this service would procure his release, and when he was disappointed he broke down in health, and died in prison, on April 12, 1878. at the comparatively early age of fifty-five. It was an im- pressive ending, quite in accord with the good story-books. The three
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0279 1871
PUBLIC SCHOOL
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REPUBLIC UNITED STATES
CORRUPTION
YTRINGS
TWEED CARTOON-THE VICTORY OVER CORRUPTION.
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Ring judges suffered impeachment, Barnard and McCnnn standing trial and being removed; while Cardozo resigned to escape trial. But while all this was satisfactory to a degree, and though the smashing of the Ring was a great triumph for the better element, reflecting credit on the press, the bar, and the citizens generally, we cannot but agree with the Hon. Mr. Roberts's reflections on the incidents. " The marvel is," he says, " that a great city should suffer such crimes to go on before its eyes; should allow its expenditures and its debt to run up by the scores of millions; should continue to accept such per- sons as its representatives and its rulers; should tolerate the display of their pleasures and expenditures, of their impudent dictation and audacious defiance of courts and statutes." The marvel is still with us.
Political corruption, affecting legislators and judges as well as city officials, was responsible also for the direst effects of financial specu- lation. There still stand vividly before the memory of middle aged men the two " Black Fridays," the September 24, of 1869, and the September 19, of 1873. The first was the result of speculation in gold. The war having made necessary the issue of large quantities of paper currency, to be redeemed later in coin or gold, there was a constant fluctuation in the value of this paper money as compared with gold. The less gold in circulation, the higher rose its price in paper. In this state of affairs men of the stamp of James Fisk saw their opportunity for money-making. Their scheme was to produce a " corner " in gold, buying up all they could get hold of. Its scarcity in market of course caused a rise in its price. With crass impudence Fisk announced his purpose to run gold up to 200 on the very day-Black Friday-when came the crash. Many brokers began to sell at the running prices when they saw that Fisk could not compel any higher. The Gov- ernment also put four millions of gold upon the market, thus helping to break the "corner." Fisk would have been ruined, but he shamelessly refused to fulfill his contracts to sell on the orders for lower prices than those at which he had bought. When his victims sought redress from the courts they found themselves bound hand and foot by injunctions issued by corrupt judges previously " bought." Fisk had purchased a controlling share in Pike's Opera House, now the Grand Opera House, on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. The popular indignation against him was so great that he was obliged to take refuge in this building hiring toughs to guard him against attempts of the people to break in and drag him out.
The Black Friday of 1873 was due to a variety of causes. There was as yet no resumption of specie payment, and a man having a thousand or ten thousand greenback dollars in hand, was deceiving himself if he thought himself really worth that much. If he had bought a property with greenbacks, it was a mistake to suppose that
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in solid money he could get the price he paid, and when he realized the fact it gave him a sense of loss, perhaps of rnin. The fires in Chi- cago and Boston had reduced immense sums of money to ashes; in- volving also the destruction or weakening of many financial institu- tions. Railroads had been constructed all over the country beyond the necessity for them, and bonds held in their name being supposed to represent the value of the money paid for them, were suddenly found to be worthless. The best of financiers were not proof against this delusion. Holding considerable of such bonds the firms of Jay Cooke & Co., and Fiske, Hatch & Co. were involved in ruin; and when it was learned that these eminent and upright bankers had been de- ceived by the values of railroad bonds, a panic seized upon every one. Even good bonds were thrown npon the market and sold for a pit- tance. Enormous losses were thus entailed in the fear of losing still more, for many found that what they held in hand was of no value to speak of on one day though it had been a good investment the day before. But these acts of folly and desperation were stayed by the hand of Mr. Jay Gould, who had been greatly blamed in connection with the former Black Friday. At a certain stage of the market although he might have let it go down still further and have thus re- alized still larger profits on subsequent sales. Mr. Gould bonght sev- eral hundred thousand dollars' worth of shares of good railroads, snel as those of the Vanderbilt system, thus arresting their decline an saving many brokers from utter min. On September 20. thirty-five firms were announced as having suspended. The Stock Exchange was closed on that day, and did not again open its doors till the 30th. The excitement in the streets near the Stock Exchange was intense. Wall Street, and Broad to Exchange Place, was one solid mass of men, and in the drizzling rain on Black Friday itself people stood on the stairs of the Treasury Building watching the actions of the agitated finan- ciers, shouting and running hither and thither, or looking in silence their blank despair. When the Exchange was closed a sort of im- promptu one was organized in the open air by brokers who were not members. The panie at the heart of the country's finances was felt all over the Union. Credits languished, prices of securities of all kinds fell. even Government bonds declined. Savings banks were subjected to ruinons runs, and many sueembed. Manufactured goods were lowered in price, factories shut down or ran on short time. and wage-earners were thrown out of employment. It was the begin- ning of a long siege of " hard times."
Municipal matters have, alas, already tilled too many pages of this chapter. In 1866 the Mayor was John T. Hoffman, in many respects an interesting character, a man of good presence, and good abilities, as yet in the prime of manhood, being only thirty-seven years old. He was a graduate of Union College. Two years later he was elected Governor of the State, obtaining over twenty-seven thousand major-
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THE INTERIOR OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE.
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ity while Horatio Seymour, the presidential candidate, received a majority over Grant in the State of only ten thousand. He bid fair to lead his party in a National contest at no very distant date. when. still yomig, death claimed him. He had to resign his Mayoralty to accept the Governorship. His successor was A. Oakey Hall, who has been mentioned on a previous page. He is still living and came be- fore the public the other day as counsel for the leader of the Salva- tion Army in a suit brought by neighbors who were annoyed by the midnight noises made by these strange religionists. Hall was a man of many parts. Ile was a native of New York City, and figured in turn as a lawyer, a writer, a dramatist, a lecturer. an actor, and fi- nally as a politician. He was indicted for complicity with the Ring. but was acquitted, first by reason of the death of a juryman. then by a disagreement of the jury. The first edition of Prof. James Bryce's celebrated work. " The American Commonwealth." contained some- what unsparing strictures on the ex-Mayor for his share in the doings of the Tweed Ring. Hence a snit was brought by Mr. Hall against the publishers, so that later editions of the book appear withont that forceful illustrative chapter. During his term occurred the Orange Riots of 1870 and 1871. JJuly 12 is the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, which determined the struggle between James II .. and his son-in-law William. Prince of Orange, who had been proclaimed King of England. The Protestant Irishmen celebrate the day as a great event in their civil and religions history. The Catholic Irishmen have their St. Patrick's Day on March 17. when they parade the streets of the city, playing national tunes, wearing the green, and in every way asserting both their nationality and religion. It would seem as if that right belonged equally to other nationalities or faiths. But on July 12. 1870. the Catholic Irishmen. feeling that they practically owned the city, nndertook to mob the Orangemen on their march through the streets. On the approach of July 12. 1871, loud threats were made that the Orangemen would not be allowed to parade at all. In weak subservience to their henchmen and supporters at the polls, the Ring officials gave effect to these threats in an unexpected and disgraceful manner. Superintendent of Police James J. Kelso. probably at the instance of Mayor Hall. issned an order on the pre- vious day forbidding the Orangemen to march. At once citizens of all classes and beliefs rose up in wrath against this manifest nnfair- ness; a mass meeting was held at the Produce Exchange and the ac- tion of the city authorities vigorously denounced. Governor Hoffman was thereupon summoned to the city by telegraph, and on his arrival he immediately revoked the order of the Superintendent. A procla- mation commanded all citizens to keep the peace, and at the same time the militia were called under arms to protect the Orangemen if they should be mobbed. But few of the latter were ready for the parade, as Kelso's order had changed the plans of most of the lodges.
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and their members had arranged to spend the day in private picnics. Thus the parade presented the spectacle of some National rather than a foreign and religious celebration, as it was made up of the Seventh, Twenty-second. Sixth, Eighth. Ninth, and Eighty-fourth Regiments. and a body of only 100 Orangemen. No trouble occurred until the column reached the block on Eighth Avenue, between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Streets. Here some one fired a shot from a tenement house, which was probably a preconcerted signal, for at once a volley of bricks and stones followed, and fell among the soldiery and Orangemen. Chimneys were torn down and the bricks hurled from roofs npon the de- voted heads of the militia. They stood this quite patiently until an officer of the Ninth Regiment was knocked senseless from his horse. either by a bullet or a stone. With- out waiting for the order to fire the men of the Ninth poured a volley into the tenement whence the mur- derous missile had come, and the men of the Eighty- fourth followed their example. The deadly fire had a good effect in taking the fight out of the mob be- fore they had THE POSTOFFICE. fairly commenced. Fifty-four persons were killed, including three members of the Ninth Regiment. As usual, quite a number of the victims were in- nocent spectators. No further trouble was experienced on the way down to the armory of the Seventh Regiment (then over Tompkins Market, on Third Avenue and Seventh Street) except that a slight disposition to repeat the attack was manifested on Fourth Avenue, opposite Cooper Institute. The mere order to the militia to halt and face about, however, sent the crowd there scattering in every
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direction. About this time the notorious James Fisk had temporarily superseded Colonel William Seward as commander of the Ninth Regi- ment. He discreetly absented himself from the city, as his bravery consisted exclusively in spreading ruin among unwary and innocent investors in railroad stocks. It is possible that the hatred he had in- curred by his Black Friday proceedings might have caused the bullet of private revenge to be leveled at him in the mêlée. Two years later that very fate met him from a rival aspirant to the sinful favors of an adventuress, in the corridor of a hotel on Broadway.
Early in the year 1865 there was effected a radical change in the New York Fire Department. The volunteer system was abolished. A Board of Fire Commissioners, consisting of four members, was ap- pointed by the Governor, and the men employed were paid by the city. On May 2 this new order of affairs went into effect. The firemen were supplied with steam fire engines such as had been in use in Lon- don for some time, and the old and inadequate hand-engine drawn by the men themselves to the scene of fires, were laid aside perma- nently. Not long after the new organization had been put into work- ing order, there was a first-class fire to test its efficiency. On July 13. 1865. Barnum's Museum on the site of the later Herald Building and the present St. Paul Building, corner of Ann Street and Broadway. was found to be on fire, and it soon required the whole force to save the neighborhood. It was impossible to arrest the flames in the build- ing itself, belching forth fire and smoke from every story. But the old Knox building, and others in the vicinity were preserved from the destroying element. There were great crowds up and down Broad- way and filling the side streets, watching the brilliant display and regarding with interest the operations of the trained firemen and of the novel engines, puffing away at a rate which seemed to threaten explosion.
Another municipal event of great importance was the appointment of a Board of Ilealth by an act of the Legislature in February, 1866. It was to consist of four members. The first Board was composed of three physicians, Drs. Willard Parker, John O. Stone, and James Crane, and one layman Mr. Jackson S. Schultz, who was made chair- man. This institution was all the more gladly hailed, and its great powers freely accorded to it, because in the preceding November there had been another cholera scare. The steamship Atalanta, sailing be- tween London and New York, had brought over some passengers suf- fering from this plague. The contagion spread to a small extent in the vicinity where the patients were confined, but winter being at hand it was checked. In the spring another steamer brought over a mimber of sufferers from cholera, and now the disease broke out in varions parts of the city, reaching its height during August. Yet by the care of the new Board of Health it was confined to only the most unhealthy distriets of the city, and not more than four hundred and
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sixty cases proved fatal within the city proper. In 1870 another Municipal Department, that of Docks, was created, but in all these years since the Board has accomplished but a very insignificant part of its original designs. It is somewhat surprising that the Mayor was permitted to appoint, or at least nominate these Dock Commis- sioners. The control of the city was all this time thoroughly localized at Albany. As we have seen before, it was hoped that this policy would stay the tide of corruption which had begun to rise as early as 1857. Prof. Fiske points ont that this did not prevent the Tweed frauds. Indeed, the Ring made the control of the Legislature a plea for their peenlations as a matter of necessity, and a proof of the inno- cence of their intentions. In order to get the " hayseed " legislators to do anything really of great use to the city, Tweed claimed that they had to be bought over, at good round figures; and it was to " reim- burse " themselves for these outlays that the virtuous city politicians had put their hands into the municipal treasury and robbed it by the million. By the use of bribes Tweed actually secured the passage of a charter abolishing all control of the city from Albany: it proved a boomerang later. Another change of importance was the abolition of the Board of Assistant Aldermen. This was done by an act dated June 13, 1873, by which also the State and charter elections were again directed to take place on the same day. The Common Council was now to consist only of Aldermen, one from each ward, of which at this time there were twenty-one. The population of the city in 1870 had reached 942,292 souls, thus nearly approaching the million mark. Its sister, and near neighbor, Brooklyn, with its 396,099 souls stood third on the list of cities of the Union; Philadelphia being second with 674,022.
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