USA > New York > New York City > The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume III > Part 58
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
is to misunderstand the moral government of the world. Every great modern city - as we have said in speaking of Tammany - swarms with men capable of making very good Goulds, Fisks, Tweeds, Kellys, and Crokers, under favoring so- cial conditions. Create the needed environment, and you can have them anywhere by the dozen - keen, alert, courageous, resourceful, unscrupu- lous, ready to use, for either rule or ruin, every weapon which the law and the meanness or greed of their fellow-men put into their hands. It is a sorrowful thing to have to give up whole pages of a newspaper to a chronicle of the exploits of such men. They ought properly to be recorded only in popular medieval ballads. They are sad anachro-
nisms in the days of "public opinion " and a free press. But the sorrow they cause has its crown when they pass their later years in tranquil pros- perity, and go down to the grave with more or less of the admiration of the generation which comes after them, and which has only a vague, if any, memory of the way in which they began their struggle, and sees how far success has gone to palliate or condone their enormous offenses against civil society. Their type is to-day the worst ene- my with which democracy has to contend - the enemy which, if the great experiment fails, will be the cause of the failure." "The Nation," Decem- ber 8, 1892.
536
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
in making himself respected and even loved where he was at first derided and slandered. The fact that duly appointed special agents of the society are peace officers throughout the State gives them a power that no one can afford to despise, and the brute who would otherwise overwork or torture his horse has been taught that there is a practical power in humanity that he may not dare to oppose.
The efforts of Mr. Bergh to put a stop to scientific observation by vivisection brought down on him the wrath of the medical pro- fession, and his attempted interference with the shooting of trapped pigeons made him un- popular with many sportsmen; but before he died he had won the approval of the entire respectable portion of the community, and the society that he founded is recognized as one of the most beneficent influences in the Heung Burgh city. It has become the parent of kindred organizations throughout the country, and has also powerfully influenced legislation on the subject of cruelty to animals. At the beginning of its work no State or Territory of the Union had among its statutes any law for the protection of dumb animals; in 1893 almost all the States and Territories had passed such laws, based in most cases on the original statute framed by him.
The second of the societies above mentioned-the Society for the Suppression of Vice-had its origin in a movement of the Young Men's Christian Association against obscene literature. It was incorporated in 1873, under the leadership of Anthony Comstock, who occupied in relation to it much the same position as that held by Mr. Bergh toward the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He ha- already secured the passage of State and national laws against th dissemination of obscene literature, and the society proceeded di gently to enforce them, seizing tons of books, stereotype plates, and photographs. Soon it extended its province and attacked swindle of all kinds, including bogus medical institutions, gambling-houses, lotteries, and the like. In one year the society seized twenty-four tons of obscene matter and six tons of gambling implements, and added $118,656 to the public funds through the imposition of fines and the forfeiture of bail bonds.
The third society, that for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, was organized in 1874, and incorporated in 1875 under a general State law providing for the formation of such societies. It owes its origin to the first-mentioned society, the attention of one of whose members was called to the need of such an organization by the rescue, by Mr.
537
RECOVERY FROM WAR -TWEED RING
Bergh, of a little girl from inhuman treatment. Mr. Gerry, a grand- son of Vice-President Elbridge Gerry, was born in New-York in 1837, and has won reputation as a lawyer, placing his personal services at the disposal of the society of which he is the head. This society has done a good work in promoting the health of the tenement-house children, rescuing and caring for many little ones cruelly maltreated by drunken parents or guardians, and seeing to it that children are not employed, as on the stage, to make money for others at the ex- pense of their own health and morals.
The list of these associations is closed by the Society for the Pre- vention of Crime, formed in 1876, with objects similar to those of Mr. Comstock's society, but especially with a view to the enforcement of the excise laws and the suppression of disorderly houses. Its head, from its foundation to his death, was the Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby. . Dr. Crosby, who was born in New-York in 1826, was,
at the time of its foundation, chancellor of the Uni- versity of New-York, and pastor of the Fourth Av-
Thomasforman"
enue Presbyterian Church. Throughout his connection with the society he was prominent as an advocate of temperance as dis- tinguished from total abstinence, and of high license as opposed to prohibition, and did much to influence legislation in this regard.
All these four societies have had much in common, both in method and in the degree of popular esteem in which they are held. They have made mistakes occasionally, and have often carried their enthusiasm almost to the verge of absurdity, yet no one of them could be spared, and their inception marks out the decade just following the civil war as something more than an era of financial speculation and political corruption.
About this time New-York had occasion to show her hospitality to two foreign princes. In 1869 Prince Arthur, afterward Duke of Con- naught, the youngest son of Queen Victoria, visited this country, and was received with cordial demonstrations of regard. Two years later the young Grand Duke Alexis of Russia was the recipient of even more distinguished attentions. He arrived in the city on November 19, and on the 21st was given a public reception. On his return to New-York, after visiting Washington and Annapolis, he was given a ball at the Brooklyn Navy-yard on the 28th, and another at the Academy of Music on the 29th. On December 2, he was presented at the Academy of Design with Page's picture of Admiral Farragut in the battle of Mobile Bay. These courtesies did much to strengthen the feelings of friendship which have always existed between this
1 Thomas Coman, who was a printer and a mem- ber of the board of aldermen, served as mayor during December, 1868, to finish the unexpired
term of John T. Hoffman, who had held the office, but had just been elected governor of the State. EDITOR.
538
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
country and Russia, and they were rendered a pleasure to those who extended them by the personality of the young Grand Duke, who won many friends wherever he went.
But a short time before these festivities New-York was called upon to lend a helping hand to a sister city in distress, and the mention of her noble response may fittingly close this record of a decade's progress in material welfare. On Oc- tober 6, the great fire be- gan that laid half of the city of Chicago in ashes, destroyed property worth $200,000,000, covered five square miles with ruins, and rendered 100,000 peo- ple homeless. On the two days while the fire was raging very little busi- ness was done in New- York, and immediately afterward public meet- ings were held in aid of the sufferers, and citizens vied with each other in COLLEGIATE REFORMED CHURCH.1 liberality. In less than two weeks nearly $3,000,000 in money and material was sent to Chicago as the contribution of New-York. Not all the iniquities of the Tweed Ring, which must be now unfolded at length, can cause such a philanthropic deed as this to be forgotten.
The events now to be recorded are such as to bring a blush to the cheek of every honest lover of his country, involving, as they do, the plundering of its greatest city by a gang of thieves in the guise of municipal officers, while the citizens looked supinely on. The causes which conspired to bring about such a state of things were various. In the first place, the concentration of Federal and State power at Washington and Albany respectively had long tended to make New- York the tool of politicians who regarded it as a mine to be worked for their own benefit. The city, instead of being the leader of the State, was only its creature. It was governed by commissions and
1 The Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was the first ecclesiastical organization in New-York city, having been founded in 1628. The first church building was erected in Broad street in 1633. The Garden street church (1693), the Old Middle Dutch Church (1729), and the North Dutch
Church (1769) formed one parish, all under the name given above. The present edifice, on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty- eighth street, is a handsome structure of Newark sandstone, and was designed by W. Wheeler Smith. It was dedicated in 1872. EDITOR
539
RECOVERY FROM WAR-TWEED RING
ds appointed at Albany, ostensibly non-partizan, but often really nly in the sense that they acknowledged no party but themselves. government was made more easy by the existence of two sets of ials - one for the city and one for the county, whose limits were same. The State legislature, too, which should have acted as a k on the governing bodies it had created, too often shut its eyes heir misdeeds, or gave good reason for believing that it was ally in collusion with them.1
ne war had withdrawn from the city and from the State many of r best men, and those who were left were so occupied with the ing events of the national struggle that they had no eyes for the dly growing corruption of the municipal government. New-York teeming with the ยท worst elements he country, and e were thrown in- rominence in the icils of the local
tocratic party ugh the feeling hopeless apathy sh kept the more shy leaders in the ground. Through port of New-York le gateway to the rican continent ad poured for s thousands upon sands of emi- its from every
BRIDGE AND LAKE, CENTRAL PARK.
ter of the globe, no small proportion of whom had remained in city-often by no means the more desirable part.
his is not the place to discuss the causes that led so large a num- of these to cast in their lot with the Democratic party. Suffice it ay that the Tammany Society had long served as the means by 'h the local leaders had accustomed this element to submit to the ipline of political organization. It was so first used by Aaron r, and had attained so great power that, once in the control of the r faction, nothing could stay the progress of that corruption to sh in the hands of the better element it would have been an
is state of things, while it reached its height w-York, was by no means confined to this In 1869 Senator Grimes, Republican, of Iowa, wrote to his friend Senator Fessenden of
Maine : "The war has corrupted everybody and everything in the United States. Thank God, my political career ended with the beginning of this corrupt political era."
540
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
effectual check. The government of the city by a mob of newly im- ported emigrants, in fact, was the cause of that reaction which handed over the control of municipal affairs to the Albany commissions.
At the close of the war all these evil influences were at their height. The tremendous national issues which called for settlement divided the respectable citizens into hostile camps, and the corruptionists, who always act as a unit, had things their own way. The increasing demor- alization was aided not a little by the resort of great corporations to bribery to carry their schemes through the State and municipal legis- lative bodies. Stock-jobbing began to grow more prevalent, the mania for speculation, already described, was rife, and all seemed to be en- gaged in one great game of grab.
A good opportunity for the plunder of the city by its officials had existed for many years; indeed, it had long been taken advantage of on a small scale, and had the plunderers been content with thousands instead of millions, their misdeeds perhaps had never been heard of. The root of the whole trouble lay in the board of supervisors, a body created in embryo as early as 1787. In that year the mayor, recorder, and aldermen were constituted supervisors of the city and county, with power to apportion and raise the State tax. In 1857 this board was reorganized by the legislature, and made the governing body of the county, consisting of twelve members, six from each po- litical party. This non-partizan provision was made in the interest of reform, but its influence was in the other direction, for by its means unscrupulous members of both parties were enabled to combine into a ring, and thus hold the city at their mercy.
Here was the germ of the great municipal ring, whose future leader, William M. Tweed, was one of the Democratic members of this first "reformed " board of supervisors. Tweed was then thirty-four years old, having been born in New-York in 1823. After receiving an ordi- nary common-school education, he learned his father's trade of chair- making; but from an early age he seems to have developed a liking for anything but honest labor, and devoted most of his time to the volunteer fire department, becoming foreman of the "Big Six," or Americus Engine Company. Here he utilized the popularity which he always had power to gain, and which he never failed to make use of, by organizing voters and becoming a ward "boss." In 1850 he was elected to the common council, then popularly known as "The Forty Thieves," where he was not outdone by his associates in the furtherance of lucrative jobs, some of which put money in his pocket, while others gained him new friends or bound old ones more firmly to him. His aldermanic career was appropriately closed by his arrest with his fellow-councilmen for contempt of court in having granted a street-car franchise in disobedience to an injunction.
541
RECOVERY FROM WAR- TWEED RING
Tweed escaped imprisonment, and by this time had gained enough political influence to send him to Congress. Here he made no im- pression, though, by that faculty which he retained through life, he gained hosts of friends, -generally, it is true, but by no means always, in the lower strata of society. After a single term of service he re- turned to New-York a poor man, and we next find him a member of the board of supervisors, as has already been mentioned. Of this board he was four times president, and here he built up his infamous system of public plunder. But, successful as he was, Tweed seems never to have originated a great scheme; he only elaborated the ideas of others. He was no great organizer of men, had no financial genius, and was remarkable chiefly for his enormous fund of self-confidence and self-assertion, which A Volythee easily gave him the lead among those of much greater intellect. His power had been enormously increased by his election as grand sachem of the Tammany Society-a result made possible by the condition into which that organization had then fallen. Badly shaken by factional fights, its control had been allowed to fall into the hands of the lower class of politicians after the elec- tion of Fernando Wood as mayor. In 1863 Tweed was raised to its head, and from this time forward he began to cumulate offices, being immediately made deputy street commissioner in addition to the supervisorship.
The first act to which the history of the ring can be directly traced was when Tweed and two other Democratic supervisors bribed one of their Republican colleagues to stay away on a day when the board was to appoint inspectors of elections. This corrupt bargain opened the way for others, and soon a scheme for money-making was devised and carried out. A percentage was levied on all bills presented to the board for audit, as the price of the support of Tweed and his two col- leagues, who were usually able to carry affairs as they wished. In 1864, however, another supervisor was taken into the ring, and from that time on others were added as it seemed necessary or expedient.
So far the thievery of the ring was of an old and hackneyed char- acter-a mere adaptation of the clumsy methods of the old common council. But now brains were added to the combination by the acces- sion of Peter B. Sweeny - already a power in Tammany, and one of the leaders of that revolution that had set Tweed at the head of the organization. This man essayed the role of the power behind the throne, and by throwing an air of mystery about himself and keeping aloof from the vulgar crowd, he succeeded in impressing every one with the idea that he possessed great intellectual force, as is shown by his nickname of "Brains" Sweeny. Yet he was only a lawyer of mediocre ability, the son of an Irish liquor-dealer, and of such know-
542
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ledge of men as a considerable experience in the lobby at Albany could give him. He had been in the office of James T. Brady, and had risen by his own exertions to the post of district attorney in 1858, but broke down on the trial of his first case from lack of self- possession. He was invited into the ring for his known abilities as a schemer, and seems to have taken a malign pleasure in cloaking its doings, so far as he was able, under the forms of law. It is said that he had a profound admiration for Louis Napoleon, and in similar cir- cumstances might have carried his admiration to the point of imita- .
ARSENAL AND MENAGERIE, CENTRAL PARK.
tion; but in New-York he had to content himself with his share of the plunder, and with his wide reputation as a dark, dangerous, and most consummate schemer.
To complete the ring, a financier was required, and one was ready in the person of Richard D. Connolly, popularly called "Slippery Dick." Connolly had been brought in his youth to this country from Ireland by an elder brother, and soon began to dabble in politics. He was elected county clerk before he was naturalized, but, justifying his pseudonym by breaking the promises that he had made to his friends before his election, he was obliged to retire for several years into ob- scurity. Finally he obtained a nomination to the State senate, and secured his seat by dint of the frauds in which he was an adept. Af- terward he served as an accountant in a national bank, which gave
543
RECOVERY FROM WAR -TWEED RING
him considerable knowledge of money matters. Connolly seems to have had neither the shrewdness of Sweeny nor the impudence of Tweed; but he was smooth, oily, and insinuating, and ready enough to follow in the lead of his bolder associates.
The method by which these men succeeded in their scheme of plun- der was by forming wheels within wheels-by a system of subordinate rings, each dependent in some way on its fellows, so that the whole municipal government was tangled up in a network of corruption. Of these subordinate rings the most baneful was that which included part of the State judiciary. The justices whose names will go down to history as the "ring judges" were George G. Barnard, Albert Car- dozo, and John H. McCunn. Barnard was corrupt, insolent, and overbearing, and though he had indomitable will, he obeyed the be- hests of his masters of the ring implicitly. Curiously enough, this man had posed as a reformer in 1866, denouncing the corruption of the municipal government before the grand jury, and issuing injunc- tions against fraudulent acts of the common council. For a time his praise was sounded on all sides by the public and in the press. The best citizens joined with him in urging the legislature to pass a bill giving to a judge of the first department of the Supreme Court (New- York city) the exclusive right of holding special term in chambers, and, the bill having become law, Governor Reuben E. Fenton was asked to designate Barnard as such judge. The governor, however, on private information, refused, and Barnard, throwing off the mask, dissolved his injunctions, and ordered the comptroller to pay the money for all the contested "jobs."
Cardozo, the second ring judge, was a different man altogether. Hard-working, learned in the law, perfect in his demeanor on the bench, and controlling his temper with wonderful equanimity, he seemed a model of a judge and of a gentleman; yet his career was marked by an utter disregard of law and equity. He is said to have sold justice "as a grocer might have sold sugar." He is reported to have had in view a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and it is by no means certain that his abilities would have been unequal to the position, for he undoubtedly possessed one of the best legal minds on the bench of the State.
Of the third ring judge, McCunn, little can be said, save that he was as corrupt as his associates, and had less legal knowledge-employ- ing eleven lawyers to write his opinions for him. Besides these men, whose corruption was demonstrated by their impeachment in after years, there were doubtless others as venal, who succeeded in keeping their evil deeds secret. In fact, the world will never know how many men, accounted respectable, were connected, directly or indirectly, with the great system of rings to which all had to pay tribute.
544
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The demoralization of the city press was one of the most alarming features of ring rule. Many of its editors were associates of the city officials, some reporters were given lucrative municipal posts, while others were bought outright, and still others were given "tips" which enabled them to make money by speculating in Wall street, or by investing in city property in districts soon to be improved. Finally, the press derived a large income from advertising contracts, which it was in the power of the ring to bestow. Those papers that were not in ring pay, abused it generally on political principles, and the pub- lic, used to political mud-throwing, took what it heard from them with more than a grain of salt. As will appear later, however, though the press must be held responsible for its connivance at this state of things, still to the press was largely due the deliverance of the city from it. And yet the "Times," which successfully led the opposition to the ring, had itself narrowly escaped coming under its control. Being thrown into the market by the death of Henry J. Raymond, it was just about to be purchased by the ring for $300,000, when friends of the reform party, bidding $50,000 higher, secured it in the nick of time, thereby saving its valuable services to the cause of municipal honesty. As soon as this one voice was heard clearly in behalf of common decency and honesty, others followed, and the public soon began to awaken from the curious lethargy into which it seemed to have fallen. At the time of which we are now speaking, however, a false sense of satisfaction and security obtained everywhere. If a few suspected the truth, they appear to have been overwhelmed with a sense of the utter hopelessness of their position.
The mode of procedure of the ring cannot be better shown than by a detailed account of the building of the New-York County Court- house. The original law authorizing it had stipulated that it should cost not more than $250,000. When work was begun in 1862 $1,000,000 was appropriated, and in 1864 a further sum of $800,000 was authorized. Similar sums were authorized year by year, till in 1872 no less than $6,000,000 had been expended on the building, which is by no means particularly large or imposing. Besides this, the ring, as will be shown, took without legislative permission more than as much again, so that, with interest, the building cost the taxpayers of the city more than $14,000,000.
As has been intimated, while Tweed manipulated these robberies, the plans were originated and matured by Sweeny. In the spring of 1867 a contractor named Andrew H. Garvey was ordered by the board of supervisors to furnish the new court-house. By arrangement with Tweed he raised the amount of each bill fifteen per cent., and paid the extra money first to Tweed, and afterward to the clerk of the board of supervisors. The amount by which the bills were raised was in-
545
RECOVERY FROM WAR- TWEED RING
sed successively to forty, forty-five, fifty-five, and finally to sixty- per cent. This, however, became possible only in 1868, after eny had been made city chamberlain and Connolly comptroller, the entire finances of the city were in the hands of Tweed and numerous dependents and followers.
this same year John T. Hoffman, then mayor, was elected gover- of the State. He had been an unsuccessful candidate in 1866, but ne mean time the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.