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 60
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The doings of the ring had now been fully unmasked, but it was one thing to convince the public of their true character, and another to dislodge the wrong-doers from their position. After consultation a mass meeting was called for September 4 by William F. Havemeyer, Samuel J. Tilden, Joseph H. Choate, and others; and meanwhile, dur- ing August, an attempt was made to tie the public purse-strings by obtaining an injunction against Connolly, which the ring judge, Bar- nard, after consultation with Sweeny, decided to grant. In the inter- val before the mass meeting, rendered necessary by the summer absence of so many people from the city, the ring tried its old tactics by endeavoring to capture or control the reform movement, but in this it was unsuccessful. The meeting was held, accompanied by overflow meetings in the parks, and was attended by earnest and en-
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.
SPOILS
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THE
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thusiastic crowds of citizens. For the purpose of carrying on the struggle it appointed a committee of seventy, which was led by Tilden, Oswald Ottendorfer, and Havemeyer, and was made up of influential merchants, professional men, bankers, and journalists.
The members of the ring, seeing that at last a storm had arisen that might not blow over as others had done, began to look about to see how they might save themselves. It was first proposed to sacri- fice Tweed and Connolly, sending the former to Europe, and having the latter indicted and tried as a scapegoat. They thus hoped to pose as friends of reform and keep the city government in their hands. It was soon seen, however, that Tweed's personal following was too large for this, and the programme was amended by agreeing to sacrifice Connolly alone. The press was therefore turned loose on the unfor- tunate comptroller, who was pilloried as if he, and he alone, had robbed the city and received the plunder. Connolly, though fright- ened, had pluck enough to cling to his office. Judge Barnard, in fur- therance of the ring's policy, granted the injunction that has already been mentioned, and on September 15 made it permanent, though it was afterward practically dissolved when such a course was thought necessary. On the 10th the comptroller's office was entered, and a large number of vouchers were stolen. This act, which aroused great public indignation, was used against Connolly by his former asso- ciates, though they all profited equally by the destruction of evidence against them. In fact, all were now busy destroying bills, receipts, and public records, many of them of great value.
On September 12 Mayor Hall wrote to Connolly a characteristic let- ter, as follows : "With great personal reluctance, I officially reach the conclusion that the emergency requires your retirement from the head of the Finance Department. I cannot suspend any head of a depart- ment, not even pending an investigation. I can only prefer charges to the Common Pleas, who alone can remove after a considerable time for trial. I am compelled to throw myself therefore as Mayor upon your magnanimity, and ask under the circumstances for your resig- nation." Connolly replied that he was unable to sacrifice himself to satisfy "the hungry appetite of adversaries for a victim." Finally, on the 15th he went to see Mr. Tilden, and asked him for advice. The latter, having found a provision in the city charter by which the comptroller could appoint a deputy with full powers to act during his absence, saw at once how the purposes of the ring could be foiled, and having secured from Connolly the necessary papers, sent him abroad. By this clever move Andrew H. Green was installed as deputy comptroller, and the very stronghold of the ring was thus oc- cupied. The mayor at once endeavored, by removing Connolly, to invalidate Green's title, and appointed to the post General George B.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
NOV. 7@ 1871.
THEITAMMANY RING SMASHED
THAT'S WHAT THE PEOPLE DID
ABOUT IT
THE
TAM MANY BOYS WHIPPED OUT AF THOR BOOTS
TWEED
EELECTED BY 10.000 MA,COITT THE WANTED 302000 MAJORITY)
SWEENY COME TO CRASS
HAUL DONE BROWN
HOFFMANE YETO POWER
NEUTRALIZED
NEW YORK TRE
HAN
"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT! TO THE VICTOR BELONG THE SPOILS."
McClellan, who at once declined. For a time the fear of violence at the hands of roughs in the service of the ring led to the placing of armed guards in the comptroller's office, but Charles O'Conor in a published opinion upheld Mr. Green's title, and it was concluded that he had better not be interfered with. Mr. Green at once stopped all payments to public officials, who had overdrawn their salaries, and nipped in the bud many lucrative jobs then just developing. Besides this, he enabled Mr. Tilden to expose the ring's system for the division of plunder, showing that Tweed had received twenty-four per cent., Connolly twenty per cent., Sweeny ten per cent., and Watson and
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RECOVERY FROM WAR-TWEED RING
Woodward five per cent. each. This additional proof bore particularly hard upon Sweeny, who had hitherto been able to maintain his inno- cence with some show of justice. Many of the lesser thieves now fol- lowed Connolly to Europe,-in one case (that of Garvey) after threats of murder had been made to prevent further confessions.
But the ring, even in its last gasp, was yet strong enough to control a political convention, and the reformers met their first defeat on Oc- tober 5, at Rochester, where the Democrats, while refusing admittance to both the contesting New-York delegations, favored Tweed's ticket. It had been Mr. Tilden's ambition to kill the ring by having it dis- owned by the party, but this hope, as he afterward confessed, had been somewhat chimerical. In Mr. Tilden's own words: "It is but fair to admit that what I asked the convention to do was more than any party was ever found able to venture upon. It was to totally cut off and cast out from party association a local organization which held the influence growing out of the employment of twelve thousand persons and the disbursement of thirty millions a year, which had possession of all the machinery of local government, dominated the judiciary and police, and swayed the officers of election."
The reformers realized that they had received a stunning blow. The sway of the ring, in the words of the "Nation," seemed as firmly established as that of a European dynasty. Tweed had lost none of his confidence in his own power, and in November gave vent to the insolent challenge, "What are you going to do about it ?" which has become historical. But the Germans and the better class of Irish, disgusted by the recent disclosures, seemed likely to desert the old party organization, and the reformers, by skilful nominations, suc- ceeded in capturing them all. The election was felt by all to be a crisis in the history of the city. Although Election Day was then not a legal holiday, business was stopped, while several regiments were put under arms to forestall a possible riot. But no riot was at- tempted, for the ring was certain of victory. Victory, indeed, perched on its banner in one district, where Tweed, by his old tactics, gained his election to the State senate by a majority of 10,000, but every- where else the reformers were signally successful, gaining 23,000 votes in the city, and nearly 52,000 in the State. The change was so great as to amount to a political revolution. Sweeny at last gave up the contest and fled to Canada, and Tweed dared not take the seat in the legislature to which he had been fraudulently chosen.
In October civil actions had been begun against Tweed, Woodward, Ingersoll, and Garvey,-this course being adopted, in the words of Charles O'Conor, because "of the strictly local character of criminal proceedings and the servility of the local judiciary." Tweed was re- leased on a bail of one million dollars, Judge Cardozo allowing the
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
prisoner's son, to whom his father had transferred his property, to become bail for him. The adherents of the ring now brought nomi- nal suits against Hall, Tweed, and Connolly through their corpora- tion counsel, and tried to bring their cases into court first, but were foiled in this attempt. There were numerous delays, however, and a year had passed since the exciting disclosures of 1871 before any of the thieves whose schemes were then unveiled seemed likely to be punished. Connolly was arrested and admitted to bail in January, 1872, but the district attorney, a partizan of the ring, managed to nol. pros. the indictments against Sweeny and his relatives. Tweed, after suffering from lack of money, and being obliged to sell houses and lands, was arrested on December 16, 1871, on a criminal indiet- ment, by Sheriff Owen Brennan, who took his former companion before Judge Gunning S. Bedford, through a crowd which greeted the prisoner with both hisses and cheers. The judge refused bail, and committed Tweed to the Tombs, but he was at once released on a writ of habeas corpus by Judge Barnard, and brought into court be- fore his old friend and creature, where, curiously enough, the ex-boss sat immediately in front of a life-size portrait of himself, which faced the judge's bench. Barnard promptly released him on the absurdly small bail of $5000. On December 29, however, Tweed was forced by public opinion to resign his office of commissioner of public works, and shortly afterward he was made to retire from the grand sachem- ship of the Tammany Society, Augustus Schell being chosen in his place by acclamation. The committee of seventy petitioned the State senate to expel Tweed from that body, but no action was taken, and he was still nominally a member when serving as a convict on Blackwell's Island. In the following February the Bar Association asked the legislature to investigate the New-York bench, which was done searchingly, the doings of the ring judges being thoroughly ventilated. Barnard appeared before the committee in person, and materially injured his cause by demonstrating the truth of the charges of unseemly behavior on the bench, and by showing his hearers how low an opinion of his functions it is possible for a magis- trate to have. "I deserve to be remembered," said he, "if only to show to what consequences the words of Hammond and Marcy led. . .. The judge who holds the chambers owns the patronage; it be- longs to him, and he selects whom he pleases, regardless of any sug- gestion of counsel or dictation from them. . . . I have succeeded in life by aiding my friends, and not my enemies." As a result of this inquiry, Barnard and McCunn were removed from office, and Cardozo came near the same fate; but even at this time his influence was feared sufficiently to cause the acceptance of his resignation, and the appeals of his friends, added to his own, prevented his disbarment. He prom-
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ised to go to the West, but broke his word, and resumed practice in New-York, where his disgrace soon broke him down.
Hall, Sweeny, Connolly, and Tweed had now all been indicted, but only the first had been tried, his trial resulting, on Christmas Day, 1872, in his acquittal. It had been found necessary to re-indict Tweed, and after a great deal of legal skirmishing he was brought to trial in January, 1873, before Judge Noah Davis, on two hundred separate counts, in the very court-house whose erection had served as a foil for his vast peculations. The trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, but after more vexatious delay another was begun in November following. The prisoner and his friends were confident of speedy acquittal, and the adherents of the ring had exerted them- selves to the utmost to this end. After an hour's delay, however, the jury returned from deliberation to ask for further instructions, and fourteen hours later brought in a verdict of guilty on fifty out of fifty-five charges, two hundred and four counts in all. Judge Davis gave the prisoner the highest cumulative sentence in his power- twelve years' imprisonment, and a fine of $3000.
On November 22, two years after his defeat at the polls, Tweed put on the convict's garb, but he wore it little more than a year, being re- leased in June, 1875, by the Court of Appeals, on the ground that the cumulative sentence imposed was illegal. He was immediately ar- rested again on civil suits for more than $6,000,000, and held to bail in the sum of $3,000,000. Being unable to command this sum, he was confined in Ludlow street jail, but his old friends still had power enough to see that he was lodged comfortably, and on December 4, 1875, while taking an airing, he was allowed to visit his home, and there to effect his escape. After many adventures he succeeded in reaching Cuba, and thence went to Vigo, Spain, where he is said to have been recognized by his resemblance to Nast's famous carica- tures. His offense was not covered by the extradition treaty be- tween Spain and the United States, but the Spanish government arrested and returned him as an act of courtesy. November, 1876, saw him again in Ludlow street jail, and on March 8 a verdict was rendered against him for $6,537,117.38. He lingered in prison till April 12, 1878, when he died. In 1877 he had testified on ring frauds before a committee of the board of aldermen, hoping thereby to se- cure his release, and his disappointment at finding that this result did not follow is said to have hastened his death.
Of all the ring thieves, Tweed was the only one who suffered actual punishment at the hands of the law. Of the others, many, after spending more or less time abroad, were allowed to return unmolested and to live at home in obscurity. Of the thirty millions which were stolen during the supremacy of the ring, the city recovered only a VOL. III .- 36.
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little more than one million, of which $558,000 was regained from the estate of Watson, $151,779 was refunded by Woodward, and $106,562 by Sweeny, nominally from the estate of his deceased brother.
The revolt against the ring showed plainly that though the citizens of New-York are capable of bearing a great deal of misgovernment, they stop short at open peculation, and it is hardly possible that the experience of these disgraceful years will ever be repeated. Although the victory of the reformers was won by the aid of an element not far removed from the one that had been robbing the city,-the employ- ment of Sheriff O'Brien against his former associates being notably an instance of "fighting the devil with fire,"-yet when all circum- stances are taken into account, history cannot but acknowledge that the service done the city by such men as Tilden, O'Conor, Ottendor- fer, and Havemeyer was second to none. So long as New-York's population is recruited daily from the slums of Europe, and so long as the eyes of her respectable citizens are turned ever toward commerce rather than politics, it is perhaps too much to hope that her munici- pal government will ever be ideally perfect, but at least she should never suffer from another Tweed Ring.1
Among the objects which the committee of seventy had striven to attain was the amendment of the Tweed charter of 1870. As has been said, though this was in itself far from objectionable, the pur- pose for which it had been obtained, and the uses that had been made of it, had caused the citizens of New-York to regard it as the corner-stone of ring rule. Every one looked toward the creation of a new charter as likely to be one of the most beneficent results of the reform victory of 1871. The object of its framers, according to the "Times," was "so to reduce the profits of office-holding that the pro- fessional politicians and place-hunters will be forced to abandon their corrupt and corrupting avocation. . .. So far as possible, all fees should be abolished, and wherever they are collected they should be promptly turned over to the city treasury. As for the subordinate offices, . . . it would be well if they could be made permanent and in- dependent of political changes." In accordance with these ideas, the committee framed a charter, one of whose features was a board of aldermen of forty-five members, who should be elected by the system of cumulative voting, thus insuring minority representation. This part of the reform, however, was not destined to be adopted, for the charter was vetoed by the governor. In 1873, however, a charter was passed which embodied many of the features of the first, abolish- ing the board of assistant aldermen, which had been substituted for
1 The author of this chapter is much indebted to Dr. John M. Gitterman, of this city, for valuable data connected with the history of the Tweed Ring.
"The Life and Letters of William M. Tweed." by William Edelsten, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, will, it is expected, be issued during 1893. EDITOR
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THE BALLOT
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NOV: 7 : 1871.
PUBLIC SCHOOL.
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WATERINCS
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NEW-YORK. "NOW YOU SEE WHAT I DID ABOUT IT. GO AND DO LIKEWISE."
the old councilmen by the Tweed charter, and vesting all legislative powers in a new common council of twenty-one aldermen. It pro- vided also that the State and charter elections should take place on
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the same day. They had hitherto been held on different days, and it is noticeable that the change, instead of proving a measure of re- form, has generally been deplored, serving as it does to confuse national and municipal issues, and give opportunities for "deals" and the trading of votes.
The first election under the amended charter took place in Novem- ber, 1874, when William H. Wickham was elected to the mayoralty. His predecessor, William F. Havemeyer, who had taken a conspicuous part in the overthrow of the Tweed Ring, and who had been the first mayor chosen after its downfall, did not live to complete his term of office, being stricken down with apoplexy on November 30, 1874.
No sooner had the city begun to recover from the excitement due to the overthrow of the ring, than the years of extravagant specula- tion and inflated values which are described in this chapter bore their fruit in one of the greatest financial panics in the history of New-York. It was not wholly unexpected by thoughtful men, for there had been indications for some time of the unsettled financial condition of the country. Among these had been the great strike of 1872 in New-York city, which, beginning among the house-painters in an effort to have the working-day reduced to eight hours, spread to the carpenters and bricklayers, and finally included nearly every class of workmen in the city. It is estimated that 40,000 men ceased to work, and that $5,760,000 was lost directly or indirectly through the strike. It was unsuccessful, all the men ultimately returning to work under the old conditions.
But the crisis of 1873, like the great one of 1857, was chiefly, or at any rate largely, due to the too rapid development of railways throughout the country. For several years previous the country had been spending from four to five hundred millions in railway con- struction, of which sum at least four fifths were borrowed. That this state of affairs could not go on forever had for some time been quite apparent to thoughtful observers. The first mutterings of the com- ing storm came in May, 1873, in an utter failure to place an issue of bonds on the European market, the fact being that there was no more available money in Europe for such purposes. It now became only too evident that the great unfinished railways, which must yet absorb vast sums before they could begin to yield any return, must go down, carrying with them, as is inevitable in such a crash, a long train of dependent concerns. The first to go to protest was the Mid- land of New-York, but its bankers, the Messrs. Opdyke, kept their heads above water, and the general public had as yet no idea of what was almost immediately coming.
Early in September the Western wheat crop began its usual call for Eastern money; stringency began; railroad acceptances became
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unsalable; and on the 17th, 18th, and 19th, the Canada Southern, the Northern Pacific, and the Chesapeake and Ohio went down, carrying with them the great banking-houses of Robinson, Cox & Co., Jay Cooke & Co., and Fisk and Hatch. No houses had stood higher in the esteem of the public, who had rightly trusted them as conducted with caution and sagacity. It was at once realized, therefore, that a great crisis was at hand. The next great failure was that of the Union Trust Company, and by the 20th thirty-five firms, including many of the most prominent mem- bers of the Stock Exchange, had suspended.
Public distrust was now at its height. No one dared to bid for stocks, and the governing committee, fearing that more failures might follow, promptly closed the exchange. Meanwhile, the national banks, which had been accustomed to begin the autumn with $50,000,000 to $65,000,000 reserve, had found themselves with only $38,000,000, owing to the growth of the country and the demand in the South and West for legal-tender notes. By the middle of September this had been reduced to $25,000,000. On September 21, President Grant met a notable assembly of bankers in New-York, and was urged to place at the disposal of the banks the legal-tender reserve of the national government, amounting to $44,000,000. This he declined to do, owing to legal obstacles; but he directed the assistant treasurer to buy United States bonds, when offered, till $12,000,000 had been disbursed. This sum was thus paid out during the ensuing week, but its payment did not operate to relieve the banks, whose reserve by the 27th had been reduced to $12,000,000. Greenbacks began to be hoarded; the banks refused to pay them out, and soon they commanded a premium of three to five per cent. The city banks, many of which were sus- pected of lax administration, at first began to struggle with one an- other, the strong ones striving to shake off the burden of the weak, but they finally combined to help the merchants. There was a gen- eral disposition to hold the stock speculators responsible for the panic, and it was thought by many that the banks, while discounting legitimate business paper, should refuse to lend to stock-brokers.
The Stock Exchange remained closed for more than a week, from September 22 to September 30, during which time a thriving business
1 William H. Wickham was born in Smithtown, L. L., and at the beginning of this century his an- cestors had been prominent in affairs in New-York city for over a hundred years. Mr. Wickham was for two years president of the Volunteer Fire Department of New-York, was director and vice- president in the Mercantile Library Association, and was one of the citizens' committee of seventy that ousted the Tweed Ring from power. He served as mayor in 1875-77, to which position he was elected by the Democrats. His administration was
notable for the high class of the appointments to heads of departments made by him, including such men as William C. Whitney, Allan Campbell, Gen- eral Fitz John Porter, General William F. Smith, Joel B. Erhardt, Stephen A. Walker, Charles J. Canda, and Dr. Edward G. Janeway. At the close of his term he was tendered a banquet by the leading citizens, regardless of party, at which the president of the Chamber of Commerce presided,-a com- pliment never before or since paid to an outgoing mayor in the city of New-York. EDITOR.
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was done on the street by outside brokers, the laws of the exchange prohibiting its members from buying or selling elsewhere than on 'change or in their own offices. The determination of the brokers to keep their credit, at whatever cost, threw a large quantity of stock on the market, and it was eagerly snapped up by peo- ple who thronged to the city to secure bar- gains. A short-lived "Independent Ex- change"was opened, and though it was in existence for only a week, it was the scene of enormous transactions, and the foundations of large fortunes were laid in it.
The regular ex- change opened again on September 30. For the first three days the rules were suspended so that no contracts could be enforced, but at the same time a commit- tee was appointed to see that creditors should be made se- cure by money or securities deposited with it. The ex- change was crowded with those who had come to buy in a LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD. cheap market, and they found manifold opportunities. When the rules of the exchange were once more enforced at the close of the three days, however, only one house-G. Bird Grinnell and Co .- was unable to respond to
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RECOVERY FROM WAR -TWEED RING
its contracts. During the panic it is probable that millions of securi- ties passed out of Wall street; for when, on October 2, the banks began to call in their loans, thus tending to increase the stringency of money, rates declined, notwithstanding, from one quarter of one per cent. a day to seven per cent. per annum, so rapidly had the demand for money decreased. The demand for investments continued large, while the stocks for sale were few; but the difficulty of obtaining loans checked all tendency to speculation, and 1 orders to buy were usually declined by brokers, unless accompanied by the necessary cash. Thus, business began again in the most conservative manner, but public confidence was not re- stored, and, indeed, the stagnation of business continued largely for several years following.
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