The New YorkTimescharged Greeley's defeat upon Fenton, insisting that "the fault is not to be laid at the door of Senator Conkling."[503]Conkling also explained that "Greeley was pertinaciously supported by all those connected with the custom-house. He failed from a want of confidence in him, so general among the delegates that electioneering and persuasion could not prevail against it, and even those who voted for him declared, in many instances, that they did so as a harmless compliment, knowing that he could not be nominated."[504]Greeley himself avoidedthe controversy, but his acknowledgment of Fenton's loyal support and his sharp censure of Curtis indicated full knowledge of Conkling's strategy, to whom, however, he imputed no "bad faith," since "his aid had not been solicited and none promised."[505]Nevertheless, the great editor did not forget!
Thecampaign that followed the control of Tweed and Conkling combined the spectacular and the dramatic. The platform of each party was catchy. Both congratulated Germany for its victories and France for its republic. Cuba also was remembered. But here the likeness ceased. Democrats praised Hoffman, arraigned Grant, sympathised with Ireland, demanded the release of Fenian raiders and the abolition of vexatious taxes, declared the system of protection a robbery, and resolved that a license law was more favourable to temperance than prohibition. On the other hand, Republicans praised the President, arraigned the Governor, applauded payments on the national debt and the reduction of taxation, denounced election frauds and subventions to sectarian schools, and resolved that so long as towns and cities have the right to license the sale of liquor, they should also have the right to prohibit its sale. The live issue, however, was Tammany and the Tweed frauds. Congress had authorised Circuit Courts of the United States to appoint in every election district one person from each party to watch the registration and the casting and the count of votes. It had also empowered United States marshals to appoint deputies to keep order at the polls and to arrest for offences committed in their presence. Against these acts the Democrats vigorously protested, declaring them unconstitutional, revolutionary, and another step toward centralisation, while Republicans pointed out their necessity in the interest of a fair vote and an honest count.
To Conkling the result of the campaign was of the utmostimportance. He had suddenly come into power, and success would materially aid him in carrying out his policy of reorganising the party in the metropolis. For many years, under an arrangement with Tammany, Republicans had held important municipal positions. This custom had grown out of the appointment of mixed commissions, created by Republican legislatures, which divided the patronage between the two parties. But since 1865, under Fenton's skilful manipulation, these Tammany-Republicans, as they were called, had become the ardent promoters of the Fenton machine, holding places on the general and district committees, carrying primaries with the aid of Democratic votes, and resorting to methods which fair-minded men did not approve. Among other things it was charged that Fenton himself had a secret understanding with Democratic leaders.[506]These rumours had aroused the suspicions of many Republicans, who thought it time to dissolve the Tammany partnership, and having obtained control of the State Committee in the late convention, Conkling proposed to reorganise the New York general committee. Fenton was not unmindful of Conkling's purpose. It had been disclosed in the convention, and to defeat it the Chautauquan was indifferent to ways and means. During much of the campaign he absented himself from the State, while threats of avenging the appointment of Murphy and the removal of Grinnell created the apprehension that his faction would secretly oppose the ticket.[507]
Throughout the canvass Conkling was energetic. He spoke frequently. That his temper was hot no one who looked at him could doubt, but he had it in tight control. Although he encountered unfriendly demonstrations, especially in New York, the pettiness of ruffled vanity did not appear. Nothing could be more easy and graceful than his manner on these occasions. His expository statements, lucid, smooth, and equally free from monotony and abruptness, were models of their kind. In dealing with election frauds in New York his utterances, without growing more vehement or higher keyed, found expression in the fire of his eye and the resistless strength of his words. The proud, bold nature of the man seemed to flash out, startling and thrilling the hearer by the power of his towering personality.
Revelations of fraud had been strengthened by the publication of the Eighth Census. In many election districts it appeared that the count was three, four, five, and even six times as large as an honest vote could be. Proofs existed, including in some instances a confession, that in 1868 the same men registered more than one hundred times under different names—one man one hundred and twenty-seven times. Instances were known and admitted in which the same man on the same day voted more than twenty times for John T. Hoffman. "To perpetuate this infamy," declared Conkling, "Mayor Hall has invented since the publication of the census new escapes for repeaters by changing the numbers and the boundaries of most of the election districts, in some cases bisecting blocks and buildings, so that rooms on the same premises are in different districts, thus enabling colonised repeaters to register and vote often, and to find doors of escape left open by officials who have sworn to keep them closed." The registration for 1870, although twenty thousand less than in 1868, he declared, contained seventeen thousand known fraudulent entries.[508]The newspapers strengthened his arguments. In one of Nast's cartoons Tweed as "Falstaff" reviews his army of repeaters, with Hoffman as sword-bearer, and Comptroller Sweeny, Mayor Hall, James Fisk, Jr., and Jay Gould as spectators.[509]Another pre-election cartoon, entitled "ThePower behind the Throne," presented Governor Hoffman crowned and robed as king, with Tweed grasping the sword of power and Sweeny the axe of an headsman.[510]
Democrats resented these attacks. People, still indifferent to or ignorant of Tweed's misdeeds, rested undisturbed. The Citizens' Association of New York had memorialised the Legislature to pass the Tweed charter, men of wealth and character petitioned for its adoption, and the press in the main approved it.[511]Even theWorld, after its bitter attacks in the preceding winter upon the Ring officials, championed their cause.[512]"There is not another municipal government in the world," said Manton Marble, "which combines so much character, capacity, experience, and energy as are to be found in the city government of New York under the new charter."[513]The final Democratic rally of the campaign also contributed to Tammany's glory. Horatio Seymour was the guest of honor and August Belmont chairman. Conspicuous in the list of vice-presidents were Samuel J. Tilden, George Tichnor Curtis, Augustus Schell, and Charles O'Conor, while Tweed, with Hoffman and McClellan, reviewed thirty thousand marchers in the presence of one hundred thousand people who thronged Union Square, attracted by an entertainment as lavish as the fêtes of Napoleon III. To many this prodigal expenditure of money suggested as complete and sudden a collapse to Tweed as had befallen the French Emperor, then about to become the prisoner of Germany. In the midst of the noise Seymour, refraining from committing himself to Tammany's methods, read a carefully written essay on the canals.[514]It was noted, too, that Tilden did not speak.
The election resulted in the choice of all the Democratic candidates, with sixteen of the thirty-one congressmen anda majority in each branch of the Legislature. Hall was also re-elected mayor.[515]Republicans extracted a bit of comfort out of the reduced majority in New York City, but to all appearances Tammany had tightened its grip. Indeed, on New Year's Day, 1871, when Hoffman and Hall, with almost unlimited patronage to divide, were installed for a second time, the Boss had reason to feel that he could do as he liked. From a modest house on Henry Street he moved to Fifth Avenue. At his summer home in Greenwich he erected a stable with stalls of finest mahogany. His daughter's wedding became a prodigal exhibition of great wealth, and admittance to the Americus Club, his favourite retreat, required an initiation fee of one thousand dollars. To the poor he gave lavishly. In the winter of 1870-71 he donated one thousand dollars to each alderman to buy coal and food for the needy. His own ward received fifty thousand. Finally, in return for his gifts scattered broadcast to the press and to an army of protégés, it was proposed to erect a statue "in commemoration of his services to the Commonwealth of New York." His followers thought him invulnerable, and those who despised him feared his power. In New York he had come to occupy something of the position formerly accorded to Napoleon III by the public opinion of Europe.
Tweed's legislative achievements, increasing in boldness, climaxed in the session of 1871 by the passage of the Acts to widen Broadway and construct the Viaduct Railroad. The latter company had power to grade streets, to sell five millions of its stock to the municipality, and to have its property exempted from taxation,[516]while the Broadwayswindle, estimated to cost the city between fifty and sixty millions,[517]enabled members of the Ring to enrich themselves in the purchase of real estate. To pass these measures Tweed required the entire Democratic vote, so that when one member resigned to avoid expulsion for having assaulted a colleague,[518]he found it necessary to purchase a Republican to break the deadlock. The character of Republican assemblymen had materially changed for the better, and the belief obtained that "none would be brazen enough to take the risk of selling out;"[519]but an offer of seventy-five thousand dollars secured the needed vote.[520]Thus did the power of evil seem more strongly intrenched than ever.
Meanwhile the constant and unsparing denunciation of the New YorkTimes, coupled with Nast's cartoons inHarper's Weekly, excited increasing attention to the Ring. As early as 1869 Nast began satirising the partnership of Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly, and Hall, and in 1870 theTimesopened its battery with an energy and sureness of aim that greatly disturbed the conspirators. To silence its suggestive and relentless attacks Tweed sought to bribe its editor, making an offer of one million dollars.[521]A little later he sent word to Nast that he could have half a million.[522]Failing in these attempts the Ring, in November, 1870, secured an indorsement from Marshall O. Roberts, Moses Taylor, John Jacob Astor, and three others of like position, that the financial affairs of the city, as shown by the comptroller's books, were administered correctly. It subsequently transpired thatsome of these men were associated with Tweed in the notorious Viaduct job,[523]but for the time their certificate re-established the Ring's credit more firmly than ever. "There is absolutely nothing in the city," said theTimes, "which is beyond the reach of the insatiable gang who have obtained possession of it."[524]
While Roberts and his associates were certifying to the correctness of Connolly's books, William Copeland, a clerk in the office, was making a transcript of the Ring's fraudulent disbursements. Copeland was a protégé of ex-sheriff James O'Brien, who had quarrelled with Connolly because the latter refused to allow his exorbitant bills, and with the Copeland transcript he tried to extort the money from Tweed. Failing in this he offered the evidence to theTimes. A little later the same journal obtained a transcript of fraudulent armoury accounts through Matthew J. O'Rourke, a county bookkeeper. When knowledge of theTimes'possessions reached the Ring, Connolly offered George Jones, the proprietor, five million dollars to keep silent. "I cannot consider your proposition," said Jones.[525]
TheTimes'publication of the armoury expenses furnished by O'Rourke created a sensation, but the excitement over the Copeland evidence grew into a fierce tempest. These figures, carefully tabulated and printed in large type, showed that the new courthouse, incomplete and miserably furnished, involved a steal of $8,000,000. One plasterer received $38,187 for two days' work. Another, during a part of two months, drew nearly $1,000,000. A carpenter received $350,000 for a month's labour. A single item of stationery aggregated $186,495, while forty chairs and three tables cost $179,729. In supplying aldermen with carriages, mostly for funerals, two liverymen earned $50,000 in a few days. Advertising in city newspapers amounted to $2,703,308. Carpets purchased at five dollars per yard would cover CityHall Park three times over. As these disclosures appeared in successive issues the people realised that a gang of very common thieves had been at work. It was a favourite method to refuse payment for want of money until a claimant, weary of waiting, accepted the suggestion of Connolly's agent to increase the amount of his bill. This turned an honest man into a conspirator and gave the Ring the benefit of the raise.[526]
On September 4, 1871, a mass meeting of indignant citizens, held in Cooper Union, created the Committee of Seventy, and charged it with the conduct of investigations and prosecutions. Before it could act vouchers and cancelled warrants, covering the courthouse work for 1869 and 1870, had been stolen from the comptroller's office.[527]This increased the excitement. At last Connolly, to escape becoming a scape-goat, appointed Andrew H. Green deputy comptroller, and the Governor designated Charles O'Conor to act in behalf of the Attorney-General. Thus the Committee of Seventy passed into complete control of the situation, and under the pressure of suits and arrests the Ring rapidly lost its power and finally its existence. On October 26, 1871, Tweed was arrested and held to bail in the sum of $1,000,000, Jay Gould becoming his chief bondsman. Soon after Sweeny retired from the Board of Park Commissioners, Connolly resigned as comptroller, and Tweed gave up the offices of grand sachem of Tammany, director of the Erie Railway, and commissioner of public works. Of all his associates Mayor Hall alone continued in office, serving until the end of 1872, the close of his term.[528]
Having anticipated a little it may not be improper to anticipate a little more, and say what became of other members of this historic Ring. When the public prosecutor began his work Sweeny and Connolly fled to Europe.[529]After one mistrial, Tweed, found guilty on fifty-one counts, was sent to prison for twelve years on Blackwell's Island, but at the end of a year the Court of Appeals reversed the sentence, holding it cumulative. Being immediately rearrested Tweed, in default of bail fixed at $3,000,000, remained in jail until his escape in December, 1875. Disguised by cutting his beard and wearing a wig and gold spectacles, he concealed his whereabouts for nearly a year, going to Florida in a schooner, thence to Cuba in a fishing smack, and finally to Spain, where he was recognised and returned to New York on a United States man-of-war. He re-entered confinement on November 23, 1876, and died friendless and moneyless in Ludlow Street jail on April 12, 1878.
Meantime the Legislature of 1871 had ordered the impeachment of Barnard and Cardozo of the Supreme Court, and McCunn of the Superior Court. Their offences extended beyond the sphere of Tweed's operations, indicating the greed of a Sweeny and the disregard of all honorable obligations. Cardozo, the most infamous of the trio, called the Machiavelli of the Bench, weakened under investigation and resigned to avoid dismissal. Barnard and McCunn, being summarily removed, were forever disqualified from holding any office of trust in the State. McCunn died three days after sentence, while Barnard, although living for seven years, went to his grave at the early age of fifty.
The aggregate of the Ring's gigantic swindles is known only approximately. Henry F. Taintor, the auditor employed by Andrew H. Green, estimated it between forty-five and fifty millions; an Aldermanic committee placed it at sixty millions; and Matthew J. O'Rourke, after thorough study, fixed it at seventy-five millions, adding that if his report had included the vast issues of fraudulent bonds, theswindling by franchises and favours granted, and peculation by blackmail and extortion, the grand total would aggregate two hundred millions. Of the entire sum stolen only $876,000 were recovered.[530]
"Itwere idle," said Horace Greeley, soon after the election in November, 1870, "to trace the genealogy of the feud which has divided Republicans into what are of late designated Fenton and Conkling men. Suffice it that the fatal distraction exists and works inevitable disaster. More effort was made in our last State convention to triumph over Senator Fenton than to defeat Governor Hoffman, and in selecting candidates for our State ticket the question of Fenton and anti-Fenton was more regarded by many than the nomination of strong and popular candidates. Since then every Fenton man who holds a federal office has felt of his neck each morning to be sure that his head was still attached to his shoulders."[531]
Conkling's effort to obtain control of the State Committee provoked this threnody. Subsequently, without the slightest warning, Fenton's naval officer, general appraiser, and pension agent were removed.[532]But as the year grew older it became apparent that designs more fatal in their consequences than removals from office threatened the Fenton organisation. It was not a secret that the Governor had kept his control largely through the management of politicians, entitled "Tammany Republicans," of whom "Hank" Smith, as he was familiarly called, represented an active type. Smith was a member of the Republican State committee and of the Republican general city committee. He was also a county supervisor and a Tweed police commissioner. Moreover, he was the very model of a resourceful leader, acute and energetic, strong and unyielding, and utterly without timidity in politics. In supporting Fenton he appointed Republicans to city offices, took care of those discharged from the custom-house, and used the police and other instruments of power as freely as Thomas Murphy created vacancies and made appointments.[533]In his despotic sway he had shown little regard for opposition leaders and none whatever for minorities, until at last a faction of the general city committee, of which Horace Greeley was then chairman, petitioned the State committee for a reorganisation. So long as Fenton controlled State conventions and State committees, Smith's iron rule easily suppressed such seceders; but when the State committee revealed a majority of Conkling men, with Cornell as chairman, these malcontents found ready listeners and active sympathisers.
Alonzo B. Cornell, then thirty-nine years old, had already entered upon his famous career. From the time he began life as a boy of fifteen in an Erie Railroad telegraph office, he had achieved phenomenal success in business. His talents as an organiser easily opened the way. He became manager of the Western Union telegraph lines, the promoter of a steamboat company for Lake Cayuga, and the director of a national bank at Ithaca. Indeed, he forged ahead so rapidly that soon after leaving the employ of the Western Union, Jay Gould charged him with manipulating a "blind pool"in telegraph stocks.[534]His education and experience also made him an expert in political manipulation, until, in 1868, he shone as the Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor. After his defeat and Grant's election, he became surveyor of the port of New York, a supporter of Conkling, and the champion of a second term for the President. His silence, deepened by cold, dull eyes, justified the title of "Sphinx," while his massive head, with bulging brows, indicated intellectual and executive power. He was not an educated man. Passing at an early age from his studies at Ithaca Academy into business no time was left him, if the disposition had been his, to specialise any branch of political economic science. He could talk of politics and the rapid growth of American industries, but the better government of great cities and the need of reform in the national life found little if any place among his activities. In fact, his close identification with the organisation had robbed him of the character that belongs to men of political independence, until the public came to regard him only an office-holder who owed his position to the favour of a chief whom he loyally served.
Very naturally the scheme of the malcontents attracted Cornell, who advised Horace Greeley that after careful and patient consideration the State Committee,[535]by a vote of 20 to 8, had decided upon an entire reorganisation of his committee. Cornell further declared that if their action was without precedent so was the existing state of political affairs in the city, since never before in the history of the party had the general committee divided into two factions of nearly equal numbers, one ordering primaries for the election of a new committee, and the other calling upon the State committee to direct an entire reorganisation. However, he continued, abundant precedent existed for the arbitrary reorganisation of assembly, district, and ward committees by county committees. Since the State committee bore the same official relation to county committees that those committees sustained to local organisations within their jurisdiction, it had sufficient authority to act in the present crisis.[536]
Conscious of the motive inspiring Cornell's action, Greeley replied that the State committee was the creature of State conventions, delegated with certain powers confined to the interval of time between such conventions. It executed its annual functions and expired. When contesting delegations from rival general committees had presented themselves in 1868, the State convention, rather than intrust the reorganisation to the State committee, appointed a special committee for the purpose, and when, in 1869, that committee made its report, the State convention resolved that the general committee of 1870 should thereafter be the regular and the only organisation. Nor was that all. When a resolution was introduced in the State convention of 1870 to give the State committee power to interfere with the general committee, the convention frowned and peremptorily dismissed it. Neither did the State committee, Greeley continued, take anything by analogy. County committees had never assumed to dissolve or reorganise assembly or district committees, nor had the power ever been conceded them, since assembly and district committees were paramount to county committees. But aside from this the general committee had other and greater powers than those of county committees, for the State convention in 1863, in 1866, and again in 1869 ordered that Republican electors in each cityand assembly district should be enrolled into associations, delegates from each of which composed the general committee. No such power was conceded to county committees.[537]
Although this statement seemed to negative its jurisdiction to interfere, the State committee, exposing the real reason for its action, based its right to proceed on the existence of improper practices, claiming that certain officers and members of the Greeley and district committees held positions in city departments under the control of Tammany, and that when members of Republican associations were discharged from federal offices by reason of Democratic affiliations, they were promptly appointed to places under Democratic officials.[538]To this the Greeley committee replied that Republicans holding municipal offices did so under a custom growing out of mixed commissions of Republicans and Democrats, which divided certain places between the two parties—a custom as old as the party itself, and one that had received the sanction of its best men. Indeed, it continued, George Opdyke, a member of the State committee, had himself, when mayor, appointed well-known Democrats on condition that Republicans should share the minor offices,[539]and a Republican governor and Senate, in placing a Tammany official at the head of the street-cleaning department, invoked the same principle of division.[540]Several members of the State committee had themselves, until recently, held profitable places by reason of such an understanding without thought of their party fealty being questioned. It was a recognition of the rights of the minority. As to the wisdom of such a policy the committee did not express an opinion, but it suggested that if members of the general committee or of district associations, holding such city places, should be charged with party infidelity, prompt expulsion would follow proof of guilt. It declared itself as anxious to maintain party purityand fidelity as the State committee, and for the purpose of investigating all charges it appointed a sub-committee.[541]
It was manifest from the first, however, that no investigation, no purging of the rolls, no compromise would avail. The charge had gone forth that "Tammany Republicans" controlled the Greeley committee, and in reply to the demand for specifications the State committee accused Henry Smith and others with using Tammany's police, taking orders from Sweeny, and participating in Ring enterprises to the detriment of the Republican party.[542]"These men," said theTimes, "are receiving the devil's pay, and consequently, it is to be presumed, are doing the devil's work. Republicans under Tammany cannot serve two masters. A Republican has a right to serve Tweed if he chooses. But he ought not at the same time to be taken into the confidence of Republicans who wage war against Tammany for debasing the bench, the bar, and every channel of political life."[543]
To articles of this character Greeley replied that the Republicanism of Cornell and Smith did not differ. They had graced the same ticket; they had gone harmonious members of the same delegation to the last State convention; and they were fellow members of the State committee, created by that convention, Smith being aided thither by Cornell's vote.[544]In the presence of such evidence the Fenton faction declared that there was neither soundness nor sincerity in theTimes'statements or in the State committee's charges. Nevertheless, it was known then and publicly charged afterward that, although thoroughly honest himself, Greeley had long been associated with the most selfish politicians in the State outside of Murphy and the Tammany Ring.[545]Thus the accusation against "Tammany Republicans" became a taking cry, since the feeling generally obtained that it was quite impossible for a man to perform service for Tweed and be afaithful Republican. Formerly the question had assumed less importance, but Tammany, identified with fraudulent government, a corrupt judiciary, and a dishonest application of money, could no longer be treated as a political organisation. Its leaders were thieves, it was argued, and a Republican entering their service must also be corrupt. In his letter to John A. Griswold, Conkling openly charged the Greeley committee with being corrupted and controlled by Tammany money.[546]
The controversy, bitter enough before, became still more bitter now. Conscious that all was lost if the State committee succeeded, the Greeley organisation, by a vote of 99 to 1, declined to be reorganised. "The determination of the State committee to dissolve the regular Republican organisation of the city of New York and to create another, without cause and without power," it said, "is an act unprecedented in its nature, without justification, incompatible with the principles and life of the Republican party, and altogether an act of usurpation, unmitigated by either policy or necessity."[547]Greeley alone appeared willing to yield. He offered a resolution, which, while describing the State committee's order as an injustice and a wrong, agreed to obey it; but an adverse majority of 91 to 9 showed that his associates interpreted his real feelings.[548]
Thus the break had come. It was not an unusual event for the general city committee to quarrel. For many years Republican contentions in the metropolis had occupied the attention of the party throughout the State. In fact a State convention had scarcely met without being wearied with them. But everything now conspired to make the spirit of faction unrelenting and to draw the line sharply between friend and foe. The removal of Grinnell, the declaration of Greeley against Grant's renomination,[549]the intense bitterness between Conkling and Fenton, and the boast of theState committee that it would control the State convention and substitute its own creature for the Greeley committee, all coalesced against harmony and a compromise.
Moreover, even the appearance of relations between Greeley and Conkling had ceased. "Mr. Conkling's frenzy," said theTribune, "generally comes on during executive session, when, if we may be allowed the metaphor, he gets upon stilts and supports his dignity.... We can see the pose of that majestic figure, the sweep of that bolt-hurling arm, the cold and awful gleam of that senatorial eye, as he towers above the listening legislators." It spoke of him as the "Pet of the Petticoats," the "Apollo of the Senate," the "darling of the ladies' gallery," who "could look hyacinthine in just thirty seconds after the appearance of a woman." Then it took a shot at the Senator's self-appreciation. "No one can approach him, if anybody can approach him, without being conscious that there is something great about Conkling. Conkling himself is conscious of it. He walks in a nimbus of it. If Moses' name had been Conkling when he descended from the Mount, and the Jews had asked him what he saw there, he would promptly have replied, 'Conkling!' It is a little difficult to see why Mr. Conkling did not gain a reputation during the war. Many men took advantage of it for the display of heroic qualities. But this was not Conkling's opportunity. Is he a man to make a reputation while his country is in danger? He was not. Probably he knew best when to hitch his dogcart to a star. Such a man could afford to wait. Wrapped in the mantle of his own great opinion of himself, he could afford to let his great genius prey upon itself until the fulness of time."[550]Of course, after this there could be no relations between the editor and the senator. These editorials recalled the Blaine episode, and although not so steeped in bitterness, as a character-study they did not differ from the prototype.
This was the condition of affairs when the Republican convention met at Syracuse on September 27. ExceptGreeley every prominent leader in the State attended. The question whether the rival general committee created by the State organisation should be recognised involved the whole party, and the audience assembled surpassed any previous attendance. The presence of a multitude of federal officials as delegates and leaders indicated that the Administration at Washington also took a deep interest. There was much doubt and solicitude as to the result, for no opportunity had been given the factions to measure strength since the convention of 1870. The nomination of a minority candidate for speaker of the Assembly in the preceding January had been claimed as a Fenton victory, but the selection of James W. Husted, then at the threshold of a long and conspicuous career, did not turn on such a hinge. Husted had strength of his own. Although never to become an orator of great power and genuine inspiration, his quickness of perception, coupled with the manners of an accomplished gentleman, brilliant in conversation and formidable in debate, made him a popular favourite whose strength extended beyond faction. Now, however, the issue was sharply drawn, and when Alonzo B. Cornell called the convention to order, the opposing forces, marshalled for a fight to the finish, announced Andrew D. White and Chauncey M. Depew as their respective candidates for temporary chairman. White's recent appointment as a commissioner to San Domingo had been a distinct gain to the President's scheme of annexation, and he now appeared at the convention in obedience to Cornell's solicitation.[551]To gain a bit of advantage Depew, in the interest of harmony, he said, withdrew in favour of G. Hilton Scribner of Westchester, who had headed a young men's association formed to allay strife between the rival senators. The suggestion being accepted, Depew then moved to make Scribner and White temporary and permanent chairmen. Upon the temporary chairman depended the character of the committees, and Cornell, with a frown upon his large, sallow, cleanly shaven face, promptly ruled the motion out of order.When a Fenton delegate appealed from the Chair's ruling, he refused to put the question.
Instantly the convention was upon its feet. Demands for roll-call and the shouts of a hundred men stifled the work of the gavel. Police interference increased the noise. In the midst of the confusion the stentorian voice of John Cochrane, a Fenton delegate, declared "the roll entirely wrong."[552]This aggravated the situation. Finally, when delegates and chairman had physically exhausted themselves, Waldo M. Hutchins was allowed to suggest that in all cases of contested seats the names of delegates be passed. To this Cornell reluctantly agreed amidst loud applause from the Fenton faction, which desired its action interpreted as an unselfish concession in the interest of harmony; but the tremendous surprise subsequently displayed upon the announcement of White's election by 188 to 159 revealed its insincerity. It had confidently counted on twenty-one additional votes, or a majority of thirteen.[553]Thus, in a moment, were brightest hopes and fairest prospects blasted.
It was easy to speculate as to the cause of this overthrow. To declare it the triumph of patronage; to assert that delegates from Republican strongholds supported Fenton andthat others from counties with overwhelming Democratic majorities sustained Conkling; to stigmatise the conduct of Cornell as an unprecedented exhibition of tyranny, and to charge White with seeking the votes of Fenton members on the plea that his action would promote harmony,[554]probably did not economise the truth. Explanations, however, could not relieve the anguish of defeat or nerve the weak to greater effort. Many delegates, filled with apprehension and anxious to be on the winning side, thought annihilation more likely than any sincere and friendly understanding, a suspicion that White's committee appointments quickly ratified. Although the Fenton faction comprised nearly one-half the convention, the Committee on Credentials stood 12 to 2 in favour of Conkling. Of course the famous president of Cornell University did not select this committee. He simply followed custom and fathered the list of names Cornell handed him.[555]"But in blindly consenting to be thus used by the State committee," wrote Greeley, "he became the instrument of such an outrage as no respectable presiding officer of any prominent deliberative body has ever committed."[556]
To the Fenton faction this severe criticism of a presumably fair man seemed justified after his jug-handle committee had made its jug-handle report. It favoured seating all contesting delegates outside of the City, admitted the Greeley delegates and their opponents with the right to cast half of one vote, and recognised the organisation established by the State committee as the regular and the only one. By this time the dullest delegate understood the trend ofaffairs. Indeed, dismissals and appointments in the civil service had preceded the assembling of the convention until politicians understood that the way to preferment opened only to those obedient to the new dictator. Accordingly, on the next roll-call, the weak-kneed took flight, the vote standing 202 to 116. Upon hearing the astounding result a Fenton delegate exclaimed, "Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed."[557]
In discussing the resolution to abolish the Greeley committee the question narrowed itself to members holding office under Tammany, the Greeley organisation maintaining that it had simply inherited the custom, not created it, while Cornell and his associates, having "Hank" Smith in mind, declared it impossible to avoid the custom without destroying the committee. To some of the Conkling leaders this seemed unnecessarily severe. Having showed their teeth they hesitated to lacerate the party, especially after the mad rush to the winning side had given them an overwhelming majority. At last, it fell to Hamilton Ward, a friend of the Senator, for six years a member of Congress, a forcible speaker, and still a young man of nerve, who was to become attorney-general and a judge of the Supreme Court, to propose as a substitute that the State committee be directed to consolidate and perfect the two city organisations. The Fenton people promptly acquiesced, and their opponents, after eliminating Smith by disallowing a member of the organisation to hold office under Tammany, cheerfully accepted it.
This compromise, thus harmoniously perfected in the presence and hearing of the convention, was loudly applauded, and the chairman had risen to put the motion when Conkling interrupted, "Not yet the question, Mr. President!" Until then the Senator had been a silent spectator. Indeed, not until the previous roll-call did he become a member of the convention. But he was now to become its master. His slow, measured utterances and deep chest-tones commandedinstant attention. If for a moment, as he calmly declared opposition to the substitute, he seemed to stand alone, his declaration that a horde of Tammany ballot-box stuffers, pirates, and robbers had controlled and debauched the Republican organisation in the city of New York called forth the loudest applause of the evening. His next statement, that the time had come when such encroachments must cease, renewed the cheering. Having thus paid his respects to the Greeley committee, Conkling argued that a new State committee could not do in the four weeks preceding election what it had taken the old committee months to accomplish. The campaign must be made not with a divided organisation, but with ranks closed up. Reading from an editorial in theTribune, he claimed that it approved the committee's report, and he begged the convention to take the editor at his word, shake hands, bury animosities and disappointments, make up a ticket equally of both factions, and accept the reorganisation of the city committee, so that double delegations might not appear at the next national convention to parade their dissensions. He disclaimed any unkind feeling, and in favouring the admission of both city delegations, he said, he supposed he had worked in the interest of harmony.
This appeal has been called one of Conkling's "most remarkable speeches."[558]Unlike the Senator's usual efforts laboured preparation did not precede it. The striking passage and the impressive phrase are entirely wanting. Epigrammatic utterances are the supreme test of a great orator or poet, but Conkling's speech of September 27 added nothing to that vocabulary. It may be said to lack every element of a well-ordered oration. As preserved in the newspapers of the day[559]it is hard, if not impossible, to find sufficientrhetorical merit to entitle it to a place in any volume of ordinary addresses. It wanted the persuasive power that allures by an exquisite choice of words, or charms by noble and sympathetic elocution. Even the style of his appeal for harmony was too self-assured and his faith in his own superiority too evident. Nevertheless, of the living who heard his explosive exclamation, "Not yet the question, Mr. President," and the flaming sentences arraigning the Greeley Republicans as partners of Tammany, it lingers in the memory as a forceful philippic, full of pose and gesture and dramatic action. Its influence, however, is not so clear. The power of patronage had already twice carried the convention, and that this incentive would have done so again had Conkling simply whispered to his lieutenants, must be evident to all who read the story. Ward's motion was lost by 154 to 194, the Conkling vote being eight less than on the preceding roll-call.[560]
Conkling desired a solid delegation at the next Republican National Convention, and the recognition of the organisation established by the State committee assured it, whereas the Ward amendment, by including the Greeley constituency, inspired the fear of a divided one.[561]Perhaps the failure of his friends to appreciate this fear justified Conkling's interference, but a single word of dissent was sufficient to alarm them, while a less arrogant and dominating spirit might easily have avoided making the bitter assault which provoked a storm of hostile criticism. Greeley's stinging retort illuminated the Senator's insincerity. "Conkling declared it right," said the editor, "to abolish the regular organisation because corrupted and controlled by Tammany money, and then invited its delegates to an equal share in making the platform and selecting a ticket. If he believed what he said, he was guilty of party treason in the offer;if he did not, he added the folly of insult to the crime of foul slander."[562]This was the view of the Greeley delegates, and refusing to accept the offered terms, Moses H. Grinnell, Marshall O. Roberts, and their associates, amid ironical cheers, withdrew from the convention.
After this business progressed smoothly and easily. There were no divisions, no debates, and no questions of importance. Nominations aroused little enthusiasm,[563]and the platform which Greeley called "the miracle of clumsiness,"[564]indorsed the administration of President Grant, denounced the crimes of the Tweed ring, and recommended local option. Meanwhile the seceders, assembled in Wild's Opera House, gave vent to bitter criticism and the whispered scandal of hotel lobbies.[565]When this proceeding finally ended they separated with the consciousness that their last performance, at least, had made them ridiculous.
WhileConkling was disposing of Greeley and the Fenton organisation, Samuel J. Tilden prepared to crush Tammany. Tweed had reason to fear Tilden. In 1869 he accused the Ring of being "opposed to all good government."[566]Afterward, in 1870, the defeat of the Young Democracy's charter added to his bitterness. On the evening of the day on which that vote occurred, Tweed jeered Tilden as the latter passed through the hotel corridor, while Tilden, trembling with suppressed emotion, expressed the belief that the Boss would close his career in jail or in exile.[567]One wonders that Tilden, being a natural detective, should have delayed strenuous action until theTimes'exposure, but when, at last, a knowledge of the colossal frauds suddenly opened the way to successful battle, he seized the advantage with the skill and persistency of a master.
In his crusade he did not unite with Republicans, for whom he had no liking. He was not only an intense partisan, but he had a positive genius for saying bitter things in the bitterest way. To him the quarter of a century covered by Van Buren, Marcy, and Wright, shone as an era of honour and truth, while the twenty-four years spanned by the Republicans and the party from whence they sprung brought shame and disgrace upon the State. "The Republicans made the morals of the legislative bodies what they haverecently become. When Seward and Weed took the place of Wright, Marcy, and Flagg, public and official morality fell in the twinkling of an eye. Even our city government, until 1870, was exactly what a Republican legislature made it. The league between corrupt Republicans and corrupt Democrats, which was formed during Republican ascendency, proved too strong for honest men. The charter of 1870 which I denounced in a public speech, had the votes of nearly all the Republicans and Democrats."[568]Still, he admitted that Tammany was synonymous with Democracy, and that its corruption, especially since its blighting influence had become so notorious and oppressive, impeded and dishonoured the party. Under its rule primaries had been absurdities and elections a farce. Without being thoroughly reorganised, therefore, the party, in his opinion, could not exist.[569]
In this spirit Tilden entered upon the great work of his life. Two classes of Democrats faced him—the more clamorous reformers and the enemies of all reform. To the latter reorganisation seemed a reckless step. It argued that the loss of the Tammany vote meant the dissolution of the party, and that a great organisation ought not to be destroyed for the wrong of a few individuals, since the party was not responsible for them. Besides, the executive power of the State, with its vast official patronage scattered throughout all the counties, would oppose such a policy. On the other hand, the first class, possessing little faith in the party's ability to purge itself, threatened to turn reform into political revolution. It desired a new party. Nevertheless, Tilden did not hesitate. He issued letters to thousands of Democrats, declaring that "wherever the gangrene of corruption has reached the Democratic party we must take a knife and cut it out by the roots;"[570]he counselled with Horatio Seymour and Charles O'Conor; he originated the movement that ultimately sent a reform delegation to the State convention; he consented to stand for the Assembly; and finally, to secure the fruit of three months' work, he raised one-half the funds expended by the Democratic reform organisation.
The Ring had not been an indifferent observer of these efforts. While it cared little for the control of a State convention without a governor to nominate, its continued existence absolutely depended upon a majority in the Senate. Tweed planned to carry the five senatorial districts in the city, and to re-elect if possible the eight Republican senators whom he had used the year before.[571]This would insure him control. To achieve his purpose word was sent to Tilden early in August that he could name the delegates to the State convention and the candidates upon the State ticket if he would not interfere with Tammany's legislative nominations. If Tilden had not before distrusted Tweed, such a proposition must have aroused his suspicion. But Tilden, conscious of the need of an anti-Tweed legislature, had surmised the Ring's plan as early as Tweed devised it, and he replied with firmness that everything beside the legislative ticket was of minor importance to him. Similar propositions, presented by powerful men from all parts of the State with the plea that a compromise would "save the party," received the same answer.[572]Meanwhile, he laboured to shorten the life of the Ring. To him Richard Connolly appealed for protection against Tweed's treachery, and at Tilden's suggestion the comptroller turned over his office to Andrew H. Green, thus assuring the protection of the records which subsequently formed the basis of all civil and criminal actions. Tilden's sagacity in procuring the opinion of Charles O'Conor also secured the Mayor's acquiescence in Green's possession of the office, while his patient investigation of the Broadway Bank accounts discovered the judicial proofs that opened the prison doors.
These were fatal blows to the Ring. The leading Democratic papers of the interior, notably the BuffaloCourierand AlbanyArgus, came boldly out demanding the dismissal of the shameless robbers who were disgracing the name and destroying the future of their party. Moreover, Tilden, like an avenging angel, with all the skill and knowledge of his kind, had united into one great reform party the four Democratic organisations of the city, pledged to oppose Tammany.[573]This formidable combination, having complied with every requirement of the State committee, selected delegates to the State convention. The hearts of Tweed and his associates may well have sunk within them as they studied this list. There were able lawyers like William E. Curtis; powerful merchants like Havermeyer; influential editors like Ottendorfer; solid business men like Schell; and determined members of the Committee of Seventy like Roswell D. Hatch, who had been conspicuous in tracking the thieves. But the name that must have shone most formidably in the eyes of Tweed was that of Charles O'Conor. It stood at the head of the list like a threatening cloud in the sky, ready to bring ruin upon the Ring. The moral support of his great legal fame, affirming the validity of Andrew H. Green's possession of the comptroller's office, had intimidated O'Gorman, Tweed's corporation counsel, and shattered the plot to forcibly eject Tilden's faithful friend under colour of judicial process. Thus the reform party seemed to be in the ascendant. With confidence Tilden expressed the belief that the State convention would repudiate Tammany.[574]
Although it had become well known that Tilden would not compromise, Tweed lost none of his former prestige. His control of the State convention which assembled atRochester on October 4 (1871) seemed as firm as on that day in 1870 when he renominated John T. Hoffman. It was still the fashion to praise all he said and all he did. Before his arrival the Reformers claimed a majority, but as the up-State delegates crowded his rooms to bend the obsequious knee he reduced these claims to a count, finding only forty-two disobedient members. He was too tactful, however, to appear in the convention hall. His duty was to give orders, and like a soldier he pitched his headquarters near the scene of action, boasting that his friends were everywhere ready for battle.
In his opening speech Tilden touched the Ring frauds with the delicacy of a surgeon examining an abscess, and the faint response that greeted his condemnation of corruption satisfied him that the convention did not appreciate the danger of party blood-poisoning. The truth of this diagnosis more fully appeared when Tammany, "in the interest of harmony," waived its right to participate in the proceedings. The whirlwind of applause which greeted this "unselfish act" had scarcely subsided when a delegate from Kings county, acting for Tweed, moved the previous question on a resolution reciting that hereafter, on the call of the roll, the city of New York be omitted since it presented no delegation bearing the prestige of regularity. This threw the Reformers into an animated counsel. They knew of the proposed withdrawal of Tammany, which seemed to them to smooth the way for the acceptance of their credentials, but the resolution came with startling suddenness. It narrowed the question of their admission to a mere technicality and cut off debate. Tilden, appreciating the ambuscade into which he had fallen, exhausted every expedient to modify the parliamentary situation, knowing it to be in the power of the convention to accept another delegation regardless of its regularity, as the Republicans had done at Syracuse in the previous week. But the delegates derisively laughed at his awkward predicament as they adopted the resolution by a vote of 90 to 4.
By this act the convention clearly indicated its purpose to treat the fraud issue as a local matter and to keep it out of the State campaign. It intended to denounce the crime and the criminals, and to allow no one to become a delegate who had aided or in anywise profited by the conspiracy, but it would not recognise a delegation which desired to reorganise the party in the metropolis by humiliating a great association whose regularity had been accepted for many years, and which had finally turned the State over to the Democracy. This view had the support of every office-holder and of every appointee of the Executive, whose great desire to "save the party" had its inspiration in a greater desire to save themselves. On the other hand, the minority argued that allowing Tammany voluntarily to withdraw from the convention was equivalent to its endorsement, thus giving its nominations regularity. This would compel the Democratic masses, in order to participate in the primaries, to vote its ticket. Tilden sought to avoid this regularity just as Conkling had destroyed the Greeley committee, and if office-holders had supported him as they did the Senator he must have won as easily.
The convention's treatment of Horatio Seymour also exhibited its dislike of the reformer. Seymour came to the convention to be its president, and upon his entrance to the hall had been hailed, amidst tumultuous cheers, as "Our future president in 1872." While waiting the conclusion of the preliminary proceedings he observed Francis Kernan sitting outside the rail with the rejected Reformers. Hesitatingly, and in the hope, he said, of arousing no unpleasant discussion, he moved the admission of the veteran Democrat, whom he described as grown gray in the party harness, and whose very presence was a sufficient credential to his title to a seat. Kernan, being in sympathy with Tilden, wasnon persona gratato Tammany, and Seymour had scarcely resumed his seat when the ubiquitous delegate from Kings, with a flourish of rhetoric, promptly substituted another, who, he alleged, was the regularly electeddelegate as well as "the friend of that great Democrat, John T. Hoffman." The convention, frantic with delight at the mention of the Governor's name, saw the Oneidan grow lividly pale with chagrin at this exhibition of Tammany's manners. Seymour had lived long in years, in fame, and in the esteem of his party. He could hardly have had any personal enemies. He possessed no capricious dislikes, and his kindly heart, in spite of a stateliness of bearing, won all the people who came near him. To be thus opposed and bantered in a Democratic assembly was a deep humiliation, and after expressing the hope that the Tammany man would fight for the Democratic party as gallantly in future as he had fought against it in the past, the illustrious statesman withdrew his motion. When, later, his name was announced as presiding officer of the permanent organisation, the convention discovered to its dismay that Seymour, feigning sickness, had returned to Utica.[575]
At the end of the day's work it was plain that Tweed had controlled the convention. The Reformers had been excluded, the committee on contested seats had refused them a hearing, Seymour was driven home, and a eulogy of Tammany's political services had been applauded to the echo. The platform did, indeed, express indignation at the "corruption and extravagance recently brought to light in the municipal affairs of the city of New York," and condemned "as unworthy of countenance or toleration all who are responsible," but the contrast between the acts of the convention and the words of its platform made its professions of indignation seem incongruous if not absolutely empty. When one speaker, with rhetorical effect, pronounced the frauds in New York "the mere dreams of Republican imagination" delegates sprang to their feet amidst ringing cheers. In the joy of victory, Tweed, with good-naturedcontempt, characterised Seymour, Tilden, and Kernan as "three troublesome old fools."[576]
After adjournment the Reformers made no concealment of their bitter dissatisfaction. Oswald Ottendorfer, editor of the most powerful German Democratic organ then in the State, threatened to issue an address denouncing their betrayal, and William E. Curtis, referring to the refusal of the credentials' committee, declared that a voice from the Democratic masses of New York, seeking relief from a gang of thieves, was stronger, higher, and more sublime than mere questions of technicality. Under the spur of this threatened revolt, the convention, when it reconvened the next day, listened to the Reformers. Their recital was not a panegyric. Ottendorfer said that the operation of the previous question exposed the party to the suspicion that Tammany's seats would be open for their return after the storm of indignation had subsided. O'Conor, in a letter, declared that absolute freedom from all complicity in the great official crime and an utter intolerance of all persons suspected of sympathy with it must be maintained, otherwise its action would inflict a fatal wound upon the party. Curtis characterised the question as one of life or death to a great community weighed down by oppression and crime, and maintained that the convention, if it sought to avoid its duty by the subterfuge already enacted, would show both sympathy and complicity with the oligarchy of terror and infamy. These statements did not please the Ring men, who, with much noise, passed contemptuously out of the hall.
Riotous interruption, however, did not begin until Tilden announced that the real point of the controversy was to estop Tammany, after nominating five senators and twenty-one assemblymen, from declaring the Democratic masses out of the party because they refused to vote for its candidates. The whip of party regularity was Tweed's last reliance, and when Tilden proclaimed absolution to those who disregarded it, the friends of Tammany drowned his words with loudcalls to order. The excitement threatened to become a riot, but Tilden, caring as little for disapprobation as the son of Tisander in the story told by Herodotus, calmly awaited silence. "I was stating," he continued, without the slightest tremor of a singularly unmusical voice, "what I considered the objection to Tammany Hall, aside from the cloud that now covers that concern, and I am free to avow before this convention that I shall not vote for any one of Mr. Tweed's members of the Legislature. And if that is to be regarded the regular ticket, I will resign my place as chairman of the State committee and help my people stem the tide of corruption. When I come to do my duty as an elector, I shall cast my vote for honest men."[577]Then, to show his independence if not his contempt of the Tweed-bound body, Tilden suddenly waived aside the question of the Reformers' admission and moved to proceed to the nomination of a State ticket.[578]
The convention was stunned. It became dizzy when he denied Tammany's right to be regarded as the regular organisation, but his proclamation, defiantly and clearly made, that hereafter he should bolt its nominations even if the convention refused to impeach its regularity, struck a trenchant blow that silenced rather than excited. Such courage, displayed at such a critical moment, was sublime. An organised revolt against an association which had for years been accepted as regular by State conventions meant the sacrifice of a majority and an invitation to certain defeat, yet he hurled the words of defiance into the face of the convention with the energy of the Old Guard when called upon to surrender at Waterloo. The course taken by Tildenon this memorable occasion made his own career, and also a new career for his party. From that hour he became the real leader of the Democracy. Although more than a twelvemonth must pass before his voice gave the word of command, his genius as a born master was recognised.
The attitude of the Reformers strengthened the Republicans, whose distractions must otherwise have compassed their defeat. Murphyism and Tweedism resembled each other so much that a contest against either presented a well-defined issue of political morality. The greater importance of the Tammany frauds, however, obscured all other issues. To preserve their organisation in the up-State counties the Democrats made creditable local nominations and professed support of the State ticket, but in the city the entire voting population, irrespective of former party alignments, divided into Tammany and anti-Tammany factions. As the crusade progressed the details of the great crime, becoming better understood, made Tammany's position intolerable. Every respectable journal opposed it and every organisation crucified it. In a double-page cartoon, startling in its conception and splendidly picturesque, Nast represented the Tammany tiger, with glaring eyes and distended jaws, tearing the vitals from the crushed and robbed city, while Tweed and his associates sat enthroned.[579]"Let's stop those damned pictures," proposed Tweed when he saw it. "I don't care so much what the papers write about me—my constituents can't read; but they can see pictures."[580]