FOOTNOTES

FOOTNOTES[1]Report of the New York Legislative Insurance Committee, 1906, Vol. X, p. 16.[2]Ibid.[3]Ibid., p. 50.[4]Ibid., pp. 62 and 398.[5]Ibid., p. 10.[6]Mr. Croker, in 1900, had admitted his liability to an English tax on a yearly income of $100,000.[7]The company had filed articles of incorporation in 1872, but was charged with being an abortive corporation in that it had never completed the necessary formalities required by law.[8]As we shall see later, the political composition of the Board of Estimate was at this time considerably mixed; during his second term Mayor McClellan was fighting Mr. Murphy, leader of Tammany Hall, and had the backing of Senator McCarren and of McCarren’s lieutenant, Controller Metz. Mr. McGowan, president of the Board of Aldermen, was supposed to be a Tammany man, but was not on good terms with the “Organization” and was credited with being aligned with McClellan and Metz.[9]Interstate Commerce Commission Report No. 6569, In reFinancial Transactions of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Co., July 11, 1914, pp. 35, 38, etc. The above are but a few extracts from this comprehensive report.[10]The Truth About Metropolitan, by W. N. Amory, pp. 60-64.[11]In an effective article inMcClure’s Magazine, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker showed how one of these big companies bribed walking delegates to declare strikes on buildings being put up by rival contractors in order that it—the briber—might be able to get a reputation for building within contract time, and thus exclude competitors from getting further contracts.

[1]Report of the New York Legislative Insurance Committee, 1906, Vol. X, p. 16.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid., p. 50.

[4]Ibid., pp. 62 and 398.

[5]Ibid., p. 10.

[6]Mr. Croker, in 1900, had admitted his liability to an English tax on a yearly income of $100,000.

[7]The company had filed articles of incorporation in 1872, but was charged with being an abortive corporation in that it had never completed the necessary formalities required by law.

[8]As we shall see later, the political composition of the Board of Estimate was at this time considerably mixed; during his second term Mayor McClellan was fighting Mr. Murphy, leader of Tammany Hall, and had the backing of Senator McCarren and of McCarren’s lieutenant, Controller Metz. Mr. McGowan, president of the Board of Aldermen, was supposed to be a Tammany man, but was not on good terms with the “Organization” and was credited with being aligned with McClellan and Metz.

[9]Interstate Commerce Commission Report No. 6569, In reFinancial Transactions of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Co., July 11, 1914, pp. 35, 38, etc. The above are but a few extracts from this comprehensive report.

[10]The Truth About Metropolitan, by W. N. Amory, pp. 60-64.

[11]In an effective article inMcClure’s Magazine, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker showed how one of these big companies bribed walking delegates to declare strikes on buildings being put up by rival contractors in order that it—the briber—might be able to get a reputation for building within contract time, and thus exclude competitors from getting further contracts.

When Mayor McClellan, in the campaign of 1905 promised an independent administration, Tammany leaders did not take his words seriously; they considered his promises mere campaign vapor. In this estimate they were mistaken. Mayor McClellan broke relations with Charles F. Murphy in January, 1906, and announced that he would keep every promise made by him “on the stump.” His appointment of anti-Murphy men to office had a nettling effect on the leader of Tammany Hall, against whom he began a systematic campaign. Results, still more serious to Tammany leaders, were forthcoming.

The President of the Borough of Manhattan was John A. Ahearn, a noted Tammany district leader. He had been a State Senator from 1889 to 1902, and had been elected president of the Borough of Manhattan in 1903, and reelected in 1905 for a term of four years. It may be explained that the presidency of a borough was a powerful office, having direct appointive and supervisory power over six departments with expenditures of many millions of dollars annually.[1]

Charges of misconduct were brought against Mr. Ahearn, in 1906, by the Bureau of City Betterment (later called the Bureau of Municipal Research). When Mr. Ahearn requested an investigation by the Commissioners of Accounts, Mayor McClellan accommodated his desire. The report of these commissioners, handed in to the Mayor, July 16, 1907, severely arraigned Ahearn’s administration, and after specifying particulars, the report denounced “the inefficiency, neglect, waste and corruption disclosed in the course of this inquiry.”[2]

The investigation showed that in the three years that Mr. Ahearn had occupied the office of borough president, he had control of an expenditure totaling $21,994,477. Of this amount it was shown that $1,608,762 was spent in the purchase of supplies without public tender being asked, as required by law. It was proved that many of the payrolls (amounting to an aggregate of $5,942,187) were padded with the names of men who never did a day’s work for the department. Even in the expenditures made under contract—expenditures totaling $14,447,473 in the three years—it was proved that little effort was made to compel contractors to observe their obligations. Fully a third of the total expenditure—the third amounting to $5,400,000—was lost to the city, it was asserted, by the manner in which the department was administered. There were still further losses to the city; and although, also, there was plenty of money at Mr. Ahearn’s disposal for the repairs of street pavements, that work, it was held, was considerably neglected. The evidence in the commissioners’ investigation and the evidence presented by the City Club in subsequent hearings ordered by GovernorHughes showed that supply contractors often made profits ranging from 100 to 200 per cent. (and in at least one case 300 to 500 per cent.) more than the regular prices prevailing in the open market.

Among other disclosures the testimony revealed that $144,500 had been paid out for asphalt “fire burns,” which in reality were not “fire burns” at all; they were defects that the asphalt companies were obliged to repair without charge. The favorite contractors were such Tammany district leaders as Bartholomew Dunn, Thomas J. Dunn and others.

On December 9, 1907, Governor Hughes removed Mr. Ahearn from office. In his notice of ejection, Governor Hughes said that justice to Mr. Ahearn required that attention should be called to the fact that “it is not shown, and it has not been claimed, that he has converted public money or property to his own use, or has personally profited in an unlawful manner by his official conduct.” But Governor Hughes said that he did find that the charges of maladministration, remissness and grave abuses existing under Ahearn’s administration had been proved. Mr. Ahearn was, in reality, a victim of the Tammany system. A few days later, the Manhattan Aldermen reelected him—a move that was contested by taking the case to the Court of Appeals, which in November, 1909, sustained his removal and disapproved of his reelection. Meanwhile, he had continued in office.

Another conspicuous Tammany leader removed from office was Louis F. Haffen, president of the Borough of the Bronx. He had held that office since January 1, 1898, and had been last reelected in 1905. Mr. Haffen was, as we have seen, one of the regency of three controlling Tammany Hall immediately previous to Charles F. Murphy’s assumption of sole leadership. He was a Sachem of the Tammany Society.

In November, 1908, twenty-two charges were presented to Governor Hughes by John Purroy Mitchel and ErnestGallagher, Commissioners of Accounts of New York City, at the instance of Mayor McClellan.[3]The City Club and the Citizens’ Union jointly filed charges against Mr. Haffen and prosecuted them. Governor Hughes, basing his findings and action on the report of Wallace Macfarlane, his Commissioner who heard the evidence, found that the following charges had been established:

That Mr. Haffen had greatly abused his discretionary power in failing to enforce more stringently the time clauses of contracts for public improvements, and that the time statements in his certificates to the Finance Department were in many cases untrue; that the public funds were wasted by loading the payrolls of his department with a large number of superfluous employees; that there was political jobbery in the building of the Bronx Borough Court House; the appointed architect was essentially a politician without professional qualifications who had hired others to do the architectural work. The granite contract for this building was awarded to the Buck’s Harbor Granite Company, represented in New York by a Bronx Tammany district leader.

Among an array of further charges against Mr. Haffen that were found true was the charge that he was financially interested in the Sound View Land and Improvement Company, “and that his official action in connection with the Clason’s Point Road was induced by his desire to increase the value of his own and his associates’ holdings in this company, which had acquired a tract of forty-one acres with a frontage of 2,500 feet on the proposed road, with a view to that improvement.”

Another charge established against Mr. Haffen was thatas borough president and chairman of the local board of Morrisania, Mr. Haffen had recommended the acquisition by New York City of certain property at Hunt’s Point on the East River Shore, for use as a public bathing place. This property, Governor Hughes declared, was utterly unsuitable for the purpose because of its proximity to a trunk sewer.

Governor Hughes set forth that the Hunt’s Point transaction was “a highly discreditable affair. This shore property was about five acres in extent, and the assessed valuation was about $4,300. During the condemnation proceedings the attorney for the company which owned it purchased it from his client for about $86,000.[4]It was then transferred to another company, and was acquired by the city at a cost of about $247,000, the value fixed by the condemnation commissioners.” Thus the award for the Hunt’s Point property was fifty-eight times the assessed value, and many times the actual value.

Other charges against Mr. Haffen were sustained. Overtime charges on contracts had been liquidated arbitrarily; on one occasion $70,000 was improperly remitted to “Bart” Dunn who previously had contributed $1,000 to the Haffen campaign fund.[5]Payments were made to contractors on absolutely false statements certified fromMr. Haffen’s office. Extravagance in the Bureau of Public Buildings and Offices resulted in an estimated waste of $175,000 of an available $292,000 in six years of Mr. Haffen’s administration.[6]Contract juggling was common. Worn-out Belgian blocks were sold by the borough to contractors and then repurchased by the city as new. In cases where contractors were friends of Mr. Haffen, contract specifications were so drawn as to exclude competitors. Streets were laid in irregular routes so as to aid land development schemes in which Tammany men held control. Highway contract specifications were deliberately violated by the contractors. The labors of the maintenance force in the Bureau of Highways were wasted to such an extent that the investigators estimated a loss of 50 per cent. in efficiency, or $1,600,000 in money, within six years.[7]A similar waste of $300,000 was attributed to the Bureau of Sewers in the same period.

Borough President Haffen was ousted by Governor Hughes on August 29, 1909. When removed from office, Haffen complained, “This is a fine reward for twenty-six and a half years of honest, faithful and efficient service to the people.…”

Another high city official who went out of office during this time was Joseph Bermel, president of the Borough of Queens. He hastily resigned while under charges.

Mr. Bermel was not, strictly speaking, a Tammany man; he was an auxiliary satrap. His removal from office had been asked for by Attorney-General Jackson and Deputy Attorney-General Nathan Viadiver, of New York State, at the conclusion of an inquiry into Bermel’s office.

Bermel was charged by the Attorney General and by the Queen’s Borough Property Owners’ Association with various acts. He was accused of conspiring with othersto defraud New York City in the purchase or sale of land to New York City; he was charged with accepting money from persons interested in the sale of such lands, and was further charged with selling and using his influence in the land purchases in question. He was accused of failing to aid the Grand Jury in its investigations into these transactions, and was further charged with blocking the procedure of that body with his influence and money in refusing to testify in certain matters, and in other cases testifying falsely and removing his books from the Grand Jury’s jurisdiction. Another charge was that he swore falsely concerning his bank deposits, which evidence he sought to corroborate by the testimony of a witness who presented apparent confirmation in the shape of a written paper, which paper upon investigation was proved to be a false and fraudulent document.

Still further, Mr. Bermel was charged with receiving money for granting special privileges to contractors; with neglecting pavements and permitting material of a lower grade than specified to be used in contract work; with purchasing supplies for public buildings at exorbitant prices and with allowing the same high prices to be charged for repairs to public buildings. Additional charges were that he appointed incompetent subordinates and permitted persons who did no work to draw salaries. Close upon the announcement from Albany that Governor Hughes had appointed Samuel H. Ordway as Commissioner to take testimony, Bermel on April 29, 1908, resigned from office.[8]

The Aldermen on April 30, 1908, elected Lawrence Gresser to fill Mr. Bermel’s unexpired term as President of the Borough of Queens, and on November 2, 1909, Mr. Gresser was elected by the people to that office for thefour ensuing years. In 1911 charges were preferred by citizens of Queens County against Gresser. A number of these charges were sustained by Samuel H. Ordway, the Commissioner appointed by the Governor to take testimony and report. Commissioner Ordway, however, explained in his report made June 16, 1911: “Of those [charges] that are sustained, none, in my opinion, establishes corruption or dishonesty on the part of Mr. Gresser. I believe that he is an honest man and would not be a party to any corrupt acts either for his own benefit or that of his associates. But I am of the opinion that he has been inefficient and incompetent, and has been neglectful of his duty to protect the city and the Borough of Queens against fraud and corruption on the part of his subordinates.”[9]After an argument made by Robert S. Binkerd, Secretary of the City Club, asking for Mr. Gresser’s removal, Governor Dix removed Gresser from office.

But Tammany men were not the only officials against whom charges were brought. It had long been a subject of increasing general comment that District Attorney Jerome, much noted as such a leading reformer, who had been so conspicuously active in sending petty offenders to prison, had failed to bring about the conviction of any high insurance officials and had not brought about the indictment of a single traction system manipulator.

On September 8, 1907, a voluminous petition was sent by various New York business men and other citizens to Governor Hughes. This petition recited in detail the specific transactions thus complained of, made a scathing criticism of District Attorney Jerome for having failed to prosecute those responsible, and demanded that the Attorney General of New York State be forthwith directed to bring prosecution.

Evidence submitted, on December 1, 1907, to the Grand Jury in General Sessions showed that Thomas F. Ryan and associates had bought in 1902 from Anthony N. Brady for $250,000 the franchise of a company called the Wall and Cortland Street Ferries Railroad Company, a corporation having a dormant franchise for a road that had never been built.[10]They had then sold this franchise to a dummy corporation, called the Metropolitan Securities Company, for $965,607.19. Part of this sum went to the syndicate’s brokers; the precise amount of funds divided among Ryan, Widener, Dolan and the estates of William C. Whitney and William L. Elkins was $692,292.82.[11]The surviving members of this group subsequently settled the transaction by making restitution of this sum soon after the facts had been made public and after charges had been made against Jerome. On the very day that Mr. Ryan and associates had bought the non-existent Wall and Cortlandt Street Ferries Railroad, they had also bought, for $1,600,000, the People’s Traction Company, owning a paper road never built, and the New York, Westchester and Connecticut Traction Company, a small railway, which a short time previously had been sold in bankruptcy proceedings for $15,000.[12]It was charged that in this transaction also, there was another grand division of funds.

These particular transactions, however, were in reality insignificant compared to the disappearance of $16,000,000 from the treasury of the Third avenue Railway,[13]and vaster total transactions charged, aggregating, as we have previously noted, about $90,000,000. The fact was brought out in the investigation by the Public Service Commission that all the books of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company in which its affairs from 1891 onward to 1902 were recorded, had been sold to a purchaser who promised to destroy them.[14]Street car lines bought for a few hundred thousand dollars were, it was charged, capitalized at ten or twenty times that sum, and then followed a process by which vast amounts were charged in duplication of construction accounts.

Lemuel Ely Quigg (who for six years had been a member of Congress) admitted that in the four years preceding 1907 he had received $217,000 from the Metropolitan Street Railway Company.[15]This was charged to a construction fund, part of which was another sum of $798,000 paid to different persons whose names were concealed. Further facts in a legislative investigation in 1910 (to which we shall hereafter refer) supplied certain other missing links.

No criminal proceedings, however, were brought against Mr. Ryan. In a statement published on May 26, 1909, Col. Amory averred that when a Grand Jury was called in 1907 to investigate the acts of Ryan and associates of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, the foreman of the Grand Jury was a director in Mr. Ryan’sEquitable Life Assurance Society. Col. Amory also made the accusation that in April, 1903, Daniel Mason, Mr. Jerome’s former law partner, and William H. Page, Jr., another of the Metropolitan’s lawyers, had attempted to bribe him (Amory) while a State’s witness, with $200,000, to withdraw the charges that Amory had filed with Jerome against the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. On January 27, 1908, Judge Rosalsky, in the Court of General Sessions, severely arraigned District Attorney Jerome, declaring that Jerome had so conducted the examination of Thomas F. Ryan before the Grand Jury as probably to invalidate any indictments which that body might have found against Ryan. Paul D. Cravath, Governor Hughes’s former law partner, was now Ryan’s astute attorney.

Governor Hughes appointed a Commissioner to hear the evidence upon which the charges against Mr. Jerome were made. Jerome admitted that when Ryan, Brady and Vreeland were before the Grand Jury he had put leading questions to them. Further he testified that he had not asked the Grand Jury to indict Ryan in the matter of the Wall Street and Cortlandt Street Ferries Railway transactions. Interrogated as to a certain contribution made to his campaign fund by Samuel Untermeyer, counsel for Mr. Hyde of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, Mr. Jerome denied that any ulterior purpose was behind it. Mr. Ryan admitted on the witness stand that he (Ryan) had contributed heavily to the national fund of the Democratic party in 1900.

The Commissioner’s report exonerated Jerome, and Governor Hughes dismissed the charges, saying, “Nothing has been presented which furnishes any just ground for impeaching the good faith of the District Attorney in connection with any of the transactions set forth, nor has anything been shown which would justify his removal from office.” The outcome was severely criticized by some of the very newspapers which had once enthusiastically supportedMr. Jerome. Col. Amory wrote that there were other bribes than money bribes, and that he did not believe Mr. Jerome capable of doing a corrupt act for money.[16]Whatever the fundamental facts, the consequences were clear: great sums of money had undeniably vanished, a group of magnates had become additionally enriched, the street railway system was wrecked and thrown into bankruptcy, the statute of limitations had meanwhile been interposed, and nobody had been prosecuted.

These were the essential facts, and they were facts that, after all explanations, could not be evaded. Mr. Jerome himself was forced to recognize them in his own defense; in his public speeches he took great pains to assure his hearers that acts might be wrong and yet not criminal, but it was an explanation not favorably received in general. The great change in public opinion was forcibly shown, when, at a meeting in Cooper Union, on May 26, 1909, Mr. Jerome was badly heckled and asked the most pointed questions as to why he had not prosecuted the traction magnates.

The city finances during these years were in a bewilderingly deplorable state. On December 31, 1907, the total amount remaining uncollected from the tax levies covering the years 1899 to 1907, inclusive, was $90,545,000. In addition, a sum of $12,289,000 remained uncollected from the tax levies prior to the year 1899.[17]Notwithstanding these actual enormous deficiencies, the amounts placed in the tax levies, from the years 1899 to 1905 inclusive, to provide for possible deficiencies in tax collections, was only $11,719,000. During that very period the amounts in discounts, remissions and cancelations amounted to $12,477,000, which was more than $758,000in excess of the amount placed in the tax levies to provide for deficiencies in collections. “In other words,” reported a Select Legislative Committee, “the amounts placed in the tax levies during those years to provide for deficiencies in collections, did not even equal the discounts, cancelations and remissions, and made no provision whatever for failure or inability to collect taxes levied.”[18]

By October 31, 1908, uncollected taxes due the city (including $9,324,000 personal taxes for years previous to 1898, which had been written off as uncollectable), amounted to $84,506,000. Despite the fact that this huge sum had not been collected, the city officials spent the greater part of it as though it had been collected; of the $84,506,000 uncollected, the sum of $76,266,000 had, by October 31, 1908, been expended by the city in appropriations included in budgets which, in reality, ought to have been defrayed by these uncollected taxes.[19]

Basing their action on these uncollected taxes, the city officials had issued, from time to time, large amounts in revenue bonds with which to get money to pay the appropriations in the yearly budgets. On October 31, 1908, there was outstanding against these arrears of taxes $40,606,000 of revenue bonds. This left a balance of $35,660,000 which had been expended by the city for current expenses, but which had neither been collected nor procured by revenue bonds.[20]The Select Legislative Committee commented upon the fact that although the evidence proved conclusively that not more than 65 per cent. of personal taxes were collectable, yet the city budget had nearly equaled the entire levy in each year.[21]Furthermore, the sum of $24,521,000 in special franchise taxes had not been collected by December 31, 1907.

The sources of a certain $33,000,000 which had been spent by the city puzzled the Select Legislative Committee.Just how this money was obtained the Committee was not able to ascertain.

But, the Committee added, it was shown that the assessment account for local improvements was depleted to the amount of $1,900,000. There should have been a sum of $600,000 comprising trust funds, various bequests, intestate estates, etc., but it could not be found. Also, there should have been in the city treasury $3,800,000 more as a special account including deposits made with the city against contractors’ liability for restoring and repaving streets and the unliquidated balance of the Brooklyn fund. But this $3,800,000 “did not exist.” The accounts of the various boroughs revealed a shortage of $1,500,000; excise funds were short $5,100,000; the account of unexpended proceeds of the bond account disclosed a shortage of $7,200,000, and the account of that part of the unexpended bond accounts which had not been allotted was short $8,250,000.[22]making “The Controller’s office,” the Select Legislative Committee reported, “was unable within any reasonable time to determine from what funds the remaining $4,000,000 had been taken, up the total shortage of $33,000,000. But the net result is certain, that for the payment of running expenses over a long period of years, the City has taken the total amount of $29,000,000 from specific funds set apart for other purposes, shifting the resulting deficits from one fund to another as occasion required.”[23]

Large issues of corporate stock were also made for other than permanent improvements.[24]

The city budget appropriations had grown enormously. In 1898 the amount was $70,175,896. By 1909 it had mounted to $156,545,148, an increase of more than $86,000,000, or approximately 123 per cent. Yet the increase in population had been only about 39.4 per cent.[25]

Vast sums were squandered in the purchasing of city supplies and in a multitude of other ways. Condemnation proceedings were a source of great scandal. There was the Catskill reservoir and aqueduct to supply New York with water, the estimated cost of which undertaking was $162,000,000. “Rings” of politicians bought land which they sold to the city at high prices. For the one item of advertising “public notices” of condemnation proceedings, the cost already had approximated $800,000.[26]In three years the fees paid to certain Catskill reservoir and aqueduct commissioners appointed to condemn land, aggregated $169,490, and this amount did not include the fees of commissioners who had not yet reported.[27]During the same period the fees paid to commissioners in New York City street and park opening proceedings totalled more than $384,000, while fees paid in other condemnation proceedings (exclusive of the Dock Department) aggregated more than $300,000.[28]

Large as these sums were, they were but a fraction of the total amounts pocketed by all of the beneficiaries.

The city payroll was padded with an extraordinarily large number of superfluous employees. In a separate memorandum to the Legislative Committee report, Mr. William M. Bennet, a member of that committee, quoted Controller Metz’s statement in 1909 that from 25 to 50 per cent. of New York City’s payroll, then totalling $80,000,000 a year, was “useless.”[29]At this time (in 1909) New York City’s actual debt reached $800,000,000.[30]In many directions “Organization” men were faring richly. Even though Mayor McClellan was fighting Leader Murphy, Tammany held sway in many administrative and court departments, not included in the Mayor’s jurisdiction, and he had certain reasons for placating some Tammany district leaders.

After declaring his independence of “Boss” Murphy, Mayor McClellan, supported by Senator McCarren, of Brooklyn, had begun a contest—futile enough, as it turned out—to get control of Tammany Hall. According to a magazine article[31]written by General Theodore A. Bingham, Police Commissioner during Mayor McClellan’s second administration, Mayor McClellan “knew full well that the most effective weapon was the power and patronage at his disposal, by virtue of his office. When he tried to use the police I objected.” Dismissed by Mayor McClellan from the office of Police Commissioner, Mr. Bingham soon after set forth his experiences in the published article in question.

“In all election contests,” wrote General Bingham further,

“whether it be a primary election, a municipal election, or a State or a National election, the police are a factor. The district leader who can control the majority of the uniformed men on duty in his bailiwick is not apt to have much trouble in fighting off rival candidates. He has a most influential body of men working for him 365 days in the year.“The baneful influence of the ordinary Tammany district leader in a single precinct station house is far-reaching. When he can do favors, or persuade the men that he can do them, his influence is something beyond belief. Some leaders have had more authority in some police stations than the executive head of the department. They have been looked upon as the men from whom to take orders. They have often visited the station not only to give bail for unlucky constituents, but to give orders to the captains and lieutenants.“Policemen as a whole are the most gullible persons in the entire City Government when it comes to the question of the power of the political ‘boss.’ This is not surprising. Experience has taught them that if they displease the local powers they are apt to be transferred to a distant precinct. Therefore, they fear to take a chance. The wily leader takes advantage of this weakness. He uses his power at every opportunity, and when he meets with opposition he is prompt with his threats. Suppose, in the course of time, the offending policeman is shifted as a matter of routine. Then the leader struts about telling this offender’s fellow officers that he, the leader, had the man transferred.” And if a policeman showed independence, Mr. Bingham asserted, a word from the leader to the superiorofficers caused “complaints to be made, extra hours of duty, unpleasant details and the like, until the man’s life is made miserable.”

“The baneful influence of the ordinary Tammany district leader in a single precinct station house is far-reaching. When he can do favors, or persuade the men that he can do them, his influence is something beyond belief. Some leaders have had more authority in some police stations than the executive head of the department. They have been looked upon as the men from whom to take orders. They have often visited the station not only to give bail for unlucky constituents, but to give orders to the captains and lieutenants.

“Policemen as a whole are the most gullible persons in the entire City Government when it comes to the question of the power of the political ‘boss.’ This is not surprising. Experience has taught them that if they displease the local powers they are apt to be transferred to a distant precinct. Therefore, they fear to take a chance. The wily leader takes advantage of this weakness. He uses his power at every opportunity, and when he meets with opposition he is prompt with his threats. Suppose, in the course of time, the offending policeman is shifted as a matter of routine. Then the leader struts about telling this offender’s fellow officers that he, the leader, had the man transferred.” And if a policeman showed independence, Mr. Bingham asserted, a word from the leader to the superiorofficers caused “complaints to be made, extra hours of duty, unpleasant details and the like, until the man’s life is made miserable.”

General Bingham declared that he had labored to stamp out these abuses, but unavailingly. “So bad did this political influence become in some precincts in Manhattan after Mayor McClellan began his contests at the primaries for the leadership of Tammany Hall, that I had to make radical changes in the personnel of those districts.”

It was absurdly easy for Mr. Murphy and his Tammany machine leaders to squelch Mayor McClellan’s plans for leadership. No auspicious time was it, however, to nominate a “regular Organization man” for Mayor; respectability had to be invoked and a hack politician obviously would not serve the purpose. Besides, there was resistance from Senator McCarren’s Brooklyn organization against the nomination of a distinctively Tammany “Organization” creature.

The candidate of Tammany Hall and its allies was William J. Gaynor. A Brooklyn lawyer, he had signalized his early career by causing John Y. McKane, then Democratic “boss” of Coney Island, to be convicted and imprisoned for ballot box frauds and for defying a court injunction. Elected to the State Supreme Court, Gaynor was a member of that body when nominated for Mayor; and by his constant exposures of the tyrannies and abuses committed by the police force he had become widely and favorably known as a man opposed to “The System.” Thus, Tammany could depict its candidate as a genuine and proved reformer. But apart from these representations, Gaynor was, in fact, a man of intellect, force and independence of character, deep understanding of public questions and of progressive, even advanced, views. A far different type he was from the usual run of ignorant grafting politicians.

By his strong denunciations of the looting done by surface-railway manipulators and by his emphatic declarations in favor of the building by the city itself of furthersubways, Gaynor won a large following. He seemed uncommonly sincere when he caustically arraigned the combination of railway promoters and financiers who, he said, were busy at the “old game” of seeking to enrich themselves manifold more by getting additional traction franchises. “My friends,” he asserted in a speech in Tammany Hall, on October 19, 1909, “we are going to build the subways. We do not intend that a single subway or a franchise for it shall be passed over to any of these men.” He made other pronouncements to the same effect.

The pushful, insistent Mr. Hearst was still backed by a political organization, now passing under the name of the Civic Alliance, but his course in accepting Mr. Murphy’s and Tammany’s support during his candidacy for Governor after having bitterly assailed them in previous campaigns when he was an independent candidate, had effectually alienated many of his former followers. By reason of the influence of his newspapers, he still, however, had considerable strength. He was the nominee of the Civic Alliance for Mayor. The Republican and Fusion candidate was Otto Bannard, a banker. Edward F. Cassidy was the Socialist Party’s candidate. One of the issues put forward by the Fusion campaigners was the continuing abominations of the “white slave” traffic, operated, it was asserted, with the connivance of the police.

Gaynor was elected. The vote resulted: Gaynor, 250,378; Bannard, 177,304; Hearst, 154,187; Cassidy, 11,768; Hunter (Socialist Labor) 1,256; Manierre (Prohibition) 866. Although, however, Gaynor won, yet by the election of many of the Fusion candidates (to the offices of Controller, President of the Board of Aldermen and presidents of boroughs) Tammany lost control of nearly all of the borough presidencies, and in turn of many of the departments and of the powerful Board of Estimate. In this Board Tammany now had only three votes.

FOOTNOTES[1]When Ahearn was elected president of the Borough of Manhattan, it was “Boss” Murphy, with the “advice and consent” of the Tammany Executive Committee, who really chose his appointees to head the Department of Public Work, the Bureau of Highways, the Bureau of Sewers, the Bureau of Buildings, etc. Of course, Tammany district leaders were appointed; they were really responsible to the Tammany Executive Committee.[2]SeeA Report on a Special Examination of the Accounts and Methods of the Office of the President of the Borough of Manhattan, Directed by Hon. George B. McClellan, Mayor, Commissioners of Accounts of the City of New York, July 16, 1907. This report gives the full findings of the Commissioners of Accounts. The full testimony is embodied in Vols. I to III ofTestimony, Ahearn Investigation, 1907, Commissioners of Accounts.[3]SeeA Report on a Special Examination of the Accounts and Methods of the President of the Borough of the Bronx, etc., Commissioners of Accounts of New York City, June 16, 1908. The complete testimony in the Haffen Investigation is set forth in Vols. I to IV,Testimony, Borough of the Bronx Investigation, 1908, Commissioners of Accounts. See also Memorandum submitted to Governor Hughes, by the Commissioners of Accounts, 1909.[4]The attorney here referred to was Joseph A. Flannery. Upon charges preferred by the Bar Association, and after a three years’ investigation, he was disbarred, May 17, 1912, by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He was found guilty on five of the six charges brought against him, one of which charges dealt with the notorious Hunt’s Point land “job.” It was on record that Flannery personally profited to the sum of $300,000 from various transactions of land sold to the city at fictitious valuations. On June 11, 1914, W. D. Guthrie, representing the New York Bar Association, reiterated the charges when he argued before the Court of Appeals at Albany for the confirmation of Mr. Flannery’s disbarment. Flannery’s attorney declared that nobody was misled or labored under a misapprehension as a result of his client’s actions; that the company for which Flannery was attorney knew as much about the transaction as did Flannery. On October 24, 1914, the Court of Appeals sanctioned Flannery’s disbarment.[5]Summary of Findings, A Report on a Special Examination of the Office of the President of the Borough of the Bronx, etc. Commissioners of Accounts, June 16, 1908, p. 1.[6]Ibid., p. 3.[7]Ibid., p. 3.[8]He had been elected Borough President of Queens in 1905, after a fight upon “Joe” Cassidy, long Democratic “boss” of Queens, in which campaign Bermel ran as an “Independent Democrat” and had violently denounced “Cassidyism and public graft.”[9]In the Matter of Charges Preferred against Lawrence Gresser, President of the Borough of Queens, City of New York, Report of Commissioner Samuel H. Ordway, 1911, p. 91.[10]In a signed statement in the New YorkEvening Call, February 27, 1909, Col. Amory declared that when this matter was originally exposed in the hearing before the Public Service Commission, the full facts were not brought out; that one of the ten original owners had recently informed him (Amory) that the price paid by Ryan and Brady was in reality only $25,000.[11]SeeInvestigation of the Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Public Service Commission, First District, Vol. IV, pp. 1613-1618, etc.[12]Ibid.[13]After this company had been forced into bankruptcy in 1908, the above sum was the estimate as stated by Receiver Whitridge. See also Col. Amory’s remarks, June 29, 1910,Third Avenue Company—Plan of Reorganization, Public Service Commission, First District, Stenographic Minutes, p. 2417.[14]Investigation of Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Public Service Commission, First District, Vol. II, pp. 774-775. D. C. Moorehead, Secretary and Treasurer of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, further testified that District Attorney Jerome had investigated these books in 1903, and that they were disposed of in 1905 for $117 or so; they were sold, Mr. Moorehead testified, “because of lack of store room.” No litigation, he said, was in progress at the time they were sold.[15]Investigation of Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Vol. III, p. 1395, etc.[16]Truth About Metropolitan, p. 2.[17]Report of the Joint Committee of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York, Appointed to Investigate the Finances of the State of New York. March 1, 1909, p. 10.[18]Ibid., p. 11.[19]Ibid.[20]Ibid.[21]Ibid.[22]Ibid., p. 13.[23]Ibid., p. 13.[24]Ibid., p. 14-15.[25]Ibid., p. 16.[26]Ibid., p. 26.[27]Ibid., p. 28.[28]Ibid.[29]Ibid., p. 115.[30]Ibid.pp. 112-113.[31]Why I Was Removed, by Theodore A. Bingham,Van Norden’s Magazine, September, 1909.

[1]When Ahearn was elected president of the Borough of Manhattan, it was “Boss” Murphy, with the “advice and consent” of the Tammany Executive Committee, who really chose his appointees to head the Department of Public Work, the Bureau of Highways, the Bureau of Sewers, the Bureau of Buildings, etc. Of course, Tammany district leaders were appointed; they were really responsible to the Tammany Executive Committee.

[2]SeeA Report on a Special Examination of the Accounts and Methods of the Office of the President of the Borough of Manhattan, Directed by Hon. George B. McClellan, Mayor, Commissioners of Accounts of the City of New York, July 16, 1907. This report gives the full findings of the Commissioners of Accounts. The full testimony is embodied in Vols. I to III ofTestimony, Ahearn Investigation, 1907, Commissioners of Accounts.

[3]SeeA Report on a Special Examination of the Accounts and Methods of the President of the Borough of the Bronx, etc., Commissioners of Accounts of New York City, June 16, 1908. The complete testimony in the Haffen Investigation is set forth in Vols. I to IV,Testimony, Borough of the Bronx Investigation, 1908, Commissioners of Accounts. See also Memorandum submitted to Governor Hughes, by the Commissioners of Accounts, 1909.

[4]The attorney here referred to was Joseph A. Flannery. Upon charges preferred by the Bar Association, and after a three years’ investigation, he was disbarred, May 17, 1912, by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He was found guilty on five of the six charges brought against him, one of which charges dealt with the notorious Hunt’s Point land “job.” It was on record that Flannery personally profited to the sum of $300,000 from various transactions of land sold to the city at fictitious valuations. On June 11, 1914, W. D. Guthrie, representing the New York Bar Association, reiterated the charges when he argued before the Court of Appeals at Albany for the confirmation of Mr. Flannery’s disbarment. Flannery’s attorney declared that nobody was misled or labored under a misapprehension as a result of his client’s actions; that the company for which Flannery was attorney knew as much about the transaction as did Flannery. On October 24, 1914, the Court of Appeals sanctioned Flannery’s disbarment.

[5]Summary of Findings, A Report on a Special Examination of the Office of the President of the Borough of the Bronx, etc. Commissioners of Accounts, June 16, 1908, p. 1.

[6]Ibid., p. 3.

[7]Ibid., p. 3.

[8]He had been elected Borough President of Queens in 1905, after a fight upon “Joe” Cassidy, long Democratic “boss” of Queens, in which campaign Bermel ran as an “Independent Democrat” and had violently denounced “Cassidyism and public graft.”

[9]In the Matter of Charges Preferred against Lawrence Gresser, President of the Borough of Queens, City of New York, Report of Commissioner Samuel H. Ordway, 1911, p. 91.

[10]In a signed statement in the New YorkEvening Call, February 27, 1909, Col. Amory declared that when this matter was originally exposed in the hearing before the Public Service Commission, the full facts were not brought out; that one of the ten original owners had recently informed him (Amory) that the price paid by Ryan and Brady was in reality only $25,000.

[11]SeeInvestigation of the Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Public Service Commission, First District, Vol. IV, pp. 1613-1618, etc.

[12]Ibid.

[13]After this company had been forced into bankruptcy in 1908, the above sum was the estimate as stated by Receiver Whitridge. See also Col. Amory’s remarks, June 29, 1910,Third Avenue Company—Plan of Reorganization, Public Service Commission, First District, Stenographic Minutes, p. 2417.

[14]Investigation of Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Public Service Commission, First District, Vol. II, pp. 774-775. D. C. Moorehead, Secretary and Treasurer of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, further testified that District Attorney Jerome had investigated these books in 1903, and that they were disposed of in 1905 for $117 or so; they were sold, Mr. Moorehead testified, “because of lack of store room.” No litigation, he said, was in progress at the time they were sold.

[15]Investigation of Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Vol. III, p. 1395, etc.

[16]Truth About Metropolitan, p. 2.

[17]Report of the Joint Committee of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York, Appointed to Investigate the Finances of the State of New York. March 1, 1909, p. 10.

[18]Ibid., p. 11.

[19]Ibid.

[20]Ibid.

[21]Ibid.

[22]Ibid., p. 13.

[23]Ibid., p. 13.

[24]Ibid., p. 14-15.

[25]Ibid., p. 16.

[26]Ibid., p. 26.

[27]Ibid., p. 28.

[28]Ibid.

[29]Ibid., p. 115.

[30]Ibid.pp. 112-113.

[31]Why I Was Removed, by Theodore A. Bingham,Van Norden’s Magazine, September, 1909.

It was only a few months after this election that the investigations of William H. Hotchkiss, State Superintendent of Insurance, followed by that of a New York Legislative committee into the matter of legislative graft, revealed the extensive and variegated corruption of both political parties.

An examination by Mr. Hotchkiss, in October, 1909, of the affairs of the Phœnix Insurance Company of Brooklyn had brought to light a mass of correspondence apparently disclosing an intimate connection between the president of that company and legislative measures, introduced from 1900 to 1910, affecting fire insurance companies. The materials thus unearthed caused Superintendent Hotchkiss to order a full examination of the books and records of other fire insurance companies, which examination was begun in January, 1910.

On January 18, 1910, the New YorkEvening Postpublished certain facts the purport of which tended to show that State Senator Jotham P. Allds, when Republican leader of the Assembly, in 1901, had been bribed to assist in killing certain legislation to which bridge construction companies objected. The Senate was forced to investigate, and Allds hastily resigned, but the Senate on March 29, 1910, sustained the charge of bribery by a vote of 40 to 9.

It was well understood that this virtuous action was “a sacrifice” and an ostentatious sop to public opinion;many more legislators than he were implicated in charges of corruption. Meanwhile, Mr. Hotchkiss was persisting in his investigation. In the course of Mr. Hotchkiss’ inquiry, on March 22, 1910, testimony developed the fact that for twenty years or more, “firebug” funds had been raised by insurance companies and lavishly distributed among legislators at Albany and that those companies had employed one William H. Buckley to act as “watcher” on “strike bills” introduced in the Legislature at Albany. Buckley admitted that at a time after only three years’ admission to the bar, he had received $27,000 from insurance companies for representing them during the sessions of the Legislature.

One of the bills introduced in the Legislature was a measure fathered by Senator Thomas F. Grady, a noted Tammany leader, celebrated as the chief orator of the Tammany organization. This bill, called a re-insurance act, was introduced and passed under such circumstances that Vice-President Correa of the Home Insurance Company referred to it in a contemporary letter as “bought legislation.” Mr. Correa also stated in that letter, which was in evidence, that only three re-insured fire insurance companies supported the bill, which gave those three companies a distinct advantage over 209 direct insurance companies doing business in New York State. The bill dealt with the carrying of a reserve where part of a fire risk was re-insured. Senator Grady declared, in a public interview, that this bill was introduced to protect policy holders by compelling the re-insurance company, when a part of a policy was farmed out by the company of the first instance, to keep an adequate reserve against the policy thus taken, but all of the insurance officers examined by Mr. Hotchkiss admitted either wholly or in part, that Grady’s interview did not represent a correct conception of what his bill actually provided.[1]

Another conspicuous Tammany leader implicated in the disclosures before Superintendent Hotchkiss was Senator “Big Tim” Sullivan. He had long been one of the really powerful leaders of Tammany Hall, and held direct sovereignty over the teeming East Side below Fourteenth Street.

Beginning life as a bartender, “Big Tim” Sullivan had been given the nickname “Dry Dollar” Sullivan, because of his habit of carefully wiping the bar before placing change on it. His career in the Assembly and Senate was notorious for the number of bad bills promoted or supported by him. His power in manipulating primaries and swaying elections on the East Side south of Fourteenth Street was recognized as that of a master hand; he knew how to make the “gangs” his obedient servants; not a secret of colonizing voters and carrying elections was unknown to him and his clan; at the same time he was called “the friend of the poor” because of his yearly practise of giving the wastrels of the Bowery and vicinity Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and presents. By his proved and consistent ability to sway politics in the great and thickly-populated East Side, he had to be recognized as an independent Tammany power; no one could become “boss” of Tammany Hall without his support. His power in Tammany was exceeded only by Mr. Murphy’s. In fact, he was one of the actual rulers, not only of Tammany Hall, but of New York City.

George F. Seward, president of the Fidelity and Casualty Company, testified on March 21, 1910, before Superintendent Hotchkiss, that a man representing himselfto be an agent of Senator “Big Tim” Sullivan, in 1891 or 1892, offered, in return for a $10,000 bribe, to have a bill inimical to that company’s interests killed. Mr. Seward, in response, dictated this telegram to Sullivan: “Mr. Seward says you can go to hell.” In reply to a question as to whether this happened when the Republican party or the Democratic party was in power, Mr. Seward replied, “So far as either party is concerned, I don’t think it would make very much difference, and I really do not recall.” Both parties, Mr. Seward said, were represented in the “Black Horse Cavalry” at Albany. In a public interview Sullivan denounced Mr. Seward’s charge as a lie. Recalled as a witness, on March 22, 1910, Seward adhered to the story he had told. It may be remarked here that when Sullivan died in 1913, he left a considerable fortune, originally estimated at two millions of dollars; his friends represented that he had made it from a chain of showhouses in which he was interested; but the inventory showed that he owned large quantities of stock in mining companies, realty companies and other concerns. Many of these shares, however, were listed by the executors of his estate as valueless. The definite value of Sullivan’s estate was placed at $1,021,277.33.

On March 24, 1910, certain definite facts were brought out showing how Buckley, lobbyist at Albany for the fire insurance companies, had succeeded in killing, in 1903, various proposed enactments which those companies did not want enacted.

Correspondence produced showed that Buckley had written to George P. Sheldon, president of the Phœnix Insurance Company, that “it was not difficult to tie the matter [insurance bills] up in the committee,” and later correspondence held out the assurance that the matter “had been arranged.” According to the testimony, Justice Edward E. McCall of the New York State Supreme Court had indorsed a $35,000 check from Sheldon to Buckley. On March 29, 1910, Darwin P. Kingsley, presidentof the New York Life Insurance Company, testified that Buckley had offered to buy him the votes of six members of the New York State Senate for a certain amount, and that when he (Kingsley) declined to pay, a certain insurance measure which Kingsley had favored was withdrawn.

These are but a few of the specific details brought out in the hearings before Mr. Hotchkiss; it appeared that at least ten prominent Republican legislators who had ruled important Senate and Assembly Committees for years had speculative accounts in the brokerage firm of Ellingwood & Cunningham of New York City, in which firm G. Tracy Rogers, keeper of the traction “Yellow Dog” fund during that period, was a special partner.

On April 8, 1910, State Superintendent of Insurance Hotchkiss made a full report to Governor Hughes of the investigation that he had made. Mr. Hotchkiss reported that the aggregate of disbursements by fire insurance companies in connection with legislation affecting those companies, from 1901 to 1909, probably exceeded $150,000.

“The moneys so paid,” Mr. Hotchkiss reported, “were disbursed for traveling expenses of individuals and delegations; annual and special retainers of regular counsels; so-called retainers of legislative lawyers; contributions to political committees; gifts or payments to men of political prominence and influence, and entertaining legislators and others, at times in a somewhat lavish manner.”

Mr. Hotchkiss further set forth in his report that the log rolling of “strike” bills in and out of committees was a regular business, that the books of the stock brokerage house of Ellingwood & Cunningham, New York City, “warrant a strong suspicion that such books, to an extent at least, had been a clearing house for financial transactions connected with legislation during the period mentioned,” and that G. Tracy Rogers, a special partner in the firm and long president of the Street Railways Association of the State of New York, seemed up to the time ofthe failure of that firm “to have been the legislative representative at Albany of the traction interests.” Mr. Hotchkiss reported that: “Certain of the accounts in these ledgers show a close connection between G. Tracy Rogers and the Metropolitan traction interests in New York City. The character of the securities dealt in [by legislators] frequently recalls legislation urged or retarded at about the same time.” Mr. Hotchkiss urged further inquiry, and in a special message to the Legislature, on April 11, 1910, Governor Hughes called on that body to follow, by means of a general investigation, the trails of legislative corruption laid bare by the Allds bribery trial and the investigation conducted by Superintendent Hotchkiss.

In the face of the exposures already made and the insistent demands for further investigation, the legislative committee appointed for the purpose could not evade pressing the inquiry.

The testimony on September 15, 1910, showed that during a single month in the summer of 1903, the sum of $40,000 was sent by an agent of the New York City street railway interests to the firm of Ellingwood & Cunningham, and that no vouchers or receipts were asked or given to account for the distribution of the money. At previous hearings, the fact had been established that this brokerage house was the firm which served as a “clearing-house” for the money supplied to members of the Legislature by G. Tracy Rogers. At the hearing on September 16, 1910, the evidence showed that Senator Louis F. Goodsell and Assemblyman Louis Bedell, prominent Republican leaders in the Legislature, had received large amounts of money from the Metropolitan Street Railway Company and G. Tracy Rogers from 1900 to 1904; Goodsell had received $24,800, and Bedell $21,750. Goodsell admitted that he had “bought” stock without putting up any margin.

At the same hearing, H. H. Vreeland, president of theMetropolitan Street Railway Company, testified that the Metropolitan Street Railway Company contributed campaign funds, and that it did so to practically every one that ran for office; he remembered $20,000 or $25,000 given to the Republican organization and $17,000 or $18,000 to the Democratic organization; this was in about the year 1902 or 1903. Another method of subsidizing politicians individually, Mr. Vreeland testified, was by carrying stocks on the books of various brokerage houses for them; these individual stock transactions ran from $20,000 to more than $30,000.

Much further testimony was brought out showing the enormous and continuous subsidizing of both old political parties and politicians by corporations wanting certain legislation enacted or smothered. On September 21, 1910, Mr. Vreeland admitted that the Metropolitan Street Railway Company had, prior to 1903, paid out fully $250,000 in “taking up” stocks that legislators and other politicians had been carrying with brokerage houses and which they desired converted into cash; this was one of the indirect methods of influencing political or legislative action in the interest of the company. G. Tracy Rogers testified that he had disbursed $82,475 in three years, and that most of it went to members of the railroad committees of the New York Legislature. In these hearings the names of a number of conspicuous legislators and the amounts received by them were brought out in the testimony.

Testimony, also under oath, on October 19, 1910, purported to show that a legislative corruption fund of $500,000 was raised at a meeting in Delmonico’s to defeat anti-race track gambling legislation at Albany in 1908; that Charles H. Hyde,[2]Chamberlain of New YorkCity under Mayor Gaynor, attended this meeting, and that State Senator Frank Gardner went to Albany with Hyde because Hyde did not know the ways of legislators and how to approach them “properly.”

Hyde’s father-in-law was William A. Engeman, owner of the Brighton Beach race track; according to the testimony, Hyde made a subscription for Engeman (who had failed to pay), and later put in a bill for personal expenses covering the amount. The testimony further represented that there was a dispute as to who was to handle the bribery funds, and that $125,000 was given to James E. Gaffney “to take care of three or four members of the Legislature—Tammany men.” According further to the testimony, Senator Thomas F. Grady, Democratic leader at Albany and close friend and spokesman of “Boss” Murphy, received only $4,000 of the bribery fund. Two Republican State Senators wanted $25,000 each. The testimony also involved Senator Patrick H. McCarren. Senator McCarren was the Democratic “boss” of Brooklyn; he was an ally of Tammany Hall (for the Democratic organization in Brooklyn retained its autonomy separate from that of Tammany Hall, yet allied with it), and he was the legislative agent of various financial interests and trusts.

It appeared, according to the testimony, that Senator McCarren was angry that the handling of the race track fund was entrusted to others; he objected “to a strange man going up there, expecting to get away with such a proposition,” but later he was placated and lent his aid against the bill. When urging Senator Foelker, a Brooklyn Republican, to vote against the bill, McCarren was represented as saying to Foelker: “You need not fear the indignation of your constituents. If you are afraid of possible reelection or have any doubts about election time, I think I can fix it up for you so you can name your own opponent at the coming election.” This was the substance of the testimony of Assistant District AttorneyRobert Elder, of Brooklyn, who narrated the facts revealed to him by former State Senator Frank Gardner, under indictment charged with attempting to bribe Foelker. (Here the fact should be noted that when Gardner was tried on this charge he was acquitted on February 23, 1911.) Mr. Foelker himself testified that he was offered $45,000 and then $50,000 to vote against the bill, which offer he refused; the vote on the bill was extremely close, and a single vote meant its passage or defeat.

At further hearings of the Legislative “Graft Hunt” Committee, Senator Eugene M. Travis, of Brooklyn, testified that an ineffectual effort had been made, at a time when the foes of the measure needed only one or two votes, to bribe him with $100,000 to vote against the bill prohibiting horse racing in New York State. Senator Travis specified three other Senators whom they attempted to bribe. August Belmont testified that the $500,000 fund was “mythical and absurd.” It was reported that representations made at the hearing on November 30, 1910, were to the effect that one jockey club alone had expended $33,000 while the anti-race track gambling legislation was pending, and that information from reliable sources tended to show that each of the other seven racing associations had expended a similar sum, or perhaps more. Further information, it was given out, was to the effect that each of ninety-three bookmakers had subscribed $3,000 each. The total of the above stated contributions would have amounted to $543,000—supposing the fund to have been a fact.

Whatever were the basic facts, pro and con, as to the alleged $500,000 fund for the defeat of the anti-race-track bill, the record shows that it was defeated on April 8, 1908, by a-vote of 25 to 25, and that among those voting against it were such Tammany Senators as Grady, Frawley, McManus, Sullivan and other Tammany men and Democrats,—in all seventeen Democrats and eightRepublicans. A new State Senator having been elected in a special election in one district, the bill prohibiting gambling at race tracks was subsequently passed.

Nearly all of those involved made vehement denials. Senator McCarren had died on October 23, 1909—a year before these hearings. Although cooperating with “Boss” Murphy in elections, there was nevertheless considerable animosity between the two, arising, it was generally believed, from a suspicion that Mr. Murphy, inflated by his personal victory in electing McClellan in 1903, was attempting to extend his political territory to Brooklyn. Senator McCarren had openly protested against this “encroachment” and had threatened trouble if it were pushed. It was this jealously vigilant attitude on the part of the bosses of the other boroughs which prevented Tammany Hall from extending its regular organization outside the former city limits.

McCarren himself was a “sporting man” and reputed to be a “thoroughbred” at that. He had his own elaborate racing stable, and it was said of him that he once uncomplainingly lost $30,000 on a bet, although the decision of the racing judges was open to question. In 1908 the failure of the brokerage firm of Ennis & Stoppani revealed the fact that McCarren was “carrying” $250,000 worth of stock, for which he had paid nothing, and which resulted in a loss to him of about $107,000. No demand had been made by the brokers upon McCarren for margins; in view of this fact he could not have been compelled to pay losses; it was said of him, however, that he gave a check to the receiver and took the stock. He was a “heavy operator” in real estate and in the stock market, and had personal relations with H. H. Rogers, Anthony N. Brady, William C. Whitney, J. Pierpont Morgan, W. K. Vanderbilt, August Belmont and other Wall Street magnates, of whose interests he was a recognized pusher in the Legislature.

To return, however, to the hearings of the Legislative“Graft Hunt” Committee: facts brought out showed that the beet sugar interests had also debauched the Legislature and that State Senator John Raines, a leading Republican, received $9,000 in two years for pushing bounty bills to aid beet sugar interests. These facts were admitted by Henry F. Zimmerlin, former vice-president and Albany lobbyist of the Lyons Beet Sugar Refining Company.

The full testimony tended to show that insurance companies, traction companies, construction companies and other interests paid large sums to defeat legislation that they did not want enacted, or were blackmailed into paying other large sums to have “strike bills” suppressed. But the report of the Legislative Investigating Committee, made on February 1, 1911, was harmless as far as specific findings of corruption were concerned. As to the charges of traction and race track corruption, the Committee reported that no definite and substantial charge, verified by knowledge, had been filed with it, and that “in consequence it finds nothing definite in regard to the traction and race track charges that it examined.”[3]There were one or two indictments, but no one, either bribers or bribed, had to go prison, although in charges made in a detached subsequent case, one solitary State Senator, Stilwell, was convicted of bribery charges and sentenced to prison; he was a comparatively obscure politician.

Inasmuch as the Legislature for years had been dominantly Republican, these disclosures had a much more injurious political effect upon the Republican organization than upon Tammany, and they were of weight inbringing about the election of a Democratic Governor in the person of John A. Dix, in 1910. This was the first Democratic Governor of New York State elected in many years; the result was the enlargement of Tammany’s sway, and more offices and further fields of power and profit for “the Organization.”

At the same time, a Legislature, the majority of which were Tammany men and Democrats, was elected. The election of a United States Senator coming up, the chief aspirant pushed for the place was William F. Sheehan, an attorney for the traction magnate, Thomas F. Ryan. Mr. Murphy had his headquarters in Albany directing the contest; he was said to have given his promise to Mr. Sheehan, but when he saw that Sheehan could not be elected, he tried to bring about the election of Daniel F. Cohalan, his personal attorney and adviser, as United States Senator. A few years previously, Cohalan was an obscure lawyer, but as the friend and adviser of “Boss” Murphy, his practise had grown to large and lucrative proportions; it was a practise principally dealing with matters concerning municipal affairs. In 1908 Mr. Murphy had caused Mr. Cohalan to be chosen Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society.

But Mr. Murphy found that it was not possible to put Cohalan in the United States Senate. Certain “insurgent” Democratic legislators elected from various parts of the State, wanted neither Sheehan, Ryan’s attorney, nor Cohalan, Murphy’s attorney. Finally Justice James A. O’Gorman (who years previously had been elected to the New York State Supreme Court by Tammany) was compromised upon as the candidate for United States Senator and elected.

Then Mr. Murphy decided to make Mr. Cohalan Justice O’Gorman’s successor on the Supreme Court Bench.

According to published report, the appointment of Mr. Cohalan as a Justice of the Supreme Court by Governor Dix was the result of “a deal” between Dix and Murphy.Governor Dix wanted the appointment of George C. Van Tuyl, as State Commissioner of Banks, confirmed. The nomination of Van Tuyl was referred to the Senate Finance Committee, of which Senator Frawley, a Tammany district leader, was chairman. A report was prepared recommending that the nomination of Van Tuyl be confirmed, but this report was held up week after week, and the statement was common in the political slang current at Albany that no action could be taken in presenting the report “until the Governor comes across with Cohalan.” At last, on May 18, 1911, Senator Frawley suddenly presented the report, moved its confirmation, and the Senate acquiesced. Sixteen minutes later a message appeared from Governor Dix announcing the appointment of Daniel F. Cohalan to succeed James A. O’Gorman as Justice of the Supreme Court for the remainder of O’Gorman’s unexpired term.

Back to Index Next