The session of 1911 was the first time in nineteen years that the Democratic party had control of the Legislature, and Tammany Hall was in control of the Democratic organization in the State. It was at this session that a strong effort was made to enact the Tammany-Gaynor “Ripper” Charter, the provisions of which aroused much scandal. The majority of the Board of Estimate in New York City were at this time Independent Democrats. The proposed charter would have arbitrarily deprived them of many of their most important functions of office. Its aim was to impair the powers of the Board of Estimate in many destructive ways, and to centralize power in the hands of the Mayor. It would have given the Mayor complete domination of the development of transportation facilities in New York City. Such effective opposition was raised that it was defeated by the votes of Independent Democrats in the Assembly. At this session it was, too, that an attempt was made to pass the Sullivan Inferior Criminal Courts “Ripper” bill which, by making city magistrates elective instead of appointive,would have restored the old pernicious, demoralizing system of local political influence. These were but two of a list of other proposed Tammany measures.
Mr. Murphy’s habits as leader at this time were in singular contrast with those of years previously when, as a district leader, he had made his hailing place by a lamp post. He now used a luxurious suite of rooms at Delmonico’s fashionable restaurant, at Fifth avenue and Forty-fourth street, where, during campaign contests, he held his secret consultations. Here those whom the “Boss” desired to see on terms of great privacy were summoned, nor were they admitted, it was reported, before they had been first scrutinized and received by Mr. Murphy’s factotum, “Phil” Donohue, the treasurer of Tammany Hall, who took his stand in an anteroom. During the campaign of 1911, when County and Assembly candidates were to be elected, Mr. Murphy was to be found almost daily at Delmonico’s, and, according to published report, Justice Cohalan was there with him frequently. It was at this election that Mr. Cohalan was elected Justice of the Supreme Court for a period of fourteen years.
Veteran politicians who had learned the wisdom of combining the pocketing of millions with the art of simple appearances, shook their heads ominously at what they considered “Boss” Murphy’s tactlessness in vaunting his power, surrounded by ostentation and grandiose luxury.
FOOTNOTES[1]An indication of Senator Grady’s large sources of income had come to public notice in 1907 when the District Attorney’s force raided the poolroom “clearing house” at 112 Fulton street, New York City. Canceled checks and other records found there revealed that a mysterious person designated variously in the syndicate’s account books as “Tommy,” “T. G.,” “T. Grady,” and “Sen.,” had “raked off” more than $43,000 on the poolroom business in the first two years of the syndicate’s existence and had continued to profit from that source up to the very time of the raid. No doubt, however, Grady had his losses, too.[2]Hyde, on November 29, 1912, was convicted in court on a charge of accepting a bribe, as a public officer, in consideration for depositing public money in certain banks. He was sentenced to two years in State’s prison. But the verdict was later reversed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and he was released from all criminal charges.[3]The Committee commented: “The investigation shows clearly the extreme difficulty of securing exact information which will disclose the methods by which powerful financial interests seek to control legislative action in matters coming before legislative bodies.“The crime of bribery is one of the most difficult of all crimes to uncover. All the resources of ingenuity are used to conceal it, and only in exceedingly rare instances are either of the parties to the crime willing to come forward and disclose the facts.”
[1]An indication of Senator Grady’s large sources of income had come to public notice in 1907 when the District Attorney’s force raided the poolroom “clearing house” at 112 Fulton street, New York City. Canceled checks and other records found there revealed that a mysterious person designated variously in the syndicate’s account books as “Tommy,” “T. G.,” “T. Grady,” and “Sen.,” had “raked off” more than $43,000 on the poolroom business in the first two years of the syndicate’s existence and had continued to profit from that source up to the very time of the raid. No doubt, however, Grady had his losses, too.
[1]An indication of Senator Grady’s large sources of income had come to public notice in 1907 when the District Attorney’s force raided the poolroom “clearing house” at 112 Fulton street, New York City. Canceled checks and other records found there revealed that a mysterious person designated variously in the syndicate’s account books as “Tommy,” “T. G.,” “T. Grady,” and “Sen.,” had “raked off” more than $43,000 on the poolroom business in the first two years of the syndicate’s existence and had continued to profit from that source up to the very time of the raid. No doubt, however, Grady had his losses, too.
[2]Hyde, on November 29, 1912, was convicted in court on a charge of accepting a bribe, as a public officer, in consideration for depositing public money in certain banks. He was sentenced to two years in State’s prison. But the verdict was later reversed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and he was released from all criminal charges.
[2]Hyde, on November 29, 1912, was convicted in court on a charge of accepting a bribe, as a public officer, in consideration for depositing public money in certain banks. He was sentenced to two years in State’s prison. But the verdict was later reversed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and he was released from all criminal charges.
[3]The Committee commented: “The investigation shows clearly the extreme difficulty of securing exact information which will disclose the methods by which powerful financial interests seek to control legislative action in matters coming before legislative bodies.“The crime of bribery is one of the most difficult of all crimes to uncover. All the resources of ingenuity are used to conceal it, and only in exceedingly rare instances are either of the parties to the crime willing to come forward and disclose the facts.”
[3]The Committee commented: “The investigation shows clearly the extreme difficulty of securing exact information which will disclose the methods by which powerful financial interests seek to control legislative action in matters coming before legislative bodies.
“The crime of bribery is one of the most difficult of all crimes to uncover. All the resources of ingenuity are used to conceal it, and only in exceedingly rare instances are either of the parties to the crime willing to come forward and disclose the facts.”
Mayor Gaynor was by no means pliable to Tammany purposes; he both asserted and exercised his independence of “Chief” Murphy. But although great powers were centralized in his office, there were nevertheless numbers of Tammany men in the various departments, bureaus and courts. Of the 85,000 regular employees of New York City in 1912 (including 10,118 policemen and 4,346 firemen), many were Tammany men, the larger number of them occupying subordinate positions. The entire city payroll at this time aggregated about $89,000,000—an average outlay of $7,500,000 a month for salaries and wages alone. The city budget for 1913 was $190,411,000.
Despite the appointment of successive Police Commissioners—there had been eight within eleven years—to remedy matters in the Police Department, the state of affairs in that department was still a fruitful cause of scandal. This continuing scandal was brought to a vivid climax by a murder the deliberate audacity of which horrified and aroused the people of the city.
On April 15, 1912, Police Lieutenant Charles Becker went, at the head of his “raiding squad,” to the gambling house of Herman Rosenthal on West Forty-fifth street. On July 11, 1912, Rosenthal went to the West Side Police Court to protest against the “oppression” of the police in stationing a uniformed man constantly on duty in his house. Shortly thereafter, Rosenthal made an affidavit,which was published in the New YorkWorldon July 14, 1912, swearing that Police Lieutenant Becker had been his partner in the operation of the gambling house and had made the raid for certain personal purposes hereafter explained.
If at this time a Tammany district attorney had been in office, the results might not have been fatal to Rosenthal. But the district attorney, Charles S. Whitman, was an official noted for his excellent record. It was well realized that when he agreed to listen to Rosenthal’s charges against Becker, he could not be “reached” by any “influence” or intimidated by any threat. The alternative on the part of somebody vitally interested was to slay Rosenthal on the principle that “dead men tell no tales,” and thus prevent important disclosures being made to the district attorney.
At 2 o’clock on the morning of July 16, 1912, Rosenthal was summoned out from the doorway of the Hotel Metropole at Broadway and Forty-third street, and shot to death by four “gunmen” from within an automobile, which immediately after the shooting sped away with the murderers.
Arrests of suspects quickly followed. By July 29, 1912, District Attorney Whitman held four men, all of whom had become informers. These four were “Bald Jack” Rose, “Bridgie” Webber, Harry Vallon, and Sam Schepps—two of whom, Rose and Vallon, had voluntarily surrendered. On statements made by Rose and Vallon, the Grand Jury returned an indictment against Becker charging murder in the first degree. A few days later, Becker was re-indicted, and indictments were handed in against the four “gunmen”—Louis Rosenberg, alias “Lefty Louie,” 23 years old; Harry Horowitz, alias “Gyp the Blood,” 26 years old; Jacob Seidenshner, alias “Whitey Lewis,” 26 years old, and Frank Cirofici, alias “Dago Frank,” 29 years old. These “gunmen” were variously arrested at different places.
Stirred by this brutal murder, a mass meeting of citizens was held at Cooper Union on August 14, 1912. Resolutions were adopted part of which approved a proposal for an appropriation by the city of $25,000 for an investigation into police conditions and a thorough inquiry into the causes and possible remedies of systems of blackmail and graft. A Citizens’ Committee was appointed by this mass meeting to report on these conditions.
Of the police force this committee reported on February 26, 1913, that:
“The corruption is so ingrained that the man of ordinary decent character entering the force and not possessed of extraordinary moral fiber may easily succumb. About him are the evidences of graft and the enjoyment of irregular incomes substantially increasing the patrolman’s salary. Inadequate condemnation is shown by his associates in the force for such practises; on the contrary, there is much indirect pressure which induces him to break his oath of office; the families of grafting policemen live better than his own, and the urgencies of his family and of his own social needs tempt him to thrive as do his corrupt associates. Such a system makes for too many of the police an organized school of crime. The improvement of recent years—and there is some—is not great enough to satisfy an aroused public.“But not resting with this general knowledge of the existence of such matters, this Committee has made an intensive examination of the conditions in a number of police precincts. We know that the connection between members of the police force and crime or commercialized vice is continuous, profitable and so much a matter of course that explicit bargains do not have to be made; naturally this “honor among thieves” is occasionally violated, as is customary among thieves, both the keeping and the breaking of faith being determined by these policemen for their own profit.“Well knowing this police ‘system,’ grand juries will not on police testimony indict violators of the law, lest they [the grand juries] be lending themselves to police persecution of a selected criminal who had refused tribute, and so be helping the police ‘system.’ For the same reason petit juries will acquit, and judges will discharge, and crime increases and goes unpunished, while honest policemen are discredited and discouraged.“Evil thus breeds new maggots of evil. The sums collected by the police excite the greed of certain politicians; they demand their shares, and in their turn they protect the criminal breaches of the law and the police in corruption. The presence of ‘politics’ brings strength and complexity to the ‘system’ and makes itharder to break up. The city, we believe, is convinced that it is time for more radical efforts at improvement.”[1]
“The corruption is so ingrained that the man of ordinary decent character entering the force and not possessed of extraordinary moral fiber may easily succumb. About him are the evidences of graft and the enjoyment of irregular incomes substantially increasing the patrolman’s salary. Inadequate condemnation is shown by his associates in the force for such practises; on the contrary, there is much indirect pressure which induces him to break his oath of office; the families of grafting policemen live better than his own, and the urgencies of his family and of his own social needs tempt him to thrive as do his corrupt associates. Such a system makes for too many of the police an organized school of crime. The improvement of recent years—and there is some—is not great enough to satisfy an aroused public.
“But not resting with this general knowledge of the existence of such matters, this Committee has made an intensive examination of the conditions in a number of police precincts. We know that the connection between members of the police force and crime or commercialized vice is continuous, profitable and so much a matter of course that explicit bargains do not have to be made; naturally this “honor among thieves” is occasionally violated, as is customary among thieves, both the keeping and the breaking of faith being determined by these policemen for their own profit.
“Well knowing this police ‘system,’ grand juries will not on police testimony indict violators of the law, lest they [the grand juries] be lending themselves to police persecution of a selected criminal who had refused tribute, and so be helping the police ‘system.’ For the same reason petit juries will acquit, and judges will discharge, and crime increases and goes unpunished, while honest policemen are discredited and discouraged.
“Evil thus breeds new maggots of evil. The sums collected by the police excite the greed of certain politicians; they demand their shares, and in their turn they protect the criminal breaches of the law and the police in corruption. The presence of ‘politics’ brings strength and complexity to the ‘system’ and makes itharder to break up. The city, we believe, is convinced that it is time for more radical efforts at improvement.”[1]
A Committee of the Board of Aldermen, appointed to inquire into matters connected with the Police Department, held eighty public sessions, took 4,800 pages of testimony and records, handed in certain conclusions, and made recommendations for further laws. “We have received shocking evidence of a widespread corrupt alliance between the police and gamblers and disorderly house keepers,” this committee reported in part.[2]During the same time, District Attorney Whitman was vigorously prosecuting public offenders. In a single year four police inspectors were convicted of conspiracy and were also under indictment for bribery, one police captain was convicted of extortion, one lieutenant was convicted of extortion, one patrolman of perjury, and two patrolmen were convicted of extortion. In addition, there were various indictments of patrolmen for extortion. Of the convicted, the captain and one patrolman confessed; an attorney and a citizen indicted for bribery in connection with police matters, also confessed.
To return to the trials for the murder of Rosenthal: At Becker’s trial Rose testified that his connection with Becker had begun in 1911, after a “raid” on a gambling house kept by him (Rose) on Second Avenue; that the levying of tribute on “unraided” gamblers was systematized; that Rosenthal was brought under this system of “protection”; that Rosenthal and Becker had become partners; and that Rosenthal in March, 1912, had refused to “give up” $500 for the defense of Becker’s press agent who was charged with the killing of a negro in a “raid” on a crap game. According further to Rose’s testimony, this refusal brought on strained relations betweenBecker and Rosenthal; and that after the “raid” on Rosenthal’s gambling house, on April 15, 1912, when Rosenthal threatened “to squeal,” Becker began to plan for the “fixing” of Rosenthal. In June, 1912—so Rose testified—when “Big Jack” Zelig, an East Side gang leader, was in the City Prison, the plan was determined upon of negotiating with him that, in exchange for his release, some of his “gunmen” should “attend to” Rosenthal. The four “gunmen” arrested, Rose swore, were the tools that committed the murder, and he (Rose) had acted as Becker’s agent in arranging matters with them. The testimony further showed that on the afternoon after the murder, the quartet of “gunmen” had received $1,000 as payment, after which they quit the city.
On the testimony of Rose and others, Becker was convicted on October 24, 1913; the conviction of the four young “gunmen” soon followed. All five were sentenced to death. By a decision of the Court of Appeals, on February 24, 1914, Becker was allowed a new trial upon the ground that by reason of hostile rulings his trial had not been fair, but the conviction of the four “gunmen” was affirmed. They were electrocuted at Sing Sing prison on April 13, 1914. Subsequently, after a second trial, Becker was again convicted, and was duly electrocuted.
Another source of quick-ripening trouble to Tammany Hall, turning large numbers of voters against its chief, Mr. Murphy, and against the whole system of the “Organization,” was the summary manner in which it impeached and disposed of Governor William Sulzer.
Mr. Sulzer had been a member of Tammany Hall for twenty-five years, and had always been pushed into office by Tammany Hall since the time when, as a young man, he had been one of Mr. Croker’s protégés. Elected to the New York State Assembly, he had been made its Speaker at a youthful age. Later he had been repeatedly sent to Congress by Tammany Hall nominations, and it was primarily a Tammany backing that caused his nominationand election as Governor, in 1912. Tammany believed that it had every reason to feel sure that as Governor Mr. Sulzer would continue pliable and docile to the “Organization’s” orders and interests.
“Boss” Murphy, however, was soon disillusioned when Governor Sulzer declined dictation.
According to Mr. Sulzer’s detailed story,[3]he (Sulzer), immediately prior to going into office as Governor, spent an afternoon with Mr. Murphy at his request in his private room at Delmonico’s.
“His attitude,” Mr. Sulzer related, “was very friendly and confidential. He said he was my friend; that he knew of my financial condition and wanted to help me out. As he went on, I was amazed at his knowledge of my intimate personal affairs. To my astonishment, he informed me that he knew I was heavily in debt. Then he offered me enough money to pay my debts and have enough left to take things easy while Governor. He said that this was really a party matter and that the money he would give me was party money … and that nobody would know anything about it; that I could pay what I owed and go to Albany feeling easy financially. He then asked me how much I needed, to whom I owed it, and other personal questions.
“As I did not want to be tied hard and fast as Governor in advance, I declined Mr. Murphy’s offer, saying that I was paying off my debts gradually; that my creditors were friends and would not press me; that I was economical, that I would try to get along on my salary as Governor.” Mr. Sulzer asserted that Mr. Murphy repeated the offer, and that when he (Sulzer) again refused, Mr. Murphy said, “If you need money at any time, let me know, and you can have what you want. We cleaned up a lot of money on your campaign. I can afford to let you have what you want and never miss it.”
Then, according further to Mr. Sulzer’s story, Mr. Murphy wanted Governor Sulzer to meet him at the hotel in Albany where Murphy was staying; Sulzer did not go. Subsequently, on the night of February 2, 1913, they met at Justice Edward E. McCall’s house in New York City, where Murphy urged the appointment of his friend, John Galvin, to succeed Mr. Willcox as a member of the Public Service Commission in New York City. The Public Service Commission is a body invested with enormous authority in the matter of granting of public franchises and other comprehensive powers; it had been under anti-Tammany control, and it was a body the domination of which was pressingly sought by Tammany; there were vast subway franchises to be awarded, and the powers of that body could be used with almost autocratic effect in certain ways over the entire range of recognized public service corporations. Governor Sulzer would not appoint Galvin, but finally compromised upon the selection of Justice Edward E. McCall as Chairman of the Public Service Commission.
“At this meeting and subsequently,” Mr. Sulzer declared, “Mr. Murphy demanded from me pledges regarding legislation and especially concerning appointments to the Public Service Commission, the Health Department, the Labor Department, the State Hospital Commission, the Department of State Prisons and the Department of Highways.” Murphy insisted that various Tammany men whom he named should be appointed to those offices. Mr. Murphy, however, favored the retention in office of C. Gordon Reel, State Superintendent of Highways, saying that he was “a good man.” “Mr. Murphy added,” Mr. Sulzer’s statement continued, “that if I wished a new State Superintendent of Highways, ‘Jim’ Gaffney was the best all-around man for the job.”
“When I took office as Governor of the State last January,” Mr. Sulzer declared in a signed published statement,
“on the very first day my attention was abruptly called to the fact that during the year just ended there had been spent in the State $34,000,000 WITHOUT A SINGLE AUDIT.“On the second day that I was in office a messenger presented to me bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, pointing out to me where I was to sign my name. If I had attached my signature to those bills they would have been immediately paid, and yet the messenger thought that he was telling me nothing unusual when he said that other Governors had signed bills that way, and that one Governor had left a rubber stamp outside his office with the messenger, so that he would not be bothered.“‘Leave those bills there,’ I said, ‘and I’ll look into them. The rubber stamp period is over.’”
“on the very first day my attention was abruptly called to the fact that during the year just ended there had been spent in the State $34,000,000 WITHOUT A SINGLE AUDIT.
“On the second day that I was in office a messenger presented to me bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, pointing out to me where I was to sign my name. If I had attached my signature to those bills they would have been immediately paid, and yet the messenger thought that he was telling me nothing unusual when he said that other Governors had signed bills that way, and that one Governor had left a rubber stamp outside his office with the messenger, so that he would not be bothered.
“‘Leave those bills there,’ I said, ‘and I’ll look into them. The rubber stamp period is over.’”
After Mr. Sulzer had become Governor he learned, as his statement read, that the State Architect had expended more than $4,300,000 in the previous year; that this was done practically on the certificate of that official, and that there had been no proper audit; the vouchers had been carried to the trustees of public buildings, composed of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and Speaker of the Assembly by a clerk and approved by the use of a regular office stamp. Governor Sulzer also learned, he said, that the appropriation for 1912 had been exceeded by nearly half a million dollars, and that there was no proper supervision. Governor Sulzer appointed John A. Hennessy as Commissioner to investigate reports of graft in these and other departments. At the same time, he appointed George W. Blake as Commissioner to inquire into prison management.
Mr. Hennessy’s report disclosed the most widespread graft. In construction work on public buildings, large bills had been submitted for inferior material; the payrolls on the electrical and other contracts had been padded; regular State employees had been displaced as inspectors and timekeepers by political henchmen from Tammany District Leader James J. Hagan’s district in Manhattan, from which the State Architect, his secretary, and the foreman on the general work came. At Governor Sulzer’s request, Mr. Hennessy asked the State Architect for his resignation, but Senator Frawley, another Tammanydistrict leader, intervened with a protest to Governor Sulzer against any interference with the work on the State Capitol or other State buildings.
“I sent for Hennessy,” Mr. Sulzer’s narrative went on, “who in my presence related to Senator Frawley the main facts in the case, but Frawley still persisted that nothing should be done with the State Architect’s office, at least until there had been further consideration of the case. I told Hennessy to return to the State Architect (Mr. Hoofer) and insist upon his resignation. What happened between these two men I can only tell from Hennessy’s recital to me. Hoofer told him that he (Hoofer) was not a free agent, that he had no control over his deputies, that he had no control over his secretary, nor did he have any control over the men who checked up the work. He (Hoofer) said they were all appointed through Tammany Hall.… Hoofer said he wanted to consult somebody in New York. While I held the ’phone, I told Hennessy to ask Hoofer the name of the man, and Hennessy responded that Hoofer wanted an opportunity to see Charles F. Murphy and explain certain things.”
Governor Sulzer allowed a few days’ delay. Shortly before the time limit that Governor Sulzer had set for Hoofer’s resignation, “John H. Delaney came to me,” Mr. Sulzer’s story went on, “and said that he had been talking to ‘the Chief’ over the ’phone, and that Murphy wanted Hoofer’s resignation to go over until such time as he could discuss the case with me.” A little later “Senator Wagner, Senator Frawley and John H. Delaney came into the Executive Chamber and informed me that Murphy was insistent that nothing should be done in the case of Hoofer during that week, and it was a subject that would have to be discussed with the organization.” Upon Governor Sulzer’s demand that he resign or be immediately removed, Mr. Hoofer wrote his resignation.
The next official removed by Governor Sulzer was C. Gordon Reel, State Superintendent of Highways, following Commissioner Hennessy’s investigation and the disclosures of extensive graft in highway contracts in a large number of counties. The amount of this graft has been variously estimated at from $5,000,000 to $9,000,000. That the system of plundering the State in the building of roads was no fiction was shown later in the large number of indictments (followed by many convictions) handed down against politico-contractors and State employes in New York State.
In the most important of the indictments found by the Suffolk County Grand Jury on January 22, 1914, the Grand Jury charged “grand larceny” and “conspiracy” in the construction of a so-called “cementitious Hudson River gravel road” the specifications of which designated a material absolutely controlled by Henry Steers, of the contracting firm of Bradley, Gaffney & Steers, commonly known as “the Tammany Trust.”
During an investigation conducted by James W. Osborne, in behalf of New York State, the testimony, on February 17, 1914, indicated that State Superintendent of Highways Reel ordered the use of a patented road for roadways and caused the specifications to be changed so as to favor the Gaffney-Bradley-Steers Company which controlled this particular patented pavement. And when Mr. Sulzer testified, on February 29, 1914, before the Assembly “Graft Hunt” Investigating Committee, he said that an average of 30 per cent. of the money paid for those State roads (which had been investigated by Mr. Hennessy) went into the contract, and that 70 per cent. went into the pockets of politicians and contractors. Mr. Sulzer asserted that about $9,000,000 had been stolen in 1912.
According to Mr. Sulzer, Mr. Reel’s appointment as State Commissioner of Highways had been Mr. Murphy’s “personal selection.” When Governor Sulzer’s attitudeindicated Reel’s removal, Mr. Murphy (so Sulzer stated) pressed forward the appointment of “Jim” Gaffney to succeed Reel. “Mr. Murphy demanded the appointment of Gaffney, and still later a prominent New Yorker came to me in the Executive Mansion bringing the message from Mr. Murphy that it was ‘Gaffney or war.’ I declined to appoint Gaffney.
“This is the Gaffney who, only a few months afterwards, on September 4, 1913, in undisputed testimony before the Supreme Court of New York, was shown to have demanded and received $30,000 in money (refusing to take a check) from one of the aqueduct contractors, nominally for ‘advice.’ This is the man who Mr. Murphy demanded should be put in a position where he would superintend and control the spending of sixty-five millions of the money of the State in road contracts.”
Mr. Sulzer here referred to the testimony of Harry B. Hanger, aqueduct contractor, who swore that he paid Mr. Gaffney $30,000 for “expert advice on the labor situation” on one contract, and $10,000 for the same services on another contract. Mr. Gaffney later—on March 20, 1914—himself testified before the Special Grand Jury in New York City as to this transaction.
It was the same Mr. Gaffney, too, whose name was involved in the award of Contract No. 22 for the Catskill Aqueduct. This contract was awarded on March 19, 1909, over two lower bidders to Patterson & Company, a firm of no great capital or experience. James W. Patterson, Jr., head of that firm, subsequently testified before the Grand Jury, in 1914, to his making arrangements to pay 5 per cent. of the contract price ($824,942.50) as a “contribution to Tammany Hall.” John M. Murphy, a Bronx contractor, testified that, as agent for James E. Gaffney, he had arranged to sell the contract, and had received from Mr. Gaffney 10 per cent., or $4,125, as his share of a certain $41,250, after threatening“to kick over the whole deal” if Gaffney did not give the proper “honorarium.”
It appeared from the testimony that $41,250 in bills had been deposited in escrow to be handed over by James G. Shaw, the “stakeholder,” to a some one designated as Gaffney, on the day after the award of Aqueduct Contract No. 22. Questioned as to whom this $41,250 was given, Mr. Shaw could not remember, which forgetfulness made the fastening of legal proof impossible. The special Grand Jury investigating this matter reported, however, in a presentment to Justice Vernon M. Davis, in the Supreme Court, New York City, on April 21, 1914, that the Grand Jurors were morally satisfied that a crime had been committed in the sale of Contract No. 22 to Patterson & Company, and that this contract could not have been sold and delivered, as it was, in the name of James E. Gaffney, “without the collusion of a member of the Board (of Water Supply) itself.” Inasmuch as five years had passed since the transaction, the Statute of Limitations intervened to bar criminal prosecution.
In an inquiry later conducted by District Attorney Whitman, James C. Stewart swore that one “Gaffney” asked him for a contribution of five per cent. upon $3,000,000 worth of canal work that he (Stewart) was seeking. Stewart refused to make the arrangement; his bid was much the lowest, but he did not then get the contract. Precisely what “Gaffney” it was who proposed the handing over of this $150,000, Stewart averred that he could not tell; he had never seen him previously. When, on January 30, 1914, District Attorney Whitman brought Stewart and James E. Gaffney face to face, Stewart said that he could not identify Mr. Gaffney as the man who demanded the $150,000.
During the course of this same inquiry Mr. Sulzer testified, on January 21, 1914, that on learning that Stewart was to be denied the contracts, he telegraphed on December18, 1912, to the Canal Board asking it to defer action until he could consult with its members. Whereupon John H. Delaney came to him and excitedly said, “My God, Congressman, what have you done? It angered the Chief more than anything else I have ever known. The Chief is wild.” The “Chief,” otherwise Charles F. Murphy, demanded an interview with the Governor-elect at once.
In this interview, which was held at Delmonico’s, Mr. Sulzer quoted Mr. Murphy as saying to him, “Why did you send that telegram to the Canal Board? You have no right to butt in on things that don’t concern you. I’m attending to that matter, and I want you to keep your hands off. If you are going to begin this way, I can see now where you will end as Governor. You do what you are told hereafter, and don’t take any action on matters that don’t concern you without conferring with me.” When Mr. Sulzer said he was going to be Governor, Mr. Murphy (so Sulzer testified) replied: “So that is the way you understand it? Well, if you go along that line, I can see where you will end up damned quick. You are going to be Governor? Like hell you are!”
Mr. Sulzer further testified at this hearing that on the evening of March 3, 1913, at a luncheon in Washington, he told Senator O’Gorman that Mr. Murphy was putting the “screws” on him and bringing to bear all the influence he could to have James E. Gaffney appointed Commissioner of Highways, and that Senator O’Gorman had said: “Governor, if you appoint Jim Gaffney Commissioner of Highways it will be a disgrace to the State of New York and it will ruin your political career as the Governor. Don’t you know that Gaffney is Murphy’s chief bagman? Don’t you know he is the man Murphy sends out to hold up the contractors? Don’t you know he is the man that held up my client, James G. Stewart, for over a hundred thousand dollars, and he would have got away with it if Stewart had not come to me, and ifI had not gone to Murphy and read the Riot Act, telling him that I would not stand for that kind of politics; that he had to stop Gaffney, and that if he didn’t stop Gaffney, so far as my client was concerned, I would expose him.”
Subsequently Mr. Sulzer met Mr. Murphy several times, and was importuned (so he testified) to appoint Mr. Gaffney. When Sulzer replied that it was impossible, Mr. Murphy announced, “Well, it’s Gaffney or war.” Mr. Sulzer’s testimony went on: “At this conversation, one of the things Mr. Murphy said to me was, ‘If you don’t do this, I will wreck your administration.’ It was not the first time he had threatened me, and I answered, ‘I am the Governor, and I am going to be the Governor.’ He said, ‘You may be the Governor, but I have got the Legislature, and the Legislature controls the Governor, and if you don’t do what I tell you to do, I will throw you out of office.’” After Governor Sulzer had removed Reel, Mr. Murphy was still pressing Gaffney’s appointment.
Of the inquiries into graft carried on by George W. Blake and John W. Hennessy, Mr. Sulzer testified: “Their reports staggered me, and believe me, it takes something to stagger me. There was graft, graft everywhere, nor any man to stop it.” Mr. Sulzer testified that Mr. Murphy had sought to hamper the graft exposure by causing to be cut off—for the first time in the State’s history, he said—the Governor’s contingent fund, and he described how it became necessary to raise money by private subscription to enable the graft inquiry to be carried on.
“I have been in office now for six months,” wrote Mr. Sulzer in a signed article later, “and in that time I have learned enough to be able to say without fear of contradiction that in the past three years $50,000,000 of the people’s money has been wasted or stolen.”
In a talk, on March 18, 1913, with Mr. Murphy overappointments to the Supreme Court of New York State, the Tammany chief—so Mr. Sulzer related—“threatened me with public disgrace unless I agreed to his program on legislative matters and appointments. It was at this conference, too, that he talked about the things he ‘had on me,’ and said that I had better listen to him and not to his enemies up the State; that if I did what he told me I would have things easy and no trouble, and that if I didn’t do what he wanted me to, I would have all the trouble I wanted.…
“He was very insulting. Then I asked him what he could do to destroy me. And he said: ‘Never mind; you will find out in good time. Stand by the organization and you will be all right. If you go against the organization, I will make your administration the laughing stock of the State.’ It was at this time that he asked me to call off George Blake, the commissioner who was investigating the prisons.… I told him that Blake was an efficient man and that I was going to let him go on with his work, and he said, ‘If you do you will be sorry for it. Mark what I am telling you now!’
“I told him what I had heard about the vileness of things in the Sing Sing and Auburn prisons. I said: ‘We certainly ought not to stand for them. I want to get at the facts, and if there is anything wrong, stop it; if there is any graft, eliminate it.’ Mr. Murphy told me that he didn’t want anything done in connection with Sing Sing prison by Blake or any other man; that the warden there, Mr. Kennedy, was a friend of his and a good man, and he wanted him left alone. This, remember, was the warden whom I afterward removed from his place on charges and who was since indicted by the Westchester grand jury.” It may be noted here that later there were a number of prosecutions in prison graft cases. The graft in the prisons reached a total of many millions of dollars in the one item alone of the substitution ofbad food for the good food paid for by the State. Extensive grafting was found in other respects.
Mr. Sulzer added that one of the agents through whom Mr. Murphy most frequently communicated with him was Justice Edward E. McCall. “Judge McCall usually spoke of Mr. Murphy as ‘the Chief,’ and would say to me that ‘the Chief’ wished such and such a thing done, or demanded that I follow such and such a course of action. Every Tammany member of either house who approached me from day to day used the same language, saying that ‘the Chief’ demanded this or demanded that, or that ‘the Chief’ had telephoned to put through such a piece of legislation, or kill some other piece of legislation.”
Meanwhile, on March 10, 1913, reports of trouble between Governor Sulzer and Mr. Murphy had become public; when on this date Sulzer removed C. Gordon Reel as State Superintendent of Highways, it was reported in the newspapers that Murphy had asked Governor Sulzer to name James E. Gaffney, his partner in the contracting business, as Reel’s successor. On the next day, Mr. Murphy hotly denied that he had asked Gaffney’s appointment. From day to day further reports of estrangement were published. In a speech before the Democratic editors of the State, on March 25, Sulzer asserted: “No man, no party, no organization can make me a rubber stamp. I am the Governor. Let no man doubt that.”
It appeared that Mr. Murphy had the idea that Sulzer was at heart a Progressive; it may be explained that the Progressive party had polled a large vote and was recognized as a powerful political factor.
It was on the night of April 13, 1913, that Governor Sulzer, according to his interview published later in the New YorkEvening Mail, held his final interview with Mr. Murphy. “I asked him,” Mr. Sulzer said, “not to interferewith the trial of Stilwell in the Senate. I said, ‘What are you going to do about him?’ ‘Stand by him, of course,’ replied Mr. Murphy. ‘Stilwell will be acquitted. It will only be a three-day wonder. How do you expect a Senator to live on $1,500 a year? That is only chicken feed.’ … Before we parted that night, I warned Mr. Murphy that he would wreck the party and accomplish his own destruction if he persisted in shielding grafters and violating platform pledges. His angry retort was that I was an ingrate, and that he would disgrace and destroy me.”
In fact, as Mr. Murphy predicted, Senator Stephen J. Stilwell was voted not guilty of official misconduct, by a vote of 28 to 21 in the Senate, after an investigation by the judiciary committee of charges of bribery made against him by George H. Kendall, president of the New York Bank Note Company. But subsequently Stilwell was indicted in New York County, convicted of bribery upon substantially the same evidence as that upon which a majority of his colleagues in the State Senate had acquitted him, and he was sentenced to a two-year term in prison.
Replying later to Mr. Sulzer’s charges, Mr. Murphy definitely denied that he had ever recommended the appointment of James E. Gaffney as Highways Commissioner; that he ever mentioned Gaffney’s name to Governor Sulzer for any office; he emphatically denied that he ever made the threats that Sulzer attributed to him or that he ever sent for Mr. Sulzer to come and see him. Mr. Murphy asserted that he never saw Sulzer alone after he became Governor “because I knew he’d do just what he has done—perjure himself.”
In April, 1913, Governor Sulzer pushed his Direct Primary Bill, and Tammany members of the Legislature decided in retaliation to defeat all bills favored by him and to “hold up” all of his appointments. On April 24, 1913, Tammany legislators were stirred to anger by hisveto of a direct primary bill that they had concocted; a few days later they overwhelmingly voted down his direct primary bill. More retaliation followed on both sides.
It was during this time—in May, 1913—that the New YorkWorldpublished specific charges that in return for a promise made two years previously to get a lucrative post for J. A. Connolly, a personal friend, Justice Cohalan, Murphy’s legal and political adviser, had taken a note from Connolly for $4,000. This promise, it was charged, had not been kept. There were, it was also charged, back of this note a series of transactions in the years 1904 to 1906 between Connolly and Cohalan involving the payment of various sums amounting to $3,940.55; Connolly claimed that Cohalan had demanded and obtained from him 55 per cent. of the net profits on all city work that was given to Connolly’s firm by means of Cohalan’s influence. Connolly further claimed that the payments to Cohalan were calculated on this basis, and that their friendship ceased when Cohalan demanded $1,500 more than Connolly reckoned was due him. Threatened with an action at law, Cohalan surrendered the $4,000 note to Connolly’s attorney.
These charges were investigated by the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association; the report of that committee confirmed every charge made. Refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the Bar Association, Justice Cohalan requested Governor Sulzer to have the charges passed upon by the Legislature; this Governor Sulzer did in a special message embodying the report of the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association. The Legislature ordered a trial before the Joint Judiciary Committee. Justice Cohalan admitted on the witness stand that he had made a great mistake in his dealings with Connolly, and that the money he had paid to Connolly was blackmail given in the hope of hushing up the affair for the good of his party. William D. Guthrie, representing the Bar Association, reviewed the case in detail, and demandedJustice Cohalan’s removal. The Joint Judiciary Committee’s report recommended that the case against Justice Cohalan be dismissed, which report was upheld by a majority vote of the Legislature. Opponents of Tammany pointed out that this was a characteristic action from a Legislature dominated by Tammany influences.
FOOTNOTES[1]Report of the Citizens’ Committee Appointed at the Cooper Union Meeting, August 12, 1912, pp. 6-7.[2]Preliminary Legislative Report of Special Committee of Board of Aldermen, p. 6.[3]An extended interview published in the New YorkEvening Mail, October 20 and 21, 1913.
[1]Report of the Citizens’ Committee Appointed at the Cooper Union Meeting, August 12, 1912, pp. 6-7.
[1]Report of the Citizens’ Committee Appointed at the Cooper Union Meeting, August 12, 1912, pp. 6-7.
[2]Preliminary Legislative Report of Special Committee of Board of Aldermen, p. 6.
[2]Preliminary Legislative Report of Special Committee of Board of Aldermen, p. 6.
[3]An extended interview published in the New YorkEvening Mail, October 20 and 21, 1913.
[3]An extended interview published in the New YorkEvening Mail, October 20 and 21, 1913.
The campaign of retaliation against Governor Sulzer soon came to a climax.
On July 15, 1913, a committee called the Frawley Committee (headed by Senator Frawley) was appointed to inquire into Governor Sulzer’s receipts and expenditures of campaign funds. After taking testimony, that committee submitted its report with the finding that, following his campaign for Governor, Mr. Sulzer had omitted declaring in his campaign statement $19,000 of contributions to his campaign fund and had purchased, for his personal account, stocks with part of the moneys thus received.
The evidence, according to the committee’s report, showed that a total of $109,016 in cash or stock had been in Mr. Sulzer’s possession, and that this sum came from campaign contributions. Mr. Sulzer had used both cash and checks to purchase stocks; and as far as could be brought out by the records and testimony, his Wall Street transactions with three brokerage firms covered a total of $72,428.28, dating from January 1, 1912. It appeared that the greater part of these payments were made after he became a candidate for Governor and was elected to that office. Mr. Murphy and other Tammany leaders pointed out that while these very transactions had been going on, Mr. Sulzer had in his public speeches pretended that he was a poor man.
Mr. Sulzer’s own version was that if he had made a mistake in signing his campaign statement it was due to haste and carelessness and not to intent to deceive. “But,” he added,
“this is not the only explanation of the failure to itemize certain moneys which were received in the campaign. Some of the moneys were not for campaign purposes at all, but were loans. They were given to me by friends who knew I was heavily in debt, and who loaned me the money to pay my debts or to use as I saw fit. These friends wanted nothing, and in case of my election I knew there was nothing they would ask me to do, or that I could do for them. Politics had nothing to do with the matter.“All the moneys given to me, or sent to me for the campaign, were turned over to the committee, to which reference has been made, or were subsequently given to Mr. Murphy. Whether the latter turned these moneys over to the State Committee or not I cannot say, but an investigation of the report filed by that committee negatives the assumption.”
“this is not the only explanation of the failure to itemize certain moneys which were received in the campaign. Some of the moneys were not for campaign purposes at all, but were loans. They were given to me by friends who knew I was heavily in debt, and who loaned me the money to pay my debts or to use as I saw fit. These friends wanted nothing, and in case of my election I knew there was nothing they would ask me to do, or that I could do for them. Politics had nothing to do with the matter.
“All the moneys given to me, or sent to me for the campaign, were turned over to the committee, to which reference has been made, or were subsequently given to Mr. Murphy. Whether the latter turned these moneys over to the State Committee or not I cannot say, but an investigation of the report filed by that committee negatives the assumption.”
On August 13, 1913, the Assembly, by a vote of 79 to 45, impeached Governor Sulzer on eight articles. Trial by the High Court for the Trial of Impeachments, consisting of the State Senate and the Judges of the Court of Appeals, followed.
Governor Sulzer vigorously fought back, and public opinion was greatly aroused over his charges that the affair was simply a case of the Tammany “Organization” summarily disciplining him for refusing to be its tool. He was convicted on three of the eight articles of impeachment: (1) that he had filed with the Secretary of State a false sworn statement of his campaign receipts and expenditures; (2) perjury in swearing to the truth of the campaign accounting; (3) committing a misdemeanor in suppressing evidence and preventing or seeking to prevent witnesses from appearing before the legislative committee. On October 17, 1913, Governor Sulzer was removed from office by a vote of 43 to 12 by the High Court for the Trial of Impeachments.
It should be noted that Chief Justice Edgar M. Cullen, of the Court of Appeals, who presided at the trial, votedto acquit Mr. Sulzer on every one of the articles. “Never before the present case,” said Chief Justice Cullen, “has it been attempted to impeach a public officer for acts committed when he was not an officer of the State.…” Chief Justice Cullen held that Mr. Sulzer had committed no offense in failing to state the amounts and sources of his campaign contributions, and that there was no evidence of any deceit or fraud.
Governor Sulzer’s supporters set forth the following as the main actual reasons why proceedings for his removal were pushed:
First: Mr. Sulzer’s persistent efforts to secure the enactment of the Full Crew legislation to conserve human life on the railroads.
Second: Mr. Sulzer’s success in securing the enactment of the laws that he recommended to compel honest dealings on the New York Stock Exchange.
Third: Mr. Sulzer’s refusal to approve the McKee Public Schools Bills which would have given control of public schools to a religious denomination.
Fourth: Mr. Sulzer’s successful efforts in causing the repeal of the notorious charter of the Long Sault Development Company, by which the State of New York received back its greatest water power and the most valuable of its natural resources.
Fifth: Mr. Sulzer’s defiance of the bosses-big and little—and his fight for honest and genuine direct primaries.
Sixth: Mr. Sulzer’s determined refusal to be a proxy Governor or “a rubber stamp.”
Seventh: Mr. Sulzer’s absolute refusal to follow “boss” dictation regarding legislation and appointments, and his blunt refusal to call off Blake and Hennessy, and stop the investigations which were being made, under his direction, to uncover fraud and expose graft in the State Departments.
Eighth: Mr. Sulzer’s moral courage, in the performanceof public duty, wherein he insisted on the trial and punishment of Senator Stilwell for extortion.
Ninth: Mr. Sulzer’s determination to set in motion the machinery of the law, in various counties of the State, to indict the grafters and bring them to justice.
There could be no questioning that the proceedings against Sulzer had an effect upon the public mind the reverse of that expected by “Boss” Murphy and his advisers.
The attempt of Tammany Hall’s leaders to pose in this case as the conservers of political virtue met with a sardonic reception and quickly reacted upon them in unmistakable terms. Public opinion in general made no attempt to mitigate Mr. Sulzer’s acts, but, with a keen perception of the fundamental facts, it saw that the real reason why Governor Sulzer was so brutally punished was not because of those acts but because he had finally broken away from Tammany dictation and had sought to be somewhat of an independent Governor. Every intelligent person knew that this was his crime in the view of the Tammany organization, and, according to Tammany standards, the worst crime that could be committed. That an organization which had been steeped in corruption and graft should so ostentatiously pretend to be the exposer and punisher of infractions in an official who had defied its power, excited mockery, resentment and indignation. Public sympathy turned toward the deposed Governor, and he was nominated for the Assembly by the Progressives in an East Side district.
As we have seen, one of the chief issues upon which Gaynor had made his Mayoralty campaign in 1909 was for municipally built and operated subways.
After becoming Mayor, he underwent a decided change of mind. The subway rights were awarded to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. The Final Report of the Joint Legislative Committee appointed to investigate the PublicService Commissions severely criticizes the policy and the terms under which the contracts were made by the Public Service Commission and the Board of Estimate. On the other hand, defenders of the Board of Estimate’s action point out that the reasons why that Board changed from city to company subways were that by the cooperation of the companies, the city had the benefit of $150,000,000 more in funds than would have been the case without that cooperation; that the new subway lines instead of being independent, disconnected routes, unrelated to existing transportation lines, would be built in appropriate extenso of subway facilities already in operation; and that by this arrangement not only would the service be harmonized and improved but the payment of double fares would be done away with and an aggregate of vast sums thus saved to the traveling public. The circular routes by which the city’s transportation problems will be more effectively and constructively solved were adopted despite Gaynor’s favoring the Interborough Rapid Transit Company’s perpendicular routes plan.
One feature of the testimony later before the Joint Legislative Committee especially attracting public attention was the imputation that in the contract for the third-tracking of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company’s elevated railroads, a fund of $2,000,000 was surreptitiously provided in the form of a commission to John F. Stevens. Formerly Mr. Stevens had been associated in the construction of the Panama Canal with Mr. Shonts who now was president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. This company, in the third-tracking work, wanted exemption from supervision by the Public Service Commission. According to a memorandum preserved by George W. Young, an Interborough director, this contract with Mr. Stevens was entered into (so, it was asserted, Mr. Shonts told Mr. Lane, another director), because “in connection with the securing of the contract which had been closed between the City ofGreater New York and the Interborough, Mr. Shonts had found it necessary to make certain commitments and incur certain obligations, and that it was by means of the Stevens contract that he expected to meet and pay these commitments and obligations.”[1]
The Joint Legislative Committee thus comments on the testimony: “It is perfectly clear that Mr. Shonts did tell Mr. Lane something about commitments and obligations in respect to this strange proposition; it is equally clear that he was not under any business commitment or honorable obligation to Mr. Stevens. He made a request of the Public Service [Commission] Chairman for an exception from the general contract, relieving third tracking from official supervision, and had told the reason for it in his desire to give the contract to Mr. Stevens. He did obtain exemption from supervision, and that applied to the contractor to whom finally the contract was awarded.”[2]
The chairman of the Public Service Commission here referred to was Edward E. McCall. Whatever may be the shadowy implications conveyed in this report, no statement is made that any corruption was used, nor is any proof presented that any official was improperly influenced. The salient fact was that McCall, in an era when corporation activities were more and more rigorously scrutinized by official bodies, should have reverted to by-gone standards and graciously allowed a removal of that very supervision which it was expected the Public Service Commission would insist upon exercising.
Tammany Hall’s nominee in the municipal campaign of 1913 was this same Edward E. McCall.
When an attorney, Mr. McCall had been connected with certain operations of the New York Life Insurance Company, of which corporation his brother, John A. McCall,was president. It appeared from the testimony before the Legislative Insurance Investigating Committee, in 1905, that Edward E. McCall had given notes, totalling about $10,000, to “Andy” Hamilton, the chief legislative lobbyist at Albany of that company and distributor of the “Yellow Dog Fund.”
Precisely why Edward E. McCall should have given those notes was not explained. Hamilton received great sums in all for legislative purposes; in the transferring of some of the sums Edward E. McCall figured. Both Edward E. McCall and “Andy” Hamilton received “excessive remuneration” from the New York Life Insurance Company, apparently for legal services in a certain case, which sums, according to the report of Charles E. Hughes, there was no adequate reason for paying. At the same time that these sums were paid to them, both Edward E. McCall and Hamilton were under a regular retainer as attorneys by the New York Life Insurance Company, each of them receiving $10,000 a year.
Mr. McCall was put upon the Supreme Court Bench in 1902, by Tammany backing, and remained there until his appointment, in 1913, by Governor Sulzer as Chairman of the Public Service Commission, First District.
The greatest exertions were made by Tammany to sway the electorate so as to swing the election in its favor. Tammany realized that the Sulzer episode would be an important issue, but it did not anticipate that the summary removal of Governor Sulzer, with all the attendant circumstances, would make so unpleasant an impression, driving large numbers of voters to the other side. Tammany thought that it had put Sulzer on the defensive; it did not quite foresee the effect of revelations which, before the campaign was over, placed Tammany seriously on the defensive and its leaders under the necessity of making explanations.
Moreover, in selecting its candidates and developingits campaign tactics Tammany did not appreciate the very much altered attitude of a large section of the public toward municipal politics. There had arisen in New York City an increased public demand for proved administrative capacity. The old days of public toleration of choosing politicians for “good fellowship” or subservient qualities had about gone. The emphasis was now placed by Tammany’s opponents upon the fact that cities should be not merely governed, but well governed, by men of vision, ability and integrity.
The candidate for Mayor of the Republicans and Fusionists was John Purroy Mitchel, a young Independent Democrat, who was credited with having made a notable record as Commissioner of Accounts. Later he had been President of the Board of Aldermen, and then Collector of the Port of New York. Nominated with him were William A. Prendergast, for Comptroller, and George McAneny for President of the Board of Aldermen; all were eulogized by their supporters with having served the city with constructive ability and marked efficiency, and with having opposed and exposed Tammany graft and extravagance.
The Socialist Party’s candidate for Mayor was Charles Edward Russell, a writer of note and a man of high personal character.
Full of bitterness was this campaign. Perhaps the most effective speakers against Tammany Hall were John A. Hennessy and former Governor Sulzer. Mr. Hennessy in a public speech on October 23, 1913, specifically charged that he held a note for $35,000 that had been signed by a Justice of the Supreme Court who had been Mr. Murphy’s alternative candidate for Mayor. “I do not say that the $35,000 was ever paid to anybody. I don’t suspect him of any vices that would induce him to borrow $35,000.… If he has had to pay $35,000 or more for his [Supreme Court] nomination, why he simply followed a tradition in the organization to which he belonged.”
Mr. Hennessy charged Mr. McCall with not answeringthe question of where he got his campaign money, and asked Mr. McCall whether, in 1902 (when McCall was a candidate for the Supreme Court nomination) he, McCall, had not met George W. Plunkett, a Tammany district leader—the originator of the term “honest graft”—in a room in the Hoffman House, and whether Anthony N. Brady was not in another room at the same time. “I want to ask Judge McCall,” Mr. Hennessy continued, “whether his sponsor, Charlie Murphy, had not seen Anthony Brady in respect to McCall’s nomination in the Hoffman House, and I want to ask Judge McCall if the gentleman who brought him and Plunkett together to discuss that nomination, did not have something to do with Murphy and Mr. Brady in respect of that nomination.” Mr. Hennessy charged that one man that Mr. McCall paid was Plunkett, but he (Hennessy) did not know whether he paid Murphy, or whether he paid the amount to somebody who paid Murphy; he (Hennessy) did not undertake to assert that.
The Anthony N. Brady here mentioned was a traction magnate, who, beginning as a clerk in Albany, had by means of legislative manipulation giving richly valuable railway and other franchises, accumulated an estate of $90,000,000.
In several speeches Mr. Hennessy pointedly asserted that James Stewart, a contractor, had paid $25,000 to a former friend of Charles F. Murphy, and inquired whether J. Sergeant Cram (a prominent Tammany light) had not received $5,000, and Norman E. Mack another $5,000.
At a public meeting on October 25, 1913, Mr. Sulzer declared that he had sent to Charles F. Murphy $10,000 that Allan Ryan (Thomas F. Ryan’s son), had contributed to his campaign fund, and that Mr. Murphy had never accounted for it.
Mr. Sulzer named John H. Delaney (later State Commissioner of the Department of Efficiency and Economy),as the messenger who had carried the $10,000 in bills to Mr. Murphy. This money, Mr. Sulzer asserted, had originally been handed to him (Sulzer) in his New York office by Mr. McGlone, Allan Ryan’s secretary, and that he (Sulzer) gave the $10,000 to Delaney, who took it uptown and gave it to Murphy. “Late that afternoon,” Mr. Sulzer continued, “I saw Mr. Murphy at Delmonico’s. During our conversation, I said, ‘Did John give you the ten from Ryan?’ Mr. Murphy replied: ‘Yes, that’s all right, but it’s only a drop in the bucket. You’ll have to do better than that.’ So far as I know,” Mr. Sulzer continued, “and I am pretty well advised, Mr. Murphy never accounted for that $10,000, any more than he accounted for the Brady $25,000 which I refused and which he accepted from Judge Beardsley [Brady’s legal representative]. At all events, I think Mr. Murphy should tell the voters what he did with the money.” Mr. Sulzer declared that he (Sulzer) was still in debt, and that “I am a poorer man to-day than I was when I became a candidate for Governor.” No one acquainted with Sulzer’s career could doubt that had he been essentially corrupt, he could have become a millionaire from huckstering of legislation when he was Speaker of the Assembly; there was no bribing him, however, with money; he was, in fact, a poor man.
Mr. Sulzer then declared that Thomas F. Ryan was “Boss” Murphy’s master.
This, in fact, was the very point made by the Socialists: that the political “bosses” were only the tools of the great financial and industrial magnates; and that where the political “bosses” gathered in their millions, the magnates accumulated their tens or hundreds of millions of dollars as their individual fortunes. Why, queried the Socialists, concentrate attention on the instruments? Why not, said they, attack the power of the whole social, political and industrial system of which the political “boss” was merely one expression? This system, accordingto the Socialist party, was the capitalist system for the overthrow of which they declared and agitated. They pointed out that behind Mr. Murphy and Tammany Hall, as well as behind the Republican organization where it was in power, were traction, railroad, telephone, electric lighting, industrial and other financial interests all selfishly utilizing the power embodied in political “bosses” for their own ends and aggrandizement, and that these were the real powers that could make and unmake political “bosses.”
Gaffney, Cram and Plunkett had all denied allegations aimed at them; Murphy and McCall had remained silent. But on October 26, 1913, McCall and Murphy both issued statements. Mr. McCall denied the charge that he had paid $35,000 for the nomination for the Supreme Court in 1902. Mr. Murphy made public an affidavit in which he (Murphy) denied that McCall had ever paid him anything at any time, and branding the charge as false. On the next day Mr. Murphy gave out a long statement making a sweeping denial of Mr. Sulzer’s statements; he asserted that he had received the $25,000 from Anthony N. Brady, but that he had returned the money the next day; he also denied that he had ever received $10,000 from Ryan.
Mr. Hennessy returned to the attack. On the same day he charged that a seat in the United States Senate (to succeed Senator Root) had been offered to Sulzer if he would yield to Mr. Murphy, and that it was Mr. McCall who acted as the intermediary.
In a public speech on the following day, October 28, 1913, Mr. Hennessy demanded the tracing of Mr. Brady’s $25,000, and suggested that it might be well to examine the executors of Brady’s estate and find out whether Brady had deposited $25,000 two days after Judge Beardsley had handed that money to Mr. Murphy. “I knew Mr. Brady very well,” Mr. Hennessy went on. “I have known Mr. Brady since he was selling groceries in Albanytwenty-five or twenty-six years ago, … and I know that he never carried around $25,000 in bills every day in his pocket; so if he got this $25,000 in bills from Mr. Murphy, he undoubtedly deposited it somewhere.” Mr. Hennessy chided Mr. Murphy with having been told by his district leaders to answer him, after he (Murphy) had declared that he would not notice the charges, and said that Mr. Murphy was “shoving it off on a dead man.”
When, on October 29, 1913, former Judge Beardsley, counsel for the Brady estate, issued a statement asserting that the $25,000 was returned to Brady, Mr. Hennessy in a public speech demanded proof and charged that an alibi was being proved over the body of a dead man. Mr. Hennessy made the charge that in the campaign of 1910 Mr. Murphy had collected fully $150,000 for which he had not accounted in the statement filed with the Secretary of State. “Most of this money,” Mr. Hennessy declared, “came from contractors who were clubbed into giving it.”
So this exciting campaign drew to a close amid sensational charges, counter charges, denials and reiterations.
Over in Queen’s Borough, the Democratic “boss” of that section, “Joe” Cassidy, was in serious difficulties; he had long, with some intermissions, ruled that part of the city; and although he was not a Tammany man, nor did Tammany rule Queens, in the strict sense of the meaning, yet he was an ally of Tammany and had always “consulted” Mr. Murphy.
Local “Boss” Cassidy and one of his lieutenants were under indictment for conspiring in selling a nomination in 1911, to the Supreme Court Bench to William Willett, Jr., and Willett was indicted for being a party to the conspiracy. During his trial later, Cassidy admitted that he was “boss,” but asserted his honesty. Questioned as to why he did not deposit a certain sum in bank, he replied, “I was used to carrying money in my pocket. I waslonesome without a roll in my pocket.” It may be said here that Willett was convicted, and likewise were Cassidy and one of his lieutenants by a jury on February 2, 1914; Cassidy and Willett were each sentenced to an indeterminate sentence of not less than a year in prison and a fine of $1,000, and Cassidy’s lieutenant “go-between,” Louis T. Walter, received a sentence of three months and a fine of $1,000. After serving a year in prison Cassidy was released and later (January 19, 1917) was restored to citizenship by Governor Whitman.
Intelligent people contemplated with wonderment the antiquated tactics that Tammany Hall was blindly following. Although the discussion of pressing economic problems was vitally concerning great masses of people, Tammany Hall seemed unaware of their existence. The rapid development of the trusts, the concentration of capitalist power and wealth, the tense unrest among different classes of people, were reflected in various political and industrial movements, but in Tammany Hall no attention was given to them. Oblivious to the great industrial changes and popular agitations and thought, Tammany still adhered to its old semi-feudalistic methods of “carrying its vote”; it concerned itself only with matters of offices, jobs, contracts and interested legislation; it depended upon immense campaign funds and the personal following of its leaders in marshaling the army of voters all of whom by jobs or other such self interest sought to perpetuate its power.
New York City had also grown too vast for the Tammany district leaders to control as they did in the decades when it was smaller and compact. Great numbers of people had moved from Manhattan to other boroughs; and this constant process of migration had much weakened the power of Tammany organization leaders in keeping in touch with the voters. The Jewish vote had grown to enormous proportions, and so had the Italian, but theJewish vote was generally a vote racially independent of Tammany and not particularly sympathetic to the character, racial and religious, of its leaders.
Tammany Hall was overwhelmingly defeated. Mr. Mitchel’s plurality was 124,262. The vote resulted: Mitchel, 358,181; McCall, 233,919; Russell, 32,057. All of the anti-Tammany candidates for city offices were elected by varying pluralities. Mr. Sulzer was triumphantly elected to the Assembly. However, Tammany men could glean some slight consolation in this hour of disaster; Lieutenant Governor Martin Glynn, who had succeeded Sulzer as Governor, could be generally depended upon to appoint some Tammany men to various appointive offices; when his list of appointments was handed down they were not altogether disappointed. Tammany was especially jubilant in getting control of the Public Service Commission, not to mention a firmer hold in various State departments.
The results of the municipal election cut Tammany off from city, county and national patronage; in such an extremity Mr. Murphy had little to offer famishing followers except soothing words which counted for nothing where practical results were demanded.
The mutterings against Mr. Murphy in certain quarters grew to open rebellion; no longer was he fulsomely praised as a sagacious political strategist; he was now derisively called a stupid blunderer for his successive actions and particularly for his campaign of reprisal against Sulzer—a campaign producing so inflaming an effect against Tammany.
A resolution introduced in the Democratic Club, on February 2, 1914, demanded that he retire from “all participation in the party’s affairs,” to which Mr. Murphy defiantly replied in an interview, “I am the leader of Tammany Hall. You can add that I am going to remain the leader of Tammany Hall no matter what some others might think they have to say about it.” Believing that atleast thirty-two of the thirty-four Tammany district leaders would vote to continue him in power, “Boss” Murphy made this announcement with apparent confidence. Indeed, it was reported that the Executive Committee of Tammany Hall had voted to retain his leadership.
A few days later some extracts from a letter written by Richard Croker to John Fox were made public. “Murphy was a big handicap to McCall,” Mr. Croker wrote. “The Hall will never win under Murphy’s management. I hope some good man will get in and drive all them grafters contractors out.” On March 10, 1914, at a meeting of the Democratic Club, Charles F. Murphy, James E. Gaffney, Thomas F. Foley, George W. Plunkett and Thomas Darlington were rudely read out of that club on the nominal ground of non-payment of dues, whereupon Thomas F. Smith, Secretary of Tammany Hall, styled that action “a joke” and declared that “the club has cut no figure locally since 1896.”
Mr. Murphy remained “the Chief” of Tammany Hall.
The various official inquiries into the system of graft in State contracts conducted by Special Commissioner James W. Osborne and other officials continued after the election. In January, 1914, Bart Dunn, an associate Tammany leader of the Eighteenth Assembly District and a close friend of Charles F. Murphy, was convicted of conspiracy in highways construction graft, and sentenced to ten months in the penitentiary and to pay a fine of $500; he took an appeal and was let out on bail. Subsequently, however, he was compelled to serve six months in prison.
On February 15, 1914, after he had been summoned to testify again in an investigation by District Attorney Whitman, State Treasurer John J. Kennedy committed suicide. As State Treasurer, Kennedy was ex-officio a member of the State Canal Board which had control of contracts now under investigation; his son was, in conjunction with others, one of whom was under indictment,in the business of bonding contractors on canal and other State work. It was believed that worry arising from the forthcoming examination as to his son’s transactions, was the cause of Kennedy’s suicide.
At a hearing conducted by the District Attorney’s office, in New York City, on February 26, 1914, Mr. Sulzer again related, this time in testimony, the story of the $25,000 campaign contribution by Anthony N. Brady and that of $10,000 by Allan Ryan, both of which contributions were made in 1912. “Once,” Mr. Sulzer testified, “in a talk with Murphy, he told me that Ryan had given a check for $25,000 in 1912. Murphy said that he would report that, but not the $10,000. He said he would find a dummy for that. He also found dummies for Brady’s $25,000.” Mr. Sulzer explained that a certain $25,000 that Mr. Murphy had returned to Brady was not the $25,000 that Brady had contributed to the campaign of 1912. Brady, so Mr. Sulzer testified, had sued Murphy for $40,000 and Murphy had settled the suit for $25,000; the records would disclose this suit, Mr. Sulzer said.
Thus far some of the smaller grafters have been convicted and sentenced to jail, but the really powerful politicians involved have not suffered. After two months’ consideration of the charges of graft and official misconduct brought against C. Gordon Reel, State Engineer John A. Bensel, Duncan W. Peck, State Superintendent of Public Works—the three officials forming the highways Commission under the régime of which, it was charged, the large grafting had been going on—the Albany County Grand Jury, on April 28, 1914, reported that no indictments had been found against any of these men, nor against Charles A. Foley, Deputy Superintendent of Highways. According to facts disclosed by Mr. Osborne’s investigation, many of the 318 repair contracts let by Foley and passed by Reel, Bensel and Peck, were awarded only after contractors had contributed to theDemocratic campaign fund. Numerous of the roads covered by these contracts were so badly constructed that they went to pieces within a year; and the State, so Mr. Osborne charged, thereby lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.