I. THE HISTORY OF THE RING.
We have spoken of the outrages practised upon the citizens of New York by the Common Council of that city. We must now turn our attention to the other branches of the City Government, and investigate the conduct of the real rulers of New York.
For several years the political power and patronage has been lodged in the hands of, and exercised by a set of men commonly known as “The Ring.” They rose to power in consequence of the neglect of their political duties by the respectable citizens of New York, and, having attained power, were not slow in arranging affairs so that their ill-gotten authority might be perpetuated. They controlled the elections by bribery, and the fraudulent counting of votes, and so filled the elective offices with their own creatures. Having done this, they proceeded to appoint to the other offices only such men as were bound to them, and whom they could trust to cover up their mutual dishonesty. Competency to discharge the duties of the offices thus given was not once considered. The Ring cared only for men who would unite in plundering the public treasury, and be vigilant in averting the detection of the theft. They wanted to exercise political power, it is true, but they also desired to enrich themselves at the public expense.
Having secured the city offices, with the control of the finances, the police, the fire department, and the immense patronage of the city, they believed themselves strong enough to hold
all they had won. They did not believe that the people of New York would ever awake to a true sense of their public duties, and, if they did, the Ring felt confident that they could control any election by filling the ballot-boxes with fraudulent votes. In many cases money was taken from the city treasury, and used to purchase votes for the Ring or Tammany Hall ticket. It was also used to bribe inspectors of elections to certify any returns that the leaders of the Ring might decide upon; and it came to be a common saying in New York that the Tammany ticket could always command a majority in the city sufficient to neutralize any hostile vote in the rest of the State. If the leaders of the Ring desired a majority of 25,000, 30,000, or any number, in the city, that majority was returned, and duly sworn to by the inspectors of election, even by those of the party opposed to the Ring; for money was used unsparingly to buy dishonest inspectors.
As a matter of course, no honest man took part in these disgraceful acts, and the public offices passed, almost without exception, into the hands of the most corrupt portion of the population. They were also the most ignorant and brutal. The standard of education is, perhaps, lower among the public officials of New York than among any similar body in the land. Men whose personal character was infamous; men who were charged by the newspaper press, and some of whom had been branded by courts of justice with felonies, were elected or appointed to responsible offices. The property, rights and safety of the greatest and most important city in the land, were entrusted to a band of thieves and swindlers. The result was what might have been expected. Public interests were neglected; the members of the Ring were too busy enriching themselves at the expense of the treasury to attend to the wants of the people. The City Government had never been so badly administered before, and the only way in which citizens could obtain their just rights was by paying individual members of the Ring or their satellites to attend to their particular cases. It was found almost impossible to collect money due by the city to private parties; but, at the same time, the Ring drew large
sums from the public treasury. Men who were notoriously poor when they went into office were seen to grow suddenly and enormously rich. They made the most public displays of their suddenly acquired magnificence, and, in many ways, made themselves so offensive to their respectable neighbors, that the virtue and intelligence of the city avoided all possible contact with them. Matters finally became so bad that a man laid himself open to grave suspicion by the mere holding of a municipal office. Even the few good men who retained public positions, and whom the Ring had not been able, or had not dared, to displace, came in for a share of the odium attaching to all offices connected with the City Government. It was unjust, but not unnatural. So many office-holders were corrupt that the people naturally regarded all as in the same category.
In order to secure undisturbed control of the city, the Ring took care to win over the Legislature of the State to their schemes. There was a definite and carefully arranged programme carried out with respect to this. The delegation from the City of New York was mainly secured by the Ring, and agents were sent to Albany to bribe the members of the Legislature to vote for the schemes of the Ring. Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, in his speech at Cooper Institute, November 2, 1871, says that $1,000,000, stolen from the treasury of the city, were used by the Ring to buy up a majority of the two Houses of the Legislature. By means of these purchased votes, the various measures of the Ring were passed. The principal measure was the Charter of the City of New York. “Under the pretence of giving back to the people of the City of New York local self-government, they provided that the Mayor then in office should appoint all the heads of Departments for a period of at least four years, and in some cases extending to eight, and that when those heads of Departments, already privately agreed upon, were once appointed they should be removable only by the Mayor, who could not be impeached except on his own motion, and then must be tried by a court of six members, every one of whom must be present in order to form a quorum. And then they stripped every legislative power, and every executive power
from every other functionary of the government, and vested it in half a dozen men so installed for a period of from four to eight years in supreme dominion over the people of this city.” [78]
Besides passing this infamous charter, the Ring proceeded to fortify their position with special legislation, designed to protect them against any effort of the citizens to drive them from office, or punish them. This done, they had unlimited control of all the public affairs, and could manage the elections as they pleased, and they believed they were safe.
The “Committee of Seventy,” appointed by the citizens of New York to investigate the charges against the municipal authorities, thus speak of the effect of the adoption of the New Charter, in their report presented at the great meeting at Cooper Institute, on the 2d of November, 1871:
“There is not in the history of villainy a parallel for the gigantic crime against property conspired by the Tammany Ring. It was engineered on the complete subversion of free government in the very heart of Republicanism. An American city, having a population of over a million, was disfranchised by an open vote of a Legislature born and nurtured in Democracy and Republicanism, and was handed over to a self-appointed oligarchy, to be robbed and plundered by them and their confederates, heirs and assigns for six years certainly, and prospectively for ever. A month’s exhumation among the crimes of the Tammany leaders has not so familiarized us with the political paradox of the New Charter of the City of New York, that we do not feel that it is impossible that the people of this State gave to a gang of thieves, politicians by profession, a charter to govern the commercial metropolis of this continent—the great city which is to America what Paris is to France—to govern it with a government made unalterable for the sixteenth part of a century, which substantially deprived the citizens of self-control, nullified their right to suffrage, nullified the principle of representation—which authorized a handful of cunning and resolute robbers to levy taxes, create
public debt, and incur municipal liabilities without limit and without check, and which placed at their disposal the revenues of the great municipality and the property of all its citizens.
“Every American will say: ‘It is incredible that this has been done.’ But the history of the paradox is over two years old. And it is a history of theft, robbery, and forgery, which have stolen and divided twenty millions of dollars; which have run up the city debt from $36,000,000 in 1869 to $97,000,000 in 1871, and which will be $120,000,000 by August, 1872; which have paid to these robbers millions of dollars for work never performed and materials never furnished; which paid astoundingly exorbitant rents to them for offices and armories, many of which were never occupied and some of which did not exist—which remitted their taxes, released their indebtedness, and remitted their rents, to the city due and owing—which ran the machinery for widening, improving and opening streets, parks and boulevards, to enable these men to speculate in assessed damages and greatly enhanced values—which created unnecessary offices with large salaries and no duties, in order to maintain a force of ruffianly supporters and manufacturers of votes—which used millions of dollars to bribe and corrupt newspapers, the organs of public opinion, in violation of laws which narrowly limited the public advertising—which camped within the city a reserve army of voters by employing thousands of laborers at large pay upon nominal work, neither necessary nor useful—which bought legislatures and purchased judgments from courts both civil and criminal.
* * * * *
“Fellow-citizens of the City and State of New York, this report of the doings of the Committee of Seventy would be incomplete if it did not fully unfold to you the perils and the difficulties of our condition. You know too well that the Ring which governs us for years governed our Legislatures by bribing their members with moneys stolen from their trusts. That, seemingly, was supreme power and immunity. But it was not enough. A City Charter to perpetuate power was needed. It was easily bought of a venal Legislature with the proceeds of a
new scoop into the city treasury. Superadded to this the Ring had devised a system, faultless and absolutely sure, of counting their adversaries in an election out of office and of counting their own candidates in, or of rolling up majorities by repeating votes and voting in the names of the absent, the dead, and the fictitious. Still their intrenched camp of villainy was incomplete. It was deficient in credit. This is a ghastly jest, the self-investment of the robbers of the world with a boundless financial credit. And yet the Ring clothed themselves with it. They entrenched themselves within the imposing limits of some of our most powerful bank and trust companies. They created many savings banks out of the forty-two which exist in the city and county of New York. This they did within the last two years. The published lists of directors will enable you to identify these institutions. Now the savings bank is a place to which money travels to be taken care of; and if the bank has the public confidence, people put their money in it freely at low rates of interest, and the managers use the funds in whatever way they please. In the Ring savings banks there are on deposit to-day, at nominal rates of interest, many millions of dollars. It is believed that into these banks the Ring have taken the city’s obligations and converted them into money, which has been sent flowing into the various channels of wasteful administration, out of which they have drawn into their pockets millions on millions. The craft of this contrivance was profound. It wholly avoided the difficulty of raising money on the unlawful and excessive issues of city and county bonds, and took out of public sight transactions which, if pressed upon the national banks, would have provoked comment and resistance, and have precipitated the explosion which has shaken the country. I think that among the assets of the savings banks of this city, county and State will be found not far from $50,000,000 of city and county debt taken for permanent investment. For the first time in the history of iniquity has the bank for the saving of the wages of labor been expressly organized as a part of a system of robbery; and for the first time in the history of felony have the workmen and workwomen, and the orphans and the
children of a great city unwittingly cashed the obligations issued by a gang of thieves and plunderers.”
Having made themselves secure, as they believed, the Ring laughed at the idea of punishment, if detected. They not only controlled the elections, but they also controlled the administration of justice. The courts were filled with their creatures, and were so distorted from the purposes of the law and the ends of justice, that no friend of the Ring had any cause to fear punishment at their hands, however great his crime. The majority of the crimes committed in the city were the acts of the adherents of the Ring, but they escaped punishment, as a rule, except when a sacrifice to public opinion was demanded. If the criminal happened to be a politician possessing any influence among the disreputable classes, he was sure of acquittal. The magistrate before whom he was tried, dared not convict him, for fear of incurring either his enmity, or the censure of the leaders of the Ring to whom his influence was of value. So crime of all kinds increased in the city.
Under the protection of the New Charter, the Ring began a systematic campaign of robbery. Section four of the County Tax Levy, one of their measures, provided that liabilities against the county, the limits of which coincide with those of the city, should be audited by the Mayor, the Comptroller and the President of the Board of Supervisors, or in other words, Mayor Hall, Comptroller Connolly, and Mr. William M. Tweed, and that the amount found to be due should be paid. “These Auditors,” says Mr. Tilden, “met but once. They then passed a resolution, which stands on the records of the city in the handwriting of Mayor Hall. It was passed on his motion, and what was its effect? It provided that all claims certified by Mr. Tweed and Mr. Young, Secretary of the old Board of Supervisors, should be received, and, on sufficient evidence, paid.” Thus the door was thrown open to fraud, and the crime soon followed. “Mayor Hall,” continues Mr. Tilden, “is the responsible man for all this. He knew it was a fraudulent violation of duty on the part of every member of that Board of Audit to pass claims in the way they did.”
The door being thus thrown open to fraud, the thefts of the public funds became numerous. All the appropriations authorized by law were quickly exhausted, and large sums of money were drawn from the treasury, without the slightest warrant of law.
The new Court House in the City Hall Park was a perfect gold mine to the Ring. Immense sums were paid out of the treasury for work upon this building, which is still unfinished. Very little of this money was spent on the building, the greater part being retained, or stolen by the Ring for their own private benefit. The Court House has thus far cost $12,000,000, and is unfinished. During the years 1869, 1870, and a part of 1871, the sum of about $8,223,979.89 was expended on the new Court House. During this period, the legislative appropriation for this purpose amounted to only $1,400,000. The Houses of Parliament in London, which cover an area of nearly eight acres, contain 100 staircases, 1100 apartments and more than two miles of corridors, and constitute one of the grandest architectural works of the world, cost less than $10,000,000. The Capitol of the United States at Washington, the largest and most magnificent building in America, will cost, when completed, about $12,000,000, yet, the unfinished Court House in New York has already cost more than the gorgeous Houses of Parliament, and as much as the grand Capitol of the Republic.
The Court House was not the only means made use of to obtain money. Heavy sums were drawn for printing, stationery, and the city armories, and upon other pretexts too numerous to mention. It would require a volume to illustrate and rehearse entire the robberies of the Ring. Valid claims against the city were refused payment unless the creditor would consent to add to his bill a sum named by, and for the use of, the Ring. Thus, a man having a claim of $1500 against the city, would be refused payment until he consented to make the amount $6000, or some such sum. If he consented, he received his $1500 without delay, and the $4500 was divided among the members of the Ring. When a sum sufficient for the
demands of the Ring could not be obtained by the connivance of actual creditors, forgery was resorted to. Claims were presented in the name of men who had no existence, who cannot now be found, and they were paid. The money thus paid went, as the recent investigations have shown, into the pockets of members of the Ring. Further than this, if Mr. John H. Keyser is to be believed, the Ring did not hesitate to forge the endorsements of living and well-known men. He says: “The published accounts charge that I have received upwards of $2,000,000 from the treasury. Among the warrants which purport to have been paid to me for county work alone there are upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars which I never received nor saw, and the endorsements on which, in my name, are clear and unmistakable forgeries.”
Another means of purloining money is thus described by Mr. Abram P. Genung, in a pamphlet recently issued by him:
“A careful examination of the books and pay-roll (of the Comptroller’s Office) developed the important fact that the titles of several accounts might be duplicated by using different phraseology to convey the same meaning; and that by making up pay-rolls, by using fictitious names of persons alleged to be temporarily employed in his (the Comptroller’s) department, he could even cheat the ‘heathen Chinee,’ who had invited him to take a hand in this little game of robbery. Hence, Mr. ‘Slippery’ set about finding additional titles for several of the accounts, and in this way ‘Adjusted Claims’ and ‘County Liabilities’ became synonymous terms, and all moneys drawn on either account, instead of being charged to any appropriation, became a part of the permanent debt of the city and county. Under the same skilful manipulation, ‘County Contingencies,’ and ‘Contingencies in the Comptroller’s Office’ meant the same thing, as did also the amount charged to ‘Contingencies in the Department of Finance,’ generally charged in the city accounts to make it less conspicuous. Again, there are three distinct pay-rolls in the County Bureau. One of these contains the names of all the clerks regularly employed in the Bureau, and about a dozen names of persons who hold sinecure positions,
or have no existence. The other two rolls contain about forty names, the owners of which, if, indeed, they have any owners, have never worked an hour in the department. The last two rolls are called ‘Temporary Rolls,’ and the persons whose names are on them are said to be ‘Temporary Clerks’ in the Comptroller’s Office. One of them is paid out of the regular appropriation of ‘Salaries Executive,’ but the other is paid out of a fund raised by the sale of ‘Riot Damages Indemnity Bonds,’ and becomes a part of the permanent debt of the county. Again, there are no less than five different accounts to which repairs and furniture for any of the public offices, or the armories of the National Guard, can be charged; while more than half of the aggregate thus paid out, is not taken out of any appropriation, but is raised by the sale of revenue bonds or other securities, which may be converted at the pleasure of the Comptroller into long bonds, which will not be payable until 1911—forty years after many of the frauds which called them into existence shall have been successfully consummated by Connolly and his colleagues. . . .
“When it becomes necessary to place a man in an important position, or a position where he must necessarily become acquainted with the secrets of the office, some one who is already in the confidence of the thieves throws out a hint that their intended victim can make $100 or $200 a month, in addition to his salary, by placing one or two fictitious names on one of the rolls, and drawing the checks for the salaries to which actual claimants would be entitled at the end of each month.. This involves the necessity of signing the fictitious names on the payroll or voucher, when the check is received, and endorsing the same name on the check before the bank will cash it. . . . So long as he is willing to do their bidding, and to embark in every description of rascality at their dictation, he can go along very smoothly; but if he should become troublesome at any time, or if he should show any conscientious scruples when called upon to execute the will of his masters, they would turn him adrift without an hour’s warning, and crush him, with the evidence of his guilt in their possession, if he had the hardihood
to whisper a word about the nefarious transactions he had witnessed.”
We have not the space to enumerate the various methods of plundering the city adopted by the Ring. What we have given will enable the reader to obtain a clear insight into their system. During the years 1869 and 1870, the following sums were paid by the Comptroller:
| $ | |
| Keyser & Co. | 1,561,619.42 |
| Ingersoll & Co. | 3,006,391.72 |
| C. D. Bollar & Co. | 951,911.84 |
| J. A. Smith | 809,298.96 |
| A. G. Miller | 626,896.74 |
| Geo. S. Miller | 1,568,447.62 |
| A. J. Garvey and others | 3,112,590.34 |
| G. L. Schuyler | 463,039.27 |
| J. McBride Davidson | 404,347.72 |
| E. Jones & Co. | 341,882.18 |
| Chas. H. Jacobs | 164,923.17 |
| Archibald Hall, jr. | 349,062.85 |
| J. W. Smith | 53,852.83 |
| New York Printing Co. | 2,042,798.99 |
| Total | 15,457,063.65 |
These are the figures given by the “Joint Committee of Supervisors and Aldermen appointed to investigate the public accounts of the City and County of New York.” [86] In their report, presented about the 9th of October, 1871, they say: “Your Committee find that immense sums have been paid for services which have not been performed, for materials which have not been furnished, and to employés who are unknown in the offices from which they draw their salaries. Also, that parties having just claims upon the city, failing to obtain payment therefor, have assigned their claims to persons officially or otherwise connected with different departments, who have in
many instances fraudulently increased their amounts, and drawn fourfold the money actually due from the city. Thus it appears in the accounts that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been paid to private parties who positively deny the receipt of the money, or any knowledge whatever of the false bills representing the large sums paid to them. These investigations compel the belief that not only the most reckless extravagance, but frauds and peculations of the grossest character have been practised in several of the departments, and that these must have been committed in many instances with the knowledge and cooperation of those appointed, and whose sworn duty it was to guard and protect the public interests.”
Under the management of the Ring, the cost of governing the city was about thirty millions of dollars annually. The city and county debt (practically the same, since both are paid by the citizens of New York,) was doubled every two years. On the 1st of January, 1869, it was $36,000,000. By January 1st, 1871, it had increased to $73,000,000. On the 14th of September, 1871, it was $97,287,525, and the Citizens’ Committee declare that there is grave reason to believe that it will reach $120,000,000 during the present year (1871).
For several years the Ring continued their robberies of the treasury, enriching themselves and bringing the city nearer to bankruptcy every year. Taxes increased, property was assessed for improvements that were never made, and the assessments were rigorously collected. Large sums were paid for cleaning the streets, which streets were kept clean only by the private subscriptions of the citizens residing in them, as the writer can testify from his personal experience. The burdens of the people became heavier and heavier, and the members of the Ring grew richer and richer. They built them palatial residences in the city, and their magnificent equipages were the talk of the town. They gave sumptuous entertainments, they flaunted their diamonds and jewels in the eyes of a dumbfounded public, they made ostentatious gifts to the poor, and munificent subscriptions to cathedrals and churches, all with money stolen from the city; and with this same money they endeavored to control the
operations of Wall street, the great financial centre of the Republic. They built them country seats, the beauty and magnificence of which were duly set forth in the illustrated journals of the day; and they surrounded themselves with every luxury they could desire—all with money stolen from the city. Did any man dare to denounce their robberies, they turned upon him with one accord, and the whole power of the Ring was used to crush their daring assailant. They encouraged their adherents to levy blackmail upon the citizens of New York, and it came to be well understood in the great city that no man, however innocent, arrested on a civil process, could hope to regain the liberty which was his birthright, without paying the iniquitous toll levied upon him by some portion of the Ring. Even the great writ of Habeas Corpus—the very bulwark of our liberties—was repeatedly set at defiance by the underlings of the Ring, for the purpose of extorting money from some innocent man who had fallen into their clutches.
The Ring was all-powerful in the great city, and they there built up an organized despotism, the most infamous known to history. No man’s rights, no man’s liberties were safe, if he ventured to oppose them. They even sought to strike down freedom of speech and the liberty of the press. Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, in the speech from which we have quoted before in this chapter, makes this distinct charge against them. He says: “Mr. Evarts went to Albany last year, and carried with him my protest against the passage of the law giving to the judges a power unknown in the jurisprudence of this State—unknown in the jurisprudence of the United States for the last thirty years—whereby it was secured that any member of the City Government that might be offended, could put his hand upon the city press, and suppress its liberties and freedom of speech.”
How long all this would have continued, it is impossible to say, had it not pleased God that there should be jealousies and dissensions amongst the members of the Ring strong enough to break even the infamous bonds that had so long bound them together.
The citizens of New York had for some time been slowly
coming to the conclusion that they were losing their rights and property, and had been seeking for some legal means of attacking and overthrowing the Ring. Their great necessity was absolute and definite proof of fraud on the part of certain individuals. This was for a long time lacking, but it came at length. In July, 1871, a former prominent member of the Ring, having quarrelled with the Ring over a claim of three or four hundred thousand dollars, which Mr. Tweed had refused to allow, avenged himself by causing the publication of a series of the public accounts, transcribed from the books of the Comptroller. These accounts showed the millions that had been fraudulently paid away for work which had never been done, and furnished the first definite evidence of fraud on the part of the members of the Ring that had been given to the public. The press, with the exception of a few unimportant sheets owned or controlled by the Ring, denounced the frauds, and demanded an investigation of the public accounts. Mayor Hall, William M. Tweed, Richard B. Connolly, and all the greater and lesser magnates of the Ring were implicated in the terrible story told by the published accounts. The respectable citizens, without regard to party, at once joined in the demand, and expressed their determination to put an end to the power of the Ring. The whole land—nay the whole civilized world—rang with a universal cry of indignation. The temper of the citizens was such as admitted of no trifling.
The publication of the Comptroller’s accounts, which revealed the stupendous system of fraud they had practised so successfully, burst upon the Ring like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. It not only surprised them, but it demoralized them. They were fairly stunned. At first they affected to treat the whole matter as a partisan outburst which would soon “blow over.” Some of the more timid took counsel of their fears and fled from the city, some even quitting the country. The more hardened endeavored “to brave it out,” and defiantly declared that the citizens could not molest them. All the while the wrath of the people grew hotter, and the demand for the publication of the Comptroller’s accounts became more urgent. Comptroller
Connolly, conscious of his guilt, met this demand with vague promises of compliance. Mayor Hall set himself to work to prove that the whole affair was a mistake, that no money had been stolen, that the City Government had been unjustly assailed, and by his ill-advised efforts drew upon himself a larger share of the public indignation and suspicion than had previously been accorded to him. The great object of the Ring was to gain time. They meant that the Comptroller’s accounts should not be published, and to accomplish this they began the attempt to get possession of the Comptroller’s office, the records of which contained the evidence of their crimes. With this important department in their hands they could suppress this evidence, or, if driven to desperation, destroy it. A council of the leaders of the Ring was called, at which it was resolved to get Mr. Connolly out of the Comptroller’s office, and to put in his place a creature of their own. They did not dare, however, to make an effort to oust Connolly, without having some plausible pretext for their action. They feared that he would expose their mutual villainy, and involve them in his ruin, and they wished to prevent this. Still, they resolved to get rid of him, and their plan was first to crush him, and thus prevent his exposing them. We shall see how their plan worked.
Meanwhile the public indignation had been growing stronger daily. On the 4th of September, 1871, a large and harmonious meeting of citizens, without regard to party, was held at Cooper Institute. At this meeting it was resolved to compel an exposure of the frauds practised upon the people, and to punish the guilty parties; and committees were appointed, money subscribed, and the best legal talent in the city retained for that purpose. A reform movement to carry the November elections in the interest of the citizens and tax-payers was inaugurated, and the power of the courts was invoked to put a stop to the further expenditure of the city funds. The popular sentiment was too strong to be mistaken, and some of the leading officials, and several journals which had previously supported the Ring, took the alarm and entered the ranks of the party of Reform. The Democratic party of the State repudiated the Ring, and it was
plain that the Tammany ticket would be supported only by the lowest classes of the city voters. The members of the Ring were now thoroughly aroused to the danger which threatened them; but, true to their corrupt instincts, they endeavored to meet it by fraud. They appointed a Committee of Aldermen to act with the Citizens’ Committee in the investigation of the alleged frauds, and then withheld from them all evidence that could be of service to them.
The Comptroller’s office contained not only the accounts of moneys paid out, but also the vouchers for all sums expended, properly signed and sworn to by the parties receiving the money, and these vouchers constituted the principal proof of the frauds. On Monday, September 11th, the city was startled by the announcement that the office of the Comptroller had been forcibly entered during the previous day, Sunday, and that the vouchers covering the principal transactions of the Ring had been stolen. It was a bold deed, and was so thoroughly characteristic of the Ring, that the public at once attributed it to that body. The Ring on their part endeavored to produce the belief that the Comptroller had stolen the vouchers to screen himself. Mayor Hall immediately wrote a peremptory letter to Mr. Connolly, asking him to resign his position as he (the Comptroller) had lost the confidence of the people. Mr. Connolly was not slow to perceive that the Ring were determined to sacrifice him to secure their own safety, and he declined to become their victim. He not only refused to resign his position at Mayor Hall’s demand, but set to work vigorously to discover and bring to light the persons who had stolen the vouchers. To have stolen the vouchers himself, or to have countenanced the robbery, would have been worse than folly on the part of the Comptroller. It would have damaged him fatally with the citizens, who were disposed to deal lightly with him if he would aid them in getting at and punishing the villainies of his former confederates. There was no reason why he should seek to screen the Ring, for they made no secret of their intention to destroy him. In view, therefore, of the facts as at present known, it seems certain that the theft was brought about by the
Ring for the purpose of throwing the suspicion of the crime upon the Comptroller, and thus giving them a pretext for crushing him.
Wisely for himself, Mr. Connolly determined to let the Ring shift for themselves, and throw himself upon the mercy of the Reform party. He withdrew from the active discharge of the duties of his office, and appointed Mr. Andrew H. Green—an eminent citizen, possessing the respect and confidence of all parties—his deputy, with full powers, and avowed his determination to do his utmost to afford the Citizens’ Committee a full and impartial investigation of his affairs. The Ring made great efforts to prevent his withdrawal, or, rather, the appointment of Mr. Green. Says Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, who was the real cause of this action on Mr. Connolly’s part, and who was the acknowledged leader of the Reform Democracy during the contest:
“When Mr. Connolly came to my house on that morning on which he executed an abdication in favor of Mr. Green, he was accompanied by two counsel, one of whom was half an hour behind time, and I learned, not from him, but from other sources, that he spent that half hour at the house of Peter B. Sweeny. When the conference went on, he said, not speaking for himself individually, but still he would state the views taken by other friends of Mr. Connolly as to what he should do. He said he was assured that some respectable man would be put in the office of Comptroller, and that then he would say to Mr. Booth, of the Common Council Committee, and to the Committee of Seventy: ‘I am competent to make every necessary investigation myself.’ And that then everything that would hurt the party would be kept back; and that was the consideration presented to Mr. Connolly in my presence, and in the presence of Mr. Havemeyer and the two counsel. I told Mr. Connolly that the proposition was wrong, and would fail, and ought to fail; that no man had character enough to shut off the injured and indignant citizens from the investigation desired; and if he attempted to do it, it would ruin everybody concerned in it, and plunge him in a deeper ruin. That his only chance and
hope was in doing right from that day, and throwing himself upon the charity and humanity of those who had been wronged.”
Failing to prevent the appointment of Mr. Green, the Ring endeavored to ignore it. The Mayor professed to regard the Comptroller’s withdrawal from his office as a resignation of his post. He at once announced his acceptance of this resignation, and proceeded to appoint a successor to Mr. Connolly. Here, however, the Ring met with another defeat. During the early part of 1871, Mr. Connolly had some idea of visiting Europe, and, in order to keep prying eyes from his official records, had procured the passage of a law by the Legislature, authorizing him to appoint a Deputy-Comptroller, who “shall, in addition to his other powers, possess every power, and perform every duty belonging to the office of Comptroller, whenever the said Comptroller shall, by due written authority, and during a period to be specified in such authority, designate and authorize the said Deputy-Comptroller to possess the power and perform the duty aforesaid.” Mr. Connolly thus had the legal power to appoint Mr. Green, and the Mayor’s refusal to recognize the appointment was mere bombast. The best legal talent in New York sustained Mr. Connolly, and the Mayor’s own law officer advised him that he must respect the appointment; and so the statute that had been framed for the protection of the Ring was unexpectedly used for their destruction.
Still another discomfiture awaited the Ring. A few days after the appointment of Mr. Green, a servant girl employed in the family of the janitor of the new Court House, unexpectedly revealed, under oath, the manner in which the vouchers were stolen from the Comptroller’s office, and the names of the thieves. Her sworn statement is as follows:
“City and County of New York, ss.—Mary Conway, being duly sworn, doth depose and say: I have lived with Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty, in the County Court-House, for over fourteen months, as cook; for about three or four months I did general housework; on Sunday morning, September 10th, I got out of bed with the child that slept with me, wanting to get up; I
don’t know whether it was half-past six or seven o’clock; Mrs. Haggerty came into the room in her night-dress; and said to me, ‘it is too early to get up yet;’ I said to her, ‘being as I am up I guess I will dress myself;’ as I was dressed I went out into the hall; I heard a knocking down stairs; I said to Mrs. Haggerty, ‘it sounds as if it was at the Comptroller’s door;’ I went over to the kitchen, unlocked the kitchen door, and went down stairs to the head of the stairs that leads to the Comptroller’s hall; I saw Charley Baulch knocking at the Comptroller’s door, and calling, ‘Murphy, are you there?’ Murphy is a watchman; I came up stairs and went back to the kitchen; shortly after I went down stairs again and saw Charley Baulch with the door of the Comptroller’s office open, he holding it back on the outside, and I saw Mr. Haggerty come out of the door with bundles of papers in his arms and bring them up to his bedroom; the door where he came out is at the foot of the stairs, where the glass is broken, going into the County Bureau; I came back, and did not go down any more; each bundle of papers was tied with either a pink tape or a pink ribbon round them; the next thing, I went over from the kitchen out into the hall for a scuttle of coal; in this hall Mr. Haggerty’s bedroom door faced me; I saw a man with gray clothes going in there with another bundle of papers like what Mr. Haggerty had; then I brought back the coal to the kitchen, and put it on the fire; the next I saw was this man with the gray clothes going down with a pillow-case on his back, full, that looked as though filled with papers, shaped like the bundles Mr. Haggerty had; at the same time he went down the stairs Charley Baulch said to him, ‘This way;’ I kind of judged there was something up, and I went to look in the drawer where the pillow-cases were, and I missed one of the linen pillow-cases; I did this soon afterward; soon after the man went down with the pillow-case, Mrs. Haggerty came into the kitchen, giving me a key, and telling me to go over to the drying-room; that is a room separate from the bedrooms; there was a chest there full of linen, table linen and bed linen, and silver right down in the bottom; she told me to get a nut-picker and bring it
over, as Mr. Haggerty wanted one; I took all the clothes out of the trunk, and got the nut-picker and brought it back to her, and before I got into the kitchen I said to Mrs. Haggerty, ‘What is the matter? The kitchen’s all black with smoke, and the dining room’s all black with smoke.’ She said, ‘Mr. Haggerty wanted these papers burned, I told him not to put them in, but he wants them burned;’ I went over to the range to cook some eggs for breakfast; it was full of burned papers on the top and in the bottom; there lay a bundle of papers on the top that were about half burned, with a piece of pink tape around them; I put on the cover again; they were partly smothered, going out; Mrs. Haggerty had a poker stirring up the papers on the top and underneath, where the ashes were; the bottom of the range was full of burning papers, and Mrs. Haggerty had the poker stirring them up so that they would burn faster; from underneath the range and the top she took three or four pailfuls of burned papers and emptied them up stairs on the attic floor, in a heap of ashes.
“On Tuesday next, when Mrs. Haggerty came home from the market, she asked me if there was anything new about this robbery in the Comptroller’s office; I told her I did not know; I didn’t hear nothing, no more than a man came up stairs to-day, and asked me if I let anybody in on Sunday, or if I knew anybody to come into the building on Sunday; I told him I did not know who came in; I didn’t attend to the front door; I was cooking, and had nothing to do with the front door; and I asked the man who sent him up stairs; and he said a man down in the hall sent him up stairs to inquire; next, I told Mrs. Haggerty that if I had known it was Charley Baulch sent him up stairs to find any information from me, I should have told the man to go down stairs, that Charley Baulch knew as much about it as I did, and more, for he was one of the men that helped to rob it; she said to me, ‘Christ! If Charley Baulch knowed that, he’d run into the East River and drown himself—if he knowed you saw him;’ this was on Tuesday night I told her this; Mr. Haggerty left town on Tuesday, saying he was going to Saratoga with Hank Smith, and he
would be home on Thursday or Friday, and on Wednesday night he got home from Saratoga; Mrs. Haggerty told him the remarks that I made to her on Tuesday night about the robbery; that I saw all that passed; she told me on Thursday morning that she told Mr. Haggerty about it all, last night; that he was going to wash his feet, but he felt so bad over it; they sat up for two hours in the room talking, and he didn’t wash his feet; on Thursday morning when Mr. Haggerty came into the kitchen, he came to me, running in, and said, ‘Mary!’ I said, ‘Sir!’ Said he, ‘I don’t want you to speak of what you saw passed here on Sunday morning; I don’t want you to tell these old women or old men in the building; Charley Baulch done it for me, and I done it for another man;’ I said, ‘I haven’t told it to anyone;’ He said, ‘You did tell it to Kitty’ (his wife); I said, ‘She knew as much about it as I did; she saw the papers burning;’ on next Friday of that same week I saw Mark Haggerty, Mr. Haggerty’s brother, who is a detective in the Mayor’s office, I think; I called him up stairs and asked him to come in; he said, ‘No, I am afraid to come in; I am afraid of Ed.,’ that is, Mr. Haggerty; they have not been on speaking terms in a year; I then told him the occurrences that happened in the Court-House on Sunday morning; I told him I didn’t feel like staying there; that I was almost crazy about it; he told me to keep it still; that if anybody would hear about it outside they would be collared; I asked him would it be prison; he said certainly.
“On Saturday night I went down to the market where Mrs. Haggerty keeps a stand, and told her that I was going to leave for a few days until this mess would be settled, for fear there would be any arrest, and I should be a witness; she told me all I had to say was that I knew nothing about it; I told her a false oath I would not give; what I saw with my eyes I would swear to; she told me I could do as I chose about it; that I might go against Mr. Haggerty if I chose; she said, ‘It’s foolish of you to think so; you ought to go to headquarters and consult Mr. Kelso about it;’ I told her no, it was none of my business to go and consult him about Mr. Haggerty’s robbery;
then she and I came together to the Court-House; I got a couple of dresses and a night dress; I went down stairs; she went with me; I met a policeman at the door, and he asked me where I was going; I told him I was going to see my uncle’s wife; she was sick; I then went down to Washington street; I came up for my clothes yesterday (Tuesday); the rooms were locked; I went down to the market to where Mrs. Haggerty does business, and the first thing she said to me was, ‘By Christ Almighty, Mr. Haggerty will take your life!’ I says to her, ‘What for?’ she said, ‘What you told Mark;’ I said, ‘I’ve told him the truth about the robbery;’ she says, ‘Your life will be taken, by Christ Almighty!’ I said, ‘I want my clothes;’ She said, ‘You can get your clothes any time, what belongs to you;’ she did not come up, and did not open the door; I left my trunk in the hall of the Court-House, that I brought to put my clothes in; they are over there yet; on that day, before I saw Mrs. Haggerty, Mr. Murphy came to me and asked me if I knowed anything about the robbery; if I did, please to tell the Comptroller; I kind of smiled, and said I knew nothing about it; ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I know you know something about it;’ I was making the bed in Mr. Haggerty’s room when Mr. Murphy came up and asked me if I knew anything about it; I kind of smiled, and said ‘No;’ Mr. Murphy says, ‘I know better, you do;’ I says, ‘Why?’ says he, ‘Suppose you should be arrested, then you’d have to prove about it whether you knew anything about it or not;’ that was in the hall; said I, ‘When I’m arrested, it’s time enough to prove it then;’ I then promised to see him on the stoop on Saturday night, but I did not; I came up on Sunday morning, and left word at the Hook and Ladder House to have Mr. Murphy come and see me on Sunday night at No. 95 Washington street; Murphy came to me, and I told him I would go up to the Comptroller’s house with him and tell the Comptroller all I knew about it, and that I was not doing it for any reward or money; I was doing it to clear the Comptroller in the eyes of the people; I went on Tuesday morning with Murphy to the Comptroller’s house, and made the above statement; this
morning there was a policeman came into the house where I was staying at No. 95 Washington street; the woman in the house told me he would give me advice about the clothes I had left in the Court-House; he asked me if I had any charge against Haggerty; I told him no, no more than what happened there and what I saw on Sunday morning week, and I explained it to him; he asked me, ‘Have you been speaking to Mr. Connolly?’ I said, ‘Yes, certainly;’ the policeman went out of the house; the captain (as the woman called him) came to the door and knocked, and asked the woman about me; she said I had stepped out; he brought her out on the sidewalk, and was talking to her a little while, and as I was in the room I heard him speak Hank Smith’s name to her once; when she came in she said he told her that he would like to see me and have a talk with me, because they would do as much for me as Mr. Connolly would in this business.
“Mary Conway.
“Sworn to before me, Sept. 20th, 1871.
“Thos. A. Ledwith, Police Justice.”
In consequence of this disclosure, Baulch and Haggerty were arrested on the charge of stealing the vouchers. Search was made in the Court-House, and the half-charred fragments of the vouchers were found in a room used for the storage of old lumber. Naturally, the Ring endeavored to treat this discovery as a trick of the Comptroller’s, and they furnished the men charged with the theft with able counsel to defend them.
The citizens on their part endeavored to bring matters to a satisfactory termination and secure the punishment of the Ring; but the members of that body met them at every step with defiance and effrontery. They used every means in their power to prevent an investigation of the public accounts, and to defeat the efforts that were made to recover the money they had stolen from the city. Meanwhile the Citizens’ Committee labored faithfully, and, through the efforts of Mr. Tilden, evidence was obtained sufficient to cause the arrest of Mr. Tweed. Garvey, Woodward, and Ingersoll sought safety in flight. Mayor Hall was arrested on the charge of sharing the plunder obtained by the Ring, but the examining magistrate declined to hold him on
the charge for lack of evidence against him, and the Grand Jury refused to indict him, for the same reason. Mr. Tweed had been nominated for the State Senate by a constituency composed of the most worthless part of the population, and, in spite of the charges against him, he continued to present himself for the suffrages of these people, by whom he was elected at the November election. In due time the various committees appointed by the citizens made their reports, presenting the facts we have embodied in this chapter. The guilt of the members of the Ring was proven so clearly that no reasonable person could doubt it; but still grave fears were expressed that it would be impossible to bring these men to justice, in consequence of the arts of shrewd counsel and legal quibbles. The determination of the citizens grew with the approach of the elections. Their last great victory over the Ring was achieved at the polls on the 7th of November, when the entire Ring ticket in the city, with but one or two exceptions, was overwhelmingly defeated.
Whether the guilty parties will be punished as they deserve, or whether the citizens will allow the prosecutions they have instituted to flag, the future alone can decide. At the present there is reason to fear that the guilty will escape. Should this fear be realized, the citizens of New York will have abundant cause to regret it. The Ring is badly beaten, but it is not destroyed. Many of its members are still in office, and there are still numbers of its followers ready to do its bidding. Until the last man tainted with the infamy of an alliance with the Ring is removed from office, the people of New York may be sure that the danger is not at an end.