How could this fact be pressed home to the consciousness of the citizens? Mr. Godkin, Horace White, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, and the managing editor resolved upon a thorough-going biographical exposure of the real character of the men who constituted Tammany. They felt that while decent New Yorkers knew in a general way that some of the district leaders and their henchmen were low in character and morals, they did not appreciate just how noisome was the gulf of boodle, vice, ignorance, and crime out of which these men emerged. They determined to probe that gulf, to give the city a whiff of its fumes, and to show how the Tammany organizers reeked with its slime.
On April 3, 1890, therefore, the Evening Post published in nine columns of close print biographical sketches of the twenty-seven members of the Tammany Executive Committee, including the “big four” of the “New Tammany.” This document, which in ensuing months sold in tens of thousands of copies as a pamphlet, is a permanently valuable contribution to New York’s political and social history. It abounds in a miscellany of roguery rich enough to outfit a picaresque novelist. At the head of the list came Mayor Grant, whom the Post accused of dividing, while sheriff, illegal fees with an auctioneer aggregating $42,497, and of taking illegal “extra compensation” fees. Under the name of John Scannell, the Post printed details of the murder which this district leader had committed in a basement poolroom, and showed how he had planned it for two years, though he was acquitted on the ground of “emotional insanity.” Another district leader was shown to be an accused murderer, and several more to have committed notoriously brutal assaults. A scandal in certain asphalt contracts let by Thomas F. Gilroy, now the Commissioner of Public Works, had already been exposed by the Post, and the facts were repeated. Several committeemen were declared at one time to have received stolen goods, and several more to have kept disorderly houses. The newspaper described a saloon once kept by “Barney” Martin, one of Grant’s appointees, as the resort for the most distinguished professors of the art of acquiring other people’s property in the country.
Written with sparkle and gusto, these biographical sketches abound in interesting anecdotes. The biography of “Georgie” Plunkett tells us that a friend remarked: “You say Georgie is rich? He ought to be; he never missed an opportunity.” We are told that H. D. Purroy’s secessionist element in Tammany was known as the Hoy Purroy. The sketch of John Reilly states that he had been nominated for Assistant Alderman while still living in Ireland, through the efforts of “me brother Barney,” a Manhattan saloonkeeper. It was recalled that when a protest had been made to Sheriff Grant by his friends against the appointment of “Barney” Martin to some post, Grant had made an indignant reply: “What do youse fellows want? Do yez want to break up the organization?” Summing up, the Evening Post listed the Executive Committee as follows:
Professional politicians, 27; convicted murderer, 1; acquitted of murder, 1; convicted of felonious assault, 1; professional gamblers, 4; former dive-keepers, 5; liquor dealers, 4; former liquor-dealers, 5; sons of liquor-dealers, 3; former pugilists, 3; former toughs, 4; members of Tweed gang, 6; officeholders, 17.
The sensation produced by this publication was profound. Within a few days the Evening Post reprinted delighted comments from half of the important newspapers of the East. As for Tammany, its disturbance and outcry led Godkin to compare the inquiry by the newspaper with the introduction of a ferret into a cellar. You knew the rats were there, but until the ferret appeared you didn’t know where. “When they become aware of his presence out they scuttle, from the coal hole, the ash barrel, the garbage can, the woodpile, brown and black, big and little, squealing and showing their teeth.” The three things a Tammany leader most dreaded, he concluded, were, in the ascending order of repulsiveness, the penitentiary, honest industry, and biography.
Immediately two of the men favored with biographies began suits for criminal libel. One was “Barney” Martin, the other Judge “Pete” Mitchel, who had been described by the Evening Post as a “nominal” lawyer, a “thug,” a “tough,” and a one-time adviser in a keno game. Bourke Cockran, their voluble attorney, known for his eloquence as the Tammany Chrysostom, began what Godkin called “a minatory flux like the rush of Croton through a water-gate.” The Evening Post’s answer to the libel suits was to add two more counts to its charges against “Pete” Mitchel, saying that at one time he had received stolen goods and at another had been a partner in a rumshop with a murderer named Sharkey. Within a week (April 29) the grand jury dismissed the two suits against the Post, evidence of the unassailable solidity of its charges. Once more there was an outburst of congratulation from the press of the country, the paper in one issue reprinting editorials from other journals in Boston, Pittsfield, Springfield, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Portland, Me., and Milwaukee.
While these suits were pending (one was soon after revived, and four in all were vainly brought) Tammany did its utmost to make them an annoyance to Mr. Godkin, serving summons after summons at the most inconvenient hours possible. He was arrested three times in one day, to the great delight of Dana. But only once did his persecutors really succeed in vexing him. A policeman came with a summons at an early hour one Sunday morning, when Mr. Godkin was looking after the welfare of some guests. With characteristic impulsiveness, he gave the officer $5 to leave and come back a little later. His enemies at once saw their opportunity. Godkin the reformer bribing an officer of the law to evade arrest! Next morning, when he came down to work and found his associates somewhat staggered by the printed reports, he was puzzled, and did not really understand the situation until he lunched with some other reform workers at noon. But of course an explanation was easily given the public.
The Evening Post hastened to follow up its first biographies with an exposure of the Tammany Committee on Organization, numbering 1,070 members, of whom it found 161 to be rumsellers, 133 criminal rumsellers (that is, open after hours or on Sundays), and 235 without specified occupation or not in the city directory, a suspicious circumstance, since professional gamblers never had an assigned occupation. In the weeks just before election there was published a searching examination of the Tammany General Committee, numbering 4,564 men, of whom no fewer than 654 were rumsellers, 565 criminal rumsellers, and 1,266 not in the directory, most of them for good reasons. Detailed biographies of the most despicable committeemen were printed, of which one of the shortest may be extracted:
ELEVENTH DISTRICT.—Classed among the rumsellers of this district is August Heckler, familiarly known as “Gus.” While the nominal proprietor of the rumshop called “The Bohemia” at No. 1257 Broadway, he recently obtained much notoriety by turning the upper stories of the building into what for the sake of decency is called by him a hotel. For this his liquor license was taken away, and so far as can be learned there are now no intoxicating liquors sold on the premises. The hotel, which is a most disorderly house, still flourishes, however, while Heckler is “on the road” selling a brand of champagne. Technically, Heckler cannot be classed among the criminal rumsellers; yet he is a good deal worse than most of them.
Heckler made a personal call upon Mr. Godkin, and assured him that his hotel was respectable, whereupon the editor called in the efficient reporters who gathered material for the biographies, and proved that it was not.