The aggregate of the Ring's gigantic swindles is known only approximately. Henry F. Taintor, the auditor employed by Andrew H. Green, estimated it between forty-five and fifty millions; an Aldermanic committee placed it at sixty millions; and Matthew J. O'Rourke, after thorough study, fixed it at seventy-five millions, adding that if his report had included the vast issues of fraudulent bonds, the swindling by franchises and favours granted, and peculation by blackmail and extortion, the grand total would aggregate two hundred millions. Of the entire sum stolen only $876,000 were recovered.[530]
CHAPTER XX
CONKLING PUNISHES GREELEY
1871
"It were idle," said Horace Greeley, soon after the election in November, 1870, "to trace the genealogy of the feud which has divided Republicans into what are of late designated Fenton and Conkling men. Suffice it that the fatal distraction exists and works inevitable disaster. More effort was made in our last State convention to triumph over Senator Fenton than to defeat Governor Hoffman, and in selecting candidates for our State ticket the question of Fenton and anti-Fenton was more regarded by many than the nomination of strong and popular candidates. Since then every Fenton man who holds a federal office has felt of his neck each morning to be sure that his head was still attached to his shoulders."[531]
Conkling's effort to obtain control of the State Committee provoked this threnody. Subsequently, without the slightest warning, Fenton's naval officer, general appraiser, and pension agent were removed.[532] But as the year grew older it became apparent that designs more fatal in their consequences than removals from office threatened the Fenton organisation. It was not a secret that the Governor had kept his control largely through the management of politicians, entitled "Tammany Republicans," of whom "Hank" Smith, as he was familiarly called, represented an active type. Smith was a member of the Republican State committee and of the Republican general city committee. He was also a county supervisor and a Tweed police commissioner. Moreover, he was the very model of a resourceful leader, acute and energetic, strong and unyielding, and utterly without timidity in politics. In supporting Fenton he appointed Republicans to city offices, took care of those discharged from the custom-house, and used the police and other instruments of power as freely as Thomas Murphy created vacancies and made appointments.[533] In his despotic sway he had shown little regard for opposition leaders and none whatever for minorities, until at last a faction of the general city committee, of which Horace Greeley was then chairman, petitioned the State committee for a reorganisation. So long as Fenton controlled State conventions and State committees, Smith's iron rule easily suppressed such seceders; but when the State committee revealed a majority of Conkling men, with Cornell as chairman, these malcontents found ready listeners and active sympathisers.
Alonzo B. Cornell, then thirty-nine years old, had already entered upon his famous career. From the time he began life as a boy of fifteen in an Erie Railroad telegraph office, he had achieved phenomenal success in business. His talents as an organiser easily opened the way. He became manager of the Western Union telegraph lines, the promoter of a steamboat company for Lake Cayuga, and the director of a national bank at Ithaca. Indeed, he forged ahead so rapidly that soon after leaving the employ of the Western Union, Jay Gould charged him with manipulating a "blind pool" in telegraph stocks.[534] His education and experience also made him an expert in political manipulation, until, in 1868, he shone as the Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor. After his defeat and Grant's election, he became surveyor of the port of New York, a supporter of Conkling, and the champion of a second term for the President. His silence, deepened by cold, dull eyes, justified the title of "Sphinx," while his massive head, with bulging brows, indicated intellectual and executive power. He was not an educated man. Passing at an early age from his studies at Ithaca Academy into business no time was left him, if the disposition had been his, to specialise any branch of political economic science. He could talk of politics and the rapid growth of American industries, but the better government of great cities and the need of reform in the national life found little if any place among his activities. In fact, his close identification with the organisation had robbed him of the character that belongs to men of political independence, until the public came to regard him only an office-holder who owed his position to the favour of a chief whom he loyally served.
Very naturally the scheme of the malcontents attracted Cornell, who advised Horace Greeley that after careful and patient consideration the State Committee,[535] by a vote of 20 to 8, had decided upon an entire reorganisation of his committee. Cornell further declared that if their action was without precedent so was the existing state of political affairs in the city, since never before in the history of the party had the general committee divided into two factions of nearly equal numbers, one ordering primaries for the election of a new committee, and the other calling upon the State committee to direct an entire reorganisation. However, he continued, abundant precedent existed for the arbitrary reorganisation of assembly, district, and ward committees by county committees. Since the State committee bore the same official relation to county committees that those committees sustained to local organisations within their jurisdiction, it had sufficient authority to act in the present crisis.[536]