Nevertheless, the hunt for State senators, involving the election of a United States Senator in 1879, provoked animated contests which centred about the candidacy of John Morrissey, whom Republicans and the combined anti-Tammany factions backed with spirit. Morrissey had carried the Tweed district for senator in 1874, and the taunt that no other neighbourhood would elect a notorious gambler and graduate of the prize-ring goaded him into opposing Augustus Schell in one of the fashionable districts of the metropolis. Schell had the advantage of wealth, influence, long residence in the precinct, and the enthusiastic support of Kelly, who turned the contest into a battle for the prestige of victory. For the moment the fierceness of the fight excited the hopes of Republicans that the State might be carried, and to spread the influence of the warring Democratic factions into all sections of the commonwealth, Republican journals made a combined attack upon Allen C. Beach.
Like Sanford E. Church, Beach was a courteous, good-natured politician, who tried to keep company with a canal ring and keep his reputation above reproach. But his character did not refine under the tests imposed upon it. His policy of seeming to know nothing had resulted in doubling the cost of canal repairs during his four years in office. A careful analysis of his record showed that only once did he vote against the most extravagant demands of the predatory contractors. This did not prove him guilty of corruption, "but when as the steady servant of the canal ring," it was asked, "he voted thousands and thousands of dollars, sometimes at the rate of a hundred thousand a day, into the pockets of men whom he knew to be thieves, and on claims which he must have known were full of fraud, was he not lending himself to corruption?"[840] This charge his opponents circulated through many daily and scores of weekly papers, making the weakness of his character appear more objectionable.
To these attacks Beach affected an indifference which he did not really feel, for the pride of a candidate who desires the respect of his neighbours is not flattered by their distrust of his integrity. Church had felt the iron enter his soul, and had Tilden and the reformers rearoused the moral awakening that refused to tolerate the Chief Justice in 1874, Beach must have fallen the victim of his partiality to a coterie of political associates willing to benefit at the expense of his ruin. As it was he received a plurality of 11,000, while Seymour and Olcott, his associates upon the ticket, obtained 35,000 and 36,000 respectively.[841]
The election of State senators in which Conkling had so vital an interest exhibited the work of influential Hayes Republicans, who, openly desiring his destruction, defeated his candidates in Brooklyn, Rochester, and Utica.[842] Nevertheless, by carrying eighteen of the thirty-two districts he saved fighting ground for himself in the succeeding year.[843] Indeed, he was able to point to the popular vote and declare that he was as strong in New York as the President was in Ohio. It was known, too, that if Morrissey survived, the Senator would profit by the prize-fighter's remarkable majority of nearly 4,000 over Augustus Schell, a victory which ranked as the crowning achievement of the senatorial campaign.[844] But Morrissey, prostrated by his exertions, did not live to reciprocate. He spent the winter in Florida and the early spring in Saratoga. Finally, after the loss of speech, his right arm, which had so severely punished Yankee Sullivan, became paralysed, and on May 1 (1878) Lieutenant-governor Dorsheimer announced his death to the Senate. "It is doubtful," added a colleague in eulogy, "if such boldness and daring in political annals were ever shown as he displayed in his last canvass."[845]
CHAPTER XXX
GREENBACKERS SERVE REPUBLICANS
1878
While Democrats rejoiced over their victory in 1877, a new combination, the elements of which had attracted little or no attention, was destined to cause serious disturbance. Greenbackism had not invaded New York in 1874-5, when it flourished so luxuriantly in Ohio, Indiana, and other Western States. Even after the party had nominated Peter Cooper for President in 1876, it polled in the Empire State less than 1,500 votes for its candidate for governor, and in 1877, having put Francis E. Spinner, the well-known treasurer of the United States, at the head of its ticket, its vote fell off to less than 1,000.