A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3

by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

Of the four pronounced candidates for governor Frank Hiscock of Syracuse divided the support of the central counties with Theodore M. Pomeroy of Cayuga, while William H. Robertson of Westchester and John H. Starin of New York claimed whatever delegates Cornell did not control in the metropolis and its vicinity. Among them and their lieutenants, however, none could dispute leadership with Conkling and his corps of able managers. Starin had pluck and energy, but two terms in Congress and popularity with the labouring classes, to whom he paid large wages and generously contributed fresh-air enjoyments, summed up his strength.[884] Pomeroy was better known. His public record, dating from the famous speech made in the Whig convention of 1855, had kept him prominently before the people, and had he continued in Congress he must have made an exalted national reputation. But the day of younger men had come. Besides, his recent vote for John F. Smyth, the head of the Insurance Department, injured him.[885] Robertson, as usual, had strong support. His long public career left a clear imprint of his high character, and his attractive personality, with its restrained force, made him a central figure in the politics of the State.

Hiscock was then on the threshold of his public career. He began life as the law partner and political lieutenant of his brother, Harris, an adroit politician, whose violent death in 1867, while a member of the constitutional convention, left to the former the Republican leadership of Onondaga County. If his diversion as a Liberal temporarily crippled him, it did not prevent his going to Congress in 1876, where he was destined to remain for sixteen years and to achieve high rank as a debater on financial questions. He was without a sense of humour and possessed rather an austere manner, but as a highly successful lawyer he exhibited traits of character that strengthened him with the people. He was also an eminently wary and cautious man, alive to the necessity of watching the changeful phases of public opinion, and slow to propound a plan until he had satisfied himself that it could be carried out in practice. It increased his influence, too, that he was content with a stroke of practical business here and there in the interest of party peace without claiming credit for any brilliant or deep diplomacy.

It is doubtful, however, if the genius of a Weed could have induced the disorganised forces, representing the four candidates, to put up a single opponent to Cornell. Such a course, in the opinion of the leaders, would release delegates to the latter without compensating advantage. It was decided, therefore, to hold the field intact with the hope of preventing a nomination on the first ballot, and to let the result determine the next step. In their endeavour to accomplish this they stoutly maintained that Cornell, inheriting the unpopularity of the machine, could not carry the State. To win New York and thus have its position defined for 1880 was the one great desire of Republicans, and the visible effect of the fusionists' attack, concededly made with great tact and cleverness, if without much effort at organisation, turned Conkling's confidence into doubt. Then he put on more pressure. In the preceding winter Pomeroy's vote and speech in the State Senate had saved John F. Smyth from deserved impeachment, and he now counted confidently upon the Commissioner's promised support of his candidacy. But Conkling demanded it for Cornell, and Smyth left Pomeroy to care for himself.

It is seldom that a roll-call ever proceeded under such tension. Nominating speeches were abandoned, cheers for the platform faded into an ominous silence, and every response sounded like the night-step of a watchful sentinel. Only when some conspicuous leader voted was the stillness broken. A score of men were keeping count, and halfway down the roll the fusionists tied their opponents. When, at last, the call closed with nine majority for Cornell, the result, save a spasm of throat-splitting yells, was received with little enthusiasm.[886] On the motion to make the nomination unanimous George William Curtis voted "No" distinctly.[887]

It was a Conkling victory. For three days delegates had crowded the Senator's headquarters, while in an inner room he strengthened the weak, won the doubtful, and directed his forces with remarkable skill. He asked no quarter, and after his triumph every candidate selected for a State office was an avowed friend of Cornell. "It would have been poor policy," said one of the Senator's lieutenants, "to apologise for what he had done by seeming to strengthen the ticket with open enemies of the chief candidate."[888]

The aftermath multiplied reasons for the coalition's downfall. Some thought the defeat of Cornell in 1876 deceived the opposition as to his strength; others, that a single candidate should have opposed him; others, again, that the work of securing delegates did not begin early enough. But all agreed that the action of George B. Sloan of Oswego seriously weakened them. Since 1874 Sloan had been prominently identified with the unfettered wing of the party. Indeed, his activity along lines of reform had placed him at the head and front of everything that made for civic betterment. In character he resembled Robertson. His high qualities and flexibility of mind gave him unrivalled distinction. He possessed a charm which suffused his personality as a smile softens and irradiates a face, and although it was a winsome rather than a commanding personality, it lacked neither firmness nor power. Moreover, he was a resourceful business man, keen, active, and honest—characteristics which he carried with him into public life. His great popularity made him speaker of the Assembly in the third year of his service (1877), and his ability to work tactfully and effectively had suggested his name to the coalition as a compromise candidate for governor. He had never leaned to the side of the machine. In fact, his failure to win the speakership in the preceding January was due to the opposition of Cornell backed by John F. Smyth, and his hopes of future State preferment centred in the defeat of these aggressive men. Yet at the critical moment, when success seemed within the grasp of his old-time friends, he voted for Cornell. For this his former associates never wholly forgave him. Nor was his motive ever fully understood. Various reasons found currency—admiration of Conkling, a desire to harmonise his party at home by the nomination of John C. Churchill for State comptroller, and weariness of opposing an apparently invincible organisation. But whatever the motive the coalition hissed when he declared his choice, and then turned upon Churchill like a pack of sleuth-hounds, defeating him upon the first ballot in spite of Conkling's assistance.

Tammany's threat to bolt Robinson's renomination may have encouraged Cornell's nomination, since such truancy would aid his election. John Kelly was in extremis. Tammany desertions and the election of Mayor Cooper had shattered his control of the city. To add to his discomfiture the Governor had removed Henry A. Gumbleton, charged with taking monstrous fees as clerk of New York County, and appointed Hubert O. Thompson in his place. Gumbleton was Kelly's pet; Thompson was Cooper's lieutenant. Although the Governor sufficiently justified his action, the exercise of this high executive function was generally supposed to be only a move in the great Presidential game of 1880. His failure to remove the Register, charged with similar misdoings, strengthened the supposition that the Tilden camp fires were burning brightly. But whatever the Governor's motive, Kelly accepted Gumbleton's removal as an open declaration of war, and on September 6 (1879), five days before the Democratic State convention, Tammany's committee on organisation secretly declared "that in case the convention insists upon the renomination of Lucius Robinson for governor, the Tammany delegation will leave in a body."[889] In preparation for this event an agent of Tammany hired Shakespeare Hall, the only room left in Syracuse of sufficient size to accommodate a bolting convention.[890]

The changes visible in the alignment of factions since the Democrats had selected a candidate for governor in Syracuse reflected the fierce struggle waged in the intervening five years. In 1874 Tweed was in jail; Kelly, standing for Tilden, assailed Sanford E. Church as a friend of the canal ring; Dorsheimer, thrust into the Democratic party through the Greeley revolt, was harvesting honour in high office; Bigelow, dominated by his admiration of a public servant who concealed an unbridled ambition, gave character to the so-called reform; and Charles S. Fairchild, soon to appreciate the ingratitude of party, was building a reputation as the undismayed prosecutor of a predatory ring. Now, Tweed was in his grave; Kelly had joined the canal ring in sounding the praises of Church; Dorsheimer, having drifted into Tammany and the editorship of the Star, disparaged the man whom he adored as governor and sought to make President; and Bigelow and Fairchild, their eyes opened, perhaps, by cipher telegrams, found satisfaction in the practice of their professions.

But Tilden was not without friends. If some had left him, others had grown more potent. For several years Daniel E. Manning, known to his Albany neighbours as a youth of promise and a young man of ripening wisdom, had attracted attention by his genius for political leadership.[891] He seems never to have been rash or misled. Even an exuberance of animal vitality that eagerly sought new outlets for its energy did not waste itself in aimless experiments. Although possessing the generosity of a rich nature, he preferred to work within lines of purpose without heady enthusiasms or reckless extremes, and his remarkable gifts as an executive, coupled with the study of politics as a fine art, soon made him a manager of men. This was demonstrated in his aggressive fight against Tweedism. Manning was now (1879) forty-eight years old. It cannot be said that he had then reached the place filled by Dean Richmond, or that the Argus wielded the power exerted in the days of Edwin Croswell; but the anti-ring forces in the interior of the State cheerfully mustered under his leadership, while the Argus, made forceful and attractive by the singularly brilliant and facile pen of St. Clair McKelway, swayed the minds of its readers to a degree almost unequalled among its party contemporaries.[892]