“Now, let the friends of Mr. Tweed combine together and answer this clergyman by erecting and endowing the Tweed Hospital in the Seventh Ward of this city. A great monument of public charity is the best response that can be made to such accusations.”
Tweed aimed at a high social place. He had removed from his modest house on Henry street to a pretentious establishment on Fifth Avenue. His daughter’s wedding was among the marvels of the day; from her father’s personal and political friends she received nearly $100,000 worth of gifts. Among the wedding presents were forty complete sets of silver and fifteen diamond sets, one of which was worth $45,000. Her wedding dress cost $4,000, and the trimmings were worth $1,000.
All of his expenditures showed a like disregard of cost. In the construction of the stables adjoining his Summer place at Greenwich, Conn., money “was absolutely thrown away.” The stalls were built of the finest mahogany. All told, these stables were said to have cost $100,000.
The Americus Club was his favorite retreat, and there his satellites followed him. Scores of them were only too glad to pay the $1,000 initiation fee required, in addition to the $2,000 or so charged for sumptuously fitting the room to which each was entitled. The grandeur of their club badges well illustrated their extravagance. One style of the badges was a solid gold tiger’s[19] head in a belt of blue enamel; the tiger’s eyes were rubies, and above his head sparkled three diamonds of enormous size. Another style of badge was of solid gold with the tiger’s head in papier-maché under rock crystal. It was surrounded by diamonds set in the Americus belt. Above was a pin with a huge diamond, with two smaller diamonds on either side. This badge was estimated to be worth $2,000. A third style showed the tiger’s head in frosted gold, with diamond eyes.
Everywhere the prodigal dissipation of the plunder was visible. Sums of a few thousand dollars Tweed professed to hold in utter contempt. A city creditor once appealed to him to use his influence with Controller Connolly to have a bill paid. Twenty times he had asked for it, the creditor said, and could get it only by paying the 20 per cent. demanded. (This 20 per cent., it should be explained, was the sum extorted from all city creditors by the officials in the Controller’s office as their portion after the chiefs of the “ring” had taken the lion’s share.) Tweed looked at the man a moment and then wrote hastily to Connolly:
“Dear Dick: For God’s sake pay ——’s bill. He tells me your people ask 20 per cent. The whole d——d thing isn’t but $1,100. If you don’t pay it, I will. Thine. William M. Tweed.”
The “Boss’s” note being virtually a command, the bill was paid in full.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Statement of Rev. Dr. H. W. Billings, in Cooper Union, April 6, 1871.