Sweeny settled with the prosecutor for a few hundred thousand dollars and found a haven in Paris, until years later he reappeared in New York. He lived to an old age. The case of the People against him was settled—as the Aldermanic committee appointed in 1877 to investigate the “ring” frauds reported to the Common Council—“in a very curious and somewhat incomprehensible way.”[9] The suits were discontinued on Sweeny agreeing to pay the city the sum of $400,000 “from the estate of his deceased brother, James M. Sweeny.” What the motive was in adopting this form the committee did not know. The committee styled Sweeny “the most despicable and dangerous [of the “ring”] because the best educated and most cunning of the entire gang.”[10]
Connolly fled abroad with $6,000,000, and died there. Various lesser officials also fled, while a few contractors and officials who remained were tried and sent to prison, chiefly upon the testimony of Garvey, who turned State’s evidence, and then went to London. Under the name of “A. Jeffries Garvie,” he lived there until his death in 1897.
Of the three Judges most involved—Barnard, Cardozo and McCunn[11]—the first and the last were impeached, while Cardozo resigned in time to save himself from impeachment.
The question remains: How much did the “ring” steal? Henry F. Taintor, the auditor employed in the Finance Department by Andrew H. Green to investigate the controller’s books, testified before the special Aldermanic committee, in 1877, that he had estimated the frauds to which the city and county of New York had been subjected, during the three and a half years from 1868 to 1871, at from $45,000,000 to $50,000,000.[12] The special Aldermanic committee, however, evidently thought the thefts amounted to $60,000,000; for it asked Tweed whether they did not approximate that sum, upon which he gave no definite reply. But Mr. Taintor’s estimate, as he himself admitted, was far from complete, even for the three and a half years. It is the generally accepted opinion among those who have had the best opportunity for knowing, that the sums distributed among the “ring” and its allies and dependents amounted to over $100,000,000. Matthew J. O’Rourke, who, since his disclosures, made a further remarkable study of this special period, informed the author that, from 1869 to 1871, the “ring” stole about $75,000,000, and that he thought the total stealings from about 1865 to 1871, counting vast issues of fraudulent bonds, amounted to $200,000,000. Of the entire sum stolen from the city only $876,000 was recovered.
The next question is: Where did all this money go? We have referred to the share that remained to Tweed and Connolly, but the other members of the great “ring” and its subordinate “rings” kept their loot, a few of them returning to the city a small part by way of restitution. When Garvey died in London, his estate was valued at $600,000.
FOOTNOTES
[1] New York Times, August 29, 1871.
[2] Ibid., August 30, 1871.
[3] Later estimates put the expenditures on the Court House at $13,000,000. The generally accepted figures were over $12,000,000.
[4] It was John Foley who procured the injunction. Mr. Foley later informed the author that upon the original injunction being obtained, the “ring” made a great clamor about the thousands of laborers who would be deprived of their wages, and ordered their hired newspaper writers so to incite the workingmen that the chief movers against the “ring” would be mobbed. In fact, were it not for public protection, grudgingly given on demand, it is doubtful whether some of the opponents of the “ring” would have survived the excitement.