Mr. Croker finally returned home in September, 1897, shortly before the meeting of the Democratic city convention. It was commonly believed that Mr. Sheehan, the deputy “boss,” had made preparations to assume the “boss-ship” himself, but Mr. Sheehan emphatically denied this. Whatever the circumstances were Mr. Croker promptly deprived the former of power, and later succeeded in practically excluding him from the organization.
The “Boss’s” supreme control of city politics was illustrated by the nomination for Mayor of Greater New York of Robert C. Van Wyck, who was in no sense the organization’s candidate, but represented merely Mr. Croker’s choice and dictation. The Citizens’ Union nominated Seth Low, who probably would have been elected had the Republicans indorsed him. But the latter nominated Benjamin F. Tracy, thus dividing the opposition, which was still further disintegrated by the action of the Jeffersonian Democrats in nominating Henry George, and later Henry George, Jr., upon the noted economist dying in the heat of the campaign. The canvass was carried on with the greatest vigor, for under the Greater New York charter all the territory now embraced in the city limits was to vote for one Mayor, with a four-years’ term, and almost dictatorial power in the matter of appointments and removals. In his statement, heretofore referred to, Mr. Sheehan asserted that during this campaign he personally collected and turned over to John McQuade,[18] the treasurer of Tammany Hall, the sum of $260,000, irrespective of contributions collected by others, and that at the end of the canvass Mr. McQuade had $50,000 in the treasury.[19]
The vote stood: Van Wyck, 253,997; Low, 151,540; Tracy, 101,863; George, 21,693; scattering, 17,464. The Wigwam was beside itself with joy; the victory meant absolute control of the greater city’s annual budget of over $90,000,000, not to speak of the tens of millions more derived from rents, fees, fines, interest, assessments for street improvements, bond sales and premiums, and from those vast and varied sources of contract juggling, selling of legislative “goods,” and all the other avenues, too numerous to enumerate, of which Tammany from early times has availed itself. It also meant the control of an army of employees, now estimated at 60,000. The disreputable classes vociferously celebrated the occasion, assured that the town was once more to be “wide open.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities, 1890, Vol. II, pp. 1708-12.
[2] Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities, 1890, Vol. I, pp. 707-8.
[3] Ibid., pp. 745-50, and Ibid., Vol. II, p. 1701.
[4] Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities, 1890, Vol. I, pp. 235-52, and Ibid., p. 300.
[5] Kirk had been dropped from the Council of Sachems in 1886 owing to the disclosures.
[6] Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities, 1890, Vol. I, pp. 282-87. Bernard, or “Barney,” Martin and two others had been indicted on the ground of having been bribed, but the indictments were dismissed in March, 1890, on a technicality which allowed the defendants to fall back upon the Statute of Limitations.