In reply Tammany Hall sought to represent that the traffic thus described was largely mythical—and that at all events it was greatly exaggerated. It was no fiction, however, nor was police connivance and corruption a fiction, either. So far as the open flaunting of vicious conditions was concerned, Tammany Hall had itself been forced to recognize them; as a concession to public opinion Mr. Croker had, in November, 1900, appointed an Anti-Vice Committee with orders to investigate vice conditions and “clean up” the “Red Light” district. To impart a tone of good faith to the work of this committee, he had appointed Lewis Nixon, a naval academy graduate and a ship builder, its chairman. It was generally understood that this committee had been created as a clever campaign move to offset in the public mind the growing indignation against Tammany, many of the leaders of which, it was notorious, had profited richly from the system of police “protection” of vice.
In respect to the “white slave” traffic, however, it must be said, in justice to Tammany, that the factors attributed were not the only ones responsible, and such a traffic was far from being confined to New York City; it went on in other cities under Republican and Reform as well as Democratic rule. This was conclusively shown later by the necessity of the passage of a law passed by Congress aimed at the traffic (a law subsequently diverted somewhat from its original purpose), and by official investigations and court proceedings. The large number of prosecutions in the Federal courts under that law showed the widespread character of the traffic.
Another important issue of the municipal campaign of 1901 was the scandal growing out of the charges that William C. Whitney, Thomas F. Ryan, W. L. Elkins, P. A. B. Widener, Thomas Dolan and associates had looted the stockholders of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company of New York City of tens of millions of dollars. Whitney and Ryan were credited with being among the chief financial powers long controlling “Boss” Croker; and by means of his control of Tammany Hall, and in turn New York City, securing franchises, privileges and rights of enormous value. This control was often equally true of the New York State legislature; subsequent developments, in fact, revealed that in years when the Legislature was dominantly Republican and therefore could not be ordered by Mr. Croker, both Republican and Democratic legislators were corrupted by the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, or by agents acting for it.
According to Mr. W. N. Amory,[3] who was thoroughly familiar with the affairs of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, and who exposed its looting, Mr. Jerome knew, in 1901, “that the conduct of Metropolitan affairs was corrupt. We had on numerous occasions discussed that point.”
Mr. Jerome made profuse public promises that if he were elected District Attorney he would press investigation. “Let me tell you,” he said at the conclusion of a speech on October 26, 1901, “that if I am elected I shall make it my business to follow the trail of wrongdoing and corruption not only when they lead into tenement houses, but I shall follow them even if they lead into the office of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company.” Mr. Jerome added: “No one knows better than I do that when I am attacking the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, I am arraying myself against the most dangerous, the most vindictive and the most powerful influences at work in this community.”[4]
Mr. Jerome’s denunciations and promises aroused great enthusiasm and large expectations; they had much effect in contributing to the result of the campaign, for it was popularly realized that while Tammany leaders accumulated their millions of dollars, yet back of these leaders, and secretly operating through them, were magnates of great financial power with their tens or hundreds of millions of dollars acquired largely by means of financial and industrial power conferred by legislation, permissory or statute, of various kinds. The electorate well knew that comparatively small grafters were numerous, but now it had the promise that the large spoliators, hitherto immune, would be exposed and prosecuted, if possible.
The result of the election was that Mr. Low was elected Mayor by a plurality of 31,636. Nearly all of the other anti-Tammany candidates for the large offices were also elected, although Tammany’s candidate for the Borough of the Bronx—Louis F. Haffen—was successful. The total vote stood: Low, 296,813; Shepard, 265,177. For other political parties, a small vote was cast: Benjamin Hanford, candidate for Mayor of the Social Democratic party, received 9,834 votes; Keinard, Socialist Labor candidate for Mayor, polled 6,213 votes, and Manierre, Prohibition candidate for Mayor, 1,264 votes.
That of a total vote of 561,990 votes cast for the two chief opposing candidates, Tammany and its allied organizations should have polled 265,177 votes, showed Tammany Hall’s enormous strength, even in the face of a combination of opponents, with all the strength of definite issues obviously putting Tammany on the defensive.
Realizing that the attacks upon him personally as the “boss” of Tammany Hall and of the city had been successful in a political sense, Mr. Croker wisely concluded, immediately after this defeat, to obscure himself and give an appearance of retiring from active participation in the affairs of Tammany Hall. Conscious, too, of the public discredit attaching to Tammany methods and Tammany leaders, he saw that the time had come to inject some show of an element of respectability and reform into Tammany Hall. He now underwent the formalities of an “abdication.”
On January 13, 1902, the astonishing news was made public that he had selected Lewis Nixon as his successor as the leader of Tammany Hall. Mr. Nixon, at this time, was forty-one years old; hailing from Leesburg, Virginia, he had been graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and had become a naval constructor, later owning his own naval ship plant at Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was also connected with a number of private corporations. In 1898 he had been appointed by Mayor Van Wyck to the office of President of the East River Bridge Commission, and in 1900-1901 had acted, as we have seen, as Chairman of Mr. Croker’s Anti-Vice Committee.