The operations of the New York Contracting and Trucking Company, in particular, supplied facts which were used effectually by newspapers and civic organizations to show the new methods by which Tammany leaders were gathering in millions from contracts. This company, as we have seen, was headed by John J. Murphy, brother of the Tammany Hall chief, and by Alderman James E. Gaffney.
Its transactions revealed the great difference between Tweed’s methods and those of the later leaders of Tammany Hall. Under the Tweed régime tens of millions of dollars were stolen outright. The lesson of the overthrow of the Tweed “ring” was not lost on his successors. Mr. Croker refused to countenance such outworn, discarded and dangerous methods of theft. They had resulted disastrously to Tammany in Tweed’s day. In place of direct thieving methods of getting rich, indirect methods, surrounded with secrecy and every possible precaution against detection, were developed. Some Tammany district leaders became opulent on blackmail and extortion, the circuitous route of which it was most difficult to trace (in a legal sense) to its final destination. As for Mr. Croker himself, the question was frequently put to him, “Where did you get it?”[6] He could reply that his operations in amassing his wealth were entirely legitimate; “inside” real estate speculations, connections with trust companies and other corporations and stock transactions. Knowing him to be the source of much legislation and administrative favors worth tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to corporations, his opponents were by no means wholly satisfied with such an explanation, but whatever their suspicions they could never prove that he had personally profited from selling legislation. Essentially, however, Mr. Croker never posed as a business man; he was a politician.
But by the period when Charles F. Murphy became “chief,” the “business-man” type of leader had evolved. Under this plan—a plan that afforded the most plausible opportunities for explaining the sudden acquisition of wealth—Tammany men became open or secret partners in contracting firms, using the pressure of political power to have large contracts awarded to their concerns. It was not necessary for these leaders to know anything of contracting; they could be ignorant of every detail; their one aim was to get the contracts; the actual skilled work could be done by hired professional men. No law penalized such methods, respectable in every appearance. At the same time, inasmuch as speculating in the stock market was legitimate in law, fortunes could be made in acting upon advance information of legislative or other official means concerning certain corporations.
The first large contract obtained by the New York Contracting and Trucking Company was a $2,000,000 contract for excavating the site for the new Pennsylvania Railroad Station in New York City.
For a long time, notwithstanding reiterated protests from the press and public organizations, the Board of Aldermen, controlled by Tammany, had obstinately refused to vote for the franchise giving the Pennsylvania Railroad power to use streets for its tunnel approaches and terminal in Manhattan, New York City. Reports were circulated that the sum of $300,000 had been demanded by the Aldermen, and that until that sum was produced they would not vote for the franchise. It was noted that it was “Big Jim” Gaffney, “outside man” for the New York Contracting and Trucking Company and Alderman from Leader Charles F. Murphy’s district, who, together with “Little Tim” Sullivan, Tammany leader in the Board of Aldermen, took a leading part in persuading the Aldermen to hold out against giving the franchise for the Pennsylvania tunnel. The newspapers unanimously described the Aldermanic action as a “hold-up.” Likewise, it was also noted that when from some mysterious quarter orders reached Tammany Aldermen to vote for the franchise, it was Alderman Gaffney who took the lead in rallying the Aldermen to vote it through.
This sudden change of front after a protracted “hold-up,” puzzled the public exceedingly, and sinister imputations were made. Not until months later did the public begin to see illumination; it was then announced that although the New York Contracting and Trucking Company had not been the lowest bidder (its bid, according to report, was $400,000 more than that of a competitor), nevertheless it had been awarded the $2,000,000 contract for digging the Pennsylvania Railroad site.
In the case of the awarding of a contract covering several million dollars in February, 1905, to the New York Contracting and Trucking Company for the six-track local improvement of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, the circumstances were much the same.
A franchise had been asked for a project called the New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad Company. At the same time, another company calling itself the New York and Port Chester Railroad Company, made a similar application and opposed the other company. Both companies, as subsequent developments showed, were in fact owned by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad; the opposition of one to the other was evidently for mere effect.
For three years the Board of Aldermen refused to give the franchises, either one of which would give the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad its own independent entrance into New York City. Somehow and from somewhere the announcement was now made that unless the Board of Aldermen acted, a law would be passed by the Legislature stripping it of all power of granting franchises. This threat was executed; the Legislature passed an act vesting franchise-granting power in the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. It may here be parenthetically noted that with the great powers increasingly vested in it the Board of Estimate became the most compact and powerful instrument of government that had ever been developed in the government of New York City.