Mr. Amory openly declared that Mr. Jerome’s investigation of the matter in 1903 was not undertaken in good faith. “It was,” he wrote, “a deliberate whitewash. I have documentary evidence to prove it.” Mr. Amory charged that of the twenty-seven distinct written charges filed with Mr. Jerome against the Metropolitan management, Mr. Jerome’s accountant reported on only seven, and these latter were of minor importance, involving chiefly technicalities of accounts and not serious crimes. Yet Mr. Jerome, was Mr. Amory’s indignant comment, represented that the accountant’s report was “very clear and full and takes up every charge” and that Mr. Jerome had reported that “the specific charges so far as they involve criminal wrong-doing are entirely without foundation.”[10]
While thus declaring that he could find nothing on which to base prosecution of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company magnates, District Attorney Jerome showed by other acts, it was complained, that petty criminals would be prosecuted to the limit of the law. He was charged with discriminating between rich and powerful business offenders, on the one side, and on the other, poor and relatively uninfluential violators of the law.
On one occasion Mr. Jerome appeared before labor unions, delivered homilies on the virtues, and warned them that he would make short shrift of labor grafters. This lecture had reference to the case of Sam Parks, a labor leader, charged with grafting on employers and receiving money for prompting or “calling off” strikes. District Attorney Jerome waited for no elaborate formal investigation; he immediately started the machinery of his office against Parks and caused him to be convicted. Already a dying consumptive, Parks was sentenced to prison, where he died shortly after. But no action, it was pointed out, was taken against powerful construction companies that had bribed Parks and other labor leaders to declare strikes on buildings for which competitors had the contracts.[11] Another much-discussed incident was the result of a collision of railroad trains in the Park Avenue tunnel—a collision maiming and killing many persons. The obsolete and dangerous condition of this tunnel had long been known. It was commented that District Attorney Jerome did not make the slightest move against the railroad directors; he hurriedly caused the indictment and arrest of Wisker, a railroad engineer, as the sole culprit and proceeded with despatch to his trial. The jury, however, refused to convict the engineer.
Considering that Mr. Jerome was a leading reformer, such contrasts were gradually calculated to make the very mention of reform odious to the observing of the working people. The complaint was generally heard that the big grafters were safe and immune, while petty offenders were dealt with rigorously. Nevertheless, a large number of voters, influenced by a stream of praise from the press, still believed in Mr. Jerome’s promises and motives, and his action in 1905 in not securing a renomination from political bosses but procuring it independently by means of a petition circulated among electors, strengthened the old belief that he was sincere and was independent of political and other domination. Much was made of the fact of his independent renomination. The Republicans withdrew their candidate for District Attorney and nominated Mr. Jerome, and the press in general enthusiastically supported him. He was reelected. It was not until some years later when the full effects of his administration could be popularly realized in perspective, that Jerome fell into general disfavor with the voters.
As an instance of the methods of contractors under the Tammany régime during this time, it is only necessary to mention the facts, later disclosed in an investigation by John Purroy Mitchel, Commissioner of Accounts, as to how in 1904 defective hose was sold to the Fire Department. The Windsor Fire Appliance Company (of which the president and chief stockholder was Michael F. Loughman, later appointed Deputy Commissioner of Water Supply) sold 25,000 feet of hose to New York City for $23,410.25. Although this hose did not answer the specifications of the contract, it was accepted. The consequence was that it burst many times at fires, some of them serious. The same was true of equally worthless hose supplied by other contractors.
The municipal election in 1905 was a triangular contest. Tammany Hall did not fear the Republican ticket headed by William M. Ivins for Mayor. But it did have intense uneasiness over the possibility of Mr. Hearst triumphing; his movement was too plainly making inroads among large numbers of voters that ordinarily would have voted the Tammany ticket. Tammany was particularly bent upon winning inasmuch as by the provisions of the revised charter the term of the incoming Mayor and other officials had been changed to a four-year incumbency. Hearst was the Municipal Ownership League’s candidate for Mayor, and Tammany renominated Mayor McClellan. So effective were Hearst’s onslaughts on “Boss” Murphy and the elements represented by him that during the campaign Mayor McClellan repeatedly made promises that he would thereafter pursue an independent course, should he be reelected.
Mr. Hearst’s vote returns came in so heavily after the polls were closed that it looked as though he were certainly elected. That very night there was a strange interruption, lasting about an hour, in the public giving-out of the returns. Then as the returns were resumed, it appeared that although the vote between McClellan and Hearst was extremely close, McClellan had a little the better of it. The next day it was announced that Mayor McClellan was reelected by a close margin. Mr. Hearst and his followers declared that manifest fraud had been committed, and took steps to have a recount. Meantime while this process was dragging along, Mayor McClellan was widely criticized for his action in immediately claiming his reelection, opposing a recount, and not showing faith in the legitimacy of his claims by waiting with dignity until there had been a careful official recount.
The final official recount gave this result: McClellan, 228,407 votes Hearst, 224,929 votes; Ivins, 137,184 votes. It may be added here that in the very next year—in 1906—Hearst accepted a Tammany indorsement when he ran for Governor, but he was defeated by Charles E. Hughes, who, as counsel for the Legislative Insurance Committee, had achieved wide popularity for his exposure of the insurance company iniquities.
With the reelection of Mr. McClellan, Tammany Hall confidently looked forward to four more years of unquestioned control of the immense budget and enormous opportunities embodied in the rule of New York City.