“At this meeting and subsequently,” Mr. Sulzer declared, “Mr. Murphy demanded from me pledges regarding legislation and especially concerning appointments to the Public Service Commission, the Health Department, the Labor Department, the State Hospital Commission, the Department of State Prisons and the Department of Highways.” Murphy insisted that various Tammany men whom he named should be appointed to those offices. Mr. Murphy, however, favored the retention in office of C. Gordon Reel, State Superintendent of Highways, saying that he was “a good man.” “Mr. Murphy added,” Mr. Sulzer’s statement continued, “that if I wished a new State Superintendent of Highways, ‘Jim’ Gaffney was the best all-around man for the job.”
“When I took office as Governor of the State last January,” Mr. Sulzer declared in a signed published statement,
“on the very first day my attention was abruptly called to the fact that during the year just ended there had been spent in the State $34,000,000 WITHOUT A SINGLE AUDIT.
“On the second day that I was in office a messenger presented to me bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, pointing out to me where I was to sign my name. If I had attached my signature to those bills they would have been immediately paid, and yet the messenger thought that he was telling me nothing unusual when he said that other Governors had signed bills that way, and that one Governor had left a rubber stamp outside his office with the messenger, so that he would not be bothered.
“‘Leave those bills there,’ I said, ‘and I’ll look into them. The rubber stamp period is over.’”
After Mr. Sulzer had become Governor he learned, as his statement read, that the State Architect had expended more than $4,300,000 in the previous year; that this was done practically on the certificate of that official, and that there had been no proper audit; the vouchers had been carried to the trustees of public buildings, composed of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and Speaker of the Assembly by a clerk and approved by the use of a regular office stamp. Governor Sulzer also learned, he said, that the appropriation for 1912 had been exceeded by nearly half a million dollars, and that there was no proper supervision. Governor Sulzer appointed John A. Hennessy as Commissioner to investigate reports of graft in these and other departments. At the same time, he appointed George W. Blake as Commissioner to inquire into prison management.
Mr. Hennessy’s report disclosed the most widespread graft. In construction work on public buildings, large bills had been submitted for inferior material; the payrolls on the electrical and other contracts had been padded; regular State employees had been displaced as inspectors and timekeepers by political henchmen from Tammany District Leader James J. Hagan’s district in Manhattan, from which the State Architect, his secretary, and the foreman on the general work came. At Governor Sulzer’s request, Mr. Hennessy asked the State Architect for his resignation, but Senator Frawley, another Tammany district leader, intervened with a protest to Governor Sulzer against any interference with the work on the State Capitol or other State buildings.
“I sent for Hennessy,” Mr. Sulzer’s narrative went on, “who in my presence related to Senator Frawley the main facts in the case, but Frawley still persisted that nothing should be done with the State Architect’s office, at least until there had been further consideration of the case. I told Hennessy to return to the State Architect (Mr. Hoofer) and insist upon his resignation. What happened between these two men I can only tell from Hennessy’s recital to me. Hoofer told him that he (Hoofer) was not a free agent, that he had no control over his deputies, that he had no control over his secretary, nor did he have any control over the men who checked up the work. He (Hoofer) said they were all appointed through Tammany Hall.… Hoofer said he wanted to consult somebody in New York. While I held the ’phone, I told Hennessy to ask Hoofer the name of the man, and Hennessy responded that Hoofer wanted an opportunity to see Charles F. Murphy and explain certain things.”
Governor Sulzer allowed a few days’ delay. Shortly before the time limit that Governor Sulzer had set for Hoofer’s resignation, “John H. Delaney came to me,” Mr. Sulzer’s story went on, “and said that he had been talking to ‘the Chief’ over the ’phone, and that Murphy wanted Hoofer’s resignation to go over until such time as he could discuss the case with me.” A little later “Senator Wagner, Senator Frawley and John H. Delaney came into the Executive Chamber and informed me that Murphy was insistent that nothing should be done in the case of Hoofer during that week, and it was a subject that would have to be discussed with the organization.” Upon Governor Sulzer’s demand that he resign or be immediately removed, Mr. Hoofer wrote his resignation.