Meanwhile, on March 10, 1913, reports of trouble between Governor Sulzer and Mr. Murphy had become public; when on this date Sulzer removed C. Gordon Reel as State Superintendent of Highways, it was reported in the newspapers that Murphy had asked Governor Sulzer to name James E. Gaffney, his partner in the contracting business, as Reel’s successor. On the next day, Mr. Murphy hotly denied that he had asked Gaffney’s appointment. From day to day further reports of estrangement were published. In a speech before the Democratic editors of the State, on March 25, Sulzer asserted: “No man, no party, no organization can make me a rubber stamp. I am the Governor. Let no man doubt that.”

It appeared that Mr. Murphy had the idea that Sulzer was at heart a Progressive; it may be explained that the Progressive party had polled a large vote and was recognized as a powerful political factor.

It was on the night of April 13, 1913, that Governor Sulzer, according to his interview published later in the New York Evening Mail, held his final interview with Mr. Murphy. “I asked him,” Mr. Sulzer said, “not to interfere with the trial of Stilwell in the Senate. I said, ‘What are you going to do about him?’ ‘Stand by him, of course,’ replied Mr. Murphy. ‘Stilwell will be acquitted. It will only be a three-day wonder. How do you expect a Senator to live on $1,500 a year? That is only chicken feed.’ … Before we parted that night, I warned Mr. Murphy that he would wreck the party and accomplish his own destruction if he persisted in shielding grafters and violating platform pledges. His angry retort was that I was an ingrate, and that he would disgrace and destroy me.”

In fact, as Mr. Murphy predicted, Senator Stephen J. Stilwell was voted not guilty of official misconduct, by a vote of 28 to 21 in the Senate, after an investigation by the judiciary committee of charges of bribery made against him by George H. Kendall, president of the New York Bank Note Company. But subsequently Stilwell was indicted in New York County, convicted of bribery upon substantially the same evidence as that upon which a majority of his colleagues in the State Senate had acquitted him, and he was sentenced to a two-year term in prison.

Replying later to Mr. Sulzer’s charges, Mr. Murphy definitely denied that he had ever recommended the appointment of James E. Gaffney as Highways Commissioner; that he ever mentioned Gaffney’s name to Governor Sulzer for any office; he emphatically denied that he ever made the threats that Sulzer attributed to him or that he ever sent for Mr. Sulzer to come and see him. Mr. Murphy asserted that he never saw Sulzer alone after he became Governor “because I knew he’d do just what he has done—perjure himself.”

In April, 1913, Governor Sulzer pushed his Direct Primary Bill, and Tammany members of the Legislature decided in retaliation to defeat all bills favored by him and to “hold up” all of his appointments. On April 24, 1913, Tammany legislators were stirred to anger by his veto of a direct primary bill that they had concocted; a few days later they overwhelmingly voted down his direct primary bill. More retaliation followed on both sides.

It was during this time—in May, 1913—that the New York World published specific charges that in return for a promise made two years previously to get a lucrative post for J. A. Connolly, a personal friend, Justice Cohalan, Murphy’s legal and political adviser, had taken a note from Connolly for $4,000. This promise, it was charged, had not been kept. There were, it was also charged, back of this note a series of transactions in the years 1904 to 1906 between Connolly and Cohalan involving the payment of various sums amounting to $3,940.55; Connolly claimed that Cohalan had demanded and obtained from him 55 per cent. of the net profits on all city work that was given to Connolly’s firm by means of Cohalan’s influence. Connolly further claimed that the payments to Cohalan were calculated on this basis, and that their friendship ceased when Cohalan demanded $1,500 more than Connolly reckoned was due him. Threatened with an action at law, Cohalan surrendered the $4,000 note to Connolly’s attorney.

These charges were investigated by the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association; the report of that committee confirmed every charge made. Refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the Bar Association, Justice Cohalan requested Governor Sulzer to have the charges passed upon by the Legislature; this Governor Sulzer did in a special message embodying the report of the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association. The Legislature ordered a trial before the Joint Judiciary Committee. Justice Cohalan admitted on the witness stand that he had made a great mistake in his dealings with Connolly, and that the money he had paid to Connolly was blackmail given in the hope of hushing up the affair for the good of his party. William D. Guthrie, representing the Bar Association, reviewed the case in detail, and demanded Justice Cohalan’s removal. The Joint Judiciary Committee’s report recommended that the case against Justice Cohalan be dismissed, which report was upheld by a majority vote of the Legislature. Opponents of Tammany pointed out that this was a characteristic action from a Legislature dominated by Tammany influences.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Report of the Citizens’ Committee Appointed at the Cooper Union Meeting, August 12, 1912, pp. 6-7.