Serious as these developments were, they did not have the damaging effect upon Tammany that might ordinarily be supposed. Except in certain offices here and there Tammany was out of power, and therefore, not being prominently on the defensive, could not be effectively assailed. Moreover, in view of the results of a recently tried libel suit, it was anything but a propitious time for Tammany’s Republican opponents to make capital from such incidents.
This libel action, which conspicuously held public attention, was one brought by William Barnes, Jr., Republican State leader, against Theodore Roosevelt. In a published article, Colonel Roosevelt had practically charged that there was a corrupt alliance between Mr. Barnes and Charles F. Murphy, the Tammany leader, and that Mr. Barnes had worked through a corrupt alliance between crooked business and crooked politics. The article did not charge personal corruption in the sense of bribery, but emphasized the nature of the political methods used. The trial of this action resulted, on May 22, 1915, in the jury finding a verdict in favor of Roosevelt.
The proceedings of this trial directed general notice much more to the workings of the Republican machine system than to Tammany methods. To the initiated it had long been known that the Republican machine, as the power usually controlling the Legislature, was the preferred instrument through which the powerful financial, industrial, utility, commercial and other corporations operated to get the legislation that they wanted. This fact was now confirmed and disseminated by the outcome of the libel suit. Long, too, had it been suspected that between the apparently hostile political machines there often existed secret understandings or alliances cloaked over by pretended political warfare which was merely mock opposition intended for credulous public consumption. The court proceedings and the verdict showed that the stating of this fact was not a libel.
The effect upon public opinion of this libel action was far more injurious to the Republican State organization than to Tammany, a reaction naturally to be expected in judging an organization which had so long found campaign material in strong virtuous denunciations of “Tammany corruption.” At the same time public disfavor of the Republican organization was increased by the bad record of the Republican Legislature in 1915—a record that in many respects was worse than that of a Tammany Legislature. These influences were to Tammany’s advantage. Always rushing to excesses when in prosperity, Tammany in times of adversity moderated its action by observing prudence and deferring to public proprieties. Its chief candidates in the 1915 election were men of accredited good character and reputed ability. These conditions, together with the fact that the Republicans and the Progressives did not unite in opposition to Tammany, helped to bring a measure of success to Tammany. For the first time in more than fifteen years Tammany managed to elect a District Attorney in the County of New York in the person of Judge Edward Swann, and it elected Alfred E. Smith to the office of Sheriff.
From the beginning of 1916 Tammany was thus in full control of the criminal machinery of the law in New York County. District Attorney Swann showed such energy in the sustained prosecution of the infamous “white slavers,” that the formulating of charges against him came as a surprise to many citizens who had formed a good estimate of his activities in office. These charges, made by Judge James A. Delahanty of the Court of General Sessions, on December 30, 1916, alleged misconduct in office in the matter of certain assault cases resulting from the garment trades strike of 1914.
In the list of charges forwarded to Governor Whitman Judge Delahanty accused District Attorney Swann of having deliberately presented a false recommendation to a Judge of General Sessions on the strength of which he obtained the discharge on bail of more than a score of defendants indicted in March, 1914, on various charges of assault, riots, and injuries to property occurring during the course of labor disputes on the East Side. Judge Delahanty further charged that District Attorney Swann even sought to have the indictments against these men dismissed, although seven of them had offered to plead guilty. Judge Delahanty had been an Assistant District Attorney when Mr. Whitman was District Attorney, and hence could claim an intimate familiarity with the details of those very cases. Among the characters concerned in the clothing trades strike were such notorious gangsters as “Dopey Benny” Fein, “Waxy” Gordon, “Jew” Murphy and others such widely known for their activities in the section east of the Bowery.
Assistant District Attorney Lucian S. Breckinridge who had had charge of the preparation of many of these cases for trial, had resigned on March 28, 1916, on the ground that District Attorney Swann’s action in the cases was “a travesty on justice, and an outrage to decency,” and that he (Mr. Breckinridge) did not purpose to acquiesce in that action either actively or by silence. In his letter of resignation Mr. Breckinridge asserted that the investigation of the strike “disclosed a tale of wrong and outrage, and a use of gangsters and thugs in labor troubles unparalleled in the history of this country.” On the other hand, Morris Hillquit, chief counsel for the labor unions involved, asserted in an interview that “the indictments were based on evidence furnished by a combination of notorious lawbreakers, who were known as such to the prosecuting officials.” Mr. Hillquit denounced their story as “a most clumsy concoction, bearing evidence of deliberate fabrication.”
After the filing of the charges against him, District Attorney Swann declared that the charges were actuated by politics. He made a bitter personal attack upon Mr. Breckenridge, and retaliated later by causing Mr. Breckinridge to be indicted upon the allegation that he had received a bribe from manufacturers. On January 14, 1917, the City Club presented charges to Governor Whitman and asked for District Attorney Swann’s removal from office. The first charge included Judge Delahanty’s statements, and declared that District Attorney Swann’s efforts to procure the dismissal of indictments against labor union men charged with assault constituted an attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the Court of General Sessions, and that its object was to pay a Tammany election debt to East Side labor unionists. The second charge asserted that by various means Mr. Swann had sought to coerce and intimidate Mr. Breckinridge, who was a valuable witness into any inquiry into the charges against the District Attorney.
At this writing (March, 1917), it is not possible to give the outcome of these charges; the determination of them and the decision are still to be forthcoming from Governor Whitman when sufficient time shall have been allowed for adequate inquiry.