Dr. William Cockroft had to pay, among other sums, $500 to Assistant Alderman Wesley Smith to get favorable action on his application for a lease of the Catherine Street Ferry. After the passage of the grant, Smith demanded $3,000 more, which Cockroft refused to pay.[7] Burtis Skidmore, a coal dealer, testified that in the Fall of 1851 James B. Taylor informed him that he had been an applicant for a ferry across the East River to Greenpoint, and that “he bribed members of the Common Council for the purpose of obtaining said grant, and that other applicants for the same ferry gave a larger bribe than he did, and obtained the grant, and that all members of the Common Council whom he had bribed returned to him the money he had paid them, with the exception of Alderman Wood, who kept the money from both parties.”[8]
John Morrell swore that one of the applicants for the lease of the ferry to Williamsburg applied to some of the Aldermen and was told that it would cost about $5,000 “to get the grant through.” But a Mr. Hicks, another applicant, was so eager to “get it through” that he gave more than $20,000.[9]
The lease of the Wall Street Ferry was similarly disposed of. Silas C. Herring testified that he with others was told he could secure it by paying a certain Alderman $5,000. Herring declined. James B. Taylor was another applicant, in 1852. He was informed that it would cost him $15,000. He offered $10,000, but on the same night “Jake” Sharp offered $20,000 and got the grant. Taylor also testified that he additionally applied for the Grand Street Ferry lease. Other parties, however, paid more bribe money and obtained it, whereat one Alderman said that “it was the damnedest fight that was ever had in the Common Council; it cost them [Taylor’s rivals] from $20,000 to $25,000.”[10]
The Aldermen extorted money in every possible way. In defiance of the Mayor’s veto they gave a $600,000 contract for the “Russ” street pavement, afterward found to be worthless, and which had to be replaced at additional cost. Russ had offered one Assistant Alderman $1,000 to help carry his election the next Fall if he voted favorably.[11] Exorbitant prices were paid for land on Ward’s Island, several Aldermen and officials receiving for their influence and votes bribes of $10,000, and others even larger sums.[12] The Common Council sold to Reuben Lovejoy the Gansevoort Market property for $160,000 in the face of other bids of $225,000 and $300,000. Lovejoy, who, it was disclosed, was merely a dummy for James B. Taylor and others, testified “that it would cost from $40,000 to $75,000 to get this operation—the purchase of the Gansevoort property—through the city government.”[13]
A coal merchant had to pay money for a favorable vote on his application for a lease of the Jefferson Market property, and another merchant testified to having paid one Assistant Alderman about $1,700 to get a pier lease.[14] The Aldermen demanded and received bribes not only for passing measures but for suppressing them, and even invented many “strikes,” as instanced by the case of Alderman Smith, who agreed for $250 to silence a resolution to reduce the Coroners’ fees.[15] They demanded a share of every contract made by any city official, threatening, if it were not given, to stop his supplies and have his accounts investigated.[16] If a contractor or lessee refused to meet a “request,” the Aldermen retaliated by imposing burdens upon him and reporting hostile resolutions.[17]
Applicants for the police force paid the Police Captains $40, and more to the Aldermen who appointed them. One man was reappointed Police Captain by Alderman Thomas J. Barr for $200, and another, assistant Captain for $100.[18]
Every city department was corrupt. It was found that one hundred and sixty-three conveyances were deeded to the Chief of Police, George W. Matsell, and his partner, Capt. Norris, in about a year.[19] Matsell was mentioned also as receiving money from about one hundred men who patronized the odious Madame Restell’s establishment in Greenwich street.[20] Both the police and Aldermen collected money from saloons, though the Aldermen obtained the larger share, as they had the power of granting licenses.
Within three or four years William B. Reynolds received over $200,000 from the city, under a five-years’ contract for removing dead animals, offal and bones, though at the time the contract was made other persons had offered to remove them free of expense, and one had even offered to pay the city $50,000 a year for the exclusive privilege.[21] It was owing to Controller Flagg’s action that a contract to index certain city records at a cost of between $200,000 and $300,000, despite the offer of a well-known publisher to do it for $59,000, was canceled.[22] Flimsy tenement houses, causing later much fatality and disaster, were built in haste, there being no supervisory authority over their erection.[23] The lighting of the city was insufficient, thousands of oil lamps still being used, and these, according to an old custom, not being lighted on moonlit nights.[24]
Both Tammany and Whig Aldermen and officials were implicated in these disclosures. Such was the system of city government that, though twenty-nine Aldermen were at one time under judgment of contempt of court, and a part of the same number under indictment for bribery, yet under the law they continued acting as Judges in the criminal courts. According to Judge Vanderpoel, bribery was considered a joke.
A new reform movement sprang up, which quickly developed into the City Reform party. The reformers proposed, as a first step, to amend the charter. The granting of leases for more than ten years was to be prohibited, and the highest bidder was to get them. A two-thirds vote was to be required to pass a bill over the Mayor’s veto. Work to be done and supplies furnished costing more than $250 were to be arranged for on contract to the lowest bidder. Any person guilty of bribery, directly or indirectly, was to be sentenced, upon conviction, to not above ten years in prison and fined not over $5,000, or both. The right to sit as Judges of the criminal courts was to be taken away from the Aldermen, as was also the power of appointing policemen. The Board of Assistant Aldermen was to be abolished, and a Board of Councilmen, consisting of sixty members, was to be instituted in its place, the collective title of the two boards to be “the Common Council.” The Aldermen were to be elected for two years (as determined in the charter of 1849) and the Councilmen for one year. An efficient auditing of accounts and claims against the city was called for, and only the more popular branch of the Common Council was to originate appropriations of money.