The title of “boss” he earned by his despotic action in the general committee. When a question was to be voted upon which he wished to have determined in his favor, he would neglect to call for negative votes and would decide in the affirmative, with a significantly admonishing glance at the opposing side. Soon friends and enemies alike called him “Boss” Tweed, and he did not seem to take the title harshly.
He made short shrift of his antagonists. Once, when chairman of a Tammany nominating convention, he declared the nomination of Michael Ulshoeffer, for Judge, unanimous, amid a storm of protests. On adjournment, thirty delegates remained behind to make a counter-nomination. Tweed blocked their plan by having the gas turned off.
Meanwhile he daily increased his strong personal following. Nominally Deputy Street Commissioner, to which place he was appointed in 1863, he was virtually the head of that department, and could employ, when so inclined, thousands of laborers, who could be used in manipulating ward primaries when the ward leaders showed a spirit of revolt. The Aldermen had to apply to him for jobs for their ward supporters. As a member of the Board of Supervisors at the same time, he was in a position to exercise his mandatory influence respecting the passage of resolutions dealing with expenditures and the giving out of contracts. In 1868 he added a third office to the list—that of State Senator, and was thus enabled to superintend personally the “running” of the Legislature.
The members of the “ring”—Tweed and his subordinates, Peter B. Sweeny, Richard B. Connolly and the rest—were growing rich at a rapid rate. According to the subsequent testimony of James H. Ingersoll, it was in 1867 that the understanding was reached that persons who supplied the public offices with materials would be required to increase the percentages given to the officials, and that all purveyors to the city must comply. The previous tax had been but 10 per cent., and it had been somewhat irregularly levied. A few tradesmen refused to pay the advance, but plenty there were to take their places. Ingersoll was one of these. He was told to fix his bills so as to “put up 35 per cent.,” and he obligingly complied with the command. Of the 35 per cent. collected, 25 went to Tweed and 10 to Controller Connolly.
Tweed had become dissatisfied with the old Tammany Hall building, and a site for a new hall—the present location on Fourteenth street—was secured. The funds in hand for the building were insufficient, however, and had to be augmented by private subscription. It well illustrates the liberality with which the Tammany chieftains were supplying themselves financially, to note that when John Kelly, the Grand Sachem, at a meeting of the society announced that a loan of $250,000 would be needed, the sum of $175,000 was subscribed on the spot, fifteen members alone subscribing $10,000 each.[2] A far more astonishing incident happened in the Fall of 1867, when Peter B. Sweeny, the City Chamberlain,[3] announced his determination to give to the city treasury, for the benefit of the taxpayers, over $200,000 a year, interest money, which before that had been pocketed by the City Chamberlain.
While the “ring” was plundering the city and plotting theft on a more gigantic scale, the Sachems, many of them implicated in the frauds, laid the corner-stone of the new Tammany Hall building. The ceremony was marked by the characteristic pronouncement of virtuous-sounding phrases. “Brothers and friends,” rhapsodized Mayor Hoffman, “in the name of the Tammany Society, I proceed to lay the corner-stone of a new hall which will, for the next half century at least, be the headquarters of the Democracy of New York, where the great principles of civil and religious liberty, constitutional law and national unity, which form the great corner-stones of the republic, will always be advocated and maintained.…” The “braves” then marched to Irving Hall, where Tweed, Sweeny and Connolly had caused such inscriptions as these to be hung about: “Civil liberty the glory of man”; “The Democratic party—Upon its union and success depends the future of the republic. He who would seek to lower its standard of patriotism and principle, or distract its councils, is an enemy to the country.” Gazing approvingly on these inscriptions from the platform sat Tweed, Sweeny and Connolly, A. Oakey Hall and a host of Judges and office-holders of all sorts, while Andrew J. Garvey (who will reappear in these chapters) conducted the invited guests. The building of this hall—an imposing one for the day—in a central part of the city, gave to the Tweed combination an advantage of no inconsiderable significance.
In the new Wigwam, on July 4, 1868, the Democratic national convention was held. Tammany, in fact, forced its candidate, Horatio Seymour, on the convention. The galleries were filled with seasoned Wigwam shouters, cheering vociferously for Seymour. Only persons having tickets were admitted, and these tickets were distributed by an able young Wigwam politician, who saw to it that only the right sort of persons gained entrance. Gaining its point on the nomination, Tammany magnanimously allowed the Southern men to dictate the declaration in the platform that the reconstruction acts were “unconstitutional, revolutionary and void.” There was a general suspicion that the organization, hopeless of the election of a Democratic President, had forced Seymour’s nomination for the purpose of trading votes for its State and local ticket.
The State convention again named Hoffman for Governor, and preparations began for a lively campaign. Tammany addressed itself to the citizenship as the defender of the interests of the poor, and instanced the candidacy of John A. Griswold for Governor, Edwin D. Morgan for Governor, and “several other millionaires,” as a proof of the plutocratic tendencies of the Republican party. On October 19 the general committee, with Tweed in the chair, adopted an address urging the people to stand by Seymour and Blair. Continuing, it said:
“We are united. We believe in our cause. It is the cause of constitutional liberty, of personal rights, of a fraternity of States, of an economical government, of the financial credit of the nation, of one currency for all men, rich and poor, and of the political supremacy of the white race and protection of American labor.… [Hoffman] is the friend of the poor, the sympathizer with the naturalized citizen, and the foe to municipal oppression in the form of odious excise and all other requisitional laws.… Is not the pending contest preeminently one of capital against labor, of money against popular rights, and of political power against the struggling interests of the masses?”
Public addresses and pronunciamentos, however, formed but a small part of the Tammany program for 1868. For six weeks the naturalization mills worked with the greatest regularity in the Supreme, Common Pleas and Superior Courts, producing, it was estimated, from 25,000 to 30,000 citizens, of whom not less than 85 per cent. voted the Tammany Hall ticket. On October 30 Tweed announced to the general committee that “at 10 o’clock to-morrow the money for electioneering purposes will be distributed” and that those who came first would be served first. The chairman of the executive committee spread forth the glad tidings that there was $1,000 ready for each election district. There being 327 election districts, this made a fund of $327,000 from the general committee alone, exclusive of the sums derived in the districts themselves from the saloon-keepers and the tradesmen, whose fear of inviting reprisals by Tammany officials made them “easy marks” for assessments. Tweed personally suggested to the twenty-four leaders the stuffing of ballot boxes.[4] By fraudulent naturalization, repeating, the buying and trading of votes, and intimidation, Seymour secured a total of 108,316 votes, against 47,762 for Grant. The whole vote of the city was swelled to 156,288, of which, it was conclusively demonstrated, at least 25,000 were fraudulent.[5] Tweed himself confessed, nine years later, that he thought the Inspectors of Elections “lumped” the votes and declared them without counting, in order to overcome the result in the rest of the State and give the electoral vote to Seymour.[6] To prevent the Republicans from getting the use of certain telegraph wires on election night, Tweed sent out long, useless messages, and it was even proposed to telegraph the whole Bible if necessary.[7]