During the campaign of 1869, for the election of members of the Common Council and certain State officers, a legal question arose as to whether Mayor Hall had been elected for two years or merely for the unexpired year of Hoffman’s term. Hall claimed a two-years’ term, and the best lawyers supported the claim. But to make sure of the matter, Tammany, in the late days of the campaign, instructed its members and followers to cast ballots for him, and the Police Commissioners distributed special ballot boxes for the Mayoralty vote. As no proclamation on the subject had been issued, the Republicans and other opponents of Tammany Hall had no opportunity to make nominations. Mayor Hall consequently received nearly the entire number of votes cast—65,568, out of a total of 66,619.
After entering the Board of Supervisors, Tweed had boasted that he would soon be among the largest real-estate owners in the city. He made good the boast. A comparatively poor man in 1864, he was reputed five years later to be worth $12,000,000. This was an exaggeration, for he was not worth anything like that sum at any one time; but he was, nevertheless, an enormously rich man. He had investments in real estate and iron mines; he was interested in every street opening and widening scheme; he had a hand in all city, and in some State, contracts, and he held directorships in many railroad and gas companies and other corporations. Connolly, who some years before had left a position as a book-keeper, at a moderate salary, to engage in politics “as a financial speculation”; Sweeny, and the rest of the “ring,” suddenly became millionaires. Many other politicians shared in the sacking of the city.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Documents of the Board of Aldermen, 1877, part 2, No. 8, pp. 15-16. This document, embodying the full confession of Tweed before a special investigating committee, will be frequently referred to in this and the following chapter. Its value as a support to many of the statements made in the text of this work rests upon the credibility of Tweed’s word. The best opinion is that Tweed told the approximate truth. He was not a vengeful man; he was, at the time, old, and broken in power and health; he had no reason for concealment or evasion, and it is unlikely, considering his moral temperament, that he would have made false statements for the purpose of involving innocent men, or of adding to the sum of venality already proved against the guilty.
[2] New York Herald, September 10, 1867.
[3] “I heard that Peter B. Sweeny paid $60,000 for his confirmation as City Chamberlain by the Board of Aldermen”—Tweed’s testimony, Document No. 8, p. 105.
[4] Document No. 8, p. 225.
[5] It was probably at this election that a certain amusing incident in the swearing in of the Election Inspectors occurred. No Bible being at hand, they were sworn on a copy of Ollendorf’s New Method of Learning to Read, Write and Speak French. The courts subsequently upheld the substitution of Ollendorf for the Bible, deciding that it was not such an act as would vitiate the election. Documents of the Board of Supervisors, 1870, Vol. II, No. 12.
[6] Document No. 8, pp. 133-34.
[7] Document No. 8, p. 226.