GEORGE W. T. LORD,
SAMUEL McLEAN & CO.,
HENRY CLEWS & CO.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE TWEED RING, AND THE COMMITTEE OF SEVENTY.
The Ring Makes Itself Useful in Speculative Deals.—How Tweed and His “Heelers” Manipulated the Money Market.—The Ring Conspires to Organize a Panic for Political Purposes.—The Plot to Gain a Democratic Victory Defeated and a Panic Averted Through President Grant and Secretary Boutwell, Who Were Apprised of the Danger by Wall Street Men.—How the Committee of “Seventy” Originated.—The Taxpayers Terrorized by Boss Tweed and His Minions.—How “Slippery Dick” Got Himself Whitewashed.—Offering the Office of City Chamberlain as a Bribe to Compromise Matters.—How the Hon. Samuel Jones Tilden, as Counsel to the Committee, Obtained His Great Start in Life.
The Tweed Ring had considerable experience in and out of Wall Street for several years during the municipal reign of the famous Boss. I have made some reference to their attempts to manipulate the market through tight money, in my biographical sketch of that Wall Street celebrity Henry N. Smith.
The Ring was often highly subservient in assisting certain operators in speculative deals in stocks, one notable instance being in Hannibal & St. Jo. shares, which resulted in a terrible loss to Boss Tweed & Co. This stock became quite neglected for a long period afterwards, and so remained until the famous “corner” was engineered many years after by John R. Duff, of Boston, through his New York broker, Wm. J. Hutchinson, and by which poor Duff was almost, if not entirely, ruined. It is only justice to Mr. Duff, in this connection, to state that he was not to blame, as an exhaustive investigation by the Governing Committee of the Stock Exchange showed that his trouble chiefly arose through flagrant dishonesty and betrayal of trust on the part of his agent, in whom he reposed too much confidence.
Boss Tweed and his special retainers sometimes made Wall Street instrumental in engineering national and State political movements. About the time of an election, if their opponents happened to be in power, the Ring would produce a stringency in the money market, by calling in simultaneously all the city money, which was usually on temporary loans in the Street.
This the Ring managers would accomplish through some of the banks which were the depositories of the city funds, and were under their control.