In a city of a million inhabitants, where a Government had prevailed for years, such as disgraced Rome in the days of Caligula, when the tyrant made his horse a Roman Consul; or in the epoch from Tiberius to Nero, when folly, crime and profligacy ran riot in all departments of the Empire, such as Tacitus describes so vividly in the Annals, and in the immortal Life of Agricola; in such a state of affairs it was an enormous task for John Kelly to head a successful movement against a Ring intrenched in office, with millions of stolen money at command, and backed up by a purchased Legislature. This task he undertook and accomplished, and history will record the fact on its imperishable page that the gallant attack upon the Ring in the Courts and Legislature, by Charles O’Conor and Samuel J. Tilden, was not crowned with final success until John Kelly carried the war into Tammany Hall, and drove the Ring politicians from its portals. O’Conor and Tilden scotched the snake in 1871, and John Kelly killed it in 1872. Tammany Hall, the cradle of American Democracy, whose patriotic Sachems in the year 1819 were addressed in a speech by Andrew Jackson,[61] and in long friendly letters at the same period by Thomas Jefferson, the elder Adams, and James Madison,[62] was rescued from disgrace and placed again in control of honest men in 1872 by John Kelly. Not only the political organization, but the Tammany Society was wrested from the control of the Ring. No political contest in the history of the city of New York was more stubbornly fought on both sides, or has been followed by happier results to the people at large. If great public service entitles a man to rank among the worthies of the Republic, John Kelly won that title when he succeeded in expelling the Ring men from Tammany Hall. His victory marked an epoch. The Board of Sachems of the Tammany Society for 1871, and the Board for 1872 tell the story of this great revolution:

1871.1872.
————
Grand Sachem:Grand Sachem:
William M. Tweed.Augustus Schell.
————
Sachems:Sachems:
Richard B. Connolly,Charles O’Conor,
Peter B. Sweeny,Samuel J. Tilden,
A. Oakey Hall,John Kelly,
Joseph Dowling,Horatio Seymour,
Samuel B. Garvin,Sanford E. Church,
etc.August Belmont,
Abram S. Hewitt,
etc.

On the retirement of Mr. Belmont from the Chairmanship of the National Democratic Committee, in 1872, that distinguished position was tendered to Mr. Kelly at the meeting of the National Convention in Baltimore. But domestic affliction had again visited him about that time, in the death in New York of his only surviving daughter, his elder daughter having died some time before in a city in Spain, where her father had taken her in a vain pursuit of health. Cast down by these afflictions, Mr. Kelly declined the Chairmanship of the National Committee of his party, but suggested his old friend Mr. Schell, who was elected Chairman. “Who is John Kelly?” asked some of the younger delegates at Baltimore, when they heard his name mentioned as their first choice by the New York delegation. They were informed by Mr. Schell that Mr. Kelly was detained at home in the house of mourning, but that he was a great leader in New York politics, and a true patriot in public life; and that he had sat in Congress before many of those young men were well out of the nursery.

It was about this time that the Committee of Seventy set out to reform the city government, but those worthy old gentlemen soon became engaged in an amusing scramble for office, and beyond putting their chairman, General Dix, in the Governor’s chair, and another of their number, Mr. Havemeyer, in that of Mayor, they did not set the river on fire, nor perform any of the twelve labors of Hercules. As soon as the Committee of Seventy became known as office-seekers, their usefulness was at an end. John Kelly sought no office, for he had to fight a battle with office-holders, then a synonym for corruptionists, and he appreciated the magnitude of the struggle more correctly than to leave it in anybody’s power to say that the Ring men and the Reform element, the latter marshalled by Tilden and himself, were fighting over the offices. A mere scramble for office between the Ins and Outs is always a vulgar thing. When they became place-hunters, the Committee of Seventy ceased to be reformers. Kelly, with better statesmanship, sought no office, and would accept none. When every other event in his life has been forgotten, his memorable battle in the County Convention of 1872 will still be remembered. A fiercer one was never fought in American politics. To employ the words of Mr. Tilden, in his history of the overthrow of the Tammany Ring, Kelly had to confront on that occasion, “an organization which held the influence growing out of the employment of twelve thousand persons, and the disbursement of thirty millions a year; which had possession of all the machinery of local government, dominated the judiciary and police, and swayed the officers of election.”[63]

Harry Genet was leader of the Ring men in the Convention. Prize-fighters and heelers swarmed upon the floor; and when Samuel B. Garvin was again placed in nomination for District-Attorney, the fighters and heelers roared themselves hoarse with applause. Mr. Kelly took the floor to oppose Garvin, when he was interrupted by Genet. He replied to the latter in scathing language, arraigned him and Garvin with the utmost severity, and although hissed by the hirelings of the Ring, and interrupted by volleys of oaths, John Kelly kept the mob in sufficient restraint until he caught the eye of the chairman, and moved an adjournment to 3 o’clock the next day. Mr. Schell, who was in the chair, put the motion to adjourn, and it was carried, in spite of the protests of the mob.

The next day the same emissaries of the Ring were there to overwhelm the Convention again, but this time Kelly was prepared for them. He had a force stationed at the doors of Tammany Hall, and no man, not a delegate to the Convention, and not provided with a delegate’s ticket, was allowed to enter the building. The police and city authorities were on the side of the desperadoes, but no policeman was allowed inside the premises. This bold stand of Mr. Kelly had the desired effect. By his personal intrepidity, and readiness to resist attack, he cowed the rowdies, and no others but delegates got into the Convention. Garvin was defeated, and Charles Donohue was nominated for District-Attorney. Abram R. Lawrence was nominated for Mayor. It was in that day’s struggle that the backbone of the Ring was broken, and it ceased to be a compact organization, and melted away after that day’s defeat. Havemeyer of the Committee of Seventy was elected Mayor, with Lawrence a close second, and O’Brien a bad third. Phelps beat Donohue for District-Attorney. But Reformed Tammany, in spite of predictions to the contrary, polled a surprisingly large vote, and although it did not elect, it was a vote of confidence in John Kelly, and discerning men saw that the future belonged to the old organization. Mr. Havemeyer, who had been an excellent Mayor in early life, now proved a failure. His defiance of the Supreme Court in the case of Police Commissioners Charlick and Gardner raised a storm of indignation about his head, and led to his reprimand by Governor Dix, who threatened his removal from office. Charlick and Gardner had been indicted for a violation of the election laws, and Mr. Kelly was very active in bringing on their trial. They were convicted by the Jury, and sentenced by Judge Brady to pay a fine of $250 each, but conviction carried with it a still severer penalty, forfeiture of their offices and disability to fill them by reappointment. The Mayor’s attempt to reappoint them was an act of surprising folly, but when the Governor’s reprimand reached him, with the statement that his age, and near completion of his term of office, alone saved him from removal for contumacy, Mayor Havemeyer’s rage vented itself in an extravagantly abusive attack on John Kelly. He held Mr. Kelly responsible for the trial of Charlick and Gardner, and after astounding the community by defying the Supreme Court with a vain attempt to re-instate the guilty officials, he brought the matter to an impotent conclusion by pouring out a torrent of abuse upon John Kelly, and assailing his record for honesty when he was Sheriff of New York. During all the long years which had elapsed since Mr. Kelly had held that office, not one syllable had ever been uttered derogatory to his exalted character for honesty as Sheriff, until Mayor Havemeyer made his reckless charges. Smarting under a sense of humiliation after the Gardner-Charlick fiasco, the Mayor allowed bad temper to get the mastery of his judgment, and the explosion of wrath against Mr. Kelly followed. The animus of the attack was perfectly apparent on its face, and the good sense of the people was not imposed upon by the revengeful ebullitions of the angry old gentleman. Mr. Kelly promptly instituted a suit for damages, but on the very day the trial began, by a remarkable coincidence Mayor Havemeyer, stricken by apoplexy, fell dead in his office. The passionate events of the moment were forgotten, and a sense of sorrow pervaded the community. Mr. Havemeyer’s long and honorable career was remembered, and the unfortunate passage in his last days was generally, and justly imputed to the misguided counsels of his friends.

The Tammany Democrats were completely victorious at the election of 1873. Those able lawyers, Charles Donohue and Abram R. Lawrence, were elected to the Supreme Court. The late William Walsh and the late Wm. C. Connor, both excellent men, were elected County Clerk and Sheriff. Again, in 1874, victory perched on the standards of Mr. Kelly. This time its dimensions were larger. In addition to a Mayor (Mr. Wickham), and other city officers, a Governor (Mr. Tilden), and other State officers, were chosen by overwhelming Democratic majorities.

Mr. Kelly had been the first man to suggest Mr. Tilden’s nomination for Governor. His splendid services in the war on the Ring pointed him out as the fit candidate of his party. Tired out, after his long labors, Mr. Tilden, in 1874, went to Europe to enjoy the first holiday he had allowed himself for years. But such was his confidence in the judgment of Mr. Kelly, that a cable message from that friend was sufficient to cause him to cancel his engagements in Europe, give up his tour, and take passage in the first steamer for New York. The Canal Ring was in motion against Tilden’s nomination, and Kelly, who had found this out, thought there was no time for delay. Tilden at first expressed disinclination for the office, but the Tammany Chief had set his heart on his nomination, and the author of these pages has heard Mr. Tilden say that Mr. Kelly’s persistency finally controlled his decision, and won his acquiescence. One of the leading delegates to the Convention of 1874 was Mr. William Purcell, editor of the Rochester Union. “To John Kelly,” said Purcell editorially, shortly after the election, “more than any other man does Governor Tilden owe his nomination and his majority at the election. Governor Tilden was personally present at the nominating convention, in close counsel with Mr. Kelly, than whom he lauded no man higher for his personal honesty, his political integrity, and his purity of purpose.”

Mr. Tilden was a constant visitor at Mr. Kelly’s house during this period, and no two men could have evinced more respect and friendship for each other. The last time Mr. Tilden attended a meeting in Tammany Hall was at the election of Sachems on the third Monday of April, 1874. The late Matthew T. Brennan and others ran an opposition or anti-Kelly ticket, and so anxious was Mr. Tilden for the defeat of this movement that he came down to the Wigwam, and took an active part in favor of the regular ticket. He sat with Mr. Kelly, and when the result was announced warmly congratulated him upon the victory.

In the latter part of January, 1875, a few weeks after Mr. Tilden’s inauguration as Governor, the author spent a morning at his residence in Gramercy Park, and there met ex-Governor Seymour and Mr. Kelly, in company with Governor Tilden. The conversation of these three distinguished men, in the abandon of social intercourse around the hearthstone of Gramercy Park, was very agreeable and entertaining. The author was an attentive listener and observer, and afterwards, on the same day, wrote out in his diary his impressions of these three celebrated New Yorkers. Although ten years have elapsed since those impressions were written, they are here reproduced in the exact words in which they were then put down in the diary, without the alteration of a single sentence: