THE FIFTH MILESTONE
1877-1879
Without boast it may be said that I was among those men who with eager and persistent vigilance made the heart of Brooklyn feel the Christian purpose of the pulpit, and the utility of religion in everyday life. The fifteen years following the dedication of the new Tabernacle in 1872 mark the most active milestone of my career as a preacher.
A minister's recollections are confined to his interpretation of the life about him; the men he knows, the events he sees, the good and the bad of his environment and his period become the loose leaves that litter his study table.
I was in the prime of life, just forty years of age. From my private note-books and other sources I begin recollections of the most significant years in Brooklyn, preceding the local elections in 1877. New York and Brooklyn were playmates then, seeming rivals, but by predestined fate bound to grow closer together. I said then that we need not wait for the three bridges which would certainly bind them together. The ferry-boat then touching either side was only the thump of one great municipal heart. It was plain to me that this greater Metropolis, standing at the gate of this continent, would have to decide the moral and political destinies of the whole country.
Prior to the November Elections in 1877, the only cheering phase of politics in Brooklyn and New York was that there were no lower political depths to reach.
There was in New York at that time political infamy greater than the height of Trinity Church steeple, more stupendous in finance than the $10,000,000 spent in building their new Court House. It was a fact that the most notorious gambler in the United States was to get the nomination for the high office of State Senator. Both Democrats and Republicans struggled for his election—John Morrisey, hailed as a reformer! On behalf of all the respectable homes of Brooklyn and New York I protested against his election. He had been indicted for burglary, indicted for assault and battery with intent to kill, indicted eighteen times for maintaining gambling places in different parts of the country. He almost made gambling respectable. Tweed trafficked in contracts, Morrisey in the bodies and souls of young men. The District Attorney of New York advocated him, and prominent Democrats talked themselves hoarse for him. This nomination was a determined effort of the slums of New York to get representation in the State Government. It was argued that he had reformed. The police of New York knew better.