In order to get round the Governor’s veto, prominent members of the Chamber of Commerce guaranteed to the Committee counsel’s fees to an amount necessary to enable them to prosecute the investigation. Thereupon the Committee was appointed and set to work. All its members were Senators of the State of New York. It was presided over by Mr. Clarence Lexow. The names of the other members were Edmund O’Connor, George W. Robertson, Cuthbert W. Pound, Charles T. Saxton, Jacob A. Cantor, Daniel Bradley, with William A. Sutherland and John W. Goff as counsel. The only member of the Committee representing New York City was Mr. Cantor, who presented the minority Report, which maintained that the Republicans were as bad as the Democrats, and that most of the officials in the Police Department implicated in blackmail, fraud and corruption were Republicans.
JOHN W. GOFF.
The Committee held its first meeting on the 9th of March, 1894. At the earlier sittings the Police Department was represented by counsel, but after a while he was withdrawn, and the Committee was left to conduct its inquiries as best it could. It was fortunate in securing the services of a famous lawyer, Mr. John W. Goff, who is now Recorder of New York, “succeeding a man who fined him for contempt because he insisted upon his rights as counsel in protecting one of Dr. Parkhurst’s agents.” As even the one dissentient member of the Committee reported, “No more tireless, industrious or effective counsel was ever employed by a Committee charged with the responsibility of its character.” As I read over the voluminous reports of the evidence taken by the Lexow Committee, I could not repress a sigh: would that we had enjoyed the privilege of having such an examiner as John W. Goff on the South Africa Committee! But, of course, there was one great difference: the Lexow Committee was appointed for the purpose of finding out the facts and exposing scandal, whereas the South Africa Committee seems to have accepted the theory that it was appointed for exactly the opposite purpose of hushing them up, and of screening Mr. Chamberlain at any cost.
The members of the Lexow Committee when they undertook their duties had no idea as to how far it would lead them. They thought that two days a week for three weeks would complete the investigation. No sooner, however, had they begun to apply the probe than they came upon evidence of such rottenness that even the laziest of them felt they had no option but to go on. Go on they did day after day, taking evidence from morning till night, but it was not until the end of the year that they were able to finish their Provisional Report. This was dated January 16th, 1895. In the Report they thus summarise the evidence which they took:—
The record shows a total of 10,576 pages of proceedings. This does not include a mass of documentary exhibits which were read and considered in evidence, for the purpose of information. Of this testimony, 1,077 pages embrace the subject-matter of police interference at the polls, and the balance, or almost 9,500 pages, refer to the subject-matter of blackmail, extortion and corruption. In all, 678 witnesses were examined, of whom 81 were examined on the first and 597 on the second branch of the inquiry. In all, about 3,000 subpœnas were served, of which upwards of 2,750 were with reference to the second branch of the inquiry.—Ib., vol. i., p. 4.
It is upon this immense body of evidence taken on oath, under cross-examination in public audiences, that I have based this volume. “Satan’s Invisible World” is thus displayed, not by a stranger or a casual observer, or an amateur investigator. The revelation has been made by American subjects testifying on oath before an American tribunal as to the state of things that actually existed in the City of New York. As the result of the investigation the old system of Tammany rule was overthrown, and the police thoroughly reorganised. They have now as Chief Commissioner Mr. Moss, who, after Mr. Goff, was the chief instrument in exposing the corruption of the old system. If any one doubts the accuracy of the picture of what actually existed down to 1894, which is set forth in this and the following pages, I can only refer him to the volumes of evidence to which reference is made throughout in the passages quoted.
It is not surprising that men who have lived in the midst of such a city should sometimes burst out like Dr. Parkhurst with the despairing cry:—
You can love your country and work for it, pray and plead for it, but there is a stage of rottenness which once reached, the country is damned beyond the power of the Holy Ghost to do anything for it.
That such a state of rottenness has been reached in any part of the English-speaking world we must all be loath to admit. The great popular uprising which swept Tammany from power in 1894 was a healthy sign that the rottenness had not eaten to the vitals of the community. But the Charter of Greater New York proves only too well how deeply distrust has sapped the faith of the citizens in the possibility of governing their city by the ordinary democratic machinery of an elective assembly.