Chapter 81

INFLUENCE OF MONEY IN SENATORIAL ELECTIONS

1869

The election of a legislative majority in 1868 plunged the Republicans into a fierce contest over the choice of a successor to Edwin D. Morgan, whose term in the United States Senate ended on March 4. In bitterness it resembled the historic battle between Weed and Greeley in 1861. Morgan had made several mistakes. His support of Johnson during the first year of the latter's Administration discredited him, and although he diligently laboured to avoid all remembrance of it, the patronage which the President freely gave had continued to identify him with the Johnsonised federal officials. To overcome this distrust he presented letters from Sumner and Wade, testifying to his loyalty to the more radical element of the party.[1211] A revival of the story of his opposition to Wadsworth in 1862 also embarrassed him. He had overcome it when first elected to the Senate by the sustaining hand of Thurlow Weed, whose position in the management of the party was strengthened by Wadsworth's defeat; but now Weed was absent, and to aid in meeting the ugly charges which rendered his way devious and difficult, Morgan had recourse to Edwin M. Stanton, who wrote that Wadsworth, distinguishing the Senator from his betrayers, repeatedly spoke of him as a true friend and faithful supporter.[1212]

[Footnote 1211: New York _Tribune_, January 13 and 18, 1869.]

[Footnote 1212: New York _Times_, January 12, 1869.]

Morgan's strength, though of a negative kind, had its head concealed under the coils of Conkling's position. It was manifest that the latter's admirers were combining to depose Reuben E. Fenton, Morgan's chief competitor for the senatorial toga. Chester A. Arthur, looking into the future, had already recognised the need of a new alignment, and the young Senator evidenced the qualities that appealed to him. There was a common impression that if Morgan were re-elected, he would yield to the greater gifts of Conkling and the purpose, now so apparent, was to crush Fenton and make Conkling the head of an organisation which should include both Senators. John A. Griswold understood this and declined to embarrass Morgan by entering the race.

Fenton at this time was at the height of his power. His lieutenants, headed by Waldo M. Hutchins, the distributor of his patronage, excelled in the gifts of strategy, which had been illustrated in the election of Truman G. Younglove for speaker. They were dominated, also, by the favourite doctrine of political leaders that organisation must be maintained and victory won at any cost save by a revolution in party policy, and they entered the senatorial contest with a courage as sublime as it was relentless. Their chief, too, possessed the confidence of the party. His radicalism needed no sponsors. Besides, his four years' service as governor, strengthened by the veto of several bills calculated to increase the public burdens, had received the unmistakable approval of the people.

Nevertheless he was heavily handicapped. Greeley, still smarting under Fenton's failure to support him for governor in 1868, declared for Marshall O. Roberts, while Noah Davis, surprised at his insincerity, aided Morgan. If Greeley's grievance had merit, Davis' resentment was certainly justified. The latter claimed that after Conkling's election in 1867, Fenton promised to support him in 1869, and that upon the Governor's advice, to avoid the prejudice against a judge who engaged in politics, he had resigned from the Supreme Court and made a winning race for Congress.[1213]

[Footnote 1213: New York _World_, January 6, 1869.]

But the _Commercial Advertiser_, a journal then conducted by Conservatives, placed the most serious obstacle in Fenton's pathway, charging that an intimate friend of the Governor had received $10,000 on two occasions after the latter had approved bills for the New York Dry Dock and the Erie Railroad Companies.[1214] Although the _Sun_ promptly pronounced it "a remarkable piece of vituperation,"[1215] and the _Tribune_, declaring "its source of no account," called it "a most scurrilous diatribe,"[1216] the leading Democratic journal of the State accepted it as "true."[1217] The story was not new. In the preceding summer, during an investigation into the alleged bribery of members of the Legislature of 1868, Henry Thompson, an Erie director, was asked if his company paid Governor Fenton any money for approving the bill legalising the acts of its directors in the famous "Erie war." Thompson refused to answer as the question fell without the scope of the committee's jurisdiction. Thereupon Thomas Murphy testified that Thompson told him that he saw two checks of $10,000 each paid to Hamilton Harris, the Governor's legal adviser, under an agreement that Fenton should sign the bill. Murphy added that afterwards, as chairman of a Republican political committee, he asked Jay Gould, president of the Erie company, for a campaign contribution, and was refused for the reason that he had already given $20,000 for Fenton. Harris and Gould knew nothing of the transaction.[1218]

[Footnote 1214: New York _Commercial Advertiser_, January 2, 1869.]

[Footnote 1215: New York _Sun_, January 4.]

[Footnote 1216: New York _Tribune_, January 9.]

[Footnote 1217: New York _World_, January 6.]

[Footnote 1218: The _Nation_, March 18.]

Matthew Hale, chairman of the Senate investigating committee, did not include this testimony in his report, and the startling and improbable publication in the _Commercial Advertiser_ must have withered as the sensation of a day, had not the belief obtained that the use of money in senatorial contests played a prominent and important part. This scandalous practice was modern. Until 1863 nothing had been heard of the use of money in such contests. But what was then whispered, and openly talked about in 1867 as Conkling testified, now became a common topic of conversation. "It is conceded on all hands," said the _Times_, editorially, "that money will decide the contest."[1219]

[Footnote 1219: New York _Times_, January 9, 1869.]

Talk of this kind appealed to the pessimist who believes a legislator is always for sale, but Speaker Younglove, an assemblyman of long experience, knowing that good committee appointments were more potent than other influences, tactfully withheld the announcement of his committees. Such a proceeding had never before occurred in the history of the State, and twelve years later, when George H. Sharpe resorted to the same tactics, William B. Woodin declared that it made Younglove "a political corpse."[1220] Nevertheless, Morgan soon understood that chairmanships and assignments on great committees were vastly more attractive than anything he had to offer, and on January 16 (1869) the first ballot of the caucus gave Fenton 52 votes to 40 for Morgan. A month later, Richard M. Blatchford, then a justice of the United States Supreme Court, wrote Thurlow Weed: "Morgan loses his election because, you being sick, his backbone was missing."[1221]

[Footnote 1220: New York _Tribune_, January 13, 1881.]

[Footnote 1221: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 462.]