Chapter 94

THE TILDEN RÉGIME ROUTED

1877

The result at Rochester, so unsatisfactory to a large body of influential men to whom the President represented the most patriotic Republicanism, was followed at Albany by a movement no less disappointing to a large element of the Democratic party.[1588] In their zeal to punish crime Secretary of State Bigelow and Attorney-General Fairchild had made themselves excessively obnoxious to the predatory statesmen of the canal ring, who now proposed to destroy the Tilden régime. Back of them stood John Kelly, eager to become the master, and determined to accomplish what he had failed to do at St. Louis.

[Footnote 1588: The Democratic State convention met at Albany on October 3, 1877.]

As if indifferent to the contest Bigelow had remained in Europe with Tilden, and Fairchild, weary of the nervous strain of office-holding, refused to make an open canvass for the extension of his official life. Nevertheless, the friends of reform understood the importance of renominating the old ticket. It had stood for the interest of the people. Whatever doubt might have clouded the public mind as to Tilden's sincerity as an ardent, unselfish reformer, Republicans as well as Democrats knew that Bigelow and Fairchild represented an uncompromising hostility to public plunderers, and that their work, if then discontinued, must be shorn of much of its utility. Their friends understood, also, the importance of controlling the temporary organisation of the convention, otherwise all would be lost.

The result of the Presidential struggle had seriously weakened Tilden. In the larger field of action he had displayed a timid, vacillating character, and the boldest leaders of his party felt that in the final test as a candidate he lost because he hesitated. Besides, the immediate prospect of power had disappeared. Although Democrats talked of "the great Presidential crime," and seemed to have their eyes and minds fastened on offices and other evidences of victory, they realised deep in their hearts that Hayes was President for four years, and that new conditions and new men might be existent in 1880. Moreover, many Democratic leaders who could not be classed as selfish, felt that Tilden, in securing the advantageous position of a reformer, had misrepresented the real Democratic spirit and purpose in the State. They deeply resented his course in calling about him, to the exclusion of recognised and experienced party advisers, men whom he could influence, who owed their distinction to his favour, and who were consequently devoted to his fortunes. Upon some of these he relied to secure Republican sympathy, while he depended upon Democratic discipline to gain the full support of his party. If events favoured his designs and the exigencies of an exciting Presidential election concealed hostility, these conditions did not placate his opponents, who began plotting his downfall the moment the great historic contest ended. This opposition could be approximately measured by the fact that the entire party press of the State, with three exceptions, disclosed a distinct dislike of his methods.[1589]

[Footnote 1589: New York _Tribune_, September 1, 1877.]

Nevertheless, Tilden's friends held control. Governor Robinson, an executive of remarkable force, sensitively obedient to principles of honest government and bold in his utterances, remained at the head of a devoted band which had hitherto found its career marked by triumph after triumph, and whose influence was still powerful enough to rally to its standard new men of strength as well as old leaders flushed with recent victories. Robinson's courageous words especially engaged the attention of thoughtful Democrats. He did not need to give reasons for the opposition to John Bigelow, or the grievance against Charles S. Fairchild, whose court docket sufficiently exposed the antagonism between canal contractors and the faithful prosecutor. But in his fascinating manner he told the story of the Attorney-General's heroic firmness in refusing to release Tweed.[1590] In Robinson's opinion the vicious classes, whose purposes discovered themselves in the depredations of rings and weakness for plunder, were arrayed against the better element of the party which had temporarily deprived the wrong-doers of power, and he appealed to his friends to rescue administrative reform from threatened defeat.

[Footnote 1590: "The man who has been the most effective organiser of corruption strikes boldly for release. He is arrayed as an element in the combination which attacks the Governor and Democratic State officers, and which seeks to reverse their policy."--Albany _Argus_, October 4, 1877.]

The Governor was not unmindful of his weakness. Besides Tilden's loss of prestige, the renomination of the old ticket encountered the objection of a third term, aroused the personal antagonism of hundreds of men who had suffered because of its zeal, and arrayed against it all other influences that had become hostile to Tilden through envy or otherwise during his active management of the party. Moreover, he understood the cunning of John Kelly and the intrigue of his lieutenants. Knowing that contesting delegations excluded precincts from taking part in the temporary organisation, these men had sought to weaken Tilden by creating fictitious contests in counties loyal to him, thus offsetting John Morrissey's contest against Tammany. It was a desperate struggle, and the only gleam of light that opened a way to Tilden's continued success came from the action of the State Committee, which gave David B. Hill of Chemung 19 votes for temporary chairman to 14 for Clarkson N. Potter of New York. The victory, ordinarily meaning the control of the Committee on Credentials, restored hope if not confidence.

Hill was the friend of Robinson. Although his name had not then become a household word, he was by no means unknown throughout the State. He had come into public life as city attorney in 1864 at the age of twenty-one, and had shown political instincts for the most part admirable. Of those to go to the Assembly in 1871 to aid in the work of judicial purification, Hill was suggested by O'Conor and Tilden as one of the trustworthy lawyers, and in February, 1872, when the legislative committee began its investigation into the charges presented by the Bar Association against Judges Barnard, Cardozo, Ingraham, and McCunn with a view to their impeachment, Hill sat by the side of Tilden. It was recognised that he belonged to the coterie of able men who stood at the front of the reform movement.

His personal habits, too, commended him. He seems to have been absolved from the love of wine, and if the love of a good woman did not win him, he created a substantial home among his books, and worked while others feasted. He talked easily, he learned readily, and with the earnestness of one who inherited an ambition for public life he carefully equipped himself for a political as well as a professional career. He had a robust, straightforward nature. Men liked his courage, his earnestness, his effectiveness as a debater, and his declared purposes which were thoroughly in unison with the spirit of his party. But it was his boldness, tempered with firmness, which justified Robinson in singling him out for chairman. Still, the courage exhibited as a presiding officer in one of the stormiest conventions that ever assembled in the Empire State did not win him distinction.

The Kelly opposition raised no question of principle. The platform denounced the defeat of Tilden as due to fraud, applauded Hayes for his Southern policy, declared for reapportionment of the State, and bitterly assailed railroad subsidies. But it had no words of unkindness for Tilden and Robinson. Indeed, with a most sublime display of hypocrisy, Kelly pointed with pride to the fruits of their administrations, made illustrious by canal reforms, economy, and the relentless prosecution of profligate boards and swindling contractors, and vied with the apostles of administrative reform in calling them "fearless" and "honest," and in repudiating the suggestion of desiring other directing spirits. His only issue involved candidates. Should it be the old ticket or a new one? Should it be Bigelow for a third term, or Beach, the choice of the ring? In opposing the old ticket several delegates extended their hostility only to Bigelow; others included the attorney-general. Only a few demanded an entire change. But Tammany and the Canal ring tactfully combined these various elements with a skill never before excelled in a State convention. Their programme, sugar-coated with an alleged affection for Tilden, was arranged to satisfy the whim of each delegate, while Robinson's policy, heavily freighted with well doing, encountered the odium of a third-term ticket.

Nevertheless, the Governor's control of the chairmanship assured him victory unless Hill yielded too much. But Kelly was cunning and quick. After accepting Hill without dissent, he introduced a resolution providing that the convention select the committee on contested seats. To appoint this committee was the prerogative of the chairman, and Hill, following Cornell's bold ruling in 1871, could have refused to put the motion. When he hesitated delegates sprang to their feet and enthroned pandemonium.[1591] During the cyclone of epithets and invective John Morrissey for the last time opposed John Kelly in a State convention. His shattered health, which had already changed every lineament of a face that successfully resisted the blows of Yankee Sullivan and John C. Heenan, poorly equipped him for the prolonged strain of such an encounter, but he threw his envenomed adjectives with the skill of a quoit-pitcher.

[Footnote 1591: "How the Kelly faction got control of the Democratic convention and used it for the supposed benefit of Kelly is hardly worth trying to tell. A description of the intrigues of a parcel of vulgar tricksters is neither edifying nor entertaining reading."--The _Nation_, October 11, 1877.]

Distributed about the hall were William Purcell, DeWitt C. West, George M. Beebe, John D. Townsend, and other Tammany talkers, who had a special aptitude for knockdown personalities which the metropolitan side of a Democratic convention never failed to understand. Their loud voices, elementary arguments, and simple quotations neither strained the ears nor puzzled the heads of the audience, while their jibes and jokes, unmistakable in meaning, sounded familiar and friendly. Townsend, a lawyer of some prominence and counsel for Kelly, was an effective and somewhat overbearing speaker, who had the advantage of being sure of everything, and as he poured out his eloquence in language of unmeasured condemnation of Morrissey, he held attention if he did not enlighten with distracting novelty.

Morrissey admitted he was wild in his youth, adding in a tone of sincere penitence that if he could live his life over he would change many things for which he was very sorry. "But no one, not even Tweed who hates me," he exclaimed, pointing his finger across the aisle in the direction of Kelly, "ever accused me of being a thief." Morrissey's grammar was a failure. He clipped his words, repeated his phrases, and lacked the poise of a public speaker, but his opponents did not fail to understand what he meant. His eloquence was like that of an Indian, its power being in its sententiousness, which probably came from a limited vocabulary.

At the opening of the convention Robinson's forces had a clear majority,[1592] but in the presence of superior generalship, which forced a roll-call before the settlement of contests, Tammany and the Canal ring, by a vote of 169 to 114, passed into control. To Tilden's friends it came as the death knell of hope, while their opponents, wild with delight, turned the convention into a jubilee. "This is the first Democratic triumph in the Democratic party since 1873," said Jarvis Lord of Monroe. "It lets in the old set."[1593]

[Footnote 1592: New York _Tribune_, October 4, 1877.]

[Footnote 1593: New York _Tribune_, October 4.

"The defeat of Bigelow and Fairchild will be the triumph of the reactionists who think that the golden era of the State was in the days before thieves were chastised and driven out of the Capital and State House."--Albany _Argus_, October 4, 1877.]

The adoption of the Credentials Committee's report seated Tammany, made Clarkson N. Potter permanent chairman, and turned over the party machine. Pursuing their victory the conquerors likewise nominated a new ticket.[1594] Quarter was neither asked nor offered. Robinson had squarely raised the issue that refusal to continue the old officials would be repudiation of reform, and his friends, as firmly united in defeat as in victory, voted with a calm indifference to the threats of the allied power of canal ring and municipal corruptionists. Indeed, their boast of going down with colours flying supplemented the vigorous remark of the Governor that there could be no compromise with Tweed and canal thieves.[1595]

[Footnote 1594: Secretary of State, Allen C. Beach, Jefferson; Comptroller, Frederick P. Olcott, Albany; Treasurer, James Mackin, Dutchess; Attorney-General, Augustus Schoonmaker, Jr., Ulster; Engineer, Horatio Seymour, Jr., Oneida.

On October 6, a convention of Labor Reformers, held at Troy, nominated a State ticket with John J. Junio for Secretary of State. The Prohibition and Greenback parties also nominated State officers, Henry Hagner and Francis E. Spinner being their candidates for secretary of state. The Social Democrats likewise presented a ticket with James McIntosh at its head.]

[Footnote 1595: New York _Tribune_, October 4.]

This apparently disastrous result encouraged the hope that Republicans, in spite of Conkling's indiscretion at Rochester, might profit by it as they did in 1871. Upon the surface Republican differences did not indicate bitterness. Except in the newspapers no organised opposition to the Senator had appeared, and the only mass meeting called to protest against the action of the Rochester convention appealed for harmony and endorsed the Republican candidates.[1596] Even Curtis, the principal speaker, although indulging in some trenchant criticism, limited his remarks to a defence of the Administration. Nevertheless, the presence of William J. Bacon, congressman from the Oneida district, who voiced an intense admiration for the President and his policies, emphasised the fact that the Senator's home people had elected a Hayes Republican. Indeed, the Senator deemed it essential to establish an organ, and in October (1877) the publication of the Utica _Republican_ began under the guidance of Lewis Lawrence, an intimate friend. It lived less than two years, but while it survived it reflected the thoughts and feelings of its sponsor.[1597]

[Footnote 1596: This meeting was held in New York City on October 10. See New York papers of the 11th.]

[Footnote 1597: "The Utica _Republican_ is an aggressive sheet. It calls George William Curtis 'the Apostle of Swash.'"--New York _Tribune_, October 27.]

The campaign presented several confusing peculiarities. Governor Robinson in his letter to a Tammany meeting refused to mention the Democratic candidates, and Tilden, after returning from Europe, expressed the belief in his serenade speech that "any nominations that did not promise coöperation in the reform policy which I had the honour to inaugurate and which Governor Robinson is consummating will be disowned by the Democratic masses."[1598] This was a body-blow to the Ring. Its well-directed aim also struck the ticket with telling effect, for its election involved the discontinuance of Fairchild's spirited canal prosecutions. On the other hand, the adoption of the recent amendment, substituting for the canal commission a superintendent of public works to be appointed by the Governor, made the election of Olcott and Seymour especially desirable, since it would give Robinson and his reforms stronger support than Tilden had in the State board. Yet it could not be denied that the success of the Albany ticket would be construed as a defeat of Tilden's ascendency.

[Footnote 1598: _Ibid._, November 2.]

Similar confusion possessed the Republican mind. A large body of men, resenting the Rochester convention's covert condemnation of the President's policies, hesitated to vote for candidates whose victory would be attributed to Republican opposition to the Administration. This singular political situation made a very languid State campaign. An extra session of Congress called Conkling to Washington, Tilden retired to Gramercy Park, the German-Independent organisation limited its canvass to the metropolis, and the candidates of neither ticket got a patient hearing. Other causes contributed to the Republican dulness. Old leaders became inactive and government officials refused to give money because of their interpretation of the President's civil service order, while rawness and indifference made newer leaders inefficient. After the October collapse in Ohio conditions became hopelessly discouraging.[1599] The tide set more heavily in favour of the Democracy, and each discordant Republican element, increasing its distrust, practically ceased work lest the other profit by it.

[Footnote 1599: Democrats elected a governor by 22,520 plurality and carried the Legislature by forty on joint ballot.--Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1877, p. 621.]

Nevertheless, the hunt for State senators, involving the election of a United States Senator in 1879, provoked animated contests which centred about the candidacy of John Morrissey, whom Republicans and the combined anti-Tammany factions backed with spirit. Morrissey had carried the Tweed district for senator in 1874, and the taunt that no other neighbourhood would elect a notorious gambler and graduate of the prize-ring goaded him into opposing Augustus Schell in one of the fashionable districts of the metropolis. Schell had the advantage of wealth, influence, long residence in the precinct, and the enthusiastic support of Kelly, who turned the contest into a battle for the prestige of victory. For the moment the fierceness of the fight excited the hopes of Republicans that the State might be carried, and to spread the influence of the warring Democratic factions into all sections of the commonwealth, Republican journals made a combined attack upon Allen C. Beach.

Like Sanford E. Church, Beach was a courteous, good-natured politician, who tried to keep company with a canal ring and keep his reputation above reproach. But his character did not refine under the tests imposed upon it. His policy of seeming to know nothing had resulted in doubling the cost of canal repairs during his four years in office. A careful analysis of his record showed that only once did he vote against the most extravagant demands of the predatory contractors. This did not prove him guilty of corruption, "but when as the steady servant of the canal ring," it was asked, "he voted thousands and thousands of dollars, sometimes at the rate of a hundred thousand a day, into the pockets of men whom he knew to be thieves, and on claims which he must have known were full of fraud, was he not lending himself to corruption?"[1600] This charge his opponents circulated through many daily and scores of weekly papers, making the weakness of his character appear more objectionable.

[Footnote 1600: New York _Tribune_, November 3, 1877.]

To these attacks Beach affected an indifference which he did not really feel, for the pride of a candidate who desires the respect of his neighbours is not flattered by their distrust of his integrity. Church had felt the iron enter his soul, and had Tilden and the reformers rearoused the moral awakening that refused to tolerate the Chief Justice in 1874, Beach must have fallen the victim of his partiality to a coterie of political associates willing to benefit at the expense of his ruin. As it was he received a plurality of 11,000, while Seymour and Olcott, his associates upon the ticket, obtained 35,000 and 36,000 respectively.[1601]

[Footnote 1601: Total vote of John J. Junio (Labour Reformer), 20,282; Henry Hagner (Prohibitionist), 7,230; John McIntosh (Social Democrat), 1,799; Francis E. Spinner (Greenback), 997.--Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1877, p. 566.]

The election of State senators in which Conkling had so vital an interest exhibited the work of influential Hayes Republicans, who, openly desiring his destruction, defeated his candidates in Brooklyn, Rochester, and Utica.[1602] Nevertheless, by carrying eighteen of the thirty-two districts he saved fighting ground for himself in the succeeding year.[1603] Indeed, he was able to point to the popular vote and declare that he was as strong in New York as the President was in Ohio. It was known, too, that if Morrissey survived, the Senator would profit by the prize-fighter's remarkable majority of nearly 4,000 over Augustus Schell, a victory which ranked as the crowning achievement of the senatorial campaign.[1604] But Morrissey, prostrated by his exertions, did not live to reciprocate. He spent the winter in Florida and the early spring in Saratoga. Finally, after the loss of speech, his right arm, which had so severely punished Yankee Sullivan, became paralysed, and on May 1 (1878) Lieutenant-governor Dorsheimer announced his death to the Senate. "It is doubtful," added a colleague in eulogy, "if such boldness and daring in political annals were ever shown as he displayed in his last canvass."[1605]

[Footnote 1602: "We elected our district attorney by 2,336 majority, but the candidate for State senator, who was known to represent Senator Conkling, although personally popular and most deserving, was beaten by 1,133.... It is fair to say that the unpopularity of the federal office-holders, who are Mr. Conkling's most zealous supporters, is in part the cause of this remarkable result." Interview of Ellis H. Roberts.--New York _Tribune_, November 10, 1877.

"The energies of all the opposition to me were concentrated upon that district. I believe Tammany and the lofty coterie of Republican gentlemen in this city (New York) threw money into my district to carry it against me.... Had we been sufficiently aroused and sagacious we could have defeated this manoeuvre, but we found out too late. We sent the tickets to the polls, in the ward in which I live, at daylight, as did the Democrats. Not one of our tickets was found at the polls. They were all thrown into the canal." Interview with Conkling.--New York _Herald_, November 9, 1877.]

[Footnote 1603: The Legislature of 1878 had in the Senate: 18 Republicans, 13 Democrats, 1 Independent; in the Assembly: 66 Republicans, 61 Democrats, 1 Independent.]

[Footnote 1604: Tammany elected its entire county ticket. Its majority for the State ticket was 30,520.]

[Footnote 1605: New York _Times_, May 2, 1878.]