Part 28

"With respect to myself, I cannot reconcile myself to the idea of being tied up for a series of years. I prefer freedom and a period of relaxation to any honors which involve permanent and laborious duties. In December, and repeatedly since, the suggestion from Albany has been made to me that I might have a general support from that and this part of the State for chief, in which those not supposed to be the most friendly would concur, and a considerable number of similar tenders have come to me from other quarters; but to all, by letter and verbally, and among others to Cassidy, each, and Allen--and to Comstock, who is an affirmatively [_sic_] candidate, to Kernan and O'Conor--I have stated my purpose, and I have no disposition to change it. It is not that I undervalue these great trusts, but I am content that they go to those to whose more robust natures and physical vigor the same considerations which influence me are not applicable, and to those in whose peculiar condition they are an object of laudable ambition. If I can help to get a good selection, and then to elect the ticket, I shall consider myself as concentrating in a few days all the public service I could perform in the whole 14 years; and so having completely acquitted myself to my day and generation, become entitled to a play spell.

"Now, my dear sir, it is in just this matter that I regret to lose your co-operation. _You_, if present as a delegate or as an outsider, could help largely in the selection of members from all parts of the state. For this city--if the bar were to control as it now stands--they would unite on Rappallo, but whether he can get any political support or not remains to be seen. He has been one of Vanderbilt's counsel, but I have often put him with you when I have said that, with the best quality of men, that consideration could be wholly disregarded.

"Can you extricate yourself from the embarrassments to which you allude--or be neutral on that case--and come and help as to others?

"Remember that for your time as well as mine this occasion is not likely to recur.

"I sat down to say this, and must beg you to excuse me for the long letter I have poured out upon you.

"Very Truly, "Yours, &c., "S. J. TILDEN."

"I have omitted to speak of Church. If he becomes a candidate, as is probable, though not decided, he will be a strong one before the convention."

TILDEN TO GEORGE W. CASS

(JAY GOULD'S RETAINER)

"NEW YORK, _June 2d, 1870_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--You will recollect that some time ago I requested you to give me a statement in respect to the circumstances attending an arrangement communicated to me by you in the winter of 1869, by which the Erie Railway Company paid me a retainer of $10,000 in connection with the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad Company, a majority of the stock of which was then owned by the Erie Railway Company. You deferred it, in consequence of the pressure upon time. I should now like to have you furnish me the statement.

"The reason I applied to you was that my original information as to the purposes of this retainer was derived exclusively from you; and that it was under this information, in no respect changed by anything derived from other sources, that I accepted the payment. The facts, so far as they are within my knowledge, are these: Early in 1869--I presume it must have been in January of that year--you asked me to consent to become a director of the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad Company and a member of the executive committee of that company, holding the balance of power between the other two members in case of their disagreement. You stated the object to be to make an amiable arrangement between the parties then litigating in an Ohio court, whereby the railroad could be taken out of the possession of the receiver and restored to the management of the company; and that as a part of the same compromise you were to become a director with others who were to be agreed upon. You will remember that I replied that I was already burdened with work in the capacity of director in other companies, which consumed an inconvenient share of my time and thought, and without remuneration; that the tendency of such work was to become more encroaching; that I had entered upon it in every instance only under the influence of existing relations, and was desirous to relieve myself of such duties as I had already done in some cases; and that I was unwilling to take such a trust in respect to a company in which I had no interest, and had never had any relations. You and Mr. McCullough repeatedly pressed me not to positively refuse; and when I was elected it was without any assent on my part. One day you mentioned to me that Mr. Jay Gould had proposed that the Erie should pay me $10,000, the Cleveland and Pittsburg $5000, and the Fort Wayne $5000. I certainly understood that those payments were proposed to be made in respect to services or benefits expected in connected with the arrangement for the change in the condition and management of the Cleveland and Pittsburg Company, and nothing else. Your communication related to that matter and to that alone. You will remember that when you mentioned the proposal to me I made no comment, and manifested no interest in it or desire that it should be adopted. Afterwards, when Mr. Gould mentioned the matter to me he made no further or different explanation, but spoke of it as if it were a matter which I already completely understood. He subsequently, a second time, mentioned that he was going to send me a check, and about the last of February did send it. I never did or said anything about the matter except to accept and receipt for the check. The Cleveland and Pittsburg Company, at a meeting when I was not present, but believe you were, adopted a resolution appointing me their counsel, with a monthly salary at the rate of $5000 a year. I had supposed they would have put it in one payment, but they adopted such form as they pleased. The Fort Wayne never mentioned the subject to me, nor I to it. I had relations to it, but none to the Cleveland and Pittsburg or to the Erie. The proposition to make the payments by those two companies was purely their own; the amounts were fixed without any consultation with me, and on their own estimate of the utility of the arrangement to them. In expressing to you my repugnance to undertaking the services, I did not contemplate any condition as to pecuniary compensation. Nor can I now say that any such consideration was a principal inducement to my aiding in the trust. I could not foresee how much of labor or trouble I was to undertake. I did not desire more business, but less. I had during the two years before repeatedly declined retainers from the Erie and from its adversaries. The object of the arrangement was attained. The receivership was closed and the administration of the road was restored to the Cleveland and Pittsburg Company. I served out my term as director, as member of the executive committee, and as counsel of the company, and gave every necessary attention to those duties. When this was done I deemed that I had performed all I had undertaken, and that the C. and P. and the Erie had realized all they had contemplated in the arrangement which they had proposed, and in the payments which they had voluntarily made.

"It was not until in February last, when I was acting for the trustees of the bondholders of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway Company, that I learned with surprise that Mr. Gould entertained the idea that the implied engagement in accepting the retainer before mentioned extended beyond the affair of the Cleveland and Pittsburg, to which the arrangement exclusively related. I answered him at the time. But the circumstance that he did entertain such an idea induces me to address you this letter.

"With much respect, "Yours very truly, "S. J. TILDEN."

"_Hon. George W. Cass._"

MR. TILDEN'S PURCHASE OF TOPIC

"_June 10, '70._

"I have this day sold to Samuel J. Tilden a bay horse gelding called Topic, six years old, for fifteen hundred dollars; and I hereby warrant the said horse to be sound and serviceable in every particular, and to be kind and gentle in use under the saddle and in single and double harness; and I do further agree that such sale is made on the following special conditions: _first_, I agree that if the said horse, after he shall have been used, shall not in all respects suit the said Tilden, I will, upon notice at any time within one year from this date, take back the said horse Topic, and return the said purchase money, but without interest; _secondly_, if the said Tilden shall prefer I will give to him in exchange for Topic any horse which I may bring to New York for market within the year, on fair and reasonable terms of exchange, provided that the said horse Topic shall be fairly treated by the said Tilden in the mean time, and shall be also at the risk of the said Tilden in respect to accidental injuries, and that the delivery of the said horse Topic, in return or exchange, shall not be required before April first, 1871. In witness whereof I have set my hand and seal this 10th of June, 1870.

"LOGAN RAILEY.

"_Witness, Geo. W. Smith._"

SAML. G. COURTNEY TO S. J. TILDEN

"_Strictly private._

"SUNDAY, 5-1/2 P.M.

"MY DEAR TILDEN,--I regret to inform you that there is a great deal of bad feeling abroad among _our_ friends respecting the arrest of Connolly,[55] and _you_ and Mr. Havemeyer are blamed and denounced for it, and for deserting him in the hour of his need.

_Of course, as far as you are concerned_, the sentiment I speak of is baseless and unfounded, and I have endeavored to set you right, and I think have succeeded; but as to Mr.

H., there is but one feeling, and that of universal condemnation.

Mr. Connolly is still in duress, and I am afraid he cannot get the required bail. What's to be done?

I mean to stand by him and sustain him now, for under my advice (together with the urgent appeals of Mr. H.) he resigned, and the result is imprisonment; and as Mr. Peckham says on his affidavit, they were awaiting only his resignation to accomplish what has been done.

"I write this to you in strict confidence.

"I think you ought to know what is going on. I am your true friend, and do not intend to have you placed in a false position.

"I am going to New York Hotel (room 131), where Connolly is. Unless you see some insuperable objection, I think you ought to call this morning and see him.

"Truly yours, SAML. G. COURTNEY."

"_Hon. S. J. Tilden._"

EVILS OF OUR TIMES

(ENDORSED "DRAFT OF CIRCULAR," ALL IN TILDEN'S SCRIPT)

"_Centralism_ in the _government_, and _corruption_ in _administration_ are the twin evils of our times. They threaten with swift destruction civil liberty and the whole fabric of our free institutions.

"_National Government._

"The Democratic party was originally organized by Jefferson to oppose these evils. It ruled the country for fifty of the seventy years of the present century, and protected us from disunion on the one hand and from centralism on the other, and from corruption. Under twelve years of rule of the Republican party, the Federal government is rapidly usurping power from the localities and from individuals, and has become more corrupt than was ever imagined possible. The masses of the Republicans, like the masses of all parties, are honest. No doubt some allowance ought to be made for the effect of a great war. But the system of false finance which has corrupted us into a nation of gamblers was as unnecessary as corrupting. And the principle and measures of the Republican party, their centralism, tariffs not for revenue but to control the labor and capital of the people, legislative grants and jobs of all kinds tend to corruption. And the ideal standard of their statesmen is lower than any ever held by the followers of Jefferson and Jackson.

"_State Government._

"In 1846, twenty-five years ago, I went to the Assembly to sustain the administration of Silas Wright. Not a man in either House was even suspected of corruption. The Democracy under Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, William L. Marcy, and Azariah C. Flagg had ruled the State during the life of the old Constitution from 1821 to 1846. They were all men not only of transcendent ability, but of personal purity. They gathered around them men of like character in all the counties. They wielded party power not only in favor of good measures, but in favor of good men. No corrupt Senator or Assemblyman could live in their atmosphere. The race ran out.

"From 1846 to 1870--23 years--the Democracy never had a majority in the Senate, and but twice a small majority in the Assembly. Those bodies became what the Republicans, and the party from which they sprang, have made them. When William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed came into power the character of the legislative bodies fell in an instant, and during all the 23 years of Republican ascendancy it continued to fall."

FOOTNOTES:

[42] A James Gordon Bennett, Senior, the founder of the New York _Herald_.

[43] A fellow-citizen of Governor Seymour in Oneida County. Later an unsuccessful candidate for attorney-general, and subsequent successful candidate and member of the United States Senate.

[44] Governor of Pennsylvania.

[45] For this speech delivered in the Democratic State convention assembled in Albany on the 11th March, 1868, to select delegates to the convention which was to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency at the ensuing election in November, see _Writings and Speeches of Tilden_, Vol. 1, p. 394.

[46] General Dix had been appointed by President Johnson Minister to France in 1866.

[47] Mr. Loomis was best known in his day as an associate with David D. Field in drafting the Civil Code for this State. He had no sympathy, however, with the Lincoln government, its origin or conduct. He was a man deservedly of much influence by virtue of his sterling character and good-sense. He exerted no inconsiderable influence in shaping the revised Constitution of the State of New York in 1866.

[48] Mr. Allen was a kinsman of Sandford E. Church; had been a Collector of Internal Revenue; was Comptroller of the State at the date of this letter, and subsequently became a judge of the Court of Appeals.

[49] Frank P. Blair was a son of the former editor of the Washington Globe; he had been a Member of Congress from Missouri; he served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and attained the rank of brigadier-general. He was nominated in the fall of 1868 as Vice-President on the Democratic ticket which selected Horatio Seymour, of New York, for President. General Grant was selected by the Republican party as its candidate for President, with Colfax, of New York, for Vice-President. The Republican ticket was successful.

[50] Mr. Walker had been a Senator from the State of Mississippi, and subsequently Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk.

[51] A member of Congress from California.

[52] Atlantic & Great Western Railroad.

[53] Hon. Azariah C. Flagg, former comptroller both of the State and late of the city of New York.

[54] James McHenry, the promoter of the Atlantic & Great Western.

[55] For an account of this grievance of Mr. Connolly and his relations with the Tweed ring and with Mr. Tilden, see Bigelow's _Life of Tilden_, Vol. I., pp. 182-210.

1871-1872

TILDEN TO W. CASSIDY

"_Confidential._

"NEW LEBANON, _Aug. 1871_.

"MY DEAR CASSIDY,--I think you had better note the tone of the 30 or 40 extracts which the _Times_ daily publishes from journals of all parts of the United States--nearly all administration, but a few Democratic. It indicates the _mode_ of using the exposures of the _Times_ which are employed throughout the country.

"Two ideas are sufficiently apparent now:

"1. That the evils and abuses in the local government of the city of New York are general characteristics of the Democratic party, and would occur in the Federal government if that party should come into power at Washington.

"This argument, fallacious though it be, is likely to satisfy the Republican mind and to animate it to effectiveness; and to confuse and embarrass the Democratic mind, and render it ineffective, if not irresolute. The immense preponderance of the Republicans in journalism, and the situation of this local cancer, directly under the focus of that journalism, which makes it more conspicuous to the eye of the country than a hundred such would be if existing in remote or obscure parts--the peculiar and remarkable clearness and certainty of the proofs compared with the inferential and argumentative nature of the evidence in such cases usually, are circumstances which go far to enable the Republicans to succeed in propagating this idea. We are out. Our case requires not merely firmness in holding our position by our veterans, but affirmative, aggressive action, resulting in accessions from the hostile or neutral, captures from the enemy. If the higher _morale_--the better weapons, the stronger ammunition--are not _with_ us, but _against_ us, how are we to be capable of the kind of warfare necessary to the situation?

"2. The second idea is that the leading Democratic journals _defend_ the wrongs alleged, thus impliedly adopting them or admitting a responsibility for them, which does not allow of disavowal and condemnation.

"A mode of discussion which countenances such a construction is not only wrong but foolish, both in respect to the party and the journal. All that can be conceded to the accused is the benefit of whatever doubts may exist as to their guilt. It will not do to set off similar wrongs alleged against the other party, for that, if frequently repeated, will gradually foster in the public mind the conclusion that we admit these wrongs to be properly carried to our side of the account. The idea should be kept _all the while_ before the public mind that the Democratic party is not responsible for these wrongs; that it will be foremost in punishing the authors and foremost in adopting all measures necessary to prevent their recurrence. The _first_ impression is important, and persistent repetitions of that impression are necessary to affect the public mind. The point of the article which was commended by Mr. Kernan, Gov. Beach, and myself needs to be presented again and again--perhaps with even more distinctness--until it attracts more public attention than it seems to have done. This is especially necessary in view of the articles in the _World_."

S. E. CHURCH TO TILDEN

"ALBION, _Aug. 1, 1871_.

"HON. SAML. J. TILDEN.

"MY DEAR SIR,--The ticket this fall must be made up of sound men who will inspire confidence, or we shall be beaten. I think the party in the interior are all right if properly attended to. The awful 'botch' made in suppressing the riot, and the ventilation of financial matters in N. Y., are calculated to weaken our strength in the country, and something must be done to counteract their influence. Is it not a good time to dismember the New York ring? How does Hall relish the position in which he has been forced? It is so long since I have heard from you that I almost think you have forgotten me. Are you not coming West before the State convention? I have got to living now, and shall be glad to see you. At any rate, write me.

"Truly yours, "S. E. CHURCH."

"_Confidential._"

HORATIO SEYMOUR TO TILDEN

"UTICA, _Aug. 12, 1871_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--In the matter of the 'caucus,' do nothing until you are called in. In the mean time let the Republican surgeons hack and cut away. There can be no better time. When the public mind is turned to the question of frauds, etc., etc., there will be a call for the books at Washington as well as in the city of New York. I think a spasm of virtue will run through the body politic. Business is dull. The farmers are getting poor, with no look ahead of better times. Immigration, railroads, and machinery are crowding the markets with provisions and breadstuffs. Taxes are now felt as they have not been since 1860. The corruption in our party is local. In the Republican party it is pervading. We can lose nothing by stirring up questions of frauds. I hope I shall meet you soon. In the mean time see more 'devil opements, and can judge better of the course to be taken.

"Truly yours, "HORATIO SEYMOUR."

TILDEN TO MR. PURCELL

"NEW YORK, _August 12, 1871_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Returning to the city two days ago, I found your note.

"The better way to see me would be to meet me at Saratoga. When can you be there? Communicate with me by telegraph, if necessary.

"I am not unobservant of the situation. The question is what are our people morally able to do? Would you allow your opinion to be public, and attend at the place where a convention should be held? What would Jarvis Lord do? What DeWolf?

"Some of our people from the interior think the recent exposures will not hurt us much in the country districts. That is not my opinion. I should be sorry to think the demoralization is so great that such things would not hurt us.

"We have to face the question, whether we will fall with the wrongdoers or whether we will separate from them and take our chances of possible defeat now, with resurrection hereafter; possible chances, I say, for if the party could act _unitedly_ I do not despair that we could save it now.

"I have not time to write now, but I hasten to acknowledge your note.

"The best immediate thing for you to do is to have the _Union_[56] begin at once prudently to disavow and denounce the wrongdoers, and educate our people.

"In haste, "Very truly Yours, "S. J. TILDEN."

JOHN A. DIX TO TILDEN

"3 WEST 21ST ST., _2 Sept., 1871_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I am just going to my country-place at Westhampton, Long Island, and am sorry that I cannot have a few minutes with you to talk about city affairs. It seems to me that every honest man must be sincerely desirous of a thorough investigation; for, independently of the wrong to the taxpayers, it must be evident that popular government cannot be maintained unless the authors and sharers of the plunder, of which we have unquestionable evidence, can be discovered and disgraced. I earnestly hope that you, who stand before the community with as enviable a reputation for integrity as any man in it, and who can do so much to effect the object in view, will take an active part in the movement which is in progress.

"I wished to see you on another matter. I have looked for two years in vain for my war-horse. He has disappeared. I have, therefore, got another horse--not a war-horse, I hope. If you have not parted with my saddle and bridle, are you willing to let me have them? As my seat was molded to the saddle by six years of daily use, I should not probably find another so well fitted to it. If you will do so, and at the same time let me know their value, you will greatly oblige me.[57]

"Yours very truly, "JOHN A. DIX."

"_Hon. Saml. J. Tilden._

"My address is 3 W. 21st St. My son forwards my letters when I am out of town."

S. J. TILDEN (CIRCULAR LETTER AS CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE)

"NEW YORK, _Sept. 11, 1871_.

"DEAR SIR,--The time between the meeting of the State convention and the election being a little shorter than usual, it has been deemed advisable to begin preparations for the canvass _at once_, so that even more than the ordinary period for organization will be afforded. The poll-book for your district has been already sent to the chairman of your county committee, and may be had on application to him.