Volume III Part 21 (1/2)
[Footnote 1200: John Bigelow, _Life of Samuel J. Tilden_, Vol. 1, p.
217.]
[Footnote 1201: New York _Tribune_, November 14, 1868.]
[Footnote 1202: New York _Evening Post_, November 4, 1868; _Harper's Weekly_, September 30, 1876.]
Forewarned by the returns of 1867 Griswold's supporters, fearing fraud in the metropolis, invoked the aid of the United States Court to prevent the use of forged naturalisation papers, which resulted in the indictment of several men and the publication of fraudulent registry lists. Against such action John T. Hoffman, as mayor, violently protested. ”We are on the eve of an important election,” said his proclamation. ”Intense excitement pervades the whole community.
Unscrupulous, designing, and dangerous men, political partisans, are resorting to extraordinary means to increase it. Gross and unfounded charges of fraud are made by them against those high in authority.
Threats are made against naturalised citizens, and a federal grand jury has been induced to find, in great haste and secrecy, bills of indictment for the purpose, openly avowed, of intimidating them in the discharge of their public duties.... Let no citizen, however, be deterred by any threats or fears, but let him a.s.sert his rights boldly and resolutely, and he will find his perfect protection under the laws and the lawfully const.i.tuted authorities of the State. By virtue of authority invested in me I hereby offer a reward of $100 to be paid on the arrest and conviction of any person charged ... with intimidating, obstructing or defrauding any voter in the exercise of his right as an elector.”[1203] Thus did the Tweed Ring strike back.
[Footnote 1203: New York _Times_, November 2, 1868.]
The result of the election in the country at large deeply disappointed the Democrats. Grant obtained 214 electoral votes in twenty-six States, while Seymour secured 80 in eight States. In New York, however, the conspirators did their word well. Although the Republicans won a majority in both branches of the Legislature and elected eighteen of the thirty-one congressmen, Seymour carried the State by 10,000 and Hoffman by 27,946.
After the election the Union League Club charged that in New York City false naturalisation and fraudulent voting had been practised upon a gigantic scale. It appeared from its report that one man sold seven thousand fraudulent naturalisation certificates; that thousands of fict.i.tious names, with false residences attached, were enrolled, and that gangs of repeaters marched from poll to poll, voting many times in succession. The _Tribune_ showed that in twenty election districts the vote cast for Hoffman largely exceeded the registry lists, already heavily padded with fict.i.tious names, and that by comparison with other years the aggregate State vote clearly revealed the work of the conspirators.[1204] Instead of being the choice of the people, it said, ”Hoffman was 'elected' by the most infamous system of fraud.”[1205]
Andrew D. White wrote that ”the gigantic frauds perpetrated in the sinks and dens of the great city have overborne the truthful vote and voice of the Empire State. The country knows this, and the Democratic party, flushed with a victory which fraud has won, hardly cares to deny it.”[1206] A few months later Conkling spoke of it as a well known fact that John T. Hoffman was counted in. ”The election was a barbarous burlesque,” he continued. ”Many thousand forged naturalisation papers were issued; some of them were white and some were coffee-coloured. The same witnesses purported to attest hundreds and thousands of naturalisation affidavits, and the stupendous fraud of the whole thing was and is an open secret.... Repeating, ballot-box stuffing, ruffianism, and false counting decided everything. Tweed made the election officers, and the election officers were corrupt.
Thirty thousand votes were falsely added to the Democratic majority in New York and Brooklyn alone. Taxes and elections were the mere spoil and booty of a corrupt junta in Tammany. Usurpation and fraud inaugurated a carnival of corrupt disorder; and obscene birds without number swooped down to the harvest and gorged themselves on every side in plunder and spoliation.”[1207]
[Footnote 1204: New York _Tribune_, November 6, 1868.]
[Footnote 1205: _Ibid._, November 7.]
[Footnote 1206: _Ibid._, November 23.]
[Footnote 1207: From speech of Conkling delivered in the U.S. Senate, April 24, 1879.--Thomas V. Cooper, _American Politics_, Book 3, p.
180.]
When Congress convened a committee, appointed to investigate naturalisation frauds in the city of New York, reported that prior to 1868 the Common Pleas and Superior Courts, controlling matters of naturalisation, annually averaged, from 1856 to 1867, 9,000 new voters, but that after the Supreme Court began making citizens on October 6, 1868, the number rapidly increased to 41,112. Several revelations added interest to this statement. Judge Daly served in the Common Pleas, while McCunn, Barnard, Cardozo, and others whom Tweed controlled, sat in the Supreme and Superior Courts. Daly required from three to five minutes to examine an applicant, but McCunn boasted that he could do it in thirty seconds, with the result that the Supreme Court naturalised from 1,800 to 2,100 per day, whereas the Common Pleas during the entire year acted upon only 3,140. On the other hand, the Supreme and Superior Courts turned out 37,967. ”One day last week one of our 'upright judges,'” said the _Nation_, ”invited a friend to sit by him while he played a little joke. Then he left off calling from the list before him and proceeded to call purely imaginary names invented by himself on the spur of the moment: John Smith, James Snooks, Thomas Noakes, and the like. For every name a man instantly answered and took a certificate. Finally, seeing a person scratching his head, the judge called out, 'George Scratchem!' 'Here,' responded a voice. 'Take that man outside to scratch,' said his honour to an usher, and resumed the more regular manufacture of voters.”[1208]
[Footnote 1208: The _Nation_, October 29, 1868.]
To show that a conspiracy existed to commit fraud, the committee submitted valuable evidence contributed by the clerks of these courts.
Instead of printing the usual number of blank certificates based on the annual average of 9,000, they ordered, between September 16 and October 23, more than seven times as many, or 69,000, of which 39,000 went to the Supreme Court. As this court had just gone into the naturalisation business the order seemed suspiciously large. At the time of the investigation 27,068 of these certificates were unaccounted for, and the court refused an examination of its records.
However, by showing that the vote cast in 1868, estimated upon the average rate of the increase of voters, should have been 131,000 instead of 156,000, the committee practically accounted for them. The _Nation_ unwittingly strengthened this measured extent of the fraud, declaring on the day the courts finished their work, that of ”the 35,000 voters naturalised in this city alone, 10,000 are perhaps rightly admitted, 10,000 have pa.s.sed through the machine without having been here five years, and the other 15,000 have never been near the courtroom.”[1209] A table also published by the committee showed the ratio of votes to the population at each of the five preceding presidential elections to have been 1 to 8, while in 1868 it was 1 to 4.65. ”The only fair conclusion from these facts would be,” said the _Nation_, ”that enormous frauds were perpetrated.”[1210]
[Footnote 1209: The _Nation_, October 29, 1868.]
[Footnote 1210: _Ibid._, March 4, 1869.]
On the other hand, the Democratic minority of the committee, after examining Hoffman and Tweed, who disclaimed any knowledge of the transactions and affected to disbelieve the truth of the charges, p.r.o.nounced the facts cited ”stale slanders,” and most of the witnesses ”notorious swindlers, liars, and thieves,” declaring that the fraudulent vote did not exceed 2,000, divided equally between the two parties. Moreover, it p.r.o.nounced the investigation a shameful effort to convict the Democracy of crimes that were really the result of the long-continued misgovernment of the Republicans. If that party controlled the city, declared one critic, it would become as adept in ”repeating” as it was in ”gerrymandering” the State, whose Legislature could not be carried by the Democrats when their popular majority exceeded 48,000 as in 1867. This sarcastic thrust emphasised the notorious gerrymander which, in spite of the Tammany frauds, gave the Republicans a legislative majority of twenty-four on joint-ballot.
CHAPTER XVI
INFLUENCE OF MONEY IN SENATORIAL ELECTIONS