prominent Tammany man remarked, upon a similar incident, "that the descend-ants of such Pharisees may be found in politics," adding, "they are those who thank God that they are not as other men, and straightway go out to form Mugwump circles."

Early in May, Mr. Croker, whose health had been failing for some time, resigned all his political offices which he held in the Tammany organization, retaining only simple membership therein. His resignation, which had been foreseen, was accepted by all the members present, with only one dissenting voice. No other leader was elected in Mr. Croker's place-a position he had so ably filled for the nine preceding years, and, in advance of this period, he had rendered fully twenty years of faithful work in the interests of the organization. His retirement at this time did not result from any loss of interest, but was simply a life-saving necessity, and was insisted upon by his physician.

Mr. John McQuade, a man of large business experience, was made Chairman of the Finance Committee, but the organization, as a whole, underwent no material change, every department being in a healthful condition, and well able to sustain their several parts in the general management; thus no immediate necessity existed for selecting a special leader. As an old and experienced member remarked: "When a new leader is really needed, one will be developedTammany never lacks able men."

The Fourth of July programme was prepared in ample time, with the usual supply of excellent speakers and the unfailing enthusiastic audience, but one event, which had not been announced, was received with a more intense outbreak of rejoicing than all the rest of the formal arrangements. This was the unexpected return and appearance on the scene of Mr. Croker, which, to all but a very limited number, was wholly unlooked for. His reception was cordial in the extreme, and to a great number of those present would have been ample compensation, if it had simply been substituted for the usual proceedings. As full descriptions have been given in these pages of several of these celebrations, it will not be necessary to go into any detailed description of this one, which so many of our readers will personally recollect; and, really, the main event of the day was the sudden return of Tammany's old chief, who, however, took no part in the public proceedings, only greeting the friends who came to him and departing from the hall before the orators commenced their "long talks."

CHAPTER LI.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND GOVERNOR HILL.

T

HE Constitutional Convention which met this summer (1894), largely interested Tammany, as dealing with the question of the reapportionment of the Senate and Assembly districts of the State, with which, of course, considerable partisan feeling in both parties existed. It was not a new question. For the preceeding fifteen years it had been the cause not only of serious debate, but also of not a little ill feeling. The Constitution of the State had provided that an enumeration of the population should be taken every ten years, and that the legislative districts should be apportioned by the Legislature next sitting upon the new enumeration. An enumeration should have been taken in 1885. At that time David B. Hill was Governor, but the Republicans had control of the Legislature. An enumeration bill was passed, but vetoed by the Governor, on the gorund that it gave the Republicans control of the appointment of the enumerating officers. After the Legislature adjourned Governor Hill called an extra session, which reconvened, but passed the same bill which had been vetoed. Discrimination was clearly against the City of New York. The greatest injury to the Democratic party fell on Kings County, now the New York Borough of Brooklyn. Tammany felt somewhat relieved when the worst was known.

The Democratic State Convention, which assembled in Saratoga on September 29th, again selected David B. Hill as their nominee for Governor, Damel N. Lockwood, of Erie County, for Lieutenant-Governor, and William J. Gaynor, of Kings County, for Judge of Court of Appeals. Although the last State election had not been reassuring, the Democratic party of New York met with brave words and good courage to renew the contest lost in 1894. The Committee on Credentials made its first announcement that the regular delegates from New York and Kings Counties would be seated. The TAMMANY TIMES, published in New York city, which was being distributed by thousands, helped to create a furor in favor of Hill, his picture being on the front page, and this was in every delegate's hand. When Hill's name was regularly placed before the convention and the roll call demanded, there were 383 responses in the affirmative, every county in the State having voted for him. On this occasion Mr. Hill was voted for in spite of himself. His candidate had been Mr. Thatcher, who was withdrawn.

The platform adopted expressed its condemnation of a single silver standard, a worse than war tariff (the McKinley), and satisfaction at the repeal of the Sherman law, adding: "We concur with President Cleveland in regard to the new tariff. the Wilson bill, that it does not embody the full measure of tariff reform needed." "We reaffirm the declaration of principles contained in the Democratic National platform of 1892, in favor of honest money; economy in public expenses; just and liberal provision for disabled Union soldiers, and the true principles of

Civil Service reform." This platform repudiated the Income Tax; favored all just legislation in the interests of labor, and denounced, "as contrary to the spirit of our institutions, any display of religious intolerance or political proscription on account of any special form of religious belief."

The clause in the platform referring to labor appeared to have been widely. read and appreciated by the class most interested. At a meeting in Cooper Union, held on October 25th, which was addressed by the nominee for Governor, the immense hall was filled by almost exclusively an audience of workingmen, who had come to see and hear the man who had done so much for the industrial interests of the community, and was ready to do more. Between forty and fifty different trade organizations being represented, including some musical societies and other forms of industry not usually classed as labor. At the close of Mr. Hill's address, which was vociferously applauded, a representative of Typographical Union No. 6, read a list of beneficial laws affecting labor which Mr. Hill, as Lieutenant-Governor, and Governor, had secured for the State of New York.

But enthusiasm does not always elect. And, in truth, it may be said, that no political organization in the United States ever had as formidable a combination against it as Tammany had at this time. Very shortly after the adjournment of the State Convention the experienced leaders had serious consultations how best to meet the threatening forces arrayed against them, their main efforts being directed to securing the right candidate for the office of Mayor of the City of New York. Several of the prominent officers of the Wigwam favored the nomination of Frederic R. Coudert, which would undoubtedly have drawn some of the professed reformers from their new allegiance to strange gods, thus exhibiting great magnanimity on the part of Tammany; for Mr. Coudert had lately been working against the organization, but was still recognized as a Democrat untainted with Republicanism. Unfortunately, another spirit had been at work among the leaders of the Assembly Districts, which rendered the nomination of Mr. Coudert impolitic, if not impossible. Former Mayor Hugh Grant favored the candidacy of Nathan Strauss, and he was finally selected, and accepted the nomination, which, however, he later resigned, and the name of Hugh Grant was substituted.

What had given the combined opponents of Tammany the absolute assurance that they could secure its defeat was the fact that in the State election of 1893 the Democratic candidate for the Court of Appeals had only won in the city by a majority of 31,677, and this was taken as a safe estimate of Tammany's strength. From this style of arguing the antagonistic element somewhat naturally, though erroneously, came to the conclusion, that if all the enemies of Tammany could be united, in addition to their permanent opponents, the Republicans, it would be easy work to overcome a matter of 30,000 votes.

The strongest enemies to be met in the independent camps were undoubtedly the State Democracy, and the organization of the "Seventy," which was formally launched on the political tide early in September, and with which the lesser antiTammany associations and clubs were more or less affiliated; but the idea of this general combination must, in strict justice, be attributed to Parkhurst, whose continuous preaching and personal influence had originally aroused, by his persistent assertions of Tammany's wickedness, and his own purity, the animosity of thousands of ill-informed but probably honest people; for it is a well understood element in uncultured human nature to take persistent assertion for fact and accu

sation for proof. One of the preacher's favorite topics was that of election frauds, which were urged against the police force, including indiscriminately, Republicans and Democrats, but which the orators of the former party habitually referred to as "Tammany frauds," though, as ex-Mayor Hewitt pointed out, the same stereotyped charges were brought in 1875, when Tammany held no office in the city government; and the same occurred under his own mayoralty. The inference plainly to be drawn from his published letter is that, in his opinion, wherever there were human beings and strong temptations, a certain percentage would fail in their duty under the very best conditions. The whole number indicted, out of some four thousand, were only seventy-two, of which twenty-nine were dismissed as unsustained, a few pleaded guilty; other doubtful cases were suspended, or referred to the next session of Oyer and Terminer, but were not heard of again. All the convictions were procured by a Democratic District Attorney, irrespective of politics, with no question of what party they belonged to. But out of these, trials the reformers, in their haste to make political capital, did not scruple to throw such dishonor upon their own city that foreign newspapers and other distant critics felt justified in speaking of the metropolis of our country as if it were a place unfit for habitation-a species of treason which no Democrat was ever guilty of.

One of the worst of these defamers was the Rev. George H. Hepworth, who, in his book on Armenia, refers to Tammany in such a malicious and untruthful spirit that every intelligent reader naturally asks himself: Is a man thus capable of slandering his own fellow citizens a reliable witness on any subject, especially the political conditions of a foreign country?

After the defeat of the Democratic ticket, in 1894, inexperienced people began to talk as if the end of Tammany had come, but the old-timers of the Wigwam were not in the least dismayed. They had experienced reverses before, and had outlived them, rising from them with renewed strength, like the ancient hero of Grecian mythology, Anteus, who, in his struggle with a formidable enemy, was reinvigorated every time he touched mother earth. The blow this time was not mortal. In the first place, the Tammany people knew that the adverse result had been brought about not because they were sinners above all men, but simply from the combination of unnatural allies, who, in the nature of things, could not long remain in unison, being held together not by any platform of principles, but largely by an ardent desire to achieve the handling of the city patronage, and not by any recognized historic party who had a future to look to. If these temporary allies had been the pure and disinterested men they claimed to be, they would not have conducted their campaign on a basis of wild calumny and falsification, as they did; and, in view of this, Tammany was satisfied that, with a little time for reflection, the mass of honest voters, who had been misled by misstatements and the hypocritical pretence of superior purity of motive, would soon see these pretenders unmasked by their own actions, and the betrayed people would recover their second sober thought and come back to the party of less pretence, but more habitual honesty of purpose. Besides, the Tammany vote had not been small; its candidate for Mayor, Hugh Grant, received 109,000 votes, which was only eight thousand less than the vote which had elected him in 1888; so the veterans felt, in their hearts, that it would not be long before these deserters would be speeding back to their old home, under the permanent shelter of the Wigwam.

CHAPTER LII.

SOME REVERSES-PARKHURST-MAYNARD.

LTHOUGH New York State would have failed of its electoral vote for Grover Cleveland without the loyal aid rendered by Tammany, that organization stood on its dignity, and made no immediate effort to secure recognition at the hands of the President, as he had not been their preferred candidate, while naturally not averse to accepting any good thing which the Administration felt inclined to put in their way; and, while the men from " up the State," some of whom had even signed a protest against Cleveland's nomination, did not hesitate to make personal application at the White House for a share of the spoils, the officers of the Tammany Society checked the inclination to rush to Washington, but, instead, agreed among themselves what it was rightly entitled to, selected the names of the men for the offices to which they were best fitted, and, after waiting a reasonable time, quietly sent them to the Executive Mansion. Such was the seemly method employed by Tammany; while from the country parts of this State, and from every other State in the Union, the White House was besieged with office-beggars of every class and description.

The most important event of 1893 and which had a far reaching effect upon the Tammany organization was, of course, the State election. Already a number of small factions, calling themselves anti-Tammany, and with no other excuse for existence, were cropping up, destined, in the end, to extinction, but troublesome for the time they continued, simply seeking their individual interests, regardless of the greater interests of the party. Among these events affecting the interests of Tammany which burst into sudden prominence this year was that outbreak of unrestrained fanaticism which has been called "the Parkhurst assault," but though the reverend gentleman's name has been specially identified with the attack, ostensibly directed to the New York police force, yet, in intent and purpose, meaning injury to Tammany, he was not the originator of the movement which eventuated in the appointment of the notorious "Lexow Committee of Investigation."

The original instigator was a business man, a cotton broker, named Henry Morehouse Taber, who happened to be foreman of the Grand Jury of March, 1892, and who, in that capacity, made a wholesale charge of corruption against the police force and the police courts, acting, in this matter, in conjunction with Dr. Parkhurst. Adding his own opinion to the official presentment, he declared his belief that the police were paid to protect law-breakers, and that the corruption fund existing for this precise purpose amounted to $7,000,000 or $8,000,000! That a commission of inquiry into this man's sanity was not immediately instituted remains one of the mysteries of that period. This veracious individual indulged in other eccentricities of conduct, all of which were not known to the public until after his death, when his peculiar will disclosed some of them. During all of his adult life Mr. Taber had posed as a devout Christian, being on intimate terms with