BOSS TWEED: The Corrupt Pol who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York (51 page)

Now, amid the chaos, here was his old friend Charles O’Conor coming to talk to him about Tweed. Tilden had known O’Conor for almost forty years; he’d been one of his earliest friends and mentors since coming to New York City in the 1840s. O’Conor had helped Tilden start his legal practice and had even drafted the papers incorporating Tilden & Company, the family business run by Tilden’s two brothers in upstate New Lebanon. O’Conor had joined Tilden as a founding member of the Manhattan Club in the 1860s, had commiserated with him during the Civil War, and been one of the first people Tilden confided in on the Tweed Ring.

Even so, Tweed was a topic for which Tilden had little patience at this point.

Tweed had arrived back in New York City too late to affect actual voting, but with the presidential contest still unsettled, Tilden had to see him as a dangerous loose cannon. The ex-Boss had been quoted making threats during his voyage home from Spain: “I’ve got secrets enough of his to damn him as bad as I am damned.”
^F
OOTNOTE
18
Tilden had faced criticism all through the campaign over the inept Tammany prosecutions. Critics charged him with pardoning “about nine out of ten men who were confessedly guilty,” as one biographer put it.
¹⁹
Right up until Election Day, he’d worried that Tweed’s arrest in Spain had been a trick. He’d had Abram Hewitt, his campaign chairman, issue a public letter trying to minimize the impact: “I… caution the public against a pretended confession of William M. Tweed seeking to implicate Gov. Tilden in the New-York Ring frauds, which, I am informed, is already in type in advance of the arrival of the United States steamer Franklin,” it said, declaring it a fraud in advance.
²⁰

Now, with the voting over, talk that prosecutors were considering a “compromise” with Tweed created new headaches. How could Tilden think of freeing the criminal around whom he’d built his “reform” reputation? Still, the talk gained currency, fueled by news that another Tammany fugitive, Peter B. Sweeny, the supposed “Brains” of the Tweed Ring, had accepted an extraordinary offer to leave his cushy exile in Paris and come home to face trial in New York on the $6.3 million civil case. Prosecutors had promised Sweeny full immunity, assuring him he would remain “unmolested”—not arrested on any of the his three pending indictments or any other civil or criminal actions—not only during his trial but for thirty days afterwards. This way, even if Sweeny were found guilty or if settlement talks failed, he’d still have time to escape and leave the country again.
²¹
Critics sneered at the one-sided deal, but Tilden hadn’t objected.
²²

Tilden still had three weeks left as Governor of New York State and an epic political crisis to navigate. For him, a “compromise” with Tweed made sense only if it gave him control over Tweed’s mouth—not a likely prospect—but he would always listen to any idea from his old friend Charles O’Conor.

Sitting together now in Tilden’s parlor lighted by windows facing pretty tree-lined Gramercy Park ringed by brick townhouses of the city’s elite, O’Conor showed Tilden the remarkable “surrender” letter he’d received that week from Tweed at Ludlow Street Jail. Tilden listened as O’Conor walked him through the proposal. It had its attractions: a Tweed confession would vindicate Tilden and the prosecutors by proving they’d been right all along; his testimony could save the city millions of dollars by protecting it from lawsuits while also providing evidence against yet-unpunished Ring members like Sweeny, Connolly, and Oakey Hall; and its moral weight—the sight of the once-powerful Boss begging for mercy—would deter corruption.

But Tilden, his strained eyes focused on the letter O’Conor held in his hands as he spoke, had no sympathy for the argument. Embroiled in a cliffhanger presidential contest, Tilden saw little to like in any compromise with Tweed, only a maze of traps. He needed answers to questions: What new information could Tweed possibly provide that they didn’t already know? Could anything he said be trusted? Would he have documents to back up his story? And the spectacle of Tweed’s being set free—what moral effect would
that
have? How could he justify it? Before agreeing to any arrangement, O’Conor should first insist on hearing Tweed’s full story and seeing all his evidence, Tilden told his old friend. Then he could make a more considered judgment.

O’Conor agreed; Tilden’s circumspection made sense. But it also raised an ethical point: Tweed had approached him in confidence. Until they decided whether to pursue his offer or not, O’Conor would feel duty-bound to treat his evidence as secret and private. He wouldn’t be able to share it with anyone, not even the governor. Any leak would be a break of faith, he explained.

Once again, Tilden didn’t see it that way. He wanted to see Tweed’s story himself; in fact, he insisted on it. Any statement from Tweed had to be submitted to him personally. Until he, Tilden, was satisfied, he refused to allow O’Conor to give Tweed any assurance of a deal. As governor, he had that right.

Charles O’Conor recognized the impasse and saw no reason to press the issue. He saw that Tilden had other urgencies; the house buzzed with newspapermen and politicos fishing for any scrap of news on the presidential stalemate. He also knew politics: Tilden the politician wanted to use Tweed’s confession for his own purposes, kill any parts embarrassing to him, and highlight any charges against his rivals. Why else would he dare to intrude on O’Conor’s independence as the Attorney General’s designated prosecutor? O’Conor knew that a Tweed confession could embarrass prominent citizens of both parties, perhaps even Tilden himself. But that was the reason he as prosecutor had to reject the interference.

O’Conor excused himself, took his hat and coat and left. The old lawyer knew he could not accept the governor’s demand and he recognized that Tilden would not back down. Within a few days, he sent a letter resigning from the Tweed prosecution team giving no reason other than his age and health.
²³
Shortly after that, he returned the Tweed “surrender” letter to its sender.

On January 1, 1877, Tilden ended his term as New York’s governor with the presidency still undecided. He presided in Albany at the inauguration of his successor, the new governor, a handpicked protégé named Lucius Robinson. Afterward, he took a carriage to the train station to return to New York City. Only a handful of well-wishers came to see him off. “He attracts few people,” his biographer John Bigelow wrote of him, even after Tilden had won the popular vote for President of the United States, “and no one in Albany cares for him.”
²⁴

-------------------------

Tweed had to be disappointed learning that O’Conor and Tilden had rejected his “surrender.” He knew he couldn’t avoid another fight now but had only dwindling resources to wage it. He decided to hire John Townsend formally as his new lawyer but insisted on pinching his pennies. As his fee, he agreed to pay Townsend ten promissory notes worth $1,000 apiece. Only half would be paid up front; the rest, the second $5,000, was made contingent. Townsend would receive it only after winning Tweed’s release from prison or successfully defending him against another criminal conviction.
²⁵
A few weeks later, when David Dudley Field asked Tweed if he would provide $1,000 to appeal the judgment in the $6.3 million civil case, Tweed refused.
²⁶

With Charles O’Conor now out of the picture, Townsend tried his next plan; he sent Tweed’s original “surrender” letter back up to Albany to the office of Charles Fairchild, the state attorney general. He had no illusions; even with a new governor in Albany, Fairchild, a smart, ambitious man, took his cues from the person who had put him on his pedestal, Sam Tilden.

Fairchild’s star had risen quickly in the New York legal constellation. Just 34 years old, a Harvard-educated son of a prominent upstate lawyer, Fairchild had had the good sense to marry Helen Lincklaen, a favorite niece of former governor and presidential candidate Horatio Seymour, still New York’s most popular Democrat. Stern-faced, clean-shaven, sharply dressed, Fairchild had used his political ties to help him become the state’s deputy attorney general in Albany just seven years after joining the Bar. With Tilden’s blessing, he’d won the top job for himself in 1874. Tilden as governor had made Fairchild a central cog in his political operation: treasurer of the state party committee during his presidential campaign and a top lieutenant at Tilden’s nominating convention in St. Louis. “Of course Tweed was aware that when he applied to Mr. Fairchild… he was submitting himself as much to the tender mercies of Mr. Tilden as if he applied to him personally,” Townsend explained.
²⁷

Still, things looked promising. Shortly after receiving Tweed’s “surrender” letter, Fairchild had jumped at the prospect. He took the train down to New York City and rode over to Ludlow Street Jail to meet Tweed privately for a long face to face conversation. “I… talked with him awhile,” Fairchild said later, describing the meeting, “no statement was made or anything of the kind; I told [Tweed] if he was of use to the public we would consider how much use and whether it would justify doing anything for him.”
²⁸
In fact, as the two sat together in Tweed’s room that day, the old Boss laid out a long list of people he could provide testimony against, starting with four state senators and seven assemblymen. According to notes from the meeting, he mentioned Jimmy O’Brien who was then suing the city for his $350,000 claim in supposed sheriff’s expenses that Tweed and Connolly had rejected years earlier. Tweed also included as targets his closest Ring associates, the old “lunch club” gang: Oakey Hall, Peter Sweeny, and Slippery Dick Connolly, each of whom Tweed claimed he’d had “frequent conversations” with “in reference to their interests in the spoils.”
²⁹

Fairchild seemed satisfied with what he’d heard. The next days saw a flurry of activity: Wheeler Peckham, now given hands-on control of the case, approached Townsend to arrange follow-up meetings with Tweed and a go-between named Carolyn O’Brien Bryant began representing the Attorney General. Bryant had gained Tweed’s trust earlier by writing a sympathetic article on his jailbreak for
Harper’s Weekly
.
³⁰

All through March, the work went on. Apparently, an obstacle had disappeared. In late February, Samuel Tilden had lost the presidency.

-------------------------

On March 5, Rutherford Hayes took the oath of office in Washington to become the nineteenth President of the United States. Most Democrats cried foul, that Tilden had been robbed. Congress had created a special 15-member commission to decide the disputed ballots; it had consisted of five Senators and five Congressmen—split equally between Republicans and Democrats—and five Supreme Court justices, slanted three to two in favor of Republican appointees. By party-line vote, they’d assigned each and every one of the contested electors to Hayes, giving him a one-vote electoral victory.

A few weeks after entering the White House, Hays would order the withdrawal of federal troops from the last two Southern states where they remained, ending post-Civil War “Reconstruction” and dooming black voting rights for the next eighty years. It was part of a murky arrangement reached in a hotel room to convince Southern congressmen not to block Hayes’ inauguration by filibustering the vote count. The stigma of fraud—“His Fraudulency,” “RutherFraud” Hayes—would shadow the rest of his term.

Tilden too suffered criticism for his handling of the contest. Rather than coming to Washington or politicking behind the scenes to marshal his forces, Tilden had spent days in his law library as the outcome teetered writing detailed legal briefs on the constitutional issues—hoping to win the contest by words on paper rather than flesh and blood human contact, the stuff of politics. He’d opposed creation of the Electoral Commission but never communicated the fact clearly to supporters in Congress who could have blocked it. “[H]e refused to lead… he had no counsel to give… he was speechless and without resource,” even the friendly
New York Star
said.
³¹
“Unwilling to bargain for the presidency, and unable to muster the moral and physical energy needed to take charge of the struggle and lead his disorganized supporters in Congress, Tilden reacted the way most people react under stress: he reverted to type,” noted historian Roy Morris, Jr.
³²

For Tilden, reverting to type meant withdrawing. In March, after Hayes’ swearing in, he refused to make speeches and buried himself in biographies of Oliver Cromwell and Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle. The strain had affected him physically; arthritis made his left hand almost useless, a “numb palsy” that would worsen during the rest of his life. He walked in a shuffling gait, his face pale, his voice a raw whisper. “Physically he was an old, broken man,” said biographer Alexander Flick, “but his mind was still keen, and all his faculties at instant command.”
³³