The Common Council of the City of New York can hardly be termed a representative body. It does not represent the honestly gotten wealth of the city; for, though many of its members are wealthy, people look with suspicion upon a rich Councilman. It does not represent the proud intellectual character of New York; for there is scarcely a member who has intellect or education enough to enable him to utter ten sentences in good English. For many years the Councils have been composed of small tradesmen, who found politics more profitable than their legitimate callings, of bar-keepers, of men without social position in the city they professed to represent, and many of whom were suspected of dishonest and corrupt practices by their fellow-citizens. Indeed, it may be said, that, with a very few exceptions, there was not a man in this important body who possessed the respect or confidence of the citizens of New York.
They were elected by bribery and corruption, maintained their positions by the same means, and enjoyed the favor and protection of the leaders of their party, only by aiding the execution and covering up from investigation the schemes of those men for their mutual engorgement at the expense of the public treasury.
Mr. James Parton gives the following account of the proceedings of this worshipful body:
"Debates is a ludicrous word to apply to the proceedings of the Councilmen. Most of the business done by them is pushed through without the slightest discussion, and is of such a nature that members cannot be prepared to discuss it. The most reckless haste marks every part of the performance. A member proposes that certain lots be provided with curbstones; another, that a free drinking hydrant be placed on a certain corner five miles up town; and another, that certain blocks of a distant street be paved with Belgian pavement. Respecting the utility of these works, members generally know nothing, and can say nothing; nor are they proper objects of legislation. The resolutions are adopted, usually, without a word of explanation, and at a speed that must be seen to be appreciated.
"At almost every session we witnessed scenes like the following: A member proposed to lease a certain building for a city court at $2000 a year for ten years. Honest Christopher Pullman, a faithful and laborious public servant, objected on one or two grounds; first, rents being unnaturally high, owing to several well-known and temporary causes, it would be unjust to the city to fix the rent at present rates for so long a period; secondly, he had been himself to see the building, had taken pains to inform himself as to its value, and was prepared to prove that $1200 a year was a proper rent for it even at the inflated rates. He made this statement with excellent brevity, moderation, and good temper, and concluded by moving that the term be two instead of ten years. A robust young man, with a bull neck and of ungrammatical habits, said, in a tone of impatient disdain, that the landlord of the building had "refused"
$1500 a year for it. "Question!" "Question!" shouted half a dozen angry voices; the question was instantly put, when a perfect war of _noes_ voted down Mr. Pullman"s amendment. Another hearty chorus of _ayes_ consummated the iniquity. In all such affairs, the visitor notices a kind of ungovernable propensity to vote for spending money, and a prompt disgust at any obstacle raised or objection made. The bull-necked Councilman of uncertain grammar evidently felt that Mr. Pullman"s modest interference on behalf of the tax-payer was a most gross impertinence.
He felt himself an injured being, and his companions shared his indignation.
"We proceed to another and better specimen: A resolution was introduced, appropriating $4000 for the purpose of presenting stands of colors to five regiments of city militia, which were named, each stand to cost eight hundred dollars. Mr. Pullman, as usual, objected, and we beg the reader to mark his objections. He said that he was a member of the committee which had reported the resolution, but he had never heard of it till that moment, the scheme had been "sprung" upon him. The chairman of the committee replied to this, that, since the other regiments had had colors given them by the city, he did not suppose that any one could object to these remaining five receiving the same compliment, and therefore he had not thought it worth while to summon the gentleman.
"Besides," said he, "it is a small matter anyhow;"--by which he evidently meant to intimate that the objector was a very small person. To this last remark, a member replied, that he did not consider $4000 so very small a matter. "Anyhow," he added, "we oughter save the city every dollar we kin." Mr. Pullman resumed. He stated that the Legislature of the State, several months before, had voted a stand of colors to each infantry regiment in the State; that the distribution of these colors had already begun; that the five regiments would soon receive them; and that, consequently, there was no need of their having the colors which it was now proposed to give them. A member roughly replied, that the colors voted by the State Legislature were mere painted banners, "of no account." Mr. Pullman denied this. "I am," said he, "captain in one of our city regiments. Two weeks ago we received our colors. I have seen, felt, examined, and marched under them; and I can testify that they are of great beauty, and excellent quality, made by Tiffany & Co., a firm of the first standing in the city." He proceeded to describe the colors as being made of the best silk, and decorated in the most elegant manner.
He further objected to the price proposed to be given for the colors. He declared that, from his connection with the militia, he had become acquainted with the value of such articles, and he could procure colors of the best kind ever used in the service for $375. The price named in the resolution was, therefore, most excessive. Upon this, another member rose and said, in a peculiarly offensive manner, that it would be two years before Tiffany & Co. had made all the colors, and some of the regiments would have to wait all that time. "The other regiments," said he, "have had colors presented by the city, and I don"t see why we should show partiality." Whereupon Mr. Pullman informed the board that the _city_ regiments would all be supplied in a few weeks; and, even if they did have to wait awhile, it was of no consequence, for they all had very good colors already. Honest Stephen Roberts then rose, and said that this was a subject with which he was not acquainted, but that if no one could refute what Mr. Pullman had said, he should be obliged to vote against the resolution.
"Then there was a pause. The cry of "Question!" was heard. The ayes and noes were called. The resolution was carried by eighteen to five. The learned suppose that one-half of this stolen $4000 was expended upon the colors, and the other half divided among about forty persons. It is conjectured that each member of the Councilmen"s Ring, which consists of thirteen, received about forty dollars for his vote on this occasion.
This sum, added to his pay, which is twenty dollars per session, made a tolerable afternoon"s work.
"Any one witnessing this scene would certainly have supposed that _now_ the militia regiments of the City of New York were provided with colors.
What was our surprise to hear, a few days after, a member gravely propose to appropriate $800 for the purpose of presenting the Ninth Regiment of New York Infantry with a stand of colors. Mr. Pullman repeated his objections, and recounted anew the generosity of the State Legislature.
The eighteen, without a word of reply, voted for the grant as before. It so chanced that, on our way up Broadway, an hour after, we met that very regiment marching down with its colors flying; and we observed that those colors were nearly new. Indeed, there is such a propensity in the public to present colors to popular regiments, that some of them have as many as five stands, of various degrees of splendor. There is nothing about which Councilmen need feel so little anxiety as a deficiency in the supply of regimental colors. When, at last, these extravagant banners voted by the corporation are presented to the regiments, a new scene of plunder is exhibited. The officers of the favored regiment are invited to a room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the City Hall, where city officials a.s.sist them to consume $300 worth of champagne, sandwiches, and cold chicken--paid for out of the city treasury--while the privates of the regiment await the return of their officers in the unshaded portion of the adjacent park.
"It is a favorite trick with these councilmen, as of all politicians, to devise measures, the pa.s.sage of which will gratify large _bodies_ of voters. This is one of the advantages proposed to be gained by the presentation of colors to regiments; and the same system is pursued with regard to churches and societies. At every one of the six sessions of the Councilmen which we attended, resolutions were introduced to give away the people"s money to wealthy organizations. A church, for example, is a.s.sessed $1000 for the construction of a sewer, which enhances the value of the church property by at least the amount of the a.s.sessment.
Straightway, a member from that neighborhood proposes to console the stricken church with a "donation" of $1000, to enable it to pay the a.s.sessment; and as this is a proposition to vote money, it is carried as a matter of course. We select from our notes only one of these donating scenes. A member proposed to give $2000 to a certain industrial school,--the favorite charity of the present time, to which all the benevolent most willingly subscribe. Vigilant Christopher Pullman reminded the board that it was now unlawful for the corporation to vote money for any object not specified in the tax levy as finally sanctioned by the Legislature. He read the section of the Act which forbade it. He further showed, from a statement by the Comptroller, that there was no money left at their disposal for any _miscellaneous_ objects, since the appropriation for "city contingencies" was exhausted. The only reply to his remarks was the instant pa.s.sage of the resolution by eighteen to five. By what artifice the law is likely to be evaded in such cases, we may show further on. In all probability, the industrial school, in the course of the year, will receive a fraction of this money--perhaps even so large a fraction as one half. It may be that, ere now, some obliging person about the City Hall has offered to buy the claim for $1000, and take the risk of the hocus-pocus necessary for getting it--which to _him_ is no risk at all.
"It was proposed, on another occasion, to raise the fees of the Inspectors of Weights and Measures--who received fifty cents for inspecting a pair of platform scales, and smaller sums for scales and measures of less importance. Here was a subject upon which honest Stephen Roberts, whose shop is in a street where scales and measures abound, was entirely at home. He showed, in his st.u.r.dy and strenuous manner, that, at the rates then established, an active man could make $200 a day. "Why," said he, "a man can inspect, and does inspect, fifty platform scales in an hour." The cry of "Question!" arose. The question was put, and the usual loud chorus of _ayes_ followed.
"As it requires a three-fourths vote to grant money--that is, eighteen members--it is sometimes impossible for the Ring to get that number together. There is a mode of preventing the absence, or the opposition of members, from defeating favorite schemes. It is by way of "reconsideration." The time was when a measure distinctly voted down by a lawful majority was dead. But, by this expedient, the voting down of a measure is only equivalent to its postponement to a more favorable occasion. The moment the chairman p.r.o.nounces a resolution lost, the member who has it in charge moves a reconsideration; and, as a reconsideration only requires the vote of a majority, _this_ is invariably carried. By a rule of the board, a reconsideration carries a measure over to a future meeting--to any future meeting which may afford a prospect of its pa.s.sage. The member who is engineering it watches his chance, labors with faltering members out of doors, and, as often as he thinks he can carry it, calls it up again, until at last the requisite eighteen are obtained. It has frequently happened that a member has kept a measure in a state of reconsideration for months at a time, waiting for the happy moment to arrive. There was a robust young Councilman, who had a benevolent project in charge of paying $900 for a hackney-coach and two horses, which a drunken driver drove over the dock into the river one cold night last winter. There was some disagreement in the Ring on this measure, and the robust youth was compelled to move for many reconsiderations. So, also, it was long before the wires could be all arranged to admit of the appointment of a "messenger" to the City Librarian, who has perhaps less to do than any man in New York who is paid $1800 a year; but perseverance meets its reward. We hear that this messenger is now smoking in the City Hall at a salary of $1500.
"There is a manoeuvre also for preventing the attendance of obnoxious, obstructive members, like the honest six, which is ingenious and effective. A "special meeting" is called. The law declares that notice of a special meeting must be left at the residence or the place of business of every member. Mr. Roberts"s residence and Mr. Roberts"s place of business are eight miles apart, and he leaves his home for the day before nine in the morning. If Mr. Roberts"s presence at a special meeting, at 2 P.M., is desired, the notice is left at his shop in the morning. If it is not desired, the notice is sent to his house in Harlem, after he has left it. Mr. Pullman, cabinet-maker, leaves his shop at noon, goes home to dinner, and returns soon after one. If his presence at the special meeting, at 2 P.M., is desired, the notice is left at his house the evening before, or at his shop in the morning. If his presence is not desired, the notice is left at his shop a few minutes after twelve, or at his house a few minutes past one. In either case, he receives the notice too late to reach the City Hall in time. We were present in the Councilmen"s Chamber when Mr. Pullman stated this inconvenience, a.s.suming that it was accidental, and offered an amendment to the rule, requiring notice to be left five hours before the time named for the meeting. Mr. Roberts also gave his experience in the matter of notices, and both gentlemen spoke with perfect moderation and good temper. We wish we could convey to our readers an idea of the brutal insolence with which Mr. Pullman, on this occasion, was snubbed and defrauded by a young bar-keeper who chanced to be in the chair. But this would be impossible without relating the scene at very great length. The amendment proposed was voted down, with that peculiar roar of _noes_ which is always heard in that chamber when some honest man attempts to put an obstacle in the way of the free plunder of his fellow-citizens.
"These half-fledged legislators are acquainted with the device known by the name of the "previous question." We witnessed a striking proof of this. One of the most audacious and insolent of the Ring introduced a resolution, vaguely worded, the object of which was to annul an old paving contract, that would not pay at the present cost of labor and materials, and to authorize a new contract at higher rates. Before the clerk had finished reading the resolution, honest Stephen Roberts sprang to his feet, and, unrolling a remonstrance with several yards of signatures appended to it, stood, with his eye upon the chairman, ready to present it the moment the reading was concluded. This remonstrance, be it observed, was signed by a majority of the property-owners interested, the men who would be a.s.sessed to pay for one-half of the proposed pavement. Fancy the impetuous Roberts, with the doc.u.ment held aloft, the yards of signatures streaming down to his feet, and flowing far under his desk, awaiting the time when it would be in order to cry out, "Mr. President." The reading ceased. Two voices were heard shouting, "Mr. President." It was not to Mr. Roberts that an impartial chairman could a.s.sign the floor. The member who introduced the resolution was the one who caught the speaker"s eye, and that member, forewarned of Mr. Roberts"s intention, moved the previous question. It was in vain that Mr. Roberts shouted "Mr. President;" it was in vain that he fluttered his streaming ribbon of blotted paper. The President could not hear a word of any kind until a vote had been taken upon the question whether the main question should now be put. The question was carried in the affirmative by a chorus of _ayes_, so exactly timed that it was like the voice of one man. Then the main question _was_ put, and it was carried by another emphatic and simultaneous shout."
Under the rule of such a Council the public money disappeared. Men who went into the Council poor came out of it rich. Taxes increased, the cost of governing the city became greater, crime flourished, and the chief city of the Union became noted for its corrupt government.
IV. "THE RING."
I. THE HISTORY OF THE RING.
We have spoken of the outrages practised upon the citizens of New York by the Common Council of that city. We must now turn our attention to the other branches of the City Government, and investigate the conduct of the real rulers of New York.
For several years the political power and patronage has been lodged in the hands of, and exercised by a set of men commonly known as "_The Ring_." They rose to power in consequence of the neglect of their political duties by the respectable citizens of New York, and, having attained power, were not slow in arranging affairs so that their ill-gotten authority might be perpetuated. They controlled the elections by bribery, and the fraudulent counting of votes, and so filled the elective offices with their own creatures. Having done this, they proceeded to appoint to the other offices only such men as were bound to them, and whom they could trust to cover up their mutual dishonesty.
Competency to discharge the duties of the offices thus given was not once considered. The Ring cared only for men who would unite in plundering the public treasury, and be vigilant in averting the detection of the theft. They wanted to exercise political power, it is true, but they also desired to enrich themselves at the public expense.
Having secured the city offices, with the control of the finances, the police, the fire department, and the immense patronage of the city, they believed themselves strong enough to hold all they had won. They did not believe that the people of New York would ever awake to a true sense of their public duties, and, if they did, the Ring felt confident that they could control any election by filling the ballot-boxes with fraudulent votes. In many cases money was taken from the city treasury, and used to purchase votes for the Ring or Tammany Hall ticket. It was also used to bribe inspectors of elections to certify any returns that the leaders of the Ring might decide upon; and it came to be a common saying in New York that the Tammany ticket could always command a majority in the city sufficient to neutralize any hostile vote in the rest of the State. If the leaders of the Ring desired a majority of 25,000, 30,000, or any number, in the city, that majority was returned, and duly sworn to by the inspectors of election, even by those of the party opposed to the Ring; for money was used unsparingly to buy dishonest inspectors.
As a matter of course, no honest man took part in these disgraceful acts, and the public offices pa.s.sed, almost without exception, into the hands of the most corrupt portion of the population. They were also the most ignorant and brutal. The standard of education is, perhaps, lower among the public officials of New York than among any similar body in the land.
Men whose personal character was infamous; men who were charged by the newspaper press, and some of whom had been branded by courts of justice with felonies, were elected or appointed to responsible offices. The property, rights and safety of the greatest and most important city in the land, were entrusted to a band of thieves and swindlers. The result was what might have been expected. Public interests were neglected; the members of the Ring were too busy enriching themselves at the expense of the treasury to attend to the wants of the people. The City Government had never been so badly administered before, and the only way in which citizens could obtain their just rights was by paying individual members of the Ring or their satellites to attend to their particular cases. It was found almost impossible to collect money due by the city to private parties; but, at the same time, the Ring drew large sums from the public treasury. Men who were notoriously poor when they went into office were seen to grow suddenly and enormously rich. They made the most public displays of their suddenly acquired magnificence, and, in many ways, made themselves so offensive to their respectable neighbors, that the virtue and intelligence of the city avoided all possible contact with them.
Matters finally became so bad that a man laid himself open to grave suspicion by the mere holding of a munic.i.p.al office. Even the few good men who retained public positions, and whom the Ring had not been able, or had not dared, to displace, came in for a share of the odium attaching to all offices connected with the City Government. It was unjust, but not unnatural. So many office-holders were corrupt that the people naturally regarded all as in the same category.
In order to secure undisturbed control of the city, the Ring took care to win over the Legislature of the State to their schemes. There was a definite and carefully arranged programme carried out with respect to this. The delegation from the City of New York was mainly secured by the Ring, and agents were sent to Albany to bribe the members of the Legislature to vote for the schemes of the Ring. Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, in his speech at Cooper Inst.i.tute, November 2, 1871, says that $1,000,000, stolen from the treasury of the city, were used by the Ring to buy up a majority of the two Houses of the Legislature. By means of these purchased votes, the various measures of the Ring were pa.s.sed. The princ.i.p.al measure was the Charter of the City of New York. "Under the pretence of giving back to the people of the City of New York local self-government, they provided that the Mayor then in office should appoint all the heads of Departments for a period of at least four years, and in some cases extending to eight, and that when those heads of Departments, _already privately agreed upon_, were once appointed they should be removable only by the Mayor, who could not be impeached except on his own motion, and then must be tried by a court of six members, every one of whom must be present in order to form a quorum. And then they stripped every legislative power, and every executive power from every other functionary of the government, and vested it in half a dozen men so installed for a period of from four to eight years in supreme dominion over the people of this city." {78}
Besides pa.s.sing this infamous charter, the Ring proceeded to fortify their position with special legislation, designed to protect them against any effort of the citizens to drive them from office, or punish them.
This done, they had unlimited control of all the public affairs, and could manage the elections as they pleased, and they believed they were safe.
The "Committee of Seventy," appointed by the citizens of New York to investigate the charges against the munic.i.p.al authorities, thus speak of the effect of the adoption of the New Charter, in their report presented at the great meeting at Cooper Inst.i.tute, on the 2d of November, 1871:
"There is not in the history of villainy a parallel for the gigantic crime against property conspired by the Tammany Ring. It was engineered on the complete subversion of free government in the very heart of Republicanism. An American city, having a population of over a million, was disfranchised by an open vote of a Legislature born and nurtured in Democracy and Republicanism, and was handed over to a self-appointed oligarchy, to be robbed and plundered by them and their confederates, heirs and a.s.signs for six years certainly, and prospectively for ever. A month"s exhumation among the crimes of the Tammany leaders has not so familiarized us with the political paradox of the New Charter of the City of New York, that we do not feel that it is impossible that the people of this State gave to a gang of thieves, politicians by profession, a charter to govern the commercial metropolis of this continent--the great city which is to America what Paris is to France--to govern it with a government made unalterable for the sixteenth part of a century, which substantially deprived the citizens of self-control, nullified their right to suffrage, nullified the principle of representation--which authorized a handful of cunning and resolute robbers to levy taxes, create public debt, and incur munic.i.p.al liabilities without limit and without check, and which placed at their disposal the revenues of the great munic.i.p.ality and the property of all its citizens.
"Every American will say: "It is incredible that this has been done."
But the history of the paradox is over two years old. And it is a history of theft, robbery, and forgery, which have stolen and divided twenty millions of dollars; which have run up the city debt from $36,000,000 in 1869 to $97,000,000 in 1871, and which will be $120,000,000 by August, 1872; which have paid to these robbers millions of dollars for work never performed and materials never furnished; which paid astoundingly exorbitant rents to them for offices and armories, many of which were never occupied and some of which did not exist--which remitted their taxes, released their indebtedness, and remitted their rents, to the city due and owing--which ran the machinery for widening, improving and opening streets, parks and boulevards, to enable these men to speculate in a.s.sessed damages and greatly enhanced values--which created unnecessary offices with large salaries and no duties, in order to maintain a force of ruffianly supporters and manufacturers of votes--which used millions of dollars to bribe and corrupt newspapers, the organs of public opinion, in violation of laws which narrowly limited the public advertising--which camped within the city a reserve army of voters by employing thousands of laborers at large pay upon nominal work, neither necessary nor useful--which bought legislatures and purchased judgments from courts both civil and criminal.
"Fellow-citizens of the City and State of New York, this report of the doings of the Committee of Seventy would be incomplete if it did not fully unfold to you the perils and the difficulties of our condition.
You know too well that the Ring which governs us for years governed our Legislatures by bribing their members with moneys stolen from their trusts. That, seemingly, was supreme power and immunity. But it was not enough. A City Charter to perpetuate power was needed. It was easily bought of a venal Legislature with the proceeds of a new scoop into the city treasury. Superadded to this the Ring had devised a system, faultless and absolutely sure, of counting their adversaries in an election out of office and of counting their own candidates in, or of rolling up majorities by repeating votes and voting in the names of the absent, the dead, and the fict.i.tious. Still their intrenched camp of villainy was incomplete. It was deficient in credit. This is a ghastly jest, the self-investment of the robbers of the world with a boundless financial credit. And yet the Ring clothed themselves with it. They entrenched themselves within the imposing limits of some of our most powerful bank and trust companies. They created many savings banks out of the forty-two which exist in the city and county of New York. This they did within the last two years. The published lists of directors will enable you to identify these inst.i.tutions. Now the savings bank is a place to which money travels to be taken care of; and if the bank has the public confidence, people put their money in it freely at low rates of interest, and the managers use the funds in whatever way they please.
In the Ring savings banks there are on deposit to-day, at nominal rates of interest, many millions of dollars. It is believed that into these banks the Ring have taken the city"s obligations and converted them into money, which has been sent flowing into the various channels of wasteful administration, out of which they have drawn into their pockets millions on millions. The craft of this contrivance was profound. It wholly avoided the difficulty of raising money on the unlawful and excessive issues of city and county bonds, and took out of public sight transactions which, if pressed upon the national banks, would have provoked comment and resistance, and have precipitated the explosion which has shaken the country. I think that among the a.s.sets of the savings banks of this city, county and State will be found not far from $50,000,000 of city and county debt taken for permanent investment. For the first time in the history of iniquity has the bank for the saving of the wages of labor been expressly organized as a part of a system of robbery; and for the first time in the history of felony have the workmen and workwomen, and the orphans and the children of a great city unwittingly cashed the obligations issued by a gang of thieves and plunderers."
Having made themselves secure, as they believed, the Ring laughed at the idea of punishment, if detected. They not only controlled the elections, but they also controlled the administration of justice. The courts were filled with their creatures, and were so distorted from the purposes of the law and the ends of justice, that no friend of the Ring had any cause to fear punishment at their hands, however great his crime. The majority of the crimes committed in the city were the acts of the adherents of the Ring, but they escaped punishment, as a rule, except when a sacrifice to public opinion was demanded. If the criminal happened to be a politician possessing any influence among the disreputable cla.s.ses, he was sure of acquittal. The magistrate before whom he was tried, dared not convict him, for fear of incurring either his enmity, or the censure of the leaders of the Ring to whom his influence was of value. So crime of all kinds increased in the city.
[Picture: A. OAKEY HALL, MAYOR OF NEW YORK.]
Under the protection of the New Charter, the Ring began a systematic campaign of robbery. Section four of the County Tax Levy, one of their measures, provided that liabilities against the county, the limits of which coincide with those of the city, should be audited by the Mayor, the Comptroller and the President of the Board of Supervisors, or in other words, Mayor Hall, Comptroller Connolly, and Mr. William M. Tweed, and that the amount found to be due should be paid. "These Auditors,"
says Mr. Tilden, "met but once. They then pa.s.sed a resolution, which stands on the records of the city in the handwriting of Mayor Hall. It was pa.s.sed on his motion, and what was its effect? It provided that all claims certified by Mr. Tweed and Mr. Young, Secretary of the old Board of Supervisors, should be received, and, on sufficient evidence, paid."
Thus the door was thrown open to fraud, and the crime soon followed.
"Mayor Hall," continues Mr. Tilden, "is the responsible man for all this.
He knew it was a fraudulent violation of duty on the part of every member of that Board of Audit to pa.s.s claims in the way they did."
The door being thus thrown open to fraud, the thefts of the public funds became numerous. All the appropriations authorized by law were quickly exhausted, and large sums of money were drawn from the treasury, without the slightest warrant of law.
[Picture: WILLIAM M. TWEED.]
The new Court House in the City Hall Park was a perfect gold mine to the Ring. Immense sums were paid out of the treasury for work upon this building, which is still unfinished. Very little of this money was spent on the building, the greater part being retained, or stolen by the Ring for their own private benefit. The Court House has thus far cost $12,000,000, and is unfinished. During the years 1869, 1870, and a part of 1871, the sum of about $8,223,979.89 was expended on the new Court House. During this period, the legislative appropriation for this purpose amounted to only $1,400,000. The Houses of Parliament in London, which cover an area of nearly eight acres, contain 100 staircases, 1100 apartments and more than two miles of corridors, and const.i.tute one of the grandest architectural works of the world, cost less than $10,000,000. The Capitol of the United States at Washington, the largest and most magnificent building in America, will cost, when completed, about $12,000,000, yet, the unfinished Court House in New York has already cost more than the gorgeous Houses of Parliament, and as much as the grand Capitol of the Republic.
[Picture: THE NEW COUNTY COURT HOUSE]
The Court House was not the only means made use of to obtain money.
Heavy sums were drawn for printing, stationery, and the city armories, and upon other pretexts too numerous to mention. It would require a volume to ill.u.s.trate and rehea.r.s.e entire the robberies of the Ring.
Valid claims against the city were refused payment unless the creditor would consent to add to his bill a sum named by, and for the use of, the Ring. Thus, a man having a claim of $1500 against the city, would be refused payment until he consented to make the amount $6000, or some such sum. If he consented, he received his $1500 without delay, and the $4500 was divided among the members of the Ring. When a sum sufficient for the demands of the Ring could not be obtained by the connivance of actual creditors, forgery was resorted to. Claims were presented in the name of men who had no existence, who cannot now be found, and they were paid.
The money thus paid went, as the recent investigations have shown, into the pockets of members of the Ring. Further than this, if Mr. John H.
Keyser is to be believed, the Ring did not hesitate to forge the endors.e.m.e.nts of living and well-known men. He says: "The published accounts charge that I have received upwards of $2,000,000 from the treasury. Among the warrants which purport to have been paid to me for county work alone _there are upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars which I never received nor saw_, _and the endors.e.m.e.nts on which_, _in my name_, ARE CLEAR AND UNMISTAKABLE FORGERIES."