BOSS TWEED: The Corrupt Pol who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York (16 page)

Some time in 1870, Jones and Jennings began discussing a possible new crusade for the paper that could rattle New York to its core and perhaps make them a bundle of money—a campaign against the biggest fish in local politics, the boss of Tammany Hall.

Just what bee in his bonnet got George Jones started on Tweed at that precise moment is far from clear. Jones had known the Tammany crowd for years. Oakey Hall had marched as a pall-bearer at Henry Raymond’s funeral just a few months earlier, had written articles for the newspaper in the 1850s, and remained friendly with many on the staff. Jones knew Bill Tweed as a friendly, outgoing man. But there was more: Every day, he and Jennings walked past City Hall and the new County Courthouse and saw the newly-rich politicians going in and out, the “shiny hat brigade” and well-heeled contractors brimming with arrogance and wealth. Jones bristled at Tweed’s friends Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, the Erie Railway stock manipulators, people with no respect for honest moneymaking. Everyone assumed that Tammany Hall was corrupt; stealing from the city treasury had been common knowledge for decades even if no one could prove it. And Tammany’s bully tactics at the ballot box alone demanded that somebody punch them back. Jones’
New-York Times
was an unabashed Republican newspaper, independent in name but partisan and pro-reform; it stood for everything that Tweed was against.

But Jones also knew the reasons that most newspapers went easy on Tweed. Tweed had an easy, back-slapping way with newsmen: “jolly, genial, and off-handed Tweed” was how a
New York Sun
reporter put it, someone who’d invite you into his office with a hearty “Come boys, let us take a drink all around,” quick to break out the glasses and cigars, or to give a newsman a few dollars for a favor.
⁹

As recently as April, the
New-York Times
had backed Tweed solidly. After all, the
Times
had demanded home rule for New York City and it joined the praises when Tweed had delivered his new charter. “Senator Tweed is in a fair way to distinguish himself as a reformer,” it had crowed. “Having gone so far as the champion of the new Election bill and charter, he seems to have no idea of turning back… he had put the people of Manhattan Island under great obligations.”
¹⁰
And more: “Democrats who were successful in the recent struggle”—Tweed and his circle—“have thus far, in the main, fulfilled the various promises they were reported to have made.” When Oakey Hall announced Tweed’s appointment as new Commissioner of Public Works that month, Jones’s newspaper had no complaint. It called Hall’s choices “far above the average in point of personal fitness, and should be satisfactory.”
¹¹

Jones and Jennings also knew the darker side about how Tweed’s crowd kept reporters on a leash: that summer, the
Evening Free Press
had broken the usual silence by pointing a finger at D. George Wallis, a senior editor at the
New York Herald
, as holding three sinecure positions at City Hall paying him a salary of $15,000 per year.
¹²
Many newspapers and editors depended on Tammany subsidies; the
Albany Argus
, for one, received $80,500 in printing contracts from the city in 1869 and another $176,600 in 1870.
¹³
Altogether, from January 1869 through September 16, 1871, $2.7 million in city dollars had flowed from the public’s coffers to the press, a financial pillar without which many on Printing House Square would crumble.
¹⁴

The
New-York Times
too had played the game. It happily had accepted an 1867 designation as official outlet for “necessary legal advertisements of the city.”
¹⁵
As a result, it saw its paychecks from City Hall jump to over $21,000 and $29,000 in 1868 and 1869, up from a mere $3,887 the year before.
^{16 17}

Leading New York newspapers

* For January 1869 through May 1871.

George Jones had seen first hand how Tammany could sting him with these favors. To get his bills paid, Jones had to go begging to the comptroller, “Slippery Dick” Connolly, the most arrogant of the bunch. Just recently, in July 1868, Connolly had refused to pay the
Times
for an advertising bill of $13,764. In his letter denying the claim, Connolly almost boasted of his political motive. He pointed to Reuben Fenton, then the Republican governor, who had refused to sign that year’s Tax Levy bill that provided the funding for paying such claims. Fenton had balked at the overbroad power it gave Connolly to pick and choose which bills to pay. To win him over, Connolly said he’d promised to pay none, that “I would not exercise the power,” and only after that did Fenton sign the bill. “I shall not enter upon any argument to justify my action,” Connolly now lectured George Jones. “I considered the greater good of the greater number.”
¹⁸

For Jennings, raised in London, Tammany abuses fed his native British prejudice against the Irish. He’d written a manuscript in 1865 before joining the
New-York Times
that detailed how he felt Irish immigrants had corrupted New York City life far worse than Germans or other Europeans. Citing the Civil War draft riots, he argued that Irishmen would never amount to much in America, pointing to the “serious evil that hordes of Irish who land here [are] utterly ignorant and forlorn.”
¹⁹

Perhaps Jones had gotten the idea from one of his competitors: Thomas Nast, the star illustrator at
Harper’s Weekly
: While most newspapers had praised Tweed and his charter, Nast had openly ridiculed it: His cartoon that week—titled “Senator Tweed in a New Role”—showed the overweight, bearded Boss dressed in women’s clothes as the distraught Queen in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
, wearing a Tammany crown and cradling in his arms the new charter. Behind him lay an awkwardly discarded corpse labeled “O’Brien Democracy” with a sword driven into its belly; in the distance are Indian braves with tomahawks are fighting over a box labeled “New York City Treasury and Fat Offices.” Hamlet confronts the Tweed-Queen: “While rank corruption mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven. Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come,” to which Tweed responds: “Oh, Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.”
²⁰

Nast had drawn a handful of other early Tammany cartoons, but most put Tweed in the background.
²¹
They’d won a few chuckles, but hadn’t made much impact. It’s not unlikely that Fletcher Harper, Nast’s publisher, had sat down with George Jones about this time to suggest they join forces. Harper had once owned a large financial stake in the
New-York Times
in the 1850s and been a business partner with Jones at the time. If
Harper’s
and the
Times
worked together, Nast’s cartoons backed up by Jennings’ sharp prose and the
Times
’ fact-finding resources—reporters and money—perhaps they could shake things up. Nast had no actual evidence against Tweed, but that hadn’t stopped him from basing his attacks on common knowledge. Besides, make a stink, and the evidence will come forward.

Taking on Tweed could be a great opportunity, but the idea also carried enormous risk. Boss Tweed was no Horace Greeley; he knew how to fight back. And George Jones had plenty to lose: For one thing, he barely controlled his own newspaper. Of the 100 shares of stock in the
New-York Times
company, Jones in 1870 owned only about 30. Henry Raymond’s family held 34 and had voiced no opinion on whether they planned to keep it. The rest of the shares were scattered among half a dozen investors: board members James Taylor and Leonard Jerome, upstate businessman E.B. Morgan, and others. Would they back Jones in a war with Tammany, especially if it affected their bank accounts?

Large advertisers too might pull out, loyal to Tweed or afraid of losing city business. And James B. Taylor, a 10-percent owner of the newspaper and a respected voice on its board of directors, was part owner of Tweed’s New-York Printing Company and always spoke well of the Boss.

Two things fell into place during that summer of 1870, however, that eased the decision. James Taylor died on August 22, removing the one pro-Tweed face from the
Times’
management. Then, in September, a new political season began. The Republicans decided to nominate a dynamic young candidate to challenge John Hoffman for the governorship: Stewart Woodford, a former Lieutenant Governor and popular stump speaker. Late that month, Democrats would gather in Rochester for their own annual political convention—a session promising to be dominated by Tweed. It presented the perfect chance for a trial balloon.

All through September, Jennings prepared. News from Europe dominated the front pages that month. The Franco-Prussian war was turning disastrous for France, with the fall of its Emperor, Napoleon III, the defeat of its army at Sedan, and the imminent siege of Paris. But on September 20, just as Prussian troops crossed the Seine and planted batteries on the Heights of Clamart to begin their bombardment of Paris, the
Times
opened up its own new fall offensive. Whether it was civic duty, personal pique, or financial opportunity that tipped the balance, George Jones now chose to be bold. He gave Jennings the go-ahead to unleash his pen. Jennings, having no actual evidence to work with, took a page from Nast and opened his barrage with a dose of ridicule:
²²

“We should like to have a treatise from Mr. Tweed on the art of growing rich in as many years as can be counted by the fingers of one hand. It would be instructive to young men, both as an example and a warning. Most of us have to work very hard for a subsistence, and think ourselves lucky if, in the far vista of years, there is reasonable prospect of comfort and independence. The expenses of living do not decrease, and money accumulates slowly.

“But under the blessed institution of Tammany, the laws which govern ordinary human affairs are powerless. You begin with nothing, and in five or ten years you can boast of your ten millions.