We have not the space to enumerate the various methods of plundering the city adopted by the Ring. What we have given will enable the reader to obtain a clear insight into their system. During the years 1869 and 1870, the following sums were paid by the Comptroller:
| $ | |
| Keyser & Co. | 1,561,619.42 |
| Ingersoll & Co. | 3,006,391.72 |
| C. D. Bollar & Co. | 951,911.84 |
| J. A. Smith | 809,298.96 |
| A. G. Miller | 626,896.74 |
| Geo. S. Miller | 1,568,447.62 |
| A. J. Garvey and others | 3,112,590.34 |
| G. L. Schuyler | 463,039.27 |
| J. McBride Davidson | 404,347.72 |
| E. Jones & Co. | 341,882.18 |
| Chas. H. Jacobs | 164,923.17 |
| Archibald Hall, jr. | 349,062.85 |
| J. W. Smith | 53,852.83 |
| New York Printing Co. | 2,042,798.99 |
| Total | 15,457,063.65 |
These are the figures given by the “Joint Committee of Supervisors and Aldermen appointed to investigate the public accounts of the City and County of New York.” [86] In their report, presented about the 9th of October, 1871, they say: “Your Committee find that immense sums have been paid for services which have not been performed, for materials which have not been furnished, and to employés who are unknown in the offices from which they draw their salaries. Also, that parties having just claims upon the city, failing to obtain payment therefor, have assigned their claims to persons officially or otherwise connected with different departments, who have in many instances fraudulently increased their amounts, and drawn fourfold the money actually due from the city. Thus it appears in the accounts that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been paid to private parties who positively deny the receipt of the money, or any knowledge whatever of the false bills representing the large sums paid to them. These investigations compel the belief that not only the most reckless extravagance, but frauds and peculations of the grossest character have been practised in several of the departments, and that these must have been committed in many instances with the knowledge and cooperation of those appointed, and whose sworn duty it was to guard and protect the public interests.”
Under the management of the Ring, the cost of governing the city was about thirty millions of dollars annually. The city and county debt (practically the same, since both are paid by the citizens of New York,) was doubled every two years. On the 1st of January, 1869, it was $36,000,000. By January 1st, 1871, it had increased to $73,000,000. On the 14th of September, 1871, it was $97,287,525, and the Citizens’ Committee declare that there is grave reason to believe that it will reach $120,000,000 during the present year (1871).
For several years the Ring continued their robberies of the treasury, enriching themselves and bringing the city nearer to bankruptcy every year. Taxes increased, property was assessed for improvements that were never made, and the assessments were rigorously collected. Large sums were paid for cleaning the streets, which streets were kept clean only by the private subscriptions of the citizens residing in them, as the writer can testify from his personal experience. The burdens of the people became heavier and heavier, and the members of the Ring grew richer and richer. They built them palatial residences in the city, and their magnificent equipages were the talk of the town. They gave sumptuous entertainments, they flaunted their diamonds and jewels in the eyes of a dumbfounded public, they made ostentatious gifts to the poor, and munificent subscriptions to cathedrals and churches, all with money stolen from the city; and with this same money they endeavored to control the operations of Wall street, the great financial centre of the Republic. They built them country seats, the beauty and magnificence of which were duly set forth in the illustrated journals of the day; and they surrounded themselves with every luxury they could desire—all with money stolen from the city. Did any man dare to denounce their robberies, they turned upon him with one accord, and the whole power of the Ring was used to crush their daring assailant. They encouraged their adherents to levy blackmail upon the citizens of New York, and it came to be well understood in the great city that no man, however innocent, arrested on a civil process, could hope to regain the liberty which was his birthright, without paying the iniquitous toll levied upon him by some portion of the Ring. Even the great writ of Habeas Corpus—the very bulwark of our liberties—was repeatedly set at defiance by the underlings of the Ring, for the purpose of extorting money from some innocent man who had fallen into their clutches.
The Ring was all-powerful in the great city, and they there built up an organized despotism, the most infamous known to history. No man’s rights, no man’s liberties were safe, if he ventured to oppose them. They even sought to strike down freedom of speech and the liberty of the press. Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, in the speech from which we have quoted before in this chapter, makes this distinct charge against them. He says: “Mr. Evarts went to Albany last year, and carried with him my protest against the passage of the law giving to the judges a power unknown in the jurisprudence of this State—unknown in the jurisprudence of the United States for the last thirty years—whereby it was secured that any member of the City Government that might be offended, could put his hand upon the city press, and suppress its liberties and freedom of speech.”
How long all this would have continued, it is impossible to say, had it not pleased God that there should be jealousies and dissensions amongst the members of the Ring strong enough to break even the infamous bonds that had so long bound them together.
The citizens of New York had for some time been slowly coming to the conclusion that they were losing their rights and property, and had been seeking for some legal means of attacking and overthrowing the Ring. Their great necessity was absolute and definite proof of fraud on the part of certain individuals. This was for a long time lacking, but it came at length. In July, 1871, a former prominent member of the Ring, having quarrelled with the Ring over a claim of three or four hundred thousand dollars, which Mr. Tweed had refused to allow, avenged himself by causing the publication of a series of the public accounts, transcribed from the books of the Comptroller. These accounts showed the millions that had been fraudulently paid away for work which had never been done, and furnished the first definite evidence of fraud on the part of the members of the Ring that had been given to the public. The press, with the exception of a few unimportant sheets owned or controlled by the Ring, denounced the frauds, and demanded an investigation of the public accounts. Mayor Hall, William M. Tweed, Richard B. Connolly, and all the greater and lesser magnates of the Ring were implicated in the terrible story told by the published accounts. The respectable citizens, without regard to party, at once joined in the demand, and expressed their determination to put an end to the power of the Ring. The whole land—nay the whole civilized world—rang with a universal cry of indignation. The temper of the citizens was such as admitted of no trifling.
The publication of the Comptroller’s accounts,