The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1876-07-01

VI the COUNTY,. O0ueT SuCQ circumstances
your only course is to avail yourself of
your numerical strength and your superior
military resources, resulting from your
greater progress in industrial arts and your
greater producing capacities. You must
have reserves and concentrate your forces
on decisive points, and overwhelm your
adyersaries by dlsproportionate numbers
and reserves"
His advice was not taken. but he had
the satisfaction, within year after it was
given, of hearing the secretary of war
acknowledge its wisdom and lament
his ability to secure its adoption.
HE BEGINS THE WORK OF REFORM.
With the peace came to Mr.. Tilden the
most important political labor of his life.
With the assistance of Charles OConor,
who followed the members of that band
of conspirators with all his usual vigor and
adroitness until it was not only broken
up, but its leading members scattered to
the four quarters of the globe, he assaulted
and overthrow the combined Republican
and Democratic ring which ruled and
ruined New York, This ring" had its
origin in an act passed by the legislature of
the state of New York in 1857, in con-
nection with the charter of that year,
which provided that but six persons
should be voted for by each elector and
twelve chosen. In other words, the
nominees of the Republican and
Democratic party caucuses should be
elected, At the succeeding session of the
legislature their term of Office was extended
to six years. This gave board of super
visors, consisting of six Republicans and
civ nap, ~ ohapra ynoioritu IF
which it was necessary to have control of
the primary meetings of both of the great
national and state parties for years in
succession--a series of coincidents which
rarely happens in generation.
This was doubly ring" 1t was a
rim" between the six Republican and
the six Democratic supervisors. 1t soon
grew to be ring" between the Republi-
can majority in the legislature and the
half-and-half supervisors and few Dem
ocratic officials of the city. 1t embraced
just enough influential men in the organic
alton of each party to control the action of
both party organizations. 1t became COM
pletely organized on the LIST of January,
1869. But its power was enormously ex-
tended by an act passed on the 5th of
April in the following year, giving the
power of local government to a few indivi
duals of the ring" for long periods, and
freed from all accountability.
Within a month after the passage of
this Tweed charter the board of special
audit-one of the fruits of this legislature
were making an order for the payment
of over millions of money of which it is
now known that scarcely 10 per cent in
value was realized by the city. Tweed
got "a per cent, and his agent, Woodward,
| Z; the brother of Sweeney, 10; Watson,
deputy collector, 7; 33 per cent. went to
mechanics who furnished the bills, though
their share had to suffer many Attachments:
and 20 went to other parties. Over $780,
900 were sent to Albany to be distributed
among the members of the legislature,
The percentages of theft comparatively
moderate in 1869, reached 60 per cent. in
1870, and later, SIS per cent.
The senators who voted on the 9th Of
April, 1870, with but two dissenting voices,
to deprive our great commercial metro
polls, with its million Of people, of all pow
or OF selt-government, as If it were con-
quered province, to confer upon Tweed,
Connolly, Sweeney and Hall for series OF
years the exclusive power of approprlating
all moneys raised by taxes or by loans and
an indefinite power to borrow-whC
swayed all the institutions Of local govern
ment, the local judiciary and the whole
machinery of elections did not come agar
within reach of the people until the cleo
ton of the 18th Of November. 1871, wheu
their successors were to be chosen. Al
hope Of rescuing the city from the hands
of the freeboOters depended upon recover
ing the legislative power of the state, il
: securing majority Of the senate and as
semblymen. TO this end Mr.. Tide
directed all his efforts. Without an ofic
or dollor's worth of patronage in cit
, or state to confer, Mr.. Tilden plante
himself on the traditions of the elders, o.
the moral sense and forces of Democracy
and upon the invincibility Of truth an
e right.
As always happens to those who battl
for the right, Providence came to his ale
! The thieves fell out, and one of the
1 number betrayed them. A clerk in tn
e comptroller's Office copied series of Ell
r tries-afterward' known as secret az
e counts and handed them to the pres
G for publication. They showed the date
: and amounts of certain payments made b
D the comptroller, the enormous amounts
: which, compared with the times and pul
: poses OF the payments and the recurrence
9 OF the same names, awakened suspicion
that they were the memorials of the gro!
sest frauds. Mr.. TiIden soon became sa
I isfied of this, from the futility Of tn
? answers received from city officers whe
l questioned about them and from othe
: sources, and reached the conclusion thi
I the city had been the victim of frauds ia
transcending anything ever suspected
He Immediately formed his plan for tn
8 execution of which-as it involved the col
r troll of the approaching state convention
: the co cooperation of several leading DemC
q Gratis was first secured. He accepted q
s arrangement by which he was to be sci
It to the convention from his native distric
= Columbia county, which had always durin
the ring" ascendency afforded him thu
opportunity of being heard.
Early in September he issued lettt
to some seventy-six thousand Democrat
: reviewing the situation and calling upc
them ito take knife and cut the canoe
: out by the roots" But before the NEE
n ing of the convention an event happent
!. which could not have been foreseen, b,
which was pregnant with the most iu
l. portant circumstances.
|. To the eternal honor of the Democrat
y party of the city and state, on the issl
!. thus made up by Mr.. Tilden they ga,
n him their cordial and irresistible supper
q The result was overwhelming, and not on
!. changed the city representation in Il
. legislative bodies of the state, but, in
e moral effect, crushed the ring"
: Mr.. Tilden was one of the aelegat