The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-07-31

| at that time were buying supplies largely
| from the firm of Fowler, Champion &
| 60, dealers in chem icals and crushed
linsee | oil, at No. 142 Front street, in this
| city. What Mr.. Cleveland did was this
Mahlon B. Champion, of the Front street
| house, was selected, and allowed himself
| to be used as Mr. Cleveland's stool
| pigeon. All being prepared Mr.. Cleve-
lands real estate brokers secured an op-
tion. on the Harrison estate Mr.. Cramp-
ton bought it, all the papers having been
drawn up and maze out in the larter's
| sell the property to the city in the old,
| old way, so familiar to the students of
Jersey City politics of the past and pres
| ent.
The Board of Aldermen were the
proper people to buy it, and they did buy
1t for an immense price-$350, go. The
proportion of this sum to the value of
the properly can be inferred from the
statement that recently, with all the
growth of Jersey City in the intervening
years. the property was bought by the
Pennsylvania Railroad for S125, 900.
HOW THEY WE'RE BALKED.
Probably it is incorrect to say that the
Board of Aldermen bought it. They
tried to buy it. They passed a resolution
Of purchase, which, however, was killed
by Mayor Charles H. O'Neill This was
great setback to the success of Mr..
Cleveland's speculation. There came a
pause. The scheme stopped. But the prop
erty was paid for by Mr. Champion, partly
by mortgage and partly in cash. The cash
was obtained by Mr.. Cleveland's making
the Dixon Crucible Company's notes and
drawing them to the order of Joseph
Dixon & Co., an extinct firm. whose af-
fairs were all settled up, and who had no
legal existence at all. These notes were
sent to Fowler, Champion SS Co., and by
them discounted in New York and Brook
lyn banks, and the money was used in
the cash payments on the Harrison es-
tate.
The sale having fallen through, the
project was an elephant on the hands of
It's promoters for eight or nine years,
when q second scheme was conceived,
this time to sell the property to the Board
of Chosen Freeholders of Hudson county.
The fact is shown on the books of the
Dixon Crucible Company that immedi-
ately following the purchase of tho plot
of ground by the Board of Freeholders
block of $4,000 of Mr.. Cleveland's per-
sonal stock was transferred to one of the
Freeholders, now dead, and no considera-
tion for this transfer is shown or known,
except to Mr.. Cleveland. But again the
scheme miscarried. The resolution of
purchase, after being passed by the
Board of Freeholders. was again vetoed.
ALMOST SUCCESSFUL.
Al ullG lOl1OW l11E ICdl1 nOWOVCI1 Gi0 ttb-
tempt to sell the tract of ground to Hud-
son county was again made before the
next Board of Freeholders. Another
resolution of purchase was passed. This
time it got through without accident, and
the papers and deeds were drawn up in
great haste. But the people organized to
defeat the scheme. The repeated efforts
to sell the tract at such an exorbitant
figure had aroused the public. Indigna-
tion meetings were held. able counsel
were employed and the whole proceed
ings were checked by writs of certiorari.
The bonds issued by the Board of Free
holders in payment for the land, being
tainted, would not sell. The case was
taken to the courts in Hudson county,
and the bonds were declared not good.
The case was appealed to the State
Supreme Court at Trenton, and the
lower court was sustained 1t was carried
to the Court of the United States Circuit
Court, sitting at Trenton, Judge Nixon
on the bench; thence finally to the United
States Supreme Court at Washington. In
all these courts the scheme was beaten,
and the bonds were declared invalid. In
the United States Supreme Court Justice
Field delivered the opinion.
TAKING DESPERATE MEASURES.
The money used by Mr.. Cleveland un-
der Mr.. Crampton's name to carry on
this enormously expensive litigation was
obtained as the cash payments on the
Harrison tract were secured, by Mr..
Cleyeland's issuing the Dixon Crucible
Company's paper, drawn to the order of
Joseph Dixon g. Co., the extinct firm,
and discounted, as before. by Champions
firm in the New York banks.
Coincident with this struggle in the
courts, Mr.. Cleveland every year secured
the introduction in the Legislature at
Trenton of bill to legalize these same
bonds. One year it would pass in the
T In H..
another year 1t would pass the Senate
and be killed in the House. and it con-
tinued this football existence until the
courts dismissed it forever. This at
tempted sale Of the Harrison estate be-
came known in the parlance of Jersey
City as 1.-THE Court House Job.'' and it
was the focus for all those years of Jersey
city politics. Mr.. Cleveland was then as
now one OF the Democratic "bosses," as
he was liberal giver, probably the most
liberal of all the givers, to the political
funds, and the money he gave out to the
heelers was more or less obtained by the
process just explained
THEN CAME THE CRASH.
These incidents covered a period of
eight or nine years, and when the deci-
sion came from the United States Su-
preme Court that the bonds were
not good, and when all hope
of success through the Legis-
laCur0 naQ TO De ADanQOneu. the
mass of notes afioat represented over
81, 100000 and was too pig a burden to be
carried any longer. Fowler, Champion
& Co. failed first 1t was told to the
world that their business had been bad,
and that they had made losing specu-
lations in East India merchandise. This
was all fiction. Their trouble was Jersey
City real estate. The Joseph Dixon
Crucible Company failed the day follow
ing Fowler, Champion & Co.'s failure,
and their excuse to the world was that
their affairs were all right, but that as
Fowler, Champion 81 Co. held consider
able of their paper, they would be forced
to suspend for few weeks to make
other arrangements. It was a hopeless
case Both concerns had been wrecked
by the same scheme and by one man.
That man was Orestes Cleveland.
1t may be mentioned here that after the
Board of Chosen Freeholders finally
passed the resolution to purchase the
Harrison tract the Board was indicted,
and at one of the sessions of the Grand
Jury Orestes Cleveland was summoned
and sworn and declared then and there
to the jury that 1t was idle for them to
ask him anything about the question un-
der discussion, as he knew no more about
it than child that was not born This
he said under oath.
WHAT THE BOOKS SHOWED.
This is the story Of the failure of the
Dixon Crucible Company told to the pub
lie for the first time. The books showed
that Mr.. Cleveland's personal account
had been overdrawn about $6O0O One
AZ. rr,f hn I. 49,