Year: 1873

Two years ago the city of New York was
thoroughly aroused against the democratic
leaders: who for some time previously had
held control of the municipal government and
of the Tammany organization. The arbitrary
manner in which these leaders had ruled their
party, packing conventions, subsidizing legis-
latures setting their heels upon all who de-
clined to become their instruments and be-
slowing nominations and patronage only upon
those who rendered them homage, had in
censed very large portion of the rank and
file of the democracy against them and had
made some powerful leaders their enemies
| Their position had been too strongly en-
trenched to afford much hope of successful
attack prior to the fall of 1871. The preceding
year vigorous and at one time a promis-
| ing attempt to overthrow them had been
made by the young democracy, but it was
eventually defeated through the power OF pat
ronage and money. The struggle was, never
theless, severe, and the bitterness it left
behind led to the disasters which finally over
took the Tammany Ring. The exposure Of
! the criminal acts in which some of its men,





capacity, brought about through the dissen-
sions In their own household, awoke the tax
payers to a sense of the necessity of reform
in the administration Of the municipal gov
ernment. The people generally were resolved
to expel the dishonest public officers from
power. The democratic politicians op-
posed to the Tammany rulers, or
who had been ignored by them, seized
| the opportunity to advance their own inter-
ests. The republicans, numbering less than
one-third of the electors of the city, shrewdly
recognizing in the disruption Of the
democracy a chance of securing a share in
the municipal spols, took up, as party, the
cry of reform, and demanded the overthrow
of Tammany. They would have been power
less to accomplish anything alone; but, pre-
senting the most compact organization out
side Tammany Hail. they drew to them the
Apollo Hall leaders and all the disaffected
Tammany politicians who had identified them
selves with the previous winters movement of
the young democracy. The Independent
citizens, who were more anxious to
secure honest government than to ad-
vance any party interest, were unable
to put ticket of their own into the field
through the lack of organization, and were
willing to support any candidates whose sue
cess would secure them an escape from the
corrupt regime They met and organized a
committee of municipal reform-the famous
Committee of Seventy-but the politicians had
adroitly managed to gain control of the popu-
lar movement, and the committee was packed
with aspirants for Office. The press, almost
without exception, favored the new de-
parture, recognizing the immediate neces-
sity of rescuing the city government
from dishonest hands 1t was no new
thing for the HERALD to be found denouncing
the Tammany managers. 1t had denounced
them while they were buying up republican
legislatures and sharing their plunder with
Court House job when partisan journals were
suborned to cover up the monstrous fraud.
The partisan papers now joined in the anti
Tammany raid; the republican organs,
because they saw an opportunity to make more
out of the total overthrow of the Tammany
democracy in the city than they could hope to
realize out of the old rule the democratic
organs, because they feared the consequences
of popular indignation. The result was the
downfall of the Tammany managers and their
expulsion from the positions they held in the
city government


In the heat of the excitement attendant
upon the disclosures of official corruption the
Hrp,yp csuiiopa1 fha poop1a of Naw Vorly
against the danger of electng to Office men
equally as INSCRIPTIONS, if not as bold, as
those who were to be displaced; of simply ex-
changing one set of political adventurers for
another. We saw that number of notorious
of1ice-seekers were striving to force themselves
into notice by their loud professions of SYM
pathy with the reform movement, and that
the party nominations were not such as
promised any more substantial public benefit
than that which would inure from the imme-
diate overthrow of the Tweed and Con-
molly rule. They did not hold out q
prospect of pure and efficient administration
in the future. Two years have now passed
picions and proved the wisdom of our warn
ing. We have had two State Legislatures
elected under the cry of reform, and both
have been as corrupt and incompetent as any
that have disgraced the State. The members
of the Committee of Seventy have mainly
secured good Offices or profitable jobs growing
out of reform. Not single individual i'm
plicated in the criminal acts committed under
the old city administration has been brought
to Justice scarcely dollar stolen from the
city treasury has been recovered. The
reform agitation has been traded on
by the politicians at every election, and
under its cloak selfish bargains and merce-
nary combinations have been made. To-day
the city government is distracted, inharmo-
nious and inefficient. Our finances are in