BOSS TWEED: The Corrupt Pol who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York by Kenneth D. Ackerman Page B
Authors: Kenneth D. Ackerman
Tags: History
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though. He enlarged the state’s annual charity appropriation bill, a vehicle used to provide state funding for social needs through private charities, religious and non-religious alike, from orphanages to hospitals to “homes for the friendless” at a time when government services simply didn’t exist. During his three years as chairman, from 1869 to 1871, the number of charities benefiting under it would grow from 68 to 106 and funding itself would top $2.2 million, a six-fold jump over prior levels, including creation of the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital. 25
This came on top of Tweed’s own private charity: lumps of coal at Christmas, food at Thanksgiving, and city jobs by the hundreds for poor breadwinners.
Tweed had his finger in every pie. “Do not forget to put through our fishery law,” Robert B. Roosevelt, uncle of future president Theodore Roosevelt and then a New York’s Fisheries Commissioner, wrote him during the 1870 session. 26 A New-York Times reporter identified Tweed by 1869 as master of patronage even on the rich upstate New York canal system: “He appears to take to responsibilities (especially when patronage is to be dispensed) as a duck does to water.” 27
Around this time, Tweed also hitched his star to the proposed new Brooklyn Bridge, a bold plan to construct the longest suspension span ever attempted to that time. Tweed joined the bridge company’s Executive Committee that August; earlier, he claims, he’d helped get the project started by aiding organizers in handing out $65,000 in bribes to New York aldermen—he took none of the money himself—to win their approval for a $1.5 million bond issue, then he paid $8,400 for 420 shares of company stock which would soon swell in value. Tweed had lived most of his life on streets near the East River; he’d seen the bustling city of Brooklyn across the way and knew the river as a swirling, turbulent, bad-tempered barrier where boats and barges frequently collided or sank trying to navigate its treacherous tidal currents. For Tweed, the bridge offered not just “a well-paying dividend stock” but a political jackpot as well. It would take years to build, cost millions of dollars, and employ thousands of workers; “we expected to get the employment of a great many laborers,” he’d later explain, “and an expenditure of the money for the different articles required to build the bridge.” 28
Money flowed to Tweed from all directions. For instance, he had great success helping his Erie Railway Company friends Jay Gould and Jim Fisk terrorize Wall Street. Two of his judges—Barnard and Cardozo, both of the state supreme court—issued injunctions at Jay Gould’s command that struck like lightning bolts through the financial world. F OOTNOTE 29 With rarely any appeal to Albany or to the federal courts under narrow nineteenth century rules, they stood as absolute mandates. Tweed found a kindred spirit in Jim Fisk and they became fast friends. “Jubilee Jim,” a big, playful, outgoing character, had raised himself from poverty in rural Vermont and now savored his role as Wall Street buccaneer. Fisk spent his money producing lavish opera bouffe performances in his Grand Opera House, covering himself in diamond pins, and openly supporting his mistress, actress Josie Mansfield, in a New York townhouse. He made her parlor a salon for his closest friends; Judge Barnard reputedly issued one of his injunctions there and Tweed himself enjoyed sharing laughs there with Jim and Josie over oysters and champagne. The “playboy side of Fisk … appealed to Tweed,” Denis Tilden Lynch explained. “[Tweed] was accustomed to associating with men always on their dignity, pretended or natural, and the change amused him.” 30
Tweed’s New-York Printing Company had grown to over 2,000 employees, making it one of the largest such firm in the country based on its city business. His system of forcing contractors to pad their bills with kickbacks had
This came on top of Tweed’s own private charity: lumps of coal at Christmas, food at Thanksgiving, and city jobs by the hundreds for poor breadwinners.
Tweed had his finger in every pie. “Do not forget to put through our fishery law,” Robert B. Roosevelt, uncle of future president Theodore Roosevelt and then a New York’s Fisheries Commissioner, wrote him during the 1870 session. 26 A New-York Times reporter identified Tweed by 1869 as master of patronage even on the rich upstate New York canal system: “He appears to take to responsibilities (especially when patronage is to be dispensed) as a duck does to water.” 27
Around this time, Tweed also hitched his star to the proposed new Brooklyn Bridge, a bold plan to construct the longest suspension span ever attempted to that time. Tweed joined the bridge company’s Executive Committee that August; earlier, he claims, he’d helped get the project started by aiding organizers in handing out $65,000 in bribes to New York aldermen—he took none of the money himself—to win their approval for a $1.5 million bond issue, then he paid $8,400 for 420 shares of company stock which would soon swell in value. Tweed had lived most of his life on streets near the East River; he’d seen the bustling city of Brooklyn across the way and knew the river as a swirling, turbulent, bad-tempered barrier where boats and barges frequently collided or sank trying to navigate its treacherous tidal currents. For Tweed, the bridge offered not just “a well-paying dividend stock” but a political jackpot as well. It would take years to build, cost millions of dollars, and employ thousands of workers; “we expected to get the employment of a great many laborers,” he’d later explain, “and an expenditure of the money for the different articles required to build the bridge.” 28
Money flowed to Tweed from all directions. For instance, he had great success helping his Erie Railway Company friends Jay Gould and Jim Fisk terrorize Wall Street. Two of his judges—Barnard and Cardozo, both of the state supreme court—issued injunctions at Jay Gould’s command that struck like lightning bolts through the financial world. F OOTNOTE 29 With rarely any appeal to Albany or to the federal courts under narrow nineteenth century rules, they stood as absolute mandates. Tweed found a kindred spirit in Jim Fisk and they became fast friends. “Jubilee Jim,” a big, playful, outgoing character, had raised himself from poverty in rural Vermont and now savored his role as Wall Street buccaneer. Fisk spent his money producing lavish opera bouffe performances in his Grand Opera House, covering himself in diamond pins, and openly supporting his mistress, actress Josie Mansfield, in a New York townhouse. He made her parlor a salon for his closest friends; Judge Barnard reputedly issued one of his injunctions there and Tweed himself enjoyed sharing laughs there with Jim and Josie over oysters and champagne. The “playboy side of Fisk … appealed to Tweed,” Denis Tilden Lynch explained. “[Tweed] was accustomed to associating with men always on their dignity, pretended or natural, and the change amused him.” 30
Tweed’s New-York Printing Company had grown to over 2,000 employees, making it one of the largest such firm in the country based on its city business. His system of forcing contractors to pad their bills with kickbacks had
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