CHAPTER FOUR

Playing the Game

ARTHUR RETURNED FROM Kansas to a city wracked by the financial crisis. Spooked by the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, New York bankers tightened credit and demanded immediate payment on all mature loans. Depositors rushed to withdraw their gold from banks, draining reserves by $20 million. Now the gold aboard the Central America, which was supposed to help replenish that supply, was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Banks suspended gold payments and brokers pummeled each other on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as the market sank. “In Wall Street every man carries Pressure, Anxiety, Loss written on his forehead,” George Templeton Strong wrote in his diary. Shipbuilding ceased and foundries fired hundreds of mechanics. The printers’ union lost two-thirds of its members, and many young women who had worked as milliners, servants, or peddlers resorted to prostitution to survive. Hundreds of small merchants failed, and those who held on posted placards with scribbled announcements of drastic price cuts. Construction on Fifth Avenue mansions halted, and Broadway buildings begun during the spring and summer stalled at two stories, looking like hedges with their tops lopped off.

As many as 100,000 New Yorkers were out of work, and throngs of the jobless gathered to listen to “seditious speeches.” Some threatened to seize food, clothing, and other necessities by force if they were denied honest labor. In early November, four thousand radicals, unionists, and land reformers marched from Tompkins Square to City Hall Park to present a “Mass Petition for the Unemployed” to Mayor Fernando Wood. “Every human being has a RIGHT to live, not as a mere charity, but as RIGHT, and governments, monarchical or republican, MUST FIND work for the people if individual exertion proves not sufficient,” it read. Perched on a fountain basin, one speaker heaped scorn on New York’s wealthier citizens. “Ladies throng Broadway every day buying silk robes, while the wives and children of honest laborers are starving.”

Even under the best economic conditions, building a law practice in New York was a challenge. In 1857 Arthur was still a relatively recent arrival in the city, with little money and few family connections. He had attracted some favorable attention with his victory in the Jennings case, but now he was engaged and he had a long way to go before he could support Nell, and the children they hoped to have, in the style they craved. Arthur needed connections to prominent men. One avenue promised to provide them.

The turmoil in Kansas had helped draw New York’s disparate antislavery elements together, and in 1854 a “Free Soil” convention in Saratoga—which Chester Arthur and Erastus Culver attended—had led to the creation of the Republican Party in the state. Gradually Arthur had stepped up his involvement in political activities. On election days, he worked as an inspector at a polling place in a carpenter’s shop on Broadway and 23rd Street. In 1856, the military officer and explorer John C. Frémont had been the Republican Party’s first presidential nominee, and Arthur had contributed to the cause by joining the “Eighteenth Ward Young Men’s Fremont Vigilance Committee.” Frémont lost the election to Democrat James Buchanan.

Arthur’s growing involvement in Republican politics allowed him to observe and learn from a master of the game. Thurlow Weed was the publisher of the Albany Evening Journal. He also was the undisputed boss of New York’s Whig Party and then, when it faded away, the Republicans. Weed’s newspaper background gave him a deep knowledge of current affairs and the ability to write clear, incisive English. He never spoke in public, but he was a natural politician who liked to work secretly with his opponents. At a series of dinners he hosted annually, Weed entertained legislators of both parties, and he boasted that he was personally acquainted with every member of the legislature over the course of 30 years. Railroad magnate Dean Richmond, chairman of the New York Democratic Party, was a close personal friend.

When Arthur returned from Kansas in 1857, Weed was a vigorous 59 years old. He was tall and powerfully built, with eyes set deeply beneath his shaggy brows and receding gray hair that added to his air of authority. The man known as “The Wizard of the Lobby” did not like to be crossed, but his character was a complicated mix of cynicism and generosity. He often came to the rescue of new immigrants who had been duped by the unscrupulous “runners” who lurked near the Castle Garden depot, offering to transport the newcomers’ belongings to decrepit boardinghouses where they charged exorbitant rates and held people’s possessions as “security” if they could not pay. Women in particular were drawn to Weed, who was a captivating conversationalist and a thoughtful friend who shared financial advice and brought them books and flowers when they were ill.

Born into a family of farmers in tiny Cairo, New York, Weed had little formal schooling and spent much of his youth working on boats on the Hudson River. He grew up in an America that was poor and sparsely populated, a country of handicrafts, fledgling factories, and primitive roads. By the 1850s, that nation no longer existed. Now the country’s manufacturing exceeded its agricultural output, and it had 17,000 miles of operating railroads and five million tons of shipping. The Empire State was at the forefront of these changes. It was the most populous state in the Union, with more than three million inhabitants—nine times as many as when Weed was born. It had 2,345 miles of railroad in operation within its borders, and nearly 1.3 million tons of shipping were registered at New York City’s port—nearly five times the amount registered in 1815.

In New York, business and politics were being braided together, and Weed derived his power from those thickening ties. He hobnobbed with bank presidents and railroad tycoons, merchants and ship owners, lobbyists and speculators. The businessmen provided a steady source of money for campaigns, and Weed repaid them by soliciting their views on legislation relating to railroads, steamboats, wharfs, or anything else that could affect their fortunes. More delicate men, less versed in the ways of Albany, denigrated this as a perversion of the democratic process. “The Dictator” saw it differently. “Obnoxious as the admission is to a just sense of right and to a better condition of political ethics, we stand so far ‘impeached,’” Weed confessed in the Evening Journal when he was accused of pushing railroad-backed bills in exchange for donations to the party. “We would have preferred not to disclose to public view the financial history of political life.… Public men know much of what ‘the rest of mankind’ are ignorant. We suppose it is generally understood that party organizations cost money and that presidential elections especially are expensive.”

To this practical motivation Weed added a patriotic one: he believed that industrial growth was good for the country. Therefore, advancing the interests of businessmen was in the public interest. “There have been legislative measures, right in themselves, and promotive of the general welfare, in which we have had, in common with other citizens, ultimate or prospective interests. In this category belong New York city railroads.”

One of Weed’s main responsibilities as political boss was to distribute government jobs to the party faithful, and the New York of the 1850s offered a dizzying array of patronage opportunities. At the bottom of the patronage pyramid were jobs such as laborer, street sweeper, and bell ringer. Moving up, there were positions for policemen, health wardens, tax assessors, judges, and commissioners of deeds. Weed could help a loyal Republican get elected as a local alderman, mayor, or state assemblyman. At the top of the heap were the coveted federal jobs, about seven hundred of them at the New York Custom House, located in a “Grecian temple” on Wall Street. New York City was the main port of entry for goods entering the United States, and the Custom House collected about 75 percent of the nation’s import duties. The chief collector made an astronomical $6,400 per year, and even the night watchmen made $1.50 per night at a time when workingmen were fortunate to make $500 a year.

In the mansions on Fifth Avenue, government jobs, especially local ones, were considered to be undignified. Upper-class reformers believed public offices were a public trust that should be divorced from individual interests. But people on society’s lower rungs saw things differently. They sought government jobs because they craved a steady salary and a sense of identity—a way up. They believed that if you worked hard on behalf of a victorious political party or faction, a patronage job was your just reward.

Weed was an unabashed defender of the spoils system. He argued that the regular rotation of public jobs was fair and democratic, and if that resulted in an unstable and inefficient civil service, so be it. Patronage was the oil that lubricated the Republican machine, perpetuating Weed’s power. It also provided a steady flow of campaign contributions, through “voluntary assessments” levied on officeholders’ salaries. For Weed, there was no more important task than finding jobs for loyal Republicans—even it could be taxing at times. “I am shakey [sic], but it is, I think, from the pressure of those who need places or assistance,” Weed wrote to a friend. “From two till five A.M. I am beset by numbers, some worthy, others shiftless, but all needy. Last week my head gave out and I was compelled to give up and go to Saratoga. I came Home better, but the same exposure to importunity produced the same consequences. Out of a dozen or more that apply every day I can generally help three or four.”

Weed’s personal code of honor prevented him from securing appointments for his relatives. There is no evidence that he ever supported a bill he believed to be harmful to the public welfare, or that he ever accepted a bribe from an office seeker. His dealings in Albany offered him ample opportunity to enrich himself, and he became a wealthy man. But he bristled at the suggestion that money clouded his perception of what was in the public interest. There has “scarcely been a session of the Legislature for more than a quarter of a century out of which, if we had chosen to do so, a large amount of money could not have been made,” Weed acknowledged. But “during the more than thirty years that we have been connected with this Journal… no pecuniary consideration—no hope of favor or reward—has tempted us to support a measure which did not commend itself to our judgment and conscience, or to oppose a meritorious one.”

And yet, Weed was the prototype for the machine politician, the model for a long line of bosses and lobbyists who gradually corroded Americans’ faith in their government. Less than a century before, the country’s founding fathers conceived a political system engineered to produce good laws. Weed and his ilk twisted it into a game of place and power, a contest in which the ultimate prize was getting and maintaining party control—even if that meant handing out government jobs to inexperienced men, or using brass-knuckled tactics to win elections. However he might justify it, Weed eagerly did the bidding of railroad tycoons, Wall Street financiers, and titans of industry, even as those businesses grew, and combined, and wielded ever-increasing power over Americans’ lives. It would be up to future Republicans—most notably the eldest son, Theodore Jr., of a prominent New York City businessman and philanthropist named Theodore Roosevelt—to restore the balance.

At times, even Weed himself seemed to question the morality of what he did. He wanted obedience but also respect, and it cut him deeply when prominent men denied him the latter. “I do not dislike Mr. Barnard, personally though we differ so widely in political sentiment and sympathy,” Weed wrote to Hamilton Fish, who served as New York’s governor, a US senator, and later President Ulysses S. Grant’s secretary of state. “My difficulty is that he puts me so low down in his scale of political morality (rightly enough, perhaps, for we are compelled to do things that will not bear a blaze of light to elect to office even as good men as he is) that I do not feel fit for his society. But I wish him nothing but happiness and I would not cross his path with a straw.” When a rift opened between Weed and Fish, the boss lamented that sometimes he mistook political allegiance for actual friendship. “There is no course left but school myself into the belief that I have never understood the motives that governed me; and henceforth ‘to see myself as others see me.’ And yet it would have been more agreeable, in one’s old age, to feel that life had not been wholly wasted.”

For his part, Chester Arthur embraced Weed’s approach to politics. He marveled at the Wizard’s organizational genius, noting that his plans extended to the smallest details and were carried out to the letter. On election days, Arthur watched in awe as “heelers” broke up lines of opposing voters—sometimes poking them with awls to disperse them—and flagrantly stuffed ballot boxes. The tactics were simple, effective, and wholly acceptable; this was simply how the game was played.

The Herndons of Fredericksburg, Virginia, were still mourning their brother William’s death aboard the Central America when the captain’s widow and daughter came to visit in February 1858. “There is but one subject of thought and conversation among us. Visions of the dreadful scene present themselves day & night,” William’s brother, Brodie Herndon, a physician and father of eight, recorded in his diary. The grieving family found consolation in the public recognition of Captain Herndon’s heroism—and in their religious faith. “The NY Herald said, ‘The loss of such an officer was itself a national calamity,’” Brodie wrote. “Oh, we shall surely meet again dear sweet brother! The memory of thee shall ever be very precious.”

Dr. Herndon noted that his sister-in-law and niece were “overwhelmed with grief,” but that “their friends in NY are very kind.” One of those “friends,” Nell’s fiancé, Chester, accompanied the two women on the journey to their ancestral home in Virginia. Steam travel, whether by water or by land, had made such visits commonplace, and Southern families such as the Herndons maintained close ties with faraway cousins, uncles, and aunts. The increasing ease of travel made it possible for Dr. Herndon to send his son Dabney to New York to study, while his daughters often went to Savannah to visit relatives there.

When Arthur passed the row of silver maples in front of 623 Caroline Street and walked through the front gate with its sturdy locust posts, he crossed into foreign territory. The Herndon household owned seven slaves, ranging in age from 12 to 53. There was a “slave house” in the back, and when one of the slave women became pregnant, the younger Herndon girls argued about whose maid the baby would be. The son of the abolitionist preacher had never been to the South, and it was jarring to see Nell and her mother being served by slaves. Chester shared his father’s opposition to slavery, but those feelings were overshadowed by his love for Nell, and by his determination to impress her blueblood relatives. During his two weeks in Fredericksburg, Arthur either kept his antislavery sentiments to himself or expressed them tactfully enough that he avoided offending his hosts. “He is a fine looking man and we all like him very much,” Dr. Herndon wrote in his diary.

Less than a year later, in October 1859, the Virginians came north for Nell and Chester’s wedding at the Calvary Episcopal Church on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The newlyweds began their life together in a home owned by the bride’s mother, at 34 West 21st Street. In December 1860, Chester sent a jubilant message to his own relatives in upstate New York: he and Nell were parents. “Lewis Herndon Arthur aged 4 ½ hours sends his compliments to his cousin Arthur and other kin folks in Cohoes & has only time to say further that his mother is doing better than could be expected and his father will send further advice tomorrow.”

In his quest for connections Arthur also joined the New York state militia, and was commissioned judge advocate of the 2nd Brigade. This experience, together with his Republican labors and the influence of friends, led to Arthur’s first real break in politics—and a valuable, lifelong alliance with another leading Republican, Edwin D. Morgan.

Morgan was born in 1811 into modest circumstances in Connecticut, and he began his career as a Hartford grocer. But Morgan was ambitious, and when he was in his mid-20s he moved to New York City. In the metropolis he rapidly transformed himself into a prosperous wholesaler, banker, and broker with interests that extended throughout North America to Brazil and China. Morgan owned ships and invested in real estate, railroads, public utilities, banks, and insurance companies.

Morgan began his political career as a Whig, serving first as a New York City alderman and then as a state senator. In 1856, a year after switching to the Republicans, he became chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was a handsome man, with an aquiline nose and a narrow head covered with stiff brown hair. His morose expression masked an energetic personality, a firm sense of duty, and an ability to quickly grasp the essence of a problem. As a politician he was a poor orator but a natural organizer, and he skillfully melded local interests and factions into a unified national party during the Republicans’ first decade.

When New York Republicans convened in 1858 to choose a nominee for governor, Weed had no doubt who would be the strongest choice. Morgan had limited experience in elected office, but he brought other advantages that more than compensated for that deficiency. “One of Mr. Weed’s arguments was that the Democrats were in power everywhere and could assess their office holders, while the Republicans would have to rely for campaign funds upon voluntary contributions, which would come nowhere so freely as from Mr. Morgan and his friends,” one delegate remembered. “When the convention met Mr. Weed had won over a large majority of the delegates for his candidate. It was a triumph not only of his skill but of his magnetism, which were always successfully exerted upon a doubtful member.”

Morgan won the nomination and the election, and in 1860 he was reelected to a second two-year term. Soon afterward, he formed a new “general staff,” a corps of young men outfitted in uniforms and gold braid whose job was to appear martial at public ceremonies. In fact the corps had no military function; it was purely decorative. Weed told Morgan he had a perfect candidate for the corps: a young Republican attorney, uncommonly handsome, who stood taller than six feet and exuded a confidence and dignity unusual in a man his age. On the first day of 1861, Morgan invited Chester Arthur to join the group.

At first, Arthur’s job was purely ornamental. Soon it turned deadly serious.