Tweed's predecessors, however, had been but petty thieves, hardly worthy to be classed with the great sachem. Most of them had worked stealthily-stealing as the coyote and the hyena steal-avoiding retribution by flight and trickery. Tweed, immeasurably the boldest, mightiest plunderer of them all, gloried in the fierce emblem of his youth, and emblazoned forever on the Tammany banner that symbol of rapacity and stripes-the jungle king.

The beginning of 1871 found the Ring at the apex of its power. It is true that the blows already struck by Nast and Jennings on the brazen gates of infamy had not only attracted public attention but in a measure had alarmed the marauders concealed behind. Yet they were in no immediate danger. So securely intrenched were the offenders behind cunningly devised laws, fraudulent voting machinery and an army of accomplices, composed of capitalists, railway magnates, office-holders, prizefighters, loafers, convicted felons and a subsidized press, that even the most ardent reformers almost despaired of ever bringing them to justice. The Times in an editorial of February 24 said:

There is absolutely nothing-nothing in the city which is beyond the reach of the insatiable gang who have obtained possession of it. They can get a grand jury dismissed at any time, and, as we have seen, the Legislature is completely at their disposal.

The Ring had imperial power over every public issue and franchise, not only in the city but the State. The Erie Railroad, with Tweed and Sweeny as directors and with Fisk and Gould as its financiers, was simply a gigantic highway of robbery and disgrace.

In the city, vast improvements were projected, some of which have since been completed for the public good. Perhaps because so little can be set down to the credit of the Ring,

the public is inclined to be unduly grateful for these blessingsforgetful that they were devised for no other purpose than to afford fresh avenues for a plunder that grew ever more enormous as the armies of the Ring increased and demanded ever

TWEEDLEDEE AND SWEEDLEDUM

(4 New Christmas Pantomime at the Tumang Hall) CLOWN (to PANTALOOS). "Let's Blind them with this, and then take some more."

greater largess as the price of faithfulness and silence. It was this rapacity on the part of its followers-those daughters of the horse-leech, with their insatiable cry of "Give, Give!"-the demand for more, and yet more, that resulted at last in the downfall and demolition of the Ring.

In Nast's first shot of the year 1871, "Tweedledee and Sweedledum," Tweed and

Sweeny are shown as giving open-handedly from the public treasury to the needier of their followers, while they set aside still greater sums for their own account. Tweed's fifteenthousand-dollar diamond, which has since become historic, was first depicted in this caricature. The picture was a small one, but it created a big mischief.

"That's the last straw!" Tweed declared when he saw it. "I'll show them d-d publishers a new trick!"

He had already threatened Harpers with an action for libel, and had prevailed upon deluded Peter Cooper to use his influence in behalf of the city officials.

He now gave orders to his Board of Education to reject all Harper bids for school-books, and to throw out those already on hand. More than fifty thousand dollars of public property was thus destroyed, to be replaced by books from the New York Printing Company-a corporation owned by the Ring.

The Harper firm held a meeting to consider this serious blow. A majority of the members would have been willing to discontinue the warfare on so mighty an enemy. Fletcher Harper never wavered. When at last the argument became rather bitter, he took up his hat and said:

"Gentlemen, you know where I live. When you are ready to continue the fight against these scoundrels, send for me. Meantime, I shall find a way to continue it alone."

They did not let him go, and the fight went on.

The widening and straightening of Broadway was to have been one of the most profitable of Ring jobs, but Auditor Watson, who seems to have had this particular scheme in hand, was suddenly thrown from a sleigh one night and instantly killed. It was the beginning of the Ring's bad luck, for the result was a partial exposure of the crookedness of the affair, and Tweed found it necessary to hurry up to Albany and pass a bill abolishing the whole undertaking. Nast cartooned the situation perfectly. Then came another sectarian caricature which showed that it was not the Catholic church alone that he could criticise. In this picture the Protestant, as well, is

THE NEW BOARD OF EDUCATION.

SOWING THE

SEED, WITH AN EYE TO THE HARVEST

shown with his basket laden with Ring favors.

In the next picture Tweed is declining the statue which, in the form of an ass's head, Edward J. Shandley is trying to thrust upon him. It would be sad, if it were not humorous, to recall that while the idea of this statue was generally ridiculed by the

press, one of the foremost journals of New York City boasted that it had been first to propose this honor, and upon the "Boss's" refusal of it, commented editorially:

His (Tweed's) modesty shrinks from so substantial a testimonial as the erection of a statue while he is still living. We think Mr. Tweed has acted hastily. He need not have been ashamed of such a compliment, nor need he fear it because it is a novelty. Is it too late to realize so worthy and so excellent an idea? * Tweed as Louis Napoleon giving Hoffman, the Prince Imperial, his " Baptism of Fire," the shells of reform bursting around them, came next, and May 6th the "Political Leper the Republican legislator who has sold himself to the Ring.

The Times meanwhile had been hurling its fierce denunciations almost daily into the Ring stronghold, and the public was beginning to be aroused. The paper had no absolute proof as yet, but with the courage of its convictions it did not hesitate to brand Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall as embezzlers and thieves. It is a sorrowful spectacle to find most of the great The Sun, March 1 and 15, 1871.

papers of that day either openly and fiercely abusing Nast and Jennings for their vigorous campaign or at most expressing but lukewarm commendation. A number of them sought to divert public attention from the sins of the Ring by assailing Grant, whose distribution of offices did not please a majority of the New York Press.*

Horace Greeley was in a difficult position. His ambition to become President was already formed, yet as a Republican he was still supposed to support Grant. Furthermore, if the Ring was a bad thing, and it seemed likely that this was true, he felt

*As an example of the general attitude of the New York papers (both city and State) at this period, and to show how difficult it was to make headway against the almost universal domination of the Ring, the following brief extracts from three foremost journals are given. It must be remembered that at this period these papers were either Democratic or at least opposed to the National Administration. Also that they were in no sense the papers bearing the same titles to-day. New ownerships, new policies and new principles have given us new journals in everything but

name.

From the New York Evening Post, March 10, 1871, editorial entitled "Hash": The Times and Harper's Weekly, as administration organs looking to the next Presidential election and not to the good government of the city of New York, imagine they can help the Republican party by the outcries they raise. "The Evening Post condemns the administration of President Grant, and praises that of the Ring of the city of New York," says Harper's Weekly, and shows us the motive of its own abuse and misrepresentations. We do not condemn one or praise the other. If we were dishonest or disingenuous partisans we should probably do as the Times and Harper's Weekly do, and our praise and our blame would presently count for no more than theirs with honest and intelligent men. (It should be added that the Post had vigorously condemned the idea of a statue of Tweed as well as the "Boss" himself, personally.)

From the New York Sun, February 3 and 4, 1871:

The decline of the New York Times in everything that entitles a paper to respect and confidence has been rapid and complete. Its present editor, who was dismissed from the London Times for improper conduct and untruthful writing, has sunk into a tedious monotony of slander, disregard of truth and blackguard vituperation. . . Let the Times change its course, send off Jennings and get some gentleman and scholar in his place, and become again an able and high-toned paper. Thus may it escape from ruin. Otherwise it is doomed.

From the New York Herald, July 4, 1871, editorial entitled "Humbug Reformers": Every now and then there springs up, like mushrooms in a night, a crop of municipal reformers who assail the authorities with might and main, until obliged to desist from sheer exhaustion, or other causes which are not at all difficult to explain. These humbug reformers are organized bands of uneasy people who have been left out in the cold in the matter of some fat contract or other-that of the city printing and advertising being not the least of the causes that arouse their holy indignation. It is with the intention of having their silence purchased by what they call the "Ring" that all this parade of alleged extravagance, over-taxation and fraud is made.