Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/258

234 They saw a day of judgment coming. Their head chief, Dick Croker, took to his heels. He gathered up the princely fortune he had saved from his revenues as king of New York and retired as a Tammany “sage,” complacently conscious of having secured his harvest in season. But the other Tammany chiefs were not so comfortably settled. They had to brave the coming storm. How could they avoid defeat at the municipal election? They found themselves put to their wits, and tried various devices. They sang the song of harmony as sweetly as any sucking dove. They would forswear all selfish designs. They would nominate a high-toned citizen for mayor. They would even endorse a ticket nominated by reform Democrats. They would do anything to make people forget the Tiger's teeth and claws until after election. But it was all in vain.

In their extremity they remembered that in their kind of politics the shortest way from one point to another is a crooked line. The salvation they could not expect to win directly in New York city they might secure by a flank march via Albany. They bethought themselves of their lifelong friend, their trusty confederate, David B. Hill. If they could only make Hill governor again, they need not trouble themselves about a defeat in a mayor's election. As a leading Tammany man said in a reported interview: “Tammany can afford to give up the mayoralty for a couple of years. It would give up a great deal more if it could thereby prevent the election of a Republican governor and legislature.” Of course, with Hill in the governor's chair there would be no removals of Tammany heads of departments; no anti-Tammany laws would escape his veto. And with a legislature to match there would be no annoying investigations. Tammany, substantially remaining in possession of all its power, save the mayoralty, would laugh at the