CHAPTER VI

Considering the fact that the richest and most influential and respectable men were direct allies of the Tweed clique, it was not surprising that men such as John Jacob Astor, Jr., Moses Taylor, Edward Schell and company were willing enough to sign a testimonial certifying to Controller Connolly's honesty. The Tweed "ring" supposed that a testimonial signed by these men would make a great impression upon the public. Yet, stripping away the halo which society threw about them simply because they had wealth, these rich citizens themselves were to be placed in even a lower category than Tweed, on the principle that the greater the pretension, the worst in its effect upon society is the criminal act. The Astors cheated the city out of enormous sums in real estate and personal property taxation; Moses Taylor likewise did so, as was clearly brought out by a Senate Investigating Committee in 1890; Roberts had been implicated in great swindles during the Civil War; and as for Edward Schell, he, by collusion with corrupt officials, compelled the city to pay exorbitant sums for real estate owned by him and which the city needed for public purposes. And further it should be pointed out that Tweed, Connolly and Sweeny were but vulgar political thieves who retained only a small part of their thefts. Tweed died in prison quite poor; even the very extensive area of real estate that he bought with stolen money vanished, one part of it going in lieu of counsel fees to one of his lawyers, Elihu Root, United States Secretary of State under Roosevelt.¹¹ Connolly fled abroad with $6,000,000 of loot and died there, while Sweeny settled with the city for an insignificant sum. The men who really profited directly or indirectly by the gigantic thefts of money and the franchise, tax-exemption, and other measures put through the legislature or common council were men of wealth in the background, who thereby immensely increased their riches and whose descendants now possess towering fortunes and bear names of the highest "respectability."¹²