AN AMERICAN REFORMER.*
IN Memories of a Publisher Mr. 0. H. Putnam takes up the story of his life from the close of his military career in 1865 to the present year. As he has no diary on which to build his narrative, he has been content to state his opinions on some public questions in the hope that they may be of service to the• men of the next generation " in their struggle for the solution of more or less similar perplexities." To these he has added what he could rememker of various friends, English and American. The chapters which we have found most interesting are the accounts of his long service on the Grand Jury of the County of New York and on a Committee of Fifteen which did its best, though with no very lasting results, to bring to light some of the abuses and crimes which have long been associated with the name of Tammany. Of the Grand Jury he has often been foreman. In this capacity he has had to select and direct the investigaeons undertaken and to shape the work of each day. It has been an exacting service, but it has enabled him to under- stand the machinery of city government and the methods of city officials. A man who has held such a post for five-and- thirty years has earned the right to be listened to when he writes about the public life of New York.
The business of the Grand Jury is not limited, as with us, to finding or not finding a. true bill against an accused person. It includes the framing of indictments against any persons who have, been charged before a Magistrate if, in the opinion of twelve out of the twenty-three Grand Jurors, they ought to be brought to trial in the Criminal Court. Its addition, to this, it is their duty to investigate the methods of work in the city government, • .1M:series of a Pobii.kee, 186S-111s. By George- Theme Putnam% Litt.D. Los don: G. P. Putnaln's Sons. 19s. net J
and generally " any conditions in the city which affect the • public welfare." They can call before them any of the officiabr, including the Mayor himself, and inquire how they have ells- charged their duties; and in order that this function should not be-neglected from pressure of routine business, two and some- times three Grand Juries may be kept sitting at the same time. Mr. Putnam thinks that the work of the Grand Jury might well be confined to these larger subjects, and that an ordinary Magistrate might properly be left to decide " whether or not a. coloured gentleman was a little worse for liquor." This change would leave the Grand Jury free to give their whole time to the really important half of their work.
One of the eases described relates to a failure which excited special attention owing to its involving General. Grant not long, after the conclusion of his term of office as President of the United States. He and two of his sons had become partners in a firm of which one Ferdinand' Ward, then known as the 'Young Napoleon of Finance,' "• was the managing partner. Ward had from the first seen how Grant's name could be used to bring in business of a very special kind, and had whispered to favoured' friends that through General Grant's influence the firm had been able to secure some exceptionally advantageous-Government contracts. In order to do more businessof this kind, and at the same time protect the General's reputation, it was necessary that the favoured investors should ask no questions about the contracts. They must be taken on trust. By the time the Grand' Jury had begun their investigation Ward had • been convicted of obtaining money under false pretences, and was actually in prison when he was brought up to give evidence before the Grand Jury. As he had nothing, further to fear for himself, his testimony was unusually frank.. He produced a book " labelled ' Special Contracts. Personal F. W.' The entry on. , the first page carried some fairly high number, say 157." When asked for the record covering the earlier records, 1-156, the answer was " There is no such record because there were no such contracts." The reason why the first contract was numbered 1.37 was that " it looked better. It gave- the impression= of a continuing business," when in fact there was no business and nothing was done by the firm. Ward was then asked to explain the appearance of the figure $23,000 as the proceeds of Contract 157. " I wrote them in, and reported accordingly to the in- vestors," who were so pleased with the return on their capital that in almost every case they asked the firm to reinvest these profits in further or continuing contracts. This was the rale, but if an exception occurred Ward was equal to dealing with it. Shortly before the firm stopped payment one of the investors wished to• draw out about $20,000 then standing to his credit. The bookkeeper, on being ordered to draw a. cheque to that amount, signalled over the head of the caller that there was no such balance. He was instructed, however, to act as though, it existed, and by the time that he returned Ward had given such a promising account of the firm's- business that the visitor asked him to keep the money for reinvestment in another contract :- "' No ! No !' I said. We make a seleetion in apportioning these investments. We have plenty of friends who are pressing us, for a chance to- come in. We do not want the name of anybody who has shown lack of confidence. I cannot accept your rein- vestment.' And the man almost went down on his knees to- beg me to take back the 120,000, and finally, an a special favour;. I accepted. the cheek and tore it up."
General Grant's share in these transactions consisted of a visit. to the office at long intervals, when he was shown the figures, of the monthly business and went away satisfied. When the crash came he lost all his savings,. " but hit reputation, was untouched." As Ward was already in prison, the Grand Jury were satisfied with the disclosures they had obtained from Mar,. and took no further steps in the matter. This and other own, . alone' victories gave Mr. Putnam suffieient encouragement to go on with the work of cleansing Tamentey. But the per- centage of failures was large, and throughout his long service on the Grand Jury " it was a serious matter for a man doing business in the city. to haVe his name come on to the black-list. of Tammany Hall. There were many ways in which, under full cover of the law, a man could be ruined."
In addition to the work done for the county on the Grand Jury, Mr. Putnam has been active in the service of the city, first as a member of the City Club, thee of the City Union, and finally on two Committees InlaWn as the fifteen, and the Fourteen. The Club began by trying to bring forward a better type of candidate in the municipal elections, and in at least one contest.
▪ the Citizens ticket was successful:" But it proved easier to -bring reformers together than to keep them together. The organization of Tammany had for its motive-power the command of a large party fund. The City Club and its branches had no lands, and even if they had been better equipped in this way the personal interest of its leaders in the appropriation of the money in their hands, which constituted the driving-force of Tammany, would have been wanting. The Citizens Union suffered from another weakness, the .absence of any uniformity of opinion on municipal problems. ".It gathered in cranks and theorists of all kinds." Whatever might be the subject of discussion at any given meeting, " it seemed wise, even with the necessity of continuing the meeting until long past midnight, to allow men to put in varied suggestions about minority repre- sentation, single tax, women's suffrage, home government, control of tenements, restriction of the importation of the foreign voter, and dozens of other subjects still less relevant." In the end the Citizens Union was forced to retire from active politics by an irreconcilable difference about municipal owner- ship. It might have been thought that, so far as New York was concerned, the recent history of the city was enough to dispose of a proposal the first result of which must be to increase the power of Tammany. But the theory of public ownership was held too sacred to admit of any exception. The practical section of the Committee objected that to give to the munici- pality of New York additional powers was in fact to make Tammany stronger. The theorists who wanted public owner- .ship were wholly unimpressed by this argument. Whether they thought that Tammany would be so grateful for the con- fidence shown it that it would at once set about a searching .process of reformation, or held the principle they advocated no sacred that it must he recognized in the very teeth of facts, must remain uncertain. So long as politicians of this un- manageable type continue to be found in the Reform Party of New York, Tammany's reign is not likely to come to an end.
In an appendix of some fifty pages, Mr. Putnam :bring together a 'sage number of letters from himself to various New York journals upon the conduct of the war by the Germans, which have been very useful in shaping American opinion on the *abject.
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