STATES & CITIES: Indian in the Woodpile

Indian in the Woodpile

(See front cover)

Out of the spacious oak-paneled chamber of New York State’s Court of Appeals at Albany, last week issued a fine distinction. The case was one of Municipal bribery, civic corruption. The decision confirmed the jailing of a citizen who had refused to tell a committee of the Legislature whether he had bribed an official of New York City. At the same time it denied that that legislative committee had power to deal similarly with any suspected citizen in its search for civic corruption. The fine distinction was between actual bribery and conspiracy to bribe. Straightway the legislative committee moved to erase that distinction.

The decision brought to a sharp legal head the long conflict between New York City’s Tammany Hall, fighting desperately (for the fifth time since 1890) to keep its political secrets, and the Republican-controlled Legislature’s committee which is investigating the Democratic administration of Tammany Town (TIME. April 6). The case is an illuminating example of a great U. S. city’s established Ring at grips with the spasmodic spirit of Reform.

Of all the persons and personages involved, three stood out last week with special clarity. First there was the Reformer—pontifical Counsel Samuel Seabury of the Legislature’s committee, lord high inquisitor into New York City officialdom. Second there was a grey, little old horse doctor named William Francis Doyle, the culprit of the moment, the witness through whom the Reformer hoped to get at the Ring. Third there was Judge Benjamin Cardozo, personifying the

State’s highest court, the authority for the rules of the contest between Reformer and Ring.

Horse Doctor. William Francis Doyle was graduated from the New York American Veterinary College in 1889. For 19 years he tended the ring bone and spavin of Brooklyn carriage horses, got in with the politically right people. In 1909 he was given the best horse doctor’s job in the city: veterinary to the fire departments of Manhattan, Richmond and The Bronx. Had shrewd Dr. Doyle not divided his early years between the care of horses and the cultivation of politicians he might have been ruined when the Metropolitan fire departments were motorized. But Mayor Hylan made him Chief of the Fire Prevention Bureau in 1918 at a salary of $6,000 a year. In this office he became familiar with the inner working of the Board of Standards & Appeals which grants building permits. Four years later he was pensioned off (at $2,755) “on account of eyesight.”

Instead of being thrown into penury. Horse Doctor Doyle set himself up as a special pleader before the Board of Standards & Appeals. Such a position requires no legal experience. Word soon got round that if you wanted to locate a garage in a restricted neighborhood or construct a building out of unapproved material, the man to “see” was “Doc” Doyle. By 1930. aged 60, the genial little man had acquired nine children and more than a million dollars.

But, also in 1930, ill luck overtook Dr. Doyle. U. S. District Attorney Charles Henry Tuttle, then a Republican gubernatorial aspirant, tried to smoke out Tammany corruption by charging the retired horse doctor with income tax evasion. Prime purpose of the charge, of course, was to find the person or persons who had made Dr. Doyle’s special pleadings so invincible and with whom he may have split some $2,000,000 worth of fees. A Manhattan jury dismissed one of the two income tax charges against him. The other case hung fire. The Tuttle investigation into the Scandals of New York (TIME, Aug. 25) was superseded by those of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, of the Governor, of the Legislature.

Immunity, During preparations for the first public hearing of the legislative committee last month, to which Dr. Doyle was summoned, it became evident that Tammany very strongly desired the veterinarian not to be questioned. Immediate conclusion of Counsel Seabury was that Dr. Doyle—holed-in at his home in Deal, N. J. where Counsel Seabury could not reach him—was a shield held close over a vulnerable part of Tammany’s anatomy.

Dragged back to New York by the Federal court which had him under bond and led before the committee, the recalcitrant horse doctor still refused to talk despite the committee’s guarantee of immunity.

It was, Counsel Seabury knew, typical Tammany tactics: Say nothing, admit nothing, lie low. During the Seabury inquiry into the city’s police and judiciary a long parade of vice squad men had refused to tell the source of their astonishingly large bank rolls on the ground of possible self-incrimination (TIME, Dec. 2Q, et seq.). Tammany district leaders, along with indignant Boss John Francis Curry, had refused en masse to waive their constitutional immunity for questioning. “They love to wave the Stars & Stripes,” sang the Press, “but will not waive immunity.”

Tammany on the Telephone-The legislative committee cited Dr. Doyle for contempt. A Supreme Court Justice sentenced him to 30 days in jail. Then Dr. Doyle’s smart young lawyers began appealing to higher and higher courts, occasionally winking at the rules of strict legal ethics. Counsel Seabury thought he had a gentleman’s agreement with Doyle’s counsel whereby he would be given notice when the case was to be taken before an Appellate judge. He was mistaken. Late one evening, one of Doyle’s lawyers raced to Lake Placid, got an uncontested stay from Justice Henry L. Sherman, oldtime Tammany worker.

When Counsel Seabury heard of this he angrily accused the opposition lawyers of “trickery and deceit,” announced that Dr. Doyle was being protected “by tactics of the Tweed Ring.” Meantime, Counsel Seabury learned of a certain telephone call which had been put through to Lake Placid a few hours prior to Justice Sherman’s order, a call from the Manhattan apartment of Tammany’s crafty Boss Curry. When news of this got out Manhattan newspapers pictured a worried Tammany with its back against a closed door from behind which came the querulous voice of Horse Doctor Doyle saying: “I don’t want to go to jail.” Max D. Steuer, one of Tammany’s slickest and most willing legal henchman, quickly announced that it was he who had telephoned from the Curry apartment. He had, he said, telephoned to his wife at Loon Lake. But the New York Telephone Co. declared that calls-to Loon Lake never go through Lake Placid. Lawyer Steuer then hedged on his story.

Judge. Tammany’s effort to protect its own now looked hopeless indeed. A last appeal for Dr. Doyle was made to Chief Judge Cardozo. For all practical purposes Judge Cardozo is as far from Tammany’s reach as is Chief Justice Hughes from Scarface Al Capone’s. Scholarly, liberal, a creative as well as an interpretative force upon the bench, he is always one of the first jurists mentioned when a vacancy occurs in the Supreme Court of the U. S. When the question of Horse Doctor Doyle’s immunity came to him in the homely old study of his uptown Manhattan house he found it a question of the sort he loves, of logic and the law. Judge Cardozo could find no satisfactory previous ruling on such a case. But fearing that “grave prejudice to the cause of public justice might ensue” if Dr. Doyle jumped bail and disappeared, he decided that the appellant must go to jail until the whole Court of Appeals had been recalled from its vacation to judge the matter.

Judgment. Inquisitor Seabury awaited the judgment anxiously. If the high court upheld the decisions of the lower courts, he would be provided with a potent stick to prod from the city’s political jungle a host of important facts hitherto lurking behind Immunity. If the decision were reversed, Reform would be rendered almost impotent. Each time it wanted to make a reluctant witness talk it would have to promise him a pardon from the Governor. Even then, the witness would not have to accept the pardon.

The fine distinction in the high court’s decision, which Judge Cardozo wrote, rested on two points: 1) The law of New York allows immunity to be granted to an actual briber, so that the State may discover and punish the public servant bribed; 2) In the case of a person who has only conspired to bribe or otherwise break the law, the State of New York does not compel him to testify against himself; without specially enacted authority, no judge or legislative committee can relieve him of the risk of prosecution.

Thus Horse Doctor Doyle had been contumacious, since actual bribery was the subject of his case. But a special act of the Legislature would be necessary before Inquisitor Seabury could promise immunity to witnesses for testimony on other phases of his inquisition.

Inquisitor Seabury is in the extraordinary position of representing all three branches of State government—judicial, executive, legislative. In the first capacity he has had eight policemen indicted, sent six others to prison, removed two magistrates, sent three scampering off under fire. In his capacity as the Governor’s representative to hear malfeasance charges against doddering District Attorney Thomas C. T. Grain of New York County, Tammany Sachem, he had not, up to last weekend, reported his conclusions. As the Legislature’s agent he was pressing his queries into the political machinery of sprawling Queens Borough, and even into the private financial affairs of Mayor James John (“Jimmy”) Walker, who started off last week on another of his famed vacations “for health,” this time to Europe.

Pontiff. Peculiarly and paradoxically is Samuel Seabury fitted to sit in judgment upon the wily rulers of the world’s greatest city. A reformer by inclination, he is no fanatic; he uses the conventional means of the law. A representative of the Better Element, he has had political experience more varied than the most cunning double-crossing ward heeler. Pontifical are the remarks which he makes in a soft baritone about the weather. Even his manner of blowing his nose in court is sonorous, distinguished. He also has imagination and a sense of humor.

Lawyer Samuel Untermyer, chief legal brains of Tammany Hall, is an elegant dresser, always sports an orchid bontonniere. He usually makes his opponents in court look shabby. Well does Counsel Seabury, who dresses sombrely, almost clerically, know this. When Lawyer Untermyer was defending District Attorney Grain last spring, on the first morning of the trial, Counsel Seabury and his young assistants marched into the courtroom tricked out in morning coats, with sponge-bag trousers and pink carnations, looking like the groomsmen of a wedding party.

Samuel Seabury was born 57 years ago in the parish house of Manhattan’s Church of the Annunciation, now obliterated. His great-grandfather was another Samuel Seabury, the first Anglican bishop in America and an out-&-out Tory.

Graduated from New York Law School in 1893, young Samuel Seabury almost immediately took to politics. Aged 24, he was nominated for Alderman by the Citizens’ Union. This he refused in order to campaign for Single Taxer Henry George, who died without knowing his cause ‘ was so disastrously lost. Subsequently he ran for office as a Democrat, a Republican, on Fusion and Progressive tickets. He was made a judge of the City Court in 1901, a judge of the Supreme Court (with Tammany backing) five years later, was elected to the Court of Appeals in 1914. For almost every office to which he was elected he had been previously defeated on the ticket of another party. In 1916 he was the Democratic nominee for Governor. Tammany knifed him, Theodore Roosevelt mysteriously withdrew Progressive support. Disillusioned, Samuel Seabury retired to private practice of law.

Only once did he re-enter the political arena. At the Democratic State Convention of 1918 he rose to denounce William Randolph Hearst, who wanted to be Governor. Hearstlings raised a furore, ordered the sergeant-at-arms to throw Mr. Seabury out. But majestic Samuel Seabury eluded a firm grip on the seat of his pants, made his speech, buried Hearst for Alfred Emanuel Smith.

In retirement he has made a comfortable fortune. He helped Frank and Anna Gould win the interfamily Gould estate suit in 1927. In 1919 he got Frank a divorce from Edith Kelley, British chorus girl.

At East Hampton, L. I. is the Seabury summer home. He plays golf rather badly at the Maidstone Club. He is married, childless. He was touring Europe with his wife when suddenly and to his surprise he received his Appellate Division appointment last year. It was given him for the simple reason that he is the city’s greatest authority on its lower courts.

In Manhattan’s East 63rd Street is his town house. In its library he has stored an enviable collection of ancient legal books. Portraits of his ecclesiastical ancestors outstare each other from the high walls, and in winter a fire crackles on a Tudor hearth. There is candlelight.

Here, behind a slightly superior but tolerant smile, sits Samuel Seabury. He has heard that he may be nominated for Mayor in 1933 on a Fusion ticket. He has heard that he might even go to Albany to replace Governor Roosevelt, who is dreaming of the White House. But for the present, from an Elizabethan window Samuel Seabury spies on the Tammany Wigwam. Behind the Wigwam he sees a woodpile. In the woodpile, he feels sure there is many a corrupt Tammany Indian. Last week it was expected he would ask Governor Roosevelt to call a special session of the Legislature to help him drag the rascals out.