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.