874 NEW YORK 



the anti-Tammany platform in 1909, were defeated after a long and bitter fight the 

 charter on September 30, 191 1. Ten weeks in the early part of the session were occupied 

 by a deadlock over the election of a successor to Chauncey M. Depew (see E. B. yiii, 

 56), United States senator since 1899. Neither of the original contestants, Edward 

 Morse Shepard, 1 supported by the independent and anti-Tammany elements who re- 

 fused to enter the Democratic caucus, or William Francis Sheehan (b. 1859), a New 

 York corporation lawyer and in 1892-95 lieutenant-governor, was successful, the elec- 

 tion finally going on March 3ist to James A. O'Gorman (b. 1860), a justice of the 

 supreme court (since 1900), who, although at one time an active Tammany man, was 

 not originally favoured by the Tammany leaders. In 1912 he was active in Woodrow 

 Wilson's interests at the Baltimore convention and during the presidential campaign. 



The character of the legislation passed at the session of 1911 was the principal cause 

 of the overwhelming victory in the autumn elections (Nov. 7, 1911) of the Republicans 

 in the state and in most local and municipal contests. The Republicans, helped in 

 some districts by fusion with other anti-Tammany elements and largely on the issue of 

 the attempted Gaynor charter, carried for the first time a majority of the assembly dis- 

 tricts in New York City. In Kings county (Brooklyn) a Republican and Independent 

 fusion elected the entire county ticket. The senate, elected for two years in 1910, 

 remained Democratic, but the division in the lower house showed 102 Republicans to 

 47 Democrats and i Socialist in the preceding session there were 83 Democrats, 65 

 Republicans, i Independent Democrat and i Independence Leaguer. The Socialists 

 elected the Rev. George R. Lunn 2 mayor and a nearly complete city ticket, including 

 8 of 13 aldermen in Schenectady city, and gained control of the Schenectady county 

 board of supervisors, electing 8 out of 18 members. 



The control of the senate by the Democrats and of the lower house by the Republi- 

 cans made partisan legislation impossible although the party machines sought, by bi- 

 partisan alliances, to divide the patronage. The primary in March, the first under the 

 new law, brought out the defects in that statute. Uniformly the Roosevelt delegates 

 to the National Republican convention at Chicago were defeated and delegates favour- 

 able to President Taft's renomination were chosen by the " regular " party organisation. 

 The Democrats, by an alternative provision of the law, did not choose delegates by 

 primaries in New York City. Both parties held state conventions in April, the Republi- 

 cans adopting a " stand-pat " platform and declaring for President Taft's renomination, 

 and the Democrats choosing state delegates to the Baltimore convention bound by the 

 unit rule and selected largely by the Tammany leaders. At the national convention at 

 Chicago the Republican delegation from the state cast 76 votes for Taft and 8 for Roose- 

 velt, and 6 delegates did not vote. William Barnes, Jr. (b. 1866), publisher of the Al- 

 bany Journal and the reputed " boss " of the Republican machine, was prominent in 

 Taft's interests; and James S. Sherman, 3 a leader in the conservative or "stand-pat " 

 wing of the party in the state, was renominated for vice-president. Timothy Lester 

 Woodruff (b. 1858), whom Barnes succeeded in 1911 as chairman of the Republican 

 state committee and who had been only less well-known than Barnes for his connection 

 with the Republican organisation, identified himself with the followers of Roosevelt. 



1 Shepard was born in New York City in 1850 and died on July 28, 1911. Orphaned at 

 six, he became the ward of Abram S. Hewitt, graduated at the College of the City of New 

 York in 1869 and was admitted to the bar in 1875. He was a founder and leader of the 

 Brooklyn Democratic Club and of the Independent Democracy; opposed David B. Hill 

 and Tammany Hall, but was Tammany's nominee for mayor of New York in 1901, when he 

 was defeated by Seth Low, whom he had supported against Tammany in 1897; worked for 

 the Gold Democrats in the presidential campaign of 1896, supported Bryan in 1900, opposed 

 his nomination in 1904, but again supported him in 1908, to secure tariff revision. He with- 

 drew his name from the senatorial nomination, hoping to insure the election of some other 

 independent Democrat. He wrote an excellent biography of Martin Van Buren (1899). 



2 He was formerly a Dutch Reformed clergyman. In June 1912 he appointed to the 

 municipal board of public warfare Helen Keller. 



3 He died immediately before the election (see Obituaries) and no name was officially 

 substituted for his on the ballots. But the only electoral votes cast for Taft, those of Utah 

 and Vermont, were for another New Yorker, Nicholas Murray Butler, for vice-president. 



