I think it will amount to much. I know the Republican managers have a most profound contempt for the whole movement, and haven't an idea of allowing to Bristow to be nominated.

"Command me for any service I can render.

"Truly yours,
"David A. Wells."

"Hon. S. J. Tilden."

Shortly after the inauguration of Mr. Tilden as Governor, in January, 1875, he sent to the Legislature a special message setting forth his convictions of the corrupt management of the canals of the State. This message abounded with specific details of fraud of so infamous a character that even friends of the implicated contractors in the Legislature felt constrained to grant the request of the Governor, and by a concurrent resolution, adopted on the 31st day of March, 1875, authorized him to appoint a committee of four "to investigate the affairs of the canals of the State, and especially the matters embraced in the special message of the Governor, communicated to Legislature on the 19th of March, 1875."

In compliance with this authority, the Governor appointed four gentlemen, whose names are signed to the following report, two theretofore having acted with the Republican party and two with the Democratic. The Governor's commissioners organized at Albany on the 12th of April following; but before they began to take testimony the friends of the canal jobbers in the Assembly managed to pass a resolution appointing a commission of that body also to make a similar investigation, but naming in the resolution commissioners satisfactory to those who constituted what was known as the "Canal Ring."

This commission met two or three times, and then offered to the Governor's commission, under pretext of saving time and expense, to join them, so that the two commissions should constitute but one body. Of course this proffer was promptly declined, and the legislative commission took no more testimony, and was never heard of again.

The interval between the organization of the Governor's commission, in April, and the time for the introduction of water into the canals, near the end of May, was devoted exclusively to an examination of the most important works in progress or recently completed in the prism of the canals.

Between the 31st day of July of that year, when the commission submitted its first report, and the 14th of February, when it submitted its final report, it issued twelve reports. That which follows gives a summary of the facts developed by the investigation which confirm in every detail the charges made in the Governor's message, besides adding very much to the total amount of confirming testimony. The reason for this confirmation being so complete was that the Governor, almost immediately after his election, employed privately, and at his own expense, an engineer in whose professional training and experience he could place entire confidence, the late Mr. Elkanah Sweet, to make an investigation of the recent canal work, gave him authority to take down any portion of the work to ascertain how far and in what way it was not in conformity with the contract, and gave him also authority to inspect all the canal contracts in the archives of the Canal Board and compare them with his observations. Upon his report the facts presented in the Governor's canal message were based. Mr. Sweet, therefore, was naturally employed by the Governor's commission to make the yet more thorough and elaborate investigation required of them.

The Governor's canal message, with this incontestable confirmation of all its allegations, gave him a national fame, and contributed more than anything he had previously done to make his nomination to the Presidency a political necessity for the Democratic party.

Several previous efforts to investigate frauds in the operation of the State canals had been made by the Legislature, but all had theretofore proved abortive. One reason which contributed largely to prevent the investigation of the Governor's commission sharing the same fate was the exclusion of reporters from the meetings of the board during the examination of witnesses. By this means nothing of its work was given to the public until the testimony was digested into an intelligible report of what had been proved. The testimony was necessarily so largely technical that if given to the press day by day, as received, the public would have soon tired of the subject, and, what was worse, the witnesses would have been tempted to shape their testimony rather to its effects upon the newspaper public than upon the commissioners. The consequence was that when the reports appeared they were read, and their impact upon the public was proportionately prompt, instructive, and penetrating.

CANAL INVESTIGATING COMMISSION

FIRST REPORT TO THE GOVERNOR[3]

"To his Excellency the Governor, and to the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York:

"The undersigned commissioners, appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under a concurrent resolution of the Legislature adopted on the 31st day of March last, 'to investigate the affairs of the canals of the States, and especially the matters embraced in the special message of the Governor, communicated to the Legislature on the 19th day of March, 1875,' have the honor to submit the following report of the progress of their investigations:

"Your commissioners, assembled at the capitol, qualified and organized on the 12th day of April, 1875. The interval between that time and the opening of the canals, a period of about six weeks, was devoted exclusively to an examination of the most important works in progress, or recently completed in the prism of the canals. When this examination was interrupted by the introduction of water, near the end of May, your commission returned to the capitol and proceeded to supplement and enlarge the area of their information by the examination of witnesses.

"In this work they were unexpectedly embarrassed by a decision of one of the judges of this district, at Special Term, denying to them a power, which they supposed to have been conferred upon them by the legislative authorities, to require the production before them of the books and papers of witnesses. They directed an appeal to be taken from this decision, and it was finally reversed at the General Term, but not until late in the month of November, till when your commission was obliged to contend with all the inconveniences resulting from the privation of such a necessary and indispensable prerogative. The opinion of Justice Learned at the Special Term, and that of Justice James at the General Term, are annexed to this report.

"On the 31st of July the commission submitted their first annual report to the Governor. It relates to a contract for substituting slope and vertical for bench wall between Port Schuyler and the lower Mohawk aqueduct. This report was followed at intervals by eleven others, entitled, respectively, as follows:

"Second report.—H. D. Denison's contract east of the city of Utica.

"Third report.—Hulser's bridge contract.

"Fourth report.—Willard Johnson's lower side cut lock contract at West Troy.

"Fifth report.—Buffalo contracts and legislative awards.

"Sixth report.—Champlain enlargement; Bullard's bend contract.

"Seventh report.—Buffalo contracts and State officers.

"Eighth report.—The Baxter award.

"Ninth report.—Contract of E. W. Williams for building vertical wall at Rome.