He also arranged a reconciliation between the “Hardshells” and “Softshells.” With a show of traditional Tammany custom, the “Softs” marched in Indian file to the Stuyvesant Institute, the headquarters of the “Hards,” and the reunited leaders marched back to Tammany Hall--in pairs, arm-in-arm. The “Hardshell”-“Softshell” contention thus became a thing of the past. But Wood’s personal enemies in the Wigwam were not to be appeased, and they nominated a candidate to oppose him--James S. Libby. Bitter feelings were aroused. At the Wood ratification meeting in the Wigwam, October 22, both Wood and Anti-Wood men crowded in, and then ensued another of those clashes for which Tammany Hall had become so celebrated. When John Kelly mentioned Wood’s name the Anti-Wood men raised a din and smothered the speaker’s voice. The Wood men, growing enraged, “pitched into the Anti-Woodites hot and heavy, and for a time a scene of the wildest clamor ensued. A general fight took place in front of the speaker’s stand and all round the room. Blows were given and exchanged with great spirit, and not a few faces were badly disfigured.” After a few planks had been plucked from the stand and wielded with telling effect, the Wood men won. “The great body of the Libbyites were kicked out of the room and down the stairs with a velocity proportionate to the expelling force behind.” The City Reform party was far from being satisfied with Wood’s administration. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that by the time of his second year in office the blackness of his administration exceeded anything known before. Seasoned men fancied they knew something of corruption, extravagance and malfeasance in the City Hall, but by 1856 they better understood the growth of these under a reckless and unprincipled Mayor. The saloon power had grown until it controlled the politics of the city. In every groggery could be found a crowd of loafers and bruisers who could always be relied upon to pack a primary or insure or defeat the election of certain nominees. In these saloons the ward politicians held their meetings, and the keepers were ready at all times to furnish persons to parade, carrying partizan banners they could not read, or to cheer at mass meetings at the drop of a handkerchief. The saloon-keepers also furnished cheap illegal voters, ballot-box stuffers and thoroughbred “shoulder-hitters,” to intimidate peaceable citizens, or as a last resort, to smash the ballot boxes. The saloon-keepers were largely above the law. A disingenuous bill, passed in 1855, ordered the saloons to be closed on Sunday, but made no provision for enforcement. They were accordingly kept open, likely enough through assurances from Wood that the owners would not be molested. Their support of the Mayor was well-nigh unanimous.