But the extraordinary corruption of the Board of Aldermen of 1884 is a matter of public record. Twenty-one members--the exceptions among those present and voting being Aldermen Grant and O’Connor--voted to give the franchise for a surface railway on Broadway to the Broadway Surface Railroad Company.[4] The rival road, the Broadway Railroad Company, sought to bribe the Aldermen with $750,000, half cash and half bonds, but the Aldermen thought the bonds might be traced, and considered it wiser to accept the $500,000 cash offered by the former,[5] each Alderman receiving $22,000.[6] Mayor Edson vetoed the resolution,[7] but it was repassed. Other street railway franchises were passed by the same board. Mr. McCann testified in 1890 that Mr. Grant had told him that Mr. Croker strongly advised him [Grant] not to have anything to do with “that Broadway matter,” as “they [the other Aldermen] would be caught.”[8] Mr. Grant denied having said so.[9] The fact remains that Mr. Grant was the only Tammany Alderman free of suspicion. Many of the accused Tammany city fathers were members of the organization’s executive committee, which was composed almost exclusively of leaders, and which was supposed to direct the Wigwam’s affairs.[10] One Alderman, Henry W. Jaehne, was sentenced to penal servitude at hard labor for the term of nine years and ten months; and another, “Honest” John O’Neill, to four years and a half, and to pay a fine of $2,000; a third, Arthur J. McQuade, was sentenced to seven years and ordered to return $5,000 of the bribe money to the city, but on July 20, 1889, at a new trial at Ballston, he was acquitted. Six other Aldermen fled to Canada, and three turned State’s evidence. Ten others were indicted, but were never brought to trial. As Col. John R. Fellows, the District Attorney who tried the cases, stated to the Fassett Committee, convictions could not then (1890) be secured, because public sentiment had changed; the storm had subsided; people had grown tired of the subject, and many former opponents of the franchise had come to look upon it as a benefit.[11] But there were strong hints that political influence had saved many persons from prison. Though the facts did not come out until the trials in 1886, public indignation and suspicion were so strong in 1884 that Kelly insisted that the Tammany Aldermen who had voted for the franchise should not be renominated.[12] Kelly broke down with nervous and physical prostration after the Presidential campaign of 1884. Grover Cleveland’s election, which falsified his predictions, deeply disappointed him. He kept to his house, No. 34 East Sixty-ninth street, but still issued his orders to the Tammany organization. Towards the end, he could not sleep except by the use of opiates. He died on June 1, 1886.