Mr. Croker showed the sagacity common to a long line of Tammany chiefs in the municipal campaign of 1886. It was a time of great excitement. The labor unions, including the Knights of Labor, had reached the highest point in organization and in solidarity of feeling ever attained by them in the history of the city. Knowing their strength, they were ripe for independent political action, and they were rendered all the more ready for it by the earnest social propaganda carried on at the time by Single-Taxers, Socialists and social reformers generally. The conviction of certain members of a union for carrying on a boycott against the Thiess establishment, on Fourteenth street, proved the one impulse needed for the massing together of all the various clubs and unions into one mighty movement. The convictions were believed to be illegal, and moreover to have been fraudulently obtained--and Tammany was held responsible. Before long the nucleus of an independent political party was formed. Henry George, then at the height of his popularity, was looked upon as the logical leader, and he was asked to become the new party’s candidate for Mayor. To this request he gave an affirmative answer, contingent upon the securing of 25,000 signatures to his nominating petition. Mr. Croker saw the danger, and he took immediate steps to avert it. According to the open letter of Henry George to Abram S. Hewitt, October 17, 1897, Mr. Croker, in behalf of Tammany Hall and the County Democracy, tried to buy off George by offering him a nomination regarded as equivalent to an election. George, of course, refused; the 25,000 names, or a great part of them, were secured; a nominating convention was held; George was formally nominated, and the United Labor party was launched. A spirited campaign in George’s behalf was at once begun, and was responded to by the masses with remarkable enthusiasm. Mr. Croker was equal to the crisis. The agitation among the masses must be met by the nomination of a representative of the conservative interests, and a general appeal be made for the “saving of society.” Accordingly he chose as the Tammany candidate the County Democracy’s choice, Abram S. Hewitt. The Republicans nominated Theodore Roosevelt. His candidacy, however, was not regarded so seriously as otherwise it might have been, for the contest narrowed down at once to a class struggle between George and Mr. Hewitt. Anarchy and every other social ill were prophesied by the conservatives as the certain results of the former’s election, and Republicans were openly urged to support the latter.