Fernando Wood ■• [ 13 ] tive wirepuller, had replaced Sickles as a negotiator. But Sickles was not to be bypassed for long, as the events of the mayoral campaign were to prove. Mayor Wood was determined to run for a third term either on the Tammany line or, if the party balked, as an independent. This resolve left Tammany with the choice of endorsing Wood, whom the party leaders mistrusted, or facing the possibility that Wood would form a third party. According to the Times, an array of Tammany leaders— Sickles, Fowler, Isaiah Rynders, Cooper, and United States Attorney John McKeon—opposed Wood. Tammany, nevertheless, again nominated the Mayor. The party did not want to risk a split before the county elections and thereby lose the benefits of the agreement with Wood that enabled them to control that ticket.19 Within a week after the nomination a storm centered around Wood. During the electoral campaign the Panic of 1857 struck New York depriving 20,000 to 40,000 workers of their jobs and forcing 130,000 individuals, or one-seventh of the population, to rely on private charities.16 At this point Mayor Wood proposed a program of public works to aid the jobless. The city would hire the unemployed to improve Central Park; build police stations and firehouses; curb, pave, and sweep the streets; repair the docks; and construct a new reservoir. Workers would be compensated with grain and cash. Wood justified his plan in terms that led his opponents to accuse him of demagoguery. He said: In the days of general prosperity they [the workers] labor for a mere substance, whilst other classes accumulate wealth, and in the days of general depression they are the first to feel the change, without the means to avoid or endure reverses. Truly may it be said that in New York those who produce every thing get nothing, and those who produce nothing get every thing. They labor without income, whilst surrounded by thousands living in affluence and splendor who have income without labor. But now, even this resource, with its poor pittance, is to be taken from them.17 15 Isaiah Rynders, the boss of the Sixth Ward, operated the notorious Empire Club, a center for the city's gangsters. He employed the rowdies to disrupt the meetings of Tammany's opponents. Times, September 8, October 16, 1857; Leader, October 3, 10, 1857. 16 New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Sixteenth Annual Report (New York: 1859),Wk Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen of the City of New York, LXVIII, 159 (hereafter cited as Bd. of Aid. Procs.). "Bd. of Aid. Procs., LXVIII, 157-59.