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Conkling

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Roscoe Conkling was the sort of platonic ideal of the Gilded Age politician. Rich, incredibly powerful, corrupt. In 1888, New York was struck by a blizzard. It didn’t go well for Conkling:

Roscoe Conkling is looking out the window of his Wall Street law office on a Tuesday afternoon in March 1888. He sees mountains of snow on deserted streets and wind gusts yanking down telegraph wires. Conkling is arguably the most powerful man in the country: he controls a major faction of the Republican Party, which is ascendant, and has the ability to make or break presidential candidates. He’s a man of action who decides that he will plunge into the storm and catch a hansom cab to his lavish apartments on 25th Street near Madison Square.

Conkling and a young male colleague head out into the weather, flag down a horse-drawn cab, and tell the driver they need to be taken three miles uptown. The cabbie looks them over. He then attempts a primitive version of Uber surge pricing, telling the men the ride will cost $50 — or about $1,280 in today’s currency.

Conkling is outraged. Though he can afford it, he refuses to pay and tells the driver he’d rather walk.

Tough guy, eh? How does that go for him?

But now it’s March 12, 1888, and a blizzard is howling across Manhattan. Conkling is struggling up Broadway. He makes it as far as Union Square before he falls. A doorman rushes out and drags him in from the snow. It seems at first that Conkling will recover. But the walk has given him pneumonia. In two weeks, he’ll be dead.

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