New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-18
THE WAY THEY DO 1T

The three men who manipulate the Demo
| cratic party in this City for their individual
ACKNOWLEDGMENT and profit, and who form
what is popularity termed the Temmany Ring,
are, it is well known, Peter B. Sweeny, VIM.
NJ. Tweed, and Richard B. Connolly.
A. Oakley Hall, Richard O'Gorman. Mathew
T. Brennan, Terence Farley. and several
others equally well known, are part of the
Ring, it is true; but these are only the witty
clowns and muscular athletes who distract the
attention of the audience while their three
great masters cause things to mysteriously dis
appear through trap doors and into convenient
side-pockets.
The success Of those three men In the role
of ring masters is wonderful, though the cause
of 1t is no secret From state Of middling
circumstances" if not, indeed, from respect
able poverty, each of them, in less than a
dozen years, has become O millionaire, while
engaged in no other business than that OF run
ming the Tammany machine
How do they do itf
Somesyears ago, one of the railroad kings Of
the present day. being requested to join O
number of wealthy citizens who were to put
up some Fifty Thousand Dollars to spend in
u
dates for the Legislature against Tammany's
corrupt nominees, said in replyi "Why take
call the trouble to run independent candi-
"dates, when, with the same amount of money,
"you can 90 to Albany and buy justice from
"the men whom Tammany will elect7'
Our three Ring-masters have dOubtlessly
studied in the same school with that railroad
king, for they run the Legislature of the State
and the Common Council of the City upon the
principle laid downsin his suggestion. Therein
lies the secret OF all their success. 1t is also
to be attributed to the fact that they have
vastly improved on his idea. With his Fifty
Thousand Dollars, which had to come from his
and other citizens pockets, he might become
proprietor of the votes of Tammany's immacu-
late legislators against only one or two OBJ
noxious bills. The Ring, however controls the
votes Of the Democratic representatives from
this City on erery question, without spending
one cent out Of their own pockets Their i'm
proved plan is to purchase the votes of their
Legislators with money from our City treasury,
given in the shape Of $4,000 or $4,000 salary
for an Office which exists only in name on the
Controllers warrantsl
Look at the list Of representatives from this
City in the last Legislature. Out Of twenty
Democratic Assemblymen and five Senator'S,
but two or three were without sinecure places
In some of our City departments! See
the men who are already spoken of as
being "slated" for return to the Legis-
lature this Winter Does not nearly every
ope OF them hold from one TO five sinecure
offices under the control of the Ringf
With rum-shop keepers and gamblers in the
pay of the Ring sitting in our legislative halls
at Albany, In the places which should only be
filed by substantial citizens having property to
defend or good name to preserve, the wonder
is not that our taxes should increase and the
Ring grow rich, but that they should hesitate
for moment to seize upon tue City Hall and