Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-04-26
TIE T.s.u.u.s.vI. SOCIBTI..

The Tammany Society, or Columbian
Order, is doubtless the oldest purely self
constituted political association in the
world, and has certainly been by far the
most influential. Beginning with the gov
ernment, for it was organized within a
fortnight of the Inauguration of the rst
President, and at a spot within the sound
of his voice as he spoke his first official
words to his cOuntrymen, il has not only
continued down to the present time
through nearly three generations of men
but has controlled the choice of at least one
President, fixed the character of several
national as well as State administrations,
given pSeudonyms TO half a dozen we'll
known organizations, and, in fact, has
shaped the destiny of the country in sew
eral turning-points of its history.
Few suspect, much less comprehend, the
extent of the influence this purely local as
sociation has exerted. To its agency more
than any other is due the fact that for the
last three-quarters of a century New York
city has been the most potent political CEN
tire in the world, not even Paris excepted
Greater than any party, inasmuch as it has
been the master of parties, it has seen poll
tical organization after organization, in
whose conflicts it has fearlessly participa-
ted, arise, flourish, and go down, and vet
has stood ready, with powers unimpared,
TO engage in the struggles of the next crop
of contestants. In this experience it has
been solitary and peculiar. Imitators it
has had in abundance, but not one of them
has succeeded in catching that secret of po-
litical management which has endowed
Tammany with its wonderful permanency.
What is that secret? 1t is unquestionaDly
10 be traced. in part. to the sagacity which
Tammany's leaders have at all times shown
in forecasting the changes of political is
Sues or availng themselves of the oppor-
tunitios afforded by current events as they
have arisen. Tammany has not only
furnished the most capable politicians the
country has possessed, but has managed to
ally herself with the shrewdest ones to be
found outside of its own organization. 1t
has always shown willingness to trade in
the gifts at its command, and rarely indeed
has it got the worst of a bargain. For the
last twenty years it has at no time num-
bered an absolute majority of the voters of
New York city in its own following and
yet during the whole of that period it has
contrved to retain the ions proportion OF
the power through a system of comprehen-
sive traflicking, sometimes with factions of
its own party, and sometimes, when they
have not proved sufficiently pliable, even
with the common enemy. Its established
policy is, when no other road is open, to
boldly buy its way to the seat of authority.
Its theory of political action has, from the
days of Fernando Wood, been that New
York was TO be governed from below, not
from above-by the weight of its ignorance
and the strength of its corruption, and not
by the lorce OF its intelligence and virtue
and has governed itself accordingly. In
the unwashed and spotted rabble of the
great metropolis, whose chiefest element it
has sedulously cultivated without giving
offence to any other, 1t has found an army
of adherents capable of being disciplined
and manevred to an extent that no other
community in this country would endure.
But more than all has its success depend
ed upon the dual character of its construc-
ton. Through its General Committee, or
outside organization, 1t is public body, to
whose ranks all have admission; and at
the same time, through its interior, or sec
ret association, which only trusted few
are permitted to enter, ard in whose hands
all the Society's property is retained, it is
close corporation. Neverlwas there a
more ingenious contrivance for efficient
political control.-RuJus Home, la Hdr-
per's Mdgdsine for AprH.