The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1875-11-12
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
THE ELECTIOH-TAMsIASY AND
SANKEY-EUsINESS
NEW YORK, November9, 1875.
THE ELECTION

j.
THE ELECTION
Pass d off more quietly than any one
for twenty years. There was no rioting,
very little drunkenness, very little fight
ing, and, am happy to say, very little
repeating or fraudulent voting. There
were cases of fraud early in the morn
ing. but arrest followed SO quickly that
repeaters dare not 60 on with the work
they had laid out. Honesty had a fair
show for one day. and the result is
Taumany is beaten out of its boots. 1t
is glorious victory to elect the coin
plete auti-Ttmmany ticket. and TO re-
duce the Democratic majority to about
20. 600; and 10 smash the most formida-
BILE a. well a. the most corrupt political
organization ia the country at one blow
Is glory enough for one day.
How was it done. Easily enough.
The people were reused from their
apathy by the pressure the Democracy
put upon them, and they made the puri-
flying Of New York politics their busi-
ness for three weeks. The best business
men in the city attended the primaries
that good men should be nominated,
and after that they used their influence
in every fair way to give their nominees
all the votes possible. The rum mills,
the bullies. the strikers found good true
men in their way, and they had no
chance to put in practice their usual
tactics In short, the decent men, the
tax payers found they had some interest
III governmental matters. OF course,
they carried the city-they can do SO
any time they set themselves about it.
1t was a very gloomy night at Tam
many Hall-a a funeral could not be more
dispiriting or depressing. Kelly. the
Boss, made a doleful speech and the
mOurners dispersed. Gone were their
visions of plunder-gOne were the hopes
of an immunity from punishment for
crIme-gone were the hopes of rule, in
brief Every thief and blackguard in
New York was in mourning that night.
1t was quite different at Irving Hall, the
headquarters of the anti Tammany
party. A fine band pealed forth joyous
notes, the air was filled with fireworks,
excellent speeches were made, and the
excited, gratified throng did not disperse
till early in the morning. New York,
Brooklyn, Massachusetts, and Pennsyl-
vania together made last Tuesday a
memorable day.
TAMMANY
What is Tammany? No name appears
more frequently iu politics, but very
few know anything about the origin of
the organization or its method of work
ing. 1t is understood to bean immense
political power. but what it is, and how
it works. but few know
"Tammany Society, or the Columbian
Order" was established iu 1879, by Viii
liam Mooney, a noted politician of that
day. During the revolutionary war he
had been a staunch patriot, and afterits
close an active politician and partisan.
The order took its name from Tam
many, a prominent Delaware chief, and
its government was modelled after that
of the Indians, Great Father being the
chief, surrounded by twelve sachems as
his counsellors. Mooney was the first
Grand Sachem. At the beginning there
was some preteXt of benevolence in the
order, but that was doubtless sham.
Its objects were always political and
nothing else. The members met for
many years at taverns, and the meet
ings were, after the business of the
evening had been dispatched, very
jolly.
While Mooney was the originator of
the order, and its first chief, a greater
man was from its beginning for many
years its actual head, though he wisely
kept ont of sight. Aaron Burr, the
greatest and foulest of American politi-
clans, saw at once the advantage of
having disciplined body behind him,
and he seized Tammany and subordl-
mated it to his purposes. He was the
leader of the lower classes in the city
and the State, and he used Tammany
to control the better classes of which 1t
was then composed. Hamilton, his Bit
ter enemy, was the head of the Society
of the Cincinnati, which was Federal in
its tendencies, and Tammany was fair
offset to its influence.
The society was then precisely what 1t
is nova political power in the hands
of a set of men working for common
object In 1900 the election in New
York city made Jefferson and Burr
President and Vice President of the
United States. 1t was Burr who did it,
by means of Tammany men who were
initiated into the society on the eve of
the election, and felt in honor bound to
vote the ticket it had made; but beyond
that was the advantage of having q
trained, disciplined force to get out its
own vote, and to control the floating
vote which generally decides elections.
Burr used Tammany against the Clin-
tons, and it was his principal weapon so
long as he figured in politics. Sometimes
Clinton beat Tammany and sometimes
Tammany beat Clinton, but in either
case the organization preserved its vital
ity. 1t was power sometimes humbled,
but never crushed.
Martin Van Buren, originally an op-
ponent of Tammany, having com-
menced political lie as Cliptonian,
saw, ike Barr, the advantages tu be de-
rived from the organization, and he
Joined it. 1t carr.e,: him into all the
minor off Is lie desired. and finally
made him a Senator q on died in
1928, and from that time for many years
the society had no vigorous opposition.
1t became the soul and heart of the
Democratic party Of the State of New
York, and its power was felt in Wash
ington. Whoever was its chief had SUI
preme control, aud from his dictum
there was no appeal. To hold any
Office in Tammany was to have the con-
tidence of the leader, and all that leader
had to do was to ask From the Cover
nor down to the lowest ofiicer-he made
them.
Il. 1854 Fernando Wood became its
master spirit, and was elected to the
mayoralfy Of the ely. In 1856
Sweeny, Tweed, and their associates
threw Wood overheard, and they ruled
it. When the people rose in their
wrath and overthrew that dyrasty John
Kelly took the reins and has them now,
though the late election will probably
finish him, and another will take his
place.
The society has a regular form of |
initiation, the same as other secret soci-
eties, and its members are bound by |
pledges, though fidelity is assured more
by the profit to be derived from faith |
fulness than by any VOWS its members |
take Il il InoSf admirably organized. |
First, there is the Grand Sachem, who |
appoints all the committees. The COM |
mittees call conventions of the Dem |
ocratic party of the city and county. |
and they number hundreds. The head |
has the power to appoint and remove |
from the committees at pleasure, so |
every man of them is in his power. AT |
this pointthe real strength of the society |
begins. No man can be appointed to |
any position except upon the endorse
ment of the committees. The great |
army of Office holders, those who receive |
and diSbUrse the enormous sums re- |
quired TO govern the city of New York,
all bold their Llaces by the will of these
and these committees hold