The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-04-30
Murphy Was Progressive.

Boss" Murphy is DEAD ana Durleu. buI tne
chieftain of New York's Tammany Hall leaves
many political lessons behind him. The most i'm
portant of these is that it pays to be progressive
Charles F. Murphy as head of Tammany Hall
promised everything that it was necessary tc
promise to win an election. Municipal ownership
was always written big into the Tammany Hall
democratic platforms And Tammany Hall fought
how it did fight its sham battles against the
daily newspapers.
Murphy made Hylan mayor Of New York, and
Hvlan liked to hobnob with William Hale Thomp
son. republican mayor of Chicago Lundin tried
to pull the same progressive stunts for "BilP
Thompson, the republican, that Murphy did fol
John Hylan, the democrat. And he was well-nigE
as successful The Thompson-Len Small machine
that Lundin built still dominates the republican
party in Illinois
It was in the 1922 gubernatorial elections il
New York State, that Morris Hillquit, intellectual
leader of the Socialists, announced before sailing
for Europe to exterminate the Communists, thai
AL Smith, Murphys man. the best qualified
candidate in the field Hillquits only reservation
was that he would vote for the Socialist candi
date This would indicate that Murphy dressed his
political mannikins in very alluring apparel
Yet the Tammany Hall outfit like the Thomp
son Lundin-Small crowd, in Illinois, Curley IL
Boston; Taggart, in Indiana, or "Fingy" Connors
in Buffalo, constitutes corrupt force as
any in old party politics. Success is bull
upon an ability to keep out OF Jail. Murphy
started as a saloonkeeper, but there was more
money in a dock commissioners job where
he could hand out fat city contracts. An investi
CATION showed that one company, organized by
Murphy, receiving such contract, made 5000 pei
cent profit in year. Murphy survived and grew
He weathered every probe of Tammany graft and
patronage, successfully faced federal indictment
for tax evasion and was an admitted glucose wal
profteer. This is the Murphy who threw the
presidential nomination to Wilson, at Baltimore
in 1912, and picked Cox at Frisco in 1920.
And when he died the funeral procession went
up plutocratic Fifth Avenue and the last words
we're said in exclusive st. Patricks Cathedral.
But, altho Murphy is dead his political system
survives 1t is the system that won plaudits from
the Socialist, Hillquit, and gets the support OF
labor offcialdom, even up to Sam Gompers, fol
Governor AL Smith, in New York, or for Len
Small, in Illinois 1t is the progressive shell game
in which the duped voters always lose. 1t is the
system that has built up lesser Tammany Halls
States 1t is the system of job-giving and graft
taking that corrupts everyone touching it.
1t is only the susceptible, self-styled progress
sive fringe of the organized labor movement thai
expects to journey to Cleveland, Ohio, July 4th il
an effort to cash in on the possibilities Of the third
party The labor officials will be there peddlinG
their progressivism, not one whit more sincere
about it than Murphy of Tammany Hall. If they
could ride into place and power in either of thu
old parties, they would be the first to do So They
envy George Berry, the strikebreaker president o.
the Pressmen's Union, who wants to be vice-presi
Dental candidate on the democratic ticket; OF
John L. Lewis the batter of mlitants at the heaC
Of the miners union, who wants to play similal
role. with Coolidge, on the republican ticket.
1t is time that the workers and farmers Gu
themselves loose from all these forms of socalleC
political progressivism We feel that this division
is taking place and that it is the great and onl,
worthwhile development in the arena of politics
this year. The thinking workers and farmers viii
have nothing to do with the misnamed progressive
middle class "labor7 gathering at Cleveland, Ohio
on Independence Day. Instead the rank and fill
of producers, in town and country, will send the
delegates and turn to the gathering of all clas
conscious elements in the National Farmer-Labo
Convention, at St Paul, Mimi. starting June 18th
1t pays the Office seekers and place hunters Il
be mere progressves. Murphy and Tammany Hal
taught that lesson we'll But it does not pay tn
exploited workers and farmers They must hav
a militant, class conscious party and program 0
their own. Only then will they make triumphan
progress along the road leading to their emancipa
ton.