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+Produced by David Reed
+
+
+
+
+
+PLUNKITT OF TAMMANY HALL
+
+By George Washington Plunkitt
+
+
+A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics, Delivered by
+Ex-senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Philosopher, from His
+Rostrum--the New York County Court House Bootblack Stand
+
+Recorded by William L. Riordon
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  Preface by William L. Riordon
+  A Tribute by Charles F. Murphy
+  Chapter 1. Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft
+  Chapter 2. How To Become a Statesman
+  Chapter 3. The Curse of Civil Service Reform
+  Chapter 4. Reformers Only Mornin' Glories
+  Chapter 5. New York City Is Pie for the Hayseeds
+  Chapter 6. To Hold Your District: Study Human Nature and Act Accordin'
+  Chapter 7. On The Shame of the Cities
+  Chapter 8. Ingratitude in Politics
+  Chapter 9. Reciprocity in Patronage
+  Chapter 10. Brooklynites Natural-Born Hayseeds
+  Chapter 11. Tammany Leaders Not Bookworms
+  Chapter 12. Dangers of the Dress Suit in Politics
+  Chapter 13. On Municipal Ownership
+  Chapter 14. Tammany the Only Lastin' Democracy
+  Chapter 15. Concerning Gas in Politics
+  Chapter 16. Plunkitt's Fondest Dream
+  Chapter 17. Tammany's Patriotism
+  Chapter 18. On the Use of Money in Politics
+  Chapter 19. The Successful Politician Does Not Drink
+  Chapter 20. Bosses Preserve the Nation
+  Chapter 21. Concerning Excise
+  Chapter 22. A Parting Word on the Future Party in America
+  Chapter 23. Strenuous Life of the Tammany District Leader
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+THIS volume discloses the mental operations of perhaps the most
+thoroughly practical politician of the day--George Washington Plunkitt,
+Tammany leader of the Fifteenth Assembly District, Sachem of the Tammany
+Society and Chairman of the Elections Committee of Tammany Hall, who
+has held the offices of State Senator, Assemblyman', Police Magistrate,
+County Supervisor and Alderman, and who boasts of his record in filling
+four public offices in one year and drawing salaries from three of them
+at the same time.
+
+The discourses that follow were delivered by him from his rostrum, the
+bootblack stand in the County Court-house, at various times in the
+last half-dozen years. Their absolute frankness and vigorous
+unconventionality of thought and expression charmed me. Plunkitt said
+right out what all practical politicians think but are afraid to say.
+Some of the discourses I published as interviews in the New York Evening
+Post, the New York Sun, the New York World, and the Boston Transcript.
+They were reproduced in newspapers throughout the country and several
+of them, notably the talks on "The Curse of Civil Service Reform" and
+"Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft," became subjects of discussion in
+the United States Senate and in college lectures. There seemed to be
+a general recognition of Plunkitt as a striking type of the practical
+politician, a politician, moreover, who dared to say publicly what
+others in his class whisper among themselves in the City Hall corridors
+and the hotel lobbies.
+
+I thought it a pity to let Plunkitt's revelations of himself--as frank
+in their way as Rousseau's Confessions--perish in the files of the
+newspapers; so I collected the talks I had published, added several new
+ones, and now give to the world in this volume a system of political
+philosophy which is as unique as it is refreshing.
+
+No New Yorker needs to be informed who George Washington Plunkitt is.
+For the information of others, the following sketch of his career is
+given. He was born, as he proudly tells, in Central Park--that is, in
+the territory now included in the park. He began life as a driver of
+a cart, then became a butcher's boy, and later went into the butcher
+business for himself. How he entered politics he explains in one of his
+discourses. His advancement was rapid. He was in the Assembly soon after
+he cast his first vote and has held office most of the time for forty
+years.
+
+In 1870, through a strange combination of circumstances, he held the
+places of Assemblyman, Alderman, Police Magistrate and County Supervisor
+and drew three salaries at once--a record unexampled in New York
+politics.
+
+Plunkitt is now a millionaire. He owes his fortune mainly to his
+political pull, as he confesses in "Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft."
+He is in the contracting, transportation, real estate, and every
+other business out of which he can make money. He has no office. His
+headquarters is the County Courthouse bootblack stand. There he receives
+his constituents, transacts his general business and pours forth his
+philosophy.
+
+Plunkitt has been one of the great powers in Tammany Hall for a quarter
+of a century. While he was in the Assembly and the State Senate he
+was one of the most influential members and introduced the bills that
+provided for the outlying parks of New York City, the Harlem River
+Speedway, the Washington Bridge, the 155th Street Viaduct, the grading
+of Eighth Avenue north of Fifty-seventh Street, additions to the Museum
+of Natural History, the West Side Court, and many other important public
+improvements. He is one of the closest friends and most valued advisers
+of Charles F. Murphy, leader of Tammany Hall.
+
+William L. Riordon
+
+
+
+
+A Tribute to Plunkitt by the Leader of Tammany Hall
+
+SENATOR PLUNKITT is a straight organization man. He believes in party
+government; he does not indulge in cant and hypocrisy and he is never
+afraid to say exactly what he thinks. He is a believer in thorough
+political organization and all-the-year-around work, and he holds to the
+doctrine that, in making appointments to office, party workers should
+be preferred if they are fitted to perform the duties of the office.
+Plunkitt is one of the veteran leaders of the organization; he has
+always been faithful and reliable, and he has performed valuable
+services for Tammany Hall.
+
+CHARLES F. MURPHY
+
+
+
+
+PLUNKITT OF TAMMANY HALL
+
+
+
+Chapter 1. Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft
+
+EVERYBODY is talkin' these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft,
+but nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and
+dishonest graft. There's all the difference in the world between the
+two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself.
+I've made a big fortune out of the game, and I'm gettin' richer every
+day, but I've not gone in for dishonest graft--blackmailin' gamblers,
+saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc.--and neither has any of the men
+who have made big fortunes in politics.
+
+There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works. I might sum
+up the whole thing by sayin': "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em."
+
+Just let me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and
+it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped
+off, say, that they're going to lay out a new park at a certain place.
+
+I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all
+the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes
+its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared
+particular for before.
+
+Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my
+investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.
+
+Or supposin' it's a new bridge they're goin' to build. I get tipped off
+and I buy as much property as I can that has to be taken for approaches.
+I sell at my own price later on and drop some more money in the bank.
+
+Wouldn't you? It's just like lookin' ahead in Wall Street or in the
+coffee or cotton market. It's honest graft, and I'm lookin' for it every
+day in the year. I will tell you frankly that I've got a good lot of it,
+too.
+
+I'll tell you of one case. They were goin' to fix up a big park, no
+matter where. I got on to it, and went lookin' about for land in that
+neighborhood.
+
+I could get nothin' at a bargain but a big piece of swamp, but I took it
+fast enough and held on to it. What turned out was just what I counted
+on. They couldn't make the park complete without Plunkitt's swamp, and
+they had to pay a good price for it. Anything dishonest in that?
+
+Up in the watershed I made some money, too. I bought up several bits of
+land there some years ago and made a pretty good guess that they would
+be bought up for water purposes later by the city.
+
+Somehow, I always guessed about right, and shouldn't I enjoy the
+profit of my foresight? It was rather amusin' when the condemnation
+commissioners came along and found piece after piece of the land in the
+name of George Plunkitt of the Fifteenth Assembly District, New York
+City. They wondered how I knew just what to buy. The answer is--I
+seen my opportunity and I took it. I haven't confined myself to land;
+anything that pays is in my line.
+
+For instance, the city is repavin' a street and has several hundred
+thousand old granite blocks to sell. I am on hand to buy, and I know
+just what they are worth.
+
+How? Never mind that. I had a sort of monopoly of this business for a
+while, but once a newspaper tried to do me. It got some outside men to
+come over from Brooklyn and New Jersey to bid against me.
+
+Was I done? Not much. I went to each of the men and said: "How many of
+these 250,000 stories do you want?" One said 20,000, and another wanted
+15,000, and other wanted 10,000. I said: "All right, let me bid for the
+lot, and I'll give each of you all you want for nothin'."
+
+They agreed, of course. Then the auctioneer yelled: "How much am I bid
+for these 250,000 fine pavin' stones?"
+
+"Two dollars and fifty cents," says I.
+
+"Two dollars and fifty cents!" screamed the auctioneer. "Oh, that's a
+joke! Give me a real bid."
+
+He found the bid was real enough. My rivals stood silent. I got the
+lot for $2.50 and gave them their share. That's how the attempt to do
+Plunkitt ended, and that's how all such attempts end.
+
+I've told you how I got rich by honest graft. Now, let me tell you that
+most politicians who are accused of robbin' the city get rich the same
+way.
+
+They didn't steal a dollar from the city treasury. They just seen their
+opportunities and took them. That is why, when a reform administration
+comes in and spends a half million dollars in tryin' to find the public
+robberies they talked about in the campaign, they don't find them.
+
+The books are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all
+right. Everything is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany
+heads of departments looked after their friends, within the law, and
+gave them what opportunities they could to make honest graft. Now, let
+me tell you that's never goin' to hurt Tammany with the people. Every
+good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn't isn't likely
+to be popular. If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I
+give it to a friend--Why shouldn't I do the same in public life?
+
+Another kind of honest graft. Tammany has raised a good many salaries.
+There was an awful howl by the reformers, but don't you know that
+Tammany gains ten votes for every one it lost by salary raisin'?
+
+The Wall Street banker thinks it shameful to raise a department clerk's
+salary from $1500 to $1800 a year, but every man who draws a salary
+himself says: "That's all right. I wish it was me." And he feels
+very much like votin' the Tammany ticket on election day, just out of
+sympathy.
+
+Tammany was beat in 1901 because the people were deceived into believin'
+that it worked dishonest graft. They didn't draw a distinction between
+dishonest and honest graft, but they saw that some Tammany men grew
+rich, and supposed they had been robbin' the city treasury or levyin'
+blackmail on disorderly houses, or workin' in with the gamblers and
+lawbreakers.
+
+As a matter of policy, if nothing else, why should the Tammany leaders
+go into such dirty business, when there is so much honest graft lyin'
+around when they are in power? Did you ever consider that?
+
+Now, in conclusion, I want to say that I don't own a dishonest dollar.
+If my worst enemy was given the job of writin' my epitaph when I'm gone,
+he couldn't do more than write:
+
+"George W. Plunkitt. He Seen His Opportunities, and He Took 'Em."
+
+Chapter 2. How to Become a Statesman
+
+THERE'S thousands of young men in this city who will go to the polls for
+the first time next November. Among them will be many who have watched
+the careers of successful men in politics, and who are longin' to make
+names and fortunes for themselves at the same game--It is to these
+youths that I want to give advice. First, let me say that I am in a
+position to give what the courts call expert testimony on the subject. I
+don't think you can easily find a better example than I am of success
+in politics. After forty years' experience at the game I am--well, I'm
+George Washington Plunkitt. Everybody knows what figure I cut in the
+greatest organization on earth, and if you hear people say that I've
+laid away a million or so since I was a butcher's boy in Washington
+Market, don't come to me for an indignant denial I'm pretty comfortable,
+thank you.
+
+Now, havin' qualified as an expert, as the lawyers say, I am goin' to
+give advice free to the young men who are goin' to cast their first
+votes, and who are lookin' forward to political glory and lots of cash.
+Some young men think they can learn how to be successful in politics
+from books, and they cram their heads with all sorts of college rot.
+They couldn't make a bigger mistake. Now, understand me I ain't sayin'
+nothin' against colleges. I guess they'll have to exist as long as
+there's book-worms, and I suppose they do some good in a certain way,
+but they don't count in politics. In fact, a young man who has gone
+through the college course is handicapped at the outset. He may succeed
+in politics, but the chances are 100 to 1 against him.
+
+Another mistake: some young men think that the best way to prepare for
+the political game is to practice speakin' and becomin' orators. That's
+all wrong. We've got some orators in Tammany Hall, but they're chiefly
+ornamental. You never heard of Charlie Murphy delivering a speech, did
+you? Or Richard Croker, or John Kelly, or any other man who has been a
+real power in the organization? Look at the thirty-six district leaders
+of Tammany Hall today. How many of them travel on their tongues? Maybe
+one or two, and they don't count when business is doin' at Tammany
+Hall. The men who rule have practiced keepin' their tongues still, not
+exercisin' them. So you want to drop the orator idea unless you mean to
+go into politics just to perform the skyrocket act.
+
+Now, I've told you what not to do; I guess I can explain best what to
+do to succeed in politics by tellin' you what I did. After goin' through
+the apprenticeship of the business while I was a boy by workin' around
+the district headquarters and hustlin' about the polls on election day,
+I set out when I cast my first vote to win fame and money in New York
+City politics. Did I offer my services to the district leader as a
+stump-speaker? Not much. The woods are always full of speakers. Did
+I get up a hook on municipal government and show it to the leader? I
+wasn't such a fool. What I did was to get some marketable goods before
+goin' to the leaders. What do I mean by marketable goods? Let me tell
+you: I had a cousin, a young man who didn't take any particular
+interest in politics. I went to him and said: "Tommy, I'm goin' to be a
+politician, and I want to get a followin'; can I count on you?" He said:
+"Sure, George". That's how I started in business. I got a marketable
+commodity----one vote. Then I went to the district leader and told him
+I could command two votes on election day, Tommy's and my own. He
+smiled on me and told me to go ahead. If I had offered him a speech or a
+bookful of learnin', he would have said, "Oh, forget it!"
+
+That was beginnin' business in a small way, wasn't it? But that is the
+only way to become a real lastin' statesman. I soon branched out. Two
+young men in the flat next to mine were school friends--I went to them,
+just as I went to Tommy, and they agreed to stand by me. Then I had a
+followin' of three voters and I began to get a bit chesty. Whenever I
+dropped into district head-quarters, everybody shook hands with me, and
+the leader one day honored me by lightin' a match for my cigar. And so
+it went on like a snowball rollin' down a hill I worked the flat-house
+that I lived in from the basement to the top floor, and I got about a
+dozen young men to follow me. Then I tackled the next house and so on
+down the block and around the corner. Before long I had sixty men back
+of me, and formed the George Washington Plunkitt Association.
+
+What did the district leader say then when I called at headquarters? I
+didn't have to call at headquarters. He came after me and said: "George,
+what do you want? If you don't see what you want, ask for it. Wouldn't
+you like to have a job or two in the departments for your friends?"
+I said: "I'll think it over; I haven't yet decided what the George
+Washington Plunkitt Association will do in the next campaign." You ought
+to have seen how I was courted and petted then by the leaders of the
+rival organizations I had marketable goods and there was bids for them
+from all sides, and I was a risin' man in politics. As time went on,
+and my association grew, I thought I would like to go to the Assembly.
+1 just had to hint at what I wanted, and three different organizations
+offered me the nomination. Afterwards, I went to the Board of Aldermen,
+then to the State Senate, then became leader of the district, and so on
+up and up till I became a statesman.
+
+That is the way and the only way to' make a lastin' success in politics.
+If you are goin' to cast your first vote next November and want to go
+into politics, do as I did. Get a followin', if it's only one man,
+and then go to the district leader and say: "I want to join the
+organization. I've got one man who'll follow me through thick and thin."
+The leader won't laugh at your one-man followin'. He'll shake your hand
+warmly, offer to propose you for membership in his club, take you down
+to the corner for a drink and ask you to call again. But go to him
+and say: "I took first prize at college in Aristotle; I can recite all
+Shakespeare forwards and backwards; there ain't nothin' in science that
+ain't as familiar to me as blockades on the elevated roads and I'm the
+real thing in the way of silver-tongued orators." What will he answer?
+He'll probably say: "I guess you are not to blame for your misfortunes,
+but we have no use for you here."
+
+
+
+Chapter 3. The Curse of Civil Service Reform
+
+This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age. It is the curse
+of the nation. There can't be no real patriotism while it lasts. How
+are you goin' to interest our young men in their country if you have no
+offices to give them when they work for their party? Just look at things
+in this city today. There are ten thousand good offices, but we can't
+get at more than a few hundred of them. How are we goin' to provide
+for the thousands of men who worked for the Tammany ticket? It can't be
+done. These men were full of patriotism a short time ago. They expected
+to be servin' their city, but when we tell them that we can't place
+them, do you think their patriotism is goin' to last? Not much. They
+say: "What's the use of workin' for your country anyhow? There's nothin'
+in the game." And what can they do? I don't know, but I'll tell you what
+I do know. I know more than one young man in past years who worked for
+the ticket and was just overflowin' with patriotism, but when he was
+knocked out by the civil service humbug he got to hate his country and
+became an Anarchist.
+
+This ain't no exaggeration. I have good reason for sayin' that most
+of the Anarchists in this city today are men who ran up against civil
+service examinations. Isn't it enough to make a man sour on his country
+when he wants to serve it and won't be allowed unless he answers a
+lot of fool questions about the number of cubic inches of water in the
+Atlantic and the quality of sand in the Sahara desert? There was once a
+bright young man in my district who tackled one of these examinations.
+The next I heard of him he had settled down in Herr Most's saloon
+smokin' and drinkin' beer and talkin' socialism all day. Before that
+time he had never drank anything but whisky. I knew what was comm' when
+a young Irishman drops whisky and takes to beer and long pipes in a
+German saloon. That young man is today one of the wildest Anarchists in
+town. And just to think! He might be a patriot but for that cussed civil
+service.
+
+Say, did you hear about that Civil Service Reform Association kickin'
+because the tax commissioners want to put their fifty-five deputies on
+the exempt list, and fire the outfit left to them by Low? That's civil
+service for you. Just think! Fifty-five Republicans and mugwumps holdin'
+$8000 and $4000 and $5000 jobs in the tax department when 1555 good
+Tammany men are ready and willin' to take their places! It's an
+outrage! What did the people mean when they voted for Tammany? What
+is representative government, anyhow? Is it all a fake that this is a
+government of the people, by the people and for the people? If it isn't
+a fake, then why isn't the people's voice obeyed and Tammany men put in
+all the offices?
+
+When the people elected Tammany, they knew just what they were doin'.
+We didn't put up any false pretenses. We didn't go in for humbug
+civil service and all that rot. We stood as we have always stood, for
+reward--in' the men that won the victory. They call that the spoils
+system. All right; Tammany is for the spoils system, and when we go in
+we fire every anti-Tammany man from office that can be fired under the
+law. It's an elastic sort of law and you can bet it will be stretched to
+the limit Of course the Republican State Civil Service Board will
+stand in the way of our local Civil Service Commission all it can; but
+say!--suppose we carry the State sometime, won't we fire the upstate
+Board all right? Or we'll make it work in harmony with the local board,
+and that means that Tammany will get everything in sight. I know that
+the civil service humbug is stuck into the constitution, too, but, as
+Tim Campbell said: "What's the constitution among friends?"
+
+Say, the people's voice is smothered by the cursed civil service law;
+it is the root of all evil in our government. You hear of this thing or
+that thing goin' wrong in the nation, the State or the city. Look down
+beneath the surface and you can trace everything wrong to civil service.
+I have studied the subject and I know. The civil service humbug is
+underminin' our institutions and if a halt ain't called soon this
+great republic will tumble down like a Park Avenue house when they
+were buildin' the subway, and on its ruins will rise another Russian
+government.
+
+This is an awful serious proposition. Free silver and the tariff and
+imperialism and the Panama Canal are triflin' issues when compared to
+it. We could worry along without any of these things, but civil service
+is sappin' the foundation of the whole shootin' match, let me argue it
+out for you. I ain't up on sillygisms, but I can give you some arguments
+that nobody can answer.
+
+First, this great and glorious country was built up by political
+parties; second, parties can't hold together if their workers don't
+get the offices when they win; third, if the parties go to pieces, the
+government they built up must go to pieces, too; fourth, then there'll
+be h---- to pay.
+
+Could anything be clearer than that? Say, honest now; can you answer
+that argument? Of course you won't deny that the government was built
+up by the great parties. That's history, and you can't go back of the
+returns. As to my second proposition, you can't deny that either. When
+parties can't get offices, they'll bust. They ain't far from the bustin'
+point now, with all this civil service business keepin' most of the good
+things from them. How are you goin' to keep up patriotism if this thing
+goes On? You can't do it. Let me tell you that patriotism has been dying
+out fast for the last twenty years. Before then when a party won,
+its workers got everything in sight. That was somethin' to make a man
+patriotic. Now, when a party wins and its men come forward and ask for
+their rewards, the reply is, "Nothin' doin', unless you can answer a
+list of questions about Egyptian mummies and how many years it will take
+for a bird to wear out a mass of iron as big as the earth by steppin' on
+it once in a century?"
+
+I have studied politics and men for forty-five years, and I see how
+things are driftin'. Sad indeed is the change that has come over the
+young men, even in my district, where I try to keep up the fire of
+patriotism by gettin' a lot of jobs for my constituents, whether Tammany
+is in or out. The boys and men don't get excited any more when they see
+a United States flag or hear "The Star-Spangled Banner." They don't care
+no more for firecrackers on the Fourth of July. And why should they?
+What is there in it for them? They know that no matter how hard they
+work for their country in a campaign, the jobs will go to fellows who
+can tell about the mummies and the bird steppin' on the iron. Are you
+surprised then that the young men of the country are beginnin' to look
+coldly on the flag and don't care to put up a nickel for firecrackers?
+
+15 The Curse of Civil Service Reform
+
+Say, let me tell of one case--After the battle of San Juan Hill, the
+Americans found a dead man with a light complexion, red hair and blue
+eyes. They could see he wasn't a Spaniard, although he had on a Spanish
+uniform. Several officers looked him over, and then a private of the
+Seventy-first Regiment saw him and yelled, "Good Lord, that's Flaherty."
+That man grew up in my district, and he was once the most patriotic
+American boy on the West Side. He couldn't see a flag without yellin'
+himself hoarse.
+
+Now, how did he come to be lying dead with a Spanish uniform on? I found
+out all about it, and I'll vouch for the story. Well, in the municipal
+campaign of 1897, that young man, chockful of patriotism, worked day and
+night for the Tammany ticket. Tammany won, and the young man determined
+to devote his life to the service of the city. He picked out a place
+that would suit him, and sent in his application to the head of
+department. He got a reply that he must take a civil service examination
+to get the place. He didn't know what these examinations were, so
+he went, all lighthearted, to the Civil Service Board. He read the
+questions about the mummies, the bird on the iron, and all the other
+fool questions--and he left that office an enemy of the country that he
+had loved so well. The mummies and the bird blasted his patriotism. He
+went to Cuba, enlisted in the Spanish army at the breakin' out of the
+war, and died fightin' his country.
+
+That is but one victim of the infamous civil service. If that young man
+had not run up against the civil examination, but had been allowed to
+serve his country as he wished, he would be in a good office today,
+drawin' a good salary. Ah, how many young men have had their patriotism
+blasted in the same way!
+
+Now, what is goin' to happen when civil service crushes out patriotism?
+Only one thing can happen: the republic will go to pieces. Then a
+czar or a sultan will turn up, which brings me to the fourthly of my
+argument--that is, there will be h---- to pay. And that ain't no lie.
+
+
+
+Chapter 4. Reformers Only Mornin' Glories
+
+COLLEGE professors and philosophers who go up in a balloon to think
+are always discussin' the question: "Why Reform Administrations Never
+Succeed Themselves!" The reason is plain to anybody who has learned the
+a, b, c of politics.
+
+I can't tell just how many of these movements I've seen started in New
+York during my forty years in politics, but I can tell you how many have
+lasted more than a few years--none. There have been reform committees
+of fifty, of sixty, of seventy, of one hundred and all sorts of numbers
+that started Out to do up the regular political Organizations. They were
+mornin' glories--looked lovely in the mornin' and withered up in a short
+time, while the regular machines went on flourishin' forever, like
+fine old oaks. Say, that's the first poetry I ever worked off. Ain't it
+great?
+
+Just look back a few years. You remember the People's Municipal League
+that nominated Frank Scott for mayor in 1890? Do you remember the
+reformers that got up that league? Have you ever heard of them since? I
+haven't. Scott himself survived because he had always been a first-rate
+politician. But you'd have to look in the newspaper almanacs of 1891 to
+find out who made up the People's Municipal League. Oh, yes! I remember
+one name: Ollie Teall; dear, pretty Ollie and his big dog. They're about
+all that's left of the League.
+
+Now take the reform movement of 1894. A lot of good politicians joined
+in that--the Republicans, the State Democrats, the Stecklerites and the
+O'Brienites, and they gave us a lickin', but the real reform part of the
+affair, the Committee of Seventy that started the thing goin', what's
+become of those reformers? What's become of Charles Stewart Smith?
+Where's Bangs? Do you ever hear of Cornell, the iron man, in politics
+now? Could a search party find R. W. G. Welling? Have you seen the name
+of Fulton McMahon or McMahon Fulton--I ain't sure which--in the papers
+lately? Or Preble Tucker? Or--but it's no use to go through the list
+of the reformers who said they sounded in the death knell of Tammany in
+1894. They're gone for good, and Tammany's pretty well, thank you. They
+did the talkin' and posin', and the politicians in the movement got all
+the plums. It's always the case.
+
+The Citizens' Union has lasted a little bit longer than the reform crowd
+that went before them, but that's because they learned a thing or two
+from us. They learned how to put up a pretty good bluff--and bluff
+Counts a lot in politics. With only a few thousand members, they had the
+nerve to run the whole Fusion movement, make the Republicans and other
+organizations come to their headquarters to select a ticket and dictate
+what every candidate must do or not do. I love nerve, and I've had a
+sort of respect for the Citizens Union lately, but the Union can't last.
+Its people haven't been trained to politics, and whenever Tammany calls
+their bluff they lay right down. You'll never hear of the Union again
+after a year or two.
+
+And, by the way, what's become of the good government clubs, the
+political nurseries of a few years ago?
+
+Do you ever hear of Good Government Club D and P and Q and Z any more?
+What's become of the infants who were to grow up and show us how to
+govern the city? I know what's become of the nursery that was started
+in my district. You can find pretty much the whole outfit over in my
+headquarters, Washington Hall.
+
+The fact is that a reformer can't last in politics. He can make a show
+for a while, but he always comes down like a rocket. Politics is as much
+a regular business as the grocery or the dry-goods or the drug business.
+You've got to be trained up to it or you're sure to fail. Suppose a man
+who knew nothing about the grocery trade suddenly went into the business
+and tried to conduct it according to his own ideas. Wouldn't he make a
+mess of it? He might make a splurge for a while, as long as his money
+lasted, but his store would soon be empty. It's just the same with
+a reformer. He hasn't been brought up in the difficult business of
+politics and he makes a mess of it every time.
+
+I've been studyin' the political game for forty-five years, and! don't
+know it all yet. I'm learnin' somethin' all the time. How, then, can you
+expect what they call "business men" to turn into politics all at
+once and make a success of it? It is just as if I went up to Columbia
+University and started to teach Greek. They usually last about as long
+in politics as I would last at Columbia.
+
+You can't begin too early in politics if you want to succeed at the
+game. I began several years before I could vote, and so did every
+successful leader in Tammany Hall. When I was twelve years old I made
+myself useful around the district headquarters and did work at all the
+polls on election day. Later on, I hustled about gettin' out voters who
+had jags on or who were too lazy to come to the polls. There's a hundred
+ways that boys can help, and they get an experience that's the
+first real step in statesmanship. Show me a boy that hustles for the
+organization on election day, and I'll show you a comin' statesman.
+
+That's the a, b, c of politics. It ain't easy work to get up to q and
+z. You have to give nearly all your time and attention to it. Of course,
+you may have some business or occupation on the side, but the great
+business of your life must be politics if you want to succeed in it.
+A few years ago Tammany tried to mix politics and business in equal
+quantities, by havin' two leaders for each district, a politician and
+a business man. They wouldn't mix. They were like oil and water. The
+politician looked after the politics of his district; the business
+man looked after his grocery store or his milk route, and whenever he
+appeared at an executive meeting, it was only to make trouble. The whole
+scheme turned out to be a farce and was abandoned mighty quick.
+
+Do you understand now, why it is that a reformer goes down and out in
+the first or second round, while a politician answers to the gong every
+time? It is because the one has gone into the fight without trainin',
+while the other trains all the time and knows every fine point of the
+game.
+
+
+
+Chapter 5. New York City Is Pie for the Hayseeds
+
+THIS city is ruled entirely by the hayseed legislators at Albany. I've
+never known an upstate Republican who didn't want to run things
+here, and I've met many thousands of them in my long service in the
+Legislature. The hayseeds think we are like the Indians to the National
+Government--that is, sort of wards of the State, who don't know how to
+look after ourselves and have to be taken care of by the Republicans of
+St. Lawrence, Ontario, and other backwoods counties. Why should anybody
+be surprised because ex-Governor Odell comes down here to direct the
+Republican machine? Newburg ain't big enough for him. He, like all the
+other upstate Republicans, wants to get hold of New York City. New York
+is their pie.
+
+Say, you hear a lot about the downtrodden people of Ireland and the
+Russian peasants and the sufferin' Boers. Now, let me tell you that they
+have more real freedom and home rule than the people of this grand and
+imperial city. In England, for example, they make a pretense of givin'
+the Irish some self-government In this State the Republican government
+makes no pretense at all. It says right out in the open: "New York City
+is a nice big fat Goose. Come along with your carvin' knives and have a
+slice." They don't pretend to ask the Goose's consent.
+
+We don't own our streets or our docks or our waterfront or anything
+else. The Republican Legislature and Governor run the whole shootin'
+match. We've got to eat and drink what they tell us to eat and drink,
+and have got to choose our time for eatin' and drinkin' to suit them. If
+they don't feel like takin' a glass of beer on Sunday, we must abstain.
+If they have not got any amusements up in their backwoods, we mustn't
+have none. We've got to regulate our whole lives to suit them. And then
+we have to pay their taxes to boot.
+
+Did you ever go up to Albany from this city with a delegation that
+wanted anything from the Legislature? No? Well, don't. The hayseeds
+who run all the committees will look at you as if you were a child that
+didn't know what it wanted, and will tell you in so many words to go
+home and be good and the Legislature will give you whatever it thinks is
+good for you. They put on a sort of patronizing air, as much as to say,
+"These children are an awful lot of trouble. They're wantin' candy all
+the time, and they know that it will make them sick. They ought to thank
+goodness that they have us to take care of them." And if you try to
+argue with them, they'll smile in a pityin' sort of way as if they were
+humorin' a spoiled child.
+
+But just let a Republican farmer from Chemung or Wayne or Tioga turn up
+at the Capital. The Republican Legislature will make a rush for him and
+ask him what he wants and tell him if he doesn't see what he wants to
+ask for it. If he says his taxes are too high, they reply to him: "All
+right, old man, don't let that worry you. How much do you want us to
+take off?"
+
+"I guess about fifty per cent will about do for the present," says the
+man. "Can you fix me up?"
+
+"Sure," the Legislature agrees. "Give us somethin', 'New York City Is Pie
+for the Hayseeds,' try harder, don't be bashful. We'll take off sixty
+per. cent. if you wish. That's what we're here for."
+
+Then the Legislature goes and passes a law increasin' the liquor tax or
+some other tax in New York City, takes a half of the proceeds for the
+State Treasury and cuts down the farmers' taxes to suit. It's as easy
+as rollin' off a log--when you've got a good workin' majority and no
+conscience to speak of.
+
+Let me give you another example. It makes me hot under the collar to
+tell about this. Last year some hay-seeds along the Hudson River, mostly
+in Odell's neighborhood, got dissatisfied with the docks where they
+landed their vegetables, brickbats, and other things they produce in the
+river counties. They got together and said: "Let's take a trip down
+to New York and pick out the finest dock we can find. Odell and the
+Legislature will do the rest." They did come down here, and what do
+you think they hit on? The finest dock in my district Invaded George W.
+Plunkitt's district without sayin' as much as "by your leave." Then they
+called on Odell to put through a bill givin' them this dock, and he did.
+
+When the bill came before Mayor Low I made the greatest speech of my
+life. I pointed out how the Legislature could give the whole waterfront
+to the hayseeds over the head of the Dock Commissioner in the same way,
+and warned the Mayor that nations had rebelled against their governments
+for less. But it was no go. Odell and Low were pards and--well, my dock
+was stolen.
+
+You heard a lot in the State campaign about Odell's great work in
+reducin' the State tax to almost nothin', and you'll hear a lot more
+about it in the campaign next year. How did he do it? By cuttin' down
+the expenses of the State Government? Oh, no! The expenses went up. He
+simply performed the old Republican act of milkin' New York City. The
+only difference was that he nearly milked the city dry. He not only ran
+up the liquor tax, but put all sorts of taxes on corporations, banks,
+insurance companies, and everything in sight that could be made to give
+up. Of course, nearly the whole tax fell on the city. Then Odell went
+through the country districts and said: "See what I have done for you.
+You ain't got any more taxes to pay the State. Ain't I a fine feller?"
+
+Once a farmer in Orange County asked him: "How did you do it, Ben?"
+
+"Dead easy," he answered. "Whenever I want any money for the State
+Treasury, I know where to get it," and he pointed toward New York City.
+
+And then all the Republican tinkerin' with New York City's charter.
+Nobody can keep up with it. When a Republican mayor is in, they give him
+all sorts of power. If a Tammany mayor is elected next fall I wouldn't
+be surprised if they changed the whole business and arranged it so that
+every city department should have four heads, two of them Republicans.
+If we make a kick, they would say: "You don't know what's good for you.
+Leave it to us. It's our business."
+
+
+
+Chapter 6. To Hold Your District: Study Human Nature and Act Accordin'
+
+There's only one way to hold a district: you must study human nature
+and act accordin'. You can't study human nature in books. Books is a
+hindrance more than anything else. If you have been to college, so much
+the worse for you. You'll have to unlearn all you learned before you can
+get right down to human nature, and unlearnin' takes a lot of time. Some
+men can never forget what they learned at college. Such men may get to
+be district leaders by a fluke, but they never last.
+
+To learn real human nature you have to go among the people, see them and
+be seen..1 know every man, woman, and child in the Fifteenth District,
+except them that's been born this summer--and I know some of them, too.
+I know what they like and what they don't like, what they are strong at
+and what they are weak in, and I reach them by approachin' at the right
+side.
+
+For instance, here's how I gather in the young men. I hear of a young
+feller that's proud of his voice, thinks that he can sing fine. I ask
+him to come around to Washington Hall and join our Glee Club. He comes
+and sings, and he's a follower of Plunkitt for life. Another young
+feller gains a reputation as a baseball player in a vacant lot. I bring
+him into our baseball dub. That fixes him. You'll find him workin' for
+my ticket at the polls next election day. Then there's the feller that
+likes rowin' on the river, the young feller that makes a name as a
+waltzer on his block, the young feller that's handy with his dukes--I
+rope them all in by givin' them opportunities to show themselves off.
+I don't trouble them with political arguments. I just study human nature
+and act accordin'.
+
+But you may say this game won't work with the high-toned fellers, the
+fellers that go through college and then join the Citizens' Union. Of
+course it wouldn't work. I have a special treatment for them. I ain't
+like the patent medicine man that gives the same medicine for all
+diseases. The Citizens' Union kind of a young man! I love him! He's the
+daintiest morsel of the lot, and he don't often escape me.
+
+Before telling you how I catch him, let me mention that before the
+election last year, the Citizens' Union said they had four hundred
+or five hundred enrolled voters in my district. They had a lovely
+headquarters, too, beautiful roll-top desks and the cutest rugs in the
+world. If I was accused of havin' contributed to fix up the nest for
+them, I wouldn't deny it under oath. What do I mean by that? Never mind.
+You can guess from the sequel, if you're sharp.
+
+Well, election day came. The Citizens' Union's candidate for Senator,
+who ran against me, just polled five votes in the district, while I
+polled something more than 14,000 votes. What became of the 400 or 500
+Citizens' Union enrolled voters in my district? Some people guessed that
+many of them were good Plunkitt men all along and worked with the Cits
+just to bring them into the Plunkitt camp by election day. You can guess
+that way, too, if you want to. I never contradict stories about me,
+especially in hot weather. I just call your attention to the fact that
+on last election day 395 Citizens' Union enrolled voters in my district
+were missin' and unaccounted for.
+
+I tell you frankly, though, how I have captured some of the Citizens'
+Union's young men. I have a plan that never fails. I watch the City
+Record to see when there's civil service examinations for good things.
+Then I take my young Cit in hand, tell him all about the good thing and
+get him worked up till he goes and takes an examination. I don't bother
+about him any more. It's a cinch that he comes back to me in a few days
+and asks to join Tammany Hall. Come over to Washington Hall some night
+and I'll show you a list of names on our roll' marked "C.S." which
+means, "bucked up against civil service."
+
+As to the older voters, I reach them, too. No, I don't send them
+campaign literature. That's rot. People can get all the political stuff
+they want to read--and a good deal more, too--in the papers. Who reads
+speeches, nowadays, anyhow? It's bad enough to listen to them. You
+ain't goin' to gain any votes by stuffin' the letter boxes with campaign
+documents. Like as not you'll lose votes for there's nothin' a man hates
+more than to hear the letter carrier ring his bell and go to the letter
+box ex pectin' to find a letter he was lookin' for, and find only a lot
+of printed politics. I met a man this very mornin' who told me he voted
+the Democratic State ticket last year just because the Republicans kept
+crammin' his letter box with campaign documents.
+
+What tells in holdin' your grip on your district is to go right down
+among the poor families and help them in the different ways they need
+help. I've got a regular system for this. If there's a fire in Ninth,
+Tenth, or Eleventh Avenue, for example, any hour of the day or night,
+I'm usually there with some of my election district captains as soon as
+the fire engines. If a family is burned out I don't ask whether they
+are Republicans or Democrats, and I don't refer them to the Charity
+Organization Society, which would investigate their case in a month or
+two and decide they were worthy of help about the time they are dead
+from starvation. I just get quarters for them, buy clothes for them
+if their clothes were burned up, and fix them up till they get things
+runnin' again. It's philanthropy, but it's politics, too--mighty good
+politics. Who can tell how many votes one of these fires bring me? The
+poor are the most grateful people in the world, and, let me tell you,
+they have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich have in
+theirs.
+
+If there's a family in my district in want I know it before the
+charitable societies do, and me and my men are first on the ground. I
+have a special corps to look up such cases. The consequence is that
+the poor look up to George W. Plunkitt as a father, come to him in
+trouble--and don't forget him on election day.
+
+Another thing, I can always get a job for a deservin' man. I make it a
+point to keep on the track of jobs, and it seldom happens that I don't
+have a few up my sleeve ready for use. I know every big employer in the
+district and in the whole city, for that matter, and they ain't in the
+habit of sayin' no to me when I ask them for a job.
+
+And the children--the little roses of the district! Do I forget them?
+Oh, no! They know me, every one of them, and they know that a sight of
+Uncle George and candy means the same thing. Some of them are the best
+kind of vote-getters. I'll tell you a case. Last year a little Eleventh
+Avenue rosebud, whose father is a Republican, caught hold of his
+whiskers on election day and said she wouldn't let go till he'd promise
+to vote for me. And she didn't.
+
+
+
+Chapter 7. On The Shame of the Cities
+
+I'VE been readin' a book by Lincoln Steffens on 'The Shame of the Cities'.
+Steffens means well but, like all reformers, he don't know how to
+make distinctions. He can't see no difference between honest graft and
+dishonest graft and, consequent, he gets things all mixed up. There's
+the biggest kind of a difference between political looters and
+politicians who make a fortune out of politics by keepin' their eyes
+wide open. The looter goes in for himself alone without considerin' his
+organization or his city. The politician looks after his own interests,
+the organization's interests, and the city's interests all at the same
+time. See the distinction? For instance, I ain't no looter. The looter
+hogs it. I never hogged. I made my pile in politics, but, at the same
+time, 1 served the organization and got more big improvements for New
+York City than any other livin' man. And I never monkeyed with the penal
+code.
+
+The difference between a looter and a practical politician is the
+difference between the Philadelphia Republican gang and Tammany Hall.
+Steffens seems to think they're both about the same; but he's all wrong.
+The Philadelphia crowd runs up against the penal code. Tammany don't.
+The Philadelphians ain't satisfied with robbin' the bank of all its gold
+and paper money. They stay to pick up the nickels and pennies and the
+cop comes and nabs them. Tammany ain't no such fool. Why, I remember,
+about fifteen or twenty years ago, a Republican superintendent of the
+Philadelphia almshouse stole the zinc roof off the buildin' and sold
+it for junk. That was carryin' things to excess. There's a limit to
+everything, and the Philadelphia Republicans go beyond the limit. It
+seems like they can't be cool and moderate like real politicians. It
+ain't fair, therefore, to class Tammany men with the Philadelphia gang.
+Any man who undertakes to write political books should never for a
+moment lose sight of the distinction between honest graft and dishonest
+graft, which I explained in full in another talk. If he puts all kinds
+of graft on the same level, he'll make the fatal mistake that Steffens
+made and spoil his book.
+
+A big city like New York or Philadelphia or Chicago might be compared
+to a sort of Garden of Eden, from a political point of view. It's an
+orchard full of beautiful apple trees. One of them has got a big sign
+on it, marked: "Penal Code Tree--Poison." The other trees have lots of
+apples on them for all. Yet the fools go to the Penal Code Tree. Why?
+For the reason, I guess, that a cranky child refuses to eat good food
+and chews up a box of matches with relish. I never had any temptation to
+touch the Penal Code Tree. The other apples are good enough for me, and
+0 Lord! how many of them there are in a big city!
+
+Steffens made one good point in his book. He said he found that
+Philadelphia, ruled almost entirely by Americans, was more corrupt than
+New York, where the Irish do almost all the governin'. I could have told
+him that before he did any investigatin' if he had come to me. The Irish
+was born to rule, and they're the honestest people in the world. Show me
+the Irishman who would steal a roof off an almhouse! He don't exist.
+Of course, if an Irishman had the political pull and the roof was much
+worn, he might get the city authorities to put on a new one and get the
+contract for it himself, and buy the old roof at a bargain--but that's
+honest graft. It's goin' about the thing like a gentleman, and there's
+more money in it than in tearin' down an old roof and cartin' it to the
+junkman's--more money and no penal code.
+
+One reason why the Irishman is more honest in politics than many Sons of
+the Revolution is that he is grateful to the country and the city that
+gave him protection and prosperity when he was driven by oppression from
+the Emerald Isle. Say, that sentence is fine, ain't it? I'm goin' to get
+some literary feller to work it over into poetry for next St. Patrick's
+Day dinner.
+
+Yes, the Irishman is grateful. His one thought is to serve the city
+which gave him a home. He has this thought even before he lands in New
+York, for his friends here often have a good place in one of the city
+departments picked out for him while he is still in the old country. Is
+it any wonder that he has a tender spot in his heart for old New York
+when he is on its salary list the mornin' after he lands?
+
+Now, a few words on the general subject of the so called shame of
+cities. I don't believe that the government of our cities is any worse,
+in proportion to opportunities, than it was fifty years ago. I'll
+explain what I mean by "in proportion to opportunities." A half
+a century ago, our cities were small and poor. There wasn't many
+temptations lyin' around for politicians. There was hardly anything to
+steal, and hardly any opportunities for even honest graft. A city could
+count its money every night before goin' to bed, and if three cents
+was missin', all the fire bells would be rung. What credit was there in
+bein' honest under them circumstances'? It makes me tired to hear of old
+codgers back in the thirties or forties boastin' that they retired from
+politics without a dollar except what they earned in their profession or
+business. If they lived today, with all the existin' opportunities, they
+would be just the same as twentieth-century politicians. There ain't any
+more honest people in the world just now than the convicts in Sing
+Sing. Not one of them steals anything. Why? Because they can't. See the
+application?
+
+Understand, I ain't defendin' politicians of today who steal. The
+politician who steals is worse than a thief. He is a fool. With the
+grand opportunities all around for the man with a political pull,
+there's no excuse for stealin' a cent. The point I want to make is
+that if there is some stealin' in politics, it don't mean that the
+politicians of 1905 are, as a class, worse than them of 1835. It just
+means that the old-timers had nothin' to steal, while the politicians
+now are surrounded by all kinds of temptations and some of them
+naturally--the fool ones--buck up against the penal code.
+
+
+
+Chapter 8. Ingratitude in Politics
+
+THERE's no crime so mean as ingratitude in politics, but every great
+statesman from the beginnin' of the world has been up against it. Caesar
+had his Brutus; that king of Shakespeare's--Leary, I think you call
+him--had his own daughters go back on him; Platt had his Odell, and
+I've got my "The" McManus. It's a real proof that a man is great when
+he meets with political ingratitude. Great men have a tender, trustin'
+nature. So have I, outside of the contractin' and real estate business.
+In politics I have trusted men who have told me they were my friends,
+and if traitors have turned up in my camp well, I only had the same
+experience as Caesar, Leary, and the others. About my Brutus. McManus,
+you know, has seven brothers and they call him "The" because he is the
+boss of the lot, and to distinguish him from all other McManuses.
+For several years he was a political bushwhacker. In campaigns he
+was sometimes on the fence, sometimes on both sides of the fence,
+and sometimes under the fence. Nobody knew where to find him at any
+particular time, and nobody trusted him--that is, nobody but me. I
+thought there was some good in him after all and that, if I took him in
+hand, I could make a man of him yet.
+
+I did take him in hand, a few years ago. My friends told me it would be
+the Brutus Leary business all over again, but I didn't believe them.
+I put my trust in "The." I nominated him for the Assembly, and he
+was elected. A year afterwards, when I was runnin' for re-election as
+Senator, I nominated him for the Assembly again on the ticket with
+me. What do you think happened? We both carried the Fifteenth Assembly
+District, but he ran away ahead of me. Just think! Ahead of me in my
+own district! I was just dazed. When I began to recover, my election
+district captains came to me and said that McManus had sold me out
+with the idea of knockin' me out of the Senatorship, and then tryin'
+to capture the leadership of the district. I couldn't believe it. My
+trustin' nature couldn't imagine such treachery.
+
+I sent for McManus and said, with my voice tremblin' with emotions:
+"They say you have done me dirt, 'The.' It can't be true. Tell me it
+ain't true."
+
+"The" almost wept as he said he was innocent.
+
+"Never have I done you dirt, George," he declared. "Wicked traitors have
+tried to do you. I don't know just who they are yet, but I'm on their
+trail, and I'll find them or abjure the name of 'The' McManus. I'm goin'
+out right now to find them."
+
+Well, "The" kept his word as far as goin' out and findin' the traitors
+was concerned. He found them all right--and put himself at their
+head. Oh, no! He didn't have to go far to look for them. He's got them
+gathered in his clubrooms now, and he's doin' his best to take the
+leadership from the man that made him. So you see that Caesar and Leary
+and me's in the same boat, only I'll come out on top while Caesar and
+Leary went under.
+
+Now let me tell you that the ingrate in politics never flourishes long.
+I can give you lots of examples. Look at the men who done up Roscoe
+Conkling when he resigned from the United States Senate and went to
+Albany to ask for re-election! What's become of them? Passed from view
+like a movin' picture. Who took Conkling's place in the Senate? Twenty
+dollars even that you can't remember his name without looking in the
+almanac. And poor old Plattt He's down and out now and Odell is in the
+saddle, but that don't mean that he'll always be in the saddle. His
+enemies are workin' hard all the time to do him, and I wouldn't be a bit
+surprised if he went out before the next State campaign.
+
+The politicians who make a lastin' success in politics are the men who
+are always loyal to their friends, even up to the gate of State prison,
+if necessary; men who keep their promises and never lie. Richard Croker
+used to say that tellin' the truth and stickin' to his friends was the
+political leader's stock in trade. Nobody ever said anything truer, and
+nobody lived up to it better than Croker. That is why he remained leader
+of Tammany Hall as long as he wanted to. Every man in the organization
+trusted him. Sometimes he made mistakes that hurt in campaigns, but they
+were always on the side of servin' his friends.
+
+It's the same with Charles F. Murphy. He has always stood by his friends
+even when it looked like he would be downed for doin' so. Remember how
+he stuck to McClellan in 1903 when all the Brooklyn leaders were against
+him, and it seemed as if Tammany was in for a grand smash-up! It's men
+like Croker and Murphy that stay leaders as long as they live; not men
+like Brutus and McManus.
+
+Now I want to tell you why political traitors, in New York City
+especially, are punished quick. It's because the Irish are in a
+majority. The Irish, above all people in the world, hates a traitor.
+You can't hold them back when a traitor of any kind is in sight and,
+rememberin' old Ireland, they take particular delight in doin' up a
+political traitor. Most of the voters in my district are Irish or of
+Irish descent; they've spotted "The" McManus, and when they get a chance
+at him at the polls next time, they won't do a thing to him.
+
+The question has been asked: Is a politician ever justified in going'
+back on his district leader? I answer: "No; as long as the leader
+hustles around and gets all the jobs possible for his constituents."
+When the voters elect a man leader, they make a sort of a contract with
+him. They say, although it ain't written out: "We've put you here to
+look out for our Interests. You want to see that this district gets all
+the jobs that's comm' to it. Be faithful to us, and we'll be faithful to
+you."
+
+The district leader promises and that makes a solemn contract. If he
+lives up to it, spends most of his time chasm' after places in the
+departments, picks up jobs from railroads and contractors for his
+followers, and shows himself in all ways a true statesman, then his
+followers are bound in honor to uphold him, just as they're bound to
+uphold the Constitution of the United States. But if he only looks after
+his own interests or shows no talent for scenting out jobs or ain't
+got the nerve to demand and get his share of the good things that are
+going', his followers may be absolved from their allegiance and they may
+up and swat him without bein' put down as political ingrates.
+
+
+
+Chapter 9. Reciprocity in Patronage
+
+WHENEVER Tammany is whipped at the polls, the people set to predictin'
+that the organization is going' to smash. They say we can't get along
+without the offices and that the district leaders are going' to desert
+wholesale. That was what was said after the throwdowns in 1894 and 1901.
+But it didn't happen, did it? Not one big Tammany man deserted, and
+today the organization is stronger than ever.
+
+How was that? It was because Tammany has more than one string to its
+bow.
+
+I acknowledge that you can't keep an organization together without
+patronage. Men ain't in politics for nothin'. They want to get somethin'
+out of it.
+
+But there is more than one kind of patronage. We lost the public kind,
+or a greater part of it, in 1901, but Tammany has an immense private
+patronage that keeps things going' when it gets a setback at the polls.
+
+Take me, for instance. When Low came in, some of my men lost public
+jobs, but I fixed them all right. I don't know how many jobs I got for
+them on the surface and elevated railroads--several hundred.
+
+I placed a lot more on public works done by contractors, and no Tammany
+man goes hungry in my district. Plunkitt's O.K. on an application for
+a job is never turned down, for they all know that Plunkitt and Tammany
+don't stay out long. See!
+
+Let me tell you, too, that I got jobs from Republicans in
+office--Federal and otherwise. When Tammany's on top I do good turns for
+the Republicans. When they're on top they don't forget me.
+
+Me and the Republicans are enemies just one day in the year--election
+day. Then we fight tooth and nail The rest of the time it's live and let
+live with us.
+
+On election day I try to pile up as big a majority as I can against
+George Wanmaker, the Republican leader of the Fifteenth. Any other day
+George and I are the best of friends. I can go to him and say: "George,
+I want you to place this friend of mine." He says: "Mi right, Senator."
+Or vice versa.
+
+You see, we differ on tariffs and currencies and all them things, but
+we agree on the main proposition that when a man works in politics, he
+should get something out of it.
+
+The politicians have got to stand together this way or there wouldn't
+be any political parties in a short time. Civil service would gobble up
+everything, politicians would be on the bum, the republic would fall and
+soon there would be the cry of "Vevey le roil".
+
+The very thought of this civil service monster makes my blood boil. I
+have said a lot about it already, but another instance of its awful work
+just occurs to me.
+
+Let me tell you a sad but true story. Last Wednesday a line of carriages
+wound into Cavalry Cemetery. I was in one of them. It was the funeral of
+a young man from my district--a bright boy that I had great hopes of.
+
+When he went to school, he was the most patriotic boy in the district.
+Nobody could sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" like him, nobody was as
+fond of waving a flag, and nobody shot off as many firecrackers on the
+Fourth of July. And when he grew up he made up his mind to serve his
+country in one of the city departments. There was no way of gettin'
+there without passin' a civil service examination. Well, he went down to
+the civil service office and tackled the fool questions. I saw him next
+day--it was Memorial Day, and soldiers were marchin' and flags flyin'
+and people cheerin'.
+
+Where was my young man? Standin' on the corner, scowlin' at the whole
+show. When I asked him why he was so quiet, he laughed in a wild sort of
+way and said: "What rot all this is!"
+
+Just then a band came along playing "Liberty." He laughed wild again and
+said: "Liberty? Rats!"
+
+I don't guess I need to make a long story of it.
+
+From the time that young man left the civil service office he lost all
+patriotism. He didn't care no more for his country. He went to the
+dogs.
+
+He ain't the only one. There's a gravestone over some bright young man's
+head for every one of them infernal civil service examinations. They
+are underminin' the manhood of the nation and makin' the Declaration
+of Independence a farce. We need a new Declaration of Independence,
+independence of the whole fool civil service business.
+
+I mention all this now to show why it is that the politicians of two big
+parties help each other along, and why Tammany men are tolerably happy
+when not in power in the city. When we win I won't let any deservin'
+Republican in my neighborhood suffer from hunger or thirst, although, of
+course, I look out for my own people first.
+
+Now, I've never gone in for nonpartisan business, but I do think that
+all the leaders of the two parties should get together and make an open,
+nonpartisan fight against civil service, their common enemy. They
+could keep up their quarrels about imperialism and free silver and high
+tariff. They don't count for much alongside of civil service, which
+strikes right at the root of the government. The time is fast coming
+when civil service or the politicians will have to go. And it will be
+here sooner than they expect if the politicians don't unite, drop all
+them minor issues for a while and make a stand against the civil service
+flood that's sweepin' over the country like them floods out West.
+
+
+
+Chapter 10. Brooklynites Natural-Born Hayseeds
+
+SOME people are wonderin' why it is that the Brooklyn Democrats have
+been sidin' with David B. Hill and the upstate crowd. There's no cause
+for wonder. I have made a careful study of the Brooklynite, and I can
+tell you why. It's because a Brooklynite is a natural-born hay. seed,
+and can never become a real New Yorker. He can't be trained into it.
+Consolidation didn't make him a New Yorker, and nothin' on earth can. A
+man born in Germany can settle down and become a good New Yorker. So
+can an Irishman; in fact, the first word an Irish boy learns in the old
+country is "New York," and when he grows up and comes here, he is at
+home right away. Even a <DW61> or a Chinaman can become a New Yorker, but a
+Brooklynite never can.
+
+And why? Because Brooklyn don't seem to be like any other place on
+earth. Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's cobblestones, with the
+odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there's
+no place in the world for him except Brooklyn. And even if he don't grow
+up there; if he is born there and lives there only in his boyhood and
+then moves away, he is still beyond redemption. In one of my speeches
+in the Legislature, I gave an example of this, and it's worth repeatin'
+now. Soon after I became a leader on the West Side, a quarter of a
+century ago, I came across a bright boy, about seven years old, who had
+just been brought over from Brooklyn by his parents. I took an interest
+in the boy, and when he grew up I brought him into politics. Finally, I
+sent him to the Assembly from my district Now remember that the boy was
+only seven years old when he left Brooklyn, and was twenty-three when he
+went to the Assembly. You'd think he had forgotten all about Brooklyn,
+wouldn't you? I did, but I was dead wrong. When that young fellow got
+into the Assembly he paid no attention to bills or debates about New
+York City. He didn't even show any interest in his own district. But
+just let Brooklyn be mentioned, or a bill be introduced about Gowanus
+Canal, or the Long Island Railroad, and he was all attention. Nothin'
+else on earth interested him.
+
+The end came when I caught him--what do you think I caught him at? One
+mornin' I went over from the Senate to the Assembly chamber, and there I
+found my young man readin'--actually readin' a Brooklyn newspaper!
+When he saw me comm' he tried to hide the paper, but it was too late.
+I caught him dead to rights, and I said to him: "Jimmy, I'm afraid
+New York ain't fascinatin' enough for you. You had better move back to
+Brooklyn after your present term." And he did. I met him the other day
+crossin' the Brooklyn Bridge, carryin' a hobbyhorse under one arm, and a
+doll's carriage under the other, and lookin' perfectly happy.
+
+McCarren and his men are the same way. They can't get it into their
+heads that they are New Yorkers, and just tend naturally toward
+supportin' Hill and his hay-seeds against Murphy. I had some hopes of
+McCarren till lately. He spends so much of his time over here and has
+seen so much of the world that I thought he might be an exception, and
+grow out of his Brooklyn surroundings, but his course at Albany shows
+that there is no exception to the rule. Say, I'd rather take a Hottentot
+in hand to bring up as a good New Yorker than undertake the job with a
+Brooklynite. Honest, I would.
+
+And, by the way, come to think of it, is there really any upstate
+Democrats left? It has never been proved to my satisfaction that there
+is any. I know that some upstate members of the State committee call
+themselves Democrats. Besides these, I know at least six more men above
+the Bronx who make a livin' out of professin' to be Democrats, and I
+have just heard of some few more. But if there is any real Democrats up
+the State, what becomes of them on election day? They certainly don't
+go near the polls or they vote the Republican ticket. Look at the last
+three State elections! Roosevelt piled up more than 100,000 majority
+above the Bronx; Odell piled up about 160,000 majority the first time
+he ran and 131,000 the second time. About all the Democratic votes cast
+were polled in New York City. The Republicans can get all the votes they
+want up the State. Even when we piled up 123,000 majority for Coler in
+the city In 1902, the Republicans went it 8000 better above the Bronx.
+
+That's why it makes me mad to hear about upstate Democrats controllin'
+our State convention, and sayin' who we shall choose for President.
+It's just like Staten Island undertakin' to dictate to a New York City
+convention. I remember once a Syracuse man came to Richard Croker at
+the Democratic Club, handed him a letter of introduction and said: "I'm
+lookin' for a job in the Street Cleanin' Department; I'm backed by a
+hundred upstate Democrats." Croker looked hard at the man a minute and
+then said: "Upstate Democrats! Upstate Democrats! I didn't know there
+was any upstate Democrats. Just walk up and down a while till I see what
+an upstate Democrat looks like."
+
+Another thing. When a campaign is on, did you ever hear of an upstate
+Democrat makin' a contribution? Not much. Tammany has had to foot the
+whole bill, and when any of Hill's men came down to New York to help
+him in the campaign, we had to pay their board. Whenever money is to be
+raised, there's nothin' doin' up the State. The Democrats there--always
+providin' that there is any Democrats there--take to the woods.
+Supposin' Tammany turned over the campaigns to the Hill men and then
+held off, what would happen? Why, they would have to hire a shed out in
+the suburbs of Albany for a headquarters, unless the Democratic National
+Committee put up for the campaign expenses. Tammany's got the votes and
+the cash. The Hill crowd's only got hot air.
+
+
+
+Chapter 11. Tammany Leaders Not Bookworms
+
+You hear a lot of talk about the Tammany district leaders bein'
+illiterate men. If illiterate means havin' common sense, we plead
+guilty. But if they mean that the Tammany leaders ain't got no education
+and ain't gents they don't know what they're talkin' about. Of course,
+we ain't all bookworms and college professors. If we were, Tammany might
+win an election once in four thousand years. Most of the leaders are
+plain American citizens, of the people and near to the people, and they
+have all the education they need to whip the dudes who part their name
+in the middle and to run the City Government. We've got bookworms, too,
+in the organization. But we don't make them district leaders. We keep
+them for ornaments on parade days.
+
+Tammany Hall is a great big machine, with every part adjusted delicate
+to do its own particular work. It runs so smooth that you wouldn't think
+it was a complicated affair, but it is. Every district leader is fitted
+to the district he runs and he wouldn't exactly fit any other district.
+That's the reason Tammany never makes the mistake the Fusion outfit
+always makes of sendin' men into the districts who don't know the
+people, and have no sympathy with their peculiarities--We don't put a
+silk stockin' on the Bowery, nor do we make a man who is handy with his
+fists leader of the Twenty-ninth. The Fusionists make about the same
+sort of a mistake that a repeater made at an election in Albany several
+years ago. He was hired to go to the polls early in a half-dozen
+election districts and vote on other men's names before these men
+reached the polls. At one place, when he was asked his name by the poll
+clerk, he had the nerve to answer "William Croswell Doane."
+
+"Come off. You ain't Bishop Doane," said the poll clerk.
+
+"The hell I ain't, you--I" yelled the repeater.
+
+Now, that is the sort of bad judgment the Fusionists are guilty of. They
+don't pick men to suit the work they have to do.
+
+Take me, for instance. My district, the Fifteenth, is made up of all
+sorts of people, and a cosmopolitan is needed to run it successful. I'm
+a cosmopolitan. When I get into the silk-stockin' part of the district,
+I can talk grammar and all that with the best of them. I went to school
+three winters when I was a boy, and I learned a lot of fancy stuff that
+I keep for occasions. There ain't a silk stockin' in the district who
+ain't proud to be seen talkin' with George Washington Plunkitt, and
+maybe they learn a thing or two from their talks with me. There's one
+man in the district, a big banker, who said to me one day: "George,
+you can sling the most vigorous English I ever heard. You remind me of
+Senator Hoar of Massachusetts." Of course, that was puttin' it on too
+thick; but say, honest, I like Senator Hoar's speeches. He once quoted
+in the United States Senate some of my remarks on the curse of civil
+service, and, though he didn't agree with me altogether, I noticed
+that our ideas are alike in some things, and we both have the knack of
+puttin' things strong, only he put on more frills to suit his audience.
+
+As for the common people of the district, I am at home with them at all
+times. When I go among them, I don't try to show off my grammar, or talk
+about the Constitution, or how many volts there is in electricity or
+make it appear in any way that I am better educated than they are. They
+wouldn't stand for that sort of thing. No; I drop all monkeyshines.
+So you see, I've got to be several sorts of a man in a single day, a
+lightnin' change artist, so to speak. But I am one sort of man always
+in one respect: I stick to my friends high and low, do them a good
+turn whenever I get a chance, and hunt up all the jobs going for my
+constituents. There ain't a man in New York who's got such a scent for
+political jobs as I have. When I get up in the mornin' I can almost
+tell every time whether a job has become vacant over night, and what
+department it's in and I'm the first man on the ground to get it. Only
+last week I turned up at the office of Water Register Savage at 9
+A.M. and told him I wanted a vacant place in his office for one of my
+constituents. "How did you know that O'Brien had got out?" he asked me.
+"I smelled it in the air when I got up this mornin'," I answered. Now,
+that was the fact. I didn't know there was a man in the department named
+O'Brien, much less that he had got out, but my scent led me to the Water
+Register's office, and it don't often lead me wrong.
+
+A cosmopolitan ain't needed in all the other districts, but our men are
+just the kind to rule. There's Dan Finn, in the Battery district, bluff,
+jolly Dan, who is now on the bench. Maybe you'd think that a court
+justice is not the man to hold a district like that, but you're
+mistaken. Most of the voters of the district are the janitors of the big
+office buildings on lower Broadway and their helpers. These janitors are
+the most dignified and haughtiest of men. Even I would have trouble in
+holding them. Nothin' less than a judge on the bench is good enough for
+them. Dan does the dignity act with the janitors, and when he is with
+the boys he hangs up the ermine in the closet and becomes a jolly good
+fellow.
+
+Big Tom Foley, leader of the Second District, fits in exactly, too. Tom
+sells whisky, and good whisky, and he is able to take care of himself
+against a half dozen thugs if he runs up against them on Cherry Hill or
+in Chatharn Square. Pat Ryder and Johnnie Ahearn of the Third and Fourth
+Districts are just the men for the places. Ahearn's constituents are
+about half Irishmen and half Jews. He is as popular with one race
+as with the other. He eats corned beef and kosher meat with equal
+nonchalance, and it's all the same to him whether he takes off his hat
+in the church or pulls it down over his ears in the synagogue.
+
+The other downtown leaders, Barney Martin of the Fifth, Tim Sullivan of
+the Sixth, Pat Keahon of the Seventh, Florrie Sullivan of the Eighth,
+Frank Goodwin of the Ninth, Julius Harburger of the Tenth, Pete Dooling
+of the Eleventh, Joe Scully of the Twelfth, Johnnie Oakley of the
+Fourteenth, and Pat Keenan of the Sixteenth are just built to suit the
+people they have to deal with. They don't go in for literary business
+much downtown, but these men are all real gents, and that's what the
+people want--even the poorest tenement dwellers. As you go farther
+uptown you find a rather different kind of district leader. There's
+Victor Dowling who was until lately the leader of the Twenty-fourth.
+He's a lulu. He knows the Latin grammar backward. What's strange, he's
+a sensible young fellow, too. About once in a century we come across
+a fellow like that in Tammany politics. James J. Martin, leader of the
+Twenty-seventh, is also something of a hightoner and publishes a law
+paper, while Thomas E. Rush, of the Twenty-ninth, is a lawyer, and Isaac
+Hopper, of the Thirty-first, is a big contractor. The downtown leaders
+wouldn't do uptown, and vice versa. So, you see, these fool critics
+don't know what they're talkin' about when they criticize Tammany Hall,
+the most perfect political machine on earth.
+
+
+
+Chapter 12. Dangers of the Dress Suit in Politics
+
+PUTIN' on style don't pay in politics. The people won't stand for it. If
+you've got an achin' for style, sit down on it till you have made your
+pile and landed a Supreme Court Justiceship with a fourteen-year term at
+$17,000 a year, or some job of that kind. Then you've got about all you
+can get out of politics, and you can afford to wear a dress suit all day
+and sleep in it all night if you have a mind to. But, before you have
+caught onto your life meal ticket, be simple. Live like your neighbors
+even if you have the means to live better. Make the poorest man in your
+district feel that he is your equal, or even a bit superior to you.
+
+Above all things, avoid a dress suit. You have no idea of the harm
+that dress suits have done in politics. They are not so fatal to young
+politicians as civil service reform and drink, but they have scores of
+victims. I will mention one sad case. After the big Tammany victory
+in 1897, Richard Croker went down to Lakewood to make up the slate of
+offices for Mayor Van Wyck to distribute. All the district leaders and
+many more Tammany men went down there, too, to pick up anything good
+that was goin.' There was nothin' but dress suits at dinner at Lakewood,
+and Croker wouldn't let any Tammany men go to dinner without them. Well,
+a bright young West Side politician, who held a three-thousan dollar job
+in one of the departments, went to Lakewood to ask Croker for something
+better. He wore a dress suit for the first time in his hie. It was his
+undoin'. He got stuck on himself. He thought he looked too beautiful for
+anything, and when he came home he was a changed man. As soon as he got
+to his house every evenin' he put on that dress Suit and set around in
+it until bedtime. That didn't satisfy him long. He wanted others to see
+how beautiful he was in a dress suit; so he joined dancin' clubs and
+began goin' to all the balls that was given in town. Soon he began
+to neglect his family. Then he took to drinkin', and didn't pay any
+attention to his political work in the district. The end came in less
+than a year. He was dismissed from the department and went to the dogs.
+The other day I met him rigged out almost like a hobo, but he still
+had a dress-suit vest on. When I asked him what he was doin', he said:
+"Nothin' at present, but I got a promise of a job enrollin' voters at
+Citizens' Union head-quarters." Yes, a dress Suit had brought him that
+low!
+
+I'll tell you another case right in my own Assembly District. A few
+years ago I had as one of my lieutenants a man named Zeke Thompson. He
+did fine work for me and I thought he had a bright future. One day he
+came to me, said he intended to buy an option on a house, and asked me
+to help him out. I like to see a young man acquirin' property and I had
+so much confidence in Zeke that I put up for him on the house.
+
+A month or so afterwards I heard strange rumors. People told me that
+Zeke was beginnin' to put on style. They said he had a billiard table in
+his house and had hired <DW61> servants. I couldn't believe it. The idea
+of a Democrat, a follower of George Washington Plunkitt in the Fifteenth
+Assembly District havin' a billiard table and <DW61> servants! One mornin'
+I called at the house to give Zeke a chance to clear himself. A <DW61>
+opened the door for me. I saw the billiard table--Zeke was guilty! When
+I got over the shock, I said to Zeke: "You are caught with the goods on.
+No excuses will go. The Democrats of this district ain't used to dukes
+and princes and we wouldn't feel comfortable in your company. You'd
+overpower us. You had better move up to the Nineteenth or Twenty-seventh
+District, and hang a silk stocking on your door." He went up to the
+Nineteenth, turned Republican, and was lookin' for an Albany job the
+last I heard of him.
+
+Now, nobody ever saw me puttin' on any style. I'm the same Plunkitt I
+was when I entered politics forty years ago. That is why the people of
+the district have confidence in me. If I went into the stylish business,
+even I, Plunkitt, might be thrown down in the district. That was shown
+pretty clearly in the senatorial fight last year. A day before the
+election, my enemies circulated a report that I had ordered a $10,000
+automobile and a $125 dress suit. I sent out contradictions as fast as
+I could, but I wasn't able to stamp out the infamous slander before the
+votin' was over, and I suffered some at the polls. The people wouldn't
+have minded much if I had been accused of robbin' the city treasury, for
+they're used to slanders of that kind in campaigns, but the automobile
+and the dress suit were too much for them.
+
+Another thing that people won't stand for is showin' off your learnin'.
+That's just puttin' on style in another way. If you're makin' speeches
+in a campaign, talk the language the people talk. Don't try to show how
+the situation is by quotin' Shakespeare. Shakespeare was all right in
+his way, but he didn't know anything about Fifteenth District politics.
+If you know Latin and Greek and have a hankerin' to work them off on
+somebody, hire a stranger to come to your house and listen to you for a
+couple of hours; then go out and talk the language of the Fifteenth to
+the people. I know it's an awful temptation, the hankerin' to show off
+your learnin'. I've felt it myself, but I always resist it. I know the
+awful consequences.
+
+
+
+Chapter 13. On Municipal Ownership
+
+I AM for municipal ownership on one condition: that the civil service
+law be repealed. It's a grand idea--the city the railroads, the gas
+works and all that. Just see how many thousands of new places there
+would be for the workers in Tammany. Why, there would be almost enough
+to go around, if no civil service law stood in the way. My plan is this:
+first get rid of that infamous law, and then go ahead and by degrees get
+municipal ownership.
+
+Some of the reformers are sayin' that municipal ownership won't do
+because it would give a lot of patronage to the politicians. How those
+fellows mix things up when they argue! They're givin' the strongest
+argument in favor of municipal ownership when they say that. Who is
+better fitted to run the railroads and the gas plants and the ferries
+than the men who make a business of lookin' after the interests of the
+city? Who is more anxious to serve the city? Who needs the jobs more?
+
+Look at the Dock Department! The city owns the docks, and how beautiful
+Tammany manages them! I can't tell you how many places they provide for
+our workers. I know there is a lot of talk about dock graft, but that
+talk comes from the outs. When the Republicans had the docks under Low
+and Strong, you didn't hear them sayin' anything about graft, did you?
+No; they' just went in and made hay while the sun shone--That's always
+the case. When the reformers are out they raise the yell that Tammany
+men should be sent to jail. When they get in, they're so busy keepin'
+out of jail themselves that they don't have no time to attack Tammany.
+
+All I want is that municipal ownership be postponed till I get my bill
+repealin' the civil service law before the next legislature. It would be
+all a mess if every man who wanted a job would have to run up against
+a civil service examination. For instance, if a man wanted a job as
+motorman on a surface car, it's ten to one that they would ask him: "Who
+wrote the Latin grammar, and, if so, why did he write it? How many years
+were you at college? Is there any part of the Greek language you don't
+know? State all you don't know, and why you don't know it. Give a list
+of all the sciences with full particulars about each one and how it came
+to be discovered. Write out word for word the last ten decisions of the
+United States Supreme Court and show if they conflict with the last ten
+decisions of the police courts of New York City."
+
+Before the would-be motorman left the civil service room, the chances
+are he would be a raving lunatic Anyhow I wouldn't like to ride on his
+car. Just here I want to say one last final word about civil service.
+In the last ten years I have made an investigation which I've kept quiet
+till this time. Now I have all the figures together, and I'm ready to
+announce the result. My investigation was to find out how many civil
+service reformers and how many politicians were in state prisons. I
+discovered that there was forty per cent more civil service reformers
+among the jailbirds. If any legislative committee wants the detailed
+figures, I'll prove what I say. I don't want to give the figures now,
+because I want to keep them to back me up when I go to Albany to get
+the civil service law repealed. Don't you think that when I've had my
+inning, the civil service law will go down, and the people will see that
+the politicians are all right, and that they ought to have the job of
+runnin' things when municipal ownership comes?
+
+One thing more about municipal ownership. If the city owned the
+railroads, etc., salaries would be sure to go up. Higher salaries is
+the cryin' need of the day. Municipal ownership would increase them all
+along the line and would stir up such patriotism as New York City never
+knew before. You can't be patriotic on a salary that just keeps the wolf
+from the door. Any man who pretends he can will bear watchin'. Keep your
+hand on your watch and pocketbook when he's about. But, when a man has
+a good fat salary, he finds himself hummin' "Hail Columbia," all
+unconscious and he fancies, when he's ridin' in a trolley car, that the
+wheels are always sayin': "Yankee Doodle Came to Town." I know how it is
+myself. When I got my first good job from the city I bought up all the
+firecrackers in my district to salute this glorious country. I couldn't
+wait for the Fourth of July 1 got the boys on the block to fire them
+off for me, and I felt proud of bein' an American. For a long time after
+that I use to wake up nights singin' "The Star-Spangled Banner."
+
+
+
+Chapter 14. Tammany the Only Lastin' Democracy
+
+I've seen more than one hundred "Democracies" rise and fall in New
+York City in the last quarter of a century. At least a half-dozen new
+so-called Democratic organizations are formed every year. All of them go
+in to down Tammany and take its place, but they seldom last more than
+a year or two, while Tammany's like the everlastin' rocks, the eternal
+hills and the blockades on the "L" road--it goes on forever.
+
+I recall offhand the County Democracy, which was the only real opponent
+Tammany has had in my time, the Irving Hall Democracy, the New
+York State Democracy, the German-American Democracy, the Protection
+Democracy, the Independent County Democracy, the Greater New York
+Democracy, the Jimmy O'Brien Democracy, the Delicatessen Dealers'
+Democracy, the Silver Democracy, and the Italian Democracy. Not one of
+them is livin' today, although I hear somethin' about the ghost of the
+Greater New York Democracy bein' seen on Broadway once or twice a year.
+
+In the old days of the County Democracy, a new Democratic organization
+meant some trouble for Tammany--for a time anyhow. Nowadays a new
+Democracy means nothin' at all except that about a dozen bone-hunters
+have got together for one campaign only to try to induce Tammany to give
+them a job or two, or in order to get in with the reformers for the same
+purpose. You might think that it would cost a lot of money to get up
+one of these organizations and keep it goin' for even one campaign,
+but, Lord bless you! it costs next to nothin'. Jimmy O'Brien brought the
+manufacture of "Democracies" down to an exact science, and reduced the
+cost of production so as to bring it within the reach of all. Any man
+with $50 can now have a "Democracy" of his own.
+
+I've looked into the industry, and can give rock-bottom figures. Here's
+the items of cost of a new "Democracy
+
+     A dinner to twelve bone-hunters                          $12.00
+     A speech on Jeffersonian Democracy                        00.00
+     A proclamation of principles (typewriting)                 2.00
+     Rent of a small room one month for headquarters           12.00
+     Stationery                                                 2.00
+     Twelve secondhand chairs                                   6.00
+     One secondhand table                                       2.00
+     Twenty-nine cuspidors                                      9.00
+     Sign painting                                              5.00
+     Total                                                     ------
+                                                              $50.00
+
+Is there any reason for wonder, then, that "Democracies" spring up all
+over when a municipal campaign is comm' on? If you land even one small
+job, you get a big return on your investment. You don't have to pay for
+advertisin' in the papers. The New York papers tumble over one another
+to give columns to any new organization that comes out against Tammany.
+In describin' the formation of a "Democracy" on the $50 basis, accordin'
+to the items I give, the papers would say somethin' like this: "The
+organization of the Delicatessen Democracy last night threatens the
+existence of Tammany Hall. It is a grand move for a new and pure
+Democracy in this city. Well may the Tammany leaders be alarmed; panic
+has already broke loose in Fourteenth Street. The vast crowd that
+gathered at the launching of the new organization, the stirrin' speeches
+and the proclamation of principles mean that, at last, there is an
+uprisin' that will end Tammany's career of corruption. The Delicatessen
+Democracy will open in a few days spacious headquarters where all true
+Democrats may gather and prepare for the fight."
+
+Say, ain't some of the papers awful gullible about politics? Talk
+about come-ons from Iowa or Texas they ain't in it with the childlike
+simplicity of these papers.
+
+It's a wonder to me that more men don't go into this kind of
+manufacturin' industry. It has bigger profits generally than the
+green-goods business and none of the risks. And you don't have to invest
+as much as the green-goods men. Just see what good things some of these
+"Democracies" got in the last few years! The New York State Democracy in
+1897 landed a Supreme Court Justiceship for the man who manufactured the
+concern--a fourteen-year term at $17,500 a year, that is $245,000. You
+see, Tammany was rather scared that year and was bluffed into givin'
+this job to get the support of the State Democracy which, by the way,
+went out of business quick and prompt the day after it got this big
+plum. The next year the German Democracy landed a place of the same
+kind. And then see how the Greater New York Democracy worked the game
+on the reformers in 1901! The men who managed this concern were former
+Tammanyites who had lost their grip; yet they made the Citizens' Union
+innocents believe that they were the real thing in the way of reformers,
+and that they had 100,000 voter back of them. They got the Borough
+President of Manhattan, the President of the Board of Aldermen, the
+Register and a lot of lesser places, it was the greatest bunco game of
+modern times.
+
+And then, in 1894, when Strong was elected mayor, what a harvest it
+was for all the little "Democracies", that was made to order that year!
+Every one of them got somethin' good. In one case, all the nine men in
+an organization got jobs payin' from $2000 to $5000. I happen to know
+exactly what it cost to manufacture that organization. It was $42.04.
+They left out the stationery, and had only twenty-three cuspidors. The
+extra four cents was for two postage stamps.
+
+The only reason I can imagine why more men don't go into this industry
+is because they don't know about it. And just here it strikes me that
+it might not be wise to publish what I've said. Perhaps if it gets to
+be known what a snap this manufacture of "Democracies" is, all the
+green-goods men, the bunco-steerers, and the young Napoleons of finance
+will go into it and the public will be humbugged more than it has been.
+But, after all, what difference would it make? There's always a certain
+number of suckers and a certain number of men lookin' for a chance to
+take them in, and the suckers are sure to be took one way or another.
+It's the everlastin' law of demand and supply.
+
+
+
+Chapter 15. Concerning Gas in Politics
+
+SINCE the eighty-cent gas bill was defeated in Albany, everybody's
+talkin' about senators bein' bribed. Now, I wasn't in the Senate last
+session, and I don't know the ins and outs of everything that was done,
+but I can tell you that the legislators are often hauled over the coals
+when they are all on the level I've been there and I know. For instance,
+when I voted in the Senate in 1904, for the Remsen Bill that the
+newspapers called the "Astoria Gas Grab Bill," they didn't do a thing to
+me. The papers kept up a howl about all the supporters of the bill bein'
+bought up by the Consolidated Gas Company, and the Citizens' Union
+did me the honor to call me the commander-in-chief of the "Black Horse
+Cavalry."
+
+The fact is that I was workin' for my district all this time, and I
+wasn't bribed by nobody. There's several of these gashouses in the
+district, and I wanted to get them over to Astoria for three reasons:
+first, because they're nuisances; second, because there's no votes in
+them for me any longer; third, because--well, I had a little private
+reason which I'll explain further on. I needn't explain how they're
+nuisances. They're worse than open sewers. Still, I might have stood
+that if they hadn't degenerated so much in the last few years.
+
+Ah, gashouses ain't what they used to be! Not very long ago, each
+gashouse was good for a couple of hundred votes. All the men employed in
+them were Irishmen and Germans who lived in the district. Now, it is
+all different. The men are <DW55>s who live across in Jersey and take
+no interest in the district. What's the use of havin' ill-smellin'
+gashouses if there's no votes in them?
+
+Now, as to my private reason. Well, I'm a business man and go in for
+any business that's profitable and honest. Real estate is one of my
+specialties. I know the value of every foot of ground in my district,
+and I calculated long ago that if them gashouses was removed,
+surroundin' property would go up 100 per cent. When the Remsen Bill,
+providin' for the removal of the gashouses to Queens County came up. I
+said to myself: "George, hasn't your chance come?" I answered: "Sure."
+Then I sized up the chances of the bill. I found it was certain to
+pass the Senate and the Assembly, and I got assurances straight from
+headquarters that Governor Odell would sign it. Next I came down to the
+city to find out the mayor's position. I got it straight that he would
+approve the bill, too.
+
+Can't you guess what I did then? Like any sane man who had my
+information, I went in and got options on a lot of the property around
+the gashouses. Well, the bill went through the Senate and the Assembly
+all right and the mayor signed it, but Odell backslided at the last
+minute and the whole game fell through. If it had succeeded, I guess I
+would have been accused of graftin'. What I want to know is, what do you
+call it when I got left and lost a pot of money?
+
+I not only lost money, but I was abused for votin' for the bill. Wasn't
+that outrageous? They said I was in with the Consolidated Gas Company
+and all other kinds of rot, when I was really only workin' for my
+district and tryin' to turn an honest penny on the side. Anyhow I got
+a little fun out of the business. When the Remsen Bill was up, I was
+tryin' to put through a bill of my own, the Spuyten Duyvil Bill, which
+provided for fillin' in some land under water that the New York Central
+Railroad wanted. Well, the Remsen managers were afraid of bein'
+beaten and they went around offerin' to make trades with senators and
+assemblymen who had bills they were anxious to pass. They came to me and
+offered six votes for my Spuyten Duyvil Bill in exchange for my vote on
+the Remsen Bill. I took them up in a hurry, and they felt pretty sore
+afterwards when they heard I was goin' to vote for the Remsen Bill
+anyhow.
+
+A word about that Spuyten Duyvil Bill--I was criticized a lot for
+introducin' it. They said I was workin' in the interest of the New York
+Central, and was goin' to get the contract for fillin' in. The fact is,
+that the fillin' in was a good thing for the city, and if it helped
+the New York Central, too, what of it? The railroad is a great public
+institution, and I was never an enemy of public institutions. As to the
+contract, it hasn't come along yet. If it does come, it will find me at
+home at all proper and reasonable hours, if there is a good profit in
+sight.
+
+The papers and some people are always ready to find wrong motives
+in what us statesmen do. If we bring about some big improvement that
+benefits the city and it just happens, as a sort of coincidence, that we
+make a few dollars out of the improvement, they say we are grafters.
+But we are used to this kind of ingratitude. It falls to the lot of all
+statesmen, especially Tammany statesmen. All we can do is to bow our
+heads in silence and wait till time has cleared our memories.
+
+Just think of mentionin' dishonest graft in connection with the name of
+George Washington Plunkitt, the man who gave the city its magnificent
+chain of parks, its Washington Bridge, its Speedway, its Museum of
+Natural History, its One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street Viaduct and its
+West Side Courthouse! 1 was the father of the bills that provided for
+all these; yet, because I supported the Remsen and Spuyten Duyvil bills,
+some people have questioned my honest motives. If that's the case, how
+can you expect legislators to fare who are not the fathers of the parks,
+the Washington Bridge, the Speedway and the Viaduct?
+
+Now, understand; I ain't defendin' the senators who killed the
+eighty-cent gas bill. I don't know why they acted as they did; I only
+want to impress the idea to go slow before you make up your mind that a
+man, occupyin' the exalted position that 1 held for so many years, has
+done wrong. For all I know, these senators may have been as honest and
+high minded about the gas bill as I was about the Remsen and Spuyten
+Duyvil bills.
+
+
+
+Chapter 16. Plunkitt's Fondest Dream
+
+The time is comm' and though I'm no youngster, I may see it, when New
+York City will break away from the State and become a state itself. It's
+got to come. The feelin' between this city and the hayseeds that make
+a livin' by plunderin' it is every bit as bitter as the feelin' between
+the North and South before the war. And, let me tell you, if there ain't
+a peaceful separation before long, we may have the horrors of civil war
+right here in New York State. Why, I know a lot of men in my district
+who would like nothin' better today than to go out gunnin' for hayseeds!
+
+New York City has got a bigger population than most of the states in the
+Union. It's got more wealth than any dozen of them. Yet the people here,
+as I explained before, are nothin' but slaves of the Albany gang. We
+have stood the slavery a long, long time, but the uprisin' is near at
+hand. It will be a fight for liberty, just like the American Revolution.
+We'll get liberty peacefully if we can; by cruel war if we must.
+
+Just think how lovely things would be here if we had a Tammany Governor
+and Legislature meetin', say in the neighborhood of Fifty-ninth Street,
+and a Tammany Mayor and Board of Aldermen doin' business in City Hall!
+How sweet and peaceful everything would go on!
+
+The people wouldn't have to bother about nothin'. Tammany would take
+care of everything for them in its nice quiet way. You wouldn't hear of
+any conflicts between the state and city authorities. They would settle
+everything pleasant and comfortable at Tammany Hall, and every bill
+introduced in the Legislature by Tammany would be sure to go through.
+The Republicans wouldn't count.
+
+Imagine how the city would be built up in a short time! At present we
+can't make a public improvement of any consequence without goin' to
+Albany for permission, and most of the time we get turned down when we
+go there. But, with a Tammany Governor and Legislature up at Fifty-ninth
+Street, how public works would hum here! The Mayor and Aldermen could
+decide on an improvement, telephone the Capitol, have a bill put through
+in a jiffy and--there you are. We could have a state constitution, too,
+which would extend the debt limit so that we could issue a whole lot
+more bonds. As things are now, all the money spent for docks, for
+instance, is charged against the city in calculatin' the debt limit,
+although the Dock Department provides immense revenues. It's the same
+with some other departments. This humbug would be dropped if Tammany
+ruled at the Capitol and the City Hall, and the city would have money to
+burn.
+
+Another thing--the constitution of the new state wouldn't have a word
+about civil service, and if any man dared to introduce any kind of a
+civil service bill in the Legislature, he would be fired out the window.
+Then we would have government of the people by the people who were
+elected to govern them. That's the kind of government Lincoln meant. 0
+what a glorious future for the city! Whenever I think of it I feel like
+goin' out and celebratin', and I'm really almost sorry that I don't
+drink.
+
+You may ask what would become of the upstate people if New York City
+left them in the lurch and went into the State business on its own
+account. Well, we wouldn't be under no obligation to provide for them;
+still I would be in favor of helpin' them along for a while until they
+could learn to work and earn an honest livin', just like the United
+States Government looks after the Indians. These hayseeds have been so
+used to livin' off of New York City that they would be helpless after we
+left them. It wouldn't do to let them starve. We might make some sort
+of an appropriation for them for a few years, but it would be with the
+distinct understandin' that they must get busy right away and learn
+to support themselves. If, after say five years, they weren't
+self-supportin', we could withdraw the appropriation and let them shift
+for themselves. The plan might succeed and it might not. We'd be doin'
+our duty anyhow.
+
+Some persons might say: "But how about it if the hayseed politicians
+moved down here and went in to get control of the government of the new
+state?" We could provide against that easy by passin' a law that these
+politicians couldn't come below the Bronx without a sort of passport
+limitin' the time of their stay here, and forbiddin' them to monkey with
+politics here. I don't know just what kind of a bill would be required
+to fix this, but with a Tammany Constitution, Governor, Legislature and
+Mayor, there would be no trouble in settlin' a little matter of that
+sort.
+
+Say, I don't wish I was a poet, for if I was, I guess I'd be livin' in
+a garret on no dollars a week instead of runnin' a great contractin'
+and transportation business which is doin' pretty well, thank you;
+but, honest, now, the notion takes me sometimes to yell poetry of the
+red-hot-hail-glorious-land kind when I think of New York City as a state
+by itself.
+
+
+
+Chapter 17. Tammany's Patriotism
+
+TAMMANY's the most patriotic organization on earth, notwithstandin' the
+fact that the civil service law is sappin' the foundations of patriotism
+all over the country. Nobody pays any attention to the Fourth of July
+any longer except Tammany and the small boy. When the Fourth comes, the
+reformers, with Revolutionary names parted in the middle, run off
+to Newport or the Adirondacks to get out of the way of the noise and
+everything that reminds them of the glorious day. How different it is
+with Tammany! The very constitution of the Tammany Society requires that
+we must assemble at the wigwam on the Fourth, regardless of the weather,
+and listen to the readin' of the Declaration of Independence and
+patriotic speeches.
+
+You ought to attend one of these meetin's. They're a liberal education
+in patriotism. The great hall upstairs is filled with five thousand
+people, suffocatin' from heat and smoke. Every man Jack of these five
+thousand knows that down in the basement there's a hundred cases of
+champagne and two hundred kegs of beer ready to flow when the signal is
+given. Yet that crowd stick to their seats without turnin' a hair
+while, for four solid hours, the Declaration of Independence is read,
+long-winded orators speak, and the glee dub sings itself hoarse.
+
+Talk about heroism in the battlefield! That comes and passes away in a
+moment. You ain't got time to be anything but heroic. But just think of
+five thousand men sittin' in the hottest place on earth for four long
+hours, with parched lips and gnawin' stomachs, and knowin' all the
+time that the delights of the oasis in the desert were only two flights
+downstairs! Ah, that is the highest kind of patriotism, the patriotism
+of long sufferin' and endurance. What man wouldn't rather face a cannon
+for a minute or two than thirst for four hours, with champagne and beer
+almost under his nose?
+
+And then see how they applaud and yell when patriotic things are said!
+As soon as the man on the platform starts off with "when, in the
+course of human events," word goes around that it's the Declaration of
+Independence, and a mighty roar goes up. The Declaration ain't a very
+short document and the crowd has heard it on every Fourth but they give
+it just as fine a send off as if it was brand-new and awful excitin'.
+Then the "long talkers" get in their work, that is two or three orators
+who are good for an hour each. Heat never has any effect on these men.
+They use every minute of their time. Sometimes human nature gets the
+better of a man in the audience and he begins to nod, but he always
+wakes up with a hurrah for the Declaration of Independence.
+
+The greatest hero of the occasion is the Grand Sachem of the Tammany
+Society who presides. He and the rest of us Sachems come on the stage
+wearin' stovepipe hats, accordin' to the constitution, but we can shed
+ours right off, while the Grand Sachem is required to wear his hat all
+through the celebration. Have you any idea what that means? Four hours
+under a big silk hat in a hall where the heat registers 110 and the
+smoke 250! And the Grand Sachem is expected to look pleasant all the
+time and say nice things when introducin' the speakers! Often his hand
+goes to his hat, unconscious-like, then he catches himself up in time
+and looks around like a man who is in the tenth story of a burnin'
+building' seekin' a way to escape. I believe that Fourth-of-July silk
+hat shortened the life of one of our Grand Sachems, the late Supreme
+Court Justice Smyth, and I know that one of our Sachems refused the
+office of Grand Sachem because he couldn't get up sufficient patriotism
+to perform this four-hour hat act. You see, there's degrees of
+patriotism just as there's degrees in everything else.
+
+You don't hear of the Citizens' Union people holdin' Fourth-of-July
+celebrations under a five-pound silk hat, or any other way, do you? The
+Cits take the Fourth like a dog I had when I was a boy. That dog knew
+as much as some Cits and he acted just like them about the glorious day.
+Exactly forty-eight hours before each Fourth of July, the dog left our
+house on a run and hid himself in the Bronx woods. The day after the
+Fourth he turned up at home as regular as clockwork. He must have known
+what a dog is up against on the Fourth. Anyhow, he kept out of the way.
+The name-parted-in-the-middle aristocrats act in just the same way.
+They don't want to be annoyed with firecrackers and the Declaration of
+Independence, and when they see the Fourth comm' they hustle off to the
+woods like my dog.
+
+Tammany don't only show its patriotism at Fourth-of-July celebrations.
+It's always on deck when the country needs its services. After the
+Spanish-American War broke Out, John J. Scannell, the Tammany leader of
+the Twenty-fifth District, wrote to Governor Black offerin' to raise a
+Tammany regiment to go to the front. If you want proof, go to Tammany
+Hall and see the beautiful set of engrossed resolutions about this
+regiment. It's true that the Governor didn't accept the offer, but it
+showed Tammany's patriotism. Some enemies of the organization have said
+that the offer to raise the regiment was made after the Governor let
+it be known that no more volunteers were wanted, but that's the talk of
+envious slanderers.
+
+Now, a word about Tammany's love for the American flag. Did you ever
+see Tammany Hall decorated for a celebration? It's just a mass of flags.
+They even take down the window shades and put flags in place of them.
+There's flags everywhere except on the floors. We don't care for expense
+where the American flag is concerned, especially after we have won an
+election. In 1904 we originated the custom of givin' a small flag to
+each man as he entered Tammany Hall for the Fourth-of-July celebration.
+It took like wildfire. The men waved their flags whenever they cheered
+and the sight made me feel so patriotic that I forgot all about civil
+service for a while. And the good work of the flags didn't stop there.
+The men carried them home and gave them to the children, and the kids
+got patriotic, too. Of course, it all cost a pretty penny, but what of
+that? We had won at the polls the precedin' November, had the offices
+and could afford to make an extra investment in patriotism.
+
+
+
+Chapter 18. On the Use of Money in Politics
+
+THE civil service gang is always howlin' about candidates and
+officeholders puttin' up money for campaigns and about corporations
+chippin' in. They might as well howl about givin' contributions to
+churches. A political organization has to have money for its business as
+well as a church, and who has more right to put up than the men who get
+the good things that are goin'? Take, for instance, a great political
+concern like Tammany Hall It does missionary work like a church, it's
+got big expenses and it's got to be supported by the faithful. If
+a corporation sends in a check to help the good work of the Tammany
+Society, why shouldn't we take it like other missionary societies? Of
+course, the day may come when we'll reject the money of the rich as
+tainted, but it hadn't come when I left Tammany Hall at 11:25 A.M.
+today.
+
+Not long ago some newspapers had fits became the Assemblyman from my
+district said he had put up $500 when he was nominated for the Assembly
+last year. Every politician in town laughed at these papers. I don't
+think there was even a Citizens' Union man who didn't know that
+candidates of both parties have to chip in for campaign expenses. The
+sums they pay are accordin' to their salaries and the length of their
+terms of office, if elected. Even candidates for the Supreme Court have
+to fall in line. A Supreme Court Judge in New York County gets $17,500
+a year, and he's expected, when nominated, to help along the good cause
+with a year's salary. Why not? He has fourteen years on the bench ahead
+of him, and ten thousand other lawyers would be willin' to put up
+twice as much to be in his shoes. Now, I ain't sayin' that we sell
+nominations. That's a different thing altogether. There's no auction
+and no regular biddin'. The man is picked out and somehow he gets to
+understand what's expected of him in the way of a contribution, and he
+ponies up--all from gratitude to the organization that honored him, see?
+
+Let me tell you an instance that shows the difference between sellin'
+nominations and arrangin' them in the way I described. A few years ago a
+Republican district leader controlled the nomination for Congress in his
+Congressional district. Four men wanted it. At first the leader asked
+for bids privately, but decided at last that the best thing to do was to
+get the four men together in the back room of a certain saloon and have
+an open auction. When he had his men lined up, he got on a chair, told
+about the value of the goods for sale, and asked for bids in regular
+auctioneer style. The highest bidder got the nomination for $5000. Now,
+that wasn't right at all. These things ought to be always fixed up nice
+and quiet.
+
+As to officeholders, they would be ingrates if they didn't contribute to
+the organization that put them in office. They needn't be assessed. That
+would be against the law. But they know what's expected of them, and
+if they happen to forget they can be reminded polite and courteous.
+Dan Donegan, who used to be the Wiskinkie of the Tammany Society, and
+received contributions from grateful officeholders, had a pleasant way
+of remindin'. If a man forgot his duty to the organization that made
+him, Dan would call on the man, smile as sweet as you please and say:
+"You haven't been round at the Hall lately, have you?" If the man tried
+to slide around the question, Dan would say: "It's gettin' awful cold."
+Then he would have a fit of shiverin' and walk away. What could be
+more polite and, at the same time, more to the point? No force, no
+threats--only a little shiverin' which any man is liable to even in
+summer.
+
+Just here, I want to charge one more crime to the infamous civil service
+law. It has made men turn ungrateful. A dozen years ago, when there
+wasn't much civil service business in the city government, and when
+the administration could turn out almost any man holdin' office, Dan's
+shiver took effect every time and there was no ingratitude in the city
+departments. But when the civil service law came in and all the clerks
+got lead-pipe cinches on their jobs, ingratitude spread right away.
+Dan shivered and shook till his bones rattled, but many of the city
+employees only laughed at him. One day, I remember, he tackled a clerk
+in the Public Works Department, who used to give up pretty regular, and,
+after the usual question, began to shiver. The clerk smiled. Dan shook
+till his hat fell off. The clerk took ten cents out of his pocket,
+handed it to Dan and said: "Poor man! Go and get a drink to warm
+yourself up." Wasn't that shameful? And yet, if it hadn't been for the
+civil service law, that clerk would be contributin' right along to this
+day.
+
+The civil service law don't cover everything, however. There's lots of
+good jobs outside its clutch, and the men that get them are grateful
+every time. I'm not speakin' of Tammany Hall alone, remember! It's the
+same with the Republican Federal and State officeholders, and every
+organization that has or has had jobs to give out--except, of course,
+the Citizens' Union. The Cits held office only a couple of years and,
+knowin' that they would never be in again, each Cit officeholder held on
+for dear life to every dollar that came his way.
+
+Some people say they can't understand what becomes of all the money
+that's collected for campaigns. They would understand fast enough if
+they were district lead-em. There's never been half enough money to go
+around. Besides the expenses for meetin's, bands and all that, there's
+the bigger bill for the district workers who get men to the polls. These
+workers are mostly men who want to serve their country but can't get
+jobs in the city departments on account of the civil service law. They
+do the next best thing by keepin' track of the voters and seem' that
+they come to the polls and vote the right way. Some of these deservin'
+citizens have to make enough on registration and election days to keep
+them the rest of the year. Isn't it right that they should get a share
+of the campaign money?
+
+Just remember that there's thirty-five Assembly districts in New York
+County, and thirty-six district leaders reachin' out for the Tammany
+dough-bag for somethin' to keep up the patriotism of ten thousand
+workers, and you wouldn't wonder that the cry for more, more, is goin'
+up from every district organization now and forevermore. Amen.
+
+
+
+Chapter 19. The Successful Politician Does Not Drink
+
+I HAVE explained how to succeed in politics. I want to add that no
+matter how well you learn to play the political game, you won't make a
+lastin' success of it if you're a drinkin' man. I never take a drop
+of any kind of intoxicatin' liquor. I ain't no fanatic. Some of the
+saloonkeepers are my best friends, and I don't mind goin' into a saloon
+any day with my friends. But as a matter of business I leave whisky and
+beer and the rest of that stuff alone. As a matter of business, too, I
+take for my lieutenants in my district men who don't drink. I tried the
+other kind for several years, but it didn't pay. They cost too much. For
+instance, I had a young man who was one of the best hustlers in town. He
+knew every man in the district, was popular everywhere and could induce
+a half-dead man to come to the polls on election day. But, regularly,
+two weeks before election, he started on a drunk, and I had to hire two
+men to guard him day and night and keep him sober enough to do his work.
+That cost a lot of money, and I dropped the young man after a while.
+
+Maybe you think I'm unpopular with the saloonkeepers because 1 don't
+drink. You're wrong. The most successful saloonkeepers don't drink
+themselves and they understand that my temperance is a business
+proposition, just like their own. I have a saloon under my headquarters.
+If a saloonkeeper gets into trouble he always knows that Senator
+Plunkitt is the man to help him out. If there is a bill in the
+Legislature makin' it easier for the liquor dealers, I am for it every
+time. I'm one of the best friends the saloon men have--but I don't drink
+their whisky. I won't go through the temperance lecture dodge and tell
+you how many' bright young men I've seen fall victims to intemperance,
+but I'll tell you that I could name dozens--young men who had started on
+the road to statesmanship who could carry their districts every time,
+and who could turn out any vote you wanted at the primaries. I honestly
+believe that drink is the greatest curse of the day, except, of course.
+civil service, and that it has driven more young men to ruin than
+anything except civil service examinations.
+
+Look at the great leaders of Tammany Hall! No regular drinkers among
+them. Richard Croker's strongest drink was vichy. Charlie Murphy takes
+a glass of wine at dinner sometimes, but he don't go beyond that A
+drinkin' man wouldn't last two weeks as leader of Tammany Hall. Nor can
+a man manage an assembly district long if he drinks. He's got to have
+a clear head all the time. I could name ten men who, in the last few
+years lost their grip in their districts because they began drinkin'.
+There's now thirty-six district leaders in Tammany Hall, and I don't
+believe a half-dozen of them ever drink anything except at meals. People
+have got an idea that because the liquor men are with us in campaigns.
+our district leaders spend most of their time leanin' against bars.
+There couldn't be a wronger idea. The district leader makes a business
+of politics, gets his livin' out of it, and, in order to succeed, he's
+got to keep sober just like in any other business.
+
+Just take as examples "Big Tim" and "Little Tim" Sullivan. They're known
+all over the country as the Bowery leaders and, as there's nothin' but
+saloons on the Bowery, people might think that they are hard drinkers.
+The fact is that neither of them has ever touched a drop of liquor in
+his life of even smoked a cigar. Still they don't make no pretenses
+of being better than anybody else, and don't go around deliverin'
+temperance lectures. Big Tim made money out of liquor--sellin' it to
+other people. That's the only way to get good out of liquor.
+
+Look at all the Tammany heads of city departments? There's not a real
+drinkin' man in the lot. Oh, yes, there are some prominent men in the
+organization who drink sometimes, but they are not the men who have
+power. They're ornaments, fancy speakers and all that, who make a fine
+show behind the footlights, but am I in it when it comes to directin'
+the city government and the Tammany organization. The men who sit in the
+executive committee room at Tammany Hall and direct things are men
+who celebrate on apollinaris or vichy. Let me tell you what I saw on
+election night in 1897, when the Tammany ticket swept the city: Up to 10
+P.M. Croker, John F. Carroll, Tim Sullivan, Charlie Murphy, and myself
+sat in the committee room receivin' returns. When nearly all the city
+was heard from and we saw that Van Wyck was elected by a big majority,
+I invited the crowd to go across the street for a little celebration.
+A lot of small politicians followed us, expectin' to see magnums of
+champagne opened. The waiters in the restaurant expected it, too, and
+you never saw a more disgusted lot of waiters when they got our orders.
+Here's the orders: Croker, vichy and bicarbonate of soda; Carroll,
+seltzer lemonade; Sullivan, apollinaris; Murphy, vichy; Plunkitt, ditto.
+Before midnight we were all in bed, and next mornin' we were up bright
+and early attendin' to business, while other men were nursin' swelled
+heads. Is there anything the matter with temperance as a pure business
+proposition?
+
+
+
+Chapter 20. Bosses Preserve the Nation
+
+WHEN I retired from the Senate, I thought I would take a good, long
+rest, such a rest as a man needs who has held office for about forty
+years, and has held four different offices in one year and drawn
+salaries from three of them at the same time. Drawin' so many salaries
+is rather fatiguin', you know, and, as I said, I started out for a rest;
+but when I seen how things were goin' in New York State, and how a
+great big black shadow hung over us, I said to myself: "No rest for
+you, George. Your work ain't done. Your country still needs you and you
+mustn't lay down yet."
+
+What was the great big black shadow? It was the primary election law,
+amended so as to knock out what are called the party bosses by lettin'
+in everybody at the primaries and givin' control over them to state
+officials. Oh, yes, that is a good way to do up the so-called bosses,
+but have you ever thought what would become of the country if the
+bosses were put out of business, and their places were taken by a lot of
+cart-tail orators and college graduates? It would mean chaos. It would
+be just like takin' a lot of dry-goods clerks and settin' them to run
+express trains on the New York Central Railroad. It makes my heart bleed
+to think of it. Ignorant people are always talkin' against party bosses,
+but just wait till the bosses are gone! Then, and not until then, will
+they get the right sort of epitaphs, as Patrick Henry or Robert Emmet
+said.
+
+Look at the bosses of Tammany Hall in the last twenty years. What
+magnificent men! To them New York City owes pretty much all it is
+today. John Kelly, Richard Croker, and Charles F. Murphy--what names in
+American history compares with them, except Washington and Lincoln? They
+built up the grand Tammany organization, and the organization built up
+New York. Suppose the city had to depend for the last twenty years on
+irresponsible concerns like the Citizens' Union, where would it be
+now? You can make a pretty good guess if you recall the Strong and Low
+administrations when there was no boss, and the heads of departments
+were at odds all the time with each other, and the Mayor was at odds
+with the lot of them. They spent so much time in arguin' and makin'
+grandstand play, that the interests of the city were forgotten. Another
+administration of that kind would put New York back a quarter of a
+century.
+
+Then see how beautiful a Tammany city government runs, with a so-called
+boss directin' the whole shootin' match! The machinery moves so
+noiseless that you wouldn't think there was any. If there's any
+differences of opinion the Tammany leader settles them quietly and his
+orders go every time. How nice it is for the people to feel that they
+can get up in the mornin' without hem' afraid of seem' in the
+papers that the Commissioner of Water Supply has sandbagged the Dock
+Commissioner, and that the Mayor and heads of the departments have been
+taken to the police court as witnesses! That's no joke. I remember that,
+under Strong, some commissioners came very near sandbaggin' one another.
+
+Of course, the newspapers like the reform administration. Why? Because
+these administrations, with their daily rows, furnish as racy news as
+prizefights or divorce cases. Tammany don't care to get in the papers.
+It goes right along attendin' to business quietly and only wants to be
+let alone. That's one reason why the papers are against us.
+
+Some papers complain that the bosses get rich while devotin' their lives
+to the interests of the city. What of it? If opportunities for turnin'
+an honest dollar comes their 'way, why shouldn't they take advantage of
+them, just as I have done? As I said, in another talk, there is honest
+graft and dishonest graft. The bosses go in for the former. There is
+so much of it in this big town that they would be fools to go in for
+dishonest graft.
+
+Now, the primary election law threatens to do away with the boss and
+make the city government a menagerie. That's why I can't take the rest
+I counted on. I'm goin' to propose a bill for the next session of the
+legislature repealin' this dangerous law, and leavin' the primaries
+entirely to the organizations themselves, as they used to be. Then will
+return the good old times, when our district leaders could have nice
+comfortable primary elections at some place selected by themselves and
+let in only men that they approved of as good Democrats. Who is a better
+judge of the Democracy of a man who offers his vote than the leader of
+the district? Who is better equipped to keep out undesirable voters?
+
+The men who put through the primary law are the same crowd that stand
+for the civil service blight and they have the same objects in view--the
+destruction of governments by party, the downfall of the constitution
+and hell generally.
+
+
+
+Chapter 21. Concerning Excise
+
+ALTHOUGH I'm not a drinkin' man myself, I mourn with the poor liquor
+dealers of New York City, who are taxed and oppressed for the benefit
+of the farmers up the state. The Raines liquor law is infamous It takes
+away nearly all the profits of the saloonkeepers, and then turns in a
+large part of the money to the State treasury to relieve the hayseeds
+from taxes. Ah, who knows how many honest, hard-workin' saloonkeepers
+have been driven to untimely graves by this law! I know personally of a
+half-dozen who committed suicide--because they couldn't pay the enormous
+license fee, and I have heard of many others. Every time there is an
+increase of the fee, there is an increase in the suicide record of the
+city. Now, some of these Republican hayseeds are talkin' about makin'
+the liquor tax $1500, or even $2000 a year. That would mean the suicide
+of half of the liquor dealers in the city.
+
+Just see how these poor fellows are oppressed all around! First,
+liquor is taxed in the hands of the manufacturer by the United States
+Government; second, the wholesale dealer pays a special tax to the
+government; third, the retail dealer is specially taxed by the United
+States Government; fourth, the retail dealer has to pay a big tax to the
+State government.
+
+Now, liquor dealing is criminal or it ain't. If it's criminal, the men
+engaged in it ought to be sent to prison. If it ain't criminal, they
+ought to be protected and encouraged to make all the profit they
+honestly can. If it's right to tax a saloonkeeper $1000, it's right
+to put a heavy tax on dealers in other beverages--in milk, for
+instance--and make the dairymen pay up. But what a howl would be raised
+if a bill was introduced in Albany to compel the farmers to help support
+the State government! What would be said of a law that put a tax of, say
+$60 on a grocer, $150 on a dry-goods man, and $500 more if he includes
+the other goods that are kept in a country store?
+
+If the Raines law gave the money extorted from the saloonkeepers to the
+city, there might be some excuse for the tax. We would get some benefit
+from it, but it gives a big part of the tax to local option localities
+where the people are always shoutin' that liquor dealin' is immoral.
+Ought these good people be subjected to the immoral influence of money
+taken from the saloon tainted money? Out of respect for the tender
+consciences of these pious people, the Raines law ought to exempt them
+from all contamination from the plunder that comes from the saloon
+traffic. Say, mark that sarcastic. Some people who ain't used to fine
+sarcasm might think I meant it.
+
+The Raines people make a pretense that the high license fee promotes
+temperance. It's just the other way around. It makes more intemperance
+and, what is as bad, it makes a monopoly in dram shops. Soon the saloons
+will be in the hands of a vast trust' and any stuff can be sold for
+whisky or beer. It's gettin' that way already. Some of the poor liquor
+dealers in my district have been forced to sell wood alcohol for whisky,
+and many deaths have followed. A half-dozen men died in a couple of days
+from this kind of whisky which was forced down their throats by the
+high liquor tax. If they raise the tax higher, wood alcohol will be too
+costly, and I guess some dealers will have to get down to kerosene oil
+and add to the Rockefeller millions.
+
+The way the Raines law divides the different classes of licenses is
+also an outrage. The sumptuous hotel saloons, with $10,000 paintin's and
+bricky-brac and Oriental splendors gets off easier than a shanty on
+the rocks, by the water's edge in my district where boatmen drink their
+grog, and the only ornaments is a three-cornered mirror nailed to the
+wall, and a chromo of the fight between Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan.
+Besides, a premium is put on places that sell liquor not to be drunk on
+the premises, but to be taken home. Now, I want to declare that from
+my experience in New York City, I would rather see rum sold in the
+dram-shops unlicenced, provided the rum is swallowed on the spot, than
+to encourage, by a low tax, "bucket-shops" from which the stuff is
+carried into the tenements at all hours of the day and night and make
+drunkenness and debauchery among the women and children. A "bucket-shop"
+in the tenement district means a cheap, so-called distillery, where raw
+spirits, poisonous colorin' matter and water are sold for brandy and
+whisky at ten cents a quart, and carried away in buckets and pitchers;
+I have always noticed that there are many undertakers wherever the
+"bucket-shop" flourishes, and they have no dull seasons.
+
+I want it understood that I'm not an advocate of the liquor dealers or
+of drinkin'. I think every man would be better off if he didn't take
+any intoxicatin' drink at all, but as men will drink, they ought to have
+good stuff without impoverishin' themselves by goin' to fancy places
+and without riskin' death by goin' to poor places. The State should
+look after their interests as well as the interests of those who drink
+nothin' stronger than milk. Now, as to the liquor dealers themselves.
+They ain't the criminals that cantin' hypocrites say they are. I know
+lots of them and I know that, as a rule, they're good honest citizens
+who conduct their business in a straight, honorable way. At a convention
+of the liquor dealers a few years ago, a big city official welcomed them
+on behalf of the city and said: "Go on elevatin' your standard higher
+and higher. Go on with your good work. Heaven will bless YOU!" That was
+puttin' it just a little strong, but the sentiment was all right and I
+guess the speaker went a bit further than he intended in his enthusiasm
+over meetin' such a fine set of men and, perhaps, dinin' with them.
+
+
+
+Chapter 22. A Parting Word on the Future of the Democratic Party in
+America
+
+THE Democratic party of the nation ain't dead, though it's been givin'
+a lifelike imitation of a corpse for several years. It can't die while
+it's got Tammany for its backbone. The trouble is that the party's been
+chasm' after theories and stayin' up nights readin' books instead of
+studyin' human nature and actin' accordin', as I've advised in tellin'
+how to hold your district. In two Presidential campaigns, the leaders
+talked themselves red in the face about silver bein' the best money and
+gold hem' no good, and they tried to prove it out of books. Do you think
+the people cared for all that guff? No. They heartily indorsed what
+Richard Croker said at die Hoffman House one day in 1900. "What's the
+use of discussin' what's the best kind of money?" said Croker. "I'm
+in favor of all kinds of money--the more the better." See how a real
+Tammany statesman can settle in twenty-five words a problem that
+monopolized two campaigns!
+
+Then imperialism. The Democratic party spent all its breath on that in
+the last national campaign. Its position was all right, sure, but you
+can't get people excited about the Philippines. They've got too much at
+home to interest them; they're too busy makin' a livin' to bother
+about the <DW65>s in the Pacific. The party's got to drop all them
+put-you-to-sleep issues and come out in 1908 for somethin' that will
+wake the people up; somethin' that will make it worth while to work for
+the party.
+
+There's just one issue that would set this country on fire. The
+Democratic party should say in the first plank of its platform: "We
+hereby declare, in national convention assembled, that the paramount
+issue now, always and forever, is the abolition of the iniquitous and
+villainous civil service laws which are destroyin' all patriotism, ruin
+in' the country and takin' away good jobs from them that earn them. We
+pledge ourselves, if our ticket is elected, to repeal those laws at once
+and put every civil service reformer in jail."
+
+Just imagine the wild enthusiasm of the party, if that plank was
+adapted, and the rush of Republicans to join us in restorin' our country
+to what it was before this college professor's nightmare, called civil
+service reform, got hold of it! Of course, it would be all right to
+work in the platform some stuff about the tariff and sound money and the
+Philippines, as no platform seems to be complete without them, but they
+wouldn't count. The people would read only the first plank and then
+hanker for election day to come to put the Democratic party in office.
+
+I see a vision. I see the civil service monster lyin' flat on the
+ground. I see the Democratic party standin' over it with foot on its
+neck and wearin' the crown of victory. I see Thomas Jefferson lookin'
+out from a cloud and sayin': "Give him another sockdologer; finish
+him"' And I see millions of men wavin' their hats and singin' "Glory
+Hallelujah!"
+
+
+
+Chapter 23. Strenuous Life of the Tammany District Leader
+
+Note: This chapter is based on extracts from Plunkitt's Diary and on my
+daily observation of the work of the district leader.--W.L.R.
+
+THE life of the Tammany district leader is strenuous. To his work is due
+the wonderful recuperative power of the organization.
+
+One year it goes down in defeat and the prediction is made that it will
+never again raise its head. The district leader, undaunted by defeat,
+collects his scattered forces, organizes them as only Tammany knows
+how to organize, and in a little while the organization is as strong as
+ever.
+
+No other politician in New York or elsewhere is exactly like the Tammany
+district leader or works as he does. As a rule, he has no business or
+occupation other than politics. He plays politics every day and night in
+the year, and his headquarters bears the inscription, "Never closed."
+
+Everybody in the district knows him. Everybody knows where to find him,
+and nearly everybody goes to him for assistance of one sort or another,
+especially the poor of the tenements.
+
+He is always obliging. He will go to the police courts to put in a good
+word for the "drunks and disorderlies" or pay their fines, if a good
+word is not effective. He will attend christenings, weddings, and
+funerals. He will feed the hungry and help bury the dead.
+
+A philanthropist? Not at all He is playing politics all the time.
+
+Brought up in Tammany Hall, he has learned how to reach the hearts of
+the great mass of voters. He does not bother about reaching their heads.
+It is his belief that arguments and campaign literature have never
+gained votes.
+
+He seeks direct contact with the people, does them good turns when he
+can, and relies on their not forgetting him on election day. His heart
+is always in his work, too, for his subsistence depends on its results.
+
+If he holds his district and Tammany is in power, he is amply rewarded
+by a good office and the opportunities that go with it. What these
+opportunities are has been shown by the quick rise to wealth of so
+many Tammany district leaders. With the examples before him of Richard
+Croker, once leader of the Twentieth District; John F. Carroll, formerly
+leader of the Twenty-ninth; Timothy ("Dry Dollar") Sullivan, late leader
+of the Sixth, and many others, he can always look forward to riches and
+ease while he is going through the drudgery of his daily routine.
+
+This is a record of a day's work by Plunkitt:
+
+2 A.M.: Aroused from sleep by the ringing Of his doorbell; went to the
+door and found a bartender, who asked him to go to the police station
+and ball out a saloon-keeper who had been arrested for violating the
+excise law. Furnished bail and returned to bed at three o'clock.
+
+6.A.M.: Awakened by fire engines passing his house. Hastened to the
+scene of the fire, according to the custom of the Tammany district
+leaders, to give assistance to the fire sufferers, if needed. Met
+several of his election district captains who are always under orders
+to look out for fires, which are considered great vote-getters. Found
+several tenants who had been burned out, took them to a hotel, supplied
+them with clothes, fed them, and arranged temporary quarters for them
+until they could rent and furnish new apartments.
+
+8:30 A.M.: Went to the police court to look after his constituents.
+Found six "drunks." Secured the discharge of four by a timely word with
+the judge, and paid the fines of two.
+
+9 A.M.: Appeared in the Municipal District Court. Directed one of his
+district captains to act as counsel for a widow against whom dispossess
+proceedings had been instituted and obtained an extension of time.
+Paid the rent of a poor family about to be dispossessed and gave them a
+dollar for food.
+
+11 A.M.: At home again. Found four men waiting for him. One had been
+discharged by the Metropolitan Rail way Company for neglect of duty, and
+wanted the district leader to fix things. Another wanted a job on the
+road. The third sought a place on the Subway and the fourth, a plumber,
+was looking for work with the Consolidated Gas Company. The district
+leader spent nearly three hours fixing things for the four men, and
+succeeded in each case.
+
+3 P.M.: Attended the funeral of an Italian as far as the ferry. Hurried
+back to make his appearance at the funeral of a Hebrew constituent.
+Went conspicuously to the front both in the Catholic church and the
+synagogue, and later attended the Hebrew confirmation ceremonies in the
+synagogue.
+
+7 P.M.: Went to district headquarters and presided over a meeting of
+election district captains. Each captain submitted a list of all the
+voters in his district, reported on their attitude toward Tammany,
+suggested who might be won over and how they could be won, told who were
+in need, and who were in trouble of any kind and the best way to reach
+them. District leader took notes and gave orders.
+
+8 P.M.: Went to a church fair. Took chances on everything, bought ice
+cream for the young girls and the children. Kissed the little ones,
+flattered their mother: and took their fathers out for something down at
+the comer.
+
+9 P.M.: At the clubhouse again. Spent $10 on tickets for a church
+excursion and promised a subscription for a new church bell. Bought
+tickets for a baseball game to be played by two nines from his district.
+Listened to the complaints of a dozen pushcart peddlers who said they
+were persecuted by the police and assured them he would go to Police
+Headquarter: in the morning and see about it.
+
+10:30 P.M.: Attended a Hebrew wedding reception and dance. Had
+previously sent a handsome wedding present to the bride.
+
+12 P.M.: In bed.
+
+That is the actual record of one day in the life Of Plunkitt. He does
+some of the same things every day, but his life is not so monotonous as
+to be wearisome. Sometimes the work of a district leader is exciting,
+especially if he happens to have a rival who intends to make a contest
+for the leadership at the primaries. In that case, he is even more
+alert, tries to reach the fires before his rival, sends out runners to
+look for "drunks and disorderlies" at the police stations, and keeps a
+very dose watch on the obituary columns of the newspapers. A few years
+ago there was a bitter contest for the Tammany leadership of the Ninth
+District between John C. Sheehan and Frank J. Goodwin. Both had had long
+experience in Tammany politics and both understood every move of the
+game.
+
+Every morning their agents went to their respective headquarters before
+seven o'clock and read through the death notices in all the morning
+papers. If they found that anybody in the district had died, they rushed
+to the homes of their principals with the information and then there was
+a race to the house of the deceased to offer condolences, and, if the
+family were poor, something more substantial.
+
+On the day of the funeral there was another contest. Each faction tried
+to surpass the other in the number and appearance of the carriages it
+sent to the funeral, and more than once they almost came to blows at the
+church or in the cemetery.
+
+On one occasion the Goodwinites played a trick on their adversaries
+which has since been imitated in other districts. A well-known liquor
+dealer who had a considerable following died, and both Sheehan and
+Goodwin were eager to become his political heir by making a big showing
+at the funeral.
+
+Goodwin managed to catch the enemy napping. He went to all the livery
+stables in the district, hired all the carriages for the day, and gave
+orders to two hundred of his men to be on hand as mourners.
+
+Sheehan had never had any trouble about getting all the carriages that
+he wanted, so he let the matter go until the night before the funeral.
+Then he found that he could not hire a carriage in the district.
+
+He called his district committee together in a hurry and explained
+the situation to them. He could get all the vehicles he needed in the
+adjoining district, he said, but if he did that, Goodwin would rouse
+the voters of the Ninth by declaring that he (Sheehan) had patronized
+foreign industries.
+
+Finally, it was decided that there was nothing to do but to go over to
+Sixth Avenue and Broadway for carriages. Sheehan made a fine turnout
+at the funeral, but the deceased was hardly in his grave before Goodwin
+raised the cry of "Protection to home industries," and denounced his
+rival for patronizing livery-stable keepers outside of his district. The
+err' had its effect in the primary campaign. At all events, Goodwin was
+elected leader.
+
+A recent contest for the leadership of the Second District illustrated
+further the strenuous work of the Tammany district leaders. The
+contestants were Patrick Divver, who had managed the district for years,
+and Thomas F. Foley.
+
+Both were particularly anxious to secure the large Italian vote. They
+not only attended all the Italian christenings and funerals, but also
+kept a close lookout for the marriages in order to be on hand with
+wedding presents.
+
+At first, each had his own reporter in the Italian quarter to keep track
+of the marriages. Later, Foley conceived a better plan. He hired a man
+to stay all day at the City Hall marriage bureau, where most Italian
+couples go through the civil ceremony, and telephone to him at his
+saloon when anything was doing at the bureau.
+
+Foley had a number of presents ready for use and, whenever he received a
+telephone message from his man, he hastened to the City Hall with a
+ring or a watch or a piece of silver and handed it to the bride with his
+congratulations. As a consequence, when Divver got the news and went to
+the home of the couple with his present, he always found that Foley had
+been ahead of him. Toward the end of the campaign, Divver also stationed
+a man at the marriage bureau and then there were daily foot races and
+fights between the two heelers.
+
+Sometimes the rivals came into conflict at the death-bed. One night a
+poor Italian peddler died in Roosevelt Street. The news reached Divver
+and Foley about the same time, and as they knew the family of the
+man was destitute, each went to an undertaker and brought him to the
+Roosevelt Street tenement.
+
+The rivals and the undertakers met at the house and an altercation
+ensued. After much discussion the Divver undertaker was selected. Foley
+had more carriages at the funeral, however, and he further impressed the
+Italian voters by paying the widow's rent for a month, and sending her
+half a ton of coal and a barrel of flour.
+
+The rivals were put on their mettle toward the end of the campaign by
+the wedding of a daughter of one of the original Cohens of the Baxter
+Street region. The Hebrew vote in the district is nearly as large as
+the Italian vote, and Divver and Foley set out to capture the Cohens and
+their friends.
+
+They stayed up nights thinking what they would give the bride. Neither
+knew how much the other was prepared to spend on a wedding present, or
+what form it would take; so spies were employed by both sides to keep
+watch on the jewelry stores, and the jewelers of the district were
+bribed by each side to impart the desired information.
+
+At last Foley heard that Divver had purchased a set of silver knives,
+forks and spoons. He at once bought a duplicate set and added a silver
+tea service. When the presents were displayed at the home of the bride,
+Divver was not in a pleasant mood and he charged his jeweler with
+treachery. It may be added that Foley won at the primaries.
+
+One of the fixed duties of a Tammany district leader is to give two
+outings every summer, one for the men of his district and the other for
+the women and children, and a beefsteak dinner and a ball every winter.
+The scene of the outings is, usually, one of the groves along the Sound.
+
+The ambition of the district leader on these occasions is to demonstrate
+that his men have broken all records in the matter of eating and
+drinking. He gives out the exact number of pounds of beef, poultry,
+butter, etc., that they have consumed and professes to know how many
+potatoes and ears of corn have been served.
+
+According to his figures, the average eating record of each man at the
+outing is about ten pounds of beef, two or three chickens, a pound
+of butter, a half peck of potatoes, and two dozen ears of corn. The
+drinking records, as given out, are still more phenomenal. For
+some reason, not yet explained, the district leader thinks that his
+popularity will be greatly increased if he can show that his followers
+can eat and drink more than the followers of any other district leader.
+
+The same idea governs the beefsteak dinners in the winter. It matters
+not what sort of steak is served or how it is cooked; the district
+leader considers only the question of quantity, and when he excels all
+others in this particular, he feels, somehow, that he is a bigger man
+and deserves more patronage than his associates in the Tammany Executive
+Committee.
+
+As to the balls, they are the events of the winter in the extreme East
+Side and West Side society. Mamie and Maggie and Jennie prepare for them
+months in advance, and their young men save up for the occasion just as
+they save for the summer trips to Coney Island.
+
+The district leader is in his glory at the opening of the ball He leads
+the cotillion with the prettiest woman present--his wife, if he has one,
+permitting--and spends almost the whole night shaking hands with his
+constituents. The ball costs him a pretty penny, but he has found that
+the investment pays.
+
+By these means the Tammany district leader reaches out into the homes of
+his district, keeps watch not only on the men, but also on the women and
+children; knows their needs, their likes and dislikes, their troubles
+and their hopes, and places himself in a position to use his knowledge
+for the benefit of his organization and himself. Is it any wonder
+that scandals do not permanently disable Tammany and that it speedily
+recovers from what seems to be crushing defeat?
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, by 
+George Washington Plunkitt
+
+*** 
\ No newline at end of file