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Tammany Hall: America's Early Puppet Masters · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it from
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  Speaker 2: our super producer, mister Max two fans Williams.
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  Speaker 3: Max Boss Tweet, Boss Hog Boss. This is a boss.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: He's a boss, not a a political boss. But you're
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: into politics. You did the research for this episode, didn't you? Yeah?
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I did.
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  Speaker 4: And actually, funny enough, my junior year ap US history class,
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  Speaker 4: it was a year long class. We were to school
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  Speaker 4: where we did like each semester we changed our classes.
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  Speaker 4: This was the only year long one did. But we
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  Speaker 4: would have these debates like every couple of months where
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  Speaker 4: you get a sign aside whether or not you agreed
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  Speaker 4: with it, you have to argue it. And I had
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  Speaker 4: to argue in uh high school that Boss Tweet was
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  Speaker 4: not the only person guilty for Tammany Hall and the tweet.
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  Speaker 3: One. And then you were voted most likely to head
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  Speaker 3: up a corrupt political machine.
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  Speaker 4: I think I was thinking I was voting most likely
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  Speaker 4: to end up in prison. And you know what, at
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: thirty two years old, I still haven't made it there.
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  Speaker 3: Potato, Patato, my friend Potato Patato, But no, we are
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  Speaker 3: in fact talking today about political machines. And you know,
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  Speaker 3: I always been thought that term you're bent by the way,
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  Speaker 3: and I don't know, I'm no brown. Indeed, I always
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  Speaker 3: thought political machine specifically referred to organizations of that were
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  Speaker 3: rotten to the core, that were corrupt, but it was
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  Speaker 3: really more of a specific type of political organization, and
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  Speaker 3: then it became more associated with this kind of corruption
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  Speaker 3: that we're going to talk about today.
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  Speaker 2: Is that how you see it as well? Yeah, you're
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  Speaker 2: it's similar. I was thinking about this in preparation for
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  Speaker 2: this one. It is similar to the way that in
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  Speaker 2: the United States scheme implies a conspiracy, but in the
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  Speaker 2: United Kingdom, scheme just means a government policy or plan.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, or even you know what a grand scheme that
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  Speaker 3: that is, mate, That's how the Brits talk.
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  Speaker 2: And today we are talking about something we've mentioned quite
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  Speaker 2: often in previous episodes of Ridiculous History, political machinations or machinations,
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  Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. Political machines. Tammany Hall is
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  Speaker 2: one of the favorites of school teachers and college professors
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  Speaker 2: and historians the world round, because even now, when we
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  Speaker 2: talk about political machines. We talked about voting blocks, we
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  Speaker 2: talk about campaigns, causerains, we talk about the countless people
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  Speaker 2: behind a political candidate who make the votes happen.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's also a really popular choice for school
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  Speaker 3: because it one succeeded so absurdly, like it was just
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  Speaker 3: an absolute, like perfect model for whatever better or worse
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  Speaker 3: of what this thing is, and then it also just
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  Speaker 3: crashed and burned spectacularly. So it has this the perfect
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  Speaker 3: trajectory to not only be a lesson about how a
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  Speaker 3: thing works, but also to teach a bit of a
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  Speaker 3: moral lesson.
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  Speaker 2: Agreed, there's a bit of a fable to it, a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a larger than life kind of.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: There's some Shakespearean about this, about this rise and full
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  Speaker 2: to the earlier question. Britannica has a great article on this,
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  Speaker 2: and Britannica says that in US politics, a political machine
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  Speaker 2: is any organization for political party headed by this key,
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  Speaker 2: a small autocratic group, and this small group has enough
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  Speaker 2: votes to maintain control of any given community, whether that's
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  Speaker 2: a city, a county, or an entire state. Britannica goes
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  Speaker 2: on to point out that as American cities encountered explosive
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  Speaker 2: growth in the eighteen hundreds, partially due to immigration, partially
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  Speaker 2: due to migration from rural areas. City governments found huge
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  Speaker 2: problems in the world of honest politics because they were
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  Speaker 2: poorly structured, and in that chaos, these de facto organized
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  Speaker 2: crime enterprises in some cases. Yeah, they came into the
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  Speaker 2: vacuum and they built the stability, They built the voter blocks.
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  Speaker 2: The most famous, of course Tammany Hall run by William
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  Speaker 2: Boss tweeked.
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  Speaker 3: Oh why and my mine's Boss Hog. That's from the
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  Speaker 3: Dukes of Hazard, right, Boss Hog. I've never seen the
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Dukes of Hazzard. I just know it my reputations. The
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  Speaker 3: one where they they jump over the car hood and
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: do a slide. It's like the It's like the Samuel
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  Speaker 3: Clemens or Street named Mark Twain definition of a c
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  Speaker 3: Everybody loves it. Nobody's seen, that's right.
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  Speaker 4: I wanted to say a movie there was.
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  Speaker 3: There was certainly a movie, uh you know, remake. I
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  Speaker 3: don't know. Was there a really bad I'm sure it was.
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  Speaker 3: Didn't have Tatum Chance chanting Tatum in it? Or did
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  Speaker 3: I make that up? There was twenty one Jump Street too.
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  Speaker 3: He was in that one that was also anyway, But
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  Speaker 3: I was going to bring something up really quickly since
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  Speaker 3: we're not going to really be able to dwell on
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  Speaker 3: this too much. But that definition of the political machine,
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  Speaker 3: it's very interesting because it almost makes me think of
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  Speaker 3: what unions ended up becoming during the kind of corrupt
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  Speaker 3: period of like the Teamsters Union, Like they control a
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  Speaker 3: voting block in their membership, and they also control like
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  Speaker 3: the means of distributing all of the things that make
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  Speaker 3: you know, America what it is in terms of the economy.
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  Speaker 3: So that's also an organization that was rife for corruption.
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  Speaker 3: And if anyone's seen the movie The Irishman, you know
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  Speaker 3: kind of how that story went as well. But Max,
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  Speaker 3: you being kind of our resident union expert, is that
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  Speaker 3: something you've thought about, like those early days of like,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the Teamster's Union and how ultimately folks like
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  Speaker 3: Jimmy Hoffa almost stepped in and became the boss tweed
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  Speaker 3: of that era. Cough cough. The mops a problem, not
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  Speaker 3: the union's cust Oh no, I know, I know, but
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  Speaker 3: it was they were working hand in hand in a
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  Speaker 3: lot of ways, and it was almost like it wasn't
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  Speaker 3: ever not going to go that way, and then it
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  Speaker 3: became very key to protect organizations like that from corruption.
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  Speaker 3: That requires a lot of you know, real oversight and effort. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I mean it's the way I was thinking.
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  Speaker 4: Look when I was writing this entire episode, it was
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  Speaker 4: there's a need that the government is not filling, and
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  Speaker 4: thus a group steps in to fill said need. And
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  Speaker 4: so that's what these political machines with. That's what Tammany
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  Speaker 4: Hall was doing. Because Tammany Hall, the supporters of Hamny
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  Speaker 4: Hall now and back in the day, would say, Hey,
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  Speaker 4: there's all these Irish immigrants here who you know, don't
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  Speaker 4: have a job, don't have a place to live, they
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  Speaker 4: don't have any respect. We're we're setting them up, and
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  Speaker 4: you know what, because that's what we stand for, and
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  Speaker 4: that's what the Democratic Party stands for, and that's why
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  Speaker 4: they voted a Democrat also. So we don't get too
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  Speaker 4: far off off this, I gotta tell you all the
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  Speaker 4: cast in this Duke of Hazard's movie, because it is hilarious. Ye,
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: it's got Burt Reynolds of course, Linda Carter, Willie Nelson,
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  Speaker 4: Jessica Simpson and starring Johnny Knoxville.
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  Speaker 3: Finally, finally, give the man as turns out, has pretty
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  Speaker 3: solid acting jobs.
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  Speaker 2: He does this also like acting. That's the thing there.
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  Speaker 2: These machines are often acting as though they are the
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  Speaker 2: best interest on the ground that Britannica definition does not
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  Speaker 2: end at our what we just said. They also talk
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  Speaker 2: about you what this reminds me of? This reminds me of, Well,
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  Speaker 2: let me give you the second part here to your point, Max,
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  Speaker 2: the machine the organization which is severely hierarchical and autocratic
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  Speaker 2: and severely non democratic. It makes its name, it cuts
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  Speaker 2: its teeth by responding to those individual problems that are
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  Speaker 2: often not addressed in historically neglected populations and neighborhoods in
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  Speaker 2: exchange for loyalty at the polls for people who might
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  Speaker 2: not have voted otherwise. They're saying, we'll do all this
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  Speaker 2: for you. Just do this one thing for us a
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  Speaker 2: favor in the future, if you will. It reminds me
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  Speaker 2: very much of what you see organized crime doing in
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  Speaker 2: Italy or in Japan, where you know, KOs Andostra, the
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  Speaker 2: and the Yakuza do very similar things, often in historically
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  Speaker 2: oppressed communities.
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  Speaker 3: And I certainly wasn't trying to malign unions anyway. I
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  Speaker 3: just think there's an interesting parallel, and the unions also
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  Speaker 3: are serving in need of the government does not address,
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  Speaker 3: and in doing that, it opens up the opportunity for corruption.
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  Speaker 3: And I just think that's where the parallel lies. Like
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  Speaker 3: I'm not saying unions are inherently corrupt, They're not sure.
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  Speaker 3: But in being this extra governmental force, there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of opportunities to line individual's pockets and the pockets of groups,
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  Speaker 3: and to perhaps interface with less legitimate types of organizations.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that happens both with these unions, like
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  Speaker 3: and then the situation that we see with Hoffa and
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  Speaker 3: the irishmen, and with these political machines and the situation
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  Speaker 3: we see with Sammony Hall, right.
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  Speaker 4: And this is the thing I meant to say earlier
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  Speaker 4: about I'm just tossing it in now. The way I
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  Speaker 4: think about, like you know, unions and political machines and
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  Speaker 4: stuff like this, it's it's a thing. It's not a
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  Speaker 4: good thing, it's not a bad thing. It's a thing.
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  Speaker 3: It can go either way.
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  Speaker 4: Because they are in a position where they're helping people
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  Speaker 4: in need, where so if they're transparent and their motivations
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  Speaker 4: are good, they can do good for those people. But
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  Speaker 4: if they're not transparent, they can take advantage of those people.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, and the reason political machine has become such
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  Speaker 2: a deletorious term, such an insult in American politics today
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  Speaker 2: is because at some point they began centering on keeping
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  Speaker 2: themselves on in power rather than helping people. Their goal
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  Speaker 2: was to perpetuate their organization. You could look to folks
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  Speaker 2: like Mayor Richard Daily of Chicago from nineteen oh two
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  Speaker 2: he died in nineteen seventy six. That guy was a
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  Speaker 2: political boss and leveraged this political machine power, this organization
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  Speaker 2: to help address the problems of a Chicago encountering unprecedented,
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  Speaker 2: amazing growth. There are other cases outside of Chicago, Boston, Philly,
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  Speaker 2: New York, Kansas City. In those situations, there were a
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  Speaker 2: lot of abuses of this power, a lot of corruptions,
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  Speaker 2: smoky backroom stuff. And that's why this term still functions
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  Speaker 2: as a pejorative. You know, there are these two big issues,
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  Speaker 2: at least as Britannica puts it, one who delivers the votes.
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  Speaker 2: The people who deliver the votes are often given what
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  Speaker 2: are called patronage jobs. You know those are that's when
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  Speaker 2: you hire the goons yea, and the sink offense and
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  Speaker 2: the cronies.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, quid pro quo, right, you do for me, I'll
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  Speaker 3: give you this job. It's not a meritocracy at that point.
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  Speaker 3: It's literally, you know, pay to play, and you're paying
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  Speaker 3: with your vote, which means that you're not necessarily qualified
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  Speaker 3: for the job that you're getting in return. Therefore, this
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  Speaker 3: also has the potential to lead to further kind of
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  Speaker 3: breakdown of society because these jobs are populated by people
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  Speaker 3: who don't know what the hell they're doing. Not not
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  Speaker 3: no shade on the people. Everyone wants a job, but
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  Speaker 3: you also should you know, if you're working in a field,
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  Speaker 3: perhaps even in like a like something like sanitation, or
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  Speaker 3: even you know, something in the municipality, you got to
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  Speaker 3: know what you're doing or else those systems are going
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  Speaker 3: to fall apart.
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  Speaker 2: And the problem becomes exacerbated when we're talking about cities
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  Speaker 2: or communities that have strong ethnic or racial divides, especially
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  Speaker 2: back in the day in the United States, this patronage system,
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  Speaker 2: this hiring of people exclusively from an in group, can
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  Speaker 2: just accelerate those hostilities because most of the people who
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  Speaker 2: get jobs, most of the people who get powerful jobs
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  Speaker 2: overseeing services, they're going to be from the same background
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  Speaker 2: as the people who run the political machine, which means
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  Speaker 2: that ultimately you create a feedback loop where the folks
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  Speaker 2: who are supposed to be helped by these organizations become
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  Speaker 2: the ones who are first to be victimized. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: the US has done its best. This is a problem
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  Speaker 2: all the world over. The US has instituted civil service
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  Speaker 2: reforms that attempt to limit the number of friendly hires.
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  Speaker 2: I guess you could call them patronage jobs. And they've said, look,
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  Speaker 2: let's have direct primaries, let's let the people vote for
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  Speaker 2: candidates instead of letting the parties nominate candidates all the time,
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  Speaker 2: and let's have some sort of oversight, some sort of
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  Speaker 2: judicial review to reduce the power of these fiefdoms. And
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: in their glory days, that's what they were. These were fiefdoms.
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  Speaker 2: These were the kind of things that gangster rap talks
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  Speaker 2: about when they say, oh, you've got to check with
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  Speaker 2: me before you come to my city. That was a
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  Speaker 2: real thing with Tammany Hall.
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  Speaker 3: No question about it. And sorry to bring it back
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: to Scorsese again, but I've been on a Scorsese kick
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: lately and recently watched Casino and Casino. You know, is
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: all about the systems that run the casinos in Vegas
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: and how cal sprang up one hundred percent, and a
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: lot of those relationships, whether they originated with the mob
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  Speaker 3: or what have you, they involved paying off politicians, whether
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  Speaker 3: it be monetarily, which it did, but it also meant
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  Speaker 3: in giving jobs to their cronies or kids or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: And there's a really important scene that's kind of the
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  Speaker 3: crux of the like fall from Grace in Casino mild spoiler,
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  Speaker 3: but not really, where Ace Rothstein, the character played by
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  Speaker 3: Robert de Niro, fires a floor manager because he's incompetent.
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  Speaker 3: But that floor manager is the nephew or the son
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  Speaker 3: in law of a very high level politician. And then
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  Speaker 3: that politician's like, Nope, you're not please. You got to
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  Speaker 3: give my boy another chance. He goes, no, he's incompetent,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not doing it. So by standing his ground and
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  Speaker 3: not yielding to the rules of this organization in this arrangement,
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  Speaker 3: he essentially initiates his own downfall, and you see that
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  Speaker 3: happen throughout the rest of the movie. And that's just
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: the kind of thing where if you don't play then
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: you're gonna get got or You're gonna get replaced by
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: somebody who will.
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  Speaker 2: And what a better introduction could there be for us
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  Speaker 2: to dive into, by far, the most infamous political machine
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  Speaker 2: in United States history, up there with the founding Fathers
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  Speaker 2: Once upon a Time, Tammany Hall.
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  Speaker 3: Tammany Hall is.
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  Speaker 2: Way older than a lot of people, guests, And I
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  Speaker 2: love that you found this fact here, Max, Tammany Hall
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  Speaker 2: was the executive committee of the Democratic Party in New
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  Speaker 2: York City, and they exercised political control through the typical
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  Speaker 2: blend of charity and patronage that we're talking about. Just
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  Speaker 2: like in Casino, this was happening with Tammany Hall. The
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: name comes from an association that predates the American Revolution.
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  Speaker 2: It's named after the once upon a time chief of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the Delaware People, Taminant, and Taminant, being a member of
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: indigenous Delaware peoples, would have doubtlessly been surprised to learn
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: how his name has just been dragged through the mud here.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it goes back, like the story starts all
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: the way back in the seventeen eighties.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, and Max, you know, it's funny. It's one
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  Speaker 3: of these things I've always just accepted, like I assume
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  Speaker 3: Tammany Hall was like a building where they did business,
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  Speaker 3: like they're hanging out in Tammany all on the Lower
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  Speaker 3: East Side or whatever. I've never thought to question it.
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  Speaker 3: You used to have filled in a blind spot historically
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  Speaker 3: for me that I've held for many years. Oh, you're
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: it's gonna hurt.
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  Speaker 4: Then it is a building, It is a hall. The
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  Speaker 4: group's name is Tammany and the hall they have a hall,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: the named Tammany Hall. Okay, Still, the group became synonymous
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  Speaker 4: with the building, and it was all just you know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: a bunch of white dude appropriating a name. Anyways, So yeah, Max,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: learn to take a compliment, bro.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: So I'm working on it. Don't worry, folks, they'll patch
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: it up by the end of the show.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: So in The Demon Man in the seventeen eighties, he
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: got the halves and the have nots. The havelves are
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the property owners, the aristocrats in all but name. They
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: are the ones who run New York City and New
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: York State. They are trying to stop freeholders or people
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: who are not as rich as them, from voting, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: they want to strengthen something called the Society of the Cincinnati.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: It's a bunch of veterans from the Continental Army who
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: kind of like monarchies. They're kind of into monarchies. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: so William Mooney, this carpenter upholster in New York City,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: he founds a different thing. It's called the Society of
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Saint Tammany or the Columbian Order, on May twelfth, seventeen
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  Speaker 2: eighty nine, just a few days after George Washington becomes
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the president, and he says what Mooney says, rather not Washington.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Mooney says, we're going to create a national society that's
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: going to be quote native in character and democratic in
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: principle and action and speaking yeah, speaking of speaking of
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: appropriation though. They give their officers Native American titles and
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  Speaker 2: they call the head of the organization the Grand Sachem,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: chosen from among his quote fellow chiefs.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, Ben, And we may have talked
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: about this on the show. We definitely did off air,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: But in working with some of our folks from the
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Next Up Initiative, which is an incredible thing to kind
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: of help find underrepresented groups and give them the ability
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: to tell their stories through podcasting, through mentorship, and you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: pairing them with like more seasoned folks and related to
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: the ropes Max is a big part of it. Bens
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: has worked on and I've worked on it to a
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: slightly less degree, but hope to do more. I was
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: working with one of our producers out of la who
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: was working with some folks from an indigenous community on
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: telling that kind of story which is grossly underrepresented. I mean,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I think what is the reservation Dogs is maybe one
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: of the only kind of high profile, sort of real
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: on the ground stories about modern examples of what it's
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: like to live in indigenous communities. But she presented us
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: with an article with all of these very common expressions
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: that are really really offensive to Native communities, to Indigenous communities,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: and a lot of them. That one was one that
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: I did not think of. That's when I've thrown out,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: you know, in passing numerous times. Obviously, there are ones
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: that are obvious, like low man, the Totem bowl and
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: things like that, or get going on the reservation, hitting
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: the war path and all that stuff. But it's because
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: of stuff like this and the appropriation of these types
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: of terms and the sort of like commodification of the
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: image of these people, uh that that things like that
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: are in fact, you know, a problematic I'm so. I
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: didn't mean a soapbox there. I just it was news
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: to me, and a lot of it. And I think
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: it's always important. While I'm not living life in fear
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: of being canceled or saying the wrong thing, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: it's good to check yourself before you wreck yourself in
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: terms of these types types of things.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: And life is a learning experience, no worries, my friend.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: It's not a soapbox, if we all agree, which we do.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: But another one also spirit antimal that's in our beast,
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: in our beasts.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And the totem pole thing. What what I find offensive
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: about that, in addition to the other stuff, is that
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: the bottom image of the bottom carving on the total
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: pole is foundationally the most important.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: So they're even getting that basic party. I don't mean
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: to derail, but like, can I not say spirit animal?
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: I'm being I'm like that is that that's that is
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: less offensive than it is, maybe just mildly appropriative, but
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, and maybe it's like being used too flippantly
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: because the actual concept of a spirit animal is historically
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: a very sacred thing. Okay, I've already answered my own question.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say anymore.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Moving on, my approach on this is, uh, don't ask me.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I'm some white dude. Why don't we ask somebody who
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: you know is not from a long history of appropriation.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: And Max was there the entire time. He is several
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: centuries old.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Exactly, So I thought, so somebody, we're getting to a buddy,
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: somebody needed to so the the Tammany organization in these
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: early days, they represent what you could call middle class
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: opponents of the Federalist Party.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: However, there's an issue because they're cast of democracy, appropriation
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: and romanticization aside. It doesn't it doesn't take into account
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: less than middle class economic groups, people who also want
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: their lives.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: To not stink. This ties into an earlier episode.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Also shout out to our research associate, mister Max Williams
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: on Aaron Burr.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: That's right at one point in his checkered career, Aaron Burr,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: and please, by the way, go ahead and listen to
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: our two part episode about this really interesting and problematic fellow.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: But before experiencing his meteoric fall, can you have a
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: meteoric fall? You can have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: typically the Shower, you know, his political downfall after you know,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: killing Alexander Hamilton and that duel ending up on the
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: totally wrong side of history. That's an eighteen o four
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: He was a member of this organization of Tammany Hall,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and it was very instrumental in bringing about political victories
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: for the then Democratic Republican Party, and Thomas Jefferson actually
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: was a huge booster for them, and when he became
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: president in eighteen oh one, he gave them props and
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: he allowed them to really rise in power.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Because that's how the system worked, right, one hand washes
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the other. A bunch of backscratching circles going on, just
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: like you're in a warm up exercise for drama class.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: It wasn't.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until I think, well, it was pretty early, right,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: just in around the same time you mentioned in the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: early eighteen hundreds, the news got out and the average
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: person was saying, Wow, these city officials over at Tammany
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: are pretty corrupt.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Something has to be done. Rabble rabble.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: So various people get removed from office. The controller gets
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: removed right, the U, the comptroller, the comptroller not a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: thing yet. Unfortunately, the superintendent of the almshouse gets removed
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: because they mess with the money. And then, of course,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: of special interest to our power, mister Max Williams, the
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: inspector of bread is given the boot.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Are these all like robin hood terms like alms for
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: the poor and a crust of bread? Me lord? It
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: is very weird. These these political terms clearly don't really
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: exist anymore. But an almshouse, I wonder, is that is
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: that like basically like the treasury well, you know, like
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: alms for the poor? Got it? Got it? So it's
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: technically its role is to look out for the disenfranchised.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: And I guess it's it's kind of like saying, get
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: rid of the person who runs, you know, the city
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: funded housing that makes it today, Like maybe if someone
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: was here in Atlanta, Georgia, if someone was caught up
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: in a scandal about affordable housing, right and they were
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: in charge of Section eight or I wonder what that
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: would be like, dare we imagine?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Right? Yeah? Exactly.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And so the thing is these guys, and they were
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: all dudes when they were proven to be corrupt, when
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: they were removed officially from their positions, they were still
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: very much in play and in power in the hierarchy
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: of Tammany. So the next thing that happens around this time.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: The next thing that happens is that there is a
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: growing Irish population in New York City. And I would
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: say the quiet part out loud. This reminds me so
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: much of Gangs of New York.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Talking about the forty thieves and stuff. I mean, I
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: think this well, the Gangs of New York certainly borrowed
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: some ideas from this system. I think it was somewhat
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: historically accurate, but also took some liberties, if I'm not
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: mistaken by quite a few.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I think the main reasons reminding me of this is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: the idea of forcing people to vote, of gathering up
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: folks and then grouping, yes, crooming, cooping, cooping, cooping, that's
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the one, cooping yes. Uh So, the Irish immigrants don't
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: like the Tammany system, and they are ineligible to be
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: members of this organization because they are not quote native
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: born patriots. So, with absolutely no acknowledgment of a pretty
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: big piece of hypocrisy, hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: say we're protesting against bigotry, against the bigotry of Tammany Hall.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: And they break.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Into a meeting on the evening of April twenty fourth,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventeen. Eventually, Tammany says, Okay, for the greater good
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: of our organization, we're going to naturalize these immigrants. We're
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: going to say yes, you can be native born or
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: native patriots if not native born.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: But they're not doing this out of benevol They're doing
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: this in an effort to bolster their numbers and their control,
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: their mechanism of control.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this move turns out to be good for them, because, again,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: as we said earlier, these political machines ultimately exist to
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: ensure their own growth, right, and helping people becomes a
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: secondary priority. So by accepting Irish immigrants in that population,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Tammany massively expands its voter block. And then they're I
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: hate that we keep having to use the word sachems,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: but that is what they called each other. Another one
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: of their chiefs or they're big members. Martin van Buren
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: becomes president in eighteen thirty six. This is still like
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the organizations this powerful at this point, they're controlling presidents
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: of the United States, but they're still not at their glory.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Days yet, not yet. But you know that it was
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: heading in that direction. And with like you know, Martin
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: van Buren who became president, like he knew what was
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: going on. These weren't great people ascended into power. It
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: really calls into question, not that we needed anything else
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: to call in the question the moral you know, fiber
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: of like early politicians or hell politicians throughout history. But
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: I just get when I read about stuff like this,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: you just get a sense that almost everybody in power
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: that ascended to these levels was morally bankrupt at some level.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: I will say Van Buren was against slavery. Of course,
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: he didn't air that opinion until after he left politics,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: and he went through on all the horrible Native American
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: removal stuff that Andrew Jackson laid down. So yeah, not great.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: He was conveniently timing his abolitionist stance. There's another way
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to put it right, and let's go to the Speaker Rights.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Let's go to the Bill of Right Institute. This is
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: where we start to see the origin of the man
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: who became synonymous with Tammany Hall Boss Tweed. It's after
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the Civil War. The city of New York is terrible.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: You thought the nineteen seventies were bad, No, folks, people
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: are just throwing trash out of their windows. There's horse
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: manure everywhere. You're eternally coughing. If it's not just the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: air pollution, it's because you have tuberculosis or cholera. This
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: is a great time for both of those diseases. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: more than one million people are crowded in this city.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: The majority of them live in very terrible conditions. Poverties everywhere, illiteracy, crime, grifts.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Irish and German immigrants make up almost half the population.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: They don't really have a political voice, and they depend
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: on churches and private charities that are often over whelmed
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: by just the sheer demand of people who need help. Ben,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: that illiteracy element is going to come into play in
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: a very interesting way a little bit later. Wait for it, y'all.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Enter William meg meghair MegaR Meager meger May let's call
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: him boss Boss tweet Yeah we we we know him.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: We love him, we know, we love him, we know
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: his boss tweet Yeah, William Meger Boss. Tweed the son
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: of a furniture maker, and from a tender young age,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Tweed uh realized that he was good at the wheels
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: and the deals. You know, the ends and the outs
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: the relationship management that is politics. He had what you
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: would call a high charisma point count if he was
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: a a role playing game character. A slight diversion. I
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: just started Baldersgate three. Oh, amazing, great people. I'm still
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: building my character. I'm overthinking charisma though, is a is
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: a very interesting like if you play games like Fallou.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: I've never played ball Erskape, but certain games like Fallout
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: or Skyrim or whatever, you can you get a certain
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: number of points to spend into your character, and people
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: usually don't think necessarily to spend it into charisma, but
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: it gives you so many interesting like conversation checks, you
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: know where it gives you more options to like convince
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: people to do things for you. And that's what politics
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: is in a lot of ways. Is the power of
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: the pen, the power of the the smile and in
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: the handshake, you know, to get people to do things
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: for you that will keep you from having to actually
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: get your hands directly dirty and or dare we say bloody? Now?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Was Boss Tweed a super skilled administrator?
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Eh?
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: He was really he was like LBG would be later.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: He was very good at buttonholding people bit Jambo that
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: well that's what he called his penis. Yes, well was
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: he was very good at h He's very good at
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: intimidating or wheedling or cajoling people. And he eventually starts
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: as the let me see, he starts as the alderman
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: for the seventh Ward in New York City, which means
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: he's joining a group called the to your earlier reference,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: the forty Thieves.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so yeah, I hear it from gangs of
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: New York.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: And he he goes to Congress for a while, and
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: he's not good at it. He's not able to make
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: much headway in his political career, so it only does
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: one term in Congress. He comes back and he says,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: you know what, I like small ponds. It makes me
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: a big fish. And so he uh, he says, this
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: is where the action is on the ground, and he
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: becomes one of the leading politicians in the big Apple
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: while at the same time becoming one of the most corrupt.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's one of those things too, where you
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: gotta wonder if people like to see themselves as villains.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: And I think the easy answer is no. And it
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: also does it doesn't happen overnight. You know, you take
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: your First, there's always that turning point in a movie
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: where there's a figure like this, is that the day
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: they took their first bribe, you know what I mean,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: And then it just becomes easier and easier every step
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: after that. So I do think it's important to like
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: sort of humanize these folks to a degree and not
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: think of him as like this giant gnashing you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: fat hog of a monster man, because he's a human,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: you know, and and humans, you know. He grew up
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: in this city, and I think probably there was a
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: desire to do some good. I don't think you're automatically
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: like from the start, you know, I'm gonna get into
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: politics so I can screw everybody over and enrich myself.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: It starts from, usually I think, a place of goodness,
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: and then sort of devolves as also you realize that
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: these problems are a lot harder to solve than I
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: maybe thought. So hell, since it seems like an uphill battle.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: When I at least put some duck, it's in my pocket.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the argument becomes something like, well, all these
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: other bad forces are corrupt, so therefore I am not corrupt.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I am clever by using their tools of corruption against
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: them and with them right. And eventually you take the
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: longer view and you realize that from far enough away,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: you and your enemies look very much the same.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're right.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: One of Tweed's first official acts once he starts getting
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the attention of the Tammany organization, is to restore order
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: after the New York City draft riots of eighteen sixty three.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: The protesters rioters here are largely from the Irish community,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and they're saying, hey, why are you drafting poor people?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: This is the one where if you were a wealthier person,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: you paid three hundred bucks to hire a stand in
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: to fight in the war, and I present tributes, right,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: And so folks are saying, no, don't make us your avatars.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: We're real human beings. Why do some people get this
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: cheat code? Why don't we get it well?
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: And the sad thing is, even without the draft, it's
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: not that much different than this, because the military offers
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: an out for some people from lower income communities and
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: perhaps some people that you know have not found their
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: way in life. So it's like, even without the draft,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: it's it's not it's similar. You know, there are it
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: is the lower oftentimes Echelona community that have no option
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: other than to join the military. And I'm not saying
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: that's across the board, but it's just an interesting parallel
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: where you see, you know, the more things change, the
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: more they stay the same. M M.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: You could argue on or show like stuff. They don't
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: want you to know that. That's at least part of
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the reason for privatized healthcare. Uh So, the the big
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: thing Tweet does during these riots, he engineers a deal
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: and he says, look, yeah, you don't have to be
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: a millionaire, you don't have to be a popper, or
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: everybody has a few things in common. If you are
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: the head of a household and your family will be
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: left destitute should you go to war and die, then
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: you should get an exemption from the draft as well.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: And then he says, you know what, further, since we
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: can't rock the boat too much, you can come to
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: us at Tammany Hall. We will loan you the three
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars to pay that substitute. And doing this, just
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: this one act of policy gets Tweed a huge amount
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: of influence over the working population of New York City,
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: and that in turn gets him a lot of power
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: in any policy discussion in the city, including everything from
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: like where are we going to build the next skyscraper
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: or whatever?
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: And this is probably some of the first places that
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: I heard some of the tactics that would ultimately be
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: really kind of honed by the mob and organized crime,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: the idea of like, let's get behind and put our
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: investment into these big projects that on the surface are
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: like good for the community, but also offer a lot
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: of ways to shave and skim and charge for things
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: that never took place, you know, materials that were never
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: actually purchased, you know, forging invoices and things like that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: It's a great way to disguise money and to steal
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: taxpayer dollars.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Hiring employees that don't exist, getting your vig on the
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: in and the out the entire way through. Yes, and
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: that depends on hiring your cronies, right, that depends on
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: hiring your goons and your followers.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: And as sopranos, they call those jobs no show jobs.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Right, That's what Tweed is doing, not specifically no show jobs,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but he's putting people in power, his cronies and his
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: goons who are loyal to his greater aims. He's sending
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: them from the smoky back rooms into the halls of government.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: These folks collectively become known as the Tweed Ring. And
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: at this point they are raking it very soon, They're
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: raking in millions of dollars from corruption. They're skimming it
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: off the top. Life is good. They're handed people contracts
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: as favors, you know, and saying, hey, look, get me
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: x percentage of this and then do as thou wilt.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: So he gets.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Favors and bribes, he gets kickbacks. It's everything good government
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: is not supposed to be.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Was do what thou wilt? Maybe the whole of the
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: law is that Anton Levey or is that from something
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: older than that? And he just popularized it in terms
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: of the Church of Satan. I think it's Crowley Crowley,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: that's right. Sorry, quick off topic. Have you guys seen
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: the new Fincher movie yet, The Killer? Yes, I think
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: it's excellent. I like it a lot, a lot. I've
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: watched it three times. But there's a great part where
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: he says this sociopathic Patrick Bateman type lone wolf Asassity says,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: let do what thou wilt be the whole of the law.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Somebody said that I can't remember who it probably it's
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: like the darkest comedy Finchers made. Oh, I think it's wonderful.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: It reminds me a lot of drive, which I know
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: isn't for everybody, but it has some of those vibes.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: It's very stylish, and I just think everyone should check
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: it out. Did you like it? But I did? I enjoyed.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed the clear discrepancy between the killers internal monologue
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: and his actions, and a lot of the comedy can
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: be found.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: He's a screw up too, He's not even Yeah, it's
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: just I think it's great. Not when he uh let
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: us know what you think.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because again not for everybody, but if you if
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: you go into it realizing it is what would be
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: called a black comedy, that I think you're gonna enjoy it.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Some of the Tammany and the Tweed Ring, Uh, this
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: is a new This is like a renaissance for Tammany Hall.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: They have ever quite even though they possessed influence over presidents,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: they had never gone to this level of efficiency in
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: grift and graft.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And you can't get to this level without those
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: cronies in high places. You just can't. It's just not possible.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: And so not only do they have people in stock,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: because they've been around for so long, to the point
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: that Max found earlier that I had no idea how
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: long this organization had been around and how it had evolved.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: You can't do that. You can't get to a place
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: like this without starting on the ground floor. And that's
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: exactly what they did. And now they're at the place
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: where any semblance of we're helping people is just out
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: the window, and they're yeah, sure, they're doing these projects,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: building like the Brooklyn Bridge for example, you know, paving roads,
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: building marble court house, a lot of the things that
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: we see in New York City today. So you can't
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: really argue that the projects themselves weren't iconic and quote
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: unquote good. They were building hospitals. But within those projects
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: where all, like we said, are all these opportunities for
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: patting the costs and adding all of these you know,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: kind of imaginary expenses that literally just went right into
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: the pockets of Tweed and his pals.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like think of the County Courthouse, which was originally
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: going to be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: still a ton of money but eventually it ended up
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: being more than thirteen million dollars in costs. It was
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: never completed, but the Tweed Ring bank accounts were made whole.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: It's really construction project for those guys' bank accounts. I mean, look,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Tweed also is getting a little bit dumb with his money.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: He's being a little loud about it. He has a
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: mansion on Fifth Avenue, he has another home in Connecticut.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: He's throwing all these parties and weddings. He's going real godfather.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: I think there's a great thing match to point out
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: in the research that the Tweed Ring in this time
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: in eighteen seventy three, they bought in an estimated fifty
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: two hundred million dollars in in eighteen seventy three money.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: And I think we do have an inflation calculator, but
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: that's in that's like their profits.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: That's that's like in the money that was totally skimmed
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: and gripped and grafted, you know. Yeah, so yeah, I
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: would love to hear a beep in of boom and
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: a bop bop boom.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: And a dude boom boo boo, but due boom boom,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: fifty million dollars in eighteen seventy three and twenty twenty
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: three money. That's almost one point three billion. That's one billion,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty two million, four hundred and fifty
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: four thousand, one hundred and sixty six dollars.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: And has on the lowest seven cent. Yes, that's not
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: the low I mean what and and I mean it
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: makes sense that we would have a pretty wide range,
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: because this does hard to track. That's the point of it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Make sixty seven cents right like two hundred million on
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: the upper end to your point in eighteen seventy three,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: two hundred million dollars in twenty twenty three. That is
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: drum roll please, mister Williams, five billion, one hundred and
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: twenty nine million, eight hundred and sixteen thousand, six hundred
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: and sixty six dollars. And you'll love this partnal sixty
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: seven cents.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my goodness, what a oh, very very interesting.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: And you know, I'd like to think that this kind
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: of thing couldn't happen anymore. Oh sure, that would be
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: absolutely naive and foolish. And what I was gonna say too,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: is this whole like mansion on Fifth Avenue home in
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Connecticut that's the template for like corrupt New York money men.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not going to name any names, but
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: like having you'd think you'd have to really be low
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: key and not have a big you know, property and
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: not you know, try to overestimate the uh square footage
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: of your apartment buildings because you'd want us to below
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: the radar. But that's not how these folks work. Ostentatiousness
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: is the name of the game. They're like, yeah, come
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: at me, come at me, see what happens.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: And that question they asked or that director they gave
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: was answered. The reason the tweed Rings specifically does not
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: exist the way it existed back then all goes down
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: to journalism. Yes, thank your local journalists the New York Times.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: The people working there really put their lives on the
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: line talking about this corruption on the part of people
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: who ran the town. They started running stories about these
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: famous specific grafts and grifts. And then if you go
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: to Harper's Weekly, you see the editorial cartoons of the
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: legendary Thomas Nast, whom I love, love, love, and he
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: was doing the one of the best things you can
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: do as a cartoonist. He said, look, there are journalists
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: who are raking the muck, hitting the streets, reporting the facts.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to get people who may not care
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: about politics normally, I'm gonna get them to laugh and
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: understand how bad this is. An approach that John Stewart
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: later used on The Daily showed a great effect.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna draw Boss Tweed as a giant pig monster
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: clutching bags of money, you know, with dollar signs on it,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: stomping on poor people that are bowing and scraping in
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: the streets. Oh, I get what that means. That looks bad.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: I wonder what the deal is with this guy. Maybe
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: I should think twice about the power of cartoons. We
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: spoke earlier about how a lot of people in this
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: time in New York City couldn't read. So therefore, not
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: only was it just really impactful these cartoons, it was
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: crucial because those deep dive investigative pieces, while incredibly important,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: and that's where like the meat of the info was,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: those would not be reaching a lot of folks for
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: that very reasons because they couldn't read. So the cartoons
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: is a way of getting everybody.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Involved, which made Tweed even more concerned, because you know,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the the deep dive. Written articles are arguably for the learned,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: and I hate that term, but that's what he was
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: looking at. He was saying, my voting blocks are working class.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: They understand cartoons. I need to look good in this
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: sphere of public conversation. And so he went to the
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: New York Times and went to Nast Thomas Nas specifically,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: and tried to bribe them into silence. No one took
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: him up on the deal. No one shook his hand
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: on that, And that's part of how that's part of
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: why history works out the way it did. Boss Tweed
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: ultimately gets arrested in eighteen seventy one October. He's indicted
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: shortly thereafter. He has tried in eighteen seventy three. The
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: first trial, get this has a hung jury. For some reason,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: not every jury member can agree this guy is guilty
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: despite the evidence. Again, for some reason, not everybody on
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: the jury thinks the evidence is sufficient to convict him
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: of these clearly provable crimes. So he goes to a
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: second trial and he is found guilty of more than
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: two hundred different crimes, and he is sentenced to twelve
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: years in lock up.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Speaking of that hung jury, just I mean, maybe it's
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: just obvious, but we're probably talking about jury tampering, intimidation.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: That's always say to it that way, Yes, for some reason. Yeah, yeah, No,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just like I wonder what those possibilities in this
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: day and age, it would have been a lot easier
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: to do it would than it would be now.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent. Yeah, and that's that's clearly what
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: happened was jury tampering. He gets sentenced in the second trial,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: as we said, twelve years, and he doesn't get out.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: He doesn't serve his entire term. He dies in prison.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: And Max wants you to know that he dies on
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: April twelfth, eighteen seventy eight. Max, why do you want
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: people to know that?
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: Well, April twelfth is my birthday. It's not a great day,
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: by the way, it's the day of the Civil War started.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: FDR died on April twelfth also, and then you know,
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: eighteen seventy eight, that's when I came into existence.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: Max also wants you to know that Boss Tweedt died
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: on the toilet. He did not die in the toilet. Damn.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: If somebody dies in the toilet, I will make sure
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: to point it out.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: We yeah, I think I think we we've got a
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: pretty good sense for that.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: For some reason, we can we can sort of figure
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: out when people died of the toil. Anyway, he is
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: in the Ludlow Street Jail at Grand Street on the
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Lower east Side when he dies. It's the morning of
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: April twelfth, It's around eleven forty am.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: And he starts whispering. He starts whispering, whispering, comes closer, closer,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: closer still.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: He says to his lawyer, William Edelstein, and Willie leans
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: in and he's trying to listen to what Tweet is saying.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: And Tweed reportedly says, wow, well, till didn't fair Child
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: if killed me, he didn't echo like that.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: I haven't. I have become worm's meat. They have murdered
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: it's me. So who's he talking about when he says
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Tilden and Fairchild Charles Fairchild, the New York State attorney
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: general love, a good attorney general, a good good attorneys general,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: who had essentially run him up the flagpole, you know,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: taken him to the mattresses, whatever expression you'd like to use.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: He he believed, at least Boss Tweet had believed in
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: his mind that he had cheated him because he guaranteed
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: him basically to walk free in exchange for a full confession,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: which seems too good to be true.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: But from his perspective, it's like with pro quote, of course,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: you do you know who I am?
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Right, you've seen my pig Man cartoon. It is I
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Boss Tweet. But right, you know, let's just say we
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: could probably understand how at this point Tweed would have
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: had a bit of an overinflated sense of himself and
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: what he was capable of, and he maybe believed the
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: outcome would would swing more in his favor. So he
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: believed that he'd been cheated by Charles Fairchild. Samuel Jones
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Tilden was the governor of New York who had essentially
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: made his name and his career on shutting down Tweed
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: and his cronies and his organization, making promises like I
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: will see this corrupt man die behind boss, you know,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, and going to clean up this city.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Well they were right about Tweet. Tweed did die behind bars.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: But one man is not an organization entire, So Tammany
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: Hall powers through, and when the boss is out of
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: the picture, Boss Tweed dies they go on sort of
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: a Hearts and minds reevaluation self inventory. A guy named
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: John Kelly proceeds or comes after Tweed, succeeds Tweed, and
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: then they bring in these reformers like Samuel Jones Tilden
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: to serve as again I hate this term sachems. But eventually,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: and we're going to paraphrase some of this for time,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: eventually we see the corruption rear its ugly profitable head again,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: and then Tammany tries to clean itself up again. Then
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: it becomes corrupt again, and this goes back and forth
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: until they make an enemy of a guy you may
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: know from this show for US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: who says, all right, we're going to bust Tammany down.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: It's going to be a county organization because they failed
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: to support him in nineteen thirty two. So even he
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: has some important self interest in these things. It declines
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: in power during these various mayoral reforms, and eventually the
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: most powerful political machine in America in history one of
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: is dissolved. It fades away. Max Sawy sneaks some key
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: little easter eggs into these outlines, referring to Roosevelt as
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: the future American King strike through prett president. Oh he
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: got closed, had to write some laws about him.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: I'm a fan of FDR. I like the stuff he did,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: but it doesn't change the fact he was president for
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: thirteen years. Right, he was not that old when he died.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: He was planning to stay for a good bit laws.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: And you know, to be fair, many many other nations
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: have quarreled with that same thing the United States. I
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: hope this statement age as well. The United States has
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: successfully practiced the peaceful transfer of power for quite some time,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: and not many nations can say the same. So let's
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: hope that continues. To your earlier statement. Noel, at this,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: I think, you know what, what a wild ride. We
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: decide we're going to make this a one parter. We
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: have more we'll get to in the future.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: But probably could say some of this for our future
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: grab baggie type things. I agree left behind episode, but
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: there was a one little point that I wanted to
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: bring back. We started with this point. Sometimes these organizations,
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: they start with good intentions, and there were things that
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: Tammany Hall accomplished that were not bad. Like a lot
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: of these immigrants, and these folks were disenfranchised and did
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: not have opportunities, and Tammany Hall's original goal, for whatever
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: purpose it ultimately amounted to, was to help keep those
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: people from being, you know, from fully fully falling through
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: the cracks.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: True good quoint And maybe that's where we end with
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: For further reading and check out the case for Tammany
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: Hall being on the right side of history over at
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: NPR News Boston. That's w b u R. Thank you
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: so much as always to our ridiculous historians for tuning in.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks to our super producer and research associate. I love
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: to shout out our research associates, mister Max Williams for
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: this one.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, excellent Max with the facts. Indeed, huge shout out
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: to Alex Williams. You compose this theme. Chris Frasciota, Steves,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Jeff Goats here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizz Ben,
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: my guy, my buddy. We should start a political machine.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it. All we need is three votes.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Are we gonna do? The three of us vote for ourselves?
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Do the eyes have it? Oh? Yeah, nay, wait, I
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I see. We'll see you next episodes for more podcasts
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: you listen to your favorite shows.