Latest / Classic History Book Collection / Plunkitt of Tammany Hall - George Washinton Plunkitt

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Plunkitt of Tammany Hall - George Washinton Plunkitt · Classic History Book Collection

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Honest graft and dishonest graft. Everybody is talking
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: these days about Tammany men grown rich on graft, but
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: nobody thinks of drawing the distinction between honest graft and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: dishonest graft. There's all the difference in the world between
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in politics. I have myself. I've made a big fortune
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: out of the game, and I'm getting richer every day.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: But I've not gone in for the dishonest graft, blackmail
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and gamblers, saloon keepers, disorderly people, et cetera. And neither
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: has any of the men who have made big fortunes
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: in politics. There's an honest graft, and I'm an example
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of how it works. I might sum up the whole
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: thing by saying, I've seen my opportunities and I took him.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Just let me explain by examples. My party's in power
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in the city, and it's going to undertake a lot
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off. Say they're going
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to lay out a new park at a certain place.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I see my opportunity and I take it. I go
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: to that place and I buy up all the land
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: or that makes its plan public, and there is a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: it is, well, that's honest graft. Or supposing it's a
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: new bridge they're going to build, I get tipped off
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and I buy as much property as I can that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: has to be taken for approaches. I sell it my
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: own price later on and drop some more money in
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the bank. When you it's just like looking ahead in
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Wall Street or in the coffee or cotton market. It's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: honest graft, and I'm looking for it every day in
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the year. I will tell you, frankly that I've got
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a good lot of it too. I'll tell you of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: one case. They were going to fix up a big
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: park no matter where I got onto it, and went
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: looking about for land in that neighborhood. I could get
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: nothing at a bargain but a big piece of swamp.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: But I took it fast enough and held on to it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: That turned out was just what I counted on. They
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: couldn't make the park complete without Plunket swamp, and they
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: had to pay a good price for it. Anything dishonest
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: in that up in the watershed made some money too.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Bought up several bits of land there some years ago
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and made a pretty good guess that they would be
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: bought up for water purposes later by the city. Somehow
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I always guessed about right, and shouldn't I enjoy the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: profit of my foresight. It was rather amusing when the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Comden Nation Commissioners came along and found piece after piece
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of the land in the name of George Plunkett of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the fifteenth Assembly District, New York City. They wondered how
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I knew just what to buy. The answer there is,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I seen my opportunity, and I took it. I haven't
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: confined myself to land. Anything that pays is in my line.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: For instance, the city is repaved in a street and
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: has several hundred thousand old granite blocks to sell. I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: am on hand to buy, and I know just what
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: they are worth. Now. Never mind that I had a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: sort of monopoly of this business for a while. But
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: once a newspaper tried to do me. They got some
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: outside men to come over from Brooklyn to New Jersey
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to bid against me. Was I done? Not much. I
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: went to each of the men and said, how many
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: of these two hundred and fifty thousand stories do you want?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: One said twenty thousand, and another one at fifteen thousand,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: other one of ten thousand. I said, all right, let
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: me bid for the lot, and I'll give each of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: you all you want for nothing. They agreed. Course, then
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the auctioneer yelled, how much of my bid for these
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand fine paving stones? Two dollars
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and fifty cents, says I. Two dollars and fifty cents,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: screamed the auctioneer. Oh, that's a joke. Give me a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: real bid. Found the bid was real enough. My rival
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: stood silent. I got the lot for two dollars and
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: fifty cents and gave them their share. That's how the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: attempt to do plunkt ended, and that's how all such
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: attempts end. I've told you how I got rich by
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: honest graft. Now let me tell you that most politicians
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: who are accused of robbing the city get rich the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: same way. They don't steal a dollar from the city treasury.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: They just seen their opportunities and took them. That is
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: why when Reform administration comes in and spends half a
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: million dollars trying to find the public robberies they talked
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: about in the campaign, they don't find them. The books
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: are always all right, the money in the city treasury
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: is all right, Everything is all right. All they can
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: show you is that the Tammany heads of departments looked
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: after the friends within the law and gave them what
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: opportunities they could to make honest graft. Now, let me
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: tell you that's never going to hurt Tammany with the people.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Every good man looks after his friends, and any man
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: who doesn't isn't likely to be popular. If I have
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a good thing to hand out in private life, I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: give it to a friend. Why shouldn't I do the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: same in public life another kind of honest graft. Tammany
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: has raised a good many salaries. There was an awful
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: howl by the reformers, But don't you know that Tammany
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: gains ten votes for everyone at lost by salary raising.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: The Wall Street banker thinks it's shameful to raise a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: department clerk's salary from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred a year.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: But every man who draws a salary himself says, that's
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: all right, I wish it was me, And he feels
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: very much like voting the Tammany ticket on election day
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: just out of sympathy. Tammany was beat in nineteen oh
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: one because the people were deceived into believing that it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: worked dishonest graft. They didn't draw a distinction between dishonest
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and honest graft. But they saw that some Tammany men
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: grew rich, and supposed they had been robbing the city
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: treasury or levy, and blackmail on disorderly houses, or working
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: in with the gamblers and lawbreakers. As some matter of policy,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: if nothing else, why should Tammany leaders go into such
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: dirty business when there is so much honest graft laying
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: around when they are in power? Did you ever consider that? Now?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: In conclusion, I want to say that I don't own
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a dishonest dollar. If my worst enemy was given the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: job of writing my epithaph when I'm gone, he couldn't
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: do more than right. George W. Plunkett, He's seen his
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: opportunities and he took him. End of Chapter one, Chapter two,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: How to become a Statesman there's thousands of young men
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: in this city who will go to the polls for
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the first time next November. Among them will be many
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: who have watched the careers of successful men in politics
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and who are longing to make names and fortunes for
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: themselves at the same game. It is to these youths
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: that I want to give advice. First, let me say
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: that I am in a position to give what the
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: courts call expert testimony on the subject. I don't think
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you can easily find a better example than I am
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: of his success in politics after forty years experience at
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the game. I am well, I'm George Washington Plunkett. Everybody
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: knows what figure I cut in the great organization on Earth.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And if you hear people say that I've laid away
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: a million or so since I was a butcher's boy
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in Washington Market, don't come to me for an indignant denial.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty comfortable. Thank you. Now. Haven't qualified as an expert,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: as lawyers say, I am going to give advice free
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to the young men who are going to cast their
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: first votes and who are looking forward to political glory
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and lots of cash. Some young men think they can
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: learn how to be successful in politics from books, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: they crammed their heads with all sorts of college raft.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: They couldn't make a bigger mistake. Now understand me, I
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: ain't saying nothing as colleges. I guess they'll have to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: exist as long as there is bookworms, and I suppose
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: they do some good in a certain way, but they
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: don't count in politics. In fact, a young man who
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: has gone through the college course is handicapped at the outset.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: He may succeed in politics, but the chances are one
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: hundred to one against him. Another mistake. Some young men
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: think that the best way to prepare for the political
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: game is to practice speaking and becoming orators. That's all wrong.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: We've got some orators in Tammany Hall, but they're chiefly ornamental.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: You never heard of Charlie Murphy delivering a speech, did you,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Or Richard Crocker or John Kelly or any other man
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: who has been a real power in the organization. Look
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: at the thirty six district leaders of Tammany Hall today.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: How many of them travel on their tongues? Maybe one
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: or two? And then'll count when business is doing it
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Tammy Hall, the men who rule have practiced keeping their
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: tongue still not exercising them. So you want to drop
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the orator I did, unless you mean to go I
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: going to politics just to perform the skyrocket Act. Now
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I've told you what not to do. I guess I
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: can explain best what to do to succeed in politics
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: by telling you what I did after going through the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: apprenticeship of the business while I was a boy, by
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: working around the district headquarters in hustling about the polls
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: on election day, I set out when I cast my
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: first vote to win fame and money in New York
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: City politics. Did I offer my services to the district
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: leader as a stump speaker? Not much. The woods are
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: always full of speakers. Did I get up a hook
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: on municipal government and showed it to the leader? I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't such a fool. What I did was get some
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: marketable goods before going to the leaders. What do I
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: mean by marketable goods? Let me tell you. I had
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a cousin, a young man who didn't take any particular
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: interest in politics. I went to him and said, Tommy,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be a politician and I want to
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: get a following. Can I count on you, he said, sure, George.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: That's how I started in business. I got a market
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: ro commodity one vote. Then I went to the district
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: leader and told him I could command two votes on
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: election day Tommy's in Moan. He smiled on me and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: told me to go ahead. If I had offered him
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a speech or a book full of learning, he would
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: have said, I forget it. That was beginning business in
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a small way, wasn't it. But that is the only
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: way to become a real lasting statesman. I soon branched out.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Two young men in the flat next to mine were
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: school friends. I went to them just as I went
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to Tommy, and they agreed to stand by me. Then
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I had a following and three voters, and I began
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to get a bite. Whenever I dropped into district headquarters,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: everybody shook hands with me, and leader one day honored
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: me by lighting a match for my cigar. And so
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: went on like a snowball rolling down hill. I worked
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the flathouse that I lived in from the basement to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: the top floor, and I got about a dozen young
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: men to follow me. Then I tackled the next house
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and so on down the block and around the corner.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Before long I had sixty men back of me and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: formed the George Washington Plunkett Association. What did the district
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: leader say when I called at headquarters? I didn't have
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: to call at headquarters. He came after me and said, George,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: what do you want? If you don't see what you want,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: ask for it. Wouldn't you like to have a job
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: or two in the department for your friends? I said, oh,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I'll think it over. I haven't yet decided what the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: joy George Washington Plunkett Association will do in the next campaign.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: You ought to say, have seen how I was courted
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and petted then by the leaders of the rival organizations.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I had marketable goods and there was bids for them
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: from all sides, and I was a rising man in politics.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: As time went on and my association grew, I thought
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I would like to go to the Assembly. I just
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: had to hint at what I wanted, and three different
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: organizations offered me the nomination. Afterwards, I went to the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Board of Aldermen, then to the State Senate, then became
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: leader of the district and so on up until I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: became a statesman. That is the way and the only
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: way to make a lasting success in politics. If you
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: are going to cast your first vote next November and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: want to go into politics, do as I did. Get
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a far if it's only one man, and then go
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to the district leader and say I want to join
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the organization. I've got one man who will follow me
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: through thick and thin. The leader won't laugh at your
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: one man following. He'll shake your hand warmly, offer to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: propose you for membership in his club, take you down
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to the corner for a drink, and ask you to
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: call again. But go to him and say, I took
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: first parties in college at Aristotle. I can recite all
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare forwards and backwards. There ain't nothing in science that
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: ain't as familiar to me as block signs on the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: elevated roads. And I'm the real thing in the way
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of silver tongued orators. What will he answer? He'll probably say,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I guess you were not to blame for your misfortune,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: but we have no use for you here. End of
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Chapter two, Chapter three. The curse of so Service Reform.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: It is the curse of the nation. There can't be
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: no real patriotism while it lasts. How are you going
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to interest our young men in their country if you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: have no offices to give them when they work for
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: their party. Just look at things in this city today.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: There are ten thousand good offices, but we can't get
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: at more than a few hundred of them them. How
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: are we going to provide for the thousands of men
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: who worked for the Tammany ticket. It can't be done.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: These men were full of patriotism a short time ago.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: They expected to be serving their city. But when we
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: tell them that we can't place them, do you think
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: their patriotism is going to last? Not much? They say,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: what's the use of working for your country anyhow? And
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: in the game? And what can they do? I don't know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: but I'll tell you what I do know. I know
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: more than one young man in past years who worked
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: for the ticket and was just overflowing with patriotism. But
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: when he was knocked out by the civil service humbug,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: he got to hate his country and became an anarchist.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: This ain't no exaggeration. I have good reason for saying
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that most of the anarchists in this city are men
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: who ran up against civil service examinations. Isn't it enough
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to make a man sour on his country when he
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: wants to serve it and won't be allowed unless he
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: answers a lot of fool questions about the number of
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: cubic inches of water in the Atlantic and the quality
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of sand in the Sahara Desert. There was once a
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: bright young man in my district who tackled one of
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: these examinations. The next I heard of him, he had
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: settled down in her most saloons, smoking and drinking beer
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and talking socialism all day. Before that time, he had
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: never drunk anything but whisky. I know what was coming
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: when a young irishman drops whiskey and takes to beer
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and long pipes in a German saloon. That young man
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: is today one of the wildest anarchists in town. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: just to think he might be a patriot. But for
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: that cussed civil service, Say, did you hear about that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Civil Service Reform Association kicking? Because the tax commissioners want
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to put their fifty five deputies on the exempt list
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and fire the outfit left of them by low that
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: civil service. For you, just think fifty five Republicans and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: mugwamps holding eight thousand and four thousand and five thousand
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: dollars jobs in the tax department, when fifteen hundred and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: fifty five good Tammany men are ready and willing to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: take their places, it's an outrage. What did the people
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: mean when they voted for Tammany? What is representative government anyhow?
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Is it all a fake that this is a government
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of the people, by the people, and for the people.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: If it isn't a fake, then why isn't a people's
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: voice obeyed? And Tammany men put in all the offices.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: When the people elected Tammany, they knew just what they
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: were doing. We didn't put up any false pretenses. We
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: didn't go in for humbug civil service and all that rot.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: We stood where we have always stood, for rewarding the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: men that won the victory. They call that a spoil system,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: all right, Tammany is for the spoil system. And when
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: we go in, we fire every anti Tammany man from
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: office that can be fired under the law. It's an
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: elastic sort of law, and you can bet it will
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: be stretched to the limit. Of course, the Republican State
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Civil Service Board will stand in the way of our
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: local Civil Service Commission all it can, but say, suppose
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: we carry the state sometime, won't we fire the upstate
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: board all right? Or we'll make it work in harmony
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: with the local board. And that means that Tammany will
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: get everything in sight. I know that the civil service
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: humbug is stuck into the constitution too, But as Tim
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Campbell said, what's the constitution? Among friends say, the people's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: voice is smothered by the cursed civil service law. It
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: is the root of all evil in our government. You
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: hear of this thing and that thing going wrong in
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the nation, the state, or the city, look down beneath
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the surface, and you can trace everything wrong to civil service.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I have stirred the subject now. I know the civils
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: service humbug is undermining our institutions. And if a halt
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: ain't called soon, this great Republic will tumble down like
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: a Park Avenue house when they were building the subway,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and on its ruins will rise another Russian government. This
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is an awful, serverious proposition. Free silver, the tariff and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: imperialism and the Panama Canal are trifling issues when compared
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: with it. We could worry along without any of these things.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: But civil service has sapping the foundation of the whole
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: shooting match. Let me argue it out for you. Hind
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: up to syllogisms, but I can give you some arguments
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: that nobody can answer. First, this great and glorious country
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: was built up by political parties. Second, parties can't hold
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: together if the workers don't get the offices when they win. Third,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: if the parties go to pieces, the government they built
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: up must go to pieces two. Fourth, then there'll be
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: h two pay. Could anything be clearer than it? Say? Honest? Now,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: can you answer that argument? Of course, you won't deny
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: that the government was built up by the great parties.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That's history, and you can't go back of the returns.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: As to my second proposition, you can't deny that either.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: When parties can't get offices, they'll bust. They ain't far
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: from the busting point. Now, with all this civil service
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: business keeping most of the good things from them, how
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: are you going to keep up patriotism if this thing
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: goes on, you can't do it. Let me tell you
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: that patriotism has been dying out fast for the last
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: twenty years. Before then, when a party won, the worker's
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: got everything in sight that was something to make a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: man patriotic. Now, when a party wins and its men
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: come forward and ask for the rewards, is nothing doing
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: unless you can answer a list of questions about Egyptian
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: mummies and how many years it will take for a
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: bird to wear out a mass of iron as big
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: as the earth by stepping on it once in a century.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I've studied politics and men for forty five years, and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I see how things are drifting. Sad indeed, is the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: change that has come over the young men. Even in
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: my district, where I try to keep up the fire
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: of patriotism by getting a lot of jobs from my constituents,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: whether Tammany is in or out, the boys and men
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: don't get excited anymore when they see a United States
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: flag or hear the Star spangled banner. They'll care no
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: more for firecrackers on the fourth of July, and why
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: should they? What is there in it for them? They
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: know that no matter how hard they work for their
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: country in a campaign, the jobs will go to fellows
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: who can tell about the mummies and the birds stepping
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: on the iron. Are you prize then, that the young
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: men of the country are beginning to look coldly at
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the flag and don't care to put up a nickel
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: for firecrackers. Say, let me tell you of one case.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: After the Battle of San Juan Hill, Americans found a
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: dead man with light complexion, red hair, and blue eyes.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: They could see when a Spaniard, although he had on
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: a Spanish uniform. Several officers looked him over him, and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: then a private of the seventy first Regiments saw him
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: and yelled, good lord, that's Flaherty. The man grew up
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in my district and he was once the most patriotic
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: American boy on the west side. He couldn't see a
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: flag without yelling himself, horse. Now how did he come
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: to be lying dead with a Spanish uniform on? I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: found out all about it, and I'll vouch for the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: story well. In the municipal campaign of eighteen ninety seven,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: that young man chalked full of patriotism, worked day and
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: night for the Tammany ticket. Tammany won, and the young
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: man determined to devote his life to the service of
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the city. He picked out a place that would suit
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: him and sent in his application to the head of department.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: He got a reply that he must take a civil
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: service examination to get the place. He didn't know what
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: these examinations were, so he went all lighthearted to the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Civil Service board. He read the questions about the mummies,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the bird on the iron, and all the other fool questions,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: and he left that office and enemy of the country
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that he had loved so well, the mummies and the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: bird blasted his patriotism. He went to Cuba, enlisted in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the Spanish army at the breaking out of the war,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and died fighting his country. That is but one victim
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of the infamous civil service. If that young man had
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: not run up against the civil examination, but had been
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: allowed to serve his country as he wished, he would
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: be in good office to day, drawn a good salary. Ah,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: how many young men have had their patriotism blasted in
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the same way. Now, what is going to happen when
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: civil service crushes out patriotism? Only one thing can happen.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: The republic will go to pieces. Thenizar Sultan will turn up,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: which brings me to the fourthly of my argument, that is,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: there will be thy h to pay, and that ain't
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: no lie. End of Chapter three, Chapter four. Reformers only
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: morning glories, college professors and philosophers who go up in
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: a balloon to think. Are always discussing the question why
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: reform administrations never succeed themselves. The reason is plain to
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: anybody who has learned the A. B. C's of politics.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many of these movements I've
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: seen started in New York during my forty years in politics,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: but I can tell you how many have lasted more
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: than a few years. None. There have been reform committees
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of fifty, of sixty, of seventy, of one hundred, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: all sorts of numbers that started out to do up
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the regular political organizations. There were morning glories, looking lovely
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: in the morning, and withered up in a short time,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: while the regular machines went on flourishing forever like fine
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: old oaks say, that's the first poetry I ever worked off,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Ain't it great? Just look back a few years. You
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: remember the People's Municipal League that nominated Frank Scott for
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: mayor in eighteen ninety. Do you remember the reformers that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: got up that league? Have you ever heard of them? Since?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I haven't. Scott himself survived because he had always been
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a first rate aitician. But you'd have to look in
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the newspaper Almanacs of eighteen ninety one to find out
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: who made up the People's Municipal League. Oh yes, I
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: remember one name, Ollie Teel, Dear pretty Ollie and his
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: big dog. They're about all that's left of the league.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Now take the reform movement of eighteen ninety four. A
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: lot of good politicians joined in that, the Republicans, the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: State Democrats, the Stecolites and New O'Brien knights, and they
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: give us a licking. But the real reform part of
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the affair, the Committee of seventy that started the thing going.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: What's become of those reformers? What's become of Charles Stuart Smith?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Where's Banks? Do you ever hear of Cornell? The iron
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: man in politics? Now? Could a search party find R. W. G. Welling?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Have you seen the name of Fulton McMahon or m
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I ain't sure which in the papers lately? Or Prebel
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Tucker or But it's no use to go through the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: list of the reformers who said they sounded in the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: death knell of Tammany in eighteen ninety four. They're gone
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: for good, and Tammany's pretty well, thank you. They did
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the talking and posing and the politicians in the movement
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: got all the plumbs. It's always the case. The Citizens'
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Union has lasted a little bit longer than the reform
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: crowd that went before them, But that's because they learned
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a thing or two from us. They learned how to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: put up a pretty good bluff, and bluff counts a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: lot in politics. With only a few thousand members, they
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: had the nerve to run the whole fusion movement, make
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the Republicans and other organizations come to their headquarters to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: select a ticket and dictate what every candidate must do
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: or not do. I love nerve, and I've had a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: lot of respect for the citizens Union lately. But the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Union can't last. It's people haven't been trained to politics,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and whenever Tammany calls their bluff, they lay right down.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: You'll never hear of the Union again after a year
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: or two. And by the way, what's become of the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: good government clubs, the political nurseries of a few years ago.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Do you ever hear of good Government club D, N, P,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: n Q and Z anymore? What's become of the infants
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: who were to grow up and show us how to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: govern the city. I know what's become of the nursery
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that would start out in my district. You can find
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: pretty much a whole outfit over at my headquarters, Washington Hall.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: The fact is that a reformer can't last in politics.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: He can make a show for a while, but he
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: always comes down like a rocket. Politics is as much
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a regular business as the grocery or the dry goods
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: or the drug business. You've got to be trained up
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to it, or you're sure of fail. Suppose a man
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: who knew nothing about the grocery trade suddenly went into
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the business and tried to conduct it according to his
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: own ideas. Wouldn't he make a mess of it. He
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: might make a spurge for a while as long as
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: money lasted, but his store would soon be empty. It's
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: just the same with reformer. He hasn't been brought up
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: in the difficult business of politics, and he makes a
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: mess of it every time. I've been studying the political
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: game for forty five years, and I don't know it
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: all yet I'm learning something all the time. How then,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: can you expect what they call businessmen to turn into
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: politics all at once and make a success of it.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It is just as if I went up to Columbia
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: University and started to teach Greek. They usually last about
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: as long in politics as I would last at Columbia.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: You can't begin too early in politics if you want
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to succeed at the game. I begin several years before
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I could vote, and so every successful leader in Tammany Hall.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: When I was twelve years old, I made myself useful
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: around the district headquarters and did work at all the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: polls on election day. Later on, I hustled about getting
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: out voters who had jags on or who were too
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: lazy to come to the polls. There's one hundred ways
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: that boys can help, and they get an experience. That's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the first real step in statesmanship. Show me a boy
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: that hustles for the organization on election day, and I'll
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: show you a common statesman. That's the ABC of politics.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It ain't easy work to get up to Q and Z.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: You have to give nearly all your time and attention
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to it. Of course, you may have some business or
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: occupation on the side, but the great business of your
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: life must be politics if you want to succeed at it.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: A few years ago, Tammany tried to mix politics and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: business and equal quantities by having two leaders for each district,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a politician and a businessman. They wouldn't mix. They were
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: like oil and water. The politician looked after the politics
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: of his district. The businessman looked after his grocery store
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: or his milk route. And whenever he appeared at an
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: executive meeting, it was only to make trouble. The whole
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: scheme turned out to be a farce and was abandoned.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Mighty quick, Do you understand now why it is that
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: a reformer goes down and out in the first or
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: second round while a politician answers to the gong every time.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: It is because the one has gone into the fight
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: without training, while the other trains all the time and
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: knows every fine point of the game. End of chapter four,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Chapter five. New York City is pie for the hay Seats.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: This city is ruled entirely by the hay Seed legislators
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: at Albany. I've never known an upstate Republican who didn't
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: want to run things here, and I met many thousands
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: of them in my long service and the legislature. The
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Hayseeds think we are like the Indians to the national government.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: That is sort of wards of the state, who don't
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: know how to look after ourselves and have to be
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: taken care of by the Republicans of Saint Lawrence, Ontario
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and other backwoods companies. Why should anybody be surprised because
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: ex Governor Odell comes down here to direct the Republican machine.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Newburgh ain't big enough for him. He, like all the
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: other upstate Republicans, wants to get hold of New York City.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: New York is their pie. Say you hear a lot
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: about the downtrodden people of Ireland and the Russian peasants
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and the Suffern bars. Now let me tell you that
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: they have more real freedom and home rule than the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: people of this grand and imperial city, England. For example,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: they make a pretense of giving the Irish some self
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: government in this state. The Republican government makes no pretense
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: at all. It says, right out in the open, New
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: York City is a nice, big fat goose. Come along
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: with your carbon knives and have a slice. They don't
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: pretend to ask the gooses consent. We don't own our streets,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: or our docks, or our waterfront or anything else. The
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Republican legislature and governor run the whole shooting match. We've
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: got to eat and drink what they tell us to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: eat and drink, and have got to choose our time
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: for eating and drinking to suit them. If they don't
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: feel like taking a glass of beer on Sunday, we
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: must abstain. If they have not got any amusements up
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: in their backwoods, we mustn't have none. We've got to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: regulate our whole lives to suit them, and then we
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: have to pay their taxes to boot. Did you ever
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: go up to Albany from this city with a delegation
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that wanted anything from the legislature. No, well don't. The
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Hayseeds who run the committees will look at you as
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: if you were a child that didn't know what it wanted,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and will tell you, in so many words, to go
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: home and be good, and the legislature will give you
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: whatever it thinks is good for you. They put on
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a sort of patronizing air as much as to say,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: these children are an awful lot of trouble. They're wanting
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: candy all the time, and they know that it will
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: make them sick. They ought to thank Goodness that they
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: have us to take care of them. And if you
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: try to argue with them. They'll smile in a pitying
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: sort of way, is if they were humor in a
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: spoiled child. But just let a Republican farmer from Chemberg
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: or Wayne or Tioga turn up at the Capitol. The
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Republican legislature will make a rush for him and ask
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: him what he wants, and tell him if he doesn't
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: see what he wants, to ask for it. If he
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: says his taxes are too high, they reply to him,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: all right, old man, don't let that worry you. How
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: much you want us to take off? I guess about
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: fifty percent will about do for the present, says the man.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Can you fix me up? Sure? The legislature agrees, give
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: us something harder. Don't be bashful. We'll take off sixty
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: percent if you wish. That's what we're here for. Then
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the legislature goes and passes the law increasing the liquor
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: tax or some other tax in New York City, takes
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a half of the proceeds for the state treasury and
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: cuts down the farmer's taxes to suit. It's as easy
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: as rolling off a log. When you've got a good
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: working majority and no conscience to speak of. Let me
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: give you another example. It makes me hot under the
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: collar to tell you about this. Last year, some hay
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: seeds along the Hudson River, mostly O'Dell's neighborhood, got dissatisfied
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: with the docks where they landed their vegetables, brick bats,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and other things they produced in the river counties. They
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: got together and said, let's take a trip down to
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: New York and pick out the finest dock we can find.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Odell and the legislature will do the rest. They did
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: come down here, and what do you think They hit
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: on the finest dock in my district, invaded George W.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Plunket's district without saying as much as by your leave.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Then they called on Odell to put through a bill
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: given them this dock, and he did. When the bill
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: came before Mayor Low, I made the greatest speech of
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: my life. I pointed out how the legislature could give
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: a whole waterfront to the hay seeds over the head
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of the dock commissioner in the same way, and warned
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the mayor that nations had rebelled against their governments for less.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: But it was no go. O'Dell and Low were pards
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and well, my dock was stolen. Heard a lot in
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the Senate campaign about Odell's great work in reducing the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: state tax to almost nothing, and you'll hear a lot
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: more about it in the campaign next year. How did
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: he do it by cutting down the expenses of the
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: state government. Oh no, the expenses went up. He simply
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: performed the old Republican Act of Milkin New York City.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: The only difference was that he nearly milked the city dry.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: He not only ran up the liquor tax, but put
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: all sorts of taxes on corporations, banks, insurance companies, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: everything in sight that could be made to give up.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Of course, nearly the whole tax fell on the city.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Then O'Dell went through the country district and said, see
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: what I have done for you. You ain't got any
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: more taxes to pay the state, Ain't I a fine feller?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Once a farmer in Orange County asked him, how did
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: you do it? Ben did? Easy? Answered, whenever I want
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: any money for the state treasury, I know where to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: get it. And he pointed towards New York City. And
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: then all the Republican tinkering with New York City's charter
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: nobody can keep up with it. When a Republican mayor
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: is in, they give him all sorts of power. If
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: a Tammany mayor is elected next fall, I wouldn't be
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: surprised if they changed the whole business and arranged it
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: so that every city department should have four heads, two
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: of them Republicans. If we make a kick, they would say,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: you don't know what's good for you. Leave it to us.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: It's our business. End of Chapter five, Chapter six. To
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: hold your district, study human nature and act accordon. There's
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: only one way to hold a district. You must study
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: human nature and act accordon. You can't study human nature
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: in books. Books is a hindrance more than anything else.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: If you have been to college so much the worse
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: for you. You'll have to unlearn all you learn before
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: you can get right down to human nature, and unlearning
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: takes a lot of time. Some men can never forget
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: what they learned at college. Such men may get to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: be district leaders by a fluke, but they never last
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the learn real human nature. You have to go among
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the people, see them and be seen. One know every man,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: woman and child in the fifteenth district except them that's
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: been born this summer, and I know some of them too.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I know what they like and what they don't like,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: what they are strong at, and what they are weak in.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: And I reach them by approaching at the right side.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: For instance, here's how I gather in the young men.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I hear of a young fellow that's proud of his voice,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: thinks they can sing fine. I ask him to come
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: round to Washington Hall and join our glee club. He
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: comes and sings, and he's a follower, plunket for life.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Another young fella gains a reputation as a baseball player
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: in a vacant lot. I bring him into our baseball club.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: That fixes him. You'll find him working for my ticket
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: at the poll's next election day. Then there's the fellow
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that likes rowing on the river, the young fellow that
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: makes a name as Walter on his block, the young
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: fella that's handy. With these dukes, I rope them all
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: in by giving them opportunities to show themselves off. I
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: don't trouble them with political arguments. I just study human
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: nature and act to court. But you may say this
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: game will work with the high toned fellas, the fellers
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: that go through college and then join the Citizens Union.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Of course it wouldn't work. I have a special treatment
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: for them. I like the patent medicine man that gives
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the same medicine for all diseases. The Citizens' Union of
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: a young man. I love him. He's the daintiest morsel
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: of a lot, and he don't often escape me before
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: telling you how I catch him. Let me mention that
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: before the election last year, the Citizens Union said they
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: had four hundred or five hundred and rolled voters in
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: my district. They had a lovely headquarters to beautiful roll
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: top desks and acutest rugs in the world. If I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: was accused of having contributed to fix up the nest
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: for them, I wouldn't deny it under oath. What do
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I mean by that? Never mind, you can guess from
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the sequel if you're sharp. Well. Election day came. The
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Citizens Union's candidate for Senator, who ran against me, just
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: polled five votes in the district, while I polled something
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: more than fourteen thousand votes. What became of the four
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: hundred or five hundred Citizens Union en rolled voters in
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: my district? Some people guessed that many of them were
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: good plunket men, all along and worked with the CITs
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: just to bring them into the plunket camp by election day.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: You can guess that way too if you want to.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I never contradict stories about me, especially in hot weather.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I just call your attention to the fact that on
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: last election day, three hundred and ninety five Citizens Union
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: in road voters in my district. We're missing and unaccounted for.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I tell you, frankly, though, how I have captured some
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: of the citizens junior young men. I have a plan
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: that never fails. I watch the city record to see
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: when there's civil service examinations for good things. Then I
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: take my young cit in hand, tell him all about
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the good thing, and get him worked up till he
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: goes and takes an examination. I don't bother about him
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: any more. It's a cinch that he comes back to
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: me in a few days and asks to join Tammany Hall.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Come over to Washington Hall some night, and I'll show
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: you a list of on our roll marked c s,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: which means bucked up against civil service. As to the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: older voters, I reached them too. No, I don't send
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: them campaign literature. That's rot. People can get all the
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: political stuff they want to read, and a good deal
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: more to in the papers. Who read speeches nowadays? Anyhow,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it's bad enough to listen to them. You ain't going
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: to gain any votes. By stuffing the letter boxes with
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: campaign documents Like as not, you lose votes for There's
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: nothing a man hates more than to hear the letter
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: carrier ring his bell and go to the letterbox expecting
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: to find a letter he was looking for, and find
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: only a lot of printed politics. I met a man
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: this very morning who told me he voted the Democratic
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: state ticket last year just because Republicans kept Grameny's letterbox
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: with campaign documents. What tells in holding your grip on
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: your district is to go right down among the poor
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: families and help them in the different ways they need help.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I've got a regular system for this. If there's a
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: fire in ninth, tenth or eleventh Avenue, for example, any
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: hour of the day of night, I'm usually there with
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: some of my election district captains as soon as the
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: fire engines. If a family is burned out, I don't
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: ask whether they are Republicans or Democrats, and I don't
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: refer them to the charity organization society, which would investigate
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: their case in a month or two and decide they
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: were worthy of help. About the time they are dead
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: from starvation. I just get quarters for them, buy clothes
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: for them if their clothes were burned up, and fix
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: them up till they get things running again. It's philanthropy,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: but it's politics, too, mighty good politics. Who can tell
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: how many votes one of these fires bring me. The
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: poor are the most grateful people in the world. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: let me tell you, they have more friends in their
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods than the rich have in theirs. If there's a
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: family in my district and want I know it, but
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: for the charitable societies do and me and my men
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: are first on the ground. I have a special court
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to look up such cases. The consequence is that the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: poor look up to George W. Plunkett as a father,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: come to him in trouble, and don't forget him on
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: election day. Another thing, I can always get a job
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: for a deserving man. I make it a point to
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: keep on the track of jobs, and it seldom happens
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that I don't have a few of my sleeve ready
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: for use. I know every big employer in the district
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: and in the whole city for that matter. And they
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: ain't in the habit of saying no to me when
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: I ask them for a job. And the children, the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: little roses of the district, do I forget them? Oh no,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: They know me, every one of them, and they know
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: that a sight of Uncle George and Candy means the
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: same thing. Some of them are the best kind of
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: vote getters. I'll tell you case. Last year, a little
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: eleventh Avenue Rosebud, who's his father is a Republican, cot
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: hold of his whiskers on election day and said she
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: wouldn't let go till he'd promise to vote for me.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And she didn't. End of chapter six. Chapter seven on
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the Shame of the Cities. I've been reading a book
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: by Lincoln Stephens on the Shame of the Cities. Stephans
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: means well, but like all reformers, he don't know how
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to make distinctions. He can't see no difference between honest
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: graft and dishonest graft, and consequent he gets things all
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: mixed up. There's the biggest kind of difference between political
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: looters and politicians who make a fortune out of politics
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: by keeping their eyes wide open. The looter goes in
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: for himself alone without considering his organization or his city.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: The politician looks after his own interests, to organization's interests
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and the city's interest all at the same time shed ditinction.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: For instance, I ain't no looter. Looter hogs it. I
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: never hogged. I made my pile in politics, but at
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: the same time I served your organization and got more
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: big improvements for New York City than any other living man.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: And I never monkeyed with the penal code. The difference
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: between a looter and a practical politician is the difference
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: between the Philadelphia Republican gang and Tammany Hall. Stephens seems
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: to think they're both about the same, but he's all wrong.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: The Philadelphia Crown runs up against the penal code. Tammany don't.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: The Philadelphians are ain't satisfied with Robin the Bank of
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: all its gold and paper money. They stay to pick
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: up the Nichols and pennies, and the cop comes round
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and nabs them. Tammany ain't no such fool. Well, I
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: remember about fifteen or twenty years ago, a Republican superintendent
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: of the Philadelphia Almshouse stole the zinc roof off the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: building and sold it for junk that was carrying things
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: to excess. There is a limit to everything, and the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia Republicans go beyond the limit. It seems like they
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: can't be cool and moderate like real politicians. It ain't fair, therefore,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to class tammany men with the Philadelphia gang. Any man
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: who undertakes to write political books should never for a
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: moment lose sight of the distinction between honest graft and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: dishonest graft, which I explained in full in another talk.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: If he puts all kinds of graft on the same level,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: he'll make the fatal mistake that Stephan's made and spoil
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: his book. A big city like New York or Philadelphia
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: or Chicago might be compared to a sort of garden
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of Eden from a political point of view. It's an
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: orchard full of beautiful apple trees. One of them has
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: got a big sign on it marked penal code tree poison.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: The other trees have lots of apples on them for all,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yet the fools go to the penal code tree. Why
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: for the reason, I guess that a cranky child refuses
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: to eat good food and choose up a box of
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: matches with relish. I never had any temptation to touch
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the penal code tree. The other apples are good enough
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for me, And oh lord, how many of them there
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: are in a big city. Stephans made one good point
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: in his book. He said he found that Philadelphia, ruled
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: almost entirely by Americans, was more corrupt than New York,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: where the Irish do almost all the government. I could
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: have told him that before he did any investigating if
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: he had come to me. The Irish was born to rule,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and they're the honestest people in the world. Show me
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the Irishman who would steal a roof off an almhouse.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: He don't exist. Of course, if an Irishman had the
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: political pull and the roof was much worn, he might
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: get the city authorities to put on a new one,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and get the contract for it himself and buy the
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: old roof at a bargain. But that's honest graft. It's
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: going about the thing like a gentleman, and there's more
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: money in it than a tearn down an old roof
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: and carting it to the junk Man's more money and
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: no penal code. One reason why the Irishman is more
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: honest in politics than many sons of the revolution is
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: that he is grateful to the country and the city
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: that gave him protection and prosperity when he was driven
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: by oppression from the Emerald dial Say that sentence is fine,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: ain't it. I'm going to get some literary follow to
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: work it over into poetry for next Saint Patrick's Day dinner. Yes,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: the Irishman is his one thought is to serve the
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: city which gave him a home. He has this thought
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: even before he lands in New York, for his friends
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: here often have a good place in one of the
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: city departments picked out for him while he is still
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: in the old country. Is it any wonder that he
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: has a tender spot in his heart for Old New
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: York when he is on its salary list the morning
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: after he lands. Now a few words on the general
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: subject of the so called shame of cities. I don't
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: believe that the government of our cities is any worse
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: in proportion to opportunities than it was fifty years ago.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I'll explain what I mean by in proportion to opportunities.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Half a century ago, our cities were small and poor.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: There wasn't many temptations laying around for politicians. There was
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: hardly anything to steal, and hardly any opportunities for even
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: honest A city could count its money every night before
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: going to bed, and if three cents was missing, all
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: the fire bells would be rung. What credit was there
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: in being honest under them circumstances? Makes me tired to
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: hear of old codgers back in the thirties or forties
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: boasting that they retired from politics without a dollar except
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: what they earned in their profession or businesses. If they
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: lived today, with all the existing opportunities, they would be
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: just the same as twentieth century politicians. There ain't any
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: more honest people in the world just now than the
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: convicts and Singh Sing. Not one of them steals anything.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Why because I can't see the implication. Understand, I ain't
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: defending politicians of today who steal. The politician who steals
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: is worse than the thief. He is a fool with
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the grand opportunities all around. For the man with a
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: political pull, there's no excuse for stealing assent. The point
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: I want to make is that if there is some
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: stealing in politics, it don't mean that the politicians of
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen oh five are as a class worse than them.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Of eighteen thirty five. It just means that the old
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: timers had nothing to steal, while the politicians now are
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: surrounded by all kinds of temptations, and some of them
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: naturally the full ones buck up against the penal code.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: End of chapter seven, Chapter eight, ingratitude in politics. There's
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: no crime so mean as ingratitude in politics. But every
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: great statesman from the beginning of the world has been
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: up against it. Caesar had his Brutus, that king of
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's Leary I think you call him, had his own
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: daughters go back on him. Platt had his Odell, and
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I've got my the McManus. It's a real proof that
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: a man is great when he meets with political ingratitude.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Great men have a tender trust in nature. So have I.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Outside of the contracting in real estate business, in politics,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: I have trusted men who have told me they were
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: my friends. And if traders have turned up in my camp, well,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I only had the same experience as Caesar, Leary and
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: the others about my brutus. McManus, you know, has seven brothers,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: and they call him the because he is the boss
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: of the lot, and to distinguish him from all the
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: other mcmanuses. For several years, he was a political bushwhacker
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: in campaigns. He was sometimes on the fence, sometimes on
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: both sides of the fence, and sometimes under the fence.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Nobody knew where to find him at any particular time,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: and nobody trusted him. That is, nobody but me. I
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: thought there was some good in him after all, and
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: that if I took him in hand, I could make
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: a man of him. Yet I did take him in
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: hand a few years ago. My friends told me it
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: would be the Brutus Leary business all over again, but
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't believe them. I put my trust in the
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: I nominated him for the Assembly and he was elected.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: A year afterwards, when I was running for re election
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: as Senator, I nominated him for the Assembly again on
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: the ticket with me. What do you think happened? We
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: both carried the fifteenth Assembly district, but he ran away
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: ahead of me. Just think ahead of me in my
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: own district. I was just dazed. When I began to
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: recover my election district came. Captains came to me and
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: said that McManus had sold me out with the idea
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: of knocking me out of the centertorship, and then trying
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: to capture the leadership of the district. I couldn't believe it.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: My trust in nature couldn't imagine such treachery. I sent
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: for McManus and said, with my voice trembling with emotions,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: they say you've done me dirt. The it can't be true.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Tell me it ain't true. The almost wept as he
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: said he was innocent. Never have I done you dirt, George,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: he declared, wicked traitors have tried to do you. I
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: don't know just who they are yet, but I'm on
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: their trail and I'll find them or aberture the name
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of the MacManus. I'm going out right now to find them. Well,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the kept his word as far as going out and
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: finding the traders was concerned. He found them all right,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: and put himself at their head. Oh no, he didn't
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: have to go far to look for them. He's got
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: them gathered in his club rooms now, and he's doing
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: his best to take the leadership from the man that
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: made him. So you see that Caesar and Larry's and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: me in the same boat. Only I'll come out on
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: top while Caesar and Leary went under. Now let me
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: tell you that the ingrate in politics never flourishes long.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: I can give you lots of examples. Look at the
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: men who'd done up Roscoe Conkling when he resigned from
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the United States Senate and went to Albany to ask
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: for re election. What's become of them passed from view
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: like a moving picture. Who took Conkling's place in the Senate?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Twenty dollars? Even that you can't remember his name without
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: looking in the almanac. And poor old Platt, he's down
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: and out now. And Odell is in the saddle. But
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: that don't mean that he'll always be in the saddle.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: His enemies are working hard all the time to do him,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he went
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: out before the next state campaign. The politicians who make
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: a lasting success in politics are the men who were
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: always loyal to their friends, even up to the gate
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: of state prison if necessary, men who keep their promises
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: and never lie. Richard Crocker used to say that telling
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the truth and sticking to his friends was the political
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: leader's stock in trade. Nobody ever said anything truer, and
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: nobody lived up to it better than Crocker. That is
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: why he remained leader of Tammany Hall. As long as
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: he wanted to, every man in the organization trusted him.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he made mistakes that hurt him campaigns, but they
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: were always on the side of serving as friends. It's
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: the same with Charles F. Murphy. He has always stood
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: by his friends, even when it looked like he would
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: be down for doing so. Remember how he stuck to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: mc clellan in nineteen o three when all the Brooklyn
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: leaders were against him and it seemed as if Tammany
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: was in for a grand smash up. It's men like
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Crocker and Murphy the stay leaders as long as they live,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: not men like Brutus and McManus. Now, I want to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: tell you why political traders in New York City especially
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: are punished quick. It's because the Irish are in a majority.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: The Irish, above all people in the world, hates a trader.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: You can't hold them back when a trader of any
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: kind is in sight. And remember in Old Ireland they'd
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: take particular delight in doing up a political trader. Most
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: of the voters in my district are Irish or of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Irish descent. They've spotted the McManus and when they get
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: a chance at him, at the polls next time, they
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: won't do a thing to him. The question has been asked,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: is a politician ever justified in going back on his
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: district leader. I answer no, as long as the leader
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: hustled around and gets all the jobs possible for his constituents.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: When the voters elect a man leader, they make a
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: sort of a contract with him. They say, although it
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: ain't written out, we've put you here to look out
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: for our interests. You want to see that this district
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: gets all the jobs that's coming to it. Be faithful
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: to us, and we'll be faithful to you, the district
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: leader promises, and that makes a solemn contract. If he
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: lives up to it, spends most of his time chasing
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: after places in the departments, picks up jobs from real
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: roads and contractors for his followers, and shows himself in
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: all ways a true statesman, then his followers are bound
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: in honor to uphold him, just as they're bound to
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: uphold the Constitution of the United States. But if he
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: only looks after his own interests, or shows no talent
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: for sending out jobs, or ain't got the nerve to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: demand and get his share of the good things that
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: are going his followers may be absolved from their allegiance,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: and they may up and swat him without being put
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: down as political ingrates. End of Chapter eight, Chapter nine
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Reciprocity and Patronage. Whenever Tammanny is whipped at the poles,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: the people set to predicting that the organization is going
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: to smash. They say we can't get along without the officers,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: and that the district leaders are going to desert wholesale.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: That was what was said after the throwdowns in eighteen
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: ninety four and nineteen oh one. But it didn't happen,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: did it. Not one big Tammany man deserted, and today
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: the organization is stronger than ever. I was that it
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: was because Tammany has more than one string to its bow.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: I acknowledge that you can't keep an organization together without patronage.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Men ain't in politics for nothing. They want to get
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: something out of it. But there is more than one
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: kind of patronage. We lost the public kind, or a
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: greater part of it in nineteen o one, but Tammany
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: has an immense private patronage that keeps things going when
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: it gets a setback at the polls. Take me, for instance,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: when low came in. Some of my men lost public jobs,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: but to fix them all right. I didn't know how
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: many jobs I got for them on the surface and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: elevated railroads, several hundred. I placed a lot more or
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: on public works done by contractors. And no Tammany man
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: goes hungry. In my district. Plunkett's okay on an application
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: for a job is never turned down, for they all
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: know that Plunkett and Tammany don't stay out long. See
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: let me tell you too that I got jobs from
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Republicans in office, federal and otherwise. When Tammany's on top,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I do good turns for the Republicans. When they're on top,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: they don't forget me. Me and Republicans are enemies just
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: one day in the year, election day. Then we fight
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: tooth and nail. The rest of the time, it's live
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: and let live with us. On election day I try
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: to pile up as big a maturity as I can
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: against George Wanmaker, the Republican leader of the fifteenth. Any
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: other day, George and I are the best of friends.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: I can go to him and say, George, I want
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: you to place this friend of mine. He says, all right,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: senator or vice versa. You see, we differ on tariffs
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: and currencies in all them things, but we agree on
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: the main proposition that when a man works in politics,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: he should get something out of it. The politicians have
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: got to stand together this way, or there wouldn't be
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: any political parties. In a short time. Civil service would
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: gobble up everything. Politicians would be on the bum, the
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: republic would fall, and soon there would be the cry
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: of vivile royal. The very thought of this civil service, monister,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: makes my blood boil. I have said it a lot
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: of times already, but another instance of its awful work
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: just occurs to me. Let me tell you a sad
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: but true story. Last Wednesday, a line of carriages wound
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: into cavalry cemetery. I was in one of them. It
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: was the funeral of a young man from my district,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: a bright boy that I had great hopes of when
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: he went to school. He was the most patriotic boy
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: in the district. Nobody could sing the Star Spangled banner
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: like him, nobody was fond of waving a flag, and
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: nobody shot off as many firegraggers on the fourth of July.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: And when he grew up he made up his mind
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: to serve his country in one of the city's departments.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: There was no way of getting there without passing a
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: civil service examination. Well, he went down to the Civil
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Service office and tackled the fool questions. I saw him
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: the next day. It was Memorial Day and soldiers were
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: marching and flags flying and people cheering. Where was my
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: young man standing on a corner scowling at the whole show.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: When I asked him why he was so quiet, he
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: laughed in a wild sort of way and said, what
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: rot all? This is just in? A band came along
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: playing Liberty. He laughed wild again and said, liberty rats.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I don't guess I need to make a long story
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: of it. From the time that young man left the
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: Civil Service Office, he lost all patriotism. He didn't care
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: no more for his country. He went to the dogs.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: He ain't the only one. There's a gravestone over some
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: bright young man's head for every one of them infernal
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: civil service examinations. They are undermining the manhood of the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: nation and making the declaration of independence a farce. We
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: need a new declaration of independence, independence of the whole
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: full civil service business. I mention all this now to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: show why it is that the politicians of two big
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: parties help each other along, and why tammany men are
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: tolerably happy when not in power in the city. When
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: we win, I won't let any deserving Republican in my
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: neighborhood suffer from hunger or thirst, although of course I
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: look out for my own people first. Now I've never
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: gone in for nonpartisan business, but I do think that
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: all the leaders of the two parties should get together
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and make an open, nonpartisan fight against civil service their
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: common enemy. They could keep up their quarrels about imperialism
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and free silver in high tariff, they don't count for
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: much alongside of civil service, which strikes right at the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: root of the government. The time is fast coming when
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: civil service or the politicians will have to go, and
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: it will be here sooner than they expect if the
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: politicians don't unite, drop all them minor issues for a while,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: and make a stand against the civil service flood that's
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: sweeping over the country like them floods out West. End
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: of chapter nine, Chapter ten, Brooklynites natural born hay seeds.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Some people are wondering why it is that the Brooklyn
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats have been sidon with David B. Hill and the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Upstate crowd. There's no cause for wonder. I have made
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: a careful study of the Brooklynite and I can tell
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: you why, because Brooklynite is a natural born hay seed
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: and can never become a real New Yorker. He can't
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: be trained into it. Consolidation didn't make him a New Yorker,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: and nothing on earth can. A man born in Germany
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: can settle down and become a good New Yorker. So
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: can an irishman. In fact, the first word an Irish
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: boy learns in the Old Country is New York. And
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: when he grows up and comes here, he is at
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: home right away. Even a Jap or a Chinaman can
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: become a New Yorker, but a Brooklyn Knight never can.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: And why because Brooklyn don't seem to be like any
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: other place on earth. Once let a man grow up
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: amidst Brooklyn's cobblestones and the older of Newton Creek in
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Golwan's Canal ever in his nostrils, and there's no place
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: in the world for him except Brooklyn. And even if
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: he don't grow up there, if he is born there
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: and lives there, only in his boyhood and then moves away.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: He is still beyond redemption. In one of my speeches
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: in the legislature, I gave an example of this, and
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: it's worth repeating now. Soon after I became a leader
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: on the West Side a quarter of a century ago,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: I came across a bright boy about seven years old,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: who had just been brought over from Brooklyn by his parents.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: I took an interest in the boy, and when he
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: grew up, brought him into politics. Finally, I sent him
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: to the Assembly from my district. I remember that the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: boy was only seven years old when he left Brooklyn
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: and was twenty three when he went to the Assembly.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: You'd think he had forgotten all about Brooklyn, wouldn't you.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: I did, But I was dead wrong. When that young
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: fellow got into the Assembly, he paid no attention to
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: bills or debates about New York City. He didn't even
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: show any interest in his own district, but just let
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn be mentioned, or a bill be introduced about Gowanas
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Canal or the Long Island Railroad, and he was all attention.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Nothing else on earth interested him. The end came when
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: I caught him. What do you think I caught him?
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: At one morning I went over from the Senate to
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: the Assembly Chamber, and there I found my young man reading,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: actually reading a Brooklyn newspaper. When he saw me coming,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: he tried to hide the paper, but it was too late.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I caught him dead to rights, and I said to him, Jimmy,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid New York ain't fascinating enough for you. You
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: had better move back to Brooklyn after your present term.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: And he did. I met him the other day crossing
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Bridge, carrying a hobby horse under one arm
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: and a doll's carriage under the other, and look him
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: perfectly happy. McFerrin and his men are the same way.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: They can't get it into their heads that they are
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: New Yorkers, and just tend naturally towards supportin Hill and
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: his hay Seeds against Murphy. I had some hopes of
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: McCarran till lately. He spends too much of his time
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: over there, and has seen so much of the world
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: that I thought he might be an exception and grow
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: out of his Brooklyn surroundings. But his course at Albany
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: shows that there is no exception to the rule. Say
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: I'd rather take a hot and tott in hand to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: bring up as a good New Yorker than undertake the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: job with a Brooklyn Night. Honest I would. And by
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: the way, come to think of it, is there really
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: any upstate Democrats left? It has never been proved, to
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: my satisfaction there is any. I know that some upstate
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: members of the State Committee call themselves Democrats. Besides these,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: I know at least six more men above the Bronx
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: who make a living out of profession to be Democrats,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: and I have just heard of some few more. But
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: if there is any real Democrats up the state, what
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: becomes of them on election day? They certainly don't go
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: near the polls or they vote the Republican ticket. Look
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: at the last three state elections, Roosevelt piled up more
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand majority above the Bronx. Odell piled
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: up about one hundred and sixty thousand majority the first
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: time he ran, and one hundred and thirty one thousand
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: the second time. About all the Democratic votes cast were
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: polled in New York City. The Republicans can get all
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: the votes they want up the state. Even when we
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: piled up one hundred and twenty three thousand majority for
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: Kohler in the city in nineteen oh two, the Republicans
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: went at eight thousand better above the Bronx. That's why
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: it makes me so mad to hear about upstate Democrats
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: controlling our state convention and saying who we shall choose
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: for president. It's just like Staten Island undertaken to dictate
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: to a New York City convention. I remember once a
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Syracuse man came to Richard Crocker at the Democratic Club,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: handed him a letter of introduction and said, I'm looking
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: for a job in the street cleaning department. I'm backed
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: by one hundred upstate Democrats. Crocker looked hard at the
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: man a minute and then said, upstate Democrats. Upstate democrats.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't know there was any upstate Democrats. Just walk
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: up and down a while till I see what an
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: upstate Democrat looks like. Another thing, when a campaign is on,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: did you ever hear of an Upstate Democrat making a contribution?
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Not much. Tammany has had to foot the whole bill,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: and when any of Hill's men come down to New
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: York to help him in the campaign, we have to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: pay their board. Whenever money is to be raised, there's
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: nothing doing up the state. The Democrats there are always
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: providing that there is any Democrats there. Take to the woods.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: Supposing Tammany turned over the campaigns to the hillmen and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: then held off, what would happen. Why they would have
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: to hire a shut out in the suburbs of Albany
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: for a headquarters unless the Democratic National Committee put up
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: for the campaign expenses. Tammany's got the votes and the cash.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: The hill crowds only got hot air. End of chapter ten,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven, Tammany leader not bookworms. You hear a lot
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: of talk about the Tammany district leaders being illiterate men.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: If illiterate means have in common sense, we plead guilty.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: But if they mean that Tammany leaders ain't got no
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: education and ain't gents, they don't know what they're talking about.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Of course we ate all bookworms and college professors. If
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: we were, Tammany might win an election once in four
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: thousand years. Most of the leaders are plain American citizens
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: of the people and near to the people, and they
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: have all the education they need to whip the dudes
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: who part their name in the middle and run the
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: city government. They've got bookworms too. In the organization. But
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: we don't make them district leaders. We keep them for
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: ornaments on parade days. Tammany Hall is a great, big machine,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: with every part adjust a delicate to do its own
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: particular work. It runs so smooth that you wouldn't think
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: it was a complicated affair, but it is. Every district
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: leader is fitted to the district he runs, and he
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: wouldn't exactly fit any other district. That's the reason Tammany
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: never makes the mistake the Fusion outfit always makes of
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: sending men into the districts who don't know the people
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: and have no sympathy with their peculiarities. We don't put
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: a silk stocking on the bowery, nor do we make
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: a man who is handy with his fists leader of
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: the twenty ninth. The Fusionists make about the same sort
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: of a mistake that a repeater made at an election
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: in Albany several years ago. He was hired to go
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: to the polls early in a half dozen elects districts
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: and vote on other men's names before these men reached
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: the poles. At one place, when he was asked his
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: name by the pole clerk, he had a nerve to
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: answer William Crosswell, don come on if you ain't Bishop Doane,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: said the pole clerk. The at you, I yelled a repeater.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: Now that is the sort of bad judgment the fusionists
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: are guilty of. They don't pick men to suit the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: work they have to do. Take me, for instance, My
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: district the fifteenth is made up of all sorts of people,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: and a cosmopolitan is needed to run it successful. I'm
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: a cosmopolitan. When I get into the silk stocking part
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: of the district, I can talk grammar and all that
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: with the best of them. I went to school three
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: winters when I was a boy, and I learned a
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: lot of fancy stuff that I keep for occasions. There
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: made a silk stocking in the district who ain't proud
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: to be seen talking with George Washington plunket, And maybe
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: they learn a thing or two from their talks with me.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: There's one man in the district, a big banker, who
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: said to me one day, George, you can sling the
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: most vigorous English I ever heard. You remind me of
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Senator Horror of Massachusetts. Of course that was putting it
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: on too thick, But say, honest, I like Senator horse speeches.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: He once quoted in the United States Senate some of
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: my remarks on the curse of civil service. And though
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: he didn't agree with me altogether, I noticed that her
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: ideas are alike in some things, and we both have
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: the knack of putting things strong. Only he put on
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: more frills to suit his audience. As for the common
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: people of the district, I am at home with them
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: at all times. When I go among them, don't try
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: to show off my grammar, or talk about the Constitution
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: or how many volts there is in electricity, or make
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: it appear in any way that I am better educated
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: than they are. They wouldn't stand for that sort of thing. No,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: I drop all monkey shines. So you see, I've got
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: to be several sorts of a man in a single day,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: a lightning change artist, so to speak. But I am
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: one sort of man always in one respect. I stick
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: to my friends high and low, do them a good
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: turn whenever I get a chance, and hunt up all
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: the jobs going from my constituents. There ain't a man
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: in New York who's got such a cent for political
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: jobs as I have. When I get up in the morning,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: I can almost tell every time whether a job has
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: become vacant overnight and what department it is in, and
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: I'm the first man on the ground to get it.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Only last week I turned up at the office of
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Water Register Savage at nine a m. And told him
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: I wanted a vacant place in his office for one
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: of my constituents. How did you know that O'Brien had
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: got out, he asked me. I smelled it in the
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: air when I got up this morning. I answered, Now
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: that was the fact. I didn't know there was a
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: man in the department named O'Brien, much less that he
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: had got out. But my scent led me to the
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: water Register's office, and it don't often lead me wrong.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: A cosmopolitan ain't needed in all the other districts, but
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: our men are just the kind to rule. There's Dan
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Finn in the Battery District, Bluff, Jolly Dan, who is
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: now on the bench. Maybe you'd think that a court
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: justice is not the man to hold a district like that,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: but you're mistaken. Most of the voters of the district
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: are the janitors of the big office buildings on Lower
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: Broadway and their helpers. These janitors are the most dignified
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: and haughtiest of men. Even I would have trouble in
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: holding them. Nothing less than a judge on the bench
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: is good enough for them. Dan does the dignity act
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: with the janitors, and when he is with the boys,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: he hangs up the ermine in the closet and becomes
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: a jolly good fellow. Big Tom Foley, leader of the
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: second district, fits in exactly two. Tom sells whiskey and
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: good whiskey, and he is able to take care of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: himself against a half dozen thugs if he runs up
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: against them on Cherry Hill or in Chartman Square. Pat
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Ryder and Johnny Aaron of the third and fourth districts
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: are just the men for the places. Aaron's contestituents are
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: about half Irishman and half Jews. He is as popular
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: with one race as with the other. He eats corn,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: beef and kosher meat with equal nonchalance, and it's all
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: the same to him whether he takes off his hat
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: in the church or pulls it down over his ear
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: in the synagogue. The other downtown leaders, Barney Martin of
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: the fifth, Tim Sullivan of the sixth, Pat Keen of
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: the seventh, Florie Sullivan of the eighth, Frank Goodwin of
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: the ninth, Julius Harberger of the tenth, Pete Doling of
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: the eleventh, Joe Scully of the twelfth, Johnny Oakley of
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: the fourteenth, and Pat Keenan of the sixteenth are just
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: built to suit the people they have to deal with.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: They don't go in for the literary business much downtown,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: but these men are all real gents, and that's what
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: the people want, even the poorest tenement dwellers. As you
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: go further uptown you find a rather different kind of
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: district leader. There's Victor Dowling, who was until lately the
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: leader of the twenty fourth. He's a lulu. He knows
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: the Latin grammar backward. What's strange. He's a sensible young
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: fellow too, and once in a century we come across
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: a fellow like that in Tammany politics. James J. Martin,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: leader of the twenty seventh, is also something of a
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: high toner and publishes a law paper, while Thomas C.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Rush of the twenty ninth is a lawyer, and Isaac
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: Hopper the thirty first is a big contractor. The downtown
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: leaders wouldn't do uptown and vice versa. So you see
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: these fool critics don't know what they're talking about when
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: they criticize Tammany Hall, the most perfect political machine on earth.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven, Chapter twelve. Dangerous of the dress
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: suit in politics. Putting on this style don't pay in politics.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: The people won't stand for it. If you've got an
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: achin for style, sit down on it till you have
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: made your pile and landed a Supreme Court justiceship with
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: a fourteen year term at seventeen thousand a year, or
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: some job of that kind. Then you've got about all
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: you can get out of politics, and you can afford
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: to wear a dress suit all day and sleep in
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: at all night if you have a mind to. But
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: before you have caught on to your life meal ticket,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: be simple. Live like your neighbors, even if you have
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the means to live better. Make the poorest man in
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: your district feel that he is your equal or even
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: a bit superior to you. Above all things, avoid a
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: dress suit. You have no idea of the harm that
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: dress suits have done in politics. They are not so
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: fatal to young politicians as civil service reform and drink,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: but they have scores of victims. I will mention one
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: sad case. After the big Tammany victory in eighteen ninety seven,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: Richard Crocker went down to Lakewood to make up the
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: slate of offices for Mayor Van Wick to distribute. All
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: the district leaders and many more Tammany men went down
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: there too to pick up anything good that was going on.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: There was nothing but dress suits at dinner at Lakewood,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: and Crocker wouldn't let any Tammany men go to dinner
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: without them. Well, a bright, young West Side politician who
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: held a three thousand dollar job in one of the departments,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: went to Lakewood to ask Croker for something better. He
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: wore a dress suit for the first time in his life.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: It was his undoing. He got stuck on himself. He
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: thought he looked too beautiful for anything, and when he
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: came home he was a changed man. As soon as
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: he got to his house, every evening he put on
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: that dress suit and set around in it until bedtime.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: That didn't satisfy him long. He wanted others to see
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: how beautiful he was in a dress suit, so he
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: joined dancing clubs and began going to all the balls
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: that was given in town. Soon he began to neglect
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: his family. Then he took to drinking and didn't pay
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: any attention to his political work in the district. The
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: end came in less than a year. He was dismissed
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: from the department and went to the dogs. The other
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: day I met him, rigged out, almost like a hobo,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: but he still had a dress suit vest on. When
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: I asked him what he was doing, he said nothing
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: at present, but I got a promise of a job
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: en rolling voters at Citizens Union headquarters. Yes, a dress
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: suit had brought him to that low. I'll tell you
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: another case. Right in my own assembly district a few
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: years ago, I had as one of my lieutenants a
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: man named Zeke Thompson. He did find work for me,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: and I thought he had a bright future. One day
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: he came to me said he intended to buy an
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: option on a house and asked me to help him out.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: I like to see a young man acquiring property, and
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: I had so much confidence in Zeke that I put
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: up for him on the house. A month or so afterwards,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: I heard strange rumors. People told me that Zeke was
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: beginning to put on style. They said he had a
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: billiard table in his house and at hired jab servants.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it, the idea of a Democrat, a
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: follower of George Washington Plunkett in the fifteenth Assembly District
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: having a billiard table on jaff servants. One morning I
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: called at the house to give Zeke a chance to
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: clear himself. A jap opened the door for me. I
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: saw the billiard table. Zeke was guilty. When I got
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: over the shock, I said to Zeke, you are caught
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: with the goods on no excuses will go. The democrats
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: of this district ain't used to dukes and princes, and
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't feel comfortable in your company. You'd over powers.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: You had better move up to the nineteenth or twenty
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: seventh district and hang a silk stocking on your door.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: He went up to the nineteenth turned Republican and was
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: looking for an Albany job. The last to hurt of him.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: Now nobody ever saw me putting on any style. I'm
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: the same Plunket I was when I entered politics forty
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: years ago. That is why the people of the district
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: have confidence in me. If I went into the stylish business,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: eve and I plunket might be thrown down in that district.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: That was shown pretty clearly in this senatorial fight last year.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: A day before the election, my enemies circulated report that
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: I had ordered a ten thousand dollar automobile and a
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five dollar dress suit. I sent
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: out contradictions as fast as I could, but I wasn't
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: able to stamp out the infamous slander before the voting
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: was over, and I suffered some at the polls. The
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: people wouldn't have minded much if I had been accused
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: of robbing the city treasury for their use to Slanders
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: of that kind can campaigns, but the automobile and the
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: dress suit were too much for them. Another thing that
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: people won't stand for is showing off your learning. That's
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: just put a nonstyle. In another way, if you're making
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: speeches in a campaign, talk the language the people talk.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: Don't try to show how the situation is by quoting Shakespeare.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare was all right in his way, but he didn't
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: know anything about fifteenth district politics. If you know Latin
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: and Greek and have a hankering to work them off
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: on somebody, hire a stranger to come to your house
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: and listen to you for a couple of hours, then
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: go out and talk the language of the fifteenth to
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: the people. I know it's an awful temptation, the hankering
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: to show off your learning. I've felt it myself. I
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: know the awful consequences. End of Chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: on municipal ownership. I am for municipal ownership on one
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: condition that the Civil Service Law be repealed. It's a
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: grand idea. The city, the railroads, the gas works and
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: all that. Just see how many thousands of new places
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: there would be for the workers in Tammany. Why there
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: would be almost enough to go around if no Civil
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: Service law stood in the way. My plan is this,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: first to get rid of that infamous law, and then
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: go ahead and by degrees, get municipal ownership. Some of
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: the reformers are saying that municipal ownership won't do because
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: it would give a lot of patronage to the politicians.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: How those fellows mix things up when they argue they
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: are given the strongest argument in favor of municipal ownership.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: When they say that who is better fitted to run
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: the railroads and the gas plants and the ferries than
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: the men who make a business of looking after the
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: interests of the city. Who is more anxious to serve
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: the city, who needs the jobs more? Look at the
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: dock department. The city owns the docks, and how beautiful
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: Tammany manages them. I can't tell you how many places
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: they provide for our workers. I know there is a
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: lot of talk about dock graft, but that talk comes
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: from the outs. When the Republicans had the docks under
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: low and strong, you didn't hear them saying anything about graft,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: did you. No, They just went in and made hay
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: while the sun shone. That's always the case. When the
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: reformers are out. They raised the yell that Tammany men
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: should be sent to jail when they get in. They're
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: so busy keeping out of jail themselves that they don't
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: have no time to attack Tammany. All I want is
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: that municipal ownership be postponed till I get my bill
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: repealing the civil service law before the next legislature. It
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: would be all a mess if every man who wanted
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: a job would have to run up against a civil
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: service examination. For instance, if a man wanted a job
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: as motorman on a surface car. It's ten to one
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: that they would ask him who wrote the Latin grammar,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: and if so, why did he write it? How many
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: years were you at college? Is there any part of
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: the Greek language you don't know? State Hall you don't know?
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: And why you don't know it? Give a list of
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: all the sciences, with full particulars about each one and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: how it came to be discovered. Write out word for
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: word the last ten decisions of the United States Supreme
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Court and show if they conflict with the last ten
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: decisions of the police courts of New York City. Before
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: the would be mortorman left the Civil Service room, the
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: chances are he would be a raven lunatic. Anyhow, I
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: wouldn't like to write on his car. Just here, I
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: want to say one last final word about civil service.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: In the last ten years, I have made an investigation
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: which I've kept quiet till this time. Now I have
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: all the figures together and I'm ready to announce the result.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: My investigation was to find out how many civil service
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: reformers and how many politicians were in state prisons. I
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: discovered that there was forty percent more civil service reformers
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: among the jailbirds if any legislative committee wants the detailed figures,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: I'll prove what I say. I don't want to give
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: the figures now because I want to keep them to
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: back me up when I go to Albany to get
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: the civil service law repealed. Don't you think that when
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: I've had my inning, the civil service law will go
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: down and the people will see that the politicians are
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: all right and that they ought to have the job
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: of running things when municipal ownership comes. One thing more
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: about municipal ownership. If the city owned the railroads, et
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: ceter would be sure to go up higher salaries is
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: the crying need of the day. Municipal ownership would increase
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: them all along the line, and would stir up such
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: patriotism as New York City never knew before. You can't
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: be patriotic on a salary that just keeps the wolf
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: from the door. Any man who pretends he can, we'll
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: bear watching, keep your hand on your watch and pocket
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: book when he's about. But when a man has a good,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: fat salary, he finds himself home in Hail Columbia, all unconscious,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: and he fancies when he's riding in a trolley car
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: that the wheels are always seeing Yankee Doodle came to town.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: I know how it is myself. When I got my
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: first good job from the city, I bought up all
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: the firecrackers in my district to salute this glorious country.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: I couldn't wait for the Fourth of July. I got
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: the boys on the block to fire them off for me,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: and I felt proud of being an American. For a
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: long time after that, I used to wake up nights
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: singing the star Spangled banner. End of Chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: Tammany the only lasting democracy. I've seen more than one
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: hundred democracies rise and fall in New York City in
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: the last quarter of a century. At least a half
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: dozen new so called democratic organizations are formed every year.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: All of them go in to down Tammany and take
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: its place, but they seldom last more than a year
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: or two. While Tammany's like the everlasting rocks, the eternal hills,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: and the blockades on the l Road, it goes on forever.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: I recall off hand the County Democracy, which was the
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: only real opponent Tammany had in my time, the Irving
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: Hall Democracy, the New York State Democracy, the German American Democracy,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: the Protection Democracy, the Independent County Democracy, the Greater New
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: York Democracy, the Jimmy O'Brien democracy, the Delicatessen Dealers Democracy,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: the Silver Democracy, and the Italian Democracy. Not one of
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: them is living today, although I hear something about the
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: ghost of the Greater New York Democracy being seen on
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: Broadway once or twice a year. In the old days
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: of the County Democracy, a new democratic organization meant some
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: trouble for Tammany for a time. Anyhow, Nowadays a new
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: democracy means nothing at all, except that about a dozen
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: bone hunters have got together for one campaign only to
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: try to induce Tammany to give them a job or two,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: or in order to get in with the reformers for
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: the same purpose. You might think that it would cost
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of money to get up one of these
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: organizations and keep it going for even one campaign. But
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Lord bless you, it costs next to nothing. Jimmy O'Brien
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: and brought the manufacture of democracies down to an exact science,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: and reduced the cost of productions so as to bring
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: it within the reach of all. Any man with fifty
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: dollars can now have a democracy of his own. I've
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: looked into the industry and can give bottom figures. Here's
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: the items of cost of a new democracy. Dinner to
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: twelve bone hunters twelve dollars, a speech on Jeffersonian democracy
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: zero dollars, a proclamation of principles, typewriting two dollars. Rent
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: of a small room one month for headquarters twelve dollars.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: Stationery two dollars, twelve second hand chairs six dollars, one
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: second hand table two dollars, twenty nine cuspidors nine dollars,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: sign painting five dollars. Total fifty dollars. Is there any
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: reason for wonder then, that democracy spring up all over
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: when a municipal campaign is coming on. If you land
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: even one small job, you get a big return on
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: your investment. You don't have to pay for advertising in
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: the papers. The New York papers tumble over one another
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: to give columns to any new organization that comes out
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: against Tammany. In describing the formation of a democracy on
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: the fifty dollars basis, according to the items I give,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: the papers would say something like this, the organization of
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: the delicatessen democracy last night threatens the existence of Tammany Hall.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: It is a grand move for a new and pure
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: democracy in this city. Well, may the Tammany leaders be alarmed.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: Panic has already broke loose in Fourteenth Street. The vast
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: crowd that gathered at the launching of the new organization,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: the stirring speeches, and the proclamation of principles mean that
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: at last there is an up horizon that will end
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: Tammany's career of corruption. The Delicatessen Democracy will open in
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: a few days, spacious headquarters where all true democrats may
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: gather and prepare for the fight. Say, ain't some of
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: the papers awful gullible about politics? Talk about come ons
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: from Iowa or Texas? They ain't in it? With this
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: childlike simplicity of these papers. It's a wonder to me
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: that more men don't go into this kind of manufacturing industry.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: It has bigger profits generally than the green goods business,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: and none of the risks, and you don't have to
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: invest as much as the green goods men. Just see
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: what good things some of these democracies got in the
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: last few years. The New York State Democracy in eighteen
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: ninety seven landed a Supreme Court justiceship for the man
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: who manufactured the concern a fourteen year term at s
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars a year, that is two
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty five thousand dollars. You see, Tammany was
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: rather scared that year and was bluffed into given this
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: job to get the support of the state Democracy, which
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: by the way, went out of business quick and prompt
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: the day after it got this big plum. The next
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: year the German Democracy landed a place of the same kind.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: And then see how the greater New York Democracy worked
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: the game on the reformers in nineteen oh one. The
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: men who managed this concern were former Tammy Knights who
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: had lost their grip. Yet they made the citizens union
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: innocence believe that they were the real thing in the
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: way of reformers, and that they had one hundred thousand
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: voter back of them. They got the borough President of Manhattan,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: the president of the Board of Aldermen, the registrar, and
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of lesser places. It was the the greatest
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: bunco game of modern times. And then in eighteen ninety
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: four when Strong was elected mayor, what a harvest it
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: was for all the little democracies that was made to
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: order that year, every one of them got something good.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: In one case, all the nine men in an organization
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: got jobs, paying from two thousand to five thousand dollars.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: I happen to know exactly what it cost to manufacture
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: that organization. It was forty two dollars and four cents.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: They left out the stationery and had only twenty three cuspidors.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: The extra four cents was for two postage stamps. The
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: only reason I can imagine why more men don't go
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: into this industry is because they don't know about it.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: And just here it strikes me that it might not
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: be wise to publish what I've said. Perhaps if it
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: gets to be known what a snap this manufacture of
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: democracies is. All the green goods made, the Bonko steelers
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: and the young Napoleons of finance will go into it,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: and the public will be humbugged more than it has been.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: But after all, what difference would it make. There's always
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: a certain number of suckers and a certain number of
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: men looking for a chance to take them in, and
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: the suckers are sure to be took one way or another.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: It's the everlasting law of Demand and supply end of
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen. Chapter fifteen concerning gas in politics. Since the
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: eighty cent gas bill was defeated in Albany, everybody's talking
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: about senators being bribed. Now, I wasn't in the Senate
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: last session, and I don't know the ins and outs
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: of everything that was done, but I can tell you
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: that the legislators are often hauled over the coals when
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: they are all on the level. I've been there, and
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: I know, for instance, when I voted in the Senate
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: in nineteen o four for the Remsen bill that the
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: newspapers called the Astoria gas grab bill, they didn't do
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: a thing to me. The papers kept up a howl
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: about all the supporters of the bill being bought up
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: by the Consolidated Gas Company, and the Citizens Union did
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: me the honor to call me the commander in chief
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: of the Black Horse Cavalry. The fact is that I
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: was working for my district all this time, and I
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't Bribeburn nobody. There's several of these gas houses in
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: the district, and I wanted to get them over to
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: Astoria for three reasons. First because they're nuisances. Second because
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: there's no votes in them for me any longer. Third,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: because well, I had a little private reason, which i'll
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: explain further on. I needn't explain how they're nuisances. They're
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: worse than open sewers. Still, I might have stood that
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: if they hadn't degenerated so much in the last few years. Ah,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: gas houses ain't what they used to be. Not very
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: long ago, each gas house was good for a couple
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: of hundred votes. All the men employed in them were
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: Irishmen and Germans who lived in the district. Now it
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: is all different. The men are dagoes who live across
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: in Jersey and take no interest in the district. What
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: the use I have an ill smell of gas houses
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: if there's no votes in them. Now as to my
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: private reason, well, I'm a business man and go in
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: for any business that's profitable and honest. Real estate is
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: one of my specialties. I know the value of every
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: foot of ground in my district, and I calculated long
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: ago that if them gas houses were removed, surrounding property
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: would go up one hundred percent. When the Remsen Bill
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: providing for the removal of the gas houses to Queen's
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: County came up, I said to myself, George, hasn't your
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: chance come? I answered, sure. Then I sized up the
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: chances of the bill. I've found it was certain to
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: pass the Senate and Assembly, and I got assurances straight
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: from headquarters that Governor Odell would sign it. Next, I
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: came down to the city to find out the mayor's position.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: I got it straight that he would approve the bill too.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: Can't you guess what I did? Then, like any sane
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: man who had my information, I went in and got
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: options on a lot of the property around the gas houses. Well,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: the bill went through the Senate and the Assembly all right,
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: and the mayor signed it, but Odell backslided at the
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: last minute and the whole game fell through. If it
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: had succeeded, I guess I would have been accused of grafton.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: What I want to know is, what do you call it?
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: When I got left and lost a pot of money.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: I not only lost money, but I was abused for
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: voting for the bill. Wasn't that outrageous? They said? I
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: was in with the consolidated gas Company and all other
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: kinds of rot, when I was really only working for
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: my district and trying to turn an honest penny on
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: the side. Anyhow, I got a little fun out of
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: the business. When the Remsen bill was up, I was
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: trying to put through a bill of my own, the
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: Spyutan Diable Bill, which provided for filling in some land
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: underwater that the New York Central Railroad wanted. Well, the
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: Remsen managers were afraid of being beaten, and they went
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: around offering to make trades with senators and assemblymen who
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: had bills they were anxious to pass. They came to
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: me and offered six votes from my Spayutan Dauville bill
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: in exchange from my vote on Remsen bill. I took
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: them up in a hurry, and they felt pretty sore
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: afterwards when they heard I was going to vote for
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: the Remsen bill. Anyhow, a word about the Spayjuten Doujevo bill.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: I was criticized a lot for introducing it. They said
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: I was working in the interest of the New York
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: Central and was going to get the contract for filling in.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: The fact is that the filling in was a good
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: thing for the city, and if it helped the New
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: York Central to what of it? The railroad is a
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: great public institution, and I was never an enemy of
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: public institutions. As to the contract, it hasn't come along yet.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: If it does come, it will find me at home
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: at all proper and reasonable hours if there is a
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: good profit in sight. The papers and some people are
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: always ready to find wrong motives in what a statesman do.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: If we bring about some big improvement that benefits the
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: city and it just happens as a sort of coincidence
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: that would make a few dollars out of the improvement,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: they say we are grafters, but we are used to
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: this kind of ingratitude. It falls to the lot of
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: all statesmen, especially Tammany statesmen. All we can do is
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: to bow our heads in silence and wait till time
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: has cleared our memories. Just think I mentioned a dishonest
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: grafting connection with the name of George Washington Plunket, the
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: man who gave the city its magnificent chain of parks,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: It's Washington Bridge, its speedway, its Museum of Natural History,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: its one hundred and fifty fifth Street viaduct, in its
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: west side courthouse. I was the father of the bills
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: that provided for all these. Yet because I supported the
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: Remsen and Spayuton Douyevo Bils. Some people have questioned my
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: honest motives. If that's the case, how can you expect
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: legislatures to fare who are not the fathers of the parks,
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: the Washington Bridge, the speedway, and the viaduct. Now understand,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: I ain't defending the senators who killed the eighty cent
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: gas bill. I don't know why they acted as they did.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: I only want to impress the idea to go slow
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: before you make up your mind that a man occupying
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: the exalted position that I held for so many years
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: has done wrong. For all I know, these senators may
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: have been as honest and high minded about the gas
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: bill as I was about the Remsen and Spyutan Daavil bills.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter fifteen. Chapter sixteen Pluckt's fondest dream. The
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: time is coming, and though I'm no youngster, I may
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: see it when New York City will break away from
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: the state and become a state itself. It's got to come.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: The feeling between this city and the hay seeds that
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: make a living by plundering it is every bit as
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: bitter as the feeling between the North and South before
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: the war, and let me tell you, if there ain't
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: a peaceful separation before long, we may have the horrors
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: of civil war right here in New York State. Why,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of men in my district who
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: would like nothing better today than go out gunning for
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: hay seeds. New York City has got a bigger population
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: than most of the states in the Union. It's got
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: more wealth than any dozen of them. Yet the people here,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: as I explained before, are nothing but slaves of the
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: Albany gang. We have stood the slavery a long long time,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: but the uprising is near at hand. It will be
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: a fight for liberty, just like the American Revolution. We'll
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: get liberty peacefully if we can by cruel war. We
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: must just think of how lovely things would be here
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: if we had a Tammany governor and legislation meet and
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: say in the neighborhood of fifty ninth Street, and a
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: Tammany mayor and board of aldermen doing business in city Hall.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: How sweet and peaceful everything would go on. The people
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have to bother about nothing. Tammany would take care
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: of everything for them in its nice, quiet way. You
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't hear of any conflicts between the state and city authorities.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: They would settle everything pleasant and comfortable at Tammany Hall,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: and every bill introduced in the legislature by Tammany would
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: be sure to go through. The Republicans wouldn't count imagine
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: how the city would be built up in a short time.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: At present, we can't make a public improvement of any
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: consequence without going to Albany for permission, and most of
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: the time we get turned down when we go there.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: But with a Tammany governor and legislature up at fifty
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: ninth Street, how public works would hum here. The mayor
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: and Alderman could decide on an improvement telephone the Capitol,
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: have a bill put through in a jiffy, and there
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: you are. We could have a state constitution too, which
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: would extend the debt limits so that we could issue
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: a whole lot more bonds. As things are now, all
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: the money spent for docks, for instance, is charged against
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: the city in calculating the debt limit. Although the dock
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: department provides immense revenues, it's the same with some other departments.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: This humbug would be dropped if Tammany ruled at the
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: capital and the City Hall, and the city would have
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: money to burn another thing. The constitution of the New
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: State wouldn't have a word about civil service, and if
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: any man dared to introduce any kind of a civil
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: service bill and a legislature, he would be fired out
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: the window. Then we would have government of the people,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: by the people who were elected to govern them. That's
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: the kind of government Lincoln meant. Oh, what a glorious
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: future for the city. Whenever I think of it, I
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: feel like going out and celebrating, and I'm really almost
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: sorry that I don't drink. You may ask what would
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: become of the upstate people if New York City left
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: them in the lurch and went into the state business
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: on its own account. Well, we wouldn't be under no
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: obligation to provide for them. Still, I would be in
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: favor of helping them along for a while until they
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: could learn to work and earn an honest living. Just
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: like the United States government looks after the Indians. These
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: hay seeds have been so used to living off of
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: New York City that they would be helpless after we
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: left them. It wouldn't do to let them starve. We
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: might make some sort of appropriation for them in a
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: few years, but it would be with a distinct understanding
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: that they must get busy right away and learn to
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: support themselves. If after save five years they weren't self supporting,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: we could withdraw the appropriation and let them shift for themselves.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: The plan might succeed and it might not. We'd be
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: doing our duty anyhow. Some persons might say, but how
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: about if the Hayseed politicians moved down here and went
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: in to get control of the government of the new state.
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: We could provide against that easy by passional law that
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: these politicians couldn't come below the bronx without a sort
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: of passport, limited the time of their stay here, and
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: forbidden them to monkey with politics here. I don't know
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: just what kind of a bill would be required to
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: fix this, but with a Tammany constitution, governor, legislature, and mayor,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: there would be no trouble in settling a little matter
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: of that sort. See. I don't wish I was a poet,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: for if I was, I guess i'd be living in
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: a garret on no dollars a week instead of running
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: a great contracting and transportation business, which is doing pretty well,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: thank you. But honest now the notion takes me sometimes
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: to yell poetry of the red hot hail, glorious land
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: kind when I think of New York City as a
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: state by itself. End of Chapter sixteen, Chapter seventeen. Tammany's
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: Patriotism Tammany's the most patriotic organization on earth. Notwithstanding the
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: fact that the civil Service laws sappen the foundations of
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: patriotism all over the country. Nobody pays any attention to
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: the Fourth of July any longer except Tammany and the
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: small Boy. When the fourth comes, the reformers with revolutionary
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: names parted in the middle run off to Newport or
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: the Adirondacks to get out of the way of the
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: noise and everything that reminds them of the glorious day.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: How different it is with Tammany. The very constitution of
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: the Tammany Society requires that we must assemble at the
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: Wigwam on the fourth, regardless of the weather, and listen
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: to the reading of the Declaration of Independence and patriotic speeches.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: You ought to attend one of these meetings their liberal
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: eduction in patriotism. The great haul upstairs is filled with
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: five thousand people suffocating from heat and smoke. Every man
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: jack of these five thousand knows that down in the
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: basement there's a hundred cases of champagne and two hundred
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: kegs of beer ready to flow when the signal is given.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: Yet that crowd stick to their seats without turning the hair,
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: while for four solid hours the declaration of independence is read,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: long winded orders speak, and the glee club sings itself hoarse.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: Talk about heroism in the battlefield that comes and passes
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: away in a moment. You ain't got time to be
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: anything but heroic. But just think of five thousand men
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: sitting in the hottest place on earth for four long hours,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: with parched lips and non stomachs, and knowing all the
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: time that the delights of the oasis in the desert
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: were only two flights downstairs. Ah. That is the highest
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: kind of patriotism, the patriotism of long suffering and endurance.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: What man wouldn't rather face a cannon for a minute
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: or two than thirst for four hours with champagne and
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: beer almost under his nose? And then see how they
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: applaud and yell when patriotic things are said. As soon
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: as the man on the platform starts off with when
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: in the course of human events, word goes around that
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: it's the declaration of independence, and a mighty roar goes up.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: The declaration ain't a very short document, and the crowd
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: has heard it on every fourth day, but they give
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: it just as fine as sendoff, as if it was
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: brand new and awful excitement. Then the long talkers get
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: in their work, that is two or three orders, or
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: good for an hour each. Heat never has any effect
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: on these men. They use every minute of their time.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes human nature gets the better of a man in
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: the audience and he begins to nod, but he always
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: wakes up with a hurrah for the declaration of independence.
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: The greatest hero of the occasion is the Grand Sakim
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: of the Tammany Society, who presides. He and the rest
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: of us Sakams come on the stage wearing stovepipe hats
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: according to the constitution, but we can shed ours right off,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: while the Grand Sakam is required to wear his hat
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: all through the celebration. Have you any idea what that means?
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: Four hours under a big silk hat in a hall
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: where the heat registers one hundred and ten and the
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: smoke twoin fifty, and the Grand Sakim is expected to
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: look pleasant all the time and say nice things when
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: introducing the speakers. Often his hand goes to his hat unconscious.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: Like then he catches himself up in time and looks
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: around like a man who is in the tenth story
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: of a burning builder seeking a way to escape. I
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: believe that Fourth of July's silk hat shortened the life
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: of one of our Grand Sacams, the late Supreme Court
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: Justice Smith. And I know that one of our sacams
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: refused the office of Grand Sacam because he couldn't get
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: up sufficient patriotism to perform this four hour hat act.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: You see, there's degrees of patriotism, just as there's degrees
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: in everything else. You don't hear of the Citizens Union
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: people holding Fourth of July celebrations under a five pound
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: silk hat or any other way, do you. The CITs
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: take the Fourth like a dog I had when I
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: was a boy. That dog knew as much as some sits,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: and he acts just like them about the glorious day.
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly forty eight hours before each Fourth of July, the
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: dog left her house and run and hid himself in
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: the bronx woods. The day after the fourth he turned
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: up at home as regular as clockwork. He must have
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: known what a dog is up against on the fourth. Anyhow,
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: he kept the way the name parted in the middle
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: of Aristocrats act in just the same way. They don't
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: want to be annoyed with firecrackers and the declaration of independence,
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: and when they see the fourth coming, they hustle off
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: to the woods like my dog. Tammany don't only show
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: its patriotism at Fourth of July celebrations. It's always on
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: deck when the country needs its services. After the Spanish
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: American War broke out, John J. Sannole, the Tammany leader
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: of the twenty fifth district, wrote to Governor Black, offering
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: to raise a Tammany regiment to go to the front.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: If you want proof, go to Tammany Hall and see
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: the beautiful set of engrossed resolutions about this regiment. It's
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: true that the governor didn't accept the offer, but it
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: showed Tammany's patriotism. Some enemies of the organization have said
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: that the offer to raise the regiment was made after
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: the governor let it be known that no more volunteers
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: were wanted. But that's the talk of envious slanderers. Now
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: a word about Tammany's love for the American flag. Did
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: you ever see a Tammany Hall decorated for a celebration.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: It's just a mass of flags. They even take down
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: the window shades and put flags in place of them.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: There's flags everywhere except on the floors. We don't care
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: for her expense where the American flag is concerned, especially
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: after we have won an election. In nineteen o four,
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: we originated the custom of giving a small flag to
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: each man as he entered Tammany Hall for the Fourth
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: of July celebration. It took like wildfire. The men waved
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: their flags whenever they cheered, and the site made me
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: feel so patriotic that I forgot all about civil service
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: for a while. And the good work of the flags
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: didn't stop there. The men carried them home and gave
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: them to the children, and the kids got patriotic too.
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: Of course, it all cost a pretty penny, but what
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: of that We had won at the polls the preceding November,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: had the office and could afford to make an extra
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: investment in patriotism. End of Chapter seventeen. Chapter eighteen on
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: the use of money in politics. The Civil Service gang
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: has always howling about candidates and off office holders putting
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: up money for campaigns, and about corporations chipping in. They
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: might as well howl about giving contributions to churches. A
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: political organization has to have money for its business as
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: well as a church, and who has more right to
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: put up than the men who get the good things
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: that are going Take, for instance, a great political concern
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: like Tammany Hall. It does missionary work like a church.
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: It's got big expenses and it's got to be supported
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: by the faithful. If a corporation sends in a check
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: to help the good work of the Tammany Society, why
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: shouldn't we take it like other missionary societies. Of course,
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: the day may come when we'll reject the money of
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: the rich as teams, but it hadn't come when I
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: left Tammany Hall at eleven twenty five am to day.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: Not long ago, some newspapers had fits because the assemblyman
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: from my district said he put up five hundred dollars
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: when he was nominated for the Assembly last year. Every
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: politician in town laughed at these papers. I don't think
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: there was even a citizens Union man who didn't know
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: that candidates of both parties have to chip in for
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: campaign expenses. The sum they pay are according to their
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: salaries and the length of their terms of office if elected.
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: Even candidates for the Supreme Court have to fall in line.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: A Supreme Court judge in New York County gets seventeen thousand,
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: five hundred a year, and he's expected, when nominated to
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: help along the good cause with a year's salary. Why not?
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: He has fourteen years on the bench ahead of him,
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: and ten thousand other lawyers would be will to put
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: up twice as much to be in his shoes. Now,
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: I ain't saying that we sell nominations. That's a different
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: thing altogether. There's no auction and no regular bidden. The
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: man is picked out, and somehow he gets to understand
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: what's expected of him in the way of a contribution,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: and he ponies up all from gratitude to the organization
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: that honored him. See let me tell you an instance
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: that shows the difference between selling nominations and arranging them
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: in the way I described. A few years ago, a
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: Republican district leader controlled the nomination for Congress in his
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: congressional district. Four men wanted it. At first, the leader
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: asked for bids privately, but decided at last that the
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: best thing to do was to get the four men
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: together in the back room of a certain saloon and
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: have an open auction. When he had his men lined up,
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: he got on a chair, told of the value of
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: the goods for sale, and ask for bids in regular
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: auctioneer style. The highest bidder got denomination for five thousand dollars.
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: Now that wasn't right at all. These things ought to
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: be always fixed up nice and quiet. As to officeholders,
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: they would be in grates if they didn't contribute to
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: the organization that put them in office. They needn't be assessed.
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: That would be against the law. But they know what's
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: expected of them, and if they happen to forget, they
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: can be reminded polite and courteous. Dan Donnigan, who used
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: to be the Wiskinsky of the Tammany Society and received
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: contributions from grateful office holders, had a pleasant way of
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: reminding if a man forgot his duty to the organization
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: that made him, Dan would call him the man, smile
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: as sweet as you please, and say you haven't been
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: around at the hall lately have you. If the man
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: tried to slide around the question, Dan would say it's
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: getting off cold. Then he would have a fit of
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: shivering and walk away. What could be more polite and
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: at the same time more to the point, no force,
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: no threats, only little shivered, which any man is liable
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: to even in the summer. Just here, I want to
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: charge one more crime to the infamous Civil Service law.
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: It has made men turn ungrateful. A dozen years ago,
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: when there wasn't much civil service business in the city government,
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: and when the administration would turn out to almost any
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: man holding office, Dan shivered took effect every time, and
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: there was no ingratitude in the city departments. But when
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: the Civil Service Law came in and all the clerks
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: got led pipe cinches on their jobs, ingratitude spread right away.
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: Dan shivered and shook till his bones rattled, but many
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: of the city employees only laughed at him. One day,
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: I remember he tackled a clerk in the public Works
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: department who used to give up pretty regular and after
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: the usual question began to shiver, the clerk smiled. Dan
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: shook till his hat fell off. Clerk took ten cents
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: out of his pocket, handed it to Dan and said,
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: poor man, go and get a drink to warm yourself up.
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: One that's shameful. And yet if it hadn't been for
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: the Civil service law, that clerk would be contributing right
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: along to this day. The civil service law don't cover everything. However,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: there's lots of good jobs outside his clutch, and the
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: men that get them are grateful every time. I'm not
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: speaking to Tammany Hall alone. Remember it's the same with
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: Republican federal and state office holders and every organization it
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: has or has had jobs to give out, except of course,
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: the the CITs held office only a couple of years,
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: and knowing that they would never be in again, each
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: sit officeholder held on for dear life to every dollar
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: they came his way. Some people say they can't understand
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: what becomes of all the money that's collected for campaigns.
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: They would understand fast enough if they were district lead them.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: There's never been half enough money to go around. Besides
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: expenses for meetings, bands and all that, there's the bigger
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: bill for the district workers who get men to the polls.
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: There is workers who are mostly men who want to
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: serve their country, but can't get jobs in the city
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: department on account of the civil service law. They do
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: the next best thing by keeping track of the voters
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: and seem that they come to the polls and vote
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: the right way. Some of these deserving citizens have to
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: make enough on registration and election days to keep them
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: the rest of the year. Isn't it right that they
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: should get a share of the campaign money? Just remember
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: that there's thirty five assembly districts in New York County
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: and thirty six district leaders reaching out for the Tammany
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: dough bag for something to keep up the patriotism of
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: ten thousand workers. And you wouldn't wonder that the cry
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: for more more is going up from every district organization
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: now and forevermore am in end of Chapter eighteen, Chapter nineteen,
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: The successful politician does not drink. I have explained how
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: to succeed in politics. I want to add that no
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: matter how well you learn to play the political game,
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: you won't make a lasting success of it if you're
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: a drinking man. I never take a drop of any
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: kind of intoxicating liquor. I ain't no fanatic. Some of
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: the saloon keepers are my best friends and I don't
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: mind going into a saloon any day with my friends,
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: but as a matter of business, I leave whiskey and
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: beer and the rest of that stuff alone. As a
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: matter of business, too, I take for my lieutenants in
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: my district men who don't drink. I tried the other
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: kind of for several years, but it didn't pay. They
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: cost too much. For instance, I had a young man
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: who was one of the best hustlers in town. He
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: knew every man in the district, was popular everywhere, and
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: could induce a half dead man to come to the
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: polls on election day but regularly. Two weeks before election,
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: he started on a drunk and I had to hire
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: two men to guard him day and night and keep
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: him sober enough to do his work. That cost a
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: lot of money, and I dropped the young man after
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: a while. Maybe you think I'm unpopular with the saloon
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: keepers because I don't drink. You're wrong. The most successful
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: saloon keepers don't drink themselves, and they understand that my
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: temperance is a business proposition just like their own. I
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: have a saloon under my headquarters. If a saloon keeper
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: gets into trouble, he always knows that Senator Plunkett is
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: the man to help him out. If there is a
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: bill in the legislature making it easier for the liquor dealers,
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: I am for it every time. I am one of
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: the best friends the saloon men have, but I don't
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: drink their whiskey. I won't go through the temperance lecture
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: Dodge and tell you how many bright young men I've
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: seen fall victims two in temperance, but I'll tell you
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: that I could name some dozens young men who had
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: started on the road to statesmanship, who could carry their
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: districts every time, and who could turn out any vote
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: you wanted at the primaries. I honestly believe that drink
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: is the greatest curse of the day, except, of course,
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: civil service, and that has driven more young men to
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: ruin them anything except civil service examinations. Look at the
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: great leaders of Tammany Hall, no regular drinkers among them.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: Richard Crocker's strongest drink was vichy. Charlie Murphy takes a
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: glass of wine at dinner sometimes, but it don't go
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: beyond that. A drinking man wouldn't last two weeks as
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: leader of Tammany Hall, nor can a man manage an
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: assembly district longfy drinks. He's got to have a clear
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: head at all times. I could name ten men who
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: in the last few years lost their grip in their
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: districts because they began drinking. There's now thirty six district
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: leaders in Tammany Hall, and I don't believe a half
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: dozen of them ever drink anything except at meals. People
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: have got an idea that because the liquor men are
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: with us in campaigns, our district leaders spend most of
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: their time leaning against bars. There couldn't be a wronger idea.
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: The district leader makes a business of politics, gets his
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: livin out of it, and in order to succeed, he's
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: got to keep sober, just like in any other business.
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: Just take his examples, Big Tim and Little Tim Sullivan.
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: They're known all over the country as the Bowery Leaders,
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: and as there's nothing but saloons on the Bowery, people
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: might think that they are hard drinkers. The fact is
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: that neither of them has ever touched a drop of
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: liquor in his life or even smoked a cigar. Still,
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: they don't make no pretenses of being better than anybody else,
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: and don't go round, deliverin temperance lectures. Big tim made
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: money out of liquor selling it to other people. That's
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: the only way to get good out of liquor. Look
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: at all the Tammany heads of city departments. There's not
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: a real drinkin man in a lot. Yes, there are
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: some prominent men in the organization who drink sometimes, but
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: they are not the men who have power. Their ornaments,
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: fancy speakers and all that who make a fine show
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: behind the footlights. But am I in it when it
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: comes to directing the city government and the Tammany organization.
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: The men who sit in the executive committee room at
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: Tammany Hall and direct things are men who celebrate on
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: Apollinaris and Vitchy. Let me tell you what I saw
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: on election night in eighteen ninety seven when the Tammany
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: tickets swept the city up to ten p M. Crocker,
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: John F. Carroll, Tim Sullivan, Charlie Murphy and myself sat
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: in the committee room receiving returns. When nearly all the
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: city was heard from, and we saw that Van Wyck
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: was elected by a big majority. I invited the crowd
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: to go across the street for a little celebration. A
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: lot of small politicians followed us, expecting to see magnums
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: of champagne opened. The waiters in the restaurant expected it
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: two and you never saw a more disgusted lot of
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: waiters when they got our orders. Here's the orders. Crocker
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: bitchy and bicarbonate of soda, Carol Seltzer lemonade, Sullivan Apollinaris,
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: Murphy bitchy plunket, ditto. Before midnight we were all in bed,
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: and next morning we were upright and early attended to
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: business while other men were nursing swelled heads. Is there
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: anything the matter with temperance as a pure business proposition?
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter nineteen, Chapter twenty, Bosses preserved the Nation.
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: When I retired from the Senate, I thought I would
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: take a good long rest. Such arrest as a man
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: need who has held office for about forty years and
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: has held four different offices in one year and drawn
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: salaries from three of them at the same time. Drawn
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: so many salaries is rather fatiguing, you know. And as
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: I said, I started out for a rest. But when
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: I seen how things were going in New York State
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: and how a great, big black shadow hung over us.
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: I said to myself, no rest for you, George. Your
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: work ain't done. Your country still needs you, and you
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: mustn't lay down yet. What was the great big black shadow?
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: It was the primary election law amended so as to
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: knock out what are called the party bosses by letting
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: in everybody at the primaries and given control over them
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: to state officials. Oh, yes, that is a good way
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: to do up the so called bosses. But have you
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: ever thought what would become of the country if the
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: bosses were put out of business and their places were
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: taken by a lot of cart tailed orators and college graduates.
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: It would mean chaos. It would be just like taking
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of dry goods clerk and sending them to
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: run express trains on the New York Central Railroad. It
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: makes my heart bleed to think of it. Ignorant people
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: are always talking against party bosses, but just wait till
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: the bosses are gone. Then, and not until then will
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: they get the right sort of epitaphs. As Patrick Henry
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: or Robert Emmett said, look at the bosses of Tammany
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: Hall in the last twenty years. What magnificent men to them?
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: New York City Owes pretty much all it is today.
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: John Kelly, Richard Crocker, and Charles F. Murphy. What names
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: in American history compares with them except Washington and Lincoln.
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: They built up the grand Tammany organization, and the organization
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: built up New York. Suppose the city had depended for
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: the last twenty years on irresponsible concerns like the Citizens Union,
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: where would it be now? You can make a pretty
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: good guess if you recall the strong and low administrations
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: when there was no and the heads of departments were
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: at odds all the time with each other, and the
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: mayor was at odds with a lot of them. They
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: spent so much time in arguing on making grandstand play
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: that the interests of the city were forgotten. Another administration
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: of that kind would put New York back a quarter
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: of a century. Then see how beautiful a Tammany city
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: government runs with a so called boss directing the whole
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: shooting match. The machinery moves so noiselessly that you wouldn't
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: think there was any If there's any differences of opinion,
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: the Tammany leaders settles them quietly and his orders go
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: every time. How nice it is for the people to
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: feel that they can get up in the morning without
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: him afraid of seeing the papers that the Commissioner of
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: Water Supply has sandbagged the dock commissioner, and that the
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: mayor and heads of the departments have been taken to
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: the police court as witnesses. That's no joke. I remember
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: that under Strong some commissioners came very near sandbag another.
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: Of course, a newspaper is like the reform administration. Why
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: because these administrations, with their daily rows, furnish as racing news,
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: as prize fights or divorce cases, tammany don't care to
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: get in the papers. He goes right along attendant to
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: business quietly and only wants to be let alone. That's
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: one reason why the papers are against us. Some papers
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: complain that the bosses get rich while devoting their lives
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: to the interests of the city. What of it. If
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: opportunities for turning an honest dollar comes their way, why
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: shouldn't they take advantage of them, just as I have done.
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: As I said in another talk, there is honest graft
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: and dishonest graft. The bosses go in for the former.
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: There is so much of it in this big town
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: that they would be fools to go for dishonest graft.
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: Now the primary election law threatens to do away with
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: the boss and make the city government a menagerie. That's
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: why I can't take the rest. I counted on going
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: to propose a bill the next session of the legislature
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: repeal on this dangerous law and leaving the primaries entirely
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: to the organizations themselves as they used to be. Then
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: will return the good old times when our district leaders
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: could have nice, comfortable primary elections at some place selected
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: by themselves and let in only the men they approved
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: of as good democrats. Who was a better judge of
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: the democracy of a man who offers his vote than
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: the leader of the district, who is better equipped to
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: keep out undesirable voters. The men who put through the
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: primary law are the same crowd that stand for the
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: civil service blight, and they have the same objects in view,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: the destruction of governments by party, the downfall of the Constitution,
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: and held generally end of Chapter twenty Chapter twenty one
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: concerning excise. Although woman not a drinking man myself, I'm
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: worn with the poor liquor dealers of New York City
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: who are taxed and oppressed for the benefit of the
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: farmers up the state. The range liquor law is infamous.
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: It takes away nearly all the profits of the saloon
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: keepers and then turns in a large part of the
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: money to the state treasury to relieve the hay seeds
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: from taxes. Ah. Who knows how many honest, hard working
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: saloon keepers have been driven to untimely graves by this law.
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: I know personally of a half dozen who committed suicide
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: because they couldn't pay the enormous license fee, and I've
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: heard of many others. Every time there is an increase
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: of the fee, there is an increase in the suicide
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: record of the city. Now some of these Republican hay
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: Seeds are talking about making the liquor tax fifteen hundred
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: dollars or even two thousand dollars a year. That would
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: mean the suicide of half of the liquor dealers in
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: the city. Just see how these poor fellows were oppressed
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: all around. First, liquor is taxed in the hands of
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: the manufacturer by the United States government. Second, the wholesale
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: dealer pays a special tax to the government. Third, the
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: retail dealer is specially taxed by the United states government. Fourth,
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: the retail dealer has to pay a big tax to
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: the state government. Now, liquor dealing is criminal or inn inate.
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: If it's criminal, the man engaged in it ought to
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: be sent to prison. If it ain't criminal, they ought
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: to be protected and encouraged to make all the profit
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: they honestly can. If it's right to tax a saloon
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: keeper one thousand dollars, it's right to put a heavy
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: tax on dealers and other beverages in milk, for instance,
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: and make the derryman pay up. But what a howl
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: would be raised if a bill was introduced in Albany
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: to compel the farmers to help support the state government.
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: What would be said of a law that put a
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: tax of say sixty dollars on a grocer, one hundred
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: and fifty on a dry goods man in five hundred
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: more if he includes the other goods that are kept
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: in a country store. If the Rain's law gave the
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: money extorted from the saloon keepers to the city, there
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: might be some excuse for the tax. We would get
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: some benefit from it. But it gives a big part
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: of the tax to local option. Localities where the people
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: are always shouting that liquor dealon is immoral ought these
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: good people be subjected to the immoral influence of money
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: taken from the saloon, tainted money. Out of respect for
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: the tender consciouces of these pious people, the Rain's law
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: ought to exempt them from all contamination from the plunder
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: that comes from the saloon traffic. Say mark that sarcastic.
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: Some people who ain't used to find sarcasm might think
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: I'm in it. The range people make a pretense that
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: the high license fee promotes temperance. It's just the other
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: way around. It makes more in temperance, and what is bad,
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: it makes the monopoly in dram shops. Soon the saloons
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: will be in the hands of a vast trust, and
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: any stuff can be sold for whiskey or beer. It's
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: getting that way already. Some of the poor liquor dealers
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: in my district have been forced to sell wood alcohol
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: for whiskey, and many deaths have followed. A half dozen
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: men died in a couple of days from this kind
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: of whiskey, which was forced down their throats by the
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: high liquor tax. If they raise the tax higher, wood
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: alcohol will be too costly and I guess some dealers
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: will have to get down to kerosene oil and add
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: to the Rockefeller millions. The way the Rains Law divides
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: the different classes of licenses is also an outrage. The
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: sumptuous hotel saloons with ten thousand dollars paintings and bricky
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: brac and oriental splendors gets off easier than a shanty
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: on the rocks by the water's edge. In my mind,
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: district where boatmen drink their grog and the only ornaments
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: is a three cornered mirror nailed to the wall and
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: a chromo of the fight between Tom Hire and Yankee Sullivan. Besides,
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: a premium is put on places that sell liquor, not
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: to be drunk on the premises, but to be taken home. Now,
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: I want to declare that from my experience in New
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: York City, I would rather see RUMs sold in the
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: dram shops unlicensed, provided the rum is swallowed on the spot,
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: than to encourage by a low tax bucket shops from
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: which the stuff is carried into the tenements at all
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: hours of the day and night, and make drunkenness and
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: debauchery among the women and children. A bucket shop in
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: the tenements district means a cheap so called distillery, where
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: raw spirits poisonous color and matter and water are sold
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: for brandy and whiskey at ten cents a quart and
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: carried away in buckets and pitchers. I have always known
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: notice that there are many undertakers wherever the bucket shop flourishes,
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: and they have no dull seasons. I want to understood
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: that I am not an advocate of the liquor dealers
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: or of drinking. I think every man would be better
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: off if he didn't take any intoxication drink at all.
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: But as men will drink, they ought to have good
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: stuff without impoverishing themselves by going to fancy places, and
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: without risking death by going to poor places. The state
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: should look after their interests, as well as the interest
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: of those who drink nothing stronger than milk. Now, as
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: to the liquor dealers themselves, they ain't criminals. That can't
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: and Hympkirtz say they are. I know lots of them,
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: and I know that as a rule they're good, honest
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: citizens who conduct their business in a straight, honorable way.
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: At a convention of the liquor dealers a few years ago.
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: A big city official welcomed them on behalf of the
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: city and said, go on elevating your standard higher and higher.
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: Go on with your good work. Heaven will bless you.
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: That was putting it just a little strong, But this
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: sentiment was all right, And I guess the speaker went
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: a bit further than he intended in his enthusiasm over
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: meeting such a fine set of men, perhaps dining with them.
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: End of chapter twenty one. Chapter twenty two, A parting
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: word on the future of the Democratic Party in America.
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: The Democratic Party of the nation ain't dead, though it's
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: been given a lifelike imitation of a corpse for several years.
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: It can't die while it's got Tammany for its backbone.
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: The trouble is that the party's been chasin after theories
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: and standing up nights reading books instead of studying human
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: nature and acting according as I've advised in telling how
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: to hold your district. In two presidential campaigns, the leaders
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: talked themselves red in the face about silver beIN the
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: best money in gold. Hemn no good, and they tried
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: to prove it out of books. Do you think the
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: people cared for all that guff? No? They hardly endorsed
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: what Richard Crocker said at Dae Hoffmann House one day
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: in nineteen hundred. What's the use of discussing what's the
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: best kind of money, said Crocker. I'm in favor of
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: all kinds of money. The more the better. See how
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: real Tammany statesmen can settle in twenty five words of
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: problem that monopolized two campaigns, then imperialism. The Democratic Parties
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: spent all its breath on that. In the last national
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: campaign its position was all right, sure, but you can't
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: get people excited about the Philippines. They've got too much
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: at home to interest them. They're too busy making a
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: living to bother about the niggers in the Pacific. The
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: party's got to drop all them put you to sleep
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: issues and come out in nineteen oh eight for something
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: that will wake them the people up, something that will
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: make it worthwhile to work for the party. There's just
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: one issue that would set this country on fire. The
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party should say in the first plank of its platform,
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: we hereby declare, in National Convention assembled, that the paramount issue, now,
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: always and forever is the abolition of the iniquitous and
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: malicious civil service laws which are destroying all patriotism ruin
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: in the country and taking away good jobs from them
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: that earn them. We pledge ourselves, if our ticket is elected,
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: to repeal those laws at once and put every civil
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: service reformer in jail. Just imagine the wild enthusiasm of
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: the party if that plank was adapted, and the rush
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: of Republicans to join us and restore in our country
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: to what it was before this college professor's nightmare called
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: civil service reform got hold of it. Of course, it
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: would be all right to work in the platform some
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: stuff about the tariff and sound money in the Philippines
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: has no platform seems to be complete without them. But
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't count. The people would read only the first plank,
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: then hanker for election day to come to put the
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party in office. I see a vision. I see
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: the Civil service monster lying flat on the ground. I
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: see the Democratic Party standing over it, with foot on
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: its neck and wearing the crown of victory. I see
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson looking out from McCloud and saying, give him
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: another sack, dogglar finish him. And I see millions of
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: men waving their hats and singing glory, Hallelujah. End of
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two. Chapter twenty three Strenuous Life of the
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: Tammany District Leader. Note this chapter is based on extracts
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: from Plunkett's diary and on my daily observation of the
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: work of the District Leader w LR. The life of
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: the taw Many District Leader is strenuous. To his work
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: is due the wonderful recupertive power of the organization. One
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: year it goes down in defeat, and the prediction is
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: made that it will never raise its head. The district Leader,
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: undaunted by defeat, collects his scattered forces, organizes them as
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: only Tammany knows how to organize, and a little while
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: the organization is as strong as ever. No other politician
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: in New York or elsewhere is exactly like the Tammany
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: District Leader or works as he does. As a rule,
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: he has no business or occupation other than politics. He
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: plays politics every day and night in the year, and
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: his headquarters bears the inscription never closed. Everybody in the
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: district knows him, everybody knows where to find him, and
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: nearly everybody goes to him for assistance of one sort
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: or another, especially the poor of the tenements. He is
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: always obliging. He will go to the police courts to
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: put in a good way word for the drunks and disorderlies,
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: or pay their fines. If a good word is not effective,
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: he will attend christenings, weddings and funerals. He will feed
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: the hungry and help bury the dead. A philanthropist not
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: at all. He is playing politics all the time. Brought
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: up in Tammany Hall, he has learned how to reach
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: the hearts of the great mass of voters. He does
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: not bother about reaching their heads. It is his belief
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: that arguments in campaign literature have never gained votes. He
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: seeks direct contact with the people, does them good turns
• 2:33:36
  Speaker 1: when he can, and relies on their not forgetting him
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: on election day. His heart is always in his work, too,
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: for his subsistence depends on its results. If he holds
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: his district, then Tammany is in power. He is amply
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: rewarded by a good office and the opportunities that go
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: with it. What these opportunities are has been shown by
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: the quick rise to wealth of so many Tammany district readers.
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: With the examples before him of Richard Crocker, once leader
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: of the twentieth district, John F. Carroll, formerly leader of
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: the twenty ninth, Timothy dry Dollar Sullivan, late leader of
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: the sixth, and many others. He can always look forward
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: to riches and ease while he is going through the
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: drudgery of his daily routine. This is a record of
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: a day's work by Plunkett. Two am, aroused from sleep
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: by the ringing of his doorbell, went to the door
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: and found a bartender who asked him to go to
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: the police station and bail out a saloon keeper who
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: had been arrested for violating the excise law. Furnished bail
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: and returned to bed. At three o'clock, six am, awakened
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: by fire engines passing his house, hastened to the scene
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: of the fire, according to the custom of the Tammany
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: district leaders to give assistance to the fire sufferers if needed.
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: Met several of his election district captains, who are always
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: under orders to look out for fires which are considered
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: great vote getters, found several tenants who had been burned out,
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: took them to a hotel, supplied them with clothes, fed them,
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: and arranged temporary quarters for them. Until they could rent
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: and furnish new apartments. Eight thirty a M. Went to
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: the police court to look after his constituents. Found six drunks,
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: secured the discharge of four by a timely word with
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: the judge, and paid the fines of two. Nine AM
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: appeared in the Municipal District Court, directed one of his
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: district captains to act as counsul for a widow against
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: whom dispossessed proceedings had been initiated, and obtained an extension
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: of time, paid the rent of a poor family about
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: to be dispossessed, and gave them a dollar for food.
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: Eleven A M at home again found four men waiting
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: for him. One had been discharged by the Metropolitan Railway
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: Company for neglect of duty and wanted the district leader
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: to fix things. Another wanted a job on the road,
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: sought a place on the subway, and the fourth of
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: plumber was looking for work with the Consolidated Gas Company.
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: The district leader spent nearly three hours fixing things for
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: the four men and succeeded in each case. Three PM
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: attended the funeral of an Italian as far as the ferry,
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: hurried back to make his appearance at the funeral of
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: a Hebrew constituent, went conspicuously to the front both in
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: the Catholic church and the synagogue, and later attended the
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: Hebrew confirmation ceremonies in the synagogue. Seven pm went to
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: district headquarters and presided over a meeting of election district captains.
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: Each captain submitted a list of all the voters in
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: his district, reported on their attitude toward tammany suggested who
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: might be won over and how they could be won
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: told who were in need and who were in trouble
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: of any kind, and the best way to reach them.
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: District leader took notes and gave orders. Eight pm went
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: to a church fair, took chances on everything, bought ice
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: cream for the younger girls and the children, kissed the
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: little ones, flattered the mother, and took their fathers out
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: for something down on the corner. Nine pm at the clubhouse. Again,
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: spent ten dollars on tickets for a church excursion and
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: promised a subscription for a new church. Bell bought tickets
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: for a baseball game to be played by two nines
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: from his district. Listen to the complaints of a dozen
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: pushcart peddlers who said they were persecuted by the police,
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: and assured them he would go to police headquarters in
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: the morning and see about it. Ten thirty pm attended
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: a Hebrew wedding reception and dance, had previously sent a
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: handsome wedding present to the bride. Twelve pm in bed.
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: This is the actual record of one day in the
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: life of Plunket. He does some of the same things
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: every day, but his life is not so monotonous as
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: to be wearisome. Sometimes the work of a district leader
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: is exciting, especially if he happens to have a rival
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: who intends to make a contest for the leadership at
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: the primaries. In that case, he is even more alert,
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: tries to reach the fires before his rival, sends out
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: runners to look for drunks and disorderlies at the police stationed,
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: and keeps a very close watch on the obituary columns
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: of the newspapers. A few years ago, there was a
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: bitter contest for the Tammany leadership of the ninth District
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: between John C. Sheehan and Fred J. Goodwin. Both had
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: long experience in Tammany politics and both understood every move
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: of the game. Every morning, their agents went to their
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: respective headquarters before seven o'clock and read through the death
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: notices in all the morning papers. If they found that
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: anybody in the district had died, they rushed to the
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: homes of their principles with the information, and then there
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: was a race to the house of the deceased to africandolences,
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: and if the family were poor, something more substantial. On
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: the day of the funeral, there was another contest, each
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: faction trying to surpass the other in number and appearances
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: of the carriages it sent to the funeral, and more
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: than once they almost came to blows at the church
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: or in the cemetery. On one occasion, the goodwe Nights
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 1: played a trick on their adversaries which has since been
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: imitated in other districts. A well known liquor dealer who
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: had a considerable falling dide and both she Han and
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: Goodwin were eager to become his political error by making
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: a big showing at the funeral. Goodwin managed to catch
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: the enemy napping. He went to all the livery stables
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: in the district, hired all the carriages for the day,
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: and gave orders to two hundred of his men to
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: be on hand as mourners. She Han had never had
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 1: any trouble about getting all the carriages that he wanted,
• 2:39:44
  Speaker 1: so he let the matter go until the night before
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: the funeral. Then he found that he could not hire
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: a carriage in the district. He called his district committee
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: together in a hurry and explained the situation to them.
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: He could get all the vehicles they needed in the
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: adjoining district, he said, But if he did that, Goodwin
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: would rouse the voters of the ninth by declaring that
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: he she had had patronized foreign industries. Finally, it was
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: decided that there was nothing to do but to go
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: over to sixth Avenue and Broadway for carriages. She had
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: made a fine turnout at the funeral, but the deceased
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 1: was hardly in his grave before Goodwin raised the cry
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: of protection to home industries and announced his rival for
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: patronizing livery stable keepers outside of his district. The heir
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: had its effect in the primary campaign. As all events,
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 1: Goodwin was elected leader. A recent contest for the leadership
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: of the second District illustrated further the strenuous work of
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: the Tammany District leaders. The contestants were Patrick Diver who
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: had managed the district for years, and Thomas F. Foley
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 1: both were particularly anxious to secure the large Italian vote.
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: They not only attended all the Italian cre listenings and funerals,
• 2:41:01
  Speaker 1: but also kept a close lookout for the marriages in
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: order to be on hand with wedding presents. At first,
• 2:41:07
  Speaker 1: each had his own reporter in the Italian Quarter to
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: keep the crack of the marriages. Later fully conceived a
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: better plan. He hired a man to stay all day
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: at the City Hall Marriage Bureau, where most Italian couples
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: go through the civil ceremony, and telephoned to him at
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: his saloon when anything was doing at the bureau. Foley
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: had a number of presents ready for use, and whenever
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: he received a telephone message from his man, he hastened
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: to the City Hall with a ring or watch or
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: a piece of silver and handed it to the bride
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: with his congratulations. As a consequence, when Diver got the
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: news and went to the home of the couple with
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: his present, he always found that Foley had been ahead
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: of him. Toward the end of the campaign, Diver also
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: stationed a man at the marriage bureau, and then there
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: were daily foot races and fights between the two healers.
• 2:41:57
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the rivals came into conflict at the death bed.
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: One night, a poor Italian peddler died in Roosevelt Street.
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: The news reached Diver and Fully about the same time,
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: and as they knew the family of the man was destitute,
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: each went to an undertaker and brought him to the
• 2:42:13
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt Street tenement. The rivals and the undertakers met at
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: the house and an altercation ensued. After much discussion, the
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: Diver undertaker was selected. Foley had more carriages at the funeral, however,
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: and he further impressed the Italian voters by paying the
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: widow's rent for a month and sending her half a
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: ton of coal and a barrel of flour. The rivals
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: were put on their metal toward the end of the
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: campaign by the wedding of a daughter of one of
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: the original Cohens of the Baxter Street region. The Hebrew
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: vote in the district is nearly as large as the
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 1: Italian vote, and Diver and Foley set out to capture
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: the Cohens and their friends. They stayed up nights thinking
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: about what they would give the bride. Neither knew how
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: much the other was prepared to spend on a wedding
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 1: present or what form it would take. So spies were
• 2:43:02
  Speaker 1: employed by both sides to keep watch on the jewelry stores,
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: and the jewelers of the district were bribed by each
• 2:43:09
  Speaker 1: side to impart the desired information. At last Fully heard
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: that Diver had purchased a set of silver knives, forks
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: and spoons. He at once bought a duplicate set and
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: added a silver tea service. When the presents were displayed
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: at the home of the bride, Diver was not in
• 2:43:24
  Speaker 1: a pleasant mood, and he charged his jeweler with treachery.
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: It may be added that Fully wanted the primaries. One
• 2:43:32
  Speaker 1: of the fixed duties of a Tammany district leaders is
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: to give two outings every summer, one for the men
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: of his district and the other for the women and children,
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 1: and a beefsteak dinner and a ball every winter. The
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: scene of the outings is usually one of the groves
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: around the sound. The ambition of the district leader on
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 1: these occasions is to demonstrate that his men have broken
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 1: all records in the matter of eating and drinking. He
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: gives out the exact number of pounds of beef, poultry, butter, igs,
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: et cetera, that they have consumed, and professes to know
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: how many potatoes and ears of corn have been served.
• 2:44:07
  Speaker 1: According to his figures, the average eating record of each
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: man at the outing is about ten pounds of beef,
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: two or three chickens, a pound of butter, a half
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 1: peck of potatoes, and two dozen ears of corn. The
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: drinking records, as given out are still more phenomenal. For
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: some reason not yet explained, the district leader thinks that
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: his popularity will be greatly increased if he can show
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: that his followers can eat and drink more than the
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: followers of any other district leader. The same idea governs
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: the beefsteak dinners in the winter. It matters not what
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: sort of steak is served or how it is cooked.
• 2:44:44
  Speaker 1: The district leader considers only the question of quantity, and
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: when he excels all others in this particular, he feels
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 1: somehow that he is a bigger man and deserves more
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 1: patronage than his associates in the Tammany Executive Committee. As
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: to the the balls, they are the events of the
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: winter in the extreme east Side and West Side society.
• 2:45:06
  Speaker 1: Maimy and Maggie and Jenny prepare for them months in advance,
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: and their young men save up for the occasion, just
• 2:45:15
  Speaker 1: as they say for the summer trips to Coney Island.
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: The district leader is in his glory at the opening
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: of the ball. He leads the coalition with the prettiest
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: women present his wife if he has one, permitting, and
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: spends almost the whole night shaking hands with these constituents.
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: The ball costs him a pretty penny, but he has
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: found that the investment pays by these means. The Tammany
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: District Leader reaches out into the homes of his district,
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 1: keeps watch not only on the men, but also on
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: the women and children, knows their needs, their likes and dislikes,
• 2:45:50
  Speaker 1: their troubles, and their hopes, and places himself in a
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 1: position to use his knowledge for the benefit of his
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: organization and himself. Is it any wonder that skin handles
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: do not permanently disable Tammany, and that it speedily recovers
• 2:46:04
  Speaker 1: from what seems to be a crushing defeat. End of
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three