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Episode 19 - The Successful Politician Does Not Drink · Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

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  Chapter nineteen. The successful politician does not drink. I have explained how to
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  succeed in politics. I want to add that no matter how well you learn
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  to play the political game, you won't make a lasting success of it if
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  you're a drinkin man. I never take a drop of any kind of intoxicating
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  liquor. I ain't no fanatic. Some of the saloon keepers are my best
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  friends, and I don't mind going into a saloon any day with my friends.
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  But as a matter of business, I leave whiskey and beer and the
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  rest of that stuff alone. As a matter of business, too, I
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  take for my lieutenants in my district men who don't drink. I tried the
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  other kind of for several years, but it didn't pay. They cost too
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  much. For instance, I had a young man who was one of the
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  best hustlers in town. He knew every man in the district, was popular
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  everywhere, and could induce a half dead man to come to the polls on
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  election day. But regularly, two weeks before election he started on a drunk
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  and I had to hire two men to guard him day and night and keep
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  him sober enough to do his work. That costs a lot of money,
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  and I dropped the young man after a while. Maybe you think I'm unpopular
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  with the saloon keepers because I don't drink. You're wrong. The most successful
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  saloon keepers don't drink themselves, and they understand that my temperance is a business
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  proposition just like their own. I have a saloon under my headquarters. If
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  a saloon keeper gets into trouble, he always knows that Senator Plunkett is the
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  man to help him out. If there is a bill in the legislature making
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  it easier for the liquor dealers, I am for it every time. I
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  am one of the best friends the saloon men have, but I don't drink
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  their whiskey. I won't go through the temperance lecture Dodge and tell you how
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  many bright young men I've seen fall victims to in temperance, but I'll tell
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  you that I could name some dozens young men who had started on the road
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  to statesmanship, who could carry their districts every time, and who could turn
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  out any vote you wanted at the primaries. I honestly believe that drink is
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  the greatest curse of the day, except of course, civil service, and
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  that it has driven more young men to ruin than anything except civil service examinations.
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  Look at the great leaders of Tammany Hall. No regular drinkers among them.
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  Richard Crocker's strongest drink was vitchy. Charlie Murphy takes a glass of wine
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  at dinner sometimes, but it don't go beyond that. A drinken man wouldn't
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  last two weeks as leader of Tammany Hall. Nor can a man manage an
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  assembly district long if he drinks. He's got to have a clear head at
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  all times. I could name ten men who in the last few years lost
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  their grip in their districts because they began drinking. There's now thirty six district
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  leaders in Tammany Hall, and I don't believe a half dozen of them ever
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  drink anything except at meals. People have got an idea that because the liquor
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  men are with us in campaigns, our district leaders spend most of their time
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  leaning against bars. There couldn't be a wronger idea. The district leader makes
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  a business of politics, gets us living out of it, and in order
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  to succeed, he's got to keep sober, just like in any other business.
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  Just take as examples Big Tim and Little Tim Sullivan. They're known all
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  over the country as the Bowery Leaders, and as there's nothing but saloons on
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  the Bowery, people might think that they are hard drinkers. The fact is
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  that neither of them has ever touched a drop of liquor in his life or
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  even smoked a cigar. Still, they don't make no pretenses of being better
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  than anybody else, and don't go around delivering temperance lectures. Big Tim made
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  money out of liquor selling it to other people. That's the only way to
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  get good out of liquor. Look at all the Tammany heads of city departments.
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  There's not a real drinking man in a lot Yess. There are some
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  prominent men in the organization who drink sometimes, but they are not the men
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  who have power, their ornaments, fancy speakers and all that who make a
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  fine show behind the footlights. But am I in it When it comes to
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  direct in the city government and the Tammany organization. The men who sit in
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  the executive committee room at Tammany Hall and direct things are men who celebrate on
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  Apollinaris and vitchy. Let me tell you what I saw on election night in
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  eighteen ninety seven, when the Tammany ticket swept the city. Up to ten
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  p m. Crocker, John F. Carroll, Tim Sullivan, Charlie Murphy
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  and myself sat in the committee room receiving returns. When nearly all the city
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  was heard from and we saw that Van Wyck was elected by a big majority,
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  I invited the crowd to go across the street for little celebration. A
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  lot of small politicians followed us, expecting to see magnets of champagne opened.
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  The waiters in the restaurant expected to two and you never saw a more disgusted
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  lot of waiters when they got our orders. Here's the orders. Crocker Fitchy
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  and by carpetate of Soda, Carroll Seltzer Lemonade, Sullivan Apple, and Naris
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  Murphy Bitchy Plunkett ditto. Before midnight we were all in bed, and next
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  morning we were up, bright and early, attendant to business while other men
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  were nursing swelled heads. Is there anything the matter with temperance as a pure
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  business proposition? End of Chapter nineteen