15 Since the 80-cent gas bill was defeated in Albany, everybody's talking about Senators being brimed. Now I wasn't in the Senate last session, and I don't know the ins and outs of everything that was done, but I can tell you that the legislators are often hauled over the coals when they are all on the level. I've been there and I know. For instance, when I voted in the Senate in 1904 for the Remsen bill, that the newspapers called the Astoria Gas Grab bill, they didn't do a thing to me. The papers kept up a howl about all the supporters of the bill being bought up by the Consolidated Gas Company and the Citizens Union did me the honour to call me the Commander-in-Chief of the Black Horse Cavalry. The fact is that I was working for my district all this time, and I wasn't bribe or nobody. There's several of these gas houses in the district, and I wanted to get them over to Astoria for three reasons. First, because they're nuisances. Second, because there's no votes in them for me any longer. Third, because, well, I had a little private reason which I'll explain further on. I needn't explain how they're nuisances. They're worse than open sewers. Well I might have stood that if they hadn't degenerated so much in the last few years. Ah, gas houses. Ain't what they used to be. Not very long ago each gas house was good for a couple of hundred votes. All the men employed in them were Irishmen and Germans who lived in the district. Now it is all different. The men are dagos who live across in Jersey and take no interest in the district. What the use I have in ill-smellered gas houses if there's no votes in them. Now as to my private reason. Well, I'm a businessman and go in for any business that's profitable and honest. Real estate is one of my specialties. I know the value of every foot of ground in my district. And I calculated long ago that if them gas houses were removed, surrounded property would go up one hundred percent. When the Remsen bill, providing for the removal of the gas houses to Queens County, came up, I said to myself, George, hasn't your chance come? I answered, sure. Then I sized up the chances of the bill. I found it was certain to pass the Senate and Assembly. And I got assurances straight from headquarters that Governor O'Dell would sign it. Next I came down to the city to find out the mayor's position. I got it straight, that he would approve the bill too. Can't you guess what I did then? Like any sane man who had my information, I went in and got options on a lot of the property around the gas houses. Well, the bill went through the Senate and the Assembly all right, and the mayor signed it. But O'Dell backslided at the last minute and the whole game fell through. If it had succeeded, I guess I would have been accused of grafting. What I want to know is, what do you call it when I got left and lost a pot of money? I not only lost money, but I was abused for voting for the bill. Wasn't that outrageous? They said I was in with the Consolidated Gas Company and all other kinds of rot. When I was really only working for my district and trying to turn an honest penny on the side. Anyhow, I got a little fun out of the business. When the Remsen bill was up, I was trying to put through a bill of my own. The Spuyutin-Guyable bill, which provided for filling in some land under water that the New York Central Railroad wanted. Well, the Remsen managers were afraid of being beaten and they went around offering to make trades with senators and assemblymen who had bills they were anxious to pass. They came to me and offered six votes from my Spuyutin-Guyable bill in exchange for my vote on Remsen bill. I took them up in a hurry and they felt pretty sore afterwards when they heard I was going to vote for the Remsen bill anyhow. A word about the Spuyutin-Guyable bill. I was criticized a lot for introducing it. They said I was working in the interest of the New York Central and was going to get the contract for filling in. The fact is that the filling in was a good thing for the city and if it helped the New York Central too, what of it? The railroad is a great public institution and I was never an enemy of public institutions. As to the contract, it hasn't come along yet. If it does come, it will find me at home at all proper and reasonable hours, if there is a good profit in sight. The papers and some people are always ready to find wrong motives in what a statesman do if we bring about some big improvement that benefits a city and it just happens as a sort of coincidence that we make a few dollars out of the improvement. They say we are grafters, but we are used to this kind of ingratitude. It falls to the lot of all statesmen, especially Tammany statesmen. All we can do is to bow our heads in silence and wait till time has cleared our memories. Just think of mentioning dishonest grafting connection with the name of George Washington Plunkett, the man who gave the city its magnificent chain of parks, its Washington Bridge, its Speedway, its Museum of Natural History, its 155th Street Viand Huk, and its West Side Courthouse. I was the father of the bills that provided for all these, yet because I supported the Remsen and Spayutin Deyaville bills, some people have questioned my honest motives. If that's the case, how can you expect legislators to fare who are not the fathers of the parks, the Washington Bridge, the Speedway, and the Viand Huk? Now understand, I ain't defending the senators who killed the 80 cent gas bill. I don't know why they acted as they did. I only want to impress the idea to go slow before you make up your mind that a man occupying the exalted position that I held for so many years has done wrong. For all I know, these senators may have been as honest and high-minded about the gas bill as I was about the Remsen and Spayutin Deyaville bills. CHAPTER XVI The time is coming, and though I'm no youngster, I may see it when New York City will break away from the state and become a state itself. It's got to come. The feeling between this city and the hay seeds that make a living by plundering it is every bit as bitter as the feeling between the North and South before the war. And let me tell you, if there ain't a peaceful separation before long, we may have the horrors of civil war right here in New York State. Why I know a lot of men in my district, who would like nothing better today than go out gunning for hayseeds. New York City has got a bigger population than most of the states in the Union. It's got more wealth than any dozen of them, yet the people here, as I explained before, are nothing but slaves of the Albany Gang. We have stood the slavery a long, long time. But the uprising is near at hand. It will be a fight for liberty, just like the American Revolution. We'll get liberty peacefully if we can. By cruel war we must. Just think of how lovely things would be here. If we had a Tammany governor and legislator meeting, say, in the neighborhood of 59th Street, and a Tammany mayor and board of Alderman doing business in City Hall, how sweet and peaceful everything would go on. The people wouldn't have to bother about nothing. Tammany would take care of everything for them in its nice, quiet way. You wouldn't hear of any conflicts between the state and city authorities. They would settle everything pleasant and comfortable at Tammany Hall. And every bill introduced in the legislature by Tammany would be sure to go through. The Republicans wouldn't count. Imagine how the city would be built up in a short time. At present we can't make a public improvement of any consequence without going to Albany for permission. And most of the time we get turned down when we go there. But with a Tammany governor and legislature up at 59th Street, how public works would hum here. The mayor and Alderman could decide on an improvement, telephone the capital, have a bill put through in a jiffy, and there you are. We could have a state constitution too, which would extend the debt limits so that we could issue a whole lot more bonds. As things are now, all the money spent for docks, for instance, is charged against the city in calculating the debt limit, although the dock department provides immense revenues. It's the same with some other departments. This humbug would be dropped if Tammany ruled at the capital and the city hall, and the city would have money to burn. Another thing, the constitution of the new state wouldn't have a word about civil service. And if any man dared to introduce any kind of a civil service bill in a legislature, he would be fired out the window. Then we would have government of the people by the people who were elected to govern them. That's the kind of government Lincoln meant. Oh, what a glorious future for the city. Whenever I think of it, I feel like going out and celebrating. And I'm really almost sorry that I don't drink. You may ask what would become of the upstate people if New York City left them in the lurch and went into the state business on its own account. Well, we wouldn't be under no obligation to provide for them. Still, I would be in favor of helping them along for a while until they could learn to work and earn an honest living, just like the United States government looks after the Indians. These hayseeds have been so used to living off of New York City that they would be helpless after we left them. It wouldn't do to let them starve. We might make some sort of appropriation for them in a few years. But it would be with a distinct understanding that they must get busy right away and learn to support themselves. If after, say, five years they weren't self-supporting, we could withdraw the appropriation and let them shift for themselves. The plan might succeed and it might not. We'd be doing our duty anyhow. Some persons might say, but how about if the hayseed politicians move down here and went in to get control of the government of the new state? We could provide against that easy bypassing a law that these politicians couldn't come below the Bronx without a sort of passport limit at the time of their stay here and forbid them to monkey with politics here. I don't know just what kind of a bill would be required to fix this, but with the Tammany Constitution, Governor, Legislature, and Mayor, there would be no trouble in settling a little matter of that sort. See, I don't wish I was a poet for if I was, I guess I'd be living in a garret on no dollars a week instead of running a great contracting and transportation business, which is doing pretty well, thank you, but honest now. The notion takes me sometimes to yell poetry of the red-hot, hail-glorious land-kind when I think of New York City as a state by itself. CHAPTER XVI TAMANIES THE MOST PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATION ON EARTH Notwithstanding the fact that the civil service laws sapping the foundations of patriotism all over the country, nobody pays any attention to the Fourth of July any longer except Tammany and the small boy. When the Fourth comes, the reformers with revolutionary names, parted in the middle, run off to Newport or the Adirondacks to get out of the way of the noise and everything that reminds them of the glorious day. How different it is with Tammany. The very constitution of the Tammany Society requires that we must assemble at the wigwam on the Fourth, regardless of the weather, and listen to the reading of the Declaration of Independence and Patriotic Speeches. You ought to attend one of these meetings. THIRD LIBERAL EDUCATION IN PATRIOTISM The great hall upstairs is filled with five thousand people, suffocating from heat and smoke. Every man jack of these five thousand knows that down in the basement there's a hundred cases of champagne and two hundred kegs of beer ready to flow when the signal is given. Yet that crowd stick to their seats without turning the hair while for four solid hours. The Declaration of Independence is read. Long-winded order speak and the glee club sings itself hoarse. Talk about heroism in the battlefield. That comes and passes away in a moment. You ain't got time to be anything but heroic, but just think of five thousand men sitting in the hottest place on earth for four long hours with parched lips and non-stomachs and no one all the time that the delights of the oasis in the desert were only two flights downstairs. Ah, that is the highest kind of patriotism. The patriotism of long-sufferant and endurance. What man wouldn't rather face a cannon for a minute or two than thirst for four hours with champagne and beer almost under his nose? And then see how they applaud and yell when patriotic things are said as soon as the man on the platform starts off with, when in the course of human events word goes around that it's the Declaration of Independence and a mighty roar goes up. The Declaration ain't a very short document and the crowd has heard it on every fourth, but they give it just as fine a send-off as if it was brand new and awful exciting. Then the long-talkers get in their work. That is two or three orders who are good for an hour each. Heat never has any effect on these men. They use every minute of their time. Sometimes human nature gets the better of a man in the audience and he begins to nod, but he always wakes up with a hurrah for the Declaration of Independence. The greatest hero of the occasion is the Grand Secum of the Tammany Society who presides. He and the rest of us Secums come on the stage wearing stovepipe hats according to the Constitution, but we can shed ours right off while the Grand Secum is required to wear his hat all through the celebration. Have you any idea what that means? Four hours under a big silk hat in a hall where the heat registers a hundred and ten and the smoke two fifty and the Grand Secum is expected to look pleasant all the time and say nice things when introducing the speakers. Often his hand goes to his hat, unconscious like. Then he catches himself up in time and looks around like a man who is in the tenth story of a burning building seeking a way to escape. I believe that Fourth of July silk hat shortened the life of one of our Grand Secums, the late Supreme Court Justice Smith, and I know that one of our Secums refused the office of Grand Secum because he couldn't get up sufficient patriotism to perform this four-hour hat act. You see, there is degrees of patriotism just as there is degrees in everything else. You don't hear of the citizens' union people holding Fourth of July celebrations under a five-pound silk hat or any other way, do you?   The day after the Fourth, he turned up at home as regular as clockwork. He must have known what a dog is up against on the Fourth. Anyhow, he kept out of the way. The name parted in the middle aristocrats acting just the same way. They don't want to be annoyed with firecrackers and the Declaration of Independence and when they see the Fourth coming they hustle off to the woods like my dog. Tammany don't only show its patriotism at Fourth of July celebrations. It's always on deck when the country needs its services. After the Spanish-American war broke out, John J. Sannel, the Tammany leader of the twenty-fifth district, wrote to Governor Black, offering to raise a Tammany Regiment to go to the front. If you want proof, go to Tammany Hall and see the beautiful set of engrossed resolutions about this regiment. It's true that the Governor didn't accept the offer, but it showed Tammany's patriotism. Some enemies of the organization have said that the offer to raise the regiment was made after the Governor let it be known that no more volunteers were wanted, but that's the talk of envious slanderers. Now a word about Tammany's love for the American flag. Did you ever see a Tammany Hall decorated for a celebration? It's just a mass of flags. They even take down the window shades and put flags in place of them. There's flags everywhere except on the floors. We don't care for their expense where the American flag is concerned, especially after we have won an election. In 1904 we originated the custom of giving a small flag to each man as he entered Tammany Hall for the Fourth of July celebration. It took like wildfire. The men waved their flags whenever they cheered, and the sight made me feel so patriotic that I forgot all about civil service for a while, and the good work of the flags didn't stop there. The men carried them home and gave them to the children, and the kids got patriotic too. Of course it all cost a pretty penny. But what of that? We had won at the polls the preceding November, had the offices, and could afford to make an extra investment in patriotism. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Mike Venditti. The civil service gang is always howling about candidates and of office-holders, putting up money for campaigns, and about corporations chipping in. They might as well howl about given contributions to churches. A political organization has to have money for its business, as well as a church, and who has more right to put up than the men who get the good things that are going. Take, for instance, a great political concern like Tammany Hall. It does missionary work like a church. It's got big expenses and it's got to be supported by the faithful. If a corporation sends in a check to help the good work of the Tammany Society, why shouldn't we take it like other missionary societies? Of course the day may come when we'll reject the money of the rich as tainted. But it hadn't come when I left Tammany Hall at eleven twenty-five a.m. to-day. Not long ago some newspapers had fits because the Assemblyman from my district said he put up five hundred dollars when he was nominated for the Assembly last year. Every politician in town laughed at these papers. I don't think there was even a Citizens Union man who didn't know that candidates of both parties have to chip in for campaign expenses. The sum they pay are according to their salaries and the length of their terms of office, if elected. Even candidates for the Supreme Court have to fall in line. A Supreme Court judge in New York County gets seventeen thousand five hundred a year and he's expected when nominated to help along the good cause with a year's salary. Why not? He has fourteen years on the bench ahead of him and ten thousand other lawyers would be willing to put up twice as much to be in his shoes. I ain't saying that we sell nominations. That's a different thing altogether. There's no auction and no regular bidden.  See? Let me tell you an instance that shows the difference between selling nominations and arranging them in the way I describe. A few years ago a Republican district leader controlled the nomination for Congress in his congressional district. Four men wanted it. At first the leader asked for bids privately but decided, at last, that the best thing to do was to get the four men together in the back room of a certain saloon and have an open auction. When he had his men lined up, he got on a chair, told about the value of the goods for sale and asked for bids in regular auctioneer style. The highest bidder got the nomination for five thousand dollars. Now that wasn't right at all. These things ought to be always fixed up nice and quiet. As to office holders, they would be ingrates if they didn't contribute to the organization that put them in office. They needn't be assessed. That would be against the law. But they know what's expected of them and if they happen to forget, they can be reminded polite and courteous. Dan Donaghan, who used to be the whiskinsky of the Tammany Society and received contributions from grateful office holders, had a pleasant way of reminding. If a man forgot his duty to the organization that made him, Dan would call on the man, smile as sweet as you please and say, you haven't been around at the hall lately, have you? If the man tried to slide around the question, Dan would say, it's getting off cold. Then he would have a fit of shivering and walk away. What could be more polite and at the same time more to the point? No force, no threats. Only a little shivering, which any man is liable to, even in the summer. Just here I want to charge one more crime to the infamous civil service law. It has made men turn ungrateful. A dozen years ago, when there wasn't much civil service business in the city government and when the administration would turn out to almost any man-holding office, Dan's shiver took effect every time and there was no ingratitude in the city departments. But when the civil service law came in and all the clerks got lead pipe cinches on their jobs, ingratitude spread right away. Dan shivered and shook till his bones rattled. But many of the city employees only laughed at him. One day I remember he tackled a clerk in the Public Works Department, who used to give up pretty regular, and after the usual question began to shiver. The clerk smiled.   One that's shameful, and yet, if it hadn't been for the civil service law, that clerk would be contributing right along to this day. The civil service law don't cover everything, however. There's lots of good jobs outside his clutch, and the men that get them are grateful every time. I'm not speaking at Tammany Hall alone. Remember, it's the same with Republican, Federal, and State office holders, and every organization it has, or has had jobs to give out, except, of course, the Citizen Junior. The Sitz held office only a couple of years, and knowing that they would never be in again, each Sitz office holder held on for dear life to every dollar they came his way. Some people say they can't understand what becomes of all the money that's collected for campaigns. They would understand fast enough if they were district lead'em. There's never been half enough money to go round, besides, the expenses for meetings, bans, and all that. There's the bigger bill for the district workers who get men to the polls. There are these workers who are mostly men who want to serve their country but can't get jobs in the city department. On account of the civil service law, they do the next best thing by keeping track of the voters, and seem that they come to the polls, and vote the right way. Some of these deserving citizens have to make enough on registration and election days to keep them the rest of the year. Isn't it right that they should get a share of the campaign money? Just remember that there's 35 assembly districts in New York County, and 36 district leaders reaching out for the Tammany Doe Bag, for something, to keep up the patriotism of 10,000 workers. And you wouldn't wonder that the cry for more more is going up from every district organization now and forever more. Amen. Practical Politics by George Washington Plunkett, Chapter 19 The successful politician does not drink. I have explained how to succeed in politics. I want to add that no matter how well you learn to play the political game, you won't make a lasting success of it if you're a drinking man. I never take a drop of any kind of intoxicating liquor. I ain't no fanatic. Some of the saloon keepers are my best friends, and I don't mind going into a saloon any day with my friends. But as a matter of business, I leave whiskey and beer and the rest of that stuff alone. As a matter of business, too, I take for my lieutenants in my district men who don't drink. I tried the other kind for several years, but it didn't pay. They cost too much. For instance, I had a young man who was one of the best hustlers in town. He knew every man in a district was popular everywhere and could induce a half-dead man to come to the polls on election day. But regularly, two weeks before election, he started on a drunk. And I had to hire two men to guard him day and night and keep him sober enough to do his work. That cost a lot of money. And I dropped the young man after a while. Maybe you think I'm unpopular with the saloon keepers because I don't drink. You're wrong. The most successful saloon keepers don't drink themselves, and they understand that my temperance is a business proposition, just like their own. I have a saloon under my headquarters. If a saloon keeper gets into trouble, he always knows that Senator Plunkett is the man to help him out. If there is a bill in the legislature making it easier for the liquor dealers, I am for it every time. I am one of the best friends the saloon men have, but I don't drink their whiskey. I won't go through the temperance lecture-dodge and tell you how many bright young men I've seen fall victims to in temperance. But I'll tell you that I could name some dozens young men who had started on the road to statesmanship, who could carry their districts every time, and who could turn out any vote you wanted at the primaries. I honestly believe that drink is the greatest curse of the day, except, of course, civil service, and that it has driven more young men to ruin than anything except civil service examinations. Look at the great leaders of Tammany Hall. No regular drinkers among them. Richard Crocker's strongest drink was Vitchie. Charlie Murphy takes a glass of wine at dinner sometimes, but he don't go beyond that. A drinking man wouldn't last two weeks as leader of Tammany Hall. Nor can a man manage an assembly district long if he drinks. He's got to have a clear head at all times. I could name ten men, who, in the last few years, lost their grip in their districts because they began drinking. There's now thirty-six district leaders in Tammany Hall, and I don't believe a half dozen of them ever drink anything except at meals. People have got an idea that because the liquor men are with us, in campaigns, our district leaders spend most of their time leaning against bars. There couldn't be a wronger idea. The district leader makes a business of politics, gets his living out of it, and in order to succeed, he's got to keep sober, just like in any other business. Just take his examples, Big Tim and Little Tim Sullivan. They're known all over the country as the Bowery leaders, and as there's nothing but saloons on the Bowery, people might think that they are hard drinkers. The fact is that neither of them has ever touched a drop of liquor in his life, or even smoked a cigar. Still, they don't make no pretenses of being better than anybody else, and don't go around delivering temperance lectures. Big Tim made money out of liquor, selling it to other people. That's the only way to get good out of liquor. Look at all the Tammany heads of city departments. There's not a real drinking man in a lot. Yes, there are some prominent men in the organization who drink sometimes, but they are not the men who have power. They're ornaments, fancy speakers, and all that, who make a fine show behind the footlights. But am I in it when it comes to directing the city government and the Tammany organization? The men who sit in the executive committee room at Tammany Hall and direct things are men, who celebrate on Apollonaris and Vici. Let me tell you what I saw on election night in 1897, when the Tammany ticket swept the city. Up to 10 p.m., Prokhor, John F. Carroll, Tim Sullivan, Charlie Murphy, and myself sat in the committee room receiving returns. When nearly all the city was heard from and we saw that Van Wick was elected by a big majority, I invited the crowd to go across the street for a little celebration. A lot of small politicians followed us, expecting to see magnives of champagne opened. The waiters in the restaurant expected it too, and you never saw a more disgusted lot of waiters when they got our orders. Here's the orders, Krocker, Vici, and bicarbonate of soda. Carroll, Seltzer Lemonade, Sullivan, Apollonaris, Murphy, Vici, Plunkett, Ditto. Before midnight we were all in bed, and next morning we were up bright and early, attended to business. While other men were nurse-and-swelled heads. Is there anything the matter with temperance as a pure business proposition? CHAPTER XXI of Plunkett of Tammany Hall, a series of very plain talks on very practical politics. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti. Plunkett of Tammany Hall, a series of very plain talks on very practical politics by George Washington Plunkett. CHAPTER XXI Bosses, Preserve the Nation When I retired from the Senate I thought I would take a good long rest. Such a rest as a man knee who has held office for about forty years, and has held four different offices in one year, and drawn salaries from three of them at the same time. Drawing so many salaries is rather fatiguing. You know, and as I said I started out for a rest. But when I seen how things were going in New York State and how a great big black shadow hung over us, I said to myself, no rest for you George, your work ain't done.  What was the great big black shadow? It was the primary election law, amended so as to knock out what are called the party bosses by letting in everybody at the primaries and giving control over them to state officials. Oh yes, that is a good way to do up the so called bosses, but have you ever thought what would become of the country if the bosses were put out of business, and their places were taken by a lot of cart-tailed orators, and college graduates? It would mean chaos. It would be just like taking a lot of dry goods clerk and sending them to run express trains on the New York Central Railroad. It makes my heart bleed to think of it. Ignorant people are always talking against party bosses, but just wait till the bosses are gone. Then and not until then will they get the right sort of epitaphs, as Patrick Henry or Robert Emmett said. Look at the bosses of Tammany Hall in the last twenty years. What magnificent men. To them New York City owes pretty much all it is to-day. John Kelly, Richard Crocker, and Charles F. Murphy? What names in American history compares with them, except Washington and Lincoln? They built up the Grand Tammany Organization, and the Organization built up New York. Suppose the city had depended for the last twenty years on irresponsible concerns like the Citizen Union. Where would it be now? You can make a pretty good guess if you recall the strong and low administrations when there was no boss, and the heads of departments were at odds all the time with each other, and the mayor was at odds with a lot of them. They spent so much time in arguing and making grandstand play that the interests of the city were forgotten. Another administration of that kind would put New York back a quarter of a century. Then see how beautiful a Tammany city government runs, with a so-called boss directing the whole shooting match. The machinery moves so noiselessly that you wouldn't think there was any. If there's any differences of opinion, the Tammany leader settles them quietly, and his orders go every time. How nice it is for the people to feel that they can get up in the morning without him afraid of seeing the papers that the Commissioner of Water Supply has sandbagged a dock commissioner, and that the mayor and heads of the departments have been taken to the police court as witnesses? That's no joke. I remember that under strong. Some commissioners came very near sandbagging one another. Of course, the newspapers like the Reform Administration. Why? Because these administrations, with their daily rows, furnish as racing news as prize fights or divorce cases. Tammany don't care to get in the papers. He goes right along, attendant to business quietly, and only wants to be let alone. That's one reason why the papers are against us. Some papers complain that the bosses get rich while devoting their lives to the interests of the city. What of it? If opportunities for turning an honest dollar comes their way, why shouldn't they take advantage of them? Just as I have done. As I said in another talk, there is honest graft and dishonest graft. The bosses go in for the former. There is so much of it in this big town that they would be fools to go for dishonest graft. Now the primary election law threatens to do away with the boss and make the city government a menagerie. That's why I can't take the rest I counted on. I'm going to propose a bill the next session of the legislature, repeal on this dangerous law, and leave in the primaries entirely to the organizations themselves, as they used to be. Then we'll return the good old times. When our district leaders could have nice comfortable primary elections, at some place selected by themselves and let in only the men they approved of is good Democrats. Who is a better judge of the democracy of a man who offers his vote than the leader of the district? Who is better equipped to keep out undesirable voters? The men who put through the primary law are the same crowd that stand for the civil service blight, and they have the same objects in view, the destruction of governments by party, the downfall of the Constitution, and hell generally. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of Plunkett of Tammany Hall, a series of very plain talks on very practical politics. This lever-box recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Bandetti. Plunkett of Tammany Hall, a series of very plain talks on very practical politics by George Washington Plunkett. Chapter 21 Concerning Ex-Is All the women ought to drink and man myself. I'm born with the poor liquor-dealers of New York City, who are taxed and oppressed for the benefit of the farmers of the state. The range liquor law is infamous, it takes away nearly all the profits of the saloon-keepers, and then turns in a large part of the money to the state treasury to relieve the hay-seeds from taxes. Who knows how many honest, hard-working saloon-keepers have been driven to untimely graves by this law. I know personally of a half-dozen who committed suicide because they couldn't pay the enormous license fee, and I've heard of many others. Every time there is an increase of the fee, there is an increase in the suicide record of the city. Now, some of these Republican hay-seeds are talking about making the liquor tax fifteen hundred dollars or even two thousand dollars a year. That would mean the suicide of half of the liquor-dealers in the city. Just see how these poor fellows who are oppressed all around. First, liquor is taxed in the hands of the manufacturer by the United States government. Second, the wholesale dealer pays a special tax to the government. Third, the retail dealer is specially taxed by the United States government. Fourth, the retail dealer has to pay a big tax to the state government. Now, liquor-dealing is criminal or inane. If it's criminal, the man engaged in it ought to be sent to prison. If it ain't criminal, they ought to be protected and encouraged to make all the profit they honestly can. If it's right to tax a saloon-keeper one thousand dollars, it's right to put a heavy tax on dealers and other beverages and milk, for instance, and make the dairymen pay up. But what a howl would be raised if a bill was introduced in Albany to compel the farmers to help support the state government. What would be said of a law that put a tax of, say, sixty dollars on a grocer, one hundred fifty on a dry goods man, and five hundred more if he includes the other goods that are kept in a country store? If the rain's law gave the money extorted from the saloon-keepers to the city, there might be some excuse for the tax. We would get some benefit from it. But it gives a big part of the tax to local option localities where the people are always shouting that liquor dealing is immoral. Ought these good people be subjected to the immoral influence of money taken from the saloon-tainted money? Out of respect for the tender consciences of these pious people. The rain's law ought to exempt them from all contamination, from the plunder that comes from the saloon traffic. Say, mark that sarcastic. Some people who ain't used to fine sarcasm might think I'm in it. The range people make a pretense that the high license fee promotes temperance. It's just the other way around. It makes more intemperance. And what is bad, it makes a monopoly in graham shops. Soon the saloons will be in the hands of a vast trust and any stuff can be sold for whiskey or beer. It's getting that way already. Some of the poor liquor dealers in my district have been forced to sell wood alcohol for whiskey, and many deaths have followed. A half-dozen men died in a couple of days from this kind of whiskey which was forced down their throats by the high liquor tax. If they raise the tax higher, wood alcohol will be too costly. And I guess some dealers will have to get down to kerosene oil and add to the Rockefeller millions. The way the rain's law divides the different classes of licenses is also an outrage. The sumptuous hotel saloon, with ten thousand dollar paintings and brickey-brack and oriental splendors, gets off easier than a shanty on the rocks by the water's edge in my district where boatmen drink their grog. And the only ornaments is a three-cornered mirror nailed to the wall and a chromo of the fight between Tom Hire and Yankee Sullivan. Besides, a premium is put on places that sell liquor not to be drunk on the premises, but to be taken home. Now I want to declare that from my experience in New York City, I would rather see rum sold in the dram shops unlicensed provided the rum is swallowed on the spot than to encourage by a low-tax bucket-shops from which the stuff is carried into the tenements at all hours of the day and night and make drunkenness and debauchery among the women and children. A bucket-shop in the Tenement District means a cheap so-called distillery where raw spirits, poisonous color and matter, and water are sold for brandy and whiskey at ten cents a quart and carried away in buckets and pitchers. I have always noticed that there are many undertakers wherever the bucket-shop flourishes and they have no dull seasons. I want to understand that I am not an advocate of the liquor dealers or of drinking. I think every man would be better off if he didn't take any intoxication drink at all. But as men will drink, they ought to have good stuff without impoverishing themselves by going to fancy places and without risk and death by going to poor places. The state should look after their interests as well as the interest of those who drink nothing stronger than milk. Now, as to the liquor dealers themselves, they ain't criminals. That can't in hip-curve say they are. I know lots of them and I know that as a rule they're good honest citizens who conduct their business in a straight, honorable way. At a convention of the liquor dealers a few years ago a big city official welcomed them on behalf of this city and said, go on elevating your standard higher and higher. Go on with your good work. Heaven will bless you. That was puttin' it just a little strong. But the sentiment was all right, and I guess the speaker went a bit further than he intended, and his enthusiasm overmeatin' such a fine set of men. Perhaps dyin'in' with them. END OF CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII of Plunkett of Tammany Hall a series of very plain talks on very practical politics, this Sleaver-Vox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti. Plunkett of Tammany Hall a series of very plain talks on very practical politics by George Washington Plunkett. CHAPTER XXII A Parting Word on the Future of the Democratic Party in America The Democratic Party of the Nation ain't dead, though it's been given a lifelike imitation of a corpse for several years. You can't die while it's got Tammany for its backbone. The trouble is that the party's been chasin' after theories and stand-up nights readin' books instead of you studdin' human nature and actin' according, as I've advised in tellin' how to hold your district. In two presidential campaigns the leaders talked themselves red in the face about silver bein' the best money and gold havin' no good. And they tried to prove it out of books. Do you think the people cared for all that guff? No. They hardly endorsed what Richard Crockard said at Dye Hoffman House one day in 1900. What's the use of discussin'? What's the best kind of money, said Crockard? I'm in favor of all kinds of money, the more the better. See how a real Tammany statesman can settle in 25 words of problem that monopolized two campaigns? Then imperialism. The Democratic Party spent all its breath on that in the last national campaign. Its position was all right, sure. But you can't get people excited about the Philippines. They've got too much at home to interest them. They're too busy makin' a livin' to bother about the niggers in the Pacific. The parties got to drop all them put you to sleep issues and come out in 1908 for somethin' that will wake the people up, somethin' that will make it worthwhile to work for the party. There's just one issue that would set this country on fire. The Democratic Party should say in the first plank of its platform. We hereby declare, in national convention assembled, that the paramount issue now, always and forever, is the abolition of the iniquitous and valacious civil service laws which are destroyin' all patriotism, ruinin' the country, and takin' away good jobs from them that earn them. We pledge ourselves, if our ticket is elected, to repeal those laws at once and put every civil service reformer in jail. Just imagine the wild enthusiasm of the party if that plank was adapted, and the rush of Republicans to join us in restoring our country to what it was before this college professor's nightmare called civil service reform got hold of it. Of course. It would be all right to work in the platform some stuff about the tariff and sound money in the Philippines as no platform seems to be complete without them. But they wouldn't count. The people would read only the first plank, then hanker for election day to come to put the Democratic Party in office. I see a vision. I see the civil service monster liein' flat on the ground. I see the Democratic Party standin' over it with foot on its neck and wearin' the crown of victory. I see Thomas Jefferson lookin' out from McLeod and sayin' Give him another sock-dogler. Finish him. And I see millions of men wavin' their hats and singin' Glory Hallelujah. Strenuous Life of the Tammany District Leader Note this chapter is based on extracts from Plunkett's Diary and on my daily observation of the work of the District Leader WLR. The life of the Tammany District Leader is strenuous. To his work is due the wonderful recuperative power of the organization. One year it goes down into defeat and the prediction is made that it will never raise its head. The District Leader, undaunted by defeat, collects his scattered forces, organizes them as only Tammany knows how to organize, and at a little while, the organization is as strong as ever. No other politician in New York or elsewhere is exactly like the Tammany District Leader or works as he does. As a rule, he has no business or occupation other than politics. He plays politics every day and night in the year, and his headquarters bears the inscription, Never Closed. Everybody in the District knows him, everybody knows where to find him, and nearly everybody goes to him for assistance of one sort or another, especially the poor of the tenements. He is always obliging. He will go to the police courts to put in a good word for the drunks and disorderlies or pay their fines if a good word is not effective. He will attend christenings, weddings, and funerals. He will feed the hungry and help bury the dead. A philanthropist? Not at all.  Brought up in Tammany Hall, he has learned how to reach the hearts of the great mass of voters. He does not bother about reaching their heads. It is his belief that arguments in campaign literature have never gained votes. He seeks direct contact with the people, does them good turns, when he can, and relies on their not forgetting him on election day. His heart is always in his work too, for his subsistence depends on its results. If he holds his district and Tammany is in power, he is amply rewarded by a good office and the opportunities that go with it. What these opportunities are has been shown by the quick rise to wealth of so many Tammany district leaders. With the examples before him of Richard Crocker, once leader of the 20th district, John F. Carroll, formerly leader of the 29th, Timothy Dry Dollar Sullivan, late leader of the 6th, and many others, he can always look forward to riches and ease while he is going through the drudgery of his daily routine. This is a record of a day's work by Plunkett. 2 a.m. Aroused from sleep by the ringing of his doorbell, went to the door and found a bartender who asked him to go to the police station and bail out a saloon keeper who had been arrested for violating the excise law, furnished bail, and returned to bed at 3 o'clock. 6 a.m. Awakened by fire engines passing his house, hastened to the scene of the fire, according to the custom of the Tammany district leaders, to give assistance to the fire sufferers if needed, met several of his election district captains who are always under orders to look out for fires, which are considered great vote-getters, found several tenants who had been burned out, took them to a hotel, supplied them with clothes, fed them, and arranged temporary quarters for them until they could rent and furnish new apartments. 8.30 a.m. went to the police court to look after his constituents, found six drunks, secured the discharge of four by a timely word with the judge, and paid the fines of two. 9 a.m. appeared in the municipal district court, directed one of his district captains to act as counsel for a widow against whom dispossessed proceedings had been initiated, and obtained an extension of time, paid the rent of a poor family, about to be dispossessed, and gave them a dollar for food. 11 a.m. at home again, found four men waiting for him, one had been discharged by the Metropolitan Railway Company for neglect of duty, and wanted the district leader to fix things, another wanted a job on the road, the third sought a place on the subway and the fourth a plumber, was looking for work with the Consolidated Gas Company. The district leader spent nearly three hours fixing things for the four men and succeeded in each case. 3 p.m. attended the funeral of an Italian as far as the ferry, hurried back to make his appearance at the funeral of a Hebrew constituent, went conspicuously to the front both in the Catholic Church and the synagogue, and later attended the Hebrew Confirmation ceremonies in the synagogue. 7 p.m. went to district headquarters and presided over a meeting of election district captains, each captain subordinate a list of all the voters in his district, reported on their attitude toward Tammany, suggested who might be won over and how they could be won, told who were in need and who were in trouble of any kind and the best way to reach them, district leader took notes and gave orders. 8 p.m. went to a church fair, took chances on everything, bought ice cream for the young girls and the children, kissed the little ones, flattered the mother and took their fathers out for something down on the corner. 9 p.m. at the clubhouse again, spent ten dollars on tickets for a church excursion and promised a subscription for a new church bell, bought tickets for a baseball game to be played by two nines from his district. Listen to the complaints of a dozen Pushkart peddlers who said they were persecuted by the police and assured them he would go to police headquarters in the morning and see about it. 10 p.m. attended a Hebrew wedding reception and dance, had previously sent a handsome wedding present to the bride. 12 p.m. in bed. This is the actual record of one day in the life of Plunkett. He does some of the same things every day, but his life is not so monotonous as to be worrisome. Sometimes the work of a district leader is exciting, especially if he happens to have a rival who intends to make a contest for the leadership at the primaries. In that case, he is even more alert, tries to reach the fires before his rival, sends out runners to look for drunks and disorderlies at the police station, and keeps a very close watch on the obituary columns of the newspapers. A few years ago there was a bitter contest for the Tammany leadership of the Ninth District between John C. Sheehan and Fred J. Goodwin. Both had long experience in Tammany politics and both understood every move of the game. Every morning their agents went to their respective headquarters before seven o'clock and read through the death notices in all the morning papers. If they found that anybody in the district had died, they rushed to the homes of their principals with the information, and then there was a race to the house of the deceased to offer condolences, and if the family were poor, something more substantial. On the day of the funeral there was another contest. Each faction tried to surpass the other in number and appearances of the carriages it sent to the funeral, and more than once they almost came to blows at the church or in the cemetery. On one occasion the Goodwinites played a trick on their adversaries, which has since been imitated in other districts. A well-known liquor dealer who had a considerable falling died, and both Sheehan and Goodwin, were eager to become his political heir by making a big showing at the funeral. Goodwin managed to catch the enemy napping. He went to all the livery stables in the district, hired all the carriages for the day, and gave orders to two hundred of his men to be on hand as mourners. Sheehan had never had any trouble about getting all the carriages that he wanted, so he let the matter go until the night before the funeral. Then he found that he could not hire a carriage in the district. He called his district committee together in a hurry and explained the situation to them. He could get all the vehicles he needed in the adjoining district, he said. But if he did that, Goodwin would rouse the voters of the ninth by declaring that he, Sheehan, had patronized foreign industries. Finally it was decided that there was nothing to do but to go over to Sixth Avenue and Broadway for carriages. Sheehan made a fine turnout at the funeral, but the deceased was hardly in his grave before Goodwin raised the cry of protection to home industries, and announced his rival for patronizing livery-stabled keepers outside of his district. The heir had its effect in the primary campaign as all events Goodwin was elected leader. A recent contest for the leadership of the second district illustrated further the strenuous work of the Tammany district leaders. The contestants were Patrick Diver, who had managed the district for years, and Thomas F. Foley, both were particularly anxious to secure the large Italian boat. They not only attended all the Italian christenings and funerals, but also kept a close look out for the marriages in order to be on hand with wedding presents. At first each had his own reporter in the Italian quarter to keep the crack of the marriages. Later, Foley conceived a better plan. He hired a man to stay all day at the City Hall Marriage Bureau, where most Italian couples go through the civil ceremony, and telephone to him at his saloon when anything was doing at the bureau. Foley had a number of presents ready for use and whenever he received a telephone message from his man, he hastened to the City Hall with a ring or watch or a piece of silver and handed it to the bride with his congratulations. As a consequence, when Diver got the news and went to the home of the couple with his present, he always found that Foley had been ahead of him. Toward the end of the campaign, Diver also stationed a man at the marriage bureau, and then there were daily foot races and fights between the two healers. Sometimes the rivals came into conflict at the death bed. One night a poor Italian peddler died in Roosevelt Street. The news reached Diver and Foley about the same time, and as they knew the family of the man was destitute. Each went to an undertaker and brought him to the Roosevelt Street tenement. The rivals and the undertakers met at the house in an altercation ensued. After much discussion, the Diver Undertaker was selected. Foley had more carriages at the funeral, however, and he further impressed the Italian voters by paying the widow's rent for a month and sending her half a ton of coal and a barrel of flour. The rivals were put on their metal toward the end of the campaign by the wedding of a daughter of one of the original Coens of the Baxter Street region. The Hebrew vote in the district is nearly as large as the Italian vote, and Diver and Foley set out to capture the Coens and their friends. They stayed up nights thinking about what they would give the bride. Neither knew how much the other was prepared to spend on a wedding present or what format would take, so spies were employed by both sides to keep watch on the jewelry stores, and the jewelers of the district were bribed by each side to impart the desired information. At last Foley heard that Diver had purchased a set of silver knives, forks, and spoons. He at once bought a duplicate set and added a silver tea service. When the presents were displayed at the home of the bride, Diver was not in a pleasant mood, and he charged his jeweler with treachery. It may be added that Foley wanted to primaries. One of the fixed duties of a Tammany district leader is to give two outings every summer, one for the man of his district and the other for the women and children, and a beef steak dinner and a ball every winter. The scene of the outings is usually one of the groves around the sound. The ambition of the district leader on these occasions is to demonstrate that his men have broken all records in the matter of eating and drinking. He gives out the exact number of pounds of beef, poultry, butter, etc. that they have consumed and professes to know how many potatoes and ears of corn have been served. According to his figures, the average eating record of each man at the outing is about ten pounds of beef, two or three chickens, a pound of butter, a half pack of potatoes, and two dozen ears of corn. The drinking records, as given out, are still more phenomenal. For some reason, not yet explained, the district leader thinks that his popularity will be greatly increased if he can show that his followers can eat and drink more than the followers of any other district leader. The same idea governs the beef steak dinners in the winter. It matters not what sort of steak is served or how it is cooked. The district leader considers only the question of quantity, and when he excels all others in this particular, he feels somehow that he is a bigger man and deserves more patronage than his associates in the Tammany Executive Committee. As to the balls, they are the events of the winter in the extreme east side and west side society. Mamie and Maggie and Jenny prepare for them months in advance, and their young men save up for the occasion, just as they save for the summer trips to Coney Island. The district leader is in his glory at the opening of the ball. He leads the coalition with the prettiest women present, his wife, if he has one, permitting and spends almost the whole night shaking hands with these constituents. The ball costs him a pretty penny, but he has found that the investment pays. By these means, the Tammany district leader reaches out into the homes of his district, keeps watch not only on the men, but also on the women and children, knows their needs, their likes and dislikes, their troubles and their hopes, and places himself in a position to use his knowledge for the benefit of his organization and himself. Is it any wonder that scandals do not permanently disable Tammany and that it speedily recovers from what seems to be crushing defeat? End of Chapter 23 Recording by Mike Vendetti Mike Vendetti.com End of Plunket of Tammany Hall A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics by George Washington Plunket