William L. Riordan - Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: a series of very plain talks on very practical politics delivered by ex-senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Hall philosopher from his rostrum the New York County

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Table of Contents

THE WORLD OF PRACTICAL POLITICS ACCORDING TO PLUNKITT

There is a vital difference between honest and dishonest graft.

It is important to be loyal to your friendseven up to the penitentiary door.

For a politician, reading and other forms of education can have harmful effects.

Patronage should be honored as the supreme form of patriotism.

Never forget the importance of perfecting the gentle art of strong-arming votes... and everything else you never learned in high school civics class, as revealed by the man who wanted his epitaph to be He Seen His Opportunities, and He Took Em.

PLUNKITT OF TAMMANY HALL
A Series of Very Plain Talks
on Very Practical Politics

George Washington Plunkitt was born into poverty in New York in 1842. He had only three years of formal schooling, but this did not hinder him from becoming one of the most powerful men in New York City politics. He died in 1924, a renowned civic leader and a millionaire.

William L. Riordon, a newspaperman for the New York Evening Post, interviewed George Washington Plunkitt and preserved his philosophy for posterity. He recognized in Plunkitt an exceptional frankness that set him apart from his fellow bosses. In Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Riordon admits readers into an area of life that mystified middle-class Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.

Peter Quinn is a former speechwriter for Mario Cuomo and the author of Banished Children of Eve: A Novel of Civil War New York.

Ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, on his rostrum, the New York County Court House Bootblack Stand (Copy of the original frontispiece in the first edition of 1905)

INTRODUCTION

OF ALL our passions and appetites, wrote Edward Gibbon, the famed chronicler of Romes decline and fall, the love of power is the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. It is a mystery what Gibbon would have made of George Washington Plunkitt, leader of the Fifteenth Assembly District, Sachem of the Tammany Society, holder of assorted public offices (at one point four simultaneously), a man skilled at seeking power yet who shunned all imperiousness and proclaimed sociability as the first law of politics.

For his part, it seems fairly certain that Plunkitt neither knew nor had any desire to learn about Gibbons theories on leadership or the role it played in the fate of Imperial Rome. Had they been contemporaries and neighbors, Plunkitt might well have spent an afternoon conversing with Gibbon, though if this small book is any guide, Plunkitt was more given to soliloquies than conversations. But theres no doubt that as disinterested as Plunkitt might have been in Roman history, he would have paid careful attention to the needs and concerns of a constituent. And what brings ya here, Mr. Gibbon? Is it a job youre seekin? Or is that boy of yours in trouble again? Not to worry, Mr. Gibbon, youve come to the right place.

This collection of short disquisitions or lectures or rambling observationsin truth, a mixture of all threeis a unique document. Aside from a few newspaper interviews and the official transcripts of numerous investigatory bodies, it is our only written record of the thoughts, musings and philosophy of the men who operated the most successful and long-running urban political machine in American history.

The dislike of the Tammany leadership for public statements or speeches is legendary. It was raised to an art form by its greatest tactician and most taciturn chief, Charles Francis Murphy, whose longest written statement is, perhaps, the four-sentence tribute that he composed (or more likely, commissioned) for Plunkitts book. So famous was Murphy for his silences that when an observer once commented on the fact that the Boss was standing with his mouth shut during the singing of the national anthem, a Tammany brave replied that the Boss wasnt being unpatriotic. He just didnt want to commit himself in public.

There is no question that as well as being a unique American political document, Plunkitts book is also among the most lively. This is the text free of convoluted theorizing, or impenetrable statistical analyses, or the mind-numbing language of the social sciences. It is politically incorrect in every sense, displaying equal contempt for good government reforms and for the conservative proponents of free enterprise as a solution for every social problem. Its a grand idea, says Plunkitt, the city ownin the railroads, the gas works and all that. Just see how many thousands of new places there would be for the workers in Tammany! Plunkitt makes little or no attempt to censor himself, even when it comes to offensive and despicable racial and ethnic epithets.

Plunkitts formal schooling lasted, as he tells us, three winters when I was a boy. In spite of (or more likely, because of) this, he is forceful and concise in expression and has a keen appreciation of the power of anecdote. Whatever readers might think of Plunkitts opinions on the Civil Service or on the propriety of politicians wearing formal dress clothes, they will be hard put to forget the story of the young man driven by frustration with the Civil Service to fight with the Spanish at the battle of San Juan Hill, or of the young politico reduced by his love of formal wear to a hobo. Spun out a little longer, these are New York yarns worthy of O. Henry.

The pungent wit and concise effectiveness of each of Plunkitts plain talks on very practical politics raise a question that isnt often asked but should be: How much is Plunkitt? And how much William L. Riordon, the newspaperman who listened to Plunkitt hold forth from his rostrumthe New York County Court House bootblack standand wrote it all down? Anyone who has transcribed an interview or conversation and then shaped it into readable prose knows the dimensions of the challenge. Often enough, the editor must do so much cutting, reorganizing and filling in, he deserves status as coauthor of the piece.

Whats more, there is an amazing affinity between the flesh-and-blood Plunkitt and the fictional Martin J. Dooley, the contemporaneous Chicago barkeep and nonpareil American political philosopher invented by another Irish-American newspaperman, Finley Peter Dunne. Like Plunkitt, Mr. Dooley went about armed with the sharp, bitter shiv of the Irish comic sensibility, an attitude so attuned to the presence of absurdity in human affairs that it finds it hard to take anything seriously. Here, for example, is Mr. Dooley on reformers, words that if delivered in New Yorkese might as easily have come from Plunkitt: A man thatd expict to thrain lobsters to fly in a year is called a loonytic; but a man that thinks men can be tu-rrned into angels by an iliction is called a rayformer an remains at large.

Though we will never know with certainty where Plunkitt ends and Riordon begins, it seems safe to say that whatever editing he did, Riordon captured the authentic man, wit and wisdom, warts and all. Along with being richly larded with stories and anecdotes, these talks reek of a real-life professional utterly free of the grating tendency of modern-day politicians to apologize for taking up their trade.

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