The History of Tammany Hall / Second Edition

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The History of Tammany Hall, by Gustavus Myers


THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL
BY GUSTAVUS MYERS Author of “A History of Public Franchises in New York City,” etc., etc.
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED
NEW YORK BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc. 1917

Copyright, 1917. By Boni & Liveright, Inc.

In most men’s minds a certain spell of wonder attaches to the career and character of the Tammany Society and Tammany Hall. The long continuance of this dual power; its control of the city, infrequently interrupted, throughout the century; the nature of its principles, the method of its practices and the character of its personnel—all these combine to furnish a spectacle which exerts over the general mind a peculiar and strong fascination.
It was under the sway of this mood that I began the investigation which has resulted in this volume. I had no thought, on beginning, to carry the work so far: I sought merely to satisfy my curiosity regarding the more important particulars of Tammany’s history. But I soon learned that what I sought was not easily to be obtained. The few narratives already published were generally found to be either extravagant panegyrics, printed under the patronage of the Tammany Society, or else partisan attacks, violent in style and untruthful in statement. Usually both were characterized by their paucity of real information no less than by the number of their palpable errors of fact.