THE LIQUOR-SELLER IN POLITICS.
It is this that gives the liquor-sellers their enormous influence in politics. Preparatory to the general election of 1884, there were held in the various districts of New York ten hundred and seven primaries and political conventions of all parties, and of these no less than six hundred and thirty-three took place in liquor-saloons,—a showing that leaves small ground for wonder at the low average grade of the nominees. The reason for such a condition of things is perfectly evident: it is because the liquor-saloons are places of social resort for the same men who turn the local political organizations into social clubs. Bar-tenders form perhaps the nearest approach to a leisure class that we have at present on this side of the water. Naturally they are on semi-intimate terms with all who frequent their houses. There is no place where more gossip is talked than in bar-rooms, and much of this gossip is about politics,—that is, the politics of the ward, not of the nation. The tariff and the silver question may be alluded to and civil-service reform may be incidentally damned, but the real interest comes in discussing the doings of the men with whom they are personally acquainted: why Billy so-and-so, the alderman, has quarrelled with his former chief supporter; whether “old man X” has really managed to fix the delegates to a given convention; the reason why one faction bolted at the last primary; and if it is true that a great down-town boss who has an intimate friend of opposite political faith running in an up-town district has forced the managers of his own party to put up a man of straw against him. The bar-keeper is a man of much local power, and is, of course, hail-fellow-well-met with his visitors, as he and they can be of mutual assistance to one another. Even if of different politics, their feelings towards each other are influenced purely by personal considerations; and, indeed, this is true of most of the smaller bosses as regards their dealings among themselves, for, as one of them once remarked to me with enigmatic truthfulness, “there are no politics in politics” of the lower sort—which, being interpreted, means that a professional politician is much less apt to be swayed by the fact of a man’s being a Democrat or a Republican than he is by his being a personal friend or foe. The liquor-saloons thus become the social head-quarters of the little knots or cliques of men who take most interest in local political affairs; and by an easy transition they become the political head-quarters when the time for preparing for the elections arrives; and, of course, the good-will of the owners of the places is thereby propitiated,—an important point with men striving to control every vote possible.
The local political clubs also become to a certain extent mutual benefit associations. The men in them become pretty intimate with one another; and in the event of one becoming ill, or from any other cause thrown out of employment, his fellow-members will very often combine to assist him through his troubles, and quite large sums are frequently raised for such a purpose. Of course, this forms an additional bond among the members, who become closely knit together by ties of companionship, self-interest, and mutual interdependence. Very many members of these associations come into them without any thought of advancing their own fortunes; they work very hard for their party, or rather for the local body bearing the party name, but they do it quite disinterestedly, and from a feeling akin to that which we often see make other men devote their time and money to advancing the interests of a yacht club or racing stable, although no immediate benefit can result therefrom to themselves. One such man I now call to mind who is by no means well off, and is neither an office-seeker nor an office-holder, but who regularly every year spends about fifty dollars at election time for the success of the party, or rather the wing of the party, to which he belongs. He has a personal pride in seeing his pet candidates rolling up large majorities. Men of this stamp also naturally feel most enthusiasm for, or animosity against, the minor candidates with whom they are themselves acquainted. The names at the head of the ticket do not, to their minds, stand out with much individuality; and while such names usually command the normal party support, yet very often there is an infinitely keener rivalry among the smaller politicians over candidates for local offices. I remember, in 1880, a very ardent Democratic ward club, many of the members of which in the heat of a contest for an assemblyman cooly swapped off quite a number of votes for President in consideration of votes given to their candidate for the State Legislature; and in 1885, in my own district, a local Republican club that had a member running for alderman, performed a precisely similar feat in relation to their party’s candidate for governor. A Tammany State Senator openly announced in a public speech that it was of vastly more importance to Tammany to have one of her own men Mayor of New York than it was to have a Democratic President of the United States. Very many of the leaders of the rival organizations, who lack the boldness to make such a frankly cynical avowal of what their party feeling really amounts to, yet in practice, both as regards mayor and as regards all other local offices which are politically or pecuniarily of importance, act exactly on the theory enunciated by the Tammany statesman; and, as a consequence, in every great election not only is it necessary to have the mass of the voters waked up to the importance of the principles that are at stake, but, unfortunately, it is also necessary to see that the powerful local leaders are convinced that it will be to their own interest to be faithful to the party ticket. Often there will be intense rivalry between two associations or two minor bosses; and one may take up and the other oppose the cause of a candidate with an earnestness and hearty good-will arising by no means from any feeling for the man himself, but from the desire to score a triumph over the opposition. It not unfrequently happens that a perfectly good man, who would not knowingly suffer the least impropriety in the conduct of his canvass, is supported in some one district by a little knot of politicians of shady character, who have nothing in common with him at all, but who wish to beat a rival body that is opposing him, and who do not for a moment hesitate to use every device, from bribery down, to accomplish their ends. A curious incident of this sort came to my knowledge while happening to inquire how a certain man became a Republican. It occurred a good many years ago, and thanks to our election laws it could not now be repeated in all its details; but affairs similar in kind occur at every election. I may preface it by stating that the man referred to, whom we will call X, ended by pushing himself up in the world, thanks to his own industry and integrity, and is now a well-to-do private citizen and as good a fellow as anyone would wish to see. But at the time spoken of he was a young laborer, of Irish birth, working for his livelihood on the docks and associating with his Irish and American fellows. The district where he lived was overwhelmingly Democratic, and the contests were generally merely factional. One small politician, a saloonkeeper named Larry, who had a great deal of influence, used to enlist on election day, by pay and other compensation, the services of the gang of young fellows to which X belonged. On one occasion he failed to reward them for their work, and in other ways treated them so shabbily as to make them very angry, more especially X, who was their leader. There was no way to pay Larry off until the next election; but they determined to break his influence utterly then, and as the best method for doing this they decided to “vote as far away from him” as possible, or, in other words, to strain every nerve to secure the election of all the candidates most opposed to those whom Larry favored. After due consultation, it was thought that this could be most surely done by supporting the Republican ticket. Most of the other bodies of young laborers, or, indeed, of young roughs, made common cause with X and his friends. Everything was kept very quiet until election day, neither Larry nor the few Republicans having an inkling of what was going on. It was a rough district, and usually the Republican booths were broken up and their ballot-distributers driven off early in the day; but on this occasion, to the speechless astonishment of everybody, things went just the other way. The Republican ballots were distributed most actively, the opposing workers were bribed, persuaded, or frightened away, all means fair and foul were tried, and finally there was almost a riot,—the outcome being that the Republicans actually obtained a majority in a district where they had never before polled ten per cent. of the total vote. Such a phenomenon attracted the attention of the big Republican leaders, who after some inquiry found it was due to X. To show their gratitude and to secure so useful an ally permanently (for this was before the days of civil-service reform), they procured him a lucrative place in the New York Post-office; and he, in turn, being a man of natural parts, at once seized the opportunity, set to work to correct the defects of his early education, and is now what I have described him to be.