CHAPTER III.
ST. TAMMANY AND THE DEVIL.
Hitherto, the city government of New York has not been a credit to the Republic; otherwise I should not be publishing a survey of the way in which New York has been governed as “Satan’s Invisible World Displayed.” The title, of course, is an adaptation, not an invention. The original holder of the copyright was one Hopkins, of the seventeenth century, who, having had much experience in the discovery of witches, deemed himself an expert qualified to describe the inner history and secret mystery of the infernal regions under that picturesque title. I have adopted it as being on the whole the most appropriate description of the state of abysmal abomination into which the government of New York had sunk before the great revolt of 1894 broke the power of Tammany—for a season—and placed in office a Reform Government charged to cleanse the Augean stable. The old witchfinder had no story to tell so horrible or so incredible as that which I have drawn up from the sworn evidence of witnesses exposed to public cross-examination before a State Commission in the City of New York. In the reports of the infernal Sabbats, for attending which thousands of old women were burnt or hanged in the seventeenth century, there always figures in the background, as the central figure in the horrid drama, a form but half-revealed, concerning whose identity even the witchfinders speak with awe. The weird women, with their incantations and their broomsticks, their magic spells and their diabolical trysts, are but the slaves of the Demon, who, whether as their lover or their torturer, is ever their master, whose name they whisper with fear, and whose commands they obey with instant alacrity. For the Master of Ceremonies in the Infernal revels, the Lord of the Witches’ Sabbat, is none other than Satan himself, the incarnate principle of Evil, the Boss of Hell!
In the modern world, sceptical and superstitious, these tales of witches and warlocks seem childish nonsense, unworthy of the attention of grown-up men. But although the dramatis personæ have changed, and the mise-en-scène, the same phenomena reappear eternally. Here in the history of New York we have the whole infernal phantasmagoria once again, with heelers for witches, policemen as wizards, and secret sessions in Tammany Hall as the Witches’ Sabbat of the new era. And behind them all, always present but dimly seen—the omnipresent central force, whose name is muttered with awe, and whose mandate is obeyed with speed—is the same sombre figure whom his devotees regard with passionate worship, and whom his enemies dread even as they curse his name. And this modern Sathanas—this man who to every good Republican is the most authentic incarnation of the principle of Evil, the veritable archfiend of the political world—is the Boss of Tammany Hall.
Among the many legends which have clustered round the beginning of the great association which has played so conspicuous a part in the history of New York, there is one which appeals specially to the sense of humour. Tammany, according to tradition, was the name of a Delaware Indian who in ancient days belonged to a Redskin confederacy that inhabited the regions now known as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. His name has been variously spelled as Temane, Tamanend, Taminent, Tameny, and Tammany.
Curiously enough, by a kind of metamorphosis by no means without precedent among more historical saints, his name has been attached to a locality which he probably never visited, and with the inhabitants of which he and his people lived in hereditary feud. This was not, however, due to any of his conflicts with the Mohicans, who in those days pitched their wigwams on the island of Manhattan. He owes it to a battle which he fought with no less a personage than the great enemy of mankind. In the days when St. Tammany, passed his legendary existence, there were no white men on the American Continent; but although the Pale-Face was absent, the Black man was in full force, and one fine day St. Tammany was exposed to the fell onslaught of the foul fiend. At first, as is his wont, the bad spirit, with honeyed words, sought to be admitted to a share in the government of Tammany’s realm.
“Get thee behind me, Satan!” rendered in the choicest Delaware dialect, was the Saint’s response to the offers of the tempter. But as a more illustrious case attests, the Devil is not a person who will accept a first refusal. Changing his tactics, he brought upon St. Tammany and his Delawares many grievous afflictions of body and of estate, and while the good Chief’s limbs were sore and his heart was heavy, the cunning deceiver attempted to slink into the country unawares.
St. Tammany, however, although sick and sore, slept with one eye open, and the Devil was promptly ordered to “get out of that,” with an emphasis which left him no option but to obey. Again and again the Devil, renewing his attacks, tried his best to circumvent St. Tammany, but finding that all was in vain, he at last flung patience and strategy to the winds, and boldly attacked the great Sagamore in order to overwhelm him by his infernal might.