It is not for me to dogmatise where experts, native to New York, hopelessly disagree. But viewed from the outside the secret of Tammany’s success seems to lie chiefly in the fact that Tammany has from the first been really a democratic organisation. No one was too poor, too wicked, or too ignorant to be treated by Tammany as a man and a brother if he would stand in with the machine and join the brotherhood.
This secret of Tammany—the open secret—was explained to me in Chicago by a saloon-keeper of more than dubious morals who had been a Tammany captain in New York. I saw him the night after Dr. Parkhurst had scored his first great success over the politicians of New York. The ex-Tammany Captain shook his head when I asked him what he thought of Dr. Parkhurst’s campaign. He had no use for Dr. Parkhurst. For a time, he thought, he might advertise himself, which was no doubt his object, but after that everything would go on as before. The one permanent institution in New York was Tammany.
I asked him to explain his secret. “Suppose,” said I, “that I am a newly arrived citizen in your precinct, and come to you and wish to join Tammany, what would be required of me?”
“Sir,” said he, “before anything would be required of you we would find out all about you. I would size you up myself, and then after I had formed my own judgment I would send two or three trusty men to find out all about you. Find out, for instance, whether you really meant to work and serve Tammany, or whether you were only getting in to find out all about it. If the inquiries were satisfactory then you would be admitted to the ranks of Tammany, and you would stand in with the rest.”
“What should I have to do?”
“Your first duty,” said he, “would be to vote the Tammany ticket whenever an election was on, and then to hustle around and make every other person whom you could get hold of vote the same ticket.”
“And what would I get for my trouble?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said he, “unless you needed it. I was twenty years captain and I never got anything for myself, but if you needed anything you would get whatever was going. It might be a job that would give you employment under the city, it might be a pull that you might have with the alderman in case you got into trouble, whatever it was you would be entitled to your share. If you get into trouble, Tammany will help you out. If you are out of a job Tammany will see that you have the first chance of whatever is going. It is a great power, is Tammany. Whether it is with the police, or in the court, or in the City Hall, you will find Tammany men everywhere, and they all stick together. There is nothing sticks so tight as Tammany.”
Therein, no doubt, this worthy ex-captain revealed the great secret, of Tammany’s success. Tammany is a brotherhood. Tammany men stick together, and help each other.
The record of Tammany, however, hardly bears out the claim made for it by Mr. Croker as to the honesty and purity of its administration. From its very early days Tammany has had a bad record for dishonesty and utter lack of scruple. As early as 1837, two Tammany leaders, who had held the federal offices of Collector of the Port of New York, and of United States District Attorney for the Southern district of New York, skipped to Europe after embezzling, the one £250,000, the other £15,000. About twenty years later, another Tammany leader, who was appointed Postmaster for New York, advanced £50,000 of post-office money in order to carry Pennsylvania for Buchanan. These, however, were but bagatelles compared with the carnival of plunder which was established when Tweed was Tammany Boss.