Satan's Invisible World Displayed; or, Despairing Democracy / A Study of Greater New York

by W. T. Stead

This Pharisaic panoply in which Tammany was clad, as in a coat of mail, was no small element of its strength. The consciousness of wrong-doing is always an element of weakness. Not until a man can do evil and persuade himself that he is doing good can he silence that conscience which makes cowards of us all. Probably this unctuous rectitude on the part of Tammany and its Boss should be estimated as one of the chief obstacles in the way of the scattered and despairing band of reformers who, five or six years ago, confronted the stronghold of iniquity entrenched in their midst.

Its position, indeed, appeared almost impregnable. Tammany Hall commanded an annual revenue large enough to equip and maintain a small army. It had under its orders the whole of the executive force in its police—a body of men practically above the law, armed with powers hardly inferior to those of the police of St. Petersburg. Besides the police, all the persons on the pay-rolls of the City and County were under the thumb of the Boss. There was hardly a city official, from the highest to the lowest, who did not hold office by the sovereign will and pleasure of Tammany. As there are 27,000 names on those pay-rolls, all of whom were voters and were taxable to an almost unlimited extent whenever the Tammany exchequer needed to be replenished, it is obvious how enormous were the odds against the assailants of Tammany.

Photo by Tom Reveley, Wantage.
RICHARD CROKER IN HIS GARDEN AT WANTAGE, BERKSHIRE.

But the unctuous rectitude of its leaders, the prompt obedience of the police Janissaries, and the discipline of the standing army of the twenty-seven thousand Pretorians on the city pay-rolls, were by no means the only difficulties which had to be overcome. Tammany Hall itself might be compared to a central citadel or keep of a Norman fortress. The outworks consisted of all the saloons, gaming hells, and houses of ill-fame in the City of New York. Some of these, no doubt, were by no means enthusiastic in support of the powers that be, but they resembled tribes which, having been subdued by force of arms, are compelled to pay tribute and use their weapons in support of their conquerors. In New York, just before the revolt against Tammany, the number of licences for the sale of intoxicants in New York City was over 6,000. The number of unlicensed drinking places was estimated at from 2,000 to 3,000. Each of these saloons might be regarded as a detached outwork, holding a position in advance of the main citadel, and covering it from the attack of its foes.

In those days it used to be said that licences were granted by the Excise Board to anybody who had not served a term in a penitentiary. One indignant divine declared that it was perfectly safe to say that, if the Devil himself should apply to the Excise Board for a licence to set up a branch establishment on the children’s playground in the Central Park, it would be granted. As to the other establishments of even worse fame than the saloon, there was an unwritten contract by which, in return for tribute paid directly or indirectly, they were shielded by the strong arm of Tammany from the enforcement of the law. It was calculated that if all the saloons in New York were placed side by side, averaging them at only twenty feet frontage each, they would form a line of circumvallation twenty miles long. To put it in another way, there was on an average one saloon for every thirty voters.

In addition to its control of the saloon, Tammany had two extremely important financial resources which have not yet been mentioned. The first was the control of the city contracts. A great city like New York, with an expenditure that exceeded that of the whole Federal Government of the United States fifty years ago, had an enormous means of influence at its disposal in the mere granting of contracts. But even this was a comparatively trivial element in the financial strength of Tammany. There existed in New York, as in almost every city, great corporations representing enormous capital, and dividing gigantic dividends, which, in the Tammany scheme of the universe, might have been created for the express purpose of furnishing an unfailing supply of revenue to the party chest. The corporations which enjoyed franchises from the city, giving them control of the streets, whether for the purpose of traction, of lighting, or of electrical communication, were Tammany’s milch cows. They all possess monopolies, granted to them in the first instance either by corruption or by negligence, which enable them to plunder the public. These monopolies can only be terminated or modified by the Legislature, and the Legislature can only act in obedience to the party machine. All that needs to be done when the campaign fund runs low is for the Boss to intimate to the various corporations that milking time has come, and that if they do not contribute liberally of their substance to the party treasury, Tammany will no longer be able to give them protection when the usual attack is made next session upon their monopoly or their franchise. Money is the sinews of war, and as the Tammany war chest was always full, Tammany snapped its fingers at all its enemies, and contemptuously declared that the reformers did not amount to a row of pins.

THE CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUND, CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK.

The outlook undoubtedly was very gloomy. From the point of view of practical politics it was simply hopeless; nevertheless, in a couple of years the fortress was stormed, and the government of New York placed in the hands of the Reformers. The story of the way in which this was brought about should never be forgotten by all those who are called upon to lead forlorn hopes against immense odds. As long as the world lasts, such narratives are among the most precious cordials which in times of danger and distress restore the courage and revive the faith of man. Dr. Parkhurst’s attack on Tammany is one of the latest of a long series of victories achieved by the leader of an outnumbered handful. When Gideon went forth against the hosts of Midian with only three hundred followers, he left a leading case on record for the encouragement of all who should come after. How many reformers and revolutionists who have helped the world forward in the path of progress have been cheered by the dream in which the Midianitish soldier saw a cake of barley bread smite and overturn the multitudinous camp of the conqueror, history does not record! But if ever a man needed the inspiration of that barley cake it was Dr. Parkhurst, when in 1892 he set himself to the desperate task of wresting New York City from the grasp of Tammany.