George W. Plunkitt & Tammany Hall

When it comes to corruption in politics it can be hard to find all the facts or reasoning behind these acts, it can be hard to get a full picture. Even today it is still not clear how much money Boss Tweed stole from the city of New York with estimates ranging from 20,000,000 to 200,000,000 dollars.¹ One politician, a Tammany man, who rose from nothing to a millionaire would give incredible insight into the operations of Tammany Hall through what he calls “honest graft”. George W. Plunkitt was a ward boss of the Fifteenth Assembly District in New York and was a part of the Tammany organization for a long time.  

Plunkitt makes a distinction between “honest” and “dishonest” graft about how politicians bring in some extra dough. As he explains it dishonest graft would look like blackmailing gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, paying off the police, controlling appointments to City Hall, etc.² Honest graft would look more like insider trading in modern terms. You have for example, Tammany politicians in power in local government and they use connections and insider knowledge from people scattered across the city in various roles to buy up land they know the city wants and then sell it back to them for more money.³ At a time when corruption went unchecked in this city it allowed politicians to take advantage of immigrant communities and use patronage to stay in power over multiple elections.  

The word opportunity is thrown around a lot in history when talking about the means of sourcing information for graft. Plunkitt tells an anecdote where he bought a swamp in one neighborhood after hearing the city was going to build a park in that neighborhood. Plunkitt waited, and finally the city came calling to purchase the swamp, and he sold it and made a profit on some land that no one cared about a few months prior.⁴ This is what graft is all about. It may seem “honest” but because it gets swept away in the financials of the system it gets lost and is made to seem more legit and fairer than dishonest graft.  

George Washington Plunkitt a man that knows no shame never saw a problem with what he calls “honest” graft. You are not hurting anyone directly, which was what dishonest graft was all about. Plunkitt as he states so famously can sum up how he always knew what to buy, “I seen my opportunity and I took it.”⁵  

Footnotes 

1. Charles Thompson , “In the Golden Age of Graft; "' Boss' Tweed’ Contains the Story of ‘A Grim Generation’ " Boss’ Tweed. the Story of a Grim Generation. by Denis Tilden Lynch. New York: Boni & Liveright. 433 Pp. 54. in the Golden Age of Graft,” The New York Times (The New York Times, October 2, 1927), https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/10/02/96671625.html?pageNumber=37.  
2. William L. Riordon and George Washington Plunkitt, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics Delivered by Ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Hall Philosopher, from His Rostrum - the New York County Court House Bootblack Stand (New York: Signet Classics, 2015).   
3. Richard F. Welch, King of the Bowery: Big Tim Sullivan, Tammany Hall, and New York City from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era (Albany: Excelsior Editions/State University of New York Press, 2008). 
4. William L. Riordon and George Washington Plunkitt, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics Delivered by Ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Hall Philosopher, from His Rostrum - the New York County Court House Bootblack Stand (New York: Signet Classics, 2015). 
5. Abid, 2015