THE Philadelphia machine was a training school for repeaters. Those
ten thousand sent to our cause by Morton's friend, went about their work
like artillerymen about their guns. Each was good for four votes. As one
of the squad captains said:
“There's got to be time between, for a party to change his face an'
shift to another coat an' hat. Besides, it's as well to give th' judges
an hour or two to get dim to your mug, see!”
Big Kennedy had set his foot upon the gang spirit, and stamped out of
existence such coteries as the Tin Whistles and the Alley Gang, and I
copied Big Kennedy in this. Such organizations would have been a threat
to me, and put it more in reach of individual leaders to rebel against
an order. What work had been done by the gangs was now, under a better
discipline and with machine lines more tightly drawn, transacted by the
police.
When those skillful gentry, meant to multiply a ballot-total, came in
from the South, I called my Chief of Police into council. He was that
same bluff girthy personage who, aforetime, had conferred with Big
Kennedy. I told him what was required, and how his men, should occasion
arise, must foster as far as lay with them the voting purposes of our
colonists.
“You can rely on me, Gov'nor,” said the Chief. He had invented this
title for Big Kennedy, and now transferred it to me. “Yes, indeed, you
can go to sleep on me doin' my part. But I'm bothered to a standstill
with my captains. Durin' th' last four or five years, th' force has
become honeycombed with honesty; an', may I be struck! if some of them
square guys aint got to be captains.”
“Should any get in your way,” said I, “he must be sent to the outskirts.
I shall hold you for everything that goes wrong.”
“I guess,” said the Chief thoughtfully, “I'll put the whole racket in
charge of Gothecore. He'll keep your emigrants from Philadelphia walkin'
a crack. They'll be right, while Gothecore's got his peeps on 'em.”
“Has Gothecore had experience?”
“Is Bill Gothecore wise? Gov'nor, I don't want to paint a promise so
brilliant I can't make good, but Gothecore is th' most thorough workman
on our list. Why, they call him 'Clean Sweep Bill!' I put him in th'
Tenderloin for six months, an' he got away with everything but th' back
fence.”
“Very well,” said I, “the care of these colonists is in your hands.
Here's a list of the places where they're berthed.”
“You needn't give 'em another thought, Gov'nor,” observed the Chief.
Then, as he arose to depart: “Somethin's got to be done about them
captains turnin' square. They act as a scare to th' others. I'll tell
you what: Make the price of a captaincy twenty thousand dollars. That'll
be a hurdle no honest man can take. Whoever pays it, we can bet on as a
member of our tribe. One honest captain queers a whole force; it's like
a horse goin' lame.” This last, moodily.
In the eleventh hour, by our suggestion and at our cost, the Republican
managers put up a ticket. This was made necessary by certain inveterate
ones who would unite with nothing in which Tammany owned a part. As
between us and the labor forces, they would have offered themselves to
the latter. They must be given a ticket of their own whereon to waste
themselves.
The campaign itself was a whirlwind of money. That princely fund
promised by Morton was paid down to me on the nail, and I did not stint
or save it when a chance opened to advance our power by its employment.
I say “I did not stint,” because, in accord with Tammany custom, the
fund was wholly in my hands.
As most men know, there is no such post as that of Chief of Tammany
Hall. The office is by coinage, and the title by conference, of the
public. There exists a finance committee of, commonly, a dozen names. It
never meets, and the members in ordinary are 'to hear and know no
more about the money of the organization than of sheep-washing among
Ettrick's hills and vales. There is a chairman; into his hands all
moneys come. These, in his care and name, and where and how and if he
chooses, are put in bank. He keeps no books; he neither gives nor
takes a scrap of paper, nor so much as writes a letter of thanks, in
connection with such treasurership. He replies to no one for this
money; he spends or keeps as he sees fit, and from beginning to end has
the sole and only knowledge of either the intake or the outgo of the
millions of the machine. The funds are wholly in his possession. To
borrow a colloquialism, “He is the Man with the Money,” and since money
is the mainspring of practical politics, it follows as the tail the
kite, and without the intervention of either rule or statute, that he
is The Boss. Being supreme with the money, he is supreme with the men of
the machine, and it was the holding of this chairmanship which gave me
my style and place as Chief.
The position is not wanting in its rewards. Tammany, for its own safety,
should come forth from each campaign without a dollar. There is no
argument to carry over a residue from one battle to the next. It is not
required, since Tammany, from those great corporations whose taxes and
liberties it may extend or shrink by a word, may ever have what money
it will; and it is not wise, because the existence of a fund between
campaigns would excite dissension, as this leader or that one conceived
some plan for its dissipation. It is better to upturn the till on the
back of each election, and empty it in favor of organization peace. And
to do this is the duty of the Chairman of the Finance Committee; and I
may add that it is one he was never known to overlook.
There was nothing notable in that struggle which sent the reputable old
gentleman to the city fore as Mayor, beyond the energy wherewith the
work required was performed. Every move ran off as softly sure as could
be wished. The police did what they should. Those visitors from below
turned in for us full forty thousand votes, and then quietly received
their wages and as quietly went their way. I saw to it that, one and
all, they were sharply aboard the ferryboats when their work was done.
No one would care for them, drunken and mayhap garrulous, about the
streets, until after the last spark of election interest had expired.
The polls were closed: the count was made; the laborites and their Moses
was beaten down, and the reputable old gentleman was declared victor by
fifteen thousand. Those rich ones, late so pale, revived the color in
their cheeks; and as for Tammany and myself, we took deep breaths, and
felt as ones from whose shoulders a load had been lifted.
It was for me a fortunate upcome; following that victory, my leadership
could no more be shaken than may the full-grown oaks. Feeling now my
strength, I made divers machine changes of the inner sort. I caused my
executive leaders to be taken from the assembly districts, rather than
from the wards. There would be one from each; and since there was
a greater number of districts than wards, the executive array was
increased. I smelled safety for myself in numbers, feeling, as Big
Kennedy advised, the more secure with twenty than with two. Also the new
situation gave the leaders less influence with the Aldermen, when now
the frontiers of the one no longer matched those of the other. I had
aimed at this; for it was my instant effort on becoming Chief to collect
within my own fingers every last thread of possible authority. I wanted
the voice of my leadership to be the voice of the storm; all others I
would stifle to a whisper.
While busy within the organization, deepening and broadening the
channels of my power, I did not neglect conditions beyond the walls.
I sent for the leaders of those two or three bands of Democracy which
professed themselves opposed to Tammany Hall. I pitched upon my men as
lumber folk in their log-driving pitch upon the key-logs in a “jam.” I
loosened them with office, or the promise of it, and they instantly came
riding down to me on the currents of self-interest, and brought with
them those others over whom they held command.
Within the twelvemonth Tammany was left no rival within the lines of the
regular party; I had, either by purring or by purchase, brought about
the last one's disappearance. It was a fair work for the machine, and I
could feel the gathering, swelling confidence of my followers uplifting
me as the deep sea uplifts a ship.
There was a thorn with that rose of leadership, nor did my hand escape
its sting. The papers in their attacks upon me were as incessant as they
were vindictive, and as unsparing as they were unfair. With never a fact
set forth, by the word of these unmuzzled and uncaring imprints I stood
forth as everything that was thievish, vile, and swart.
While I made my skin as thick against these shafts as I could, since I
might neither avoid nor return them, still they pierced me and kept me
bleeding, and each new day saw ever a new wound to my sensibilities. It
is a bad business--these storms of black abuse! You have but to fasten
upon one, even an honest one, the name of horse-thief and, behold you!
he will steal a horse. Moreover, those vilifications of types become
arrows to glance aside and bury themselves in the breasts of ones
innocent.
Blossom was grown now to be a grave stripling girl of fifteen. Anne
conceived that she should be taught in a school. She, herself, had
carried Blossom to a considerable place in her books, but the finishing
would be the better accomplished by teachers of a higher skill,
and among children of Blossom's age. With this on her thought, Anne
completed arrangements with a private academy for girls, one of superior
rank; and to this shop of learning, on a certain morning, she conveyed
Blossom. Blossom was to be fitted with a fashionable education by those
modistes of the intellectual, just as a dressmaker might measure her,
and baste her, and stitch her into a frock.
But insult and acrid grief were lying there in ambush for
Blossom--Blossom, then as ever, with her fear-haunted eyes. She was home
before night, tearful, hysterical--crying in Anne's arms. There had been
a cartoon in the papers. It showed me as a hairy brutal ape, the city
in the shape of a beautiful woman fainting in my arms, and a mighty rock
labeled “Tammany” in one hand, ready to hurl at my pursuers. The whole
was hideous; and when one of the girls of the school showed it to
Blossom, and taunted her with this portrait of her father, it was more
than heart might bear. She fled before the outrage of it, and would
never hear the name of school again. This ape-picture was the thing
fearful and new to Blossom, for to save her, both Anne and I had been
at care to have no papers to the house. The harm was done, however;
Blossom, hereafter, would shrink from all but Anne and me, and when she
was eighteen, save for us, the priest, and an old Galway serving woman
who had been her nurse, she knew no one in the whole wide world.
The reputable old gentleman made a most amazing Major. He was puffed
with a vanity that kissed the sky. Honest, and by nature grateful, he
was still so twisted as to believe that to be a good Mayor one must
comport himself in an inhuman way.
“Public office is a public trust!” cried he, quoting some lunatic
abstractionist.
The reputable old gentleman's notion of discharging this trust was
to refuse admittance to his friends, while he sat in council with his
enemies. To show that he was independent, he granted nothing to ones
who had builded him; to prove himself magnanimous, he went truckling to
former foes, preferring them into place. As for me, he declined every
suggestion, refused every name, and while there came no open rupture
between us, I was quickly taught to stay away.
“My luck with my father,” said Morton, when one day we were considering
that lofty spirit of the reputable old gentleman, “is no more flattering
than your own, don't y' know. He waves me away with a flourish. I
reminded him that while he might forget me as one who with trowel and
mortar had aided to lay the walls of his career, he at least should
remember that I was none the less his son; I did, really! He retorted
with the story of the Roman father who in his rôle as judge sentenced
his son to death. Gad! he seemed to regret that no chance offered for
him to equal though he might not surpass that noble example. Speaking
seriously, when his term verges to its close, what will be your course?
You know the old gentleman purposes to succeed himself. And, doubtless,
since such is mugwump thickness, he'll be renominated.”
“Tammany,” said I, “will fight him. We'll have a candidate on a straight
ticket of our own. His honor, your father, will be beaten.”
“On my soul! I hope so,” exclaimed Morton. “Don't you know, I expect
every day to find him doing something to Mulberry Traction--trying to
invalidate its franchise, or indulging in some similar piece of humor. I
shall breathe easier with my parent returned to private life--really!”
“Never fear; I'll have the city in the hollow of my hand within the
year,” said I.
“I will show you where to find a million or two in Wall Street, if you
do,” he returned.
The downfall of the reputable old gentleman was already half
accomplished. One by one, I had cut the props from beneath him. While he
would grant me no contracts, and yield me no offices for my people,
he was quite willing to consider my advice on questions of political
concern. Having advantage of this, I one day pointed out that it was
un-American to permit certain Italian societies to march in celebration
of their victories over the Pope long ago. Why should good Catholic
Irish-Americans be insulted with such exhibitions! These Italian
festivals should be kept for Italy; they do not belong in America.
The reputable old gentleman, who was by instinct more than half a Know
Nothing, gave warm assent to my doctrines, and the festive Italians did
not celebrate.
Next I argued that the reputable old gentleman should refuse his
countenance to the Irish exercises on St. Patrick's Day. The Irish were
no better than the Italians. He could not make flesh of one and fish
of the other. The reputable old gentleman bore testimony to the lucid
beauty of my argument by rebuffing the Irish in a flame of words in
which he doubted both their intelligence and their loyalty to the land
of their adoption. In another florid tirade he later sent the Orangemen
to the political right-about. The one powerful tribe he omitted to
insult were the Germans, and that only because they did not come within
his reach. Had they done so, the reputable old gentleman would have
heaped contumely upon them with all the pleasure in life.
It is not needed that I set forth how, while guiding the reputable old
gentleman to these deeds of derring, I kept myself in the background. No
one knew me as the architect of those wondrous policies. The reputable
old gentleman stood alone; and in the inane fullness of his vanity took
a deal of delight in the uproar he aroused.
There was an enemy of my own. He was one of those elegant personalities
who, in the elevation of riches and a position to which they are born,
find the name of Tammany a synonym for crime. That man hated me, and
hated the machine. But he loved the reputable old gentleman; and, by his
name and his money, he might become of utmost avail to that publicist in
any effort he put forth to have his mayorship again.
One of the first offices of the city became vacant, that of chamberlain.
I heard how the name of our eminent one would be presented for the
place. That was my cue. I instantly asked that the eminent one be named
for that vacant post of chamberlain. It was the earliest word which the
reputable old gentleman had heard on the subject, for the friends of the
eminent one as yet had not broached the business with him.
When I urged the name of the eminent one, the reputable old gentleman
pursed up his lips and frowned. He paused for so long a period that I
began to fear lest he accept my suggestion. To cure such chance, I broke
violently in upon his cogitations with the commands of the machine.
“Mark you,” I cried, in the tones wherewith I was wont in former and
despotic days to rule my Tin Whistles, “mark you! there shall be no
denial! I demand it in the name of Tammany Hall.”
The sequel was what I sought; the reputable old gentleman elevated his
crest. We straightway quarreled, and separated in hot dudgeon. When the
select bevy who bore among them the name of the eminent one arrived upon
the scene, the reputable old gentleman, metaphorically, shut the door in
their faces. They departed in a rage, and the fires of their indignation
were soon communicated to the eminent one.
As the result of these various sowings, a nodding harvest of enemies
sprung up to hate and harass the reputable old gentleman. I could tell
that he would be beaten; he, with the most formidable forces of politics
against him solid to a man! To make assurance sure, however, I secretly
called to me the Chief of Police. In a moment, the quiet order was
abroad to close the gambling resorts, enforce the excise laws against
saloons, arrest every contractor violating the ordinances regulating
building material in the streets, and generally, as well as
specifically, to tighten up the town to a point that left folk gasping.
No one can overrate the political effect of this. New York has no home.
It sits in restaurants and barrooms day and night. It is a city of
noisome tenements and narrow flats so small that people file themselves
away therein like papers in a pigeonhole.
These are not homes: they grant no comfort; men do not seek them until
driven by want of sleep. It is for the cramped reasons of flats and
tenements that New York is abroad all night. The town lives in the
streets; or, rather, in those houses of refreshment which, open night
and day, have thrown away their keys.
This harsh enforcement of the excise law, or as Old Mike put it,
“Gettin' bechune th' people an' their beer,” roused a wasps' nest
of fifty thousand votes. The reputable old gentleman was to win the
stinging benefit, since he, being chief magistrate, must stand the brunt
as for an act of his administration.
Altogether, politically speaking, my reputable old gentleman tossed and
bubbled in a steaming kettle of fish when he was given his renomination.
For my own side, I put up against him a noble nonentity with a historic
name. He was a mere jelly-fish of principle--one whose boneless
convictions couldn't stand on their own legs. If the town had looked at
my candidate, it would have repudiated him with a howl. But I knew my
public. New York votes with its back to the future. Its sole thought is
to throw somebody out of office--in the present instance, the offensive
reputable old gentleman--and this it will do with never a glance at that
one who by the effect of the eviction is to be raised to the place.
No, I had no apprehensions; I named my jelly-fish, and with a straight
machine-made ticket, mine from truck to keel, shoved boldly forth. This
time I meant to own the town.