_PUCK, August 28th, 1889._
The first attempt of the Tammany Hall organization to swing into line
with the national democracy, and to put municipal government in New
York on a business-like basis, was received with a general incredulity
that was natural enough under the circumstances. In a sense it was
a most unfortunate thing that Tammany’s sincerity in the purpose
of self-improvement was not more readily recognized by those whose
opposition to Tammany rule was based on a broad-minded and reasonable
distrust of factional control of party power. When Tammany Hall began
to expel objectionable members and to put only able and trustworthy men
in charge of public affairs, that powerful organization removed what
had hitherto been the chief reproach against it. Yet the corruption and
inefficiency which had characterized Tammany’s management in the past
were but an accident of factional rule and not an organic element. This
most obvious objection to the Tammany organization being removed, the
average citizen was quite willing to accept the idea of Tammany Hall’s
supremacy without reflecting at all upon the danger of allowing a part
of a party to substitute its will for that of the majority.
Unhappily--if government by faction is a dangerous and objectionable
scheme, as PUCK has always contended--the most earnest and conspicuous
opponents of Tammany Hall were rather theorists than practical folk.
They were not in touch with the people, and had little knowledge of
plain work-a-day life. In the common phrase, they meant well, but they
didn’t know. In the face of a most striking and remarkable advance in
efficient and economical municipal government they continued their
fight against Tammany on the same lines upon which they had begun it
years before, when the organization was undoubtedly open to the charge
of gross malfeasance in office. This was a mistake, tactically--that
it was also a mistake, practically, time may show. Tammany had little
difficulty in showing that, whatever she might have done in the past,
she had now taken to governing New York uncommonly well and uncommonly
cheaply. That was enough to satisfy the minds of most citizens as to
the advisability of renewing the contract with Tammany; and in 1890 and
in 1892 Tammany riveted her rule upon New York as tight as a collar
on a steamboat shaft. No matter what that rule may be, good, bad or
indifferent, it is factional rule, and as such, to PUCK’S thinking,
dangerous and founded on injustice. If it ever brings mischief to
New York, we must not forget that the responsibility lies with the
theorists who made opposition hopeless by persistently conducting it
upon untenable grounds.
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