SINCE the eighty-cent gas bill was defeated in Albany, everybody's
talkin' about senators bein' bribed. Now, I wasn't in the Senate last
session, and I don't know the ins and outs of everything that was done,
but I can tell you that the legislators are often hauled over the coals
when they are all on the level I've been there and I know. For instance,
when I voted in the Senate in 1904, for the Remsen Bill that the
newspapers called the "Astoria Gas Grab Bill," they didn't do a thing to
me. The papers kept up a howl about all the supporters of the bill bein'
bought up by the Consolidated Gas Company, and the Citizens' Union
did me the honor to call me the commander-in-chief of the "Black Horse
Cavalry."
The fact is that I was workin' for my district all this time, and I
wasn't bribed by nobody. There's several of these gashouses in the
district, and I wanted to get them over to Astoria for three reasons:
first, because they're nuisances; second, because there's no votes in
them for me any longer; third, because--well, I had a little private
reason which I'll explain further on. I needn't explain how they're
nuisances. They're worse than open sewers. Still, I might have stood
that if they hadn't degenerated so much in the last few years.
Ah, gashouses ain't what they used to be! Not very long ago, each
gashouse was good for a couple of hundred votes. All the men employed in
them were Irishmen and Germans who lived in the district. Now, it is
all different. The men are dagoes who live across in Jersey and take
no interest in the district. What's the use of havin' ill-smellin'
gashouses if there's no votes in them?
Now, as to my private reason. Well, I'm a business man and go in for
any business that's profitable and honest. Real estate is one of my
specialties. I know the value of every foot of ground in my district,
and I calculated long ago that if them gashouses was removed,
surroundin' property would go up 100 per cent. When the Remsen Bill,
providin' for the removal of the gashouses to Queens County came up. I
said to myself: "George, hasn't your chance come?" I answered: "Sure."
Then I sized up the chances of the bill. I found it was certain to
pass the Senate and the Assembly, and I got assurances straight from
headquarters that Governor Odell would sign it. Next I came down to the
city to find out the mayor's position. I got it straight that he would
approve the bill, too.
Can't you guess what I did then? Like any sane man who had my
information, I went in and got options on a lot of the property around
the gashouses. Well, the bill went through the Senate and the Assembly
all right and the mayor signed it, but Odell backslided at the last
minute and the whole game fell through. If it had succeeded, I guess I
would have been accused of graftin'. What I want to know is, what do you
call it when I got left and lost a pot of money?
I not only lost money, but I was abused for votin' for the bill. Wasn't
that outrageous? They said I was in with the Consolidated Gas Company
and all other kinds of rot, when I was really only workin' for my
district and tryin' to turn an honest penny on the side. Anyhow I got
a little fun out of the business. When the Remsen Bill was up, I was
tryin' to put through a bill of my own, the Spuyten Duyvil Bill, which
provided for fillin' in some land under water that the New York Central
Railroad wanted. Well, the Remsen managers were afraid of bein'
beaten and they went around offerin' to make trades with senators and
assemblymen who had bills they were anxious to pass. They came to me and
offered six votes for my Spuyten Duyvil Bill in exchange for my vote on
the Remsen Bill. I took them up in a hurry, and they felt pretty sore
afterwards when they heard I was goin' to vote for the Remsen Bill
anyhow.
A word about that Spuyten Duyvil Bill--I was criticized a lot for
introducin' it. They said I was workin' in the interest of the New York
Central, and was goin' to get the contract for fillin' in. The fact is,
that the fillin' in was a good thing for the city, and if it helped
the New York Central, too, what of it? The railroad is a great public
institution, and I was never an enemy of public institutions. As to the
contract, it hasn't come along yet. If it does come, it will find me at
home at all proper and reasonable hours, if there is a good profit in
sight.
The papers and some people are always ready to find wrong motives
in what us statesmen do. If we bring about some big improvement that
benefits the city and it just happens, as a sort of coincidence, that we
make a few dollars out of the improvement, they say we are grafters.
But we are used to this kind of ingratitude. It falls to the lot of all
statesmen, especially Tammany statesmen. All we can do is to bow our
heads in silence and wait till time has cleared our memories.
Just think of mentionin' dishonest graft in connection with the name of
George Washington Plunkitt, the man who gave the city its magnificent
chain of parks, its Washington Bridge, its Speedway, its Museum of
Natural History, its One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street Viaduct and its
West Side Courthouse! 1 was the father of the bills that provided for
all these; yet, because I supported the Remsen and Spuyten Duyvil bills,
some people have questioned my honest motives. If that's the case, how
can you expect legislators to fare who are not the fathers of the parks,
the Washington Bridge, the Speedway and the Viaduct?
Now, understand; I ain't defendin' the senators who killed the
eighty-cent gas bill. I don't know why they acted as they did; I only
want to impress the idea to go slow before you make up your mind that a
man, occupyin' the exalted position that 1 held for so many years, has
done wrong. For all I know, these senators may have been as honest and
high minded about the gas bill as I was about the Remsen and Spuyten
Duyvil bills.