TAMMANY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 4, 28 January 1904, Page 29

TAMMANY

•T P.' TELLS THE TRUTH ABOUT IT

Pawns Upon a Chessboard. This (says ' T. P. O'Connor ' in a recent issue of has breezy paper) is not a political article, though it is on an eminently political sublet. It is on Tammany, the great organisation which has justj ust succeeded—apparently to the surprise of everybody— in capturing the government of Kew York once again It is worth trying to make readers understand something of that extraordinary organisation, which now for almost half a century has succeeded in holding the government of New York— with a few brief respites here and there when it had in some way or other managed to offend public sentiment, or to disappoint private expectations

in some fragrant manner. It is, perhaps 1 , the great--est and almost the first instance in modern democracy of masses of men who have votes being so bound up together that their discipline is almost as great and as iron as that of an army ' and that under the freest government in', the world, where every man is the equal of the other, hundreds of thousaiTUs "can still be moved on the political chessboard by a few men, and sometimes by one man, as though they were the merest pawns upon the chessboard. ' Decided in New York.' Though I had often been in New York, the first time I ever really appreciated what the Tammany organisation meant was when I was discussing with an Irish-American the chances of Mr. (Blame, who was then fighting for the Presidency with Mr. Cleveland. I was under the impression that Mr. Cleveland was going to win— it turned out afterwards that the impression was correct — when my friend turned round to me and said : 'Do you realise that the Presidential election is ultimately decided in the streets of New York? 1 This set me thinking. The streets of New York seemed, indeed, but a small bit of the vast continent which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific; which has States which are larger than great European kingdoms ; which has climates of all kinds, from the semi-arctite to the semi-tropical ; which has populations varied as climates— which, finally, numbers something like 80,000,000 of people. How could it be, then, that so insignificant a portion of the mighty whole could be the pivot of so great a national event as the election of the chief ruler of the nation ? The Mugwump States. And yet the boast was to a certain extent justified. In the United States there are three great divisions. First, there are the States that are solidly and staunchly Republican. Then there are the States that are solidly and -staunchly Democratic. The third, and in some respects the most important, section are what are known as the doubtful States— that is to say, the States that at one election vote for the Democratic, and at another for the Republican ticket. It is these States which ultimately decide the struggle. They represent that shifting balance which in every democratic country is always uncertain, and the turnover of which means the difference between the success of one party or the other. New York's Last Word. Of these doubtful States the most important is the State of New York. Indeed it may be said that, as a rule, New York State decides the Presidential election, unless perhaps there is some extraordinary wave of feeling which sweeps all before it, and which makes the candidate so strong in the other States as to be independent even of New York. But in ordinary times New ork, with her thirty-six votes in a Presidential election, does not say the final word. Getting to Bedrock. Thus you have already reduced the vast collection of mer forty States down to one as the decisive factor. But the process of reduction muse go still further. In the midst of the State of New York are New York and the different adjoining cities which, under recent legislation, ha\e been added to New York, of which Brooklyn is the most populous and the most notable. It is evident that these great cities, together counting over two millions, must have a decided influence upon the entire vote of the State of New York, and in normal circumstances it as as New York City, or Greater Now York, as it is now called, that the State of New York goes. Here, then, is how the gigantic question reduces itself down First the States are dependent on the vote of the one State of New York, and then the vote of the .State of New York is in its turn dependent on the vote of the great city of New York. In other words, it w a s, as my friend said, the Presidency of the United States was decided in the streets of New York. But this is not the end of the process of reduction. The city of New York in' its turn is governed by its municipality and its Mayor and other municipal officers. They, then, in turn decided what the vote of the city will be. But again, they in their turn are chosen by the Tammany organisation if they happen to belong to the Democratic party. Tammany in its turn is governed by a small Board of men— l think the number is under twenty, and at the head of this Board is the ' Boss.' The ' Boss,' if a man of powerful individuality, governs his Board, and thus it comes down to this, that just ono man may be the decisive factor in the choice of the candidate and his election to the Presidency to the United States. Extremes Meet. It is one of the most astounding and astonishing results of pure democracy— one of the results that even the most clear-sighted political philosophers did not en-

tirely anticipate. Eighty millions of people with manhood suffrage, equal franchise for all, perfect equality, an amount of individual independence never reached by any community in the world before— millions, moreover, with a higher level of education, with greater individual self-reliance, with more hopefulness and keenness than, any population that ever was created— eighty millions of that kind of people finally dependent for the choice of their almost absolute ruler on the will of one man ! It is a responsibility and power before which even that of the Tsar seems trivial. Impressions of two ' Bosses.' There is this enormous difference, however, between the position of the ' Boss " and that of the Tsar— that the ' Boss ' has to win his position by his own enormous strength of character, and that, difficult as it is to get his position, it must be even more difficult to retain it. He must be surrounded by men of almost equal ambition to himself, and these men would be more than human if they did not covet and intrigue for the position of head of an organisation so vast and so omnipotent. And yet there have been men who have succeeded in holding that place against all comers. I remember the first great • Boss ' of our times— the late John Kelly. He was, if not of Irish birth, certainly of Irish origin. I was introduced to him in New York away back in the far-off eighties. He has long since been gathered to his fathers. He was a short, stout man, with a massive face, a square jaw, and a serious, though pleasant, face. Like all autocrats, he was a little weighed down by the cares, anxieties, and worries of his great office. The next ' Boss ' of our times was Mr. Richard Croker, who is now a permanent dweller in England. In some respects, the two men seem to me to have been a little alike both in phisiqxie and temperament. Mr. Croker, like Mr. Kelly, is a short man, inclined to stoutness, and the face has intense strength in its every line. The lips are compressed, the jaw isi squared, his eyes are keen and almost defiant, the whole air one of tranquil strength dashed with also a little world-weariness. There is a certain air about Mr. Croker, as about most of the men I have seen at the head of political organisations in America ;an air of reticence, reserve, vigilance— the air one might suppose in a man' who is always fighting for his life, and has always known that there are numberless people looking for it Born Drivers of Men. One peculiarity nearly every ' Boss ' of Tammany has had, and that is reticence. The man who gets to that busy eminence is never a man famous for his eloquence, or for his power of swaying multitudes by his persuasive gifts. The leaders of Tammany have been of all kinds, so far as education was concerned ; some of them have been almost illiterate. But they have all had some kind of political genius, and all have had that curious kind of character which impresses and controls men. It may be brute courage, it may be firm will, it may be the tight grip of the born conqueror and adventurer ; whatever it is, it is a quality which brings instinctive and inevitable obedience. Tammany Feeds its Nestlings. There are plenty of higher political missions than that of Tammany ' Boss,' but I can fancy few that are so difficult. With all its perfection it is an organisation that, depending as it does on popular favor, and of thousands of hungry and expectant men, has to be watched with a vigilance, down to its smallest detail, as great as that of the third section of the famous police force

of Russia. Just fancy the task of the man who has to know who should be judge and who should be streetsweeper ; who should get a vacant office worth thousands, and who should get a job of a dollar a day ! But this is what the • Boss ' of Tammany has to do. For Tamm,any is the universal patron. It is in Tammany that the men are chosen who have the giving away of jobs which a municipality always has in hand. And there is no man who is not to bo feared if he be offended — or disappointed. He has his friends or his dependents, or perhaps even his family, who control votes, and who in' that way may find an opportunity of striking a blow when election time comes. Is it not a marvellous instance of what organisation will do, that in spite of the fact that hundreds must be disappointed almost every day, Tammany is still able to hold its own, and to keep its troops int-good heart and under iron discipline, and almost miraculous unity ? Its National Side. I need scarcely say that such an organisation has other methods of appeal, and other foundations, than mere office-seeking and office-givingi. It is true that these things are always kept to the front, and that, as in most armies, the soldiers and the officers are kept in good humor by the prospect of spoils. Every street has its chief, every district has its chief, in every saloon, as they call the public house in America, is a political committee room, and its owner is a canvasser and worker. But behind this vast organising force there are several sentiments that stand behind Tammany, and make me forget its weaker sides. It is partly political. Democrats know that, if they win New York city, they will probably win the Presidential election. And they know that Tammany is a Democratic organisation, and that it is the only one, then, which can win New York for them. See how this works. There is, say, a convinced ' Free Trader, 1 as most Democrats are, and he regards Free Trade as necessary for the glory and strength and prosperity of America. Without Tammany he cannot get a Free Trade President. There is a citizen of a Southern State who is convinced that, if a Republican President gets into office, the negro will rule the white man in the South. He backs up Tammany as standing between him and that peril. And so one might go on, through all the sections which desire to see the Democratic Party win, and find out that they have all their own reasons, fox wanting to see Tammany conquer. Back to the Loaves and Fishes. Finally there is the desire to stand well with those who have something to give away. Everybody knows that Tammany takes care of its own. If a Tammany man can get a job for the poor navvy out of employment, he takes care to get it for him. If a follower of Tammany be ill, he is sure of being taken to a proper hospital. Tammany, in short, is regarded as the friend of the poor and the suffering. These are the elements that go to make up this strange and portentous organisation. I return to the singular point. Eighty millions of free-lorn, fiercely^assertive citizens at the disposal,in their mightiest affairs, of one man's will— was there ever a development so singular, go unexpected, so remarkajbie in the various systems that govern mankind ?