Plunkitt begins chapter 7 by commenting on how he’s been reading ‘The Shame of the Cities’, by Lincoln Steffens. He says that Steffens means well, “but, like all reformers, he don’t know how to make distinctions. He can’t see no difference between honest graft and dishonest graft and, consequent, he gets things all mixed up.” Plunkitt then claims that the difference between a looter and a practical politician is the difference between the Philadelphia Republican gang and Tammany Hall. He lists several examples of the differences, such as the fact that the Philadelphia gang runs up against the Penal code. Although Plunkitt disagreed with most of what Steffens said, he had to agree with one thing he found: the fact that Philadelphia was run by mostly Americans was more corrupt than New York City, run mostly by Irishmen. Plunkitt goes on to say that “one reason why the Irishman is more honest in politics than many Sons of the Revolution is that he is grateful to the country and the city that gave him protection and prosperity when he was driven by oppression from the Emerald Isle,”. Plunkitt concludes the chapter with this, “Understand, I ain’t defendin’ politicians of today who steal. The politician who steals is worse than a thief. He is a fool. With the grand opportunities all around for the man with a political pull, there’s no excuse for stealin’ a cent. The point I want to make is that if there is some stealin’ in politics, it don’t mean that the politicians of 1905 are, as a class, worse than them of 1835. It just means that the old-timers had nothin’ to steal, while the politicians now are surrounded by all kinds of temptations and some of them naturally—the fool ones—buck up against the penal code,”.
Plunkitt begins his eighth chapter by claiming that “there’s no crime so mean as ingratitude in politics, but every great statesman from the beginnin’ of the world has been up against it.” He lists several examples such as Caesar and Brutus. He then says that he has own ingrate: “The” McManus. Plunkitt describes McManus as a man with seven brothers, and he’s called “The” to distinguish him from the rest of his family. “For several years he was a political bushwhacker. In campaigns he was sometimes on the fence, sometimes on both sides of the fence, and sometimes under the fence. Nobody knew where to find him at any particular time, and nobody trusted him—that is, nobody but me. I thought there was some good in him after all and that, if I took him in hand, I could make a man of him yet,”. Plunkitt then tells the story of when he nominated “The” for Assembly. They both carried the Fifteenth district, but “The” “ran away ahead” of him. Many people claimed “The” had dug up some dirt on Plunkitt, but “The” claimed it wasn’t true, and even found the real culprits. He goes on to say that unlike Caesar, he came out on top of his ingrate. Plunkitt concludes by saying that if a politician only looks after his own interests his followers may be absolved from their allegiance and may up and swat him down.
Plunkitt starts his ninth chapter by stating that “whenever Tammany is whipped at the polls, the people set to predictin’ that the organization is going’ to smash. They say we can’t get along without the offices and that the district leaders are going’ to desert wholesale. That was what was said after the throwdowns in 1894 and 1901. But it didn’t happen, did it? Not one big Tammany man deserted, and today the organization is stronger than ever,”. He says that this is possible because Tammany has more than one string to its bow. He says that he never let’s a Tammany man who loses his office to go jobless. He then says that he even has gotten jobs from Republicans, and that he and Republican fifteenth district leader George Wanmaker are the best of friends everyday besides Election Day. Plunkitt says this is possible because they both believe if a man works in politics he should get something out of it. He concludes by saying, “now, I’ve never gone in for nonpartisan business, but I do think that all the leaders of the two parties should get together and make an open, nonpartisan fight against civil service, their common enemy. They could keep up their quarrels about imperialism and free silver and high tariff. They don’t count for much alongside of civil service, which strikes right at the root of the government. The time is fast coming when civil service or the politicians will have to go. And it will be here sooner than they expect if the politicians don’t unite, drop all them minor issues for a while and make a stand against the civil service flood that’s sweepin’ over the country like them floods out West,”.
Plunkitt begins his tenth chapter by saying that some people are wondering why the Brooklyn Democrats had been sliding in the polls. He says that he has concluded that a Brooklynite is a “natural born hay see, and can never become a real New Yorker”. “And why? Because Brooklyn don’t seem to be like any other place on earth. Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn’s cobblestones, with the odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there’s no place in the world for him except Brooklyn. And even if he don’t grow up there; if he is born there and lives there only in his boyhood and then moves away, he is still beyond redemption,”. He then tells the story of a bright boy he met who had moved from Brooklyn, and took an interest in, and when that boy grew up, Plunkitt sent him into politics. Plunkitt helped him get into assembly . That boy, he said, took no interest about anything about New York City, but when anything about Brooklyn came up he was all ears. The end came when Plunkitt say him reading, and attempting to hide, a Brooklyn newspaper. He advised to boy to move back to Brooklyn, and that he did. Plunkitt concludes this chapter with a rant on upstate Democrats, and how they never make a contribution.
samstebbins 