November 21, 2023 • 53 mins
It's no secret that politics can often have a dark side -- smoky backrooms, corruption and graft have always had their place in American history. And, amid all the corruption, few institutions are as infamous as Tammany Hall. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the origin, growth, and ultimate collapse of this thoroughly American, thoroughly corrupt, and thoroughly ridiculous political machine.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it from
our super producer, mister Max two fans Williams.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Max Boss Tweet, Boss Hog Boss. This is a boss.
He's a boss, not a a political boss. But you're
into politics. You did the research for this episode, didn't you? Yeah?
I did.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
And actually, funny enough, my junior year ap US history class,
it was a year long class. We were to school
where we did like each semester we changed our classes.
This was the only year long one did. But we
would have these debates like every couple of months where
you get a sign aside whether or not you agreed
with it, you have to argue it. And I had
to argue in uh high school that Boss Tweet was
(01:11):
not the only person guilty for Tammany Hall and the tweet.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
One. And then you were voted most likely to head
up a corrupt political machine.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I think I was thinking I was voting most likely
to end up in prison. And you know what, at
thirty two years old, I still haven't made it there.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Potato, Patato, my friend Potato Patato, But no, we are
in fact talking today about political machines. And you know,
I always been thought that term you're bent by the way,
and I don't know, I'm no brown. Indeed, I always
thought political machine specifically referred to organizations of that were
rotten to the core, that were corrupt, but it was
(01:49):
really more of a specific type of political organization, and
then it became more associated with this kind of corruption
that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Is that how you see it as well? Yeah, you're
it's similar. I was thinking about this in preparation for
this one. It is similar to the way that in
the United States scheme implies a conspiracy, but in the
United Kingdom, scheme just means a government policy or plan.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, or even you know what a grand scheme that
that is, mate, That's how the Brits talk.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
And today we are talking about something we've mentioned quite
often in previous episodes of Ridiculous History, political machinations or machinations,
whatever the case may be. Political machines. Tammany Hall is
one of the favorites of school teachers and college professors
(02:42):
and historians the world round, because even now, when we
talk about political machines. We talked about voting blocks, we
talk about campaigns, causerains, we talk about the countless people
behind a political candidate who make the votes happen.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think it's also a really popular choice for school
because it one succeeded so absurdly, like it was just
an absolute, like perfect model for whatever better or worse
of what this thing is, and then it also just
crashed and burned spectacularly. So it has this the perfect
trajectory to not only be a lesson about how a
(03:22):
thing works, but also to teach a bit of a
moral lesson.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Agreed, there's a bit of a fable to it, a
bit of a larger than life kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
There's some Shakespearean about this, about this rise and full
to the earlier question. Britannica has a great article on this,
and Britannica says that in US politics, a political machine
is any organization for political party headed by this key,
a small autocratic group, and this small group has enough
(03:54):
votes to maintain control of any given community, whether that's
a city, a county, or an entire state. Britannica goes
on to point out that as American cities encountered explosive
growth in the eighteen hundreds, partially due to immigration, partially
due to migration from rural areas. City governments found huge
(04:18):
problems in the world of honest politics because they were
poorly structured, and in that chaos, these de facto organized
crime enterprises in some cases. Yeah, they came into the
vacuum and they built the stability, They built the voter blocks.
The most famous, of course Tammany Hall run by William
(04:42):
Boss tweeked.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh why and my mine's Boss Hog. That's from the
Dukes of Hazard, right, Boss Hog. I've never seen the
Dukes of Hazzard. I just know it my reputations. The
one where they they jump over the car hood and
do a slide. It's like the It's like the Samuel
Clemens or Street named Mark Twain definition of a c
Everybody loves it. Nobody's seen, that's right.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I wanted to say a movie there was.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
There was certainly a movie, uh you know, remake. I
don't know. Was there a really bad I'm sure it was.
Didn't have Tatum Chance chanting Tatum in it? Or did
I make that up? There was twenty one Jump Street too.
He was in that one that was also anyway, But
I was going to bring something up really quickly since
we're not going to really be able to dwell on
this too much. But that definition of the political machine,
it's very interesting because it almost makes me think of
(05:26):
what unions ended up becoming during the kind of corrupt
period of like the Teamsters Union, Like they control a
voting block in their membership, and they also control like
the means of distributing all of the things that make
you know, America what it is in terms of the economy.
So that's also an organization that was rife for corruption.
(05:49):
And if anyone's seen the movie The Irishman, you know
kind of how that story went as well. But Max,
you being kind of our resident union expert, is that
something you've thought about, like those early days of like,
you know, the Teamster's Union and how ultimately folks like
Jimmy Hoffa almost stepped in and became the boss tweed
of that era. Cough cough. The mops a problem, not
(06:11):
the union's cust Oh no, I know, I know, but
it was they were working hand in hand in a
lot of ways, and it was almost like it wasn't
ever not going to go that way, and then it
became very key to protect organizations like that from corruption.
That requires a lot of you know, real oversight and effort. Yeah,
I mean it's the way I was thinking.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Look when I was writing this entire episode, it was
there's a need that the government is not filling, and
thus a group steps in to fill said need. And
so that's what these political machines with. That's what Tammany
Hall was doing. Because Tammany Hall, the supporters of Hamny
Hall now and back in the day, would say, Hey,
there's all these Irish immigrants here who you know, don't
(06:51):
have a job, don't have a place to live, they
don't have any respect. We're we're setting them up, and
you know what, because that's what we stand for, and
that's what the Democratic Party stands for, and that's why
they voted a Democrat also. So we don't get too
far off off this, I gotta tell you all the
cast in this Duke of Hazard's movie, because it is hilarious. Ye,
it's got Burt Reynolds of course, Linda Carter, Willie Nelson,
(07:14):
Jessica Simpson and starring Johnny Knoxville.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Finally, finally, give the man as turns out, has pretty
solid acting jobs.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
He does this also like acting. That's the thing there.
These machines are often acting as though they are the
best interest on the ground that Britannica definition does not
end at our what we just said. They also talk
about you what this reminds me of? This reminds me of, Well,
(07:45):
let me give you the second part here to your point, Max,
the machine the organization which is severely hierarchical and autocratic
and severely non democratic. It makes its name, it cuts
its teeth by responding to those individual problems that are
often not addressed in historically neglected populations and neighborhoods in
(08:08):
exchange for loyalty at the polls for people who might
not have voted otherwise. They're saying, we'll do all this
for you. Just do this one thing for us a
favor in the future, if you will. It reminds me
very much of what you see organized crime doing in
Italy or in Japan, where you know, KOs Andostra, the
(08:31):
and the Yakuza do very similar things, often in historically
oppressed communities.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And I certainly wasn't trying to malign unions anyway. I
just think there's an interesting parallel, and the unions also
are serving in need of the government does not address,
and in doing that, it opens up the opportunity for corruption.
And I just think that's where the parallel lies. Like
I'm not saying unions are inherently corrupt, They're not sure.
But in being this extra governmental force, there's a lot
(09:00):
of opportunities to line individual's pockets and the pockets of groups,
and to perhaps interface with less legitimate types of organizations.
And I think that happens both with these unions, like
and then the situation that we see with Hoffa and
the irishmen, and with these political machines and the situation
we see with Sammony Hall, right.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
And this is the thing I meant to say earlier
about I'm just tossing it in now. The way I
think about, like you know, unions and political machines and
stuff like this, it's it's a thing. It's not a
good thing, it's not a bad thing. It's a thing.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
It can go either way.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Because they are in a position where they're helping people
in need, where so if they're transparent and their motivations
are good, they can do good for those people. But
if they're not transparent, they can take advantage of those people.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And yeah, and the reason political machine has become such
a deletorious term, such an insult in American politics today
is because at some point they began centering on keeping
themselves on in power rather than helping people. Their goal
(10:02):
was to perpetuate their organization. You could look to folks
like Mayor Richard Daily of Chicago from nineteen oh two
he died in nineteen seventy six. That guy was a
political boss and leveraged this political machine power, this organization
(10:22):
to help address the problems of a Chicago encountering unprecedented,
amazing growth. There are other cases outside of Chicago, Boston, Philly,
New York, Kansas City. In those situations, there were a
lot of abuses of this power, a lot of corruptions,
smoky backroom stuff. And that's why this term still functions
(10:46):
as a pejorative. You know, there are these two big issues,
at least as Britannica puts it, one who delivers the votes.
The people who deliver the votes are often given what
are called patronage jobs. You know those are that's when
you hire the goons yea, and the sink offense and
the cronies.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, quid pro quo, right, you do for me, I'll
give you this job. It's not a meritocracy at that point.
It's literally, you know, pay to play, and you're paying
with your vote, which means that you're not necessarily qualified
for the job that you're getting in return. Therefore, this
also has the potential to lead to further kind of
breakdown of society because these jobs are populated by people
(11:29):
who don't know what the hell they're doing. Not not
no shade on the people. Everyone wants a job, but
you also should you know, if you're working in a field,
perhaps even in like a like something like sanitation, or
even you know, something in the municipality, you got to
know what you're doing or else those systems are going
to fall apart.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And the problem becomes exacerbated when we're talking about cities
or communities that have strong ethnic or racial divides, especially
back in the day in the United States, this patronage system,
this hiring of people exclusively from an in group, can
just accelerate those hostilities because most of the people who
(12:09):
get jobs, most of the people who get powerful jobs
overseeing services, they're going to be from the same background
as the people who run the political machine, which means
that ultimately you create a feedback loop where the folks
who are supposed to be helped by these organizations become
the ones who are first to be victimized. And you know,
(12:31):
the US has done its best. This is a problem
all the world over. The US has instituted civil service
reforms that attempt to limit the number of friendly hires.
I guess you could call them patronage jobs. And they've said, look,
let's have direct primaries, let's let the people vote for
(12:54):
candidates instead of letting the parties nominate candidates all the time,
and let's have some sort of oversight, some sort of
judicial review to reduce the power of these fiefdoms. And
in their glory days, that's what they were. These were fiefdoms.
These were the kind of things that gangster rap talks
(13:14):
about when they say, oh, you've got to check with
me before you come to my city. That was a
real thing with Tammany Hall.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
No question about it. And sorry to bring it back
to Scorsese again, but I've been on a Scorsese kick
lately and recently watched Casino and Casino. You know, is
all about the systems that run the casinos in Vegas
and how cal sprang up one hundred percent, and a
lot of those relationships, whether they originated with the mob
(13:41):
or what have you, they involved paying off politicians, whether
it be monetarily, which it did, but it also meant
in giving jobs to their cronies or kids or whatever.
And there's a really important scene that's kind of the
crux of the like fall from Grace in Casino mild spoiler,
but not really, where Ace Rothstein, the character played by
(14:02):
Robert de Niro, fires a floor manager because he's incompetent.
But that floor manager is the nephew or the son
in law of a very high level politician. And then
that politician's like, Nope, you're not please. You got to
give my boy another chance. He goes, no, he's incompetent,
I'm not doing it. So by standing his ground and
not yielding to the rules of this organization in this arrangement,
(14:27):
he essentially initiates his own downfall, and you see that
happen throughout the rest of the movie. And that's just
the kind of thing where if you don't play then
you're gonna get got or You're gonna get replaced by
somebody who will.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And what a better introduction could there be for us
to dive into, by far, the most infamous political machine
in United States history, up there with the founding Fathers
Once upon a Time, Tammany Hall.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Tammany Hall is.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Way older than a lot of people, guests, And I
love that you found this fact here, Max, Tammany Hall
was the executive committee of the Democratic Party in New
York City, and they exercised political control through the typical
blend of charity and patronage that we're talking about. Just
like in Casino, this was happening with Tammany Hall. The
(15:20):
name comes from an association that predates the American Revolution.
It's named after the once upon a time chief of
the Delaware People, Taminant, and Taminant, being a member of
indigenous Delaware peoples, would have doubtlessly been surprised to learn
(15:43):
how his name has just been dragged through the mud here.
I mean, it goes back, like the story starts all
the way back in the seventeen eighties.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I mean, and Max, you know, it's funny. It's one
of these things I've always just accepted, like I assume
Tammany Hall was like a building where they did business,
like they're hanging out in Tammany all on the Lower
East Side or whatever. I've never thought to question it.
You used to have filled in a blind spot historically
for me that I've held for many years. Oh, you're
it's gonna hurt.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Then it is a building, It is a hall. The
group's name is Tammany and the hall they have a hall,
the named Tammany Hall. Okay, Still, the group became synonymous
with the building, and it was all just you know,
a bunch of white dude appropriating a name. Anyways, So yeah, Max,
learn to take a compliment, bro.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So I'm working on it. Don't worry, folks, they'll patch
it up by the end of the show.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
So in The Demon Man in the seventeen eighties, he
got the halves and the have nots. The havelves are
the property owners, the aristocrats in all but name. They
are the ones who run New York City and New
York State. They are trying to stop freeholders or people
(16:53):
who are not as rich as them, from voting, and
they want to strengthen something called the Society of the Cincinnati.
It's a bunch of veterans from the Continental Army who
kind of like monarchies. They're kind of into monarchies. And
so William Mooney, this carpenter upholster in New York City,
he founds a different thing. It's called the Society of
(17:15):
Saint Tammany or the Columbian Order, on May twelfth, seventeen
eighty nine, just a few days after George Washington becomes
the president, and he says what Mooney says, rather not Washington.
Mooney says, we're going to create a national society that's
going to be quote native in character and democratic in
principle and action and speaking yeah, speaking of speaking of
(17:39):
appropriation though. They give their officers Native American titles and
they call the head of the organization the Grand Sachem,
chosen from among his quote fellow chiefs.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
You know, it's funny, Ben, And we may have talked
about this on the show. We definitely did off air,
But in working with some of our folks from the
Next Up Initiative, which is an incredible thing to kind
of help find underrepresented groups and give them the ability
to tell their stories through podcasting, through mentorship, and you know,
pairing them with like more seasoned folks and related to
the ropes Max is a big part of it. Bens
(18:13):
has worked on and I've worked on it to a
slightly less degree, but hope to do more. I was
working with one of our producers out of la who
was working with some folks from an indigenous community on
telling that kind of story which is grossly underrepresented. I mean,
I think what is the reservation Dogs is maybe one
of the only kind of high profile, sort of real
(18:34):
on the ground stories about modern examples of what it's
like to live in indigenous communities. But she presented us
with an article with all of these very common expressions
that are really really offensive to Native communities, to Indigenous communities,
and a lot of them. That one was one that
I did not think of. That's when I've thrown out,
(18:56):
you know, in passing numerous times. Obviously, there are ones
that are obvious, like low man, the Totem bowl and
things like that, or get going on the reservation, hitting
the war path and all that stuff. But it's because
of stuff like this and the appropriation of these types
of terms and the sort of like commodification of the
(19:17):
image of these people, uh that that things like that
are in fact, you know, a problematic I'm so. I
didn't mean a soapbox there. I just it was news
to me, and a lot of it. And I think
it's always important. While I'm not living life in fear
of being canceled or saying the wrong thing, you know,
it's good to check yourself before you wreck yourself in
terms of these types types of things.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And life is a learning experience, no worries, my friend.
It's not a soapbox, if we all agree, which we do.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
But another one also spirit antimal that's in our beast,
in our beasts.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And the totem pole thing. What what I find offensive
about that, in addition to the other stuff, is that
the bottom image of the bottom carving on the total
pole is foundationally the most important.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
So they're even getting that basic party. I don't mean
to derail, but like, can I not say spirit animal?
I'm being I'm like that is that that's that is
less offensive than it is, maybe just mildly appropriative, but
I mean, and maybe it's like being used too flippantly
because the actual concept of a spirit animal is historically
a very sacred thing. Okay, I've already answered my own question.
(20:25):
I'm not going to say anymore.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Moving on, my approach on this is, uh, don't ask me.
I'm some white dude. Why don't we ask somebody who
you know is not from a long history of appropriation.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And Max was there the entire time. He is several
centuries old.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Exactly, So I thought, so somebody, we're getting to a buddy,
somebody needed to so the the Tammany organization in these
early days, they represent what you could call middle class
opponents of the Federalist Party.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
However, there's an issue because they're cast of democracy, appropriation
and romanticization aside. It doesn't it doesn't take into account
less than middle class economic groups, people who also want
their lives.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
To not stink. This ties into an earlier episode.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Also shout out to our research associate, mister Max Williams
on Aaron Burr.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
That's right at one point in his checkered career, Aaron Burr,
and please, by the way, go ahead and listen to
our two part episode about this really interesting and problematic fellow.
But before experiencing his meteoric fall, can you have a
meteoric fall? You can have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall
(21:43):
typically the Shower, you know, his political downfall after you know,
killing Alexander Hamilton and that duel ending up on the
totally wrong side of history. That's an eighteen o four
He was a member of this organization of Tammany Hall,
and it was very instrumental in bringing about political victories
(22:04):
for the then Democratic Republican Party, and Thomas Jefferson actually
was a huge booster for them, and when he became
president in eighteen oh one, he gave them props and
he allowed them to really rise in power.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Because that's how the system worked, right, one hand washes
the other. A bunch of backscratching circles going on, just
like you're in a warm up exercise for drama class.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
It wasn't.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
It wasn't until I think, well, it was pretty early, right,
just in around the same time you mentioned in the
early eighteen hundreds, the news got out and the average
person was saying, Wow, these city officials over at Tammany
are pretty corrupt.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Something has to be done. Rabble rabble.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So various people get removed from office. The controller gets
removed right, the U, the comptroller, the comptroller not a
thing yet. Unfortunately, the superintendent of the almshouse gets removed
because they mess with the money. And then, of course,
of special interest to our power, mister Max Williams, the
(23:14):
inspector of bread is given the boot.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Are these all like robin hood terms like alms for
the poor and a crust of bread? Me lord? It
is very weird. These these political terms clearly don't really
exist anymore. But an almshouse, I wonder, is that is
that like basically like the treasury well, you know, like
alms for the poor? Got it? Got it? So it's
technically its role is to look out for the disenfranchised.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I guess it's it's kind of like saying, get
rid of the person who runs, you know, the city
funded housing that makes it today, Like maybe if someone
was here in Atlanta, Georgia, if someone was caught up
in a scandal about affordable housing, right and they were
in charge of Section eight or I wonder what that
would be like, dare we imagine?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Right? Yeah? Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And so the thing is these guys, and they were
all dudes when they were proven to be corrupt, when
they were removed officially from their positions, they were still
very much in play and in power in the hierarchy
of Tammany. So the next thing that happens around this time.
(24:27):
The next thing that happens is that there is a
growing Irish population in New York City. And I would
say the quiet part out loud. This reminds me so
much of Gangs of New York.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Talking about the forty thieves and stuff. I mean, I
think this well, the Gangs of New York certainly borrowed
some ideas from this system. I think it was somewhat
historically accurate, but also took some liberties, if I'm not
mistaken by quite a few.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I think the main reasons reminding me of this is
the idea of forcing people to vote, of gathering up
folks and then grouping, yes, crooming, cooping, cooping, cooping, that's
the one, cooping yes. Uh So, the Irish immigrants don't
like the Tammany system, and they are ineligible to be
(25:15):
members of this organization because they are not quote native
born patriots. So, with absolutely no acknowledgment of a pretty
big piece of hypocrisy, hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants
say we're protesting against bigotry, against the bigotry of Tammany Hall.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
And they break.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Into a meeting on the evening of April twenty fourth,
eighteen seventeen. Eventually, Tammany says, Okay, for the greater good
of our organization, we're going to naturalize these immigrants. We're
going to say yes, you can be native born or
native patriots if not native born.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
But they're not doing this out of benevol They're doing
this in an effort to bolster their numbers and their control,
their mechanism of control.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, and this move turns out to be good for them, because, again,
as we said earlier, these political machines ultimately exist to
ensure their own growth, right, and helping people becomes a
secondary priority. So by accepting Irish immigrants in that population,
(26:28):
Tammany massively expands its voter block. And then they're I
hate that we keep having to use the word sachems,
but that is what they called each other. Another one
of their chiefs or they're big members. Martin van Buren
becomes president in eighteen thirty six. This is still like
(26:50):
the organizations this powerful at this point, they're controlling presidents
of the United States, but they're still not at their glory.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Days yet, not yet. But you know that it was
heading in that direction. And with like you know, Martin
van Buren who became president, like he knew what was
going on. These weren't great people ascended into power. It
really calls into question, not that we needed anything else
to call in the question the moral you know, fiber
(27:20):
of like early politicians or hell politicians throughout history. But
I just get when I read about stuff like this,
you just get a sense that almost everybody in power
that ascended to these levels was morally bankrupt at some level.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
I will say Van Buren was against slavery. Of course,
he didn't air that opinion until after he left politics,
and he went through on all the horrible Native American
removal stuff that Andrew Jackson laid down. So yeah, not great.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
He was conveniently timing his abolitionist stance. There's another way
to put it right, and let's go to the Speaker Rights.
Let's go to the Bill of Right Institute. This is
where we start to see the origin of the man
who became synonymous with Tammany Hall Boss Tweed. It's after
(28:12):
the Civil War. The city of New York is terrible.
You thought the nineteen seventies were bad, No, folks, people
are just throwing trash out of their windows. There's horse
manure everywhere. You're eternally coughing. If it's not just the
air pollution, it's because you have tuberculosis or cholera. This
(28:34):
is a great time for both of those diseases. And
more than one million people are crowded in this city.
The majority of them live in very terrible conditions. Poverties everywhere, illiteracy, crime, grifts.
Irish and German immigrants make up almost half the population.
They don't really have a political voice, and they depend
(28:57):
on churches and private charities that are often over whelmed
by just the sheer demand of people who need help. Ben,
that illiteracy element is going to come into play in
a very interesting way a little bit later. Wait for it, y'all.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Enter William meg meghair MegaR Meager meger May let's call
him boss Boss tweet Yeah we we we know him.
We love him, we know, we love him, we know
his boss tweet Yeah, William Meger Boss. Tweed the son
of a furniture maker, and from a tender young age,
Tweed uh realized that he was good at the wheels
(29:35):
and the deals. You know, the ends and the outs
the relationship management that is politics. He had what you
would call a high charisma point count if he was
a a role playing game character. A slight diversion. I
just started Baldersgate three. Oh, amazing, great people. I'm still
(29:57):
building my character. I'm overthinking charisma though, is a is
a very interesting like if you play games like Fallou.
I've never played ball Erskape, but certain games like Fallout
or Skyrim or whatever, you can you get a certain
number of points to spend into your character, and people
usually don't think necessarily to spend it into charisma, but
it gives you so many interesting like conversation checks, you
(30:17):
know where it gives you more options to like convince
people to do things for you. And that's what politics
is in a lot of ways. Is the power of
the pen, the power of the the smile and in
the handshake, you know, to get people to do things
for you that will keep you from having to actually
get your hands directly dirty and or dare we say bloody? Now?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Was Boss Tweed a super skilled administrator?
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Eh?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
He was really he was like LBG would be later.
He was very good at buttonholding people bit Jambo that
well that's what he called his penis. Yes, well was
he was very good at h He's very good at
intimidating or wheedling or cajoling people. And he eventually starts
(31:06):
as the let me see, he starts as the alderman
for the seventh Ward in New York City, which means
he's joining a group called the to your earlier reference,
the forty Thieves.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, and so yeah, I hear it from gangs of
New York.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And he he goes to Congress for a while, and
he's not good at it. He's not able to make
much headway in his political career, so it only does
one term in Congress. He comes back and he says,
you know what, I like small ponds. It makes me
a big fish. And so he uh, he says, this
(31:46):
is where the action is on the ground, and he
becomes one of the leading politicians in the big Apple
while at the same time becoming one of the most corrupt.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah. And it's one of those things too, where you
gotta wonder if people like to see themselves as villains.
And I think the easy answer is no. And it
also does it doesn't happen overnight. You know, you take
your First, there's always that turning point in a movie
where there's a figure like this, is that the day
they took their first bribe, you know what I mean,
And then it just becomes easier and easier every step
(32:18):
after that. So I do think it's important to like
sort of humanize these folks to a degree and not
think of him as like this giant gnashing you know,
fat hog of a monster man, because he's a human,
you know, and and humans, you know. He grew up
in this city, and I think probably there was a
desire to do some good. I don't think you're automatically
(32:41):
like from the start, you know, I'm gonna get into
politics so I can screw everybody over and enrich myself.
It starts from, usually I think, a place of goodness,
and then sort of devolves as also you realize that
these problems are a lot harder to solve than I
maybe thought. So hell, since it seems like an uphill battle.
When I at least put some duck, it's in my pocket.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, And the argument becomes something like, well, all these
other bad forces are corrupt, so therefore I am not corrupt.
I am clever by using their tools of corruption against
them and with them right. And eventually you take the
longer view and you realize that from far enough away,
you and your enemies look very much the same.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I mean, you're right.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
One of Tweed's first official acts once he starts getting
the attention of the Tammany organization, is to restore order
after the New York City draft riots of eighteen sixty three.
The protesters rioters here are largely from the Irish community,
and they're saying, hey, why are you drafting poor people?
(33:47):
This is the one where if you were a wealthier person,
you paid three hundred bucks to hire a stand in
to fight in the war, and I present tributes, right,
And so folks are saying, no, don't make us your avatars.
We're real human beings. Why do some people get this
(34:08):
cheat code? Why don't we get it well?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And the sad thing is, even without the draft, it's
not that much different than this, because the military offers
an out for some people from lower income communities and
perhaps some people that you know have not found their
way in life. So it's like, even without the draft,
it's it's not it's similar. You know, there are it
is the lower oftentimes Echelona community that have no option
(34:32):
other than to join the military. And I'm not saying
that's across the board, but it's just an interesting parallel
where you see, you know, the more things change, the
more they stay the same. M M.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You could argue on or show like stuff. They don't
want you to know that. That's at least part of
the reason for privatized healthcare. Uh So, the the big
thing Tweet does during these riots, he engineers a deal
and he says, look, yeah, you don't have to be
a millionaire, you don't have to be a popper, or
everybody has a few things in common. If you are
(35:03):
the head of a household and your family will be
left destitute should you go to war and die, then
you should get an exemption from the draft as well.
And then he says, you know what, further, since we
can't rock the boat too much, you can come to
us at Tammany Hall. We will loan you the three
hundred dollars to pay that substitute. And doing this, just
(35:25):
this one act of policy gets Tweed a huge amount
of influence over the working population of New York City,
and that in turn gets him a lot of power
in any policy discussion in the city, including everything from
like where are we going to build the next skyscraper
or whatever?
Speaker 3 (35:45):
And this is probably some of the first places that
I heard some of the tactics that would ultimately be
really kind of honed by the mob and organized crime,
the idea of like, let's get behind and put our
investment into these big projects that on the surface are
like good for the community, but also offer a lot
(36:06):
of ways to shave and skim and charge for things
that never took place, you know, materials that were never
actually purchased, you know, forging invoices and things like that.
It's a great way to disguise money and to steal
taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Hiring employees that don't exist, getting your vig on the
in and the out the entire way through. Yes, and
that depends on hiring your cronies, right, that depends on
hiring your goons and your followers.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
And as sopranos, they call those jobs no show jobs.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Right, That's what Tweed is doing, not specifically no show jobs,
but he's putting people in power, his cronies and his
goons who are loyal to his greater aims. He's sending
them from the smoky back rooms into the halls of government.
These folks collectively become known as the Tweed Ring. And
(37:02):
at this point they are raking it very soon, They're
raking in millions of dollars from corruption. They're skimming it
off the top. Life is good. They're handed people contracts
as favors, you know, and saying, hey, look, get me
x percentage of this and then do as thou wilt.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So he gets.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Favors and bribes, he gets kickbacks. It's everything good government
is not supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Was do what thou wilt? Maybe the whole of the
law is that Anton Levey or is that from something
older than that? And he just popularized it in terms
of the Church of Satan. I think it's Crowley Crowley,
that's right. Sorry, quick off topic. Have you guys seen
the new Fincher movie yet, The Killer? Yes, I think
it's excellent. I like it a lot, a lot. I've
(37:50):
watched it three times. But there's a great part where
he says this sociopathic Patrick Bateman type lone wolf Asassity says,
let do what thou wilt be the whole of the law.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Somebody said that I can't remember who it probably it's
like the darkest comedy Finchers made. Oh, I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
It reminds me a lot of drive, which I know
isn't for everybody, but it has some of those vibes.
It's very stylish, and I just think everyone should check
it out. Did you like it? But I did? I enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I enjoyed the clear discrepancy between the killers internal monologue
and his actions, and a lot of the comedy can
be found.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
He's a screw up too, He's not even Yeah, it's
just I think it's great. Not when he uh let
us know what you think.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, because again not for everybody, but if you if
you go into it realizing it is what would be
called a black comedy, that I think you're gonna enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Some of the Tammany and the Tweed Ring, Uh, this
is a new This is like a renaissance for Tammany Hall.
They have ever quite even though they possessed influence over presidents,
they had never gone to this level of efficiency in
grift and graft.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah. And you can't get to this level without those
cronies in high places. You just can't. It's just not possible.
And so not only do they have people in stock,
because they've been around for so long, to the point
that Max found earlier that I had no idea how
long this organization had been around and how it had evolved.
You can't do that. You can't get to a place
like this without starting on the ground floor. And that's
(39:32):
exactly what they did. And now they're at the place
where any semblance of we're helping people is just out
the window, and they're yeah, sure, they're doing these projects,
building like the Brooklyn Bridge for example, you know, paving roads,
building marble court house, a lot of the things that
we see in New York City today. So you can't
really argue that the projects themselves weren't iconic and quote
(39:54):
unquote good. They were building hospitals. But within those projects
where all, like we said, are all these opportunities for
patting the costs and adding all of these you know,
kind of imaginary expenses that literally just went right into
the pockets of Tweed and his pals.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, Like think of the County Courthouse, which was originally
going to be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build,
still a ton of money but eventually it ended up
being more than thirteen million dollars in costs. It was
never completed, but the Tweed Ring bank accounts were made whole.
It's really construction project for those guys' bank accounts. I mean, look,
(40:35):
Tweed also is getting a little bit dumb with his money.
He's being a little loud about it. He has a
mansion on Fifth Avenue, he has another home in Connecticut.
He's throwing all these parties and weddings. He's going real godfather.
I think there's a great thing match to point out
in the research that the Tweed Ring in this time
(40:55):
in eighteen seventy three, they bought in an estimated fifty
two hundred million dollars in in eighteen seventy three money.
And I think we do have an inflation calculator, but
that's in that's like their profits.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
That's that's like in the money that was totally skimmed
and gripped and grafted, you know. Yeah, so yeah, I
would love to hear a beep in of boom and
a bop bop boom.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
And a dude boom boo boo, but due boom boom,
fifty million dollars in eighteen seventy three and twenty twenty
three money. That's almost one point three billion. That's one billion,
two hundred and eighty two million, four hundred and fifty
four thousand, one hundred and sixty six dollars.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
And has on the lowest seven cent. Yes, that's not
the low I mean what and and I mean it
makes sense that we would have a pretty wide range,
because this does hard to track. That's the point of it.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Make sixty seven cents right like two hundred million on
the upper end to your point in eighteen seventy three,
two hundred million dollars in twenty twenty three. That is
drum roll please, mister Williams, five billion, one hundred and
twenty nine million, eight hundred and sixteen thousand, six hundred
and sixty six dollars. And you'll love this partnal sixty
(42:15):
seven cents.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Yeah, Oh my goodness, what a oh, very very interesting.
And you know, I'd like to think that this kind
of thing couldn't happen anymore. Oh sure, that would be
absolutely naive and foolish. And what I was gonna say too,
is this whole like mansion on Fifth Avenue home in
(42:37):
Connecticut that's the template for like corrupt New York money men.
You know, I'm not going to name any names, but
like having you'd think you'd have to really be low
key and not have a big you know, property and
not you know, try to overestimate the uh square footage
of your apartment buildings because you'd want us to below
(43:00):
the radar. But that's not how these folks work. Ostentatiousness
is the name of the game. They're like, yeah, come
at me, come at me, see what happens.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
And that question they asked or that director they gave
was answered. The reason the tweed Rings specifically does not
exist the way it existed back then all goes down
to journalism. Yes, thank your local journalists the New York Times.
The people working there really put their lives on the
line talking about this corruption on the part of people
(43:31):
who ran the town. They started running stories about these
famous specific grafts and grifts. And then if you go
to Harper's Weekly, you see the editorial cartoons of the
legendary Thomas Nast, whom I love, love, love, and he
was doing the one of the best things you can
do as a cartoonist. He said, look, there are journalists
(43:52):
who are raking the muck, hitting the streets, reporting the facts.
And I'm going to get people who may not care
about politics normally, I'm gonna get them to laugh and
understand how bad this is. An approach that John Stewart
later used on The Daily showed a great effect.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I'm gonna draw Boss Tweed as a giant pig monster
clutching bags of money, you know, with dollar signs on it,
stomping on poor people that are bowing and scraping in
the streets. Oh, I get what that means. That looks bad.
I wonder what the deal is with this guy. Maybe
I should think twice about the power of cartoons. We
(44:31):
spoke earlier about how a lot of people in this
time in New York City couldn't read. So therefore, not
only was it just really impactful these cartoons, it was
crucial because those deep dive investigative pieces, while incredibly important,
and that's where like the meat of the info was,
those would not be reaching a lot of folks for
that very reasons because they couldn't read. So the cartoons
(44:53):
is a way of getting everybody.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Involved, which made Tweed even more concerned, because you know,
the the deep dive. Written articles are arguably for the learned,
and I hate that term, but that's what he was
looking at. He was saying, my voting blocks are working class.
They understand cartoons. I need to look good in this
(45:15):
sphere of public conversation. And so he went to the
New York Times and went to Nast Thomas Nas specifically,
and tried to bribe them into silence. No one took
him up on the deal. No one shook his hand
on that, And that's part of how that's part of
why history works out the way it did. Boss Tweed
(45:37):
ultimately gets arrested in eighteen seventy one October. He's indicted
shortly thereafter. He has tried in eighteen seventy three. The
first trial, get this has a hung jury. For some reason,
not every jury member can agree this guy is guilty
despite the evidence. Again, for some reason, not everybody on
(46:03):
the jury thinks the evidence is sufficient to convict him
of these clearly provable crimes. So he goes to a
second trial and he is found guilty of more than
two hundred different crimes, and he is sentenced to twelve
years in lock up.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Speaking of that hung jury, just I mean, maybe it's
just obvious, but we're probably talking about jury tampering, intimidation.
That's always say to it that way, Yes, for some reason. Yeah, yeah, No,
I'm just like I wonder what those possibilities in this
day and age, it would have been a lot easier
to do it would than it would be now.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh one hundred percent. Yeah, and that's that's clearly what
happened was jury tampering. He gets sentenced in the second trial,
as we said, twelve years, and he doesn't get out.
He doesn't serve his entire term. He dies in prison.
And Max wants you to know that he dies on
April twelfth, eighteen seventy eight. Max, why do you want
(46:59):
people to know that?
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Well, April twelfth is my birthday. It's not a great day,
by the way, it's the day of the Civil War started.
FDR died on April twelfth also, and then you know,
eighteen seventy eight, that's when I came into existence.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Max also wants you to know that Boss Tweedt died
on the toilet. He did not die in the toilet. Damn.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
If somebody dies in the toilet, I will make sure
to point it out.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
We yeah, I think I think we we've got a
pretty good sense for that.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
For some reason, we can we can sort of figure
out when people died of the toil. Anyway, he is
in the Ludlow Street Jail at Grand Street on the
Lower east Side when he dies. It's the morning of
April twelfth, It's around eleven forty am.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
And he starts whispering. He starts whispering, whispering, comes closer, closer,
closer still.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
He says to his lawyer, William Edelstein, and Willie leans
in and he's trying to listen to what Tweet is saying.
And Tweed reportedly says, wow, well, till didn't fair Child
if killed me, he didn't echo like that.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
I haven't. I have become worm's meat. They have murdered
it's me. So who's he talking about when he says
Tilden and Fairchild Charles Fairchild, the New York State attorney
general love, a good attorney general, a good good attorneys general,
who had essentially run him up the flagpole, you know,
(48:29):
taken him to the mattresses, whatever expression you'd like to use.
He he believed, at least Boss Tweet had believed in
his mind that he had cheated him because he guaranteed
him basically to walk free in exchange for a full confession,
which seems too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
But from his perspective, it's like with pro quote, of course,
you do you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Right, you've seen my pig Man cartoon. It is I
Boss Tweet. But right, you know, let's just say we
could probably understand how at this point Tweed would have
had a bit of an overinflated sense of himself and
what he was capable of, and he maybe believed the
outcome would would swing more in his favor. So he
believed that he'd been cheated by Charles Fairchild. Samuel Jones
(49:16):
Tilden was the governor of New York who had essentially
made his name and his career on shutting down Tweed
and his cronies and his organization, making promises like I
will see this corrupt man die behind boss, you know,
stuff like that, and going to clean up this city.
(49:36):
Well they were right about Tweet. Tweed did die behind bars.
But one man is not an organization entire, So Tammany
Hall powers through, and when the boss is out of
the picture, Boss Tweed dies they go on sort of
a Hearts and minds reevaluation self inventory. A guy named
John Kelly proceeds or comes after Tweed, succeeds Tweed, and
(50:00):
then they bring in these reformers like Samuel Jones Tilden
to serve as again I hate this term sachems. But eventually,
and we're going to paraphrase some of this for time,
eventually we see the corruption rear its ugly profitable head again,
and then Tammany tries to clean itself up again. Then
(50:23):
it becomes corrupt again, and this goes back and forth
until they make an enemy of a guy you may
know from this show for US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
who says, all right, we're going to bust Tammany down.
It's going to be a county organization because they failed
(50:44):
to support him in nineteen thirty two. So even he
has some important self interest in these things. It declines
in power during these various mayoral reforms, and eventually the
most powerful political machine in America in history one of
is dissolved. It fades away. Max Sawy sneaks some key
(51:05):
little easter eggs into these outlines, referring to Roosevelt as
the future American King strike through prett president. Oh he
got closed, had to write some laws about him.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
I'm a fan of FDR. I like the stuff he did,
but it doesn't change the fact he was president for
thirteen years. Right, he was not that old when he died.
He was planning to stay for a good bit laws.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
And you know, to be fair, many many other nations
have quarreled with that same thing the United States. I
hope this statement age as well. The United States has
successfully practiced the peaceful transfer of power for quite some time,
and not many nations can say the same. So let's
hope that continues. To your earlier statement. Noel, at this,
(51:51):
I think, you know what, what a wild ride. We
decide we're going to make this a one parter. We
have more we'll get to in the future.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
But probably could say some of this for our future
grab baggie type things. I agree left behind episode, but
there was a one little point that I wanted to
bring back. We started with this point. Sometimes these organizations,
they start with good intentions, and there were things that
Tammany Hall accomplished that were not bad. Like a lot
of these immigrants, and these folks were disenfranchised and did
(52:20):
not have opportunities, and Tammany Hall's original goal, for whatever
purpose it ultimately amounted to, was to help keep those
people from being, you know, from fully fully falling through
the cracks.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
True good quoint And maybe that's where we end with
For further reading and check out the case for Tammany
Hall being on the right side of history over at
NPR News Boston. That's w b u R. Thank you
so much as always to our ridiculous historians for tuning in.
Thanks to our super producer and research associate. I love
to shout out our research associates, mister Max Williams for
(52:53):
this one.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Yeah, excellent Max with the facts. Indeed, huge shout out
to Alex Williams. You compose this theme. Chris Frasciota, Steves,
Jeff Goats here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizz Ben,
my guy, my buddy. We should start a political machine.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, let's do it. All we need is three votes.
Are we gonna do? The three of us vote for ourselves?
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Do the eyes have it? Oh? Yeah, nay, wait, I
I see. We'll see you next episodes for more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it from
our super producer, mister Max two fans Williams.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Max Boss Tweet, Boss Hog Boss. This is a boss.
He's a boss, not a a political boss. But you're
into politics. You did the research for this episode, didn't you? Yeah?
I did.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
And actually, funny enough, my junior year ap US history class,
it was a year long class. We were to school
where we did like each semester we changed our classes.
This was the only year long one did. But we
would have these debates like every couple of months where
you get a sign aside whether or not you agreed
with it, you have to argue it. And I had
to argue in uh high school that Boss Tweet was
(01:11):
not the only person guilty for Tammany Hall and the tweet.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
One. And then you were voted most likely to head
up a corrupt political machine.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I think I was thinking I was voting most likely
to end up in prison. And you know what, at
thirty two years old, I still haven't made it there.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Potato, Patato, my friend Potato Patato, But no, we are
in fact talking today about political machines. And you know,
I always been thought that term you're bent by the way,
and I don't know, I'm no brown. Indeed, I always
thought political machine specifically referred to organizations of that were
rotten to the core, that were corrupt, but it was
(01:49):
really more of a specific type of political organization, and
then it became more associated with this kind of corruption
that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Is that how you see it as well? Yeah, you're
it's similar. I was thinking about this in preparation for
this one. It is similar to the way that in
the United States scheme implies a conspiracy, but in the
United Kingdom, scheme just means a government policy or plan.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, or even you know what a grand scheme that
that is, mate, That's how the Brits talk.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
And today we are talking about something we've mentioned quite
often in previous episodes of Ridiculous History, political machinations or machinations,
whatever the case may be. Political machines. Tammany Hall is
one of the favorites of school teachers and college professors
(02:42):
and historians the world round, because even now, when we
talk about political machines. We talked about voting blocks, we
talk about campaigns, causerains, we talk about the countless people
behind a political candidate who make the votes happen.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think it's also a really popular choice for school
because it one succeeded so absurdly, like it was just
an absolute, like perfect model for whatever better or worse
of what this thing is, and then it also just
crashed and burned spectacularly. So it has this the perfect
trajectory to not only be a lesson about how a
(03:22):
thing works, but also to teach a bit of a
moral lesson.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Agreed, there's a bit of a fable to it, a
bit of a larger than life kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
There's some Shakespearean about this, about this rise and full
to the earlier question. Britannica has a great article on this,
and Britannica says that in US politics, a political machine
is any organization for political party headed by this key,
a small autocratic group, and this small group has enough
(03:54):
votes to maintain control of any given community, whether that's
a city, a county, or an entire state. Britannica goes
on to point out that as American cities encountered explosive
growth in the eighteen hundreds, partially due to immigration, partially
due to migration from rural areas. City governments found huge
(04:18):
problems in the world of honest politics because they were
poorly structured, and in that chaos, these de facto organized
crime enterprises in some cases. Yeah, they came into the
vacuum and they built the stability, They built the voter blocks.
The most famous, of course Tammany Hall run by William
(04:42):
Boss tweeked.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh why and my mine's Boss Hog. That's from the
Dukes of Hazard, right, Boss Hog. I've never seen the
Dukes of Hazzard. I just know it my reputations. The
one where they they jump over the car hood and
do a slide. It's like the It's like the Samuel
Clemens or Street named Mark Twain definition of a c
Everybody loves it. Nobody's seen, that's right.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I wanted to say a movie there was.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
There was certainly a movie, uh you know, remake. I
don't know. Was there a really bad I'm sure it was.
Didn't have Tatum Chance chanting Tatum in it? Or did
I make that up? There was twenty one Jump Street too.
He was in that one that was also anyway, But
I was going to bring something up really quickly since
we're not going to really be able to dwell on
this too much. But that definition of the political machine,
it's very interesting because it almost makes me think of
(05:26):
what unions ended up becoming during the kind of corrupt
period of like the Teamsters Union, Like they control a
voting block in their membership, and they also control like
the means of distributing all of the things that make
you know, America what it is in terms of the economy.
So that's also an organization that was rife for corruption.
(05:49):
And if anyone's seen the movie The Irishman, you know
kind of how that story went as well. But Max,
you being kind of our resident union expert, is that
something you've thought about, like those early days of like,
you know, the Teamster's Union and how ultimately folks like
Jimmy Hoffa almost stepped in and became the boss tweed
of that era. Cough cough. The mops a problem, not
(06:11):
the union's cust Oh no, I know, I know, but
it was they were working hand in hand in a
lot of ways, and it was almost like it wasn't
ever not going to go that way, and then it
became very key to protect organizations like that from corruption.
That requires a lot of you know, real oversight and effort. Yeah,
I mean it's the way I was thinking.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Look when I was writing this entire episode, it was
there's a need that the government is not filling, and
thus a group steps in to fill said need. And
so that's what these political machines with. That's what Tammany
Hall was doing. Because Tammany Hall, the supporters of Hamny
Hall now and back in the day, would say, Hey,
there's all these Irish immigrants here who you know, don't
(06:51):
have a job, don't have a place to live, they
don't have any respect. We're we're setting them up, and
you know what, because that's what we stand for, and
that's what the Democratic Party stands for, and that's why
they voted a Democrat also. So we don't get too
far off off this, I gotta tell you all the
cast in this Duke of Hazard's movie, because it is hilarious. Ye,
it's got Burt Reynolds of course, Linda Carter, Willie Nelson,
(07:14):
Jessica Simpson and starring Johnny Knoxville.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Finally, finally, give the man as turns out, has pretty
solid acting jobs.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
He does this also like acting. That's the thing there.
These machines are often acting as though they are the
best interest on the ground that Britannica definition does not
end at our what we just said. They also talk
about you what this reminds me of? This reminds me of, Well,
(07:45):
let me give you the second part here to your point, Max,
the machine the organization which is severely hierarchical and autocratic
and severely non democratic. It makes its name, it cuts
its teeth by responding to those individual problems that are
often not addressed in historically neglected populations and neighborhoods in
(08:08):
exchange for loyalty at the polls for people who might
not have voted otherwise. They're saying, we'll do all this
for you. Just do this one thing for us a
favor in the future, if you will. It reminds me
very much of what you see organized crime doing in
Italy or in Japan, where you know, KOs Andostra, the
(08:31):
and the Yakuza do very similar things, often in historically
oppressed communities.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And I certainly wasn't trying to malign unions anyway. I
just think there's an interesting parallel, and the unions also
are serving in need of the government does not address,
and in doing that, it opens up the opportunity for corruption.
And I just think that's where the parallel lies. Like
I'm not saying unions are inherently corrupt, They're not sure.
But in being this extra governmental force, there's a lot
(09:00):
of opportunities to line individual's pockets and the pockets of groups,
and to perhaps interface with less legitimate types of organizations.
And I think that happens both with these unions, like
and then the situation that we see with Hoffa and
the irishmen, and with these political machines and the situation
we see with Sammony Hall, right.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
And this is the thing I meant to say earlier
about I'm just tossing it in now. The way I
think about, like you know, unions and political machines and
stuff like this, it's it's a thing. It's not a
good thing, it's not a bad thing. It's a thing.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
It can go either way.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Because they are in a position where they're helping people
in need, where so if they're transparent and their motivations
are good, they can do good for those people. But
if they're not transparent, they can take advantage of those people.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And yeah, and the reason political machine has become such
a deletorious term, such an insult in American politics today
is because at some point they began centering on keeping
themselves on in power rather than helping people. Their goal
(10:02):
was to perpetuate their organization. You could look to folks
like Mayor Richard Daily of Chicago from nineteen oh two
he died in nineteen seventy six. That guy was a
political boss and leveraged this political machine power, this organization
(10:22):
to help address the problems of a Chicago encountering unprecedented,
amazing growth. There are other cases outside of Chicago, Boston, Philly,
New York, Kansas City. In those situations, there were a
lot of abuses of this power, a lot of corruptions,
smoky backroom stuff. And that's why this term still functions
(10:46):
as a pejorative. You know, there are these two big issues,
at least as Britannica puts it, one who delivers the votes.
The people who deliver the votes are often given what
are called patronage jobs. You know those are that's when
you hire the goons yea, and the sink offense and
the cronies.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, quid pro quo, right, you do for me, I'll
give you this job. It's not a meritocracy at that point.
It's literally, you know, pay to play, and you're paying
with your vote, which means that you're not necessarily qualified
for the job that you're getting in return. Therefore, this
also has the potential to lead to further kind of
breakdown of society because these jobs are populated by people
(11:29):
who don't know what the hell they're doing. Not not
no shade on the people. Everyone wants a job, but
you also should you know, if you're working in a field,
perhaps even in like a like something like sanitation, or
even you know, something in the municipality, you got to
know what you're doing or else those systems are going
to fall apart.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And the problem becomes exacerbated when we're talking about cities
or communities that have strong ethnic or racial divides, especially
back in the day in the United States, this patronage system,
this hiring of people exclusively from an in group, can
just accelerate those hostilities because most of the people who
(12:09):
get jobs, most of the people who get powerful jobs
overseeing services, they're going to be from the same background
as the people who run the political machine, which means
that ultimately you create a feedback loop where the folks
who are supposed to be helped by these organizations become
the ones who are first to be victimized. And you know,
(12:31):
the US has done its best. This is a problem
all the world over. The US has instituted civil service
reforms that attempt to limit the number of friendly hires.
I guess you could call them patronage jobs. And they've said, look,
let's have direct primaries, let's let the people vote for
(12:54):
candidates instead of letting the parties nominate candidates all the time,
and let's have some sort of oversight, some sort of
judicial review to reduce the power of these fiefdoms. And
in their glory days, that's what they were. These were fiefdoms.
These were the kind of things that gangster rap talks
(13:14):
about when they say, oh, you've got to check with
me before you come to my city. That was a
real thing with Tammany Hall.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
No question about it. And sorry to bring it back
to Scorsese again, but I've been on a Scorsese kick
lately and recently watched Casino and Casino. You know, is
all about the systems that run the casinos in Vegas
and how cal sprang up one hundred percent, and a
lot of those relationships, whether they originated with the mob
(13:41):
or what have you, they involved paying off politicians, whether
it be monetarily, which it did, but it also meant
in giving jobs to their cronies or kids or whatever.
And there's a really important scene that's kind of the
crux of the like fall from Grace in Casino mild spoiler,
but not really, where Ace Rothstein, the character played by
(14:02):
Robert de Niro, fires a floor manager because he's incompetent.
But that floor manager is the nephew or the son
in law of a very high level politician. And then
that politician's like, Nope, you're not please. You got to
give my boy another chance. He goes, no, he's incompetent,
I'm not doing it. So by standing his ground and
not yielding to the rules of this organization in this arrangement,
(14:27):
he essentially initiates his own downfall, and you see that
happen throughout the rest of the movie. And that's just
the kind of thing where if you don't play then
you're gonna get got or You're gonna get replaced by
somebody who will.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And what a better introduction could there be for us
to dive into, by far, the most infamous political machine
in United States history, up there with the founding Fathers
Once upon a Time, Tammany Hall.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Tammany Hall is.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Way older than a lot of people, guests, And I
love that you found this fact here, Max, Tammany Hall
was the executive committee of the Democratic Party in New
York City, and they exercised political control through the typical
blend of charity and patronage that we're talking about. Just
like in Casino, this was happening with Tammany Hall. The
(15:20):
name comes from an association that predates the American Revolution.
It's named after the once upon a time chief of
the Delaware People, Taminant, and Taminant, being a member of
indigenous Delaware peoples, would have doubtlessly been surprised to learn
(15:43):
how his name has just been dragged through the mud here.
I mean, it goes back, like the story starts all
the way back in the seventeen eighties.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I mean, and Max, you know, it's funny. It's one
of these things I've always just accepted, like I assume
Tammany Hall was like a building where they did business,
like they're hanging out in Tammany all on the Lower
East Side or whatever. I've never thought to question it.
You used to have filled in a blind spot historically
for me that I've held for many years. Oh, you're
it's gonna hurt.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Then it is a building, It is a hall. The
group's name is Tammany and the hall they have a hall,
the named Tammany Hall. Okay, Still, the group became synonymous
with the building, and it was all just you know,
a bunch of white dude appropriating a name. Anyways, So yeah, Max,
learn to take a compliment, bro.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So I'm working on it. Don't worry, folks, they'll patch
it up by the end of the show.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
So in The Demon Man in the seventeen eighties, he
got the halves and the have nots. The havelves are
the property owners, the aristocrats in all but name. They
are the ones who run New York City and New
York State. They are trying to stop freeholders or people
(16:53):
who are not as rich as them, from voting, and
they want to strengthen something called the Society of the Cincinnati.
It's a bunch of veterans from the Continental Army who
kind of like monarchies. They're kind of into monarchies. And
so William Mooney, this carpenter upholster in New York City,
he founds a different thing. It's called the Society of
(17:15):
Saint Tammany or the Columbian Order, on May twelfth, seventeen
eighty nine, just a few days after George Washington becomes
the president, and he says what Mooney says, rather not Washington.
Mooney says, we're going to create a national society that's
going to be quote native in character and democratic in
principle and action and speaking yeah, speaking of speaking of
(17:39):
appropriation though. They give their officers Native American titles and
they call the head of the organization the Grand Sachem,
chosen from among his quote fellow chiefs.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
You know, it's funny, Ben, And we may have talked
about this on the show. We definitely did off air,
But in working with some of our folks from the
Next Up Initiative, which is an incredible thing to kind
of help find underrepresented groups and give them the ability
to tell their stories through podcasting, through mentorship, and you know,
pairing them with like more seasoned folks and related to
the ropes Max is a big part of it. Bens
(18:13):
has worked on and I've worked on it to a
slightly less degree, but hope to do more. I was
working with one of our producers out of la who
was working with some folks from an indigenous community on
telling that kind of story which is grossly underrepresented. I mean,
I think what is the reservation Dogs is maybe one
of the only kind of high profile, sort of real
(18:34):
on the ground stories about modern examples of what it's
like to live in indigenous communities. But she presented us
with an article with all of these very common expressions
that are really really offensive to Native communities, to Indigenous communities,
and a lot of them. That one was one that
I did not think of. That's when I've thrown out,
(18:56):
you know, in passing numerous times. Obviously, there are ones
that are obvious, like low man, the Totem bowl and
things like that, or get going on the reservation, hitting
the war path and all that stuff. But it's because
of stuff like this and the appropriation of these types
of terms and the sort of like commodification of the
(19:17):
image of these people, uh that that things like that
are in fact, you know, a problematic I'm so. I
didn't mean a soapbox there. I just it was news
to me, and a lot of it. And I think
it's always important. While I'm not living life in fear
of being canceled or saying the wrong thing, you know,
it's good to check yourself before you wreck yourself in
terms of these types types of things.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And life is a learning experience, no worries, my friend.
It's not a soapbox, if we all agree, which we do.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
But another one also spirit antimal that's in our beast,
in our beasts.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And the totem pole thing. What what I find offensive
about that, in addition to the other stuff, is that
the bottom image of the bottom carving on the total
pole is foundationally the most important.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
So they're even getting that basic party. I don't mean
to derail, but like, can I not say spirit animal?
I'm being I'm like that is that that's that is
less offensive than it is, maybe just mildly appropriative, but
I mean, and maybe it's like being used too flippantly
because the actual concept of a spirit animal is historically
a very sacred thing. Okay, I've already answered my own question.
(20:25):
I'm not going to say anymore.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Moving on, my approach on this is, uh, don't ask me.
I'm some white dude. Why don't we ask somebody who
you know is not from a long history of appropriation.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And Max was there the entire time. He is several
centuries old.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Exactly, So I thought, so somebody, we're getting to a buddy,
somebody needed to so the the Tammany organization in these
early days, they represent what you could call middle class
opponents of the Federalist Party.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
However, there's an issue because they're cast of democracy, appropriation
and romanticization aside. It doesn't it doesn't take into account
less than middle class economic groups, people who also want
their lives.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
To not stink. This ties into an earlier episode.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Also shout out to our research associate, mister Max Williams
on Aaron Burr.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
That's right at one point in his checkered career, Aaron Burr,
and please, by the way, go ahead and listen to
our two part episode about this really interesting and problematic fellow.
But before experiencing his meteoric fall, can you have a
meteoric fall? You can have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall
(21:43):
typically the Shower, you know, his political downfall after you know,
killing Alexander Hamilton and that duel ending up on the
totally wrong side of history. That's an eighteen o four
He was a member of this organization of Tammany Hall,
and it was very instrumental in bringing about political victories
(22:04):
for the then Democratic Republican Party, and Thomas Jefferson actually
was a huge booster for them, and when he became
president in eighteen oh one, he gave them props and
he allowed them to really rise in power.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Because that's how the system worked, right, one hand washes
the other. A bunch of backscratching circles going on, just
like you're in a warm up exercise for drama class.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
It wasn't.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
It wasn't until I think, well, it was pretty early, right,
just in around the same time you mentioned in the
early eighteen hundreds, the news got out and the average
person was saying, Wow, these city officials over at Tammany
are pretty corrupt.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Something has to be done. Rabble rabble.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So various people get removed from office. The controller gets
removed right, the U, the comptroller, the comptroller not a
thing yet. Unfortunately, the superintendent of the almshouse gets removed
because they mess with the money. And then, of course,
of special interest to our power, mister Max Williams, the
(23:14):
inspector of bread is given the boot.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Are these all like robin hood terms like alms for
the poor and a crust of bread? Me lord? It
is very weird. These these political terms clearly don't really
exist anymore. But an almshouse, I wonder, is that is
that like basically like the treasury well, you know, like
alms for the poor? Got it? Got it? So it's
technically its role is to look out for the disenfranchised.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I guess it's it's kind of like saying, get
rid of the person who runs, you know, the city
funded housing that makes it today, Like maybe if someone
was here in Atlanta, Georgia, if someone was caught up
in a scandal about affordable housing, right and they were
in charge of Section eight or I wonder what that
would be like, dare we imagine?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Right? Yeah? Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And so the thing is these guys, and they were
all dudes when they were proven to be corrupt, when
they were removed officially from their positions, they were still
very much in play and in power in the hierarchy
of Tammany. So the next thing that happens around this time.
(24:27):
The next thing that happens is that there is a
growing Irish population in New York City. And I would
say the quiet part out loud. This reminds me so
much of Gangs of New York.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Talking about the forty thieves and stuff. I mean, I
think this well, the Gangs of New York certainly borrowed
some ideas from this system. I think it was somewhat
historically accurate, but also took some liberties, if I'm not
mistaken by quite a few.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I think the main reasons reminding me of this is
the idea of forcing people to vote, of gathering up
folks and then grouping, yes, crooming, cooping, cooping, cooping, that's
the one, cooping yes. Uh So, the Irish immigrants don't
like the Tammany system, and they are ineligible to be
(25:15):
members of this organization because they are not quote native
born patriots. So, with absolutely no acknowledgment of a pretty
big piece of hypocrisy, hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants
say we're protesting against bigotry, against the bigotry of Tammany Hall.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
And they break.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Into a meeting on the evening of April twenty fourth,
eighteen seventeen. Eventually, Tammany says, Okay, for the greater good
of our organization, we're going to naturalize these immigrants. We're
going to say yes, you can be native born or
native patriots if not native born.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
But they're not doing this out of benevol They're doing
this in an effort to bolster their numbers and their control,
their mechanism of control.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, and this move turns out to be good for them, because, again,
as we said earlier, these political machines ultimately exist to
ensure their own growth, right, and helping people becomes a
secondary priority. So by accepting Irish immigrants in that population,
(26:28):
Tammany massively expands its voter block. And then they're I
hate that we keep having to use the word sachems,
but that is what they called each other. Another one
of their chiefs or they're big members. Martin van Buren
becomes president in eighteen thirty six. This is still like
(26:50):
the organizations this powerful at this point, they're controlling presidents
of the United States, but they're still not at their glory.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Days yet, not yet. But you know that it was
heading in that direction. And with like you know, Martin
van Buren who became president, like he knew what was
going on. These weren't great people ascended into power. It
really calls into question, not that we needed anything else
to call in the question the moral you know, fiber
(27:20):
of like early politicians or hell politicians throughout history. But
I just get when I read about stuff like this,
you just get a sense that almost everybody in power
that ascended to these levels was morally bankrupt at some level.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
I will say Van Buren was against slavery. Of course,
he didn't air that opinion until after he left politics,
and he went through on all the horrible Native American
removal stuff that Andrew Jackson laid down. So yeah, not great.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
He was conveniently timing his abolitionist stance. There's another way
to put it right, and let's go to the Speaker Rights.
Let's go to the Bill of Right Institute. This is
where we start to see the origin of the man
who became synonymous with Tammany Hall Boss Tweed. It's after
(28:12):
the Civil War. The city of New York is terrible.
You thought the nineteen seventies were bad, No, folks, people
are just throwing trash out of their windows. There's horse
manure everywhere. You're eternally coughing. If it's not just the
air pollution, it's because you have tuberculosis or cholera. This
(28:34):
is a great time for both of those diseases. And
more than one million people are crowded in this city.
The majority of them live in very terrible conditions. Poverties everywhere, illiteracy, crime, grifts.
Irish and German immigrants make up almost half the population.
They don't really have a political voice, and they depend
(28:57):
on churches and private charities that are often over whelmed
by just the sheer demand of people who need help. Ben,
that illiteracy element is going to come into play in
a very interesting way a little bit later. Wait for it, y'all.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Enter William meg meghair MegaR Meager meger May let's call
him boss Boss tweet Yeah we we we know him.
We love him, we know, we love him, we know
his boss tweet Yeah, William Meger Boss. Tweed the son
of a furniture maker, and from a tender young age,
Tweed uh realized that he was good at the wheels
(29:35):
and the deals. You know, the ends and the outs
the relationship management that is politics. He had what you
would call a high charisma point count if he was
a a role playing game character. A slight diversion. I
just started Baldersgate three. Oh, amazing, great people. I'm still
(29:57):
building my character. I'm overthinking charisma though, is a is
a very interesting like if you play games like Fallou.
I've never played ball Erskape, but certain games like Fallout
or Skyrim or whatever, you can you get a certain
number of points to spend into your character, and people
usually don't think necessarily to spend it into charisma, but
it gives you so many interesting like conversation checks, you
(30:17):
know where it gives you more options to like convince
people to do things for you. And that's what politics
is in a lot of ways. Is the power of
the pen, the power of the the smile and in
the handshake, you know, to get people to do things
for you that will keep you from having to actually
get your hands directly dirty and or dare we say bloody? Now?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Was Boss Tweed a super skilled administrator?
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Eh?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
He was really he was like LBG would be later.
He was very good at buttonholding people bit Jambo that
well that's what he called his penis. Yes, well was
he was very good at h He's very good at
intimidating or wheedling or cajoling people. And he eventually starts
(31:06):
as the let me see, he starts as the alderman
for the seventh Ward in New York City, which means
he's joining a group called the to your earlier reference,
the forty Thieves.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, and so yeah, I hear it from gangs of
New York.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And he he goes to Congress for a while, and
he's not good at it. He's not able to make
much headway in his political career, so it only does
one term in Congress. He comes back and he says,
you know what, I like small ponds. It makes me
a big fish. And so he uh, he says, this
(31:46):
is where the action is on the ground, and he
becomes one of the leading politicians in the big Apple
while at the same time becoming one of the most corrupt.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah. And it's one of those things too, where you
gotta wonder if people like to see themselves as villains.
And I think the easy answer is no. And it
also does it doesn't happen overnight. You know, you take
your First, there's always that turning point in a movie
where there's a figure like this, is that the day
they took their first bribe, you know what I mean,
And then it just becomes easier and easier every step
(32:18):
after that. So I do think it's important to like
sort of humanize these folks to a degree and not
think of him as like this giant gnashing you know,
fat hog of a monster man, because he's a human,
you know, and and humans, you know. He grew up
in this city, and I think probably there was a
desire to do some good. I don't think you're automatically
(32:41):
like from the start, you know, I'm gonna get into
politics so I can screw everybody over and enrich myself.
It starts from, usually I think, a place of goodness,
and then sort of devolves as also you realize that
these problems are a lot harder to solve than I
maybe thought. So hell, since it seems like an uphill battle.
When I at least put some duck, it's in my pocket.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, And the argument becomes something like, well, all these
other bad forces are corrupt, so therefore I am not corrupt.
I am clever by using their tools of corruption against
them and with them right. And eventually you take the
longer view and you realize that from far enough away,
you and your enemies look very much the same.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I mean, you're right.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
One of Tweed's first official acts once he starts getting
the attention of the Tammany organization, is to restore order
after the New York City draft riots of eighteen sixty three.
The protesters rioters here are largely from the Irish community,
and they're saying, hey, why are you drafting poor people?
(33:47):
This is the one where if you were a wealthier person,
you paid three hundred bucks to hire a stand in
to fight in the war, and I present tributes, right,
And so folks are saying, no, don't make us your avatars.
We're real human beings. Why do some people get this
(34:08):
cheat code? Why don't we get it well?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And the sad thing is, even without the draft, it's
not that much different than this, because the military offers
an out for some people from lower income communities and
perhaps some people that you know have not found their
way in life. So it's like, even without the draft,
it's it's not it's similar. You know, there are it
is the lower oftentimes Echelona community that have no option
(34:32):
other than to join the military. And I'm not saying
that's across the board, but it's just an interesting parallel
where you see, you know, the more things change, the
more they stay the same. M M.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You could argue on or show like stuff. They don't
want you to know that. That's at least part of
the reason for privatized healthcare. Uh So, the the big
thing Tweet does during these riots, he engineers a deal
and he says, look, yeah, you don't have to be
a millionaire, you don't have to be a popper, or
everybody has a few things in common. If you are
(35:03):
the head of a household and your family will be
left destitute should you go to war and die, then
you should get an exemption from the draft as well.
And then he says, you know what, further, since we
can't rock the boat too much, you can come to
us at Tammany Hall. We will loan you the three
hundred dollars to pay that substitute. And doing this, just
(35:25):
this one act of policy gets Tweed a huge amount
of influence over the working population of New York City,
and that in turn gets him a lot of power
in any policy discussion in the city, including everything from
like where are we going to build the next skyscraper
or whatever?
Speaker 3 (35:45):
And this is probably some of the first places that
I heard some of the tactics that would ultimately be
really kind of honed by the mob and organized crime,
the idea of like, let's get behind and put our
investment into these big projects that on the surface are
like good for the community, but also offer a lot
(36:06):
of ways to shave and skim and charge for things
that never took place, you know, materials that were never
actually purchased, you know, forging invoices and things like that.
It's a great way to disguise money and to steal
taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Hiring employees that don't exist, getting your vig on the
in and the out the entire way through. Yes, and
that depends on hiring your cronies, right, that depends on
hiring your goons and your followers.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
And as sopranos, they call those jobs no show jobs.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Right, That's what Tweed is doing, not specifically no show jobs,
but he's putting people in power, his cronies and his
goons who are loyal to his greater aims. He's sending
them from the smoky back rooms into the halls of government.
These folks collectively become known as the Tweed Ring. And
(37:02):
at this point they are raking it very soon, They're
raking in millions of dollars from corruption. They're skimming it
off the top. Life is good. They're handed people contracts
as favors, you know, and saying, hey, look, get me
x percentage of this and then do as thou wilt.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So he gets.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Favors and bribes, he gets kickbacks. It's everything good government
is not supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Was do what thou wilt? Maybe the whole of the
law is that Anton Levey or is that from something
older than that? And he just popularized it in terms
of the Church of Satan. I think it's Crowley Crowley,
that's right. Sorry, quick off topic. Have you guys seen
the new Fincher movie yet, The Killer? Yes, I think
it's excellent. I like it a lot, a lot. I've
(37:50):
watched it three times. But there's a great part where
he says this sociopathic Patrick Bateman type lone wolf Asassity says,
let do what thou wilt be the whole of the law.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Somebody said that I can't remember who it probably it's
like the darkest comedy Finchers made. Oh, I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
It reminds me a lot of drive, which I know
isn't for everybody, but it has some of those vibes.
It's very stylish, and I just think everyone should check
it out. Did you like it? But I did? I enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I enjoyed the clear discrepancy between the killers internal monologue
and his actions, and a lot of the comedy can
be found.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
He's a screw up too, He's not even Yeah, it's
just I think it's great. Not when he uh let
us know what you think.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, because again not for everybody, but if you if
you go into it realizing it is what would be
called a black comedy, that I think you're gonna enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Some of the Tammany and the Tweed Ring, Uh, this
is a new This is like a renaissance for Tammany Hall.
They have ever quite even though they possessed influence over presidents,
they had never gone to this level of efficiency in
grift and graft.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah. And you can't get to this level without those
cronies in high places. You just can't. It's just not possible.
And so not only do they have people in stock,
because they've been around for so long, to the point
that Max found earlier that I had no idea how
long this organization had been around and how it had evolved.
You can't do that. You can't get to a place
like this without starting on the ground floor. And that's
(39:32):
exactly what they did. And now they're at the place
where any semblance of we're helping people is just out
the window, and they're yeah, sure, they're doing these projects,
building like the Brooklyn Bridge for example, you know, paving roads,
building marble court house, a lot of the things that
we see in New York City today. So you can't
really argue that the projects themselves weren't iconic and quote
(39:54):
unquote good. They were building hospitals. But within those projects
where all, like we said, are all these opportunities for
patting the costs and adding all of these you know,
kind of imaginary expenses that literally just went right into
the pockets of Tweed and his pals.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, Like think of the County Courthouse, which was originally
going to be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build,
still a ton of money but eventually it ended up
being more than thirteen million dollars in costs. It was
never completed, but the Tweed Ring bank accounts were made whole.
It's really construction project for those guys' bank accounts. I mean, look,
(40:35):
Tweed also is getting a little bit dumb with his money.
He's being a little loud about it. He has a
mansion on Fifth Avenue, he has another home in Connecticut.
He's throwing all these parties and weddings. He's going real godfather.
I think there's a great thing match to point out
in the research that the Tweed Ring in this time
(40:55):
in eighteen seventy three, they bought in an estimated fifty
two hundred million dollars in in eighteen seventy three money.
And I think we do have an inflation calculator, but
that's in that's like their profits.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
That's that's like in the money that was totally skimmed
and gripped and grafted, you know. Yeah, so yeah, I
would love to hear a beep in of boom and
a bop bop boom.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
And a dude boom boo boo, but due boom boom,
fifty million dollars in eighteen seventy three and twenty twenty
three money. That's almost one point three billion. That's one billion,
two hundred and eighty two million, four hundred and fifty
four thousand, one hundred and sixty six dollars.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
And has on the lowest seven cent. Yes, that's not
the low I mean what and and I mean it
makes sense that we would have a pretty wide range,
because this does hard to track. That's the point of it.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Make sixty seven cents right like two hundred million on
the upper end to your point in eighteen seventy three,
two hundred million dollars in twenty twenty three. That is
drum roll please, mister Williams, five billion, one hundred and
twenty nine million, eight hundred and sixteen thousand, six hundred
and sixty six dollars. And you'll love this partnal sixty
(42:15):
seven cents.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Yeah, Oh my goodness, what a oh, very very interesting.
And you know, I'd like to think that this kind
of thing couldn't happen anymore. Oh sure, that would be
absolutely naive and foolish. And what I was gonna say too,
is this whole like mansion on Fifth Avenue home in
(42:37):
Connecticut that's the template for like corrupt New York money men.
You know, I'm not going to name any names, but
like having you'd think you'd have to really be low
key and not have a big you know, property and
not you know, try to overestimate the uh square footage
of your apartment buildings because you'd want us to below
(43:00):
the radar. But that's not how these folks work. Ostentatiousness
is the name of the game. They're like, yeah, come
at me, come at me, see what happens.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
And that question they asked or that director they gave
was answered. The reason the tweed Rings specifically does not
exist the way it existed back then all goes down
to journalism. Yes, thank your local journalists the New York Times.
The people working there really put their lives on the
line talking about this corruption on the part of people
(43:31):
who ran the town. They started running stories about these
famous specific grafts and grifts. And then if you go
to Harper's Weekly, you see the editorial cartoons of the
legendary Thomas Nast, whom I love, love, love, and he
was doing the one of the best things you can
do as a cartoonist. He said, look, there are journalists
(43:52):
who are raking the muck, hitting the streets, reporting the facts.
And I'm going to get people who may not care
about politics normally, I'm gonna get them to laugh and
understand how bad this is. An approach that John Stewart
later used on The Daily showed a great effect.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I'm gonna draw Boss Tweed as a giant pig monster
clutching bags of money, you know, with dollar signs on it,
stomping on poor people that are bowing and scraping in
the streets. Oh, I get what that means. That looks bad.
I wonder what the deal is with this guy. Maybe
I should think twice about the power of cartoons. We
(44:31):
spoke earlier about how a lot of people in this
time in New York City couldn't read. So therefore, not
only was it just really impactful these cartoons, it was
crucial because those deep dive investigative pieces, while incredibly important,
and that's where like the meat of the info was,
those would not be reaching a lot of folks for
that very reasons because they couldn't read. So the cartoons
(44:53):
is a way of getting everybody.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Involved, which made Tweed even more concerned, because you know,
the the deep dive. Written articles are arguably for the learned,
and I hate that term, but that's what he was
looking at. He was saying, my voting blocks are working class.
They understand cartoons. I need to look good in this
(45:15):
sphere of public conversation. And so he went to the
New York Times and went to Nast Thomas Nas specifically,
and tried to bribe them into silence. No one took
him up on the deal. No one shook his hand
on that, And that's part of how that's part of
why history works out the way it did. Boss Tweed
(45:37):
ultimately gets arrested in eighteen seventy one October. He's indicted
shortly thereafter. He has tried in eighteen seventy three. The
first trial, get this has a hung jury. For some reason,
not every jury member can agree this guy is guilty
despite the evidence. Again, for some reason, not everybody on
(46:03):
the jury thinks the evidence is sufficient to convict him
of these clearly provable crimes. So he goes to a
second trial and he is found guilty of more than
two hundred different crimes, and he is sentenced to twelve
years in lock up.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Speaking of that hung jury, just I mean, maybe it's
just obvious, but we're probably talking about jury tampering, intimidation.
That's always say to it that way, Yes, for some reason. Yeah, yeah, No,
I'm just like I wonder what those possibilities in this
day and age, it would have been a lot easier
to do it would than it would be now.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh one hundred percent. Yeah, and that's that's clearly what
happened was jury tampering. He gets sentenced in the second trial,
as we said, twelve years, and he doesn't get out.
He doesn't serve his entire term. He dies in prison.
And Max wants you to know that he dies on
April twelfth, eighteen seventy eight. Max, why do you want
(46:59):
people to know that?
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Well, April twelfth is my birthday. It's not a great day,
by the way, it's the day of the Civil War started.
FDR died on April twelfth also, and then you know,
eighteen seventy eight, that's when I came into existence.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Max also wants you to know that Boss Tweedt died
on the toilet. He did not die in the toilet. Damn.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
If somebody dies in the toilet, I will make sure
to point it out.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
We yeah, I think I think we we've got a
pretty good sense for that.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
For some reason, we can we can sort of figure
out when people died of the toil. Anyway, he is
in the Ludlow Street Jail at Grand Street on the
Lower east Side when he dies. It's the morning of
April twelfth, It's around eleven forty am.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
And he starts whispering. He starts whispering, whispering, comes closer, closer,
closer still.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
He says to his lawyer, William Edelstein, and Willie leans
in and he's trying to listen to what Tweet is saying.
And Tweed reportedly says, wow, well, till didn't fair Child
if killed me, he didn't echo like that.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
I haven't. I have become worm's meat. They have murdered
it's me. So who's he talking about when he says
Tilden and Fairchild Charles Fairchild, the New York State attorney
general love, a good attorney general, a good good attorneys general,
who had essentially run him up the flagpole, you know,
(48:29):
taken him to the mattresses, whatever expression you'd like to use.
He he believed, at least Boss Tweet had believed in
his mind that he had cheated him because he guaranteed
him basically to walk free in exchange for a full confession,
which seems too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
But from his perspective, it's like with pro quote, of course,
you do you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Right, you've seen my pig Man cartoon. It is I
Boss Tweet. But right, you know, let's just say we
could probably understand how at this point Tweed would have
had a bit of an overinflated sense of himself and
what he was capable of, and he maybe believed the
outcome would would swing more in his favor. So he
believed that he'd been cheated by Charles Fairchild. Samuel Jones
(49:16):
Tilden was the governor of New York who had essentially
made his name and his career on shutting down Tweed
and his cronies and his organization, making promises like I
will see this corrupt man die behind boss, you know,
stuff like that, and going to clean up this city.
(49:36):
Well they were right about Tweet. Tweed did die behind bars.
But one man is not an organization entire, So Tammany
Hall powers through, and when the boss is out of
the picture, Boss Tweed dies they go on sort of
a Hearts and minds reevaluation self inventory. A guy named
John Kelly proceeds or comes after Tweed, succeeds Tweed, and
(50:00):
then they bring in these reformers like Samuel Jones Tilden
to serve as again I hate this term sachems. But eventually,
and we're going to paraphrase some of this for time,
eventually we see the corruption rear its ugly profitable head again,
and then Tammany tries to clean itself up again. Then
(50:23):
it becomes corrupt again, and this goes back and forth
until they make an enemy of a guy you may
know from this show for US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
who says, all right, we're going to bust Tammany down.
It's going to be a county organization because they failed
(50:44):
to support him in nineteen thirty two. So even he
has some important self interest in these things. It declines
in power during these various mayoral reforms, and eventually the
most powerful political machine in America in history one of
is dissolved. It fades away. Max Sawy sneaks some key
(51:05):
little easter eggs into these outlines, referring to Roosevelt as
the future American King strike through prett president. Oh he
got closed, had to write some laws about him.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
I'm a fan of FDR. I like the stuff he did,
but it doesn't change the fact he was president for
thirteen years. Right, he was not that old when he died.
He was planning to stay for a good bit laws.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
And you know, to be fair, many many other nations
have quarreled with that same thing the United States. I
hope this statement age as well. The United States has
successfully practiced the peaceful transfer of power for quite some time,
and not many nations can say the same. So let's
hope that continues. To your earlier statement. Noel, at this,
(51:51):
I think, you know what, what a wild ride. We
decide we're going to make this a one parter. We
have more we'll get to in the future.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
But probably could say some of this for our future
grab baggie type things. I agree left behind episode, but
there was a one little point that I wanted to
bring back. We started with this point. Sometimes these organizations,
they start with good intentions, and there were things that
Tammany Hall accomplished that were not bad. Like a lot
of these immigrants, and these folks were disenfranchised and did
(52:20):
not have opportunities, and Tammany Hall's original goal, for whatever
purpose it ultimately amounted to, was to help keep those
people from being, you know, from fully fully falling through
the cracks.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
True good quoint And maybe that's where we end with
For further reading and check out the case for Tammany
Hall being on the right side of history over at
NPR News Boston. That's w b u R. Thank you
so much as always to our ridiculous historians for tuning in.
Thanks to our super producer and research associate. I love
to shout out our research associates, mister Max Williams for
(52:53):
this one.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Yeah, excellent Max with the facts. Indeed, huge shout out
to Alex Williams. You compose this theme. Chris Frasciota, Steves,
Jeff Goats here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizz Ben,
my guy, my buddy. We should start a political machine.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, let's do it. All we need is three votes.
Are we gonna do? The three of us vote for ourselves?
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Do the eyes have it? Oh? Yeah, nay, wait, I
I see. We'll see you next episodes for more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!