Plunkitt Of Tammany Hall

My copy cost all of one dollar and twenty-five cents. I bought it in the early 1970’s for a political science course I was taking at Northeastern University. It’s a slender little paperback, only 98 pages in length. Published in 1905, it was George Washington Plunkitt’s practical guide to how politics worked in New York City. Plunkitt related all the good, pithy stuff to journalist William L Riordon from the New York Evening Post.

Plunkitt was a ward boss, member of the state legislature, and part of the infamous Tammany Hall machine. For some reason I’ve never finished the last eight pages, but I assure you that the initial ninety are an education in American nineteenth-century politics. Actually, I maintain that with modifications made for the times, the book is a great guide to a good bit of modern politics. After all, technology changes, but human nature doesn’t. So these ninety pages contain a wealth of information on topics like reciprocity in patronage and my favorite, honest graft versus dishonest graft:

“Everybody is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft.

In a modular fashion the little book gives you a practical course in 19th century American politics, of the New York stripe. But read it, and you’ll discover that it has a distinct kinship with much political activity in our 21st century.

Plunkitt’s little gem of practical politics is, I beleive, available on line at Project Gutenberg.