Tammany Hall

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Conditions for people in NYC

1911• Very poor• No gov’t assistance in any way

(no money if you become unemployed, no help if you get hurt on the job, no money retirement etc.)

• Can’t afford doctors, can’t pay hospitals

• Apartments small, cramped and stinky

• Anti-immigrant / anti-poor attitudes by other New Yorkers

• In general, a poor, lost and alone feeling

Photo of a NYC tenement apartment by Lewis Hines

This is a Lewis Hines photo of a “Five Cent Bed”. People would pay 5 cents for a few square feet of space to sleep in. They slept on cots, under cots, on boards over the sink and on the floor. The more people you could cram in, the more money the owner made.

Tammany Hall

• The Democratic Party in New York City ran a “political machine” that controlled the city for 50 years.

• They controlled all the elections, the fire department, the police department and all the cities services.

• The goal of this was to get “sugar” = MONEY

Errand Boys

• Every block in the city had a few “errand boys” low level Democratic Party workers who really knew the neighborhood and made sure every voter stayed happy and loyal.

• They were paid to do small jobs for the Democratic Party.

Errand Boys and the Block Captain had to make sure

all these people were loyal to the

Democratic Party.

Block Captain

• He was the one man in charge of a whole block or neighborhood.

• He had a dozen or so errand boys working for him.

• He had worked his way up from being an errand boy by proving his loyalty to the Democratic Party and making sure everyone in his neighborhood voted for the Democratic Candidate in every election

Ward Leaders

• He was in charge of as many as 30-40 blocks and block captains and was a very powerful man.

• He had to make sure the Democratic Party Candidate always won. He handed out jobs in the police and fire department.

• He controlled who got the “sugar” in his ward.

District Leaders

• There were only a few District Leaders but they were even more powerful then the Ward Leaders.

• They controlled who could operate legal and illegal business’, who went to jail if caught by the police etc, who could run for political offices, etc.

The Boss

• Was the single most powerful man in New York City. He was the leader of the Democratic Party and everything he wanted happened.

• He also benefited the most from the “sugar”.

Boss Tweed was the most powerful Tammany Hall leader

Thomas Nast was a popular cartoonist in NY City, he didn’t like Tammany Hall or Boss Tweed. In this cartoon, what does Nast accuse Boss Tweed of doing?

How to get a job in Tammany

Hall.

• Most men started out as errand boys. If they did a good job, made powerful friends with the Ward Leader they might make it to Block Captain.

• The way you moved up was to keep your people loyal to the Democratic Party and create “sugar” to give to the people below you (keeps them loyal) and to the people above you (keeps them happy)

This is all Extremely illegal. How come the cops didn’t

break this up?

• There were no tests or applications to become a police officer, to get a police job you bribed the Ward Leader.

• To become a regular street cop cost $300.• To become a Police Captain in a nice section of the city cost

$15,000.• Police made money by “graft” = taking money from illegal

business to let them operate. Ex. The owner of an illegal drug den would pay the police to let him run his business without the police arresting him.

• Many cops would borrow money to pay the bribe to get the job then repay the loan with graft.

Elections• The Tammany Hall political machine

only had power if the Democratic Party won elections. So it was VERY important to make sure everyone voted for the Democratic Party.

• In one election where the vote from one block was 388 Democrat vs. 4 Republican, the Ward Boss said “That is one more Republican vote than I expected but I’ll find that feller.”

• By 3PM on election day the Ward Leaders knew the names of everyone who had not yet voted and sent errand boys to knock on their doors to remind them.

• Most of the vote counters and elections officials owed their jobs to Tammany Hall Democrats so they weren’t likely to be fair.

How did Tammany Hall stay so popular?

• They were loyal to the people that voted for them.

• If a good Democratic voting family lost everything in a fire the local errand boy would tell the Block Captain. He would show up in minutes with money for a new apartment, clothes and food. If someone had died, they would pay for the funeral. When a couple got married they were the first ones at the door with a wedding gift. They would get coal for the stoves during blizzards, give presents to the poor at Christmas and take hundreds on picnics outside of the city.

• All you had to do in return was vote Democrat in the next election. They were very popular with the poor immigrants living in the city.

Who would make sure this family got a place to live?Who would make sure this mother and child had food?