George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
Urban machine politics was an extremely important element in the way life was in the early 1900's. Urban Bosses were more powerful icons than most political (progressive reform) figures back in that era. William M. Tweed, Richard Croker, George Washington Plunkitt and many other men were important political urban bosses. They achieved their prominence by doing things for themselves and by doing things that were maybe not morally correct but also not illegal in the same sense. The bosses also became such significant figures because they got the votes from the people by doing certain things to help them in return. The progressive reformers tried to hold back Plunkitt and other urban bosses by criticizing the way the urban bosses were operating. Plunkitt had a philosophy about honest grafting that aided in how powerful of a boss and figure he became. A lot of the urban bosses lived and grew up to a certain degree the same way. Boss Tweed, "Honest" John Kelly, and Richard Croker all left school to begin some type of apprenticeship with a company. Soon after getting those apprenticeships they were then promoted to higher positions of authority. After that they were all controlling Tammany Hall and running for positions in t
------------------------------------------------------------------------ he government. Plunkitt is strongly against going to college if someone is trying to get into politics. "Now, havin' qualified as an expert, as the lawyers say, I am goin' to give advice free to the young men who are goin' to cast their first votes, and who are lookin' forward to political glory and lots of cash. Some young men think they can learn how to be successful politics from books and they cram their heads with all sorts of college rot. They couldn't make a bigger mistake. How, understand me, I aint sayin nothing against colleges. I guess they'll gave to exist as long as there's bookworms,! ot all those blocks for a very low cost. Corruption can be beneficial because in Plunkitt and many other urban bosses cases it lead to particularly good things. Plunkitt's had a philosophy called grafting. According to him there are two kinds of grafting, honest and dishonest grafting. Dishonest grafting, which he has never taken a part in are the blackmailin' gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc. "There an honest graft, and I'm an example of ho it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin': 'I seen my opportunities and I took 'em." (Riordon, 49) Honest grafting is getting a tip off from certain people about some land that the city might want to buy a
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 916
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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