George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

A detailed Summary of 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

Large political icons that stood in the way of the urban bosses success were present back in the early 1900's. These icons were known as Progressive reformers. The Tammany Hall slogan was "To hell with Reform!" A few major reformists were William L. Riordon, William Strong, and Seth Low. William and Seth both served one term and both were ejected because of a fusion of Republicans, disgruntled Democrats, and Independents. There were two concepts of democracy. On one hand you had the progressives' concept of "the less government the better, fiscal responsibility." On the other hand you had Tammany concept of democracy which was "more government, create government jobs. (FDR codified it during the new deal). Willing to break laws to established by those who hate them." Plunkitt also spoke out against the Progressive Reformers. "There have been reform committees of fifty, of sixty, of seventy, of one hundred, and all sorts of numbers that started out to do up the regul!

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 so

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Approximate Word count = 983
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History