How Does It Happen That Folks Vote Tammany?
How Does It Happen That Folks Vote Tammany? Even if It la a Grafting Organization, It Meets a Certain Need in Thoughtless People. POLITICIANS, like lawyers, are more concerned with the argument...
...On the whole the leaders are fairly representative of the rank and file...
...We have seen liberal candidates become reactionary office-holders...
...Ill The voters of New York have failed to protect themselves against Tammany's faults, and Tammany's critics have failed to appreciate its significance...
...Among those who live by clipping coupons or incomes from non-local enterprises are also to be found staunch antiTammany voters...
...and a district leader never spares himself labor to help a faithful committeeman...
...Well, that's directly put," said Joe...
...Joe Threatens War "You see, Joe," Bill continued, "the anarchists were romantic believers in direct action but what appeared to be direct was really futile...
...Taxpayers often require favors from city departments and learn that favors can be had only in return for political allegiance to the Democratic district leader or committeeman...
...Roosevelt will go into office with a majority bigger than Hoover had when he walked into the White House...
...I wish it were otherwise but that is the sad fact we face...
...If the members were otherwise it would be a simple matter of calling for the selection of new leaders...
...Tammany Hall, the most important municipal organization in the country, has been on trial before public opinion for generations and has seen the jury of voters swayed back and forth by the pleadings of orators and writers...
...The job-holders' army is no bigger than the taxpayers' mob, but the job-holder remains loyal to a man to his party, while the taxpayer strays from his ranks in increasingly large numbers...
...The rank and file ought to fire them...
...New York has over seven million inhabitants and, even in times of booming prosperity, the unresourceful individual must accept social degradation or gamble in competition with huge numbers of other unfortunates trying to find places for themselves...
...Graft arouses so much indignation in honest people that it sometimes confuses their reason and sight...
...Tammany jobs, too, offer far better pay, steadier work, easier pace and greater security of tenure...
...remove leaders and the bourgeois class will be safe from the revolutionary movement...
...The only city officials and Tammany leaders within the range of temptation are members of the Board of Estimate, members of the Board of Aldermen, district leaders, building inspectors, fire inspectors, heads of important departments, officials empowered to award contracts and mak# purchases, and members of the police department Only several hundred Tammany men have opportunities to realize great sums in graft The beat opportunities really are" not in outright theft, but in the adroit i wielding of threats and granting Joe U Tempted to Caret* Bill's Snoot But Bill Argue* Hit Cage To An Honorable United Front By Autolycus "I SEE that the trade union leaders are'in an awful mess * in their policy of selecting candidates in the recent election," said Joe as he and Bill were discussing the election returns...
...Circulate a manifesto among the members of the unions calling on them to depose the leaders and these members will either ignore it or denounce it...
...Aw you're too damned conservative," said Joe with impatience...
...Tammany does not content itself with easing the misfortunes of its followers...
...I • In these chl wants to stand If Roosevelt i find more roon the light of wi • Will the Mi a cabinet, or pudding...
...Instead of abolishing the class state by what they were pleased to call 'militant action' they only succeeded In removing themselves from intelligent action and from fraternal contact with the masses they desired to reach...
...Yes, and we've avoided that mutual caressing that generally follows in the unions when we adopt the other course...
...Here's the Executive Council of the A. F. of L. selecting certain candidates and Matt Wolls tariff lobby in some cases supporting their opponents...
...The anarchists thought that Marxists were conservatives in opposing this direct action but Socialists were revolutionary in that they never forgot the roots of the problem...
...The Tammany system is human nature's answer to the fact that New York is the' most impersonal, lonesome and insecure community in the United States...
...The district leaders had ample opportunity along this line of endeavor in 1930...
...The new President will have everything his heart could desire, including a Democratic Congress...
...A Tammany committeeman never forsakes a loyal voter in trouble...
...There is a dramatic quality in our elections...
...Tammany has grown steadily stronger in recent years and the futile taxpayers steadily weaker...
...That willing attitude will come only when we have educated a large section of the rank and file...
...A mere call to change leaders will not effect a change for the better till the members themselves are educated to the need of a change...
...Socialists should not be discouraged by the results...
...A study of Tammany is an excursion into ugliness that few men of good breeding venture, unless they be fired with zeal to reform...
...Tammany trades jobs and favors for votes...
...Tammany's bitterest enemies are to be found among contractors and business men whose rivals are enjoying favoritism...
...Snap out of it" "But what are we going to do about it...
...Tammany men within the range of graft temptation probably do not number more than two thousand...
...That means hard and intelligent work by Socialists, especially Socialist members of the unions, but it can and it will bo accomplished because all economic trends of capitalism correlate with this education...
...IV Graft is far from being Tammany's worst sin...
...The members indifferently accept the course of the leaders and have for years accepted it...
...The railroad brotherhoods make their own selections and Tammany labor leaders it* New York reject LaGuardia while the A. F. of L. council supports him...
...In doing so, we deal with the roots of the problem and the flowering above will change...
...Furthermore, thousands of Tammany jobholders have become property owners and taxpayers out of the income of their Tammany controlled jobs...
...The unit of its organization is a friendly game of cards (not bridge) in one of the district clubs...
...The roots consist of old ideas and prejudices and until they are educated out of those heads there can be no removal of officials who are simply the flowering of those roots...
...Police are omitted from this reckoning, since speakeasy graft is not peculiar to Tammany...
...A lot of people are wondering whether during the next four years Roosevelt will really be President of the United States or merely a candidate for re-election...
...It really thinks that by clubbing or arresting leaders of a revolutionary movement that it is dealing intelligently with that movement It is the same Idea over again...
...They didn't get anywhere with the motions, but It's encouraging to see that they do know what motions to make...
...Tammany gives its followers neighborliness, companionship and security...
...Socialists were taunted with being too patient but they kept in mind the basic need of an intelligent working class...
...LeVal "business and industry find it advantageous to woo the favor of the taxing, policing and privilege-controlling power of ths city...
...You admit that organized labor is in a bad way, for your own statement of its conflicting political actions shows that something must be done...
...Many business and industrial Urns seek contracts and franchises from ths city...
...Peace Is Restored "Sure,** Bill replied...
...but Tammany is yet to be appraised justly...
...Then the Council saw nothing in Hoover or Roosevelt to warrant Bupport of either, but Hoover and Roosevelt each retained a labor leader who denounced the claims of the other as a fraud...
...We need an organized working class willingly accepting new policies...
...The American people on Tuesday went through all the motions of a political revolution...
...Life is no more secure for the unaffiliated individual in New York than is the likelihood of capturing a subway seat during the rush hours...
...Tammany's reputation offendc the aesthete and the liberal observer of politics...
...Thus, when Tammany creates more jobs, the taxpayers squeal a little louder, but in the Wigwam is heard only the chorus of praise and gratitude from the favored...
...But you were never dragooned into accepting a new idea and you will not dragoon others into accepting more intelligent political action...
...Ir most cities the taxpayer dominates municipal politics and blindly opposes all expenditures, no matter how worthy the objects may be...
...Old leaders will pass with the expansion of new and progressive ideas among the rank and file...
...Here's wishing the Presidentelect a lot of luck...
...There are only three sources of security in New York: wealth or professional skill, an optimistic disposition—and last, but surely not least, connection with Tammany Hall...
...Tammany gives security in life—a security as lasting as the loyalty of the beneficiary and Tammany itself...
...Your reasoning is like the reasoning of the old fqree anarchists who believed that by destroying a king or some other high governing official the masses would flock to the anarchists...
...Trade union political action certainly could not be worse than this year...
...POLITICIANS, like lawyers, are more concerned with the argument than the truth...
...Thanks for that explanation," said Joe...
...I might use another illustration...
...I hope he gets some sense and some courage...
...Graft is a product of Tammany but not its structure, A graft-less Tammany would be nearly as objectionable from the standpoint of ideal municipal government as a graft-ridden Tammany...
...What we need is a militant call to depose the leaders and show that they are misleaders of labor...
...Right you are," said Bill...
...A steady job at a living wage was enjoyed last year by nearly 184,000 enrolled Democratic voters employed by the city...
...They should be made responsible for effective political action, a form of action that will unite the organized workers, not divide them into a half-dozen conflicting groups...
...The voter gets three minutes in the polling' place to cast his ballot and four years in which to feel sorry...
...If it were merely the leaders that were responsible the problem would be simple...
...It offers them the greatest prize that society can give to the submerged masses...
...Certainly not," Bill replied...
...The people i cause they w hope Roosevel he assumes ol still want a a Jim Farley, laurels in the be assumed, ' the game of>j scale...
...he'll have everything but an excuse for inaction...
...As a matter of fact, political orators and graft exposes give a lurid version of Tammany...
...I was< tempted to caress you with a bunch of bones in the snoot" "More direct action," said Bill, laughing...
...Tammany leaders cannot guarantee health and happiness to their followers, but they can and do mitigate most of the misfortunes and minor tragedies of life among those of the submerged masses who give it its power...
...The basic factor in the whole situation is the backwardness of the rank and file...
...The city'a political battle-front finds the taxpayer and the jobholder pitted against each other...
...Tammany leaders, for instance, experience little difficulty in wheedling Dame Justice into a motherly attitude towards its erring wards...
...said Joe with a trace of anger...
...Few cities have as strong a weapon against the taxpayers' miserliness as New York possesses in Tammany...
...If all Tammany followers are not blood cousins, the Tammany district leaders are at least sympathetic communal uncles...
...Wealth is not altogether the enemy of Tammany...
...Beginning at Wrong End "I agree," said Bill, "but I think that you begin at the wrong end of the problem...
...The taxpayer is bitter in his animosity to the job-holders' machine, but too selfish to stick with his fellows...
...Well have to pin our hdpe for the next four years on the changeable nature of politicians...
...To be a Tammany man" is to have a sympathetic appeal in all possible contingencies, in the district club...
...now is to nel that Socialism...
...You don't mean to say that I am an anarchist...
...Y A Rumors also Traylor, Owes Smith may Joti If that hsppH apologize to 1 ask him to 1 White House.^ Some Sociah that Norma* more vote*, radicals insist the ballot box in the ballot to At any rats, vast majority people w,nV...
...The bourgeois class in its reactionary moods also turns to direct action...
...We ought to make an uncompromising fight against all such leaders," said Joe with indignation...
...The misleading has its roots in the heads of the rank and file," Bill replied...
...There wer 677,826 persons in that year arraigned in the magistrates' courts, of whom 589,286 were either warned and freed or fined in minor cases, or held for higher courts in the more serious cases...
...Tammany has more jobs to give away than New York's great clothing industry, the city's second largest industry...
...said BIN as they parted i But It Went to "TMIK American people rolled up * a splendid majority Tuesday, but gave it to the wrong party...
...The popular conception of Tammany as a vast machine of graft and plunder is not wholly accurate...
...a leader of the old type dies the membership usually chooses one of ths same kind...
...I have been comparing the results of direct action in two fields...
...Will he be another Hoover...
...They approached the problem at the wrong end...
...There's some logic, therefore, in hoping that Roosevelt an improves* the candidate...
...The more jobs and favors, the more party workers and votes...
...II Nowhere is social insecurity more evident in our capitalist civilization than in our largest cities...
Vol. 14 • November 1932 • No. 20
