The city government offered a very few basic services to alleviate the suffering, and churches and private charities were often overwhelmed by the need. One politician discovered how to provide these services and get something in return.
From an early age, Tweed discovered he had a knack for politics, with his imposing figure and charisma. He soon began serving in local New York City political offices and was elected alderman for the Seventh Ward, joining the so-called 40 thieves who represented the city wards.
He served a frustrating term in Congress during the sectional tensions of the s and then happily returned to local politics, where he believed the action was. He quickly became one of the leading politicians in New York City, and one of the most corrupt. By the late s, Tweed had ascended through a variety of local offices, including volunteer firefighter, school commissioner, member of the county board of supervisors, and street commissioner.
He learned to make political allies and friends and became a rising star. Tweed engineered a deal in which some family men rather than just the rich received exemptions and even a loan from Tammany Hall to pay a substitute. He had won a great deal of local autonomy and control, which the federal government had to accept.
In , the state legislature granted New York City a new charter that gave local officials, rather than those in the state capital in Albany, power over local political offices and appointments. Tweed doled out thousands of jobs and lucrative contracts as patronage, and he expected favors, bribes, and kickbacks in return. Some of that money was distributed to judges for favorable rulings.
Massive building projects such as new hospitals, elaborate museums, marble courthouses, paved roads, and the Brooklyn Bridge had millions of dollars of padded costs added that went straight to Boss Tweed and his cronies. The Tweed ring pocketed most of the money. The ring also gobbled up massive amounts of real estate, owned the printing company that contracted for official city business such as ballots, and received large payoffs from railroads.
Soon, Tweed owned an extravagant Fifth Avenue mansion and an estate in Connecticut, was giving lavish parties and weddings, and owned diamond jewelry worth tens of thousands of dollars. Most people in local government received their jobs because of patronage rather than merit and talent.
The Tweed Ring also manipulated elections in a variety of ways. It hired people to vote multiple times and had sheriffs and temporary deputies protect them while doing so.
As Plunkitt said, "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em. Paradoxically, a political machine often created benefits for the city. Many machines professionalized urban police forces and instituted the first housing regulations. Political bosses served the welfare needs of immigrants.
They offered jobs, food, fuel, and clothing to the new immigrants and the destitute poor. Political machines also served as a ladder of social mobility for ethnic groups blocked from other means of rising in society. The collapse of the Tweed Ring came in as the New York Times published a series of scathing stories on huge cost overruns in the courthouse construction. Tweed was arrested in October and would die in jail in The Tweed Courthouse, newly restored at a cost of Tweedlike proportions—more than twice the initial estimate—is slated to become the new home of the Museum of the City of New York.
The condition of the main facade in , showing absence of the main steps Wikimedia Commons For a time in the middle of the 19th century, it seemed as though nothing happened in New York City unless the Boss wanted it to. The following year he became grand sachem of Tammany. The Tweed ring began in , tightening operations in , when "Boss" Tweed and others arranged that all bills to the city would henceforth be at least one-half fraudulent, a proportion later raised to 85 percent.
The proceeds went equally to Tweed, to the city comptroller, to the county treasurer, and to the mayor. A fifth share was used to bribe officials and businessmen. The boss rallied diverse groups behind his regime by providing "something for all. Tweed was well suited by temperament and personality for this. Almost 6 feet all, a ruddy pounds, he combined coarse good fellowship with practiced suavity, becoming a favorite of all, including, for a time, some of New York's "best people.
The reform coalition that exposed the ring included city patricians, the New York Times, and assorted political enemies within both parties; motives varied. The battle ended with imprisonment for Tweed and several associates.
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