Plunkitt of Tammany Hall | Page 5

off and
I buy as much property as I can that has to be taken for approaches. I
sell at my own price later on and drop some more money in the bank.
Wouldn't you? It's just like lookin' ahead in Wall Street or in the coffee
or cotton market. It's honest graft, and I'm lookin' for it every day in the
year. I will tell you frankly that I've got a good lot of it, too.
I'll tell you of one case. They were goin' to fix up a big park, no matter
where. I got on to it, and went lookin' about for land in that
neighborhood.
I could get nothin' at a bargain but a big piece of swamp, but I took it
fast enough and held on to it. What turned out was just what I counted
on. They couldn't make the park complete without Plunkitt's swamp,
and they had to pay a good price for it. Anything dishonest in that?
Up in the watershed I made some money, too. I bought up several bits
of land there some years ago and made a pretty good guess that they
would be bought up for water purposes later by the city.
Somehow, I always guessed about right, and shouldn't I enjoy the profit
of my foresight? It was rather amusin' when the condemnation
commissioners came along and found piece after piece of the land in
the name of George Plunkitt of the Fifteenth Assembly District, New
York City. They wondered how I knew just what to buy. The answer
is-I seen my opportunity and I took it. I haven't confined myself to land;

anything that pays is in my line.
For instance, the city is repavin' a street and has several hundred
thousand old granite blocks to sell. I am on hand to buy, and I know
just what they are worth.
How? Never mind that. I had a sort of monopoly of this business for a
while, but once a newspaper tried to do me. It got some outside men to
come over from Brooklyn and New Jersey to bid against me.
Was I done? Not much. I went to each of the men and said: "How many
of these 250,000 stories do you want?" One said 20,000, and another
wanted 15,000, and other wanted 10,000. I said: "All right, let me bid
for the lot, and I'll give each of you all you want for nothin'."
They agreed, of course. Then the auctioneer yelled: "How much am I
bid for these 250,000 fine pavin' stones?"
"Two dollars and fifty cents," says I.
"Two dollars and fifty cents!" screamed the auctioneer. "Oh, that's a
joke! Give me a real bid."
He found the bid was real enough. My rivals stood silent. I got the lot
for $2.50 and gave them their share. That's how the attempt to do
Plunkitt ended, and that's how all such attempts end.
I've told you how I got rich by honest graft. Now, let me tell you that
most politicians who are accused of robbin' the city get rich the same
way.
They didn't steal a dollar from the city treasury. They just seen their
opportunities and took them. That is why, when a reform
administration comes in and spends a half million dollars in tryin' to
find the public robberies they talked about in the campaign, they don't
find them.
The books are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all
right. Everything is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany
heads of departments looked after their friends, within the law, and
gave them what opportunities they could to make honest graft. Now, let
me tell you that's never goin' to hurt Tammany with the people. Every
good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn't isn't likely
to be popular. If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I give it
to a friend-Why shouldn't I do the same in public life?
Another kind of honest graft. Tammany has raised a good many
salaries. There was an awful howl by the reformers, but don't you know

that Tammany gains ten votes for every one it lost by salary raisin'?
The Wall Street banker thinks it shameful to raise a department clerk's
salary from $1500 to $1800 a year, but every man who draws a salary
himself says: "That's all right. I wish it was me." And he feels very
much like votin' the Tammany ticket on election day, just out of
sympathy.
Tammany was beat in 1901 because the people were deceived into
believin' that it worked dishonest graft. They didn't draw a distinction
between dishonest and honest graft, but they saw that some Tammany
men grew rich, and