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My Red Jackets received my most jealous care. They deserved that much from me, since their existence offered measurably for my support. When the day arrived, I was given that twelve-hundred-dollar place with the docks, whereof Big Kennedy had spoken, and under his suggestion and to the limits of my strength made what employ of it I might for my own and my friends behoof. But those twelve hundred dollars would not go far in the affairs of one who must for their franchises lead hither and yon divers scores of folk, all of whom had but the one notion of politics, that it was founded of free beer. There came, too, a procession of borrowers, and it was a dull day when, in sums from a dime to a dollar, I did not to these clients part with an aggregate that would have supported any family for any decent week. There existed no door of escape; these charges, and others of similar kidney, must be met and borne; it was the only way to keep ones hold of politics; and so Old Mike would tell me.
But its better, said that deep one, to lind people money than give it toem. You kape thim bechune your finger longer by lindin.
It was on the Red Jackets I leaned most for personal revenue. They were my bread-winners. No Tammany organization, great or small, keeps books. No man may say what is received, or what is disbursed, or name him who gave or got; and that is as it should be. If it were otherwise, ones troubles would never earn an end. For the Red Jackets I was to steal a title from the general organization not alone the treasurer, but the wiskinskie. In this latter rôle I collected the money that came in. Thus the interests, financial, of the Red Jackets were wholly within my hands, and recalling what Big Kennedy had said anent a good cook, I failed not to lick my fingers.
Money was in no wise difficult to get. The Red Jackets were formidable both for numbers and influence, and their favor or resentment meant a round one thousand votes. Besides, there stood the memorable Tin Whistles, reckless, militant, ready for any midnight thing, and their dim outlines, like a challenge or a threat, filled up the cloudy background. Those with hopes or fears of office, and others who as merchants or saloonkeepers, or who gambled, or did worse, to say naught of builders who found the streets and pavements a convenient even though an illegal resting place for their materials of bricks and lime and lumber, never failed of response to a suggestion that the good Red Jackets stood in need of help. Every man of these contributing gentry, at their trades of dollar-getting, was violating law or ordinance, and I who had the police at my beck could instantly contract their liberties to a point that pinched. When such were the conditions, anyone with an imagination above a shoemakers will see that to produce what funds my wants demanded would be the lightest of tasks. It was like grinding sugar canes, and as easily sure of steady sweet returns.
True, as an exception to a rule, one met now and again with him who for some native bull-necked obstinacy would refuse a contribution. In such event the secret of his frugality was certain to leak forth and spread itself among my followers. It would not be required that one offer even a hint. Soon as ever the tale of that parsimony reached the ear of a Tin Whistle, disasters like a flock of buzzards collected about the saving man. His windows were darkly broken like Gaffneys. Or if he were a grocer his wares would upset themselves about the pavements, his carts of delivery break down, his harnesses part and fall in pieces, and he beset to dine off sorrow in many a different dish.
And then and always there were the police to call his violative eye to this ordinance, or hale him before a magistrate for that one. And there were Health Boards, and Street Departments, who at a wink of Red Jacket disfavor would descend upon a recalcitrant and provide burdens for his life. With twenty methods of compulsion against him, and each according to law, there arose no man strong enough to refuse those duties of donation. He must support the fortunes of my Red Jackets or see his own decline, and no one with a heart for commerce was long to learn the lesson.
The great credit, however, in such coils was due the police. With them to be his allies, one might not only finance his policies, but control and count a vote; and no such name as failure.
Theyre the foot-stones of politics, said Old Mike. Kape th plice, an you kape yourself on top.
Nor was this the task complex. It was but to threaten them with the powers above on the one hand, or on the other toss them individually an occasional small bone of profit to gnaw, and they would stand to you like dogs. I soon had these ins and outs of money-getting at the tips of my tongue and my fingers, for I went to school to Big Kennedy and Old Mike in the accomplishment, and I may tell you it was a branch of learning they were qualified to teach.
Blackmail! cry you? Now there goes a word to that. These folk were violating the law. What would you have? their arrest? Let me inform you that were the laws of the State and the town enforced to syllable and letter, it would drive into banishment one-half the population. They would do business at a loss; it would put up the shutters for over half the town. Wherefore, it would be against the common interest to arrest them.
And still you would have the law enforced? And if it were, what, let me ask, would be the immediate response? These delinquents would be fined. You would then be satisfied. What should be the corrective difference between a fine paid to a court, and a donation paid to my Red Jackets? The corrective influence in both should be the same, since in either instance it is but a taking of dollars from the purses of the lawless. And yet, you clamor, One is blackmail and the other is justice! The separation I should say was academic rather than practical; and as for a name: why then, I care nothing for a name.
I will, however, go this farther journey for my own defense. I have not been for over twoscore years with Tammany and sixteen years its head, without being driven to some intimate knowledge of my times, and those principles of individual as well as communal action which underlie them to make a motive. And now I say, that I have yet to meet that man, or that corporation, and though the latter were a church, who wouldnt follow interest across a prostrate law, and in the chase of dollars break through ordinance and statute as a cow walks through a cobweb. And each and all they come most willingly to pay the prices of their outlawry, and receivers are as bad as thieves your price-payer as black as your price-taker. Practically, the New York definition of an honest man has ever gone that he is one who denounces any robbery in the proceeds whereof he is not personally interested, and with that definition my life has never failed to comply. If Tammany and Tammany men have been guilty of receiving money from violators of law, they had among their accomplices the towns most reputable names and influences. Why then should you pursue the one while you excuse the other? And are you not, when you do so, quite as much the criminal as either?
When I was in the first year of my majority we went into a campaign for the ownership of the town. Standing on the threshold of my earliest vote, I was strung like a bow to win. My fervor might have gained a more than common heat, because by decision of Big Kennedy I, myself, was put down to make the run for alderman. There was a world of money against us, since we had the respectable element, which means ever the rich, to be our enemies.
Big Kennedy and I, after a session in his sanctum, resolved that not one meeting should be held by our opponents within our boundaries. It was not that we feared for the vote; rather it swung on a point of pride; and then it would hearten our tribesmen should we suppress the least signal of the enemys campaign.