Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [879]
Croker renominated Grant, got him reelected in 1890, then passed the baton to Thomas Francis Gilroy in 1892. Gilroy’s rise was even more heavily dependent on the machine, as his background was more plebeian than his predecessor’s. The Irish-born Gilroy, brought to New York as a child, attended public school, worked as a printer’s apprentice, then worked his way up through the political ranks, serving as a Tweed messenger boy, holding a series of county and court clerkships, becoming district leader on the Upper East Side, then, in 1886, rising to undersheriff of New York County, before being elevated to the mayoralty.
Grant gave virtual control of all city offices and contracts to Croker, who started by making himself city chamberlain at twenty-five thousand dollars a year. With patronage resources beyond anything Kelly or Tweed ever dreamed of, Croker strengthened his control over political officials. No longer would Tammany leaders have to bribe Democratic aldermen into doing their bidding; from 1888 on the complaisant board took its orders from Croker.
Command over twelve thousand city workers also gave the machine a source of campaign funds (via mandatory assessments) and a vast reservoir of election day labor power. This electoral army was supplemented with the aid of a quarter-million dollars of public money allotted to “poll watching.” Technically controlled by police captains in each precinct, it was doled out to voters at the direction of District Leaders, with perhaps 20 percent of the Democratic electorate on the receiving end. City government had, to a significant degree, become an affair of patrons and clients.
This process of consolidation—like the one taking place in the corporate world—was never complete. Croker could not rule absolutely because District Leaders retained power in their own domain. He would have to deal with proconsuls like Big Tim Sullivan, baron of the Bowery, and George Washington Plunkitt, boss of Hell’s Kitchen. Archbishop Corrigan, who carried out a parallel consolidation in the ecclesiastical realm, did far better than either Croker or Morgan.
Tammany’s new strength did allow its Irish-American leaders to crush their longtime partner-opponents, the Swallowtail Democrats, and their stronghold, the County Democracy, expired in 1892. Independence required Irish-American politicians to develop alternate sources of income. One solution was the establishment of an informal “vice tax,” with the machine offering police protection to gamblers and prostitutes in exchange for cash. Payoffs helped fill Tammany coffers from the late 1880s on, but as the politicians would soon discover, such revenue came with risks of its own.
The other source of working capital was the business community. The rise of powerful corporate entities was aided by, and in turn encouraged, the parallel centralization of political power. In the past, businessmen in search of favors had bribed individual aldermen or state legislators, not Tammany bosses. When Jacob Sharp went after his Broadway franchise, almost all the boodle board lined up for a cut, which was annoying, expensive, and problematic, as one could never be sure the bribed would stay bought. Now men like William Whitney could go straight to the top and achieve in a day what had taken Sharp years.
The utilities became Tammany’s greatest source of income. Whitney and Ryan of the Manhattan Elevated Railroad provided top politicos with hefty lawyer’s fees, stock market tips, contracts for their construction companies, and pieces of the action in Metropolitan’s financial deals. They were amply repaid with valuable franchises, maintenance of high fares, and blockage of utilities reform. Upstate too, after Tammany solidified control of both houses in 1892, corporations seeking favors paid “campaign contributions” to him, not legislators,