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Updated: August 16, 2024
And so it went on like a snowball rollin' down a hill I worked the flat-house that I lived in from the basement to the top floor, and I got about a dozen young men to follow me. Then I tackled the next house and so on down the block and around the corner. Before long I had sixty men back of me, and formed the George Washington Plunkitt Association.
Just think of mentionin' dishonest graft in connection with the name of George Washington Plunkitt, the man who gave the city its magnificent chain of parks, its Washington Bridge, its Speedway, its Museum of Natural History, its One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street Viaduct and its West Side Courthouse! 1 was the father of the bills that provided for all these; yet, because I supported the Remsen and Spuyten Duyvil bills, some people have questioned my honest motives.
I thought it a pity to let Plunkitt's revelations of himself as frank in their way as Rousseau's Confessions perish in the files of the newspapers; so I collected the talks I had published, added several new ones, and now give to the world in this volume a system of political philosophy which is as unique as it is refreshing. No New Yorker needs to be informed who George Washington Plunkitt is.
Listened to the complaints of a dozen pushcart peddlers who said they were persecuted by the police and assured them he would go to Police Headquarter: in the morning and see about it. 10:30 P.M.: Attended a Hebrew wedding reception and dance. Had previously sent a handsome wedding present to the bride. 12 P.M.: In bed. That is the actual record of one day in the life Of Plunkitt.
He was in the Assembly soon after he cast his first vote and has held office most of the time for forty years. In 1870, through a strange combination of circumstances, he held the places of Assemblyman, Alderman, Police Magistrate and County Supervisor and drew three salaries at once a record unexampled in New York politics. Plunkitt is now a millionaire.
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.
What became of the 400 or 500 Citizens' Union enrolled voters in my district? Some people guessed that many of them were good Plunkitt men all along and worked with the Cits just to bring them into the Plunkitt camp by election day. You can guess that way, too, if you want to. I never contradict stories about me, especially in hot weather.
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.
I placed a lot more on public works done by contractors, and no Tammany man goes hungry in my district. Plunkitt's O.K. on an application for a job is never turned down, for they all know that Plunkitt and Tammany don't stay out long. See! Let me tell you, too, that I got jobs from Republicans in office Federal and otherwise. When Tammany's on top I do good turns for the Republicans.
Plunkitt, the head gardener, came along, trundling a mowing-machine. "Ain't it kind 'er nice," he said, lingering. "When I pass here moonlight nights, it seems like that baby was a-smilin' right up into his mamma's face, an' that there fish-tailed girl was laughin' back at him. Come here some night when there's a moon, Cap'in Selwyn."
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