Thomas Nast Now Pull Him Over the Falls and See if He Can Reach the Point Again

Gotham Gazette's Reading NYC Book Order held a conversation on June 22 at the Jefferson Market place branch of the New York Public Library with Kenneth Ackerman,who has worked for both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and is the author of several books, most recently "Boss Tweed: The Ascent and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York." An edited transcript appears below:

Kenneth Ackerman(reading from his book): [William Magear] Tweed didn't invent civic corruption or ballot-box stuffing, but he and his Tammany oversupply elevated the techniques to stunning proportions. They committed frauds gigantic on any calibration, fifty-fifty if Tweed was personally guilty for only a small fraction of the whole. In subsequently years, estimates of "Tweed Ring" total plunder jumped from the relatively minor $25 meg to $45 million of the 1877 Aldermen'southward Commission to fully $200 one thousand thousand ($4 billion in modern dollars), a figure clearly inflated for dramatic bear on only never scrutinized. Information technology became role of the legend.

Tweed lived in a corrupt time, the Gold Age, simply he divers that era and pressed its boundaries. Even past his own twenty-four hour period's standards, to call something "A Worse Fraud than Tweed's" spoke volumes. Tweed inherited a culture of graft endemic to New York Urban center for generations and pushed it to its logical extreme, forcing the reformers to crack down.

After his excesses, no city in America could any longer tolerate wide-open up graft or election-box abuse. Urban corruption didn't disappear, simply it evolved and became more subtle. "A villain of more brains would have had a minor home and would have guzzled in secret," E.L. Godkin wrote in the aftermath. George W. Plunkett, a Tammany leader of the adjacent generation, well understood the point. "The politician who steals is worse than a thief," he'd say in 1905. "He is a fool."

TWEED IN PICTURES

And then much of the Tweed story is visual. It is a story well-nigh the role of the media and the role of images, pictures, and cartoons. Yous tin't really tell the story without the images. Tweed'south persona was very much shaped by cartoonist Thomas Nast. Nast was a little too proficient at what he did. He was and so clever and then bright and wrote such funny compelling drawing images that it was hard for Tweed, either in his lifetime or for posterity, to become away from the image Nast had created. I promise I've washed a trivial chip to free Tweed from that rock around his neck.

Some of the pictures drawn of Tweed hit the nail on the head, and some don't.

This is my personal favorite of the Nast cartoons, and information technology's i of the about famous of them. It was drawn just after the New York Times broke the story and they put out the so-called surreptitious accounts, which showed the money the city paid for various contracts related to the Tweed courthouse. They were so big that information technology was impossible to believe the stories were true.

One example was the sum that was supposedly spent for chairs. It was plenty to purchase something like 315,000 chairs, so that if y'all lined them up in a row they would accept made a line 17 miles long.

What the New York Times didn't show was who stole the coin, or how the system worked. Even with the disclosures the Tweed ring could still experience that if they could keep silent they could all the same get away with information technology. Thomas Nast's cartoon, drawn right later on that disclosure, shows this. Tweed himself is Nast's image of the American politician: big, fat, and arrogant with a silly wait on his confront, kind of ugly. Nast put looks on his characters' faces so that you'd ever recognize them, kind of similar Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny. They're very distinctive pictures. The famous diamond that Tweed's friends gave him for a Christmas present was always on Tweed's chest in the cartoons. It was ten and a one-half karats, valued at $15,000 in 1870 coin; that would be about $300,000 in modernistic coin.

What you meet is the Tammany ring, Tweed, Sweeney, Connelly, and the mayor Okie Hall all standing in a circle with the city contractors. Nash was notoriously bigoted and prejudiced towards the Irish and Catholics, and these characters are typical Irishmen for Nast: looking kind of like a gorilla, large square jaw, smoking a pipage, a whiskey bottle nearby, looking kind of nefarious. Information technology's labeled: Tammany Ring. The caption says "Who stole the people'due south money, do tell." And everyone is pointing to the guy next to him and is saying 'Twas Him.'

This was drawn by a friendlier creative person. It shows a brawl thrown past the Americus Club, which was Tweed's social society. Every year they rented out the New York Academy of Music on Union Foursquare and threw a big party.

Here you come across Tweed looking large but graceful, the middle of attention, with people looking on in admiration. He's dancing a jig; he has a presence in the room. In existent life he was about 300 lbs. Eating was the one major vice that he admitted to. He didn't smoke and he rarely drank, although when friends would come to visit he would always be set with the cigars and whiskey bottles to give out favors.

Tweed was someone who, when he came into a room would work the oversupply, make sure he got to know anybody. He would become up to you, milkshake your hand, tell you lot a story, share a joke, pat you on the back, and brand sure by the time the night was over he knew your proper name, your family, what y'all did for a living. He would probably find some mode to do you a favor, knowing that in this political earth if he did a favor for you, you would exercise one back for him. He was the kind of person who if he promised to practice something for you lot, you could have conviction he would do it; he had a very proficient reputation for, of all things, honesty.

That's the image of Tweed that I like in many ways more than Nast's, though they're both true. Part of the irony of Tweed is that information technology'due south incorrect to be an apologist for him. Yous tin can't simply minimize what he did, and say 'everyone stole and then it'southward not a large deal'. He stole much more than anyone else, but he had a big enough personality that the warm bloodedness of him, his effort to make right by the people around him, was merely as prominent as the stealing. It may have been manipulative, information technology may accept been pragmatic, but so what?

This drawing is from 1875, likewise by Thomas Nast. It has a picture of an old brick building that served as the city jail. Tweed is shown as a giant besides large to fit into the building. His head is sticking out i stop and his anxiety the other. And the caption says "stone walls cannot imprison me, no prison is big enough to hold the boss, in on one side and out at the other."

Nast drew this drawing right at the time of Tweed's famous jailbreak. Past 1875 Tweed recognized he was never getting out of jail, and he decided enough was enough. He paid nigh $60,000 in ransom money and bundled to sneak away. Ultimately, he made it equally far every bit Cuba and then Spain before being re-arrested. He was on the run for about x months, mostly at ocean. The Spanish authorities used Nast cartoons, including this one, to make the identification.

John Guzman: Is the implication that [President Ulysses Due south.] Grant had something to do with the escape and capture of Tweed correct?

Kenneth Ackerman: Definitely with the capture. The Country Department got wind of where Tweed was when he landed on Cuba. At that time, early 1876, the presidential election had started. New York Governor Samuel Tilden was running against Rutherford Hayes, and there was a promise that if Tweed could somehow exist captured and brought back to New York City he could exist used as a weapon confronting Tilden.

So Grant arranged for Tweed to be captured and brought back on a very fast ship. Tweed managed to get air current of it and slip away in Cuba but Grant arranged for the Castilian to mitt him over and send him dorsum. The reason the attempt to employ Tweed against Tilden cruel through was that Tweed's trip back beyond the ocean was plagued past very, very bad conditions and it took them twice as long as they expected.

As far every bit Grant or others beingness implicated in the escape itself, this gets into the realm of the very mysterious. There was clearly a helper, a human name Hunt, who joined Tweed in Florida and became his personal guide as they traveled through Cuba and and so Kingdom of spain. Who this Hunt was is one of the neat mysteries of the whole story. When he was arrested in Spain along with Tweed they were originally both to be extradited to New York City. Just at the final minute instructions came from Washington through the State Department to the American ministry in Spain proverb "nosotros want Tweed only, we don't want Hunt." And so Chase was allow become. And information technology has ever been a mystery who this person was.

TWEED'South LEGACY

Gotham Gazette: In the title of your book you lot say that Tweed "conceived the soul of modern New York." What do you mean by that?

Kenneth Ackerman: I was looking at personality. I saw in Tweed a person who was bold and smart and brassy. Whatever he did was the biggest, the most and the boldest, whether information technology was the way he went nigh fixing an ballot, or the house that he built on fifth Avenue, or the manner he paved the streets, or the wedding he threw for his daughter.

In the State legislature, Tweed was ane of 32 members when he joined it in the late 1860s; within a year he was the most important fellow member. Non but because he was bribing other members, but considering he was chairman of its 2 most important committees. He was the person who was involved in patronage, not just for New York Metropolis but for the canal system upstate. And that's where I come up with the "one who conceived the soul of modernistic New York." This is his city. This is the biggest city in America, and Tweed would be very comfortable with people who say that if it is not in New York it is non very of import.

Gotham Gazette: And then by "soul" you mean basically the bigness of information technology?

Kenneth Ackerman: The bigness, the personality, the energy, the confidence, to some extent the arrogance. It's role of our national persona besides, but New York had it offset and demonstrates information technology the virtually.

Gotham Gazette: On the front page of the New York Times today, there is an article almost Albany which lists, scandal by scandal, the corruption that'south nevertheless going on. It mentions Guy Velella; it mentions an aide to the governor who gave a contract to a friend running a non-existent company; it mentions former The states Senator Al D'Amato, who was paid $500,000 to make a uncomplicated phone call. Is at that place some of Tweed in that likewise?

Kenneth Ackerman: There's some of Tweed in that. The political corruption lives at all levels today as it did then, although not in equally outward class. There are more than checks and balances today on corruption than in that location were in the 1860s and 1870s, probably because of Tweed. Today in that location are ethics committees in legislatures, and police force enforcement is much more adult. The amount of record keeping that goes on for legislators' gifts, for instance, makes it much more difficult to be corrupt on that level. The cash accounting in the metropolis government is worlds more advanced than information technology was in the 1870s. For someone to try to steal a billion dollars today from New York Urban center, I'1000 not going to say it'south incommunicable, but information technology would certainly not expect similar what Tweed did.

The places where you practice have corruption on that level is in the corporate globe.

What's like is that the incentives are still there. Even though you don't have legislative bribery the fashion you did during the Tweed era in the country legislature, the amount of money that today goes to pay for members of Congress and United States senators and their campaigns is to some extent outrageous, fifty-fifty though it's legal.

Gotham Gazette: How about for mayor?

Kenneth Ackerman: Information technology's still early on in the mayor's race, so we'll run across how that one goes. Mr. Bloomberg is bringing a lot of his own money to this.

What I do recollect is interesting is how much money city taxpayers pay for sports stadiums for teams that brand tens of millions of dollars a year. We recently had a discussion about this in Washington D.C. where the city government is ending up paying $800 million for a new stadium for the Nationals baseball game team. When they tried to fight information technology, Major League baseball game threatened to pull the squad out of town and the city caved. New York Metropolis had a lot more backbone on this than we did.

Gotham Gazette: But are the stadium problems Tweedian in some light?

Kenneth Ackerman: Well it is and information technology isn't. When I call something "Tweed-ish" to me it's not necessarily an insult. Something similar the Jets stadium has Tweed written all over it. Tweed loved big projects that cost a lot of coin, such every bit the Brooklyn Bridge or a large new edifice. He liked things that would employ hundreds or thousands of people, would send coin to dozens of subcontractors and businesses, and would develop the economic system in a part of the city.

Now certainly in Tweed's twenty-four hours there were cuts and padding all forth the way, and jobs could be directed to your friends. Today there are union contracts and contracting rules that control that to some extent. So I don't think the dishonesty is there to anywhere virtually the extent in the Tweed Era. Only the idea of big public works projects designed to keep people employed worked for Tweed and works today.

A lot of what Tweed built turned out in hindsight to be very useful. It was basically the infrastructure of the city, the sewer lines, the bridges, the parks, the sidewalks, things that have a lot of utilize. The question, which is a question of judgment, is whether a sports stadium 50 years from at present is going to exist considered useful.

Martha Soffer: Did Tweed have any influence on Robert Moses?

Kenneth Ackerman: There are some similarities to Robert Moses, caveat the corruption. Merely large-scale building was Tweed's signature, every bit it was later to become Moses' signature. Whether Tweed would have had the same attitude about breaking up neighborhoods is a whole other question. Part of the controversy with Robert Moses is that he felt so strongly about edifice highways that he was willing to run a path correct through the middle of the South Bronx or right through the middle of Midtown Manhattan, regardless of the side effects that that would crusade. Whether Tweed would have been more conscientious is a hypothetical question. Nosotros don't really know the respond. He plainly built a lot of big things but he was also someone with his ear to the ground in the neighborhoods, because he knew that was his base of back up.

TWEED'Southward Arrangement

Gotham Gazette: Your book deals mainly with Tweed'southward crimes. Merely Pete Hamill wrote in the New York Times that "One thing was certain: because of Tweed, New York got better, fifty-fifty for the poor." Yous seemed to be alluding to that. Do you agree with that, and what do you call back were Tweed's main tangible accomplishments, aside from getting rich?

Kenneth Ackerman: Well, getting rich is an accomplishment. Only I practice agree with Hamill; part of the beauty and the irony of Tweed'south system was that when it was working information technology did seem to work for anybody. The Tweed band, when it ran metropolis government, kept taxes low while spending lavishly on metropolis improvements. Property values were up all over town.

It was a little similar the era of the 1990s: the economy was very good and the stock market was on a gyre. This was the period correct later the Civil War, when railroads were having a blast, and telegraphs and even agriculture were having a good decade, and all of that money came into New York Metropolis. And then there were a lot of factors causing the boom, but Tweed was encouraging it, he was riding it, and he was spending that money on the metropolis while keeping taxes down.

Equally a result the city's wealthy class very much supported him. When he first got in trouble with the New York Times, he was able to get a group of city elders led by John Jacob Astor III, one of the wealthiest men in boondocks, to go and look at the city books and publicly give them their approval. At the aforementioned time Tweed did a lot of positive things for the poor, bringing immigrants into the political mainstream. Fifty-fifty though that may have been a cold-blooded pragmatic deal, it worked for the benefit of all. He was very loyal in terms of rewarding his friends, giving jobs to backers of his party.

When people, primarily Irish immigrants, would come out on election day and vote ten, 20, 30 times that was not considered something to be embarrassed nearly. That was something many were proud of; it was your way of breaking in as a political party worker. That would be a way for you to go a city job, to put staff of life on the tabular array for your family unit, and to exist part of the American mainstream. At that place are descriptions of these large demonstrations for Tweed either in Union Square or Tweed Plaza at what is at Culvert St. and East Broadway. People would march backside placards proverb "Tammany repeater."

But the picture is non complete unless you mention that there was a large crack in the middle of it. A lot of the money that was being spent, both for good and for bad, came from borrowing. Information technology came from outsiders. Basically, Comptroller Richard Connolly financed the city past issuing dozens of kinds of stocks and bonds: park improvement bonds, courthouse improvement bonds, street comeback bonds, literally dozens of kinds that were beingness sold to Wall Street and to investors in Europe. In the three or four years that Tweed and his group were in command the city debt rose from about $thirty 1000000 to shut to $100 million. That was the crack in the system. Information technology's a little bit like a cock-eyed Robin Hood. Tweed is similar Robin Hood, if y'all assume that Robin Hood steals from the rich simply keeps the beginning third for himself, gives the next 3rd to the merry men, gives another cut of iv or five percent to the local newspapers in Sherwood Wood to write good stories about what he does, encourages the poor to join the merry men so they can become a part of the take, and then gives the residue to the poor. Assume as well that he doesn't steal from the rich in Sherwood Wood, just from the rich people two forests over. There you have Tweed.

Joan DeCamp: I'm interested in the stocks equally a fashion to heighten money. Today that would accept to be done through public referendum, or past going through Albany. What was the political construction that would allow them to practise this, and what somewhen became of those bonds? I'm bold that the robber barons and their friends knew better than to buy these.

Kenneth Ackerman: The way the city government structured itself was very dissimilar. Up through the late 1860s, Albany had gotten very involved in metropolis regime: it controlled the urban center legislature, information technology created a board of supervisors with 12 members (six Democrats and 6 Republicans) which was supposed to make the urban center clean. By and large you could raise bonds almost by fiat if you could become the approval of the mayor and the comptroller.

The beauty of Tweed'south system was that he managed to put allies at each of the key power points. In 1870 Tweed pushed through the legislature what was called the Tweed Charter, that solidified the structure and basically fabricated Tweed, Sweeney, and Connelly united nations-removable. It gave them all revolving terms of half dozen to 8 years, and then their ability could not exist broken. For a while the lath of alderman had power of the pocketbook, but that was taken away during this menstruation likewise. Chamberlain Peter Sweeney actually controlled the bank accounts, and was the 1 who actually had access to the Treasury.

Nether Tweed'south organisation if you lot were a contactor who supplied anything from stationery to services to plastering to painting to construction to the metropolis, you had to submit your bills to the board of supervisors. Basically Tweed had an organization with a few allies that when bills went through him you had to add together xv percentage; that was the gratuity to the politicians for approving it. Over time they grew bolder: that number went upward to 25, 35, 45, ultimately 65 percent at its height.

As far equally what happened to all the bonds, some of them were considered a good investment for a while. But when the New York Times came out with its stories that provoked a crisis. The fiscal customs was apoplectic and European bondholders suddenly cutting off money. In August New York bonds stopped being traded on the Berlin Stock Exchange; that month there was also a bond offering in August on which the city received no bids. The Wall Street community realized that if the urban center defaulted not only would their own bond portfolios decrease in value but they would never go another penny from European investors.

The person who saved the 24-hour interval on the bonds was Andrew Green. Andrew Green was a very prominent reformer. He had been head of the Fundamental Park commission and a leader of the New York Board of Education. When Tilden engineered his takeover of the comptroller'south office - which was i of the key turning points of this whole thing - he figured out a way to get Connolly out. Connolly couldn't exist fired, only if they could get him to appoint a deputy then the deputy couldn't be fired, either. Connelly went over to the reformers side, and they arranged for Green to become deputy in the expressionless of night during the weekend when no one was noticing.

It was a very, very gutsy thing for Green to take over. He came in with almost 20 policemen and a squad of clerks and took over the comptroller's role. Nobody in metropolis government would talk to him. There were threats that metropolis police would come in with bayonets and kick him out, and he had to get his own police squad ready to fight for the role. Still, Green came in and stabilized the city government.

The first matter he did [was take] an inventory of how much actual cash was on paw, and he practical all of it to the city'southward next involvement payment on its bonds. There was a period for about iv or five weeks where there was no money to pay the salary of any urban center workers. Crowds of forty, 50, sixty, 100, or 200 hungry, angry urban center workers - very tough people who had blood on their hands from recent riots - were threatening Andrew Light-green and others to pay their bills. This was the level that politics was on for a while. It took well-nigh ii or three months to settle downwards. It took several years for Green and William Havemeyer, the next mayor who lasted only a brusque while as well, to restore the metropolis's credit. The problem of these bonds hung over the city for years.

Martha Soffer: Did the police force and the burn down department became Irish gaelic under Tweed?

Kenneth Ackerman: The Irish immigrants were starting to become very engaged in politics during this period. The get-go high profile Irishmen in Tammany Hall actually came in the 1850s a fiddling bit earlier. John Kelly, who would later get the Tammany boss, was a Congressman in the 1850s. In that location was a guy named Lynch who was the editor of the Leader, the Tammany newspaper, during the Civil State of war. Matthew Brennan is some other who was prominent very early on on. Just during the Tweed Era the Irish were probably the biggest immigrant group that Tammany had that kind of close agree over. There was a very large High german immigrant group in New York Metropolis equally well, although German voters tended to be more than independent politically. Some were Republicans, some were skeptical of Tweed, and in fact the German newspaper was one of the ones that questioned Tweed early.

CHALLENGING THE TWEED Legend

Gotham Gazette: Was i of the misconceptions about Tweed that he was Irish? Is that one of the current misconceptions?

Kenneth Ackerman: He's not Irish. You do see every at present and and then a reference to him equally existence either Irish gaelic or Catholic because he was then tied to them. In fact when Nast and the New York Times were going afterward Tweed they tried to necktie him to the Irish gaelic and the Catholics every bit a style of pummeling him publicly. But Tweed's family was Protestant. There was once when he was checking in to the Blackwell'southward Island Penitentiary on Roosevelt Isle in the East River, and Tweed was first asked "What'due south your occupation?" and he said "Statesman"; and then he was asked "What's your organized religion?" and he said "None, my family is Protestant just for me none."

Gotham Gazette: That was already when he was in jail though. He might have said something different when he was even so running for role.

Kenneth Ackerman: This was an era when people did actually endeavour to distance themselves on religious issues. This wasn't an era where you wore your faith on your sleeve like you do today.

Gotham Gazette: You lot seem to speak of Tweed with a tone of sympathy. Did y'all like him so much when you started, or were there conceptions that you lot had of Tweed that changed throughout the time that y'all were writing this book?

Kenneth Ackerman: I guess my conception of Tweed did change while I was writing the book. My original formulation of Tweed came from writing the book The Gold Ring, which I wrote in the belatedly 1980s. Information technology is about Jay Gould and Jim Fisk and their attempt to corner the gold marketplace in 1869. In researching that story Tweed is always in the groundwork, and I got the impression that during that catamenia that nothing could happen in New York City without Tweed. When he got involved in something, it might be very crooked and corrupt and shady, but information technology always had a certain sense of organization. Tweed was someone who wouldn't steal something in a sloppy way. If he set about trying to manipulate an election he would do it in an organized, systematic mode, throwing himself at it totally. He wouldn't do anything one-half-heartedly.

It is well known that Tweed stole between $xl meg and $200 million, depending on the count. The thing that grabs your attending is that he wasn't an ignorant man or just another corrupt politician.

When you lot write about someone like Dominate Tweed yous know at the offset that the man is crooked, that part isn't the surprising function. The matter that I actually wasn't enlightened of was the extent to which the people who attacked Tweed stretched the rules to attack him. Most of the time he was existence held in jail, he was existence held on a pretext that would exist laughed out of court today. The people attacking him had conflicting interests that were apparent to people at the fourth dimension but get lost to the states today. Samuel Tilden was really edifice a case for himself for the presidency. Then there was the man who brought Tweed down less directly, the canton sheriff for New York Urban center, Jimmy O'Brien. He managed to get his hands on the comptroller's office ledgers and give them to the New York Times; these are what became the secret accounts. O'Brien got his hands on these books primarily to try to bribery Tweed for $350,000.

TWEED AND TAMMANY

Volume Order Member: What does Tammany correspond?

Kenneth Ackerman: The Tammany Society goes back to the Revolutionary War. It started every bit a social lodge, named after an Indian main, Principal Tamanend. Information technology's not articulate whether he was real or legendary, only he's noted for meeting William Penn when he landed in Pennsylvania, and at that place are also stories that he fought a great battle confronting an evil spirit that resulted in the creation of Niagara Falls. That's why there are Indian names all through the organization - the leaders are called "sachems" and the building is chosen the "wigwam."

Gotham Gazette: Your volume is about the rise and autumn of Tweed specifically, only Tammany Hall actually didn't fall with him. Can you become into what happened to Tammany afterwards? Why didn't information technology collapse if Tweed was the driving force behind the whole organisation?

Kenneth Ackerman: Tammany Hall as an establishment remained agile and effective for near ninety years after Tweed. Afterward the Tweed fiasco, John Kelly became the next boss. His nickname was "Honest John." He was the sheriff, and he was mostly an honest sheriff. When Mayor Havemeyer once accused him of corruption, Kelley actually brought a defamation lawsuit against him. (Havemeyer died in office before it could exist litigated). Kelley was a very potent person and he rebuilt the auto, got it off the floor and got it working again and later on that at that place were a number of very strong bosses.

Tammany had a very deep base built past Tweed's generation and the generation before him that could non be easily eliminated. The base amidst the immigrant communities, the network of local clubs and committees, stretched to literally every block in New York City.

The auto also provided services and people were loyal to it. In the early on function of this century, ane of the well-nigh prominent people information technology produced was Alfred Smith, who was eventually nominated for president of the Us. He had a progressive outlook, which came in part from the Tammany attitude of trying to deal with the real life problems of the people that it represented. Smith brought that into the legislative and political arenas in a way that no 1 else had up until that time. It subsequently became the foundation for the New Deal.

Tammany remained potent until the 1930s, and at that point Fiorello LaGuardia was elected mayor. LaGuardia was a combination Republican-Fusionist-Liberal - he had several lines on the ballot, but the Democratic line was non one of them. Every bit a result for a menses of about a dozen years Tammany was cut off from patronage. And that was when they lost the nice building on Spousal relationship Square and they moved into an role suite in an role building. Effectually that time Tammany and the Democratic political party split.

Tammany Hall had a resurgence in the 1950s under the boss a man name Ruby-red De Sapio who became prominent behind a number of leading politicians. He was knocked down past a group of reformers in the early 1960s. There were abuse charges and he spent a couple of years in jail. The nice tie-in to modern times is that De Sapio's concluding defeat came in a local election in this neighborhood where we're sitting right now, Greenwich Village. It was over a local leadership position, and he was defeated past a man named Edward Koch. Koch later went on to become mayor.

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Source: https://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/government/2878-boss-tweed

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