ABSTRACT
George Washington Plunkitt was the boss of the infamous turn-of-the-century New York City political machine, Tammany Hall. Journalist William Riordan listened to Plunkitt’s talks and published them as interviews in various local newspapers. In 1905, he published them in a book, which became a classic on American urban politics, one still widely read today. It is in the first pages of the book where Plunkitt gets his enduring fame, when he explains his ill-gotten wealth (Riordon, 2004, pp. 3–4):
Everybody is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There’s all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I’ve made a big fortune out of the game, and I’m gettin’ richer every day, but I’ve not gone in for dishonest graft – blackmailin’ gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc. – and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics. There’s an honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin’: ‘I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.’
