George Washington Plunkitt

"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. p. 3, first line"

"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.” p. 3"

"Every good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn’t isn’t likely to be popular. p. 5"

"If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I give it to a friend. Why shouldn’t I do the same in public life? p.6"

"Another kind of honest graft. Tammany has raised a good many salaries. There was an awful howl by the reformers, but don’t you know that Tammany gains ten votes for every one it lost by salary raisin’? p. 6"

"The Wall Street banker thinks it shameful to raise a department clerk’s salary from $1500 to $1800 a year, but every man who draws a salary himself says: “That’s all right. I wish it was me.” And he feels very much like votin’ the Tammany ticket on election day, just out of sympathy. p. 6"

"As a matter of policy, if nothing else, why should the Tammany leaders go into such dirty business, when there is so much honest graft lyin’ around when they are in power? p. 6"

"Some young men think they can learn how to be successful in politics from books, and they cram their heads with all sorts of college rot. They couldn’t make a bigger mistake. p. 7"

"The men who rule have practiced keepin’ their tongues still, not exercisin’ them. p. 8"

"This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age. It is the curse of the nation. p. 11"

"I know more than one young man in past years who worked for the ticket and was just overflowin’ with patriotism, but when he was knocked out by the civil service humbug he got to hate his country and became an Anarchist. p. 11"

"Isn’t it enough to make a man sour on his country when he wants to serve it and won’t be allowed unless he answers a lot of fool questions about the number of cubic inches of water in the Atlantic and the quality of sand in the Sahara desert? p. 11"

"I knew what was comin’ when a young Irishman drops whisky and takes to beer and long pipes in a German saloon. That young man is today one of the wildest Anarchists in town. p. 12"

"What did the people mean when they voted for Tammany? What is representative government, anyhow? Is it all a fake that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people? If it isn't a fake, then why isn't the people's voice obeyed and Tammany men put in all the offices? p. 12"

"I know that the civil service humbug is stuck into the constitution, too, but, as Tim Campbell said: “What’s the constitution among friends?” p. 13"

"I ain’t up on sillygisms, but I can give you some arguments that nobody can answer. p. 13"

"Before then when a party won, its workers got everything in sight. That was somethin’ to make a man patriotic. p. 14"

"The boys and men don’t get excited any more when they see a United States flag or hear “The Star-Spangled Banner.” They don’t care no more for firecrackers on the Fourth of July. And why should they? What is there in it for them? p. 14"

"They learned how to put up a pretty good bluff—and bluff counts a lot in politics. p. 18"

"Politics is as much a regular business as the grocery or the dry-goods or the drug business. You've got to be trained up to it or you're sure to fail. p. 19"

"I've been studyin’ the political game for forty-five years, and I don’t know it all yet. I’m learnin’ somethin’ all the time. How, then, can you expect what they call “business men” to turn into politics all at once and make a success of it? p. 19"

"That’s the a, b, c of politics. It ain’t easy work to get up to q and z. You have to give nearly all your time and attention to it. p. 20"

"The hayseeds think we are like the Indians to the National Government—that is, sort of wards of the State, who don’t know how to look after ourselves and have to be taken care of by the Republicans of St. Lawrence, Ontario, and other backwoods counties. p. 21"

"You can’t study human nature in books. Books is a hindrance more than anything else. p. 25"

"If you have been to college, so much the worse for you. You'll have to unlearn all you learned before you can get right down to human nature, and unlearnin’ takes a lot of time. Some men can never forget what they learned at college. p. 25"

"I rope them all in by givin’ them opportunities to show themselves off. I don’t trouble them with political arguments. I just study human nature and act accordin’. p. 26"

"There’s the biggest kind of a difference between political looters and politicians who make a fortune out of politics by keepin’ their eyes wide open. The looter goes in for himself alone without considerin’ his organization or his city. The politician looks after his own interests, the organization’s interests, and the city’s interests all at the same time. See the distinction? p. 29"

"The politician who steals is worse than a thief. He is a fool. With the grand opportunities all around for the man with a political pull, there’s no excuse for stealin’ a cent. p. 32"

"The politicians who make a lastin’ success in politics are the men who are always loyal to their friends, even up to the gate of State prison, if necessary; men who keep their promises and never lie. p. 35"

"Richard Croker used to say that tellin’ the truth and stickin’ to his friends was the political leader’s stock in trade. p. 35"

"The Irish, above all people in the world, hates a traitor. p. 35"

"Men ain’t in politics for nothin’. They want to get somethin’ out of it. p. 37"

"It’s because a Brooklynite is a natural-born hayseed, and can never become a real New Yorker. p. 41"

"Consolidation didn’t make him a New Yorker, and nothin’ on earth can. A man born in Germany can settle down and become a good New Yorker. So can an Irishman; in fact, the first word an Irish boy learns in the old country is “New York,” and when he grows up and comes here, he is at home right away. Even a Jap or a Chinaman can become a New Yorker, but a Brooklynite never can. p. 41"

"Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn’s cobblestones, with the odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there’s no place in the world for him except Brooklyn. p. 41"

"Most of the leaders are plain American citizens, of the people and near to the people, and they have all the education they need to whip the dudes who part their name in the middle and to run the City Government. p. 45"

"He eats corned beef and kosher meat with equal nonchalance, and it’s all the same to him whether he takes off his hat in the church or pulls it down over his ears in the synagogue. p. 48"

"Putin’ on style don’t pay in politics. p. 50"

"I know it’s an awful temptation, the hankerin’ to show off your learnin’. I’ve felt it myself, but I always resist it. I know the awful consequences. p. 53"

"Don't show off your learning; that's just another way of style."

"Who is better fitted to run the railroads and the gas plants and the ferries than the men who make a business of lookin’ after the interests of the city? p. 54"

"You can’t be patriotic on a salary that just keeps the wolf from the door. p. 56"

"Jimmy O’Brien brought the manufacture of “Democracies” down to an exact science, and reduced the cost of production so as to bring it within the reach of all. Any man with $50 can now have a “Democracy” of his own. p. 58"

"Say, ain’t some of the papers awful gullible about politics? p. 59"

"There’s always a certain number of suckers and a certain number of men lookin’ for a chance to take them in, and the suckers are sure to be took one way or another. It’s the everlastin’ law of demand and supply. p. 60"

"What’s the use of havin’ ill-smellin’ gashouses if there’s no votes in them? p. 62"

"The railroad is a great public institution, and I was never an enemy of public institutions. p. 63"

"The time is comin’ and though I’m no youngster, I may see it, when New York City will break away from the State and become a state itself. p. 65"

"Say, I don’t wish I was a poet, for if I was, I guess I’d be livin’ in a garret on no dollars a week instead of runnin’ a great contractin’ and transportation business which is doin’ pretty well, thank you; but, honest, now, the notion takes me sometimes to yell poetry of the red-hot-hail-glorious-land kind when I think of New York City as a state by itself. p. 67"

"The name-parted-in-the-middle aristocrats act in just the same way. They don’t want to be annoyed with firecrackers and the Declaration of Independence, and when they see the Fourth comin’ they hustle off to the woods like my dog. p. 71"