By DEACON MIKE MANNO
There was once a political machine that controlled New York City and much of New York State as well. It was formed in 1786 and became the repository of all the notable political leaders of the day, as well as their henchmen. It was a place where the local Democrats ruled and, if you wanted to get ahead, you joined and worked your way up.
It was called The Tammany Society, taking its name from Tamanend, a tribal leader of the Lenape Tribe, and using American Indian names to designate their leaders, such as the Great Sacherm, for its leader. Of course, we know it today from history as Tammany Hall.
In 1842 in a shanty town outside of what is now Manhattan, a baby was born and given the name George Washington Plunkitt. Young George grew up in rough times, working as a butcher’s apprentice before starting a construction business. Being attracted to politics he joined the Tammany Society and ultimately was elected to several terms in both the New York Assembly and Senate, where he amassed a fortune.
At the turn of the last century, he sat down with a reporter, William L. Riordon, for a series of articles on his life and political thoughts. Those articles were later published in a popular book, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, in 1905. That book was recommended to me by my graduate political science professor, and later I assigned it to my political science students in my State and Local Government classes.
If you can find the book, buy it, download it, borrow it, but read it. It will put a smile on your face and questions in your head, and you won’t forget it.
But there was one chapter in the book you should read first, which isn’t hard since it is the first chapter on “Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft.” In it, Sen. Plunkitt explains how he became wealthy during his numerous terms in office.
“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 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,” he said.
He then went on to explain what honest graft is, using example after example. In the first he tells of the city planning a new park at a designated place. He, of course, is tipped off about the plan and its location and, before any public notice is given, he goes out and buys the land at rock-bottom prices and after the park announcement is made he sells it for a nice profit.
“Ain’t it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that’s honest graft,” he says.
Other examples he used, including hiring practices and pay raises for city employees, buying up land for a bridge before public notice, then selling it when plans are announced; buying up old granite bricks dug up from a street re-paving project and manipulating the bidding so that he was able to purchase the lot for pennies; swamp land that would be needed to complete a park — all examples of honest graft, famously saying, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.”
This, he says is, how he got rich from honest graft and how most other politicians get rich the same way, they never steal a dollar from public coffers, they just seen their opportunities and took ‘em.
“That is why, when a reform administration comes in and spends a half-million dollars in tryin’ to find the public robberies they talked about in the campaign, they don’t find them.
“The books are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all right. Everything is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany heads of departments looked after their friends, within the law, and gave them what opportunities they could to make honest graft.”
Now you might wonder why I bring this matter to you.
In the past few weeks, a House committee has reported on some rather questionable cash payments to Biden family members, including several grandchildren of the president. While the specific origin and purpose of the monetary transfers remain hazy, the origins appear to be mostly foreign, and the money was delivered through at least twenty different corporations, all formed by a Biden family member in Delaware and Washington, D.C.
Now I am not a criminal lawyer, nor have I ever investigated an operation such as this, but my colleagues who have described this as classic money laundering. Empty corporations are formed as a device to obscure the source of said funds and to make it more difficult to connect the source of the money to the eventual recipient. That was plainly shown by the House committee.
What is important here is the response by Biden political defenders in the Democratic Party and in the media
“Nothing here,” they shout, claiming that there is no direct link to the president as a recipient. Some party loyalists claim that while this may look bad for the president, it is not illegal. The media have for the most part taken up a similar defense. The New York Times headline was: “House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden.”
It reported that, “After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family, the first report of the premier House GOP inquiry showed no proof of such misconduct.”
And Time Magazine reported: “[The House] Investigation of Biden Relatives Swings and Misses on Allegations of Influence Peddling.”
And so, the question arises: Is this the Twenty-First Century version of honest graft? Perpetuated by successors of the original Tammany men? Or is the Biden Bunch just victims of an overzealous political witch-hunt?
Either that or we have a new political family living by the motto: We seen our opportunities and we took ’em.
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