AMERICAN POLITICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 162, 18 October 1910, Page 5

AMERICAN POLITICS

[MR. TAFT AND MR. ROOSEVELT. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. ! New York, >Mr. Taft has asked Cabinet ofiicers to assist Mr. Roosevelt's campaign in New York. He states that he does not believe the story that Mr. Roosevelt is again a candidate for the presidency. Mr. Roosevelt was reported in yester-1 day's cables -to have denounced the, al- I liance between the money interests of WalWstreet and the Tammany "bosses" of New York as a combination of the corruptest business men and the eorruptest political "bosses'' since the days of the notorious Tweed. Ring aftftr the Civil War, when the city was plundered without remorse. During the American Civil War the art of managing the Democratic voters of New York City through the political club known as the Tammany Society was continually improved under the leadership of Mr. William W. Tweed. Before 1870 he had brought the city majority under his control by a very perfect organisation, and had 1 filled the Mayoralty and all the leading administrative offices as well as the common council with his .creatures. He thereupon began an elaborate system of plunder, of which tke main feature was the presentation of enormous bills for work done on a new courthouse, then in process of erection by tradesmen acting as his confederates. To these he paid only a portion of their demands, retaining'the balance, which lie divided in certain portions with his followers. Fraudulent bonds were also issued as a means of defrauding the city, and some authorities on New York history have expressed the opinion that the frauds of the Tweed Ring amounted in the period from 1855 to 1871 to a total of 200,000,000 dollars (£40,000,000). Exposures came in 1.871, and Tweed, after a series of trials and a flight to Spain, was incarcerated in the Ludlow-street gaol, where he died in 1878. It was supposed at the time that Tammany Hall was hopelessly discredited, but after posing for a while as a reform body, with all the objectionable elements rejected, it regained control in 1878. At the New York City elections in November of last year the Mayor, Mr. W. J. Gay nor, was the only Tammany candidate who succeeded at the polls, A writer in the New York Independent of August 15 said of him:—"lf a wrong is found anywhere in the city of New York in these days the finder knows exactly what to do—or else his neighbors inform him: 'Tell it to Oaynor!' They have perfect confidence that the Mayor will know and do the right thing. And this feeling! is not confined to Democrats who voted for Gay nor; Republicans hiv,e it also, so have Labor men, Socialists,

and Independents. "The city thought so well of flavnor last November that he was elected W a plurality of 73,074 votes when all his running mates on the Tammany ticket were defeated. And since then he has been steadily turning enemies into friends. These watched his course it office at first with cynicism, then astonishment, then hope, and, lastly, affaction and admii^ition."