TAMMANY SCROLL––"In My Mind's Eye." Jan.8,1876 (another 'Centennial' Nast drawing). And 'the amount of corruption/power of 'Boss tweed' (third largest landowner in NYC!) is pretty shocking!

https://www.illustrationhistory.org/essays/thomas-nast-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-father-of-political-cartoons

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William M. Tweed

William Magear "Boss" Tweed(April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878) was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party's political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century New York City and State.

At the height of his influence, Tweed was the third-largest landowner in New York City, a director of the Erie Railroad, a director of the Tenth National Bank, a director of the New-York Printing Company, the proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel,^[2] a significant stockholder in iron mines and gas companies, a board member of the Harlem Gas Light Company, a board member of the Third Avenue Railway Company, a board member of the Brooklyn Bridge Company, and the president of the Guardian Savings Bank.^[3]

Tweed was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1852 and the New York County Board of Supervisors in 1858, the year that he became the head of the Tammany Hall political machine. He was also elected to the New York State Senate in 1867. However, Tweed's greatest influence came from being an appointed member of a number of boards and commissions, his control over political patronage in New York City through Tammany, and his ability to ensure the loyalty of voters through jobs he could create and dispense on city-related projects.

Tweed was convicted for stealing an amount estimated by an aldermen's committee in 1877 at between $25 million and $45 million from New York City taxpayers from political corruption, but later estimates ranged as high as $200 million (equivalent to $5 billion in 2023).^[4] Unable to make bail, he escaped from jail once but was returned to custody. He died in the Ludlow Street Jail.

Early life and education

Tweed was born April 3, 1823, at 1 Cherry Street,^[5] on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The son of a third-generation Scottish chair-maker, Tweed grew up on Cherry Street. His grandfather arrived in the United States from a town near the River Tweed close to Edinburgh.^[6] Tweed's religious affiliation was not widely known in his lifetime, but at the time of his funeral The New York Times, quoting a family friend, reported that his parents had been Quakers and "members of the old Rose Street Meeting house".^[7] At the age of 11, he left school to learn his father's trade, and then became an apprentice to a saddler.^[5] He also studied to be a bookkeeper and worked as a brushmaker for a company he had invested in, before eventually joining in the family business in 1852.^[5] On September 29, 1844, he married Mary Jane C. Skaden and lived with her family on Madison Street for two years.^[8]

Early career

Tweed became a member of the Odd Fellows and the Masons,^[9] and joined a volunteer fire company, Engine No. 12.^[5] In 1848, at the invitation of state assemblyman John J. Reilly, he and some friends organized the Americus Fire Company No. 6, also known as the "Big Six", as a volunteer fire company, It took as its symbol a snarling red Bengal tiger from a French lithograph,^[6] a symbol which remained associated with Tweed and Tammany Hall for many years.^[5]

At the time, volunteer fire companies competed vigorously with each other; some were connected with street gangs and had strong ethnic ties to various immigrant communities. The competition could become so fierce, that burning buildings would sometimes be ignored as the fire companies fought each other.^[10] Tweed became known for his ax-wielding violence, and was soon elected the Big Six foreman. Pressure from Alfred Carlson, the chief engineer, got him thrown out of the crew. However, fire companies were also recruiting grounds for political parties at the time, thus Tweed's exploits came to the attention of the Democratic politicians who ran the Seventh Ward. The Seventh Ward put him up for Alderman in 1850, when Tweed was 26. He lost that election to the Whig candidate Morgan Morgans, but ran again the next year and won, garnering his first political position.^[11] Tweed then became associated with the "Forty Thieves", the group of aldermen and assistant aldermen who, up to that point, were known as some of the most corrupt politicians in the city's history.^[6]

Tweed was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1852, but his two-year term was undistinguished.^[12] In an attempt by Republican reformers in Albany, the state capital, to control the Democratic-dominated New York City government, the power of the New York County Board of Supervisors was beefed up. The board had 12 members, six appointed by the mayor and six elected, and in 1858 Tweed was appointed to the board, which became his first vehicle for large-scale graft;

Tweed and other supervisors forced vendors to pay a 15% overcharge to their "ring" in order to do business with the city.^[12] By 1853, Tweed was running the seventh ward for Tammany.^[5] The board also had six Democrats and six Republicans, but Tweed often just bought off one Republican to sway the board. One such Republican board member was Peter P. Voorhis, a coal dealer by profession who absented himself from a board meeting in exchange for $2,500 so that the board could appoint city inspectors. Henry Smith was another Republican that was a part of the Tweed ring.^[6]

Although he was not trained as a lawyer, Tweed's friend, Judge George G. Barnard, certified him as an attorney, and Tweed opened a law office on Duane Street. He ran for sheriff in 1861 and was defeated, but became the chairman of the Democratic General Committee shortly after the election, and was then chosen to be the head of Tammany's general committee in January 1863.

Several months later, in April, he became "Grand Sachem", and began to be referred to as "Boss", especially after he tightened his hold on power by creating a small executive committee to run the club.^[5] Tweed then took steps to increase his income: he used his law firm to extort money, which was then disguised as legal services; he had himself appointed deputy street commissioner – a position with considerable access to city contractors and funding; he bought the New-York Printing Company, which became the city's official printer, and the city's stationery supplier, the Manufacturing Stationers' Company, and had both companies begin to overcharge the city government for their goods and services.^[

Among other legal services he provided, he accepted almost $100,000 from the Erie Railroad in return for favors. He also became one of the largest owners of real estate in the city.^[6] He also started to form what became known as the "Tweed Ring", by having his friends elected to office: George G. Barnard was elected Recorder of New York City; Peter B. Sweeny was elected New York County District Attorney; and Richard B. Connolly was elected City Comptroller.^[12] Other judicial members of the Tweed ring included Albert Cardozo, John McCunn, and John K. Hackett.^[6]

When Grand Sachem Isaac Fowler, who had produced the $2,500 to buy off the Republican Voorhis on the Board of Supervisors, was found to have stolen $150,000 in post office receipts, the responsibility for Fowler's arrest was given to Isaiah Rynders, another Tammany operative who was serving as a United States marshal at the time. Rynders made enough ruckus upon entering the hotel where Fowler was staying that Fowler was able to escape to Mexico.^[6]

With his new position and wealth came a change in style: Tweed began to favor wearing a large diamond in his shirtfront – a habit that Thomas Nast used to great effect in his attacks on Tweed in Harper's Weekly beginning in 1869.

Tweed bought a brownstone to live in at 41 West 36th Street, then a very fashionable area. He invested his now considerable illegal income in real estate, so that by the late 1860s he ranked among the biggest landowners in New York City.^[5]

He became involved in the operation of the New York Mutuals, an early professional baseball club, in the 1860s. He brought in thousands of dollars per home game by dramatically increasing the cost of admission and gambling on the team.^[14] He has been credited with originating the practice of spring training in 1869 by sending the club south to New Orleans to prepare for the season.^[15][16]

Tweed was a member of the New York State Senate (4th D.) from 1868 to 1873, sitting in the 91st, 92nd, 93rd, and 94th New York State Legislatures, but not taking his seat in the 95th and 96th New York State Legislatures. While serving in the State Senate, he split his time between Albany, New York and New York City. While in Albany, he stayed in a suite of seven rooms in Delevan House. Accompanying him in his rooms were his favorite canaries. Guests are presumed to have included members of the Black Horse Cavalry, thirty state legislators whose votes were up for sale.^[17] In the Senate he helped financiers Jay Gould and Big Jim Fisk to take control of the Erie Railroad from Cornelius Vanderbilt by arranging for legislation that legitimized fake Erie stock certificates that Gould and Fisk had issued. In return, Tweed received a large block of stock and was made a director of the company.^[5]

Corruption

WILLIAM MAGEAR TWEED (1823-1878), often erroneously referred to as "William Marcy Tweed", and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century NYC and State. At the height of his influence, Tweed was the third-largest landowner in NYC, a director of the Erie Railroad, a director of the Tenth National Bank, a director of the New-York Printing Company, the proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel, a significant stockholder in iron mines and gas companies, a board member of the Harlem Gas Light Company, a board member of the Third Avenue Railway Company, a board member of the Brooklyn Bridge Company, and the president of the Guardian Savings Bank. Tweed was elected to the New York County Board of Supervisors in 1858, the year that he became the head of the Tammany Hall political machine.

He was also elected to the New York State Senate in 1867, but Tweed's greatest influence came from being an appointed member of a number of boards and commissions, his control over political patronage in New York City through Tammany, and his ability to ensure the loyalty of voters through jobs he could create and dispense on city-related projects. Tweed had for months been under attack from "The New York Times" and Thomas Nast, the cartoonist from "Harper's Weekly."

Regarding Nast's cartoons, Tweed reportedly said, "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures!

Tweed was finally convicted for stealing an amount estimated by an aldermen's committee in 1877 at between $25 million and $45 million from NYC taxpayers from political corruption, but later estimates ranged as high as $200 million. Unable to make bail, he escaped from jail & tried to flee to Spain. The government alerted the Spanish & ironically he was arrested by Spanish police using one of Nast's cartoon pictures for identification, as he stepped off the boat. He was returned to custody & died in the NYC Ludlow Street Jail."

THOMAS NAST (1840-1902) was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon". He was the scourge of Democratic Representative "Boss" Tweed and the Tammany Hall Democratic party political machine & of the Democratic Party in general whom he considered pro-South traitors.

He was also strongly anti-Irish & anti-Catholic Church, since in the 19th century the Irish strongly supported the Democratic Party & were predominately Catholic. Nast considered the Catholic Church as a threat to American values. According to his biographer, Fiona Deans Halloran, Nast was "intensely opposed to the encroachment of Catholic ideas into public education". Among his notable works were the creation of the modern version of Santa Claus----based on the traditional German figures of Sankt Nikolaus and Weihnachtsmann----and the political symbol of the elephant for the Republican Party. Contrary to popular belief, Nast did not create Uncle Sam----the male personification of the American people----or Columbia----the female personification of American values----or the Democratic donkey, though he did popularize these symbols through his artwork.

Nast was associated with the magazine Harper's Weekly from 1859 to 1860 and from 1862 until 1886.

It has been argued by eminent historians that as a political cartoonist, Thomas Nast wielded more influence than any other artist of the 19th century. He not only enthralled a vast audience with boldness and wit, but swayed it time and again to his personal position on the strength of his visual imagination.

President Lincoln called Nast "our best recruiting sergeant" for one of his most celebrated cartoons "Compromise with the South", which was directed against those in the North who opposed the prosecution of the American Civil War, as well as, for drawing battlefields in border and southern states.

President Grant attributed his victory in 1868 to "the sword of Sheridan and the pencil of Thomas Nast." In the 1872 presidential campaign, Nast's ridicule of Horace Greeley's candidacy was especially merciless.

After Grant's victory in 1872, Mark Twain wrote the artist a letter saying: "Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigious victory for Grant----I mean, rather, for Civilization and Progress."

As a crusading civil reformer he helped destroy the corrupt "Boss" Tweed Ring that swindled NYC of millions of dollars. His impact on American public life was formidable enough to profoundly affect the outcome of every presidential election during the period 1864 to 1884.

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