The Reinvention of New York







	III.2 Croker

	There is also Richard Croker, who in some ways makes the point for me that the city boss, even though his position sounds higher, is weaker than the ward boss, because the city boss loses the connection to the neighborhood, to the people he comes from. Croker was born in 1842 in County Cork. He moves to New York with his family when he's only 3 years old and goes only to grammar school. Think of that. He doesn't have the education to become a lawyer or doctor or professor. He doesn't have inherited money to set himself up in business. He doesn't have connections, so he has to think of another way to make it in life. He becomes a volunteer fireman and the leader of the Fourth Avenue Tunnel Gang. Think Park Avenue. Remember how it slopes down between about 30th and 38th Streets? That's the area his gang was from. He was only five feet seven inches tall but supposedly a good fighter. By the way, when I say "good fighters," I mean real unpleasantness. We're not talking about cute little fights between these people. They gouged each other's eyes out. Richard Croker killed somebody at 34th Street and Second Avenue and was charged with murder in 1874, but it was a hung jury. Regardless, or perhaps thanks to that, he worked his way up through Tammany Hall by doing the job and communicating with his ward residents. Tammany was like an army, and you went up through the ranks. Twelve years after the murder charge, he was the head of Tammany Hall, serving from 1886 to 1902, and making $8 million in the process. That's a lot of money in 1902. He owned shares in many businesses, had a mansion away from the slums, bought racehorses, and spent half his time touring Europe, but he was an adept political manipulator. He could not have lasted, as Robert Merton would have said, unless he performed a service that voters thought was necessary. It was something that his voters thought compensated for his corruption. Croker fell from power only when he tried to get a municipal monopoly on the unloading of ice at the docks, because that hit home in the neighborhoods. In other words, those immigrant voters didn't care if he was stealing money from the city, because they weren't paying much of the taxes anyway—that's what the middle class worried about—but when he tried to get a monopoly on, say, the unloading of ice or coal, which they their families needed, that was a different matter altogether. As an example of his power, here is what the New York Times wrote: Croker is the dispenser of place in our municipal government. Croker decides what laws should be enacted by the state legislature. Croker determines who shall be our judges, magistrates, and commissioners. Croker's permission is a necessary first step toward the entrance of a man into Congress. So we're talking about someone who was important. He said politics was a business just like any other. When he was asked for his opinion on silver in the 1890s—it had to do with inflation and deflation and the need to put more money in circulation—Croker growled that he was in favor of all kinds of money, so the more the better. Another part of Tammany Hall's operation had to do with how it got money. If you wanted a job as a policeman or fireman, you not only had to work at election time but also had to peel off a piece your salary to make a contribution to the organization. Returning to Croker: Even after he lost political power, he did pretty well for himself. When he was in his seventies, he married a 23-year-old woman and moved to Ireland.