Name: Gilded Age Politics:Crash Course US History #26
Uploaded: 2018-03-28T11:06:42.000Z
Duration: 13 min 51 s
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Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course:
US History, and today we're going to continue

our look at the Gilded Age by focusing on
political science.

Mr. Green, Mr. Green, so it's another history
class where we don't actually talk about

history?
Oh, Me From the Past, your insistence on trying

to place academic exploration into little
boxes creates a little box that you yourself

will live in for the rest of your life if
you don't put your interdisciplinary party

hat on.
So the Gilded Age takes its name from a book

by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that
was called The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

It was published in 1873 and it was not that
successful, but while The Gilded Age conjures

up visions of fancy parties and ostentatious
displays of wealth, the book itself was about

politics, and it gives a very negative appraisal
of the state of American democracy at the

time.
Which shouldn't come as a huge surprise

coming from Twain, whose comments about Congress
included, “Suppose you were an idiot. And

suppose you were a member of Congress. But
I repeat myself.”

And also, “It could probably be shown by
facts and figures that there is no distinctly

Native American criminal class except Congress.”
So when faced with the significant changes

taking place in the American economy after
the Civil War, America's political system

both nationally and locally dealt with these
problems in the best way possible: by becoming

Stan says I have to take off my party hat.
Rrrr rrrr rrrrr....

So House Speaker Tip O'Neill once famously
said that all politics is local and although

that's not actually true, I am going to
start with local politics today, specifically

with one of America's greatest inventions,
the urban political machine.

So a political machine is basically an organization
that works to win elections so that it can

exercise power. The most famous political
machine was New York City's Tammany Hall,

which dominated Democratic party politics
in the late 19th century, survived until the

20th, and is keenly associated with corruption.
Oh, it's already time for the Mystery Document?

This is highly unorthodox, Stan. Well, the
rules here are simple.

I guess the author of the Mystery Document.
I'm usually wrong and I get shocked with

the shock pen.
Alright, let's see what we've got here.

“My party's in power in the city, and
it's going to undertake a lot of public

improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say,
that they're going to lay out a new park

at a certain place and I buy up all the land
I can in the neighborhood. Then the board

of this or that makes its plan public, and
there is a rush to get my land, which nobody

cared particular for before. Ain't it perfectly
honest to charge a good price and make a profit

on my investment and foresight. Of course
it is. That's honest graft.”

Stan, I know this one. It's about machine
politics. It's from New York. It doesn't

say it's from New York, but it is because
it is George Plunkitt. Yes! How do you like

them apples?
Oh, you wanna know the name of the book? It's

“Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.” Stan, transition
me back to the desk with a Libertage, please.

Plunkitt became famous for writing a book
describing the way that New York City's

government actually worked, but he was a small
fish compared with the most famous shark-like

machine politician of the day, William “Boss”
Tweed, seen here with a head made of money.

“Boss” Tweed basically ran New York in
the late 1860s and early 1870s, and his greatest

feat of swindling helps explain how the machine
system worked.

It revolved around the then-new County Courthouse
that now houses the New York City Department

of Education.
Building the courthouse was initially estimated

to cost around $250,000, but ended up costing
$13 million by the time it was finished in

1871.
Included in that cost was a bill of $180,000

for three tables and forty chairs, $1.5 million
for lighting fixtures, and $41,000 for brooms

and cleaning supplies.
A plasterer received $500,000 for his initial

job and then $1 million to repair his shoddy
work.

The standard kickback in these situations
was that Tammany Hall received two dollars

for every one dollar received by the contractor.
That may seem like a bad deal for contractors,

but remember: That plasterer still got to
keep half a million dollars, which is worth

about $9 million in today's money.
Now of course that makes it sound like political

machines were pure evil, especially if you
were a taxpayer footing the bill for that

courthouse.
But machines also provided valuable services

to immigrants and other poor people in cities.
As Plunkitt explained, Tammany could help

families in need:
“I don't ask whether they are Republicans

or Democrats, and I don't refer them to
the Charity Organization Society, which would

investigate their case in a month or two and
decide they were worthy of help about the

time they are dead from starvation. I just
get quarters for them, buy clothes for them

if their clothes were burned up, and fix them
up until they get things running again.”

In return for this help, Tammany expected
votes so that they could stay in power. Staying

in power meant control of city jobs as well
as city contracts. Plunkitt claimed to know

“every big employer in the district – and
in the whole city, for that matter --- and

they ain't in the habit of saying no to
me when I ask them for a job.”

But with all the corruption, sometimes even
that wasn't enough. Fortunately Tammany

politicians could always fall back on fraud.
Tammany found bearded men to vote, then took

them to the barber to shave off the beard,
but left the moustache, so that they could

vote a second time. And then, they would shave
off the 'stache so they could vote for a

third.
And then of course, there was always violence

and intimidation. By the end of the century
a Tammany regular lamented the good old days

when, “It was wonderful to see my men slug
the opposition to preserve the sanctity of

the ballot.”
But, corruption wasn't limited to big cities

like New York and Chicago. Some of the biggest
boondoggles involved the United States Congress

and the executive branch under president Ulysses
Grant.

The first big scandal, dubbed the “King
of Frauds” by the New York Sun, involved

Credit Mobilier, the construction company
that did most of the road building for the

Union Pacific Railroad.
This two pronged accusation involved, first:

overcharging the public for construction costs
and siphoning off profits to Credit Mobilier,

and second: bribery of Congressmen.
Now, this second charge was, of course, much

juicier and also more partisan because only
Republican congressmen, including the Speaker

of the House, were implicated in it.
Eventually Massachusetts Congressman Oakes

Ames was found guilty of giving bribes, but
no one was ever found guilty of receiving

those bribes. As you can imagine, that did
wonders for the reputation of Congress.

The second major scandal involved the so-called
Whiskey Ring, which was a group of distillers

in St. Louis who decided that they didn't
like paying excise taxes on their product,

perhaps a slightly more noble cause than that
of the 2009 Bling Ring, who just wanted to

dress like Paris Hilton.
John McDonald, a Grant administration official,

helped distillers reduce their taxes by intentionally
undercounting the number of kegs of booze.

But then in 1875, the tax evasion grew out
of control. And McDonald eventually confessed

and was convicted, thereby tainting the presidency
with corruption just as Credit Mobilier had

tainted Congress.
That leaves the Supreme Court untainted, but

don't worry, the Dred Scott decision is
worth at least, like, eighty years of tainting.

So with all this distrust in government, after
Grant served two terms, presidential elections

featured a series of one-termers: Hayes, Garfield
(whose term was filled out by Chester Arthur

after Garfield was assassinated), Cleveland,
Benjamin Harrison, and then Cleveland again.

McKinley, who was elected twice, but then
he was assassinated.

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Gilded Age Politics:Crash Course US History #26

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