"Boss" Tweed : the story of a grim generation / by Denis Tilden Lynch.

Bigotry vs. Bigotry

207

Tucker, fled with more than $30,000 of the moneys entrusted
to him by this court of widows and orphans.
With the election of Fowler as Grand Sachem, Wood's power
in the organization was at an end. Wood saw that it was
useless to continue to fight from within, so he started a rival
Democratic organization which took its name from Mozart
Hall, where the Wood faction first met. Wood announced that
the Mozart Hall Democracy was the only true Democratic
party in the city. Many thousands believed him. Wood's
whisper squads went among the foreign-born citizens and
spread the word that Tammany Hall had fallen into the
hands of the Know-Nothings. How was Tiemann elected?
Tiemann was a member in good standing in Tammany, and
an unrelenting enemy of Wood. Wasn't Tiemann elected by
the Know-Nothing vote? Did not this bunch of bigots support
him to the last man? Who was running Tammany now?
Fowler, the aristocrat, and the Know-Nothings. The KnowNothings and the aristocrats had no use for Wood because
he hated them and wanted them out of Tammany Hall. And
that was why they cast Wood out of the organization. And
this fantastic fable was dinned into the ears of the immigrant
population, both Catholic and Protestant.
But Connolly and Sweeny, and Schell, and others who
knew the Irish and the German voters, for these comprised
the bulk of the new stock, laughed at Wood's attempt to build
up an independent organization on these base appeals. But
Tweed, who had been through one campaign where he had
been defeated by the Know-Nothings, knew how unreasoning
a man can be when his religious or racial prejudices are
whipped into a frenzy of fanaticism. Wood, driven from the
Democratic Party, was looked upon as a political Pantalone
by all, save Tweed. Nothing must be left undone, cautioned
Tweed, to checkmate every move Wood made. Wood was
spending a fortune in building up his mushroom organization,
hiring halls where meetings were held, club rooms where his
followers could foregather, and distributing largesse among
the various gang leaders. It would not be possible to unite the
Republicans and Know-Nothings behind Tiemann again, for