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

92

"Boss" Tweed

of the taxpayers. For every dollar of advertising denied the
advocates of the reformers, three dollars were given to what
Greeley, in telling of The Tribwe's loss, called the Satanic
Press.
The politicians showed the people some of their tricks before
the new Common Council, controlled by men elected on the
non-partisan City Reform ticket, had been in session four
months. Needed changes that had been promised were not
made. The attacks were leveled chiefly at the lawmakers.
Greeley, although an absurd politician, was a most astute
analyst of political phenomena. And thus he appraised the
failure of the Council to realize the hopes of the reform
elements:
"Much of the blame no doubt lies with the Common Council, and
grows out of the power of those representing the great political
parties in the two Boards to league together and sell out to each
other the interests of the city as partisan or personal considerations may decide."
The politicians had again outwitted the people. They were
all back feeding at the same old trough.
Tweed, who was now devoting most of his time to the chair
and brush industries-the factories were close together on
Pearl Street-seldom let a week pass without visiting the City
Hall. He was always there when the Common Council was
sitting if he was not in Washington attending to his Congressional duties. Tweed did not like the atmosphere of the
National Capitol. A first term Congressman was merely
tolerated. Every one was extremely polite, but this formalism
grated on the soul of the gregarious Gothamite. He missed
the friendly greetings of the lobbyists who haunted the City
Hall. He missed particularly the most courageous of them all,
Jake Sharp, who had paid dearly for his Broadway street car
franchise, which the courts invalidated. But Sharp did not
let up in his endeavors to obtain the franchise, fighting against
what seemed insurmountable odds-the vast millions of the
Merchant Prince and his friends, and the power that went with