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How Jews Ruled and Ruined Tammany Hall
Within the memory even of young men, Tammany Hall has been the
synonym of all political trickery, in the vocabulary of popular
criticism. Tammany Hall was held up as the worst example of boss
rule and political corruption that it was possible to find in either
of the parties. Its very name became a stigma.
But even the most unobservant newspaper reader must have observed
the gradual fading out of Tammany Hall from public comment, the
cessation of the bitter criticism, the entire absence of headlines
bristling with ugly charges, and the calling of the hosts of good
citizenship to do battle against the grim bossism that maintained
its headquarters at the Wigwam.
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Control The Media And You Control The Scandals
Why this change? Is it due to the dying out of Tammany Hall as a
political force? No, Tammany is still there, as any New York
politician will tell you. Is it due, then, to a reform of that
organization? No, the Tammany tiger has not changed its stripes.
Then, perhaps, this change is due to public sentiment? Not at all.
The explanation is to be found along other lines.
There was a time when fearless publications told the truth about
Tammany, but Harper’s Weekly and others which waged fierce war
against the Tiger, have either gone out of existence or have fallen
under control of the Jews. The silence which has shrouded certain
matters must not be noted and set aside without reference to the
changed control of the press. There was a time when public bodies
like the Citizens’ Union organized to oppose Tammany and to keep a
volunteer vigil on its activities; these groups have succumbed to
Jewish contributions and officership and no longer stand guard.
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Don't Be Anti Semitic
The outcry against Tammany seemed to be hushed the moment that
Tammany patronage fell into the hands of New York Jews, where it now
reposes, the Kehillah being the real political center, and Tammany
but a distributing station—a sort of organizational “Gentile front”
for the more powerful Kehillah. A few Tammany leaders are permitted
to strut out in front, but everyone knows that from the Wigwam
chiefs the power has departed, it is now to be found in Jewish
conferences. Murphy is still the titular head of Tammany, but like a
Samson shorn, he is not feared and obeyed as of yore. In fact, the
Judaization of Tammany Hall is now complete. Once in a while the
Irish—always a match for the Jews—rear their heads and show battle,
but for the most part Jewish money rules and the Tiger lies down.
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Power Is Why The Jews Were Attracted
Tammany Hall was one of the strongest political organizations
ever seen in the United States, potent not only in municipal and
state politics, but often exercising a decisive influence on
national affairs. It was, without exaggeration, powerful.
If there is one quality that attracts Jews, it is power. Wherever
the seat of power may be, thither they swarm obsequiously. As
Tammany was power and the gate of power, it was natural that the
Jews of the biggest Jewish city in the world should court it.
Doubtless, they were also affected by the incongruity of the fact
that in the biggest Jewish city, the most solid political power was
non-Jewish. That was a condition which called for correction.
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August Belmont (nee Schoenberg)
When the German Jewish banker, Schoenberg, came to this country
under the name of August Belmont to represent the interests of the
Rothschilds, his keen eye at once took in the situation and at once
he began to court the favor of Tammany. He became a member and a
supporter. It was good business for this Jewish banker, because the
funds of the Rothschilds were heavily invested in New York
tractions. The properties of city tractions were and to a great
extent still are, as in all American cities, at the mercy of the
local Tammany power, by whatever name it may be known. Belmont was
insinuating himself under the wing of power to protect the
investments for which he was responsible.
August Belmont eventually attained the coveted eminence of Grand
Sachem of the Tammany Society. The Belmont family for a time
represented the sole Jewish banking support of Tammany Hall, but
that honor is now divided among many.
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Andrew Friedmann
Richard Croker’s day, when corruption went hand in hand with
power, and power apparently was none the weaker for it, we find that
this notorious leader’s intimate friend, business partner and
political associate was a Jew—Andrew Freedman. Freedman and Croker
lived together at the Democratic Club in Fifth Avenue, Tammany
politicians even then having become rich enough to despise
Fourteenth Avenue. Freedman held the purse strings of the
organization, as head of the Committee on Finance, and he was
Croker’s representative and mouthpiece when the chief went into
exile on an over-sea estate.
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Samuel Untermeyer
The most recent Jewish power in Tammany Hall, and one of the most
liberal contributors to Tammany campaign funds, is the lawyer,
Samuel Untermeyer, whose specialty of recent years seems to be to
serve as the battering ram of the Jewish power against interests
which it wants destroyed, and whose efforts are usually camouflaged
under exaggerated journalistic advertisements as being wholly in the
public interest. Mr. Untermeyer is not in particularly good humor
with Tammany these days, because of the recent defeat of his son,
Irving Untermeyer, for a judgeship. There was somewhere a slip. The
Jews deserted the Wilson ship anyway, apparently seeing what was
coming in the way of retribution for the colossal and amazing
mismanagement of war business which was principally in their hands;
and in the ensuing mix-up, a scion of the house of Untermeyer tasted
defeat.
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The Macy's Strauses
Tammany numbers other Jews among its supporters. Nathan Straus,
one of the owners of R. H. Macy & Company, has been for years an
active member of the organization and one of the rulers of its inner
councils.
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The Jewish Network
A Jewish ghetto politician, Henry M. Goldfogle, has represented
the Jewish interests in Congress for a number of years, and expected
to continue, but he slipped in the election and has recently been
“taken care of” by a city appointment.
There is also Judge Rosalsky who has been implicated in a number of
interesting matters which illustrate the completeness of the Jewish
network of control in New York City.
One might mention also M. L. Erlanger and Warley Platzek, justices
of the supreme court of the state of New York, but if one began a
list of the Jewish judiciary of that city, where would one end?
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The Zionist Prince Guggenheimer
Another Tammanyite is Randolph Guggenheimer, founder of the
corporation law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermeyer and Marshall—Untermeyer
being the aforesaid grand inquisitor of Gentile activities generally
and Marshall being head of the American Jewish Committee and the
Kehillah.
It was doubtless necessary for a Jewry that contemplated control of
the judiciary as well as special protection for certain powerful
Jewish enterprises that are near enough to the borderline of the law
to merit question—it was necessary to obtain control of the supreme
political engine through which favors were disbursed in local
politics. And control of such organizations can always be had by
money.
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Democrat Or Republican
Not that the Jews threw themselves entirely into Tammany. The
Jew’s natural political home seems to be in the Republican party,
for thither he returns after venture elsewhere. But his predilection
for the Republican party does not move the Jew to make the mistake
of being exclusively the partisan of one group. It is better, as he
knows, to control both groups.
As a matter of political fact, strong as is the Jewish element in
Tammany, it is still stronger in the ranks of the Republican party,
while New York Socialism is completely headed and manned by Jews.
This renders it extremely easy for the Jews to swing support in
whichever direction they choose, and for Kehillah to fulfill any
threat it may make. It also insures that any Jewish candidate on any
ticket will be elected. The fluke in the case of young Untermeyer is
perhaps not to be entirely explained politically; other causes were
doubtless working in that matter.
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B’nai B’rith
It is a long time since Ferdinand Levy bore the distinction of
being the first Jew in New York to hold a political job. He was only
a coroner, and the man who appointed him was only a fire
commissioner, but the fire commissioner was Richard Croker. And Levy
was solidly backed by the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith, whose
success in this matter laid the foundation for more ambitious
demands later.
But at the beginning, the Kehillah Jews adopted the ancient policy,
not of putting forward their own people, but non-Jews who could be
useful to Judah. The difference between pro-Jewish politicians who
are not themselves Jews, and politicians of the Jewish race, is that
the former in office can sometimes go further than the Jew in office
can, without detection. This has been true at least up to this time,
but it will probably not be true very long, now that the people’s
eyes are being opened. The Jewish officeholder is only standing for
his race, but the “Gentile front” has betrayed the people for the
pottage of Jewish favor.
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Gentile Front Men But Jewish Control
Thus, in the early days of Tammany, indeed until comparatively recent
years, we see the “Gentile front” in Tammany offices and basking in the
glory of Tammany publicity, but in the background there is always his
“Jewish control.” This also is a formula for citizens who wish to know
the meaning of things otherwise unexplainable—“look for the ‘Jewish
control.’”
To this end, therefore, the Jews have been strong in all parties, so
that whichever way the election went, the Jews would win. In New York it
is always the Jewish party that wins. The campaign is staged as an
entertainment, a diversion for the people; they are permitted to think
and act as if they were really making their own government, but it is
always the Jews that win.
When The Goyim Disobey - There Comes The Scandals
And if after having elected their man or a group, obedience is not
rendered to the Jewish control, then you speedily hear of “scandals” and
“investigations” and “impeachments,” for the removal of the disobedient
official. Usually a man with a “past” proves the most obedient
instrument but even a good man can often be tangled up in campaign
practices that compromise him.
It has been commonly known that Jewish manipulation of campaign matters
has been so skillfully handled, that no matter which candidate was
elected, there was ready made a sufficient amount of evidence to
discredit him in case his Jewish masters needed to discredit him. To
arrange this is part of the thoroughness of Jewish control. And, of
course, the American people have been sufficiently trained to roar
against the public official immediately the first Jewish political hound
emits its warning bay.
Amazing as is the technique of the Jewish political process, the
readiness with which the American people can be counted on to do their
part in forwarding the game is still more amazing.
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Mayor Hylan
What Mr. Hylan, the present mayor of New York has done to merit
chastisement, is scarcely clear to a non-partisan investigator. But
the fact that the Jews have set out to “get” him for something is
evident on every side.
In the Untermeyer so-called “housing investigation,” the people
hauled up were non-Jews and the result of the whole business has
been a stronger Jewish hold than ever on the housing affairs of New
York. Jews are exempt from such inquisitions. The choice prey are
non-Jewish business houses whose secrets may be forced and whose
good name may be stained under cover of a legal procedure. There is
such a thing as blackmail so entirely respectable as to be
unsuspected.
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Governor Sulzer
Governor Sulzer, of New York, was the choice of the Jews. They
subscribed money for his campaign, forced it on him, and kept
careful account of it. Finally, under pressure of a compelling sense
of justice, Sulzer pardoned a non-Jewish valet of an important
Jewish New York family, a young man, whom a coterie of Jews very
prominent in the political, financial and social worlds had
contrived to “put away” for a period of 30 years. Sulzer had no
option but to pardon young Brandt. But he paid the penalty. He was
impeached. The Jews who supported him testified against him and
their checks were used to assist his dismissal.
The story of young Brandt hangs heavily over the heads of some of
the proudest Jewish names in New York.
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Paul Warburg
Playing on both sides of the political fence, and always
retaining a string on the men they elect to office, are two Jewish
characteristics which should not fail to be reckoned with. THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, in its recent articles showing the hand of
Paul Warburg in the Federal Reserve System, was able to prove by Mr.
Warburg’s own words that his firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, during the
three-cornered fight between Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson, supported
all three. The Jewish owners of R. H. Macy & Company, New York,
illustrate the same principle; while Nathan Straus looked after
affairs at Tammany Hall, his brother and partner, Isador Straus, was
one of the most active opponents of Tammany. Were the interests of
the two men therefore different? Not at all.
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Take the firm of Guggenheimer, Untermeyer and Marshall. This is a
notable firm for the part it plays in the people’s business. Every
community in America has been affected by Louis Marshall’s decisions as
head of the American Jewish Committee. Untermeyer is the arch-inquisitor
for Jewry. Randolph Guggenheimer, the founder of the firm, achieved the
foremost influence of any except the Chief in the old Wigwam, and was a
power to be reckoned with in all matters. But Louis Marshall is a
“staunch” Republican and a member of the Republican Club. Here again is
the favorite method of including all parties under the capacious wing of
the Jewish program.
Hence the popularity of “Fusion” in New York City elections. It has
become the fad, but its most notable purpose is to insure the election
of a Jew whatever his politics may be. In some Assembly Districts it is
impossible to find anyone but a Jew to vote for. When Otto A. Rosalsky,
a jurist who was implicated in the Brandt scandal, was re-elected Judge
of General Sessions in 1920, he was the “Fusion” candidate on both the
Democratic and Republican tickets. It was perhaps fortunate for his
candidacy that he was. The point just now is that whenever a candidate
may be vulnerable, it is very desirable to forestall a fight upon him by
eliminating all opposition before the election. “Fusion” is another
matter that should be carefully scrutinized in behalf of American rule
of American cities.
By the way things are going in New York, these inter-party and “fusion”
expedients may soon be unnecessary, because in any event it will be most
difficult to avoid electing a Jew. Of the candidates of all parties for
the offices of justice of the supreme court of New York, numbering 26,
14 were Jews. Of the Democratic presidential electors, 13 were Jews. Of
the Republican presidential electors, 14 were Jews. Of the Socialist
presidential electors, 22 were Jews.
The strength of Tammany had exactly the same source as the strength of
the Kehillah, namely, in the foreign population; the difference being
that the Kehillah had a more compact foreign mass to draw upon. But both
the Jewish leaders and the Tammany leaders have always been alertly
aware of the fact that their power depended upon an uninterrupted flow
of immigration, to supply the losses sustained by the Americanization of
the people. It is always the un-Americanized foreigner that makes the
best material for the Kehillah’s and Tammany’s purposes. The Kehillah is
based upon the principle of recognizing racial minorities, and Tammany
has made a specialty of giving representation of racial minorities in
its councils. This was a liberal policy, and was thoroughly American in
its original intent (as Tammany was a thoroughly American assemblage at
its inception) but it was soon seized upon by the Jews and used to their
own ends, and to the eventual ruin of all except Jewish representation.
Thus all through the history of immigration activity, Tammany has been
on the side of the wide open gate without any restrictions. The lower
the type of immigrant, the more easily amenable it is to the ward boss’s
orders.
Tammany of recent years has been the able seconder of the Kehillah in
all efforts to frustrate control of immigration.
Russian, Hungarian, And Austrian Jews Swarm In
The third great influx of immigration into the United States occurred
in 1884 and was really the cause of the beginning of the degeneration of
Tammany Hall. The great wave was composed of Russian, Austrian and
Hungarian Jews, whose arrival was followed by a memorable period of
crime, the marks of which remain to this day. Indeed, the downfall of
Richard Croker was a direct result.
At that time the police department and the police courts before which
all criminal cases in the city were first brought, were in the hands of
Tammany Hall. The result was a partnership between local government and
crime which has not been duplicated outside of Semitic countries.
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Essex Market Gang
Immigrant Jews of the shadier type organized an association
called The Max Hochstim Association, which was known during the
Lexow Investigation as “The Essex Market Court Gang.” One of its
chief rulers was Martin Engel, Tammany leader of the Eighth Assembly
District. The “king” of this Jewish district was a man named Solomon
who had changed his name to the less revealing one of “Smith,” and
who became known as “Silver Dollar Smith” because of the fact that
he ruled his little empire from the Silver Dollar Saloon, which
gained its name from the silver dollars that were cemented into the
floor of his place of business. This saloon was just opposite the
Essex Market Court, which was thronged daily by hordes of Yiddish
criminals, the bondsmen, false witnesses and lawyers.
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Let not the fastidious reader deem it unnecessary to linger longer round
the old police court at Essex Market, for out therefrom came a word
which has fixed itself in common English speech—the term “shyster,” by
which a certain type of lawyer is described. A Clinton street lawyer
named Scheuster, whose practices were quite characteristic, made himself
very obnoxious to Justice Osborne. Whenever another Yiddish lawyer
attempted a shady trick, the judge would openly denounce it as
“Scheuster practice,” and so it came that the first men in the
profession to bear the name “shyster” were the Yiddish lawyers of Essex
Market Court.
White Slavery
To make a nasty story brief, the Max Hochstim Association became
the first organized White Slaver group in America, and the
revelations made by the Lexow Committee are shuddering glimpses into
that lowest form of depravity—a cooly conducted, commercialized,
consolidated traffic in women. The traffic was made to yield
dividends to politicians, to Tammany Jews in particular. The Ghetto
became the Red Light District of New York. The first man to
undertake the export trade in women with foreign countries,
especially South America, was a man who later became a Tammany
notable.
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The surprising fact is that, although these matters are written in
official documents, and although the same matters have been written into
the record of every similar investigation which has been made, Jewish
leaders persist in denying that the leaders in this particular form of
depravity are Jews. When the United States Government made a nation-wide
investigation, it found and recorded the same facts. The New York
Kehillah came into existence as a defense organization at a time when
the exposure of the Jewish White Slave traffic threatened to overwhelm
the New York ghetto.
The Max Hochstim Association was not the only organization of its kind.
The other was the New York Independent Benevolent Association, which was
organized in 1896 by a party of Jewish white slave dealers as they were
returning from the funeral of Sam Engel, brother of Martin Engel,
Tammany leader of the red light district.
The gangs that formed the backbone of Tammany power in the slum
districts were made up of “cadets.” Their principal field of operation
was the cheap dance halls. Paul Kelly’s gang originated in the halls
about lower Broadway. Monk Eastman’s gang grew strong in the Russian
Jewish District below Delancey street. And Kid Twist’s gang developed
close to a dance hall for Galician Jews on the far East Side. All of
these three were Jewish gang leaders. They were slavers as their
forbears were in the days of Rome’s decline; they were bootleggers
before the days of prohibition; and they constituted a strong support of
the international narcotic ring which to this day has defied the law by
corrupting the officers of the law.
It was to associations like these that the lights of Tammany lent their
names. Tim Sullivan was a vice president of the Max Hochstim
Association. The name of the Honorable Henry M. Goldfogle also appeared
on the picnic announcements.
The exposure which resulted when the white people of New York finally
succeeded in getting the forces of law to function impartially for a
little while, caused many of the implicated Jews to change their names.
These names are now representative of some of the best Jewish families,
whose concealed bar sinister is the fact that the foundation of the
family fortune was laid in the red light district. Society, sliced down
to its seeds, is a queer growth.
It is due in justice to say that men like Tim Sullivan were not the
originators of the Jewish abuses referred to, nor willing participants
in the gains therefrom. Tammany would do favors for its friends, at the
police court or elsewhere; Tammany had its occasional political
upheavals; Tammany believed that they who profited by political spoils
should divide with the Wigwam’s treasury; but with such traffic as
seduction and barter in women, Tammany had never been compromised until
the Yiddish invasion of New York and the Judaization of the Wigwam. This
much must be said for the Irish and American leaders.
The situation is the same in Boston. An Irish city, its chief political
control is in the hands of Jews. The old-time Irish leaders are still
permitted to be out in front, but the inner power has departed from
them. One Boston ward, where once none but Irish lived, now contains
only Jews, but the old-time Irish boss retains his seat. This is by
favor of the Jews and nothing else.
The same state of facts accounts in large degree for the connection
between a man like Tim Sullivan and the Jews. “Tim,” as everyone knew
him, was leader of a district inhabited by Irish and Germans. Then the
Jews came in. And then began the Jews’ practice of profiting by the
people’s dislike of them.
Foreign Jews well know that they are disliked. It is one of their assets
which never fails to produce dividends. They choose the part of the city
where they desire to live, and a few move in. Their immediate neighbors
move out. More Jews move in—more of the others move out. The property
nearest the Jews always goes down in value. People will sell at a loss
rather than live engulfed in a ghetto.
It was so in Tim Sullivan’s district. As the Jews swarmed in, the Irish
and Germans fled north. Sullivan stood his ground. It was his old
territory, he would not leave it, nor remove his family. He cultivated
the new arrivals and made a partnership with the ex-kosher chicken
butcher, Martin Engel.
The Jews lived under Sullivan’s rule for a time, awaiting the moment
when they should know what to do for themselves. The Yiddish flood
increased until the district was crowded, and then the Jews demanded
representation for themselves. With a premonition that a new force had
arisen, Tim Sullivan played safe and helped the Jews to get
recognition—Martin Engel was made leader of the old Eighth. But Sullivan
had previously gone to Tammany—or to what remained of the old non-Jewish
Tammany—and exacted an understanding that his rule should be left
unchanged below Fourteenth street.
From that time forward, in spite of the understanding, Sullivan’s power
began to wane, principally because he continued to get in deeper and
deeper with the Jews. He went into Jewish lines of business. He formed a
theatrical partnership with George Kraus, among his enterprises being
the Imperial Music Hall, the Dewey Theater, and the traveling Eagle
Burlesque Company. Still the old district continued to become crowded
and overcrowded and saturated with Yiddish newcomers, for whom neither
the name Sullivan nor the traditions of the district had any meaning.
In his closing years, scarcely more than a hanger-on around the former
scene of his power, Tim Sullivan bitterly lamented the ease with which
he was led into associations that undermined his power.
Croker was destroyed in public confidence by the terrific shock of the
exposure attending the Jewish “cadet” activities. Sullivan, equally
picturesque, was the slowly shoved-out victim of Jewish infiltration.
There were other occurrences and other downfalls, all of which are a
part of the real story of Tammany.
[THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 24 September 1921]
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