The Irish Road to the White House

The story of how the Irish rose to the top of American politics.

Tammany was invented by native-born American Protestants. Aaron Burr first staked out Tammany’s territory among the urban working and lower classes, and William Tweed built the Hall’s foundations as a champion of the immigrant poor. But John Kelly, the leader who picked up the pieces after Tweed’s colossal fall, set in place the organizational machine that would endure and prosper for the next half-century. “Kelly,” one observer noted, “found a mob and left an army.”

Kelly was born in 1822, the son of Irish immigrants, raised in poverty in the city’s lower wards, and made a name for himself as a boxer, actor and volunteer fireman. As well as prospering in his business as a grate-setter and ironmonger, he took an early interest in politics. Elected alderman in 1853 and Congressman in 1854 – the same year as Tweed – Kelly was the only Catholic member of the House of Representatives at a time when the nativist agitation against Irish Catholics in particular was reaching its height. (Boston wouldn’t elect its first Irish-Catholic Congressman until 1880.)

Elected sheriff of New York County in 1858, a position often associated with wanton plundering, Kelly proved upright enough to earn the name (some said it was self-conferred) “Honest John.” He kept his distance from the Tweed Ring and, shattered by the death of his wife and son, was recuperating in Europe when the Tammany Hall scandal broke. Some thought that Tammany wouldn’t survive the Tweed debacle. But Honest John accepted the position of Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall – the first Irishman in that role. He was ideal for the job. As well as untainted by the Tweed Ring, he’d come up through the streets and knew firsthand the needs and expectations of immigrant voters, particularly the Irish.

In rebuilding Tammany, Honest John laid down three enduring principles of machine politics: leadership, loyalty and money. The Boss called the shots. He collected the assessments – a percentage of future earnings – from those who were nominated to run or appointed to public office. Beneath the Boss was the widening pyramid of district leaders, precinct captains and ward heelers, so that, at its base, the machine covered not just every district and ward but every block and tenement. In many ways, the ward heelers and precinct captains were interpreters, acting as intermediaries between newly arrived, still-disoriented immigrants and the distant monolith of government. Often enough, they were the government, fulfilling all the legal and social-welfare functions that would later be assumed by public agencies.

Loyalty flowed both ways, from the Boss down through the ranks whose success at turning out the vote was rewarded with jobs for themselves and patronage for their troops. They, in turn, stuck by the leader, the ultimate source of the vital resource that kept the machine running: money. When Kelly died in 1886, he had the machine running so well that Richard Croker, his presumed (though unnamed) successor, walked into the Hall, sat at his desk and took command.

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Nster.com