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How a political machine captured a city and its police: the Society of St. Tammany turned into New York's Democratic machine, Boss Tweed and the Tweed Ring exposed by Nast and the Times, the machine's sale of police jobs...
How a political machine captured a city and its police: the Society of St. Tammany turned into New York's Democratic machine, Boss Tweed and the Tweed Ring exposed by Nast and the Times, the machine's sale of police jobs, the Lexow Committee's 1894 exposure of NYPD corruption, and Tammany's fall.
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William Mooney and other veterans founded the Society of St. Tammany in New York City as a fraternal and patriotic club, named for a legendary Delaware chief. It began as a social and charitable organization with no formal political role, but its lodge structure and networks of local ward captains made it a natural vehicle for organizing voters.
Aaron Burr used the Society of St. Tammany's ward networks to mobilize Democratic-Republican voters in New York City, helping deliver the state's electoral votes and contributing to Thomas Jefferson's victory. Historians treat this as the first clear demonstration of Tammany's value as an electoral machine rather than a purely social club.
By the 1830s the Tammany Society's political wing, known as Tammany Hall after its meeting building, had become the organizing arm of the Democratic Party in New York City. It built loyalty among immigrant voters, especially the growing Irish population, by trading small favors, jobs, and naturalization help for votes.
Fernando Wood, backed by Tammany Hall's Democratic organization, was elected mayor of New York City. His administration is widely cited by historians as an early example of systematic patronage and election fraud tied to the machine, including the use of city jobs and police to reward loyal voters.
Construction of a new county courthouse, later known as the Tweed Courthouse, began with an authorized budget of a few hundred thousand dollars. Under the Tweed Ring's control of city contracts, costs were inflated through padded bills and kickbacks to contractors and officials, and the building was still unfinished years later at many times its original budget.
William M. Tweed, a former alderman and fire company leader, was elected chairman of Tammany Hall's general committee, giving him control over the organization's patronage and nominations. Over the following years he built a personal network known as the Tweed Ring, which extended into the state legislature and city government.
Tweed and his allies, comptroller Richard Connolly, Mayor A. Oakey Hall, and Peter Sweeny, controlled the city treasury, the courts, and the police through appointments and kickbacks. City jobs, including positions and promotions on the police force, were routinely bought and sold, and businesses paid the ring for city contracts.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast began publishing caricatures of Tweed and his allies in Harper's Weekly, portraying the ring as bloated thieves looting the city treasury. The cartoons, including the recurring image of a Tammany tiger devouring the city, reached readers who could not follow detailed financial reporting and became a lasting symbol of the scandal.
The New York Times published copies of secret city ledgers, obtained from a disaffected county official, documenting massive overpayments to contractors tied to the ring. The paper ran a sustained series of exposes through the summer of 1871 that turned public and elite opinion against Tweed and forced official investigations.
William Tweed was arrested on charges of forgery and larceny stemming from the courthouse fraud, following the public outcry over the New York Times revelations. He was released on bail and continued to hold his Tammany positions for a time while the criminal cases proceeded.
Investigators and journalists estimated the ring had stolen tens of millions of dollars from the city through inflated contracts, fake leases, and padded payrolls. Contemporary and later estimates of the total theft vary widely, from roughly thirty million to as much as two hundred million dollars, and the exact figure remains disputed among historians.
After a first trial in January 1873 ended in a hung jury, a second trial convicted Tweed on charges related to the courthouse fraud. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison, later reduced on appeal, but remained in custody on a related civil suit brought by the state to recover stolen funds.
While held on the civil suit, Tweed escaped from custody and fled the country, eventually reaching Spain. Spanish authorities identified him from one of Thomas Nast's published caricatures, since few officials could read English descriptions but recognized the cartoon likeness.
Spanish authorities handed Tweed over to American officials, and he was returned to New York and reimprisoned on the civil judgment for the stolen funds. He offered to testify fully about the ring's operations in exchange for his release, but the city rejected the deal and he remained jailed.
William Tweed died in the Ludlow Street Jail in New York City while still held on the civil suit over the stolen funds. His death closed the criminal chapter of the scandal, though most of the money the ring took was never recovered.
Richard Croker, a former Tammany enforcer, consolidated control of the organization after the death of boss John Kelly, who had rebuilt Tammany's discipline following the Tweed scandal. Under Croker, Tammany continued to sell city jobs and police positions while presenting a more businesslike public face than Tweed had.
Presbyterian minister Charles Parkhurst delivered a sermon at Madison Square Presbyterian Church accusing Tammany-controlled city officials, including the police, of protecting brothels, gambling houses, and illegal saloons in exchange for bribes. The sermon drew public attention and a grand jury summons demanding he prove his charges.
To answer the grand jury's demand for proof, Parkhurst hired a guide and toured brothels, gambling dens, and illegal saloons operating openly with apparent police protection. He returned to the pulpit with a follow-up sermon describing what he had witnessed, intensifying pressure on city officials and helping trigger a formal legislative inquiry.
Responding to Parkhurst's charges and growing public pressure, the New York State Senate created a committee chaired by state senator Clarence Lexow to investigate corruption in the New York City police department. The committee had subpoena power and began hearing testimony from officers, precinct captains, and vice operators.
William L. Strong, running on a reform, anti-Tammany ticket, was elected mayor of New York City in the wake of the Lexow Committee's findings. His election marked a temporary break in Tammany's control of city hall and opened the way for a shake-up of the police department's leadership.
Testimony before the Lexow Committee documented a systematic price list for police jobs and promotions, with officers paying set sums to Tammany-linked officials for appointments, and captains extorting regular payments from brothels, gambling houses, and saloons in their precincts. The hearings produced a detailed public record of institutionalized bribery and extortion inside the department.
Mayor Strong appointed Theodore Roosevelt to the city's four-member Police Board, and Roosevelt was chosen as its president. He moved quickly to enforce laws against police corruption uncovered by the Lexow Committee, walking precincts at night to check on officers and pushing out captains implicated in graft.
As police commissioner, Roosevelt ordered strict enforcement of the state excise law requiring saloons to close on Sundays, a law police captains had long ignored in exchange for bribes. The crackdown was unpopular with saloon owners and much of the public, but it demonstrated that laws could be enforced evenly instead of selectively for payoffs.
Theodore Roosevelt resigned from the Police Board to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley. His reforms had reduced some forms of graft but did not eliminate the underlying system, and corruption resurfaced in the department after his departure.
Robert Van Wyck, chosen by Tammany boss Richard Croker, was elected the first mayor of the newly consolidated Greater New York, which combined Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the outer boroughs into one city in 1898. His administration restored Tammany's grip on city patronage, including police appointments, after the reform interlude under Mayor Strong.
A second state legislative inquiry, the Mazet Committee, investigated corruption under Van Wyck's Tammany administration, including police graft and municipal contracts. Testimony implicated boss Richard Croker in profiting from city business, contributing to his retirement from active leadership a few years later.
Charles F. Murphy took over leadership of Tammany Hall after Croker's retirement. Murphy ran the organization for more than two decades, blending traditional patronage politics with support for some early social welfare legislation, while Tammany's influence over city jobs, including police positions, continued.
Gambler Herman Rosenthal, who had publicly accused a police lieutenant of extorting protection payments from his gambling operation, was shot dead outside the Hotel Metropole in Manhattan. The killing, arranged to silence him before he could testify, set off a major scandal implicating the police department in organized crime.
NYPD Lieutenant Charles Becker was tried and convicted of arranging Herman Rosenthal's murder to prevent him from exposing Becker's extortion of the city's gambling operators. Becker maintained his innocence, and his guilt was and remains debated by historians, but the case became the most prominent single instance of police corruption tied directly to a killing.
Charles Becker was executed by electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, becoming the first American police officer executed for murder. The case remained controversial, with later commentators questioning whether the evidence against him was as solid as prosecutors claimed.
Judge Samuel Seabury led an investigation, commissioned by the state legislature's Hofstadter Committee, into corruption in New York City's magistrates courts. The inquiry uncovered bribery, extortion of defendants, and collusion between police, bail bondsmen, and court officials tied to Tammany-linked appointments.
Seabury's inquiry expanded to examine city government broadly, including Mayor Jimmy Walker's finances. Testimony revealed Walker had received gifts and payments from businessmen with city dealings, alongside continued evidence of graft in city departments controlled by Tammany appointees.
Facing removal hearings before Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt based on the Seabury investigation's findings, Jimmy Walker resigned as mayor of New York City. His resignation marked a major blow to Tammany's political standing heading into the 1933 mayoral election.
Fiorello La Guardia, running as a Fusion reform candidate against Tammany, was elected mayor of New York City. His three terms in office reduced Tammany's control over city jobs and contracts through civil service reform and federal relief programs that bypassed the machine's patronage system.
Carmine De Sapio, the last Tammany leader to wield significant citywide power, lost his position as Manhattan Democratic leader amid reform challenges within the party. He was later convicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges in 1969, closing out the organization's era as a dominant force in city politics.
Following a New York Times report based on disclosures from officers Frank Serpico and David Durk, Mayor John Lindsay created the Knapp Commission, chaired by Whitman Knapp, to investigate corruption in the NYPD. The commission documented widespread bribery and graft among officers, decades after the Lexow and Seabury inquiries had exposed similar patterns.
Officer Frank Serpico testified publicly about pervasive bribery within the NYPD and the retaliation he faced for refusing to take payoffs and reporting corruption through official channels. His testimony, along with the commission's broader findings, distinguished between corrupt officers who actively solicited bribes and those who passively accepted payoffs offered to them.
The Knapp Commission released its final report, concluding that corruption in the NYPD was widespread and organized enough to constitute a systemic problem rather than isolated misconduct. The report led to changes in internal affairs procedures, though later investigations found corruption had persisted in new forms.
Mayor David Dinkins created the Mollen Commission, chaired by former judge Milton Mollen, to investigate police corruption after officer Michael Dowd was arrested for protecting drug dealers in exchange for payoffs. The commission's hearings again documented organized corruption within specific precincts, echoing findings from the Lexow, Seabury, and Knapp inquiries decades earlier.
The Mollen Commission released its final report describing corruption more brutal and violence-linked than earlier eras, including officers who beat and robbed civilians as well as took bribes. The report reinforced a recurring pattern documented across more than a century of New York City investigations: without sustained external oversight, parts of the police department repeatedly proved vulnerable to organized corruption.
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