Everybody is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft.
— George Washington Plunkitt
Politics
There’s an honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin’: “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.”
— George Washington Plunkitt
Politics
Every good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn’t isn’t likely to be popular.
— George Washington Plunkitt
Friendship
If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I give it to a friend. Why shouldn’t I do the same in public life?
— George Washington Plunkitt
Friendship
Another kind of honest graft. Tammany has raised a good many salaries. There was an awful howl by the reformers, but don’t you know that Tammany gains ten votes for every one it lost by salary raisin’?
— George Washington Plunkitt
Politics
The Wall Street banker thinks it shameful to raise a department clerk’s salary from $1500 to $1800 a year, but every man who draws a salary himself says: “That’s all right. I wish it was me.” And he feels very much like votin’ the Tammany ticket on election day, just out of sympathy.
— George Washington Plunkitt
Business
As a matter of policy, if nothing else, why should the Tammany leaders go into such dirty business, when there is so much honest graft lyin’ around when they are in power?
— George Washington Plunkitt
Politics
Some young men think they can learn how to be successful in politics from books, and they cram their heads with all sorts of college rot. They couldn’t make a bigger mistake.
— George Washington Plunkitt
Politics
The men who rule have practiced keepin’ their tongues still, not exercisin’ them.
— George Washington Plunkitt
Leadership