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The Original Crooked Politico
Submitted by nick on Tue, 11/04/2008 - 04:28
As part of National Novel Writing Month, I thought it might be fun to try writing a 50,000-word novel that plays with some of the emotions and ambitions evoked by the often cutthroat world of city politics.
You can't libel someone who's been dead for years. So to do a bit of character study, I've been reading the philosophizing of George Washington Plunkitt — the Tammany Hall man who first coined the term "honest graft" — and let me tell you this is classic.
Here's an excerpt from a tirade against the civil service exam, which requires appointed positions to be filled based on the results of competitive examinations:
I know more than one young man in past years who worked for the ticket and was just overflowin' with patriotism, but when he was knocked out by the civil service humbug he got to hate his country and became an Anarchist. This ain't no exaggeration. I have good reason for sayin' that most of the Anarchists in this city today are men who ran up against civil service examinations. Isn't it enough to make a man sour on his country when he wants to serve it and won't be allowed unless he answers a lot of fool questions about the number of cubic inches of water in the Atlantic and the quality of sand in the Sahara desert?
My profession is nonfiction, but I'm not going anywhere near any of the real events I've seen in my brief career. Fortunately, I've heard a lot of stories and dirty-tricks methodology that are purely and undisputedly parts of New York City's rich political mythology. And myth, as Joseph Campbell will tell you, is the fairest game of all.
