Dishonest Graft example essay topic

George Washington Plunkitt was born in 1842 in Nanny Goat Hill which was a poor Irish shantytown on the upper west side of Manhattan. George Washington Plunkitt was a senator in New York during the turn of the 19th Century to the 20th Century. He was very successful in politics, and at one time he had four offices at once and collected salaries from three of them. George Washington Plunkitt was also the district leader of The New York's Tammany Hall. The New York's Tammany Hall was the premier symbol of Irish-American political power in the U.S. William Mooney, a soldier during the American Revolution and a prominent anti-federalist in New York City in 1789, established Tammany Hall.

Tammany Hall was the most powerful urban political machine in U.S. History. Most of the members of the Tammany Hall were Irish-American workingmen and craftsman. Many people viewed Plunkitt as a very dishonest politician. Plunkitt always stated that, "Everybody is talking these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft". Honest graft was just having the inside ear and finding out opportunities before anyone else did and going for it. When Plunkitt was tipped off about something in the city he sees the opportunity and he takes it.

Plunkitt would buy all of the land he could in the neighborhood and then sell it making a big profit. Suppose that there was a new bridge they were going to build. Plunkitt get tipped off and he buys as much property as he can then he sells at his own price. One day he bought up several bits of land in the watershed and made a good guess that they would be bought up for water purposes later by the city.

For instances if he know that a city is repaving the streets and they have several hundred thousand old granite blocks to sell he will buy them because he knew that they were worth a lot of money. Dishonest graft was if several politicians were accused of stealing dollars from the state's treasury that is dishonest graft. Gambling, blackmailing, lawbreaking, robbing the city treasury, and cheating are examples of dishonest graft. If several politicians are accused of stealing dollars from the state's treasury that is dishonest graft. Plunkitt thought that just because he wasn't making his money illegally he what he was doing wasn't considered as a dishonest graft. I think that Plunkitt was unfair in some ways because by him getting tipped off by someone in the head of the department that was not honest but on the other hand he did help people.

It would have been a difference if he was getting rich on graft and was being selfish with his fortune. Plunkitt did so much to take care of his Tammany supporters. Honest graft is like inside trade on the stock market. It is all about whom you know because Tammany heads of departments looked after their friends, within the law, and gave them opportunities they could to make honest graft. Plunkitt states", Every good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn't isn't likely to b popular. 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 private life?" As a politician Plunkitt would be privileged to special information regarding local works. He wanted to gain by capitalizing on this special information. Plunkitt states that it would be wrong of him not to capitalize on these opportunities and that all he gained was in the good of his citizens. In 1901 Tammany was beat because the people were deceived into believing that it worked dishonest graft. The people didn't see the difference between honest and dishonest graft. All they saw was that some Tammany men grew rich and supposed that they had robbed the city treasury or levied blackmail orderly houses, or worked in with the gamblers and lawbreakers.

In conclusion I think that most of the men were patriotic. The men whom were performing dishonest graft were not patriotic because they were robbing from people and performing illegal behavior. Even though the men performing honest graft weren't the most patriotic they did consist on helping people instead of trying to harm them.