Plunkitt of Tammany Hall Quotes

“Let me tell you that patriotism has been dying out fast for the last twenty years. Before then when a party won, its workers got everything in sight. That was somethin’ to make a man patriotic. Now, when a party wins and its men come forward and ask for their rewards, the reply is, “Nothin’ doin’, unless you can answer a list of questions about Egyptian mummies and how many years it will take for a bird to wear out a mass of iron as big as the earth by steppin’ on it once in a century?”
― William L. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics

“First, this great and glorious country was built up by political parties; second, parties can’t hold together if their workers don’t get the offices when they win; third, if the parties go to pieces, the government they built up must go to pieces, too; fourth, then there’ll be h——to pay.”
― William L. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics

“The men who rule have practiced keepin’ their tongues still, not exercisin’ them. So you want to drop the orator idea unless you mean to go into politics just to perform the skyrocket act.”
― William L. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics