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Show Political Bosses America has produced nothing more peculiar than the political Boss. We are hearing so much lately of this strange product of our soil and institutions, that it is time he was taken into consideration by all our readers, young and old. It is chiefly in large cities that the political Boss has flourished hitherto, and, above all, in the city of New York. The writer of these paragraphs is well acquainted with the Boss as he exits and thrives in Gotham, where there are Bosses in every ward, as well as one supreme Boss over all. In New York there are Bosses, sub- Bosses, rival-Bosses, ex-Bosses, Democratic-Bosses, Republican-Bosses; also, there are Bosses appertaining to each "wing" of each party. Each nationality, too, has its own series of Bosses. Of the twelve hundred thousand people who live in New York, not quite one-third are natives of the city, and more than half were born in foreign lands. At the present moment, there are nearly 300,000 Irish people in New York, which is more than the entire population of Dublin. There are nearly 200,000 Germans; about 10,000 French; about 3,000 Italians; 3,000 Poles; more than 2,000 Swiss; about 2,000 Dutch, and several hundreds from each of the other smaller states of Europe. Even Cuba contributes a quota of fourteen or fifteen hundred to the population. It is natural and usual that these several nationalities should have each its quarter; and, thus, in New York, as in London, there is a portion of the city almost exclusively inhabited by French people. Our New England friends who go to New York by the sound steamers often work their slow and tedious way up town by the horse-cars that run up Green street, a whole mile of which is nearly as French as a street in Paris. There is also a Spanish, and Italian and a Swiss quarter, smaller in extent, but plainly marked. As for the Germans, they have nearly monopolized the retail trades of the Bowery and Third Avenue, eight miles long. To show the origin of the Boss system, we invite the reader into the Italian quarter, though it is not pleasant either to the eye or the nose. The ear fares little better; for here live men of the hand-organ, with their monkeys; and here may be found the boys with white mice and whiter teeth who pervade the city at some seasons of the year. Out of the 3,000 Italians in the city, there will perhaps be five hundred men who are, or legally can soon be, voters. Of these five hundred, it is safe to say that four hundred understand little of American politics. But there are five hundred Italian votes. A candidate wants them; a party wants them; two parties want them; various wings of parties want them; and thus is created the opportunity for an Italian Boss. An Italian who knows both languages, who has some vantage ground in the quarter from, say, keeping a wine shop, or from being employed to engage opera chorus, or from letting organs by the mouth or on shares, comes to an understanding with a party Boss of the ward, and devotes a portion of his energies to getting Italians naturalized, and seeing that they vote properly on election day. Practice makes perfect; and, in course of a few years, by adroit management, one man usually gains an ascendency, and holds a great part of the Italian vote in his hand. Thus holding it he is in a position to make terms with a Boss more powerful than himself and [line unreadable] he is paid for his votes either by an office, by small appointments for his adherents, by a share in some profitable city work, or by money. He becomes the Boss of the Italian quarter. If the Italians were as numerous as the Irish, he would naturally end by becoming the Boss of the city. It is in some such way that Bosses in our large cities are developed. |
