allegiance and they may up and swat him without bein' put down
as political ingrates.

Chapter 9. Reciprocity in Patronage

WHENEVER Tammany is whipped at the polls, the people set to
predictin' that the organization is going' to smash. They say we
can't get along without the offices and that the district leaders are
going' to desert wholesale. That was what was said after the
throwdowns in 1894 and 1901. But it didn't happen, did it? Not
one big Tam-many man deserted, and today the organization is
stronger than ever.

How was that? It was because Tammany has more than one string
to its bow.

I acknowledge that you can't keep an organization together without
patronage. Men ain't in politics for nothin'. They want to get
somethin' out of it.

But there is more than one kind of patronage. We lost the public
kind, or a greater part of it, in 1901, but Tammany has an immense
private patronage that keeps things going' when it gets a setback at
the polls.

Take me, for instance. When Low came in, some of my men lost
public jobs, but I fixed them all right. I don't know how many jobs
I got for them on the surface and elevated railroads-several
hundred.