Charles F. Murphy of Tammany Hall
Charles F. Murphy, left, voting in the 1921 general election at a polling site on East 17th Street. Daily News, 9 November 1921, p. 13. Newspapers.com.
New York Times, 8 August 1921, p. 1. The New York Times.
One hundred years ago today … Charles F. Murphy was undisputed, if unlisted, boss of Tammany Hall and therefore, the most powerful person in municipal government. “Fusion” candidate for mayor Henry Curran tried taking him straight on, accusing him of using strongarm tactics and antidemocratic means to get Mayor John Hylan re-elected.
See our post from last month about the move to nominate a “Fusion” candidate for mayor against the Democratic incumbent.
One campaign issue raised by Curran was the mayor’s relationship to the police. Curran said:
“[Hylan] talked publicly with a Deputy Controller about the ten-squad system for the patrolmen which he took away from them six months ago. Under that system, the patrolman enjoyed one day a week at home with his family. Now he gets only one day in every twenty-seven, although the patrolmen in the department number 600 more today than they did six months ago. The Mayor said he would have a talk with Commissioner Enright about it.
“Why doesn't he restore the ten-squad system now instead of waiting until the campaign is on? The Board of Aldermen demanded unanimously two months ago that this system should be restored. Action should have been taken then to keep such questions out of the campaign. Such questions should be settled without regard to politics.
“The vote-catching season is now on, and the Mayor of New York opens it by swinging his political nightstick over the families of the city patrolmen."
(“CURRAN OPENS FIGHT, ATTACKING MURPHY'S ‘DARKROOM TICKET.’” New York Times, 8 August 1921, p. 1.)
Here is Murphy playing golf in the Hamptons in the summer of 1921:
Daily News, 9 November 1921, p. 13. Newspapers.com.
Above, the “wigwam” refers to the fact that the Tammany headquarters on East 14th Street was popularly called “the Wigwam.” As if this appropriation of Algonquin terminology were not sinister enough on its own, in the context enough it is made more pernicious by the fact that Murphy is golfing on a course named for the Shinnecock people whose land was overtaken.
– Jonathan Goldman, August 7, 2021.
TAGS: politics, mayor campaign, corruption, election, Democrats, Republicans, police, NYPD