[FlingWingFlyer]

The money. It’s ALWAYS about the money.

[mlocher]

Why is the LA Times reporting this?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

What? No party affiliation provided?

Odds, anybody? Takers at 10:1?

[dennisw]

 

 

 

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em”

 

 

 

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em” & “Honest graft” (George Washington Plunkitt)

George Washington Plunkitt, a corrupt politician of Tammany Hall days, is known today for the term "honest graft" and the saying "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em."


Wikipedia: George Washington Plunkitt
George Washington Plunkitt (1842-1924) was a long-time State Senator from the U.S. state of New York, representing the Fifteenth Assembly District, who was especially powerful in New York City. He was part of what is known as New York's Tammany Hall machine.

Plunkitt became wealthy by practicing what he frankly called "honest graft" in politics. He was a cynically honest practitioner of what today is generally known as "machine politics," patronage-based and frank in its exercise of power for personal gain. Plunkitt's "honest graft" however, was not so honest. In one of his speeches, quoted in Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, he describes the difference between dishonest and honest graft as working solely for one's own interests and working for the interests of one's party, state, and personal interest whenever they can.

Most of his money was made through the purchase of lands that, through his connections, he knew would be needed for public projects. He would buy such parcels, then resell them at an inflated price. Plunkitt was also a big party man, believing in appointments, patronage, spoils, and all of the corrupt practices that were curtailed by the civil service law. He saw such practices as both the rewards and cause of patriotism. He hated the civil service system that he believed would be the downfall of the entire United States governmental system.

5 July 1903, New York (NY) Sun, pg. 8, col. 1:
PLUNKITT ON "HONEST GRAFT"

HE TELLS HOW TO GET RICH
IN POLITICS

Proposes as His Epitaph, "He Seen His
Opportunities and He Took 'em" -- In-
stances to Show the Difference Between
Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft

Senator George W. Plunkitt, sage of the County Court House bootblack stand, discussed yesterday the subject: "Honest graft and Dishonest graft."

"Since this dock investigation of Jerome's was started, you hear lots of talk about Tammany men growin' rich on graft," he began, "but you don't hear nobody drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft."

"Yes, many Tammany men have got rich in politics. I'm one of them. I'm rich and gettin' richer every day. But I've never gone in for dishonest graft -- blackmailin' gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, &c. -- and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics.

"There's an honest graft and I'm a good example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin' I seen my opportunities and I took 'em."
(...)
"Now, in conclusion, I want to say that I don't own a dishonest dollar, If my worst enemy was given the job of writin' my epitaph when I'm gone, he couldn't do more than write: 'George W. Plunkitt, He Seen His Opportunities and He Took 'em.'"

19 July 1903, Dallas (TX) Morning News, pg. 18:
A Tammany statesman says there is such a thing as "honest graft." Tammany has a code of distinctions in the graft business that other people are not onto.

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[antceecee]

Went to lunch with girls from the office in early 1990’s and two other ‘girlfriends’ of one of these ‘girls’ joined us. The two other women worked in immigration downtown L.A. and I found out a couple of years later they were helping the other one from my company set up a fake marriage for an illegal from Australia.

I think this stuff has been going on many, many years. I have no proof of anything, but the word was these women from immigration received payment for their help.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. Great news!; interesting (never heard of Plunkitt).

(Excerpts)

...there are two kinds of plunder: legal and illegal.

I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling — which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes — can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society. Anyway, the war against this kind of plunder has not waited for the command of these gentlemen. The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world.

The law itself conducts this war, and it is my wish and opinion that the law should always maintain this attitude toward plunder.

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder...

This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations — and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

The Law - Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850

[AuntB]

BTT