In my last entry, you might wonder why America has degenerated? Why its politicians suddenly care less about their constituency? Why the civic and business leaders forgot the average American's "right to the pursuit of happiness"?
That is nothing new. In an old almanac, I found these stories to be insightful.
-Isaac Vincent, treasurer of Alabama disappeared in 1883 with the modern equivalent of $4.3 million.
-In 1883, citizens of Long Island City, NY, won a civil suit against their mayor, Henry De Bevoise, for misappropriating city bonds in the modern equivalent of $2.2 million.
-In 1885, Michael Delahanty, Justice of the Peace of Long Island City was guilty of malfeasance--collecting fines and keeping them for his own use. While awaiting judgement, he was captured during a raid of illegal gambling.
-The first major success of the NYC Tammany "political machine" was the mayoral election of 1854. It allowed the ascent of William "Boss" Tweed, one of the most notorious Tammany leaders. While never mayor, he was Commissioner of Public Works, and used the position to milk the city of untold millions--as if it were all blank checks. He was chairman of the Democratic Party of New York County, and the Grand Sachem of the Tammany Club--both centers of corruption, vote buying, vote altering, lobbying, extortion rackets, and money funneling. Tammany bosses existed through the 1950s--despite occasional reforms and upstanding mayors. Due to NYC's vast (and uneducated) population, state and national leaders sought favors from the Tammany organization to manipulate voters to vote for them. (Such corruption and neglect of priorities explains why NYC is the way it is today--still 100 years behind other developed cities!)
-In 1881, the U.S. Assistant Postmaster General resigned due to an estimated scam/loss of $79 million in today's money, over five years! But, trials all ended with acquittals (nothing new, considering the our last economic turmoil of 2008).
-In 1888, the NY governor's election was won by David Bennett who was backed by the influential State Liquor Dealers' Association (via free flowing alcohol to buy votes). In return, Bennett vetoed a bill that would've increased license fees.
-In 1888, James Tate, Treasurer of Kentucky embezzled $3 million in today's money and disappeared. His nickname had been "Honest Dick".
-In 1890, Stevenson Archer, Treasurer of Maryland and chairman of the state Democratic party was charged with stealing $2.9 million in today's money--which he used to repair trust funds that he managed. He was sentenced to only 5 years in prison, but was soon pardoned by the governor due to "his poor health". (Do we see a trend here, involving political money-managers? Do we also see a lack of punishment/consequences? And this was 100 years before present-day corruption!)
-In 1891, the Kansas senate voted to impeach Republican Judge Theodosius Botkin for gambling, being drunk while at trial and throwing innocents into jail because they were personal enemies, and releasing from jail his political friends.
-In 1893, the Democrat mayor of Chicago was assassinated for receiving payoffs and bribes from lucrative city contracts and leases. His biggest payoff came from helping create the Ogden Gas Company to compete with the existing People's Gas Company. The threat of competition was to force the People's company to purchase stock. In 1895 the Chicago mayoral convention turned into a riot of physical assaults; police were called to quash them. The vote that occurred after also turned into several riots--involving rocks, clubs and gunshots wounding several people. (You can't hide that Chicago lacked a respectable element--no wonder mobsters took it over in the 1920s).
-The young state of Montana finally elected William Andrews Clark as its U.S. Senator in 1899 (despite well-publicized bribery issues). A robber-baron of a copper empire, he built a mammoth mansion in NYC (no surprise!) which was torn down from hatred as soon as Clark died.
-In 1898, Robert Van Wyck, Democrat judge in New York City, became the city's mayor. Active in Tammany Hall during prolific corruption, he was involved in the Ice Trust Scandal, where the city allowed one company to have a monopoly of ice supplies (before refrigeration was invented). Even NYS Governor Roosevelt failed to eject Van Wyck--also for all the dummy corporations that received funds from the city, which "lined the pockets" of Tammany bosses. Van Wyck left office with $39 million in today's money, as his personal fortune (and an expressway is named after him). At his death, the NY Times wrote he was "involved in probably more administrative scandals than any Mayor in the city's history."
As you can discover on your own in today's news headlines, such illegalities never stopped. It is incorrigible.
The number of accusations against Donald Trump since the mid 1970s was huge and in the open and he still got voted in! It includes misogyny, corruption, colluding with Russia, abusing a disabled female reporter, racism, anti-abortionism, boasting that he paid very few taxes, calling global-warming a “hoax”, fraternising with white supremacists on Twitter, swindling people in business, repeatedly suggesting Obama was not born in the USA and calling him a Muslim, refusing to condemn anti-Semitism, threatening and then banning reporters who criticised him. The list goes on and on and I am struggling to believe it all myself!
ReplyDeleteAnd they STILL voted for him; it’s what we don’t know about him that worries me!
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s deficient Blog ‘To Discover Ice’
You would think that we'd have smarter populations by now.
Delete