e said 20,000, and another wanted
15,000, and other wanted 10,000. I said: "All right, let me bid for the
lot, and I'll give each of you all you want for nothin'."

They agreed, of course. Then the auctioneer yelled: "How much am I bid
for these 250,000 fine pavin' stones?"

"Two dollars and fifty cents," says I.

"Two dollars and fifty cents!" screamed the auctioneer. "Oh, that's a
joke! Give me a real bid."

He found the bid was real enough. My rivals stood silent. I got the
lot for $2.50 and gave them their share. That's how the attempt to do
Plunkitt ended, and that's how all such attempts end.

I've told you how I got rich by honest graft. Now, let me tell you that
most politicians who are accused of robbin' the city get rich the same
way.

They didn't steal a dollar from the city treasury. They just seen their
opportunities and took them. That is why, when a reform administration
comes in and spends a half million dollars in tryin' to find the public
robberies they talked about in the campaign, they don't find them.

The books are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all
right. Everything is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany
heads of departments looked after their friends, within the law, and
gave them what opportunities they could to make honest graft. Now, let
me tell you that's never goin' to hurt Tammany with the people. Every
good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn't isn't likely
to be popular. If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I
give it to a friend--Why shouldn't I do the same in public life?

Another kind of honest graft. Tammany has raised a good many salaries.
There was an awful howl by the reformers, but don't you know that
Tammany gains ten votes for every one it lost by salary raisin'?

The Wall Street banker thinks it shameful to raise a department clerk's
salary from $1500 to $1800 a year, but every man who draws a salary
himself says: "That's all right. I wish it was me." And he feels
very much like votin' the Tammany ticket on election day, just out of
sympathy.

Tammany was beat in 1901 because the people were deceived into believin'
that it worked dishonest graft. They didn't draw a distinction between
dishonest and honest graft, but they saw that some Tammany men grew
rich, and supposed they had been robbin' the city treasury or levyin'
blackmail on disorderly houses, or workin' in with the gamblers and
lawbreakers.

A