4                                 TerrenceJ. McDonald

book learning and political oratory, claiming that he worked in poli¬
tics "as a business," and kept his power by "studying human nature
and acting accordin'," i.e., by providing various types of personal
recognition and political patronage. Plunkitt's motto was "I seen
my opportunities and I took 'em," and he admitted he became a
millionaire through real estate investment in areas where values
were about to increase as a result of government projects. But he
also found jobs and did favors for his constituents and maintained
his power, and Tammany's, as a result.

For many readers, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall has been a lesson in
"realistic" liberalism, a brand of politics based not on moralistic
views of human nature, but on responses to human needs. A key to
Tammany's success—a cue to twentieth-century liberalism—seems
to be found in Plunkitt's diary of daily services to his constituents.
It chronicles his bailing out a banender at 2 a.m., his kindness to
fire victims, court appearances, and job finding on behalf of
constituents, as well as his attendance at weddings, funerals, parish
bazaars, and political meetings in his district in New York's Upper
West Side.

Until recently, little has been known about Plunkitt, Riordon, or
the circumstances leading to the publication of the book, despite
the book's centrality to our understanding of urban politics. The
rich resources of the Columbia University Libraries, including the
Edwin Patrick Kilroe Collection of Tammaniana in the Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, allow us to investigate these men and their
relationship, and the picture is, not surprisingly, more complicated
than previous accounts have supposed. Plunkitt was a powerful
Tammany Hall politician, but the book's editor, Riordon, played a
more important role in its production than previously thought.
Plunkitt may not even have spoken some of the most famous
phrases in the book; and at the time that it was published, he was
already well on the way to political oblivion, a trip speeded by the
appearance of the work.

George Washington Plunkitt was born in New York City on
November 17,  1842, in an area of the Upper West Side of