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PRJ: Many of our readers are probably not acquainted with your political career, so could you say a few words explaining who you were and why they should care ?

GWP: I warn't no big high and mighty fat cat, like either of them Roosevelt characters. Mugwumps, both of 'em. No sir, George Washington Plunkitt was always a man of the people. I did serve my constituents long and hard in public office. As they love to quote my speeches, I seen my opportunities and I took 'em. An' I also seen where the people needed a hand up, mind you, and I helped them with all my power, in any way I could. I gave people jobs, raised their salaries, took care of the little guy that the city left in the ditch. They called it “graft”, but I tell you, there's a huge difference between honest graft and the dishonest kind.

PRJ (startled): So, you think there's such a thing as “honest” graft ?

GWP: Absolutely. Tammany could never have been the political juggernaut that we were by stealin' from the people. I say, we seen our opportunities and we took 'em. Ain't nothin' wrong with that. Now here is a place where you can read up on how honest graft works – a little speech I gave back in '05:

http://www.panarchy.org/plunkitt/graft.1905.html

“Everybody is talkin' these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There's all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I've made a big fortune out of the game, and I'm gettin' richer every day, but I've not gone in for dishonest graft - blackmailin' gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc. - and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics.
There's an honest graft...just let me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're going to layout a new park at a certain place. I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before. Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.”

PRJ: I think I understand what you mean ? Now, do know know any prominent politicians in the New World who particularly illustrate your point ?

GWP: Well, that would be a hard question to answer, seein' as I haven't been here that long. But that boy Josh Frost – the one you just reelected as president – I think he's really outstanding. Yes sir, Josh Frost really understands what honest graft is all about. Why, that kid's a genius !! Who would have ever thought of selling chances to fight and serve yer country and earn medals for bravery ? Now, Mr. Roosevelt organized his Rough Riders, an' took 'em up San Juan Hill, but he didn't take care of his boys like that !! No, I'm really impressed by Mr. Frost. You are lucky to have a public servant of his caliber workin' on your behalf.

PRJ: So, it seems you like what you see here ? Are there any political practices you see that do not meet your ethical and moral standards ?

GWP: Now, I'm not here to rake up any mud or cause trouble, you understand. But there are a couple of things that bother me here, that are not quite right. The most important pecadillo is that none of these parties enforce the spoils system. A man gets elected to office, you expect him to reward his friends, not his opponents. But what do you see, what do I see in the eUSA elections ? Well, its like playing a game of musical chairs, Whoever wins, he gets to sit down first, and all the others who were in office, they sit down, too. But the poor party members, the one's who the party ordered around like sheep, they get nothin' at all. You can't build even a weak plurality that way, much less the strong majority we had at Tammany Hall. If someone comes to ask Plunkitt how to keep players in the game, I have one answer, and it ain't about selling medals to fight. It is giving them what they have earned by bein' loyal to you, to sacrificin' themselves for the good of the party. And that ain't even the half of it. I'm readin' how these party leaders divide up the seats on Congress among themselves in advance, and whenever one party needs a few votes, they dispatch their people to vote for the other party !! Now, that's dishonest.

PRJ: But, weren't they just working for the common good, to make sure the best people got elected ?

GWP: Now, this sounds like a bunch of college boys, playin' at politics. I tell you, this smells like the big bosses, lordin' over the common man. It reminds me of civil service reform. Now, here's something I said about how terrible this idea sounds:
“How are you goin. to interest our young men in their country if you have no offices to give them when they work for their party ? Just look at things in this city to-day. There are ten thousand good offices, but we can't get at more than a few hundred of them. How are we goin' to provide for the thousands of men who worked for the Tammany ticket? It can't be done. These men were full of patriotism a short time ago. They expected to be servin' their city, but when we tell them that we can't place them, do you think their patriotism is goin' to last? Not much. They say: 'What's the use of workin' for your country anyhow? There's nothin' in the game.. And what can they do? I don't know, but I'll tell you what I do know. I know more than one young man in past years who worked for the ticket and was just overflowin' with patriotism, but when he was knocked out by the...humbug he got to hate his country and became an Anarchist.”
So, you see, good honest party competition and the spoils system are the lifeblood of our democracy. If you ain't gonna try to win and put your men in office, you might as well go to Russia and be a socialist. Are you surprised then that the young men of the country are beginnin' to look coldly on the flag and don't care to put up a nickel for fire-crackers? Let me tell you a story.
“After the battle of San Juan Hill, the Americans found a dead man with a light complexion, red hair and blue eyes. They could see he wasn't a Spaniard, although he had on a Spanish uniform. Several officers looked him over, and then a private of the Seventy-first Regiment saw him and yelled, .Good Lord, that's Flaherty. That man grew up in my district, and he was once the most patriotic American boy on the West Side. He couldn't see a flag without yellin' himself hoarse.
Now, how did he come to be lying dead with a Spanish uniform on? I found out all about it, and I'll vouch for the story. Well, in the municipal campaign of 1897, that young man, chockful of patriotism, worked day and night for the Tammany ticket. Tammany won, and the young man determined to devote his life to the service of the city. He picked out a place that would suit him, and sent in his application to the head of department. He got a reply that he must take a civil service examination to get the place. He didn't know what these examinations were, so he went, all light-hearted, to the Civil Service Board. He read the questions and... he left that office an enemy of the country that he had loved so well....blasted his patriotism. He went to Cuba, enlisted in the Spanish army at the breakin' out of the war, and died fightin' his country.”

PRJ: How would you advise a young person who wants to start up their own campaign ?

GWP: Now, this might surprise you, but you don't just go up an curry favor with the party boss. You've got to get your friends to start with. Get a followin', if it's only one man, and then go to the district leader and say: “I want to join the organization. I've got one man who'll follow me through thick and thin.” At that point, you have a market commodity. I started out with my cousin Tommy, who didn't care about politics, so I got his vote, here's how it continues when that man from the New York Post interviewed me before:

“That was beginnin' business in a small way, wasn't it? But that is the only way to become a real lastin' statesman. I soon branched out. Two young men in the flat next to mine were school friends. I went to them, just as I went to Tommy, and they agreed to stand by me. Then I had a followin' of three voters and I began to get a bit chesty. Whenever I dropped into district headquarters, everybody shook hands with me, and the leader one day honored me by lightin' a match for my cigar. And so it went on like a snowball rollin' down a hill. I worked the flat-house that I lived in from the basement to the top floor, and I got about a dozen young men to follow me. Then I tackled the next house and so on down the block and around the corner. Before long I had sixty men back of me, and formed the George Washington Plunkitt Association.”

PRJ: That would be a very large organization in eRepublik, wouldn't it ?

GWP: These things you call political parties couldn't stand up any longer than a snowball in a blast furnace to a real political organization like Tammany. The college boys in the eUSA got all worked up last month cause a few foreigners showed up at the polls. Well, in New York City, we'd get 'em in to the party when they walked off the boat. With 60 men, my association could get a majority in Congress. But you need to study human nature. If you don't want hayseeds from Florida and California comin' in and takin' over your state – we used to have the Republicans in Albany lordin' it over us, then you've got to learn human nature. Now, I said this before to Mr. Riordan, and I'll say it again:

“To learn real human nature you have to go among the people, see them and be seen. I know every man, woman, and child in the Fifteenth District, except them that's been born this summer and I know some of them, too. I know what they like and what they don't like, what they are strong at and what they are weak in, and I reach them by approachin' at the right side.”

Now, how can a man who flies in and out of his state once a month get to know his constituents like that ? I tell, you, it ain't possible, no matter how long that man's been in office. You can beat someone like that easily, with just a handful of your own men.

PRJ: Anything else ?

GWP: There ain't no beer in this game. Any true political reform would get rid of Prohibition and add beer.