“Tammany is great and Croker gets the profit”
Richard Croker, looking pleased with himself, holds a large knife labeled “Tammany Vote” behind his back. Hobbling down the road in the background is a wounded William Jennings Bryan.
Comments and Context
“Boss” Richard Croker was perhaps the most coarse of Tammany Hall’s leaders through the years. He was likely as corrupt as any of the Democrat power-brokers in that role, and none were were more brutal. He survived a trial for killing a man, and typically made millions of dollars from salaries that officially were meager. In 1900 he had little enthusiasm for William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential candidate, yet dutifully supported the ticket. Tammany’s candidates vastly outperformed Bryan, somehow, in the city’s wards. In the few subsequent years Tammany candidates fared less well, and Croker moved to Ireland, the land of his birth. By that time he parlayed his successful business of breeding racehorses, scoring notable victories in England, Ireland, and the United States. This cartoon depicts the wealthy Croker, attired in pretentious garb with Irish touches, holding a knife of a treacherous “ally,”as the wounded Bryan limps into the sunset.
