RON'S PICKS.Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , by Kenneth D. Ackerman, Carrol & Graf, 400 pages, $27.00. Profiles one of the best known political bosses in American history, a complex and fascinating practitioner of the art of the possible. To get his way and to consolidate his power, Tweed bribed state legislators, skimmed skim v. skimmed, skim·ming, skims v.tr. 1. a. To remove floating matter from (a liquid). b. To remove (floating matter) from a liquid. c. money from city contractors, fixed elections, diverted public funds See Fund, 3. See also: Public , manipulated newspapers, controlled judges and heavily leaned on governors and members of Congress. As the leader of Tammany Hall's patronage machine, he not only pulled the strings in New York politics and government but also had a big impact on the national scene. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] He positioned himself as a champion of the poor and immigrants, and won significant pockets of public support despite his obvious abuses of the public trust. The fraud, favoritism and corruption of the Tweed's reign led to his eventual imprisonment Imprisonment See also Isolation. Alcatraz Island former federal maximum security penitentiary, near San Francisco; “escapeproof.” [Am. Hist.: Flexner, 218] Altmark, the German prison ship in World War II. [Br. Hist. , escape, recapture and the association of his name forever with the excesses of America's Gilded Age Gilded Age The years between the Civil War and World War I when institutions undertook financial manipulations that went virtually unchecked by government. This era produced many infamous activities in the security markets. . |
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