Pursuant to Power...

Recently happened upon an interesting article about Tammany Hall. One bit seemed especially relevant to the dynamic I was talking about in my recent sketch of "The Game of Power":

Tammany embraced immigrants because they knew how to count and they understood that, as these Irish immigrants began washing up on South Street in New York ... there were two ways that New York could respond to these immigrants:

The Whig Party, which was the main opposition party at the time, chose to regard these immigrants as aliens and interlopers. And people, because most of them were Catholic, thought of them as people who could never really understand the Anglo-Protestant idea of liberty ...

The Democrats were a little more practical. They realized that if these people were extended the hand of friendship — and I do believe it was friendship — then well, you know, maybe they would show their appreciation on Election Day.