Every good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn't isn't likely to be popular.

If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I give it to a friend--Why shouldn't I do the same in public life?
Another kind of honest graft.

Tammany has raised a good many salaries.
There was an awful howl by the reformers, but don't you know that Tammany gains ten votes for every one it lost by salary raisin'?
The Wall Street banker thinks it shameful to raise a department clerk's salary from $1500 to $1800 a year, but every man who draws a salary himself says: "That's all right.

I wish it was me." And he feels very much like votin' the Tammany ticket on election day, just out of sympathy.
Tammany was beat in 1901 because the people were deceived into believin' that it worked dishonest graft.

They didn't draw a distinction between dishonest and honest graft, but they saw that some Tammany men grew rich, and supposed they had been robbin' the city treasury or levyin' blackmail on disorderly houses, or workin' in with the gamblers and lawbreakers.
As a matter of policy, if nothing else, why should the Tammany leaders go into such dirty business, when there is so much honest graft lyin' around when they are in power?
Did you ever consider that?
Now, in conclusion, I want to say that I don't own a dishonest dollar.
If my worst enemy was given the job of writin' my epitaph when I'm gone, he couldn't do more than write: "George W.Plunkitt.He Seen His Opportunities, and He Took 'Em." Chapter 2.