When they were doing their jobs, the bosses (the word is a New York one, from the Dutch Baas, meaning master; a word that has spread from this archipelago off the New Jersey coast to the entire English-speaking world) looked in two directions. They looked out for the interests of their wards in Albany and, to a degree, in Washington; they also looked out for the individual interests of the pushcart vendors getting hassled by the cops and the sandhogs digging the foundations for the Brooklyn Bridge and the brides under their chuppas: everyone who either had a vote, or had the ear of a man with a vote.

In the most cynical terms possible, in modern politics votes are acquired through advertising, which is guided by the findings of public relations experts using the psychological technology of the focus group and the poll. Since 2004, House and Senate races have been won by the candidate who spent the most money between 83 and 98 percent of the time. The intimacy and persuasion needed in vote-getting are generated primarily through the medium of the TV screen, and the direct financial beneficiaries of that money are, of course, the TV stations.

By contrast, in Tammany New York, votes were acquired through social contact and practical favors, financial and legal assistance, jobs and drinks at the pub. The direct financial beneficiaries were, yes, the politicians and the businessmen who got contracts at far above the market price– but also the poor families whose rent got paid, the boy who got a job working for the new El being put up along Greenwich Street and 9th Avenue, the couple whose hotel room was paid for when they were burnt out of their apartment.

In less cynical terms: Tammany was a corruption, but it was a corruption of something good: the idea that government should, as Plunkitt said, be “warm and personal;” that decisions should be made locally; that rulers should directly and practically help the ruled; that there should be an everyday and immediate connection between the politicians and the people.