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Conspiracy Nation Vol. 11 Num. 19
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 11 Num. 19
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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THE WORLD OF GRAFT
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Between 1870 and 1880, consequent to the "Crime of 1873"
(abandonment of the 1792 silver standard; see CN 11.07), the
numbers of homeless had doubled in the U.S. Josiah Flynt, born in
1869, grew up in those times. Josiah, from a well-off family,
nonetheless spent his youth going on "tramps." Josiah, in those
hobo times, did not lack companions. The trains and roads
swarmed with tramps. After each adventure, Josiah was "wiser
than he had been before, and bolder in his dealings with the
criminals and tramps who were his companions." (*The Muckrakers*
by Louis Filler. ISBN: 0-8047-2236-6)
Young Josiah called his wanderings "an insatiable longing for The
Beyond." He enjoyed meeting people "as they really were when
stripped of conventions." Friends later described how Josiah
"could take them with him to the slums of a city, then change
completely before their eyes merely by shifting his gait,
altering the movements of his hands and eyes, and talking rapidly
in a strange, unfamiliar [slang] language." (ibid.)
Josiah Flynt's chameleon talent later helped him in two ways:
(1) he was able to easily penetrate the "Under World" (his term)
and write about it; and (2) when, for example, the New York
police didn't like what Flynt wrote about them and threatened to
"get" him and "give him the Third Degree," Flynt simply melted
away before their eyes.
In his book, *The World of Graft* (1901), Flynt enriched our
language by introducing the argot of the criminal to America;
words like "graft" and "underworld" come to us via Flynt. Flynt
used his Jekyll & Hyde ability to gain the confidence of the
criminal element, and got them to talk openly, from their
perspective, on how various U.S. cities *really* operated. His
book passes along what he'd learned.
*The World of Graft* describes the two key elements in any city:
the "Under World" and the "Upper World." When one in the "Under
World" got lucky and "made his 'pile,'" he went "up-town" to "put
on the ritz" and pretend to be "high class." When the
aristocrat, inhabiting the "Upper World," needed money, he'd head
"down-town" and scrounge up a "pile" of his own.
Chicago is described by Flynt as an "honest" city, and New York,
he says, is a "dishonest" city. In Flynt's nomenclature, this
means *both* cities are corrupt, but Chicago is honest about it.
"Reform" comes and goes: "When the present administration
finishes its operations in the city, it is the opinion of the
Under World that a reform administration will be necessary in
order to save something for the next City Hall clique to spend."
Regarding then-excitement in another city about various scandals,
one of Flynt's sources opined "that the present (1901) excitement
in the city concerning corrupt policemen, gambling dens, and
disorderly houses, is simply a passing manifestation of public
curiosity... the citizens will get tired before long of the
chatter about vice, and the town will then settle back into its
customary indifference to such matters." (*The World of Graft*
by Josiah Flynt)
Sure enough, that is the way of America: it gets fired up one
week, then next week moves on to something else. Last week it
was anger at the Internal Revenue Service. This week it's
"shock" about videotapes of White House fundraising. Next week
it's ________________. Lincoln Steffens, in *The Shame of the
Cities* (1904), takes what Flynt dug up and carries it one step
further, into "The Beyond" that young Josiah had been insatiably
longing for. Steffens says that our corrupt government IS
REPRESENTATIVE OF US:
The defeats and the grafters also represent us... the
corruption that shocks us in public affairs we practice
ourselves in our private concerns... the bribe we pay to
the janitor to prefer our interests to the landlord's is
the little brother of the bribe passed to the alderman to
sell a city street... The spirit of graft and of
lawlessness is the American spirit... the "corruption which
breaks out here and there and now and then" is not an
occasional offense, but a common practice.
Steffens ends the introduction to his book with a dedication "in
all good faith, to the accused -- to all the citizens of all the
cities in the United States."
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
For related stories, visit:
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html
http://feustel.mixi.net
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Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those
of Conspiracy Nation, nor of its Editor in Chief.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
