Brief History Of The Tweed Ring In New York

The Tweed Ring In New York

The Tweed Ring involves a man by the name of William Marcy Tweed. He was born in New York in 1823. He was a city alderman by the time he was 28. He carefully cemented his position in the city’s Democratic Party and became to bring his cronies into offices until they had taken over the city government. He and his cronies became known as the “Tweed Ring.” In 1860, Tweed opened a law office, even though he had not received any law training. He began to receive large sums of money from corporation in exchange for his “legal services”, which were in fact a cover for extortions. He was beginning to receive large sums of money this way. William Tweed used the large amount of money he had gained to buy real estate in the Manhattan area. Also, he began wearing a large diamond attached to the front of his

In 1868, William Marcy Tweed became the grand sachem (leader) of Tammany Hall. He was also elected to New York State Senate. In 1870, the Tweed Ring took control of the city’s treasury. They did this by passing a city charted which named them the board of audit. Now that the Tweed Ring had placed them over the finances of New York City, they began to financially drain the city. They drained the city’s finances through faked leases, false vouchers, extra expenses tacked onto bills, and various other scheme thought of by the Tweed Ring. The Tweed Ring’s downfall finally came in 1873. By then the Tweed Ring had taken anywhere between $30,000,000 to $200,000,000 present-day dollars. The public finally began to support efforts to stop them. The ongoing efforts of The New York Times and Thomas Nast were finally able to have Tweed and his cohorts convicted on charges of forgery and larceny. A century later, Tweed’s practices are still frowned upon and measure have been put in place to ensure