Corruption is not only about embezzlement of public funds but the destruction of the public institutions and undermining of the rule of law. Their dysfunctional effects are pervasive and perfidious, even occasionally murderous.

The wise learn from history’s dark past and avoid its mistakes but the foolish tread its crooked path, suffer the ignominious consequences and leave behind unwanted legacies.

As I recently watched a documentary on the rise of New York as a metropolitan city, I couldn’t help noting the uncanny parallels between the misdeeds of one of its leading but infamous politicians in the 19th century with that of today’s dishonest politicians.

 The New York politician of Scottish-Irish descent, William M. Tweed (1823-1878) nicknamed ‘Boss’ Tweed, was the New York City’s political boss who to many Americans of his time personified public corruption.

One of his unwanted legacies was that he became “the archetype of the bloated, rapacious, corrupt city boss” accompanied by a voracious appetite for bribes and kickbacks that he demanded in exchange for city contracts.

He wore a diamond, orchestrated elections, controlled the city’s mayor, and rewarded political supporters.  He bought land and sold them at a profit because he exploited insider information and indulged in dishonest deals and became a substantial property owner.

Sounds familiar?

It affirmed my conviction why free and fair elections are necessary to prevent the bastardization of democracy. If politicians like Boss Tweed who manipulated the electoral process and corrupted the system of democracy are thwarted from winning office, democracy can be restored.

Some of Tweed’s political statements are almost infamously legendary:

“I don’t care who does the electing so long as I get to do the nominating.”

“You have the liberty of voting for anyone you please; but we have 
the liberty of counting in anyone we please.”

 “The way to have power is to take it.”

“I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures.”

The last quote may explain why politicians are scared of political cartoons but small comfort to Malaysia’s political caricaturist Zunar whose books of political cartoons were unfairly banned by the Malaysian authorities.

The caption for the above cartoon reads: Can the law reach him? The Dwarf and the Giant Thief.

The following extract from The Rise of the City evokes a similar response to those critical of the corrupt in their own country:

Jacking up the costs

“The most notorious example of urban corruption was the construction of the New York Country Courthouse, begun in 1861 on the site of a former almshouse. Officially the city wound up spending nearly $13 million – roughly $178 million in today’s dollars – on a building that should have cost several times less. Its construction cost nearly twice as much as the purchase of Alaska in 1867.

The corruption was breathtaking in its breadth and boldness.

A carpenter was paid $360,751 (roughly $4.9 million today) for one month’s labour in a building with very little woodwork. A furniture contractor received $179,729 ($2.5 million) for three tables and 40 chairs. And the plasterer, a crony, got $133,187 ($1.82 million) for two days’ work; his business acumen earned him the sobriquet ‘The Prince of Plasterers’.

Tweed personally profited from a financial interest in a Massachusetts quarry that provided the courthouse’s marble. When a committee investigated why it took so long to build the courthouse, it spent $7,718 ($105,000) to print its report. The printing company was owned by Tweed.”

The magnitude of today’s corrupt dealings by politicians and the politically connected, even if still unproven allegations and pending charges, makes William Tweed’s corruption pale in comparison. However the analogy of the corrupt in high public office offers a timely and relevant reminder that culpable conduct can be brought to justice by a determined, active and civic-minded society working in tandem with the good forces in government who are prepared to put nation first.

How the papers got their guy

Tweed was brought down by the Harper’s Weekly and the New York Times which crusaded against corruption in city government in 1870 and 1871, and other factors, including betrayals by rivals in his own political party who sought the spoils of office for themselves.

Why are corrupt politicians a scourge to the nation?

They not only make a country broke but destroy the lives of ordinary people like a sickening, deadly disease and are like the stench of death.

Corruption is not only about embezzlement of public funds but the destruction of the public institutions and undermining of the rule of law. Their dysfunctional effects are pervasive and perfidious, even occasionally murderous. Lives are lost when buildings collapse and boats sink because of unchecked corruption that short-changed public safety and proper standards.

Every upright and law-abiding citizen should cooperate and purge their country’s governance of political corruption and save their country from inevitable financial and social collapse.

Boss Tweed was seen as a self-serving thief exploiting his position at the city’s expense and eventually deserted by those who once abetted him. They came to their senses before their city became a Sodom of state-sanctioned lawlessness and greed.

With the aid of the social media and the internet today the challenge becomes easier than in Tweed’s time to rid society of the corrupt. Despite their diabolical use of local and foreign mercenary agents and bloggers to spin lies against those who expose their corrupt ways, they cannot subdue the truth.

Why Bersih is a threat

While a people movement like Bersih has not demonized anyone it is being demonized because it poses a threat to the corrupt. But the truth is the corrupt are their own accusers, their own worst enemy. The fruit of their corruption bears testimony against them perhaps better than anything else. They are weighed down by their sins.

A strike against Bersih is a strike against all anti-corruption citizens in the country. No wonder the forces of good rally in the nation against corruption. But the war on corruption is more than Bersih and is a national cry – it represents the bottled frustrations of many Malaysians.

It is pointless for anyone to justify the unjustifiable and to pit lies against the unshakeable truth and irrefutable evidence. The light of truth can never be overshadowed by the darkness of lies.

Film buffs and fans who watched the 2002 historical film, Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York will recognize Boss Tweed played by actor Jim Broadbent. Interestingly, what enabled Tweed to succeed in his role as political kingmaker was the rising numbers of Irish immigrants and the elite with vested interests that provided much of his earlier political support.

Readers can draw their own analogy with the situation in their country. There are always self-vested individuals and groups who will abet the corrupt and twist the truth until everything eventually crumbles in a heap under the weight of their complicit greed.

Betrayed by whistleblowers who held a grudge against him from being short-changed in a corrupt deal and through a growing public enraged by his inordinate dishonesty in public office, and buffeted by the talents of political cartoonist Thomas Nast – whose works of political satire and art published in Harper’s Weekly, seriously undermined Tweed’s position – New York’s most corrupt high priest of politics met his demise as a disgraced and dejected jailbird at age 55.

Tweed may as well have earned the notorious tag of being ‘New York’s boss of public corruption.’ Malaysians will know who their ‘Father of Public Corruption’ is when the truth is revealed.

The moral of the story from Boss Tweed’s legacy is that corruption can become the opiate of dishonest politicians that will eventually destroy them like a deadly overdose kills a drug addict because greed knows no bounds and does not stand to reason.

William M. Tweed’s name is now forever tarnished, synonymous with corruption in high public office, and remains a dark blotch on New York’s history.

Corruption did not pay for the Boss. It will not pay for today’s corrupt, who are tomorrow’s fallen rogues.

Will the corrupt learn from Tweed’s mistakes? Unlikely judging from how events are panning out. The ominous signs of their unwanted legacies are already apparent and there is no cure for the fatal addiction to corruption.

But you can always vote them out of office and put them behind bars like what they did to Boss Tweed – once the untouchable leader of the Tweed Ring political mafia of New York.