October 27, 1871: Boss Tweed Is Arrested

October 27, 1871: William Magear Tweed, a.k.a. Boss Tweed, who controlled the Democratic Party in the City of New York and the State of New York through the Tammany Hall "political machine," is arrested on corruption charges. A State Senator and a one-term member of Congress (1853-54), as "Grand Sachem" of Tammany since 1858, his construction and other schemes led to the machine pocketing as much as $200 million in his 13 years in charge -- about $4.8 billion in today's money.

Although he escaped from jail and got to Europe, he was arrested in Spain, because a policeman recognized him from the cartoons drawn by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly.

Thomas Nast

Tweed often complained that the poor immigrants and their families that he was trying to help couldn't read, but they could see the cartoons, and that was what led them to turn their backs on him. Tweed died of pneumonia in prison, in 1878. He was just 55 years old, although he was always quite fat.

Nast also drew the first "jolly old elf" image of Santa Claus, putting that image into the public consciousness for all time; and drew an elephant to symbolize a heavy vote for the Republican Party, leading to it becoming the Party's symbol. While he frequently drew a donkey as the symbol of the Democratic Party, and "Uncle Sam" as a symbol for America as a whole, he did not originate either symbol. But he did as much as anyone else to bring Boss Tweed to justice, and for that, we owe him our thanks.

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October 27, 1871 was a Friday. The baseball season was over. Football and hockey barely existed. And basketball hadn't been invented yet. So there were no scores on this historic day.