Posted by 3Breann on September 27, 2009 at 10:20pm
William Marcy Tweed was born on April 3, 1823 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He was elected into the House of Representatives in 1852, the New York City Board of Advisors during 1856, and the New York State Senate in 1867. Tweed was put in charge of the Erie Railroad that originally went from New York City to Lake Erie, but with time it expanded and connected to many other railroads.
The huge scandal that Tweed was involved is was that they were building a new courthouse in New York and the project only cost about $3 millioin, which is roughly $7 million now. Instead Tweed and other members that were with him made the people pay up to $13 million, about $178 million today, and they kept the rest of the money.
Tweed was arrested and had an $8 million bail. He was sentenced to 12 years in jail, but a higher court later had his sentenced ruduced to only one year. Once he was released he was quickly arrested again on civil charges and sued by New York State for $6 million. On December 4, 1875 he escaped from jail and fled to Spain, he worked as a seaman on a ship there. Police in America heard that he was there and they were going to go get him when the Spainish police arrested him because they reconized him from a political cartoon. Tweed died on April 12, 1878 in the Ludlow Street Jail because of severe pneumonia.
Although Tweed seems like a total loser because of the scandal him was in he really did do some positive things with his position in the government. He helped with improving streets in New York, schools, orphanges, hospitals, donating to charities, and foreshadowed later developments in the U.S. labor movement and Social Security. From 1869 till 1871 when Tweed was still a big influcence New York spent more money donating to charity than from 1852 to 1868 combined. Tweed, or Boss Tweed as he was commonly refered to, did make a difference even though he did a pretty shady thing.-Breann Lehr
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