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 allied with the Sons of Liberty and the Sons of 1776, and it has always professed "intense Americanism," so far as that phrase is synonymous with Anglophobia. At first its ranks were recruited from among the small merchants, retailers and mechanics of the city; and by coming into close touch with the mass of immigrants that form so large a proportion of the population, giving the new comers employment in some cases, in others charitable aid, instructing the alien voter as to his political rights and privileges, and directing him in their exercise, it has built up an enormous voting machine, insufficient to defeat a united opposition, but almost invariably so fortunate in local contests as to find its opponents divided. While nominally Democratic in national affairs, Tammany has never scrupled to oppose the Democratic party in the pursuit of its own immediate end—the control of local offices and revenues. This powerful machine has now for several years been dominated by an illiterate immigrant.

Comparatively recent as were the beginnings of the city, hardly a trace of the original village remains. Not a single building has come down to us from the Dutch period. It was to