November 7, 2005
Nonsense on Stilts Posted by Frederic D. Schwarz at 10:40 AM EST We’ve all heard the old gag about how an economist stranded on a desert island could open a tin can: Assume a can opener. It’s not just economists, though. Some historians like to claim a similar privilege: Whenever they’re confronted with an inconvenient fact that disproves their thesis, they simply assume a conspiracy. Consider the case of William “Boss” Tweed. In 1977 Leo Hershkowitz published a book called Tweed’s New York: Another Look. In it he asserted that Tweed was not a crook but merely a clever politician, and that all the charges and accusations against him were elements of a partisan plot. Hershkowitz’s book was recently the subject of a sympathetic article on this site, and over the years a few historians have endorsed parts of the thesis it contains. Others, pointing to reams of incriminating documents and Tweed’s conviction on 204 criminal counts, disagree. Yet Hershkowitz was contradicted long ago by an expert far more knowledgeable than any historian: Tweed himself. In 1877 he wrote out a lengthy, detailed confession of his numerous and far-reaching defalcations. He then went before New York’s board of aldermen and testified in person for two weeks about the city’s pervasive corruption. As Kenneth Ackerman explains in his recently published biography Boss Tweed, the deposed ringleader named names and gave dates and produced supporting documents. When recipients of Tweed’s bribes protested that he was lying, for example, he proved his charges with receipts, letters, and canceled checks. What is Hershkowitz’s reaction to all this? He points out, correctly but irrelevantly, that Tweed expected to be freed from jail for confessing (though in the end he never was). He repeatedly puts the word “confession” in quotation marks and inserts phrases like “if Tweed really wrote it.” And that’s it. Poof! Shazam! Hershkowitz waves his Historian’s Magic Wand (patent pending), a cloud of smoke appears, and the truth vanishes. Oh, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
| 
