May 2, 2007
Citizen Kane and Prince Charles III Posted by John Steele Gordon at 09:25 AM EST Alexander Burns writes, “By Bragg’s preferences, the producers of Gangs of New York should be liable to the estate of William Marcy Tweed. Except, I’d be quite flabbergasted if Tweed ever had an active estate.” I think the producers of Gangs of New York should be sued for making a terrible movie. But seriously . . . I doubt Tweed left an estate as well. He died in the Ludlow Street Jail. And while his little tin box had been very well stuffed at one time (Fifth Avenue mansion, Long Island estate, diamond stickpin the size of a robin’s egg, etc.), I don’t think there was much left by the end. Just for the record, however, Tweed’s middle name was almost certainly not Marcy, even though you can find that name in a million reference works. Tweed’s middle name, in fact, is unknown (unless it’s been found recently and I haven’t heard) but was probably Magear, which was his mother’s maiden name. He signed his name William M. Tweed. William Marcy, the New York governor in the 1830s and cabinet member under Polk and Pierce, is famous for having coined the phrase “to the victor belongs the spoils,” if not for much else. But he had nothing to do with Tweed. How his name got to be irrevocably concatenated with Tweed’s is one of the minor mysteries of American history. As for the British royal family. I agree that they should set an example, and the queen most certainly does. She has devoted her life to a hard, endless, and often thankless job. The other members of the family, I suppose, could argue that they, like everyone else, did not get to choose their parents and therefore shouldn’t have to behave any better than everyone else. Presidents, however, have no such excuse. They choose their fate and should behave as the country expects them to. I can think of one recent American President who behaved far worse in the improprieties and moral decay department than any member of the British royal family has in recent times. Mr. Burns writes, “Even then, though, public financial support of the monarchy still seems pretty wasteful. Mr. Gordon and I had a good exchange a while back about American politicians and their decorating expenditures. The wastefulness of the Clintons’ White House redecoration, which we both deplored, was insignificant compared to the millions of pounds poured down the drain each year keeping up Buckingham Palace and Balmoral Castle.” First, Balmoral is not maintained by the British government. It is the private property of the queen, who pays for its upkeep out of her own resources. Second, Buckingham Palace would be maintained in splendor whether a monarch or a President was living there. It is hard to believe that a historian would say that maintaining a building so drenched in history is pouring money down a drain. Third, the various palaces (all except Buckingham Palace open at least in part to the public, and many, such as the Tower of London and Hampton Court, now purely museums) are not maintained out of the civil list, which pays for the expenses of the royal family in carrying out their official duties. They are maintained out the income generated by entrance fees. Fourth, in exchange for the civil list (7.9 million pounds), the Queen surrenders the vastly greater income from the crown lands (190 million pounds last year). The civil list would be about the only savings that abolishing the monarchy would create, and that is less than the British government spends each year on finding lost cats. It amounts to about 11 pence per British subject per year. The British monarchy is the literal embodiment of British history, and the monarch has political power only as the last guardian of the constitution, not a situation likely to arise. Why anyone would prefer some worn-out bureaucrat (the usual occupant of the office of head of state in a parliamentary government) instead of someone with 1,200 years of the nation’s history in his or her veins and with all the very real if atavistic magnetism and charisma of a genuine monarch only in order to cut the budget of the British government by less than two one thousandths of one percent is an utter mystery to me.
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