[Trivia: in its most familiar form, the chemical compound C6H6 takes a form known by what name?]
In Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, which is a series of candid monologues given by New York City’s Democratic boss George Washington Plunkitt around 1900, we get a surprisingly vivid and earthy view into the workings of politics. What Plunkitt talks about is frank, specific, and very much not highfalutin.
He spoke at a time when America was less urbanized than it is now, and New York State was something of a swing state—dominated, after all, by the critical population mass of farmers “upstate.” He complains in one chapter about the Republican (“hayseed”) majorities in Albany constantly rearranging NYC’s municipal operation to suit their needs. But at one point this sage does overextend himself and make a prediction that so far as I am aware did not come to pass.
The time is comm' and though I'm no youngster, I may see it, when New York City will break away from the State and become a state itself. It's got to come. The feelin' between this city and the hayseeds that make a livin' by plunderin' it is every bit as bitter as the feelin' between the North and South before the war. And, let me tell you, if there ain't a peaceful separation before long, we may have the horrors of civil war right here in New York State. Why, I know a lot of men in my district who would like nothin' better today than to go out gunnin' for hayseeds!
New York City has got a bigger population than most of the states in the Union. It's got more wealth than any dozen of them. Yet the people here, as I explained before, are nothin' but slaves of the Albany gang. We have stood the slavery a long, long time, but the uprisin' is near at hand. It will be a fight for liberty, just like the American Revolution. We'll get liberty peacefully if we can; by cruel war if we must.
Ironically, the people upstate these days might sympathize. After all, the 2020 presidential election between Biden and Trump resulted in NY municipal results that look like this:
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Answer: Benzene.