Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

"The Proper Person to See" is how Murphy describes his crooked colleague, Boss William Tweed, whose story this chapter tells and begins revealing illegalities earlier suggested. New York is the country's financial capital, and the home of mighty newspapers, fashion, and high society. Every piece of real estate has been built up and traffic and noise are terrible. Self-interest and the almighty dollar reign on Broadway and Wall St. Contrasts are sharp and appalling, with some streets worse kept than anywhere on earth. Thousands of homeless children roam loose among beggars, drifters, thieves, and prostitutes. New York attracts the young, talented, ambitious, lucky, and unscrupulous. Since the war, it has been the place to scheme, promote, invent, pitch, and steal, and major figures like Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and Thomas Edison have abandoned the west for opportunity in the...