Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

Now before we get to today's topic, is from 1871 I wanted to just mark a very

interesting day here in 2020 so yesterday Monday December 14th we had two major stories. We had the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine and we had the

electoral college vote which made it very clear that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

We've talked a few times on this show about these days where two or more huge stories kind of collide and I think that in future

seasons of a show like this they may look back at Monday, December 14th, 2020 is one of those kinds of days.

So I just wanted to acknowledge it.

But today on this show we are talking about December 15th, 1871, the day that Boss Tweed is arrested by Sheriff Matthew Brennan

to face 120 counts of grand larceny, forgery, false pretenses, conspiracy, and other felonies and misdemeanors.

Boss Tweed was thrown in jail.

He was initially denied bail, but a former Tweed prodigy, a judge George Barnard,

granted him that bail of $5,000 and Boss Tweed Prote, a judge George Barnard, granted him that bail of $5,000 and Boss Tweed walked out.

And this was kind of the beginning of a pattern, I would say, for Boss Tweed over the next 10 years

or so.

He was, safe to say, the most powerful person in New York politics for much of the

1860s, controlling both the money and the votes for the famously corrupt Tammany Hall

system. But then in the next decade, over the 1870s,

he's still powerful, but he kind of spends a lot of the time

getting arrested, getting out on bail, escaping at one point,

awaiting trial, you kind of start to lose track of what he's up to but his

power is fading he is being held to account and things are turning for Boss Tweed so we

...