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All politics revolved around the Boss. 1899 cartoon from Puck.

Richard Croker (November 24, 1843^[1] - 1922) was an American politician, a leader of New York City's Tammany Hall.

Born at Blackrock, Ireland, he was taken to the United States by his parents when two years old, and was educated in the public schools of New York City, where he eventually became a member of Tammany Hall and active in its politics. He was an alderman from 1868 to 1870, a coroner from 1873 to 1876, a fire commissioner in 1883 and 1887, and city chamberlain from 1889 to 1890. After the fall of John Kelly he became the leader of Tammany Hall, and for some time almost completely controlled that organization. As head of Tammany, Croker received bribe money from the owners of brothels, saloons and illegal gambling dens. He survived Charles Henry Parkhurst's attacks on Tammany Hall corruption and became a wealthy man.

His greatest political success was his bringing about the 1897 election of Robert A. Van Wyck as first mayor of the five-borough "greater" New York, and during van Wyck's administration Croker is popularly supposed to have dominated completely the government of the city. After Croker's failure to carry the city in the presidential election of 1900 and the defeat of his mayoralty candidate, Edward M. Shepard in 1901, he resigned from his position of leadership in Tammany and was succeeded by Seth Low. He retired to a country life in England and Ireland. In 1907 he won the Epsom Derby with his race-horse Orby.

1. ^ Date from 1911 EB article; Spartacus.net and some other sources say 1841. The 1880 U.S. Census shows a Richard Croker, an ex-coroner at that date, born in Ireland in 1843, living in Harrison, Westchester, New York. It does not show any other Irish-born Richard Croker. Found by searching for the relevant terms at http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=census/search_census.asp, October 7, 2006.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Spartacus.schoolnet article on Croker

• Tammany Hall Links

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