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I said, “You mean Jimmy Gerard puts on regalia?” - that most correct gentleman.
“Oh yes.”
They have a real regalia of an Indian head dress, which no one has ever seen. Tammany Hall is a secret, patriotic society. They perform their mystical rites with great seriousness. They put on the regalia and carry on the rital. It has a ritual just like the Masons, the Elks, or whatever else you have. I think he showed me the book of ritual, but he didn't invite me to read it. He pointed to the cases where the regalia was kept. I think they were glassed over so that I saw, though not in detail, these Indian arrangements. Their ritual is based on the Indian religion, habits and customs as they understood them.
I said to them, “Do the modern Tammany Hall people take that very seriously?”
He said, “Very, very seriously. There's no joking about this. This is very important. This is what binds us together. We're all one band of brothers. We're bound together in this. When you become a sachem of Tammany Hall, by George you are committed to something. You cannot let your brothers down. You've got to help each other. There's a principle of brotherhood.”
Years later I realized it's the same principle that the
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