Let’s start with honest graft. First, graft just means abusing your position in office to get money illegally. However honest graft was not illegal during Plunkitt’s time. Basically, he describes it as “He seen his opportunities and he took ’em”. In more depth he would get a, now illegal, tip from one of his political friends placed all throughout New York about a property or item that some people were interested in buying. Plunkitt would buy that item first and then sell it to them at a higher price. For example, let’s say you got a tip that some company was going to expand their business by building new locations. Plunkitt would find the most likely properties that the company would be interested in buying, and he would buy them cheap. Once the company’s decision went public there would be a big scramble to get the properties that Plunkitt had, and he sold them at a price where he could get a lot of profit.

Now dishonest graft is completely different from honest graft. It is the exact meaning of the word graft. Getting money by blackmailing people, stealing from public funds, and some other ways.

I think that Plunkitt was so open about his way of making money, honest graft, because he could not see why so many other politicians used dishonest graft. He said that they were so many opportunities for honest graft that nobody needed dishonest graft to get rich. However, nobody had a bunch of informants like Plunkitt and had no idea who was interested in what. Even if everyone did use honest graft they would certainly be in jail when it was made illegal to give out tips like the ones Plunkitt got.

In conclusion I have talked about honest graft and dishonest graft, and why Plunkitt was so open about how he made money.