The Whigs were bewildered at this systematic gathering in of the naturalized citizens. After the election of April, 1840,[2] when Tammany reelected Varian Mayor and carried the Common Council, the Committee of Whig Young Men[3] issued a long address on the subject. After specifically charging that prisoners had been marched from their cells in the City Prison by their jailers to the polls to vote the Tammany ticket, the address declared that during the week previous to, and on election day, naturalization papers had been granted at the Marine Court on tickets from Tammany Hall, under circumstances of great abuse. In the campaign of 1840 the so-called best elements of the town were for General Harrison. The Wigwam men had much at stake in Van Buren’s candidature and exerted themselves to reelect him. Tammany now elaborated its naturalization bureau. A committee sat daily at the Wigwam, assisting in the naturalization process, free of charge to the applicant. The allegiance of foreign-born citizens was further assured by humoring their national pride in the holding of Irish, German and French meetings in the hall, where each nationality was addressed in its own language. The more influential foreigners were rewarded with places on the Assembly or local ticket, and to the lesser workers of foreign birth were given petty jobs in the department offices, or contract work. The outcome was, that in the face of especially strong opposition Tammany harvested 982 plurality in the city for Van Buren, though the vote of the Western counties gave Harrison the electoral vote of the State. It was such instances as this--demonstrating its capacity of swaying New York City even if the rest of the State voted oppositely--that continued to give Tammany Hall a powerful hold on the Democratic party of the nation, notwithstanding the discredit that so often attached to Tammany men and measures. Another example of the change in the personnel of Tammany was shown in the rise and progress of the “ward heeler” and his “gangs.” The “gangs” were not conspicuous in 1841, when the organization elected Robert H. Morris Mayor.[4] In April, 1842, when Morris was reelected,[5] the “gangs” were still modestly in the background. But in the Fall of that year they came forth in their might.