Urban Political Machines Immigration Urbanization Industrialization Expanded Democracy

Urban Political Machines

• Immigration• Urbanization• Industrialization• Expanded Democracy

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

Machine Bosses

• Examples– William Tweed, NYC– G. W. Plunkitt, NYC– Abe Reuf, San Francisco– Pendergasts, Kansas City– Daley, Chicago

Urban Party Machines

• Great Boss Names– John ‘Bathhouse’ Coughlin (Chicago)– Michael ‘Hinky Dink’ Keena (Boston)– Iz Durham (Philly)– ‘Sunny Jim’ McNichol (Phil)– William ‘Boss’ Tweed (NYC)– ‘Slippery Dick’ Connolly (NYC)– ‘Silent’ Charlie Murphy (NYC)– ‘Diamond Joe’ Quimby (Springfield)

• Industrialization, immigration, expanding democracy, + need for urban services.

• Hierarchical with a “boss” at the top• City divided into wards and precincts• Clientele parties—machine provided jobs or

help with housing in exchange for votes• Supported by working class and immigrant

voters


• Patronage • Precinct-based politics

–Precinct captain—provided information about residents’ needs (pub level politics)

–Means for career advancement• District elections, large councils

–Small districts were ethnically homogenous–Easier to organize


Machine Hierarchy

Boss/Mayor

1 or ‘team’

Precinct 1400 voters

Precinct 2300 voters

Precinct 330 of these per ward

Alderman 124 wards

Machine Hierarchy

• Precinct captains expected to know all the voters

• Ward Alderman (council person) selected precinct captains

• Alderman served as Ward Party Committee Chair to supervise captains

How do you organize a precinct

• 200 – 500 people

• Where do they gather?

• ??

Precincts and Pubs

• Personal, informal politics

• NYC 1 pub for every 515 residents• Chicago 1 pub for every 335

– ½ of city population in pub every day• 1 for every 50 males

Precincts and Pubs

• 11 of 24 NYC alderman owned pubs in 1890

• 1 of every 3 in Milwaukee owned pubs in 1902

• 1 of every 3 in Detroit owned pubs


• Patronage– “if you go along, you get along”– loyalty purchased with material rewards

• turkey on thanksgiving, coal for heating, assistance with police, a job....

• neighborhood leader tracks needs, delivers blocks of votes to party


• Patronage– 1900-1920 20% of urban job growth public

sector jobs

Patronage

• Boss could distribute jobs & more• Some voters got menial jobs• Captains got low pay job, alderman

(ward committeemen) better jobs– Police, fire, sanitation, construction, road

crews, parks, etc.– Alderman owned businesses that

contracted with city

Chicago 1970s

• Cook County Democratic Central Committee– 30,000 jobs to distribute– 8,000 city of Chicago jobs– 1 ward committeeman w/ 2,000 jobs

Chicago 1970s

– 50 wards (Districts)• 500-600 jobs in each ward

– $3,600 elevator operator– $6,000 p year stenographer– $25,000 department director

– Today, mayor has 900 – 1,200 jobs to fill

Jobs

• 1890s – 1900s public jobs paid better than private

• 5% of all NYC jobs cpatronage• 20% of urban job growth public jobs

1900-1920

• In Chicago, NYC, etc. Irish got disproportionate share of patronage

Patronage

• Jobs and more:– Rent money, food, coal, heating oil, social

solidarity, police protection, business licenses, homeless shelter, fix traffic tickets…


• Everything dependent on winning elections

• Getting out the vote

• Voting the party line

• Partisan elections, party ballot–Machine required electing party loyalists

• Elections were held with state and federal elections–Straight-ticket ballots—benefited all levels

• Corruption–Some stuffing ballot boxes, bribery, and

kickbacks, and graft (‘honest graft’)


Ballot images


• Graft– “selective” policing in exchange for $– no-bid contracts awarded w/ kickbacks– no-bid contracts to machine leaders

• construction, cement, furnishings

– city grants loyalists utility monopolies• in exchange for $$

– speculate in lands city will purchase

• Machines benefited some illegal businesses

• Also provided many services and building projects

• Failed to address problems some key problems

• Fraud



• Demise of machines• Inefficient

– who benefited• in national politics...• any evidence of upward mobility?

– who harmed?• businesses, taxpayers• what reaction?


• Who benefited?– assimilation of immigrants in a hostile

society• John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald example• Irish benefited at expense of Jews, Italians, etc.

– voting by ethnic, not party concerns– machines opposed blacks, labor– most machines opposed needed social &

economic reforms.


• From group conflict perspective• 1) Immigrants

– The others; mobs in city, Catholics, Jews, don’t speak English

• 2) “WASP” Nativists– Prohibition, restrict immigration, fear of

‘anarchists,’ – Progressivism


• Demise of Party Machines (post 1900)• Not total, but not at all the same

– Chicago, Albany NY, parts of MA...– NJ

– Much harder to organize a city with patronage, selective policing, overt corruption

– WHY? How would you change things to wipe out machines?


• Demise of Machines (post 1900)• Rival groups

– Labor, legit. business• Increased affluence• Slower immigration• Rise of Federal role in social services

– New Deal 1930s

The Reform Movement

• Who were they– Rural legislators– Upper status urban professionals– Upper status urban women

• Still w/o right to vote

– Progressive moralists – Religious activists

The Reform Movement

• Broad Progressive “Agenda”– Suffrage– Work place safety– Food safety– Child labor laws– Labor rights– Prohibition– Political institutions

Reform Movement

• The Machine City (summary):– very large council– district based representation– council with control over hiring, firing,

spending– High turnout local elections– Machine power = majority on council

• maybe Mayor matters....

The Reform Movement

• National Municipal League– Model City Charter – ‘Business’ model of

how to run cities– get‘politics’ out of

administration– ‘no partisan way to

pick up garbage, sweep streets’

The Reform Movement

• A menu of items that could go in a city charter– 1) Merit-based civil service

• de-personalize offices, universalistic standards, exams for hiring, promotions

– 2) Detailed accounting systems• sealed competitive bids, publicize transactions,

limit elected official influence on spending

The Reform Movement

• Menu– 3) Take power from council

• make part time job, independent commissions to administer services….appointed offices

• City Manager

– 4) Reduce size of councils• from 50 - 100 to less than 10

The Reform Movement

• Menu– 5) Decentralize public power

• Checks and balances• Commissions appointed by state leg• Remove service provision

– Special districts– Private services

–Some reformers sought public controlled utilities

The Reform Movement

• 6) At-large, off year elections– Council elected city-wide rather than from

geographic districts

– Elect in years when no national contests on ballot to lower turnout• Only ‘knowledgeable’ voters show up

The Reform Movement

• 7) Weaken partisan hold on elections– Office block ballots, – secret ballots, – ban party endorsements, – allow cross-filing, – direct primaries, – non-partisan contests

The Reform Movement

• 8) Voter registration– Long before election day (1 year)– Exclude people who are new residents,

non-citizens• Nothing in US Constitution regarding right to

vote in local elections for non-citizens– Right based on race added later, gender (sort of),

age added

Reform Movement

• 9) Limit power of local elected exec.– Over budget– No veto– No appointment power– Simply another council member

– Some reformers sought strong mayor

Reform Movement

• 10) Direct Democracy– Initiative– Referendum– Recall

– “End run” around party machine control– Cities (LA) had initiative before states

Progressive era presidents

TR:1901-1909 WW:1913-21

Progressive era reforms

• direct primary elections

• income tax • direct election of US

Senators• anti-trust laws• food and drug laws• child labor laws

• Education reforms• YMCA, YWCA• ‘Muckraking’

journalists• regulations of

railroads• National forests &

natl parks• women’s rights

Progressive era ‘reforms’

• eugenics• prohibition• Jim Crow• end to immigration

• Plessey v Ferguson• revival of KKK

Municipal Reform Movement

• A continuum– Some cities adopted one or two reforms

– “Reform City” has most / all reforms in charter

– Western, smaller, suburban, newer = more reforms

Reform Movement

• What effect on politics today?

• Institutions are different at national, state & local level due to early 1900s reform era

Reform Movement

• What effect on politics today?• Federal

– Income tax, direct election of Senate• State

– Direct democracy, primaries, civil service• Local

– Reform city charters, most smaller places “Council-Manager” form

Reform Movement

• What effect on politics today?• Local

– Increased ‘red tape’ (Bureaucracy)– Lower participation– Lower public spending (?)– Cities ‘less political”

• Is that less democratic?

Documents

Urban Political Machines Immigration Urbanization Industrialization Expanded Democracy