In the nineteenth century, powerful bosses controlled the political machines that dominated politics. In the hands of these bosses, political outcomes became the product of secret deals and patronage more than public choice. How did these men manage to manipulate the American political system so completely?
Fig.1 - Political Cartoon About Machine Politics
Urban Machine Politics
In the nineteenth century, the United States was going through a period of rapid urbanization. Rural Americans and foreign immigrants were both coming to cities and seeking employment in America's factories. With city governments unable to provide the support needed for this growing population and immigrants finding difficulties assimilating to their new society, political machines stepped in to fill the gaps. In exchange for votes, the political machines worked to provide social services and jobs for their supporters.
Party Bosses
The leaders of political machines were called party bosses. The bosses' main goal was to keep their machines in power at all costs. In order to accomplish this goal, party bosses traded patronage for political support. Many of these bosses became wealthy employing corrupt practices, including kickbacks on government contracts and even embezzling government money. With corruption being an open secret in most cities, party bosses' success depended on providing enough service to their supporters to maintain popularity despite their known misconduct.
Patronage: Filling government jobs with political supporters.
Fig.2 - Tammany Hall
Political Machine Examples
America's largest cities hosted political machines whose deeds resulted in scandals and prison sentences. These machines also provided benefits to their supporters that often out weighed voters' concern over any criminal activities. New York. Chicago and Boston were home to some of the most infamous political machines.
Tammany Hall
Perhaps the most well-known example of a political machine is Tammany Hall in New York City. For almost 200 years, from 1789 to 1966, the organization was a powerful force in New York politics. For much of that time, Tammany Hall had significant control over the Democratic Party in the city.
Progressive Work of Tammany Hall
In 1821, Tammany Hall was able to significantly increase its own power by fighting for the enfranchisement of all white males. Before this time, only those who owned property could vote. With this massive increase in the franchise, Tammany Hall a whole new bloc of voters who owed them allegiance. With its strong ties to government contracts, Tammany Hall was able to help many of its unemployed supporters find work and provided them with baskets of food on holidays. After the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Tammany Hall finally had the support for achieving progressive labor reforms which benefitted workers with better pay and working conditions.
In the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, over 140 workers died in a factory fire. Management had locked all the emergency exits to prevent workers from taking breaks.
Fig.3 - "Boss" Tweed
Tammany Hall Corruption
The height of corruption in Tammany Hall occurred under the leadership of William "Boss" Tweed from 1868 until he was sent to prison in 1873. Under Tweed, between 30 and 200 million dollars were embezzled from the city with fake, unnecessary, or padded payments from the city to contractors and suppliers. Tammany Hall also controlled the courts. With its ability to control the appointment of judges through Democratic Party appointments, Tammany Hall was able to sway judges on how to decide certain cases. In addition to providing more above board help with jobs and food security, Tammany Hall's ability to take care of legal problems ensured loyal support.
Tammany Hall and the Irish
In the middle of the nineteenth century, about a quarter of Ireland's population left their homeland during a major famine. Many of these Irish came to America, where nativists viewed them as cultural aliens who would be unable to assimilate due to social and religious differences. Although the organization had originally held the nativist views which were popular at the time, a riot of Irish immigrants seeking to join the organization forced them to reconsider. Tammany Hall realized that the Irish population was coming in large numbers and if their votes could be secured, Tammany would have a strong ally. Tammany Hall's support of the Irish population gained their loyalty.
The American cultural emphasis on individualism had long been identified as a product of the influence of the Protestant form of Christianity. Protestants in America viewed Catholicism as a foreign religion emphasizing collectivism. Due to not just specific religious doctrine, but this perceived cultural barrier of individualism or collectivism, American protestants viewed Catholics as incapable of properly assimilating into American society.
A clear example of this can be found in the 1928 US presidential election. That year, Republican Herbert Hoover faced off against Democrat Al Smith. Smith was a Catholic, half Irish and half Italian American politician who had been elected governor of New York in 1919. Hailing from New York City, Smith had political connections to Tammany Hall.
Concerns about Smith's religion became a major issue in the election, leading to his loss. Catholics made up a large population in the industrialized cities of the North, but they were strongly opposed in the deeply Protestant South. The Ku Klux Klan marched in Washington, DC and burned crosses around the country over the idea of a Catholic running for president. Some feared that Smith would be more loyal to the Pope than to the United States. His failure to successfully allay concerns about his Catholic faith was a major factor that cost Smith the race.
Criticism of Tammany Hall
While Tammany Hall did engage in corruption, it also did support marginalized communities of the time. The powerful financial and nativist interests had control of New York newspapers during the mid-nineteenth century. Much of the criticism that appeared in editorials was not only directed against corruption, but fears of the newfound political power in the hands of immigrants and ethnic and religious minorities. Many political cartoons of the era that were created to oppose Tammany Hall featured racist depictions of Irish and Italians.
Tammany Hall was one of the main subjects for popular political cartoonist Thomas Nast.
Chicago Style Politics
Violence and corruption became a major part of Chicago politics in the early twentieth century. "Chicago Style Politics" was the name given to the local variation of machine politics. Although established later than Tammany Hall, Chicago's machine politics were equally notorious. The power of millionaire industrialists had controlled Chicago for much of the nineteenth century, but no one political party managed to control the city completely until the 1930s.
Fig.4 - William Hale Thompson
Mayor William Hale Thompson
"Big Bill" was the Chicago Mayor who introduced some of the most corrupt elements of machine politics to Chicago. Appealing to large German and Irish immigrant populations, Thompson constantly proclaimed his disregard for the British. After his first two mayoral terms from 1915 to 1923, public knowledge of rampant corruption caused Thompson to sit out a third term. In 1928, Thompson returned to mayoral politics in what was called the Pineapple Primary. Thompson's replacement as mayor of Chicago vigorously enforced prohibition. Thompson developed a close relationship with gangster Al Capone, whose mob backed political violence put Thompson back in office.
"Pineapple" was contemporary slang for a hand grenade.
Democratic Political Machine
Anton Cernak took control of the Democratic Party and defeated Hale for mayor in 1931. He did so with an even broader coalition of immigrants residing in Chicago. His successors, Patrick Nash and Edward Kelly, kept the Democratic Party in power with patronage jobs and political appointments, and the city running through the Great Depression on a mix of federal and mob money. In office from 1955 to 1976, Mayor Richard Daley managed to keep the political machine alive far longer than in other cities.
Daley used a variety of loopholes, such as creating temporary jobs, to keep patronage jobs going despite civil service reform.
Fig.5 - James Curley
Boston Machine Politics
While the Irish were often a strong force in machine politics, they were the sole dominant force in Boston machine politics. From the first Irish mayor, Hugh O'Brien, in 1884, until James Curley lost re-election in 1949, in a rebuke of the political machine. The Democratic Irish political machine had finally failed as other ethnic groups such as the Italians and Black Americans gained more power in the city.
Despite multiple stints in prison, Curley was an extremely popular politician for over 35 years. In fact, his crimes endeared him to his constituents when he took a civil service exam for one of his supporters and managed to turn the crime into the campaign slogan "he did it for a friend".
Political Machine Importance
The longer-term impact of political machines is surprisingly contradictory. They generated some of the strongest political reforms in favor of marginalized people, yet opposition to their abuses led to more progressive reforms. Immigrants, those who did not own property, and various minority groups gained a political voice and aid to their communities. The ineffectiveness and outright corruption of politically appointed job holders, who lacked the ability or desire to perform their duties properly, led to civil service reform which greatly weakened political machines.
Machine Politics - Key takeaways
- Primarily active from the nineteenth until the early twentieth centuries
- Party bosses controlled city politics to keep themselves in power
- Led to rampant corruption and ineffective political appointees in government jobs
- Provided jobs and social welfare to immigrant and other minority populations that supported the machine
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