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Political machine

 

In U.S. politics, a political organization that controls enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of its community. The rapid growth of cities in the 19th century created huge problems for city governments, which were often poorly organized and unable to provide services. Enterprising politicians were able to win support by offering favours, including patronage jobs and housing, in exchange for votes. Though machines often helped to restructure city governments to the benefit of their constituents, they just as often resulted in poorer service (when jobs were doled out as political rewards), corruption (when contracts or concessions were awarded in return for kickbacks), and aggravation of racial or ethnic hostilities (when the machine did not reflect the city's diversity). Reforms, suburban flight, and a more mobile population with fewer ties to city neighbourhoods have weakened machine politics. Famous machines include those of William Magear Tweed (New York), James Michael Curley (Boston), Thomas Pendergast (Kansas City, Mo.), and Richard J. Daley (Chicago). See also civil service.

For more information on political machine, visit Britannica.com.

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US History Encyclopedia: Political Machine
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To its critics a political machine is a corrupt urban regime ruled by a boss and his cronies. To its defenders, the machine steps in where city government has failed to provide essential services to its residents.

In New York during the 1860s, William Marcy Tweed built an organization of Democratic Party functionaries and building contractors that became known as the "Tweed Ring." The city had experienced extraordinary growth over the previous several decades, as Irish and German immigrants streamed into Manhattan. New York's infrastructure was totally unequipped to deal with this population surge. With his allies in the state legislature, Tweed engineered a new city charter that gave New York City control over its own budget. An advocate of labor unions and the Catholic Church, Tweed gained the support of immigrants, particularly the Irish—the largest foreign-born group in the city—although he was neither Catholic nor Irish. He leveraged the city heavily with municipal bonds and embarked on a massive, and very corrupt, campaign of public works to modernize the city. Although

Tweed was arrested in 1871 and cast from power, machine politics continued in New York and developed elsewhere.

The Irish and the Democratic Party would dominate this form of politics in many cities, including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, until reforms in both civil service and elections over the course of the twentieth century brought about its demise. The Irish were the first immigrant group to arrive in American cities in large enough numbers to challenge the leadership of the British-descended colonial elites. Irish politicians made a populist appeal to immigrants that came after them, offering cultural tolerance and a voice in government in return for political loyalty. The Democratic Party made much greater efforts to court urban immigrants than the Republicans, so it often became a vehicle to power for local bosses.

As immigration grew from the 1880s to the 1910s, cities became very ethnically diverse and newcomers dominated some of the largest. New York was three-quarters foreign-born by 1920. The Irish clung tenaciously to the power they had won, but stinginess in handing out favors to newly arrived ethnic groups gave reformers an edge against them. Progressives struggled to centralize urban government to eliminate the ward system that divided cities into fiefdoms controlled by vassals of a machine boss. They wanted experts to expand infrastructure rationally and honestly and hoped to eliminate vice.

During the New Deal in the 1930s, when the federal government vastly expanded the social services it offered to urbanites, opponents of machine politics hoped the patronage of bosses would be eclipsed. In some cases, however, city control over distributing federal money only further entrenched a boss.

The style of urban politics developed by Boss Tweed in New York during the 1860s, died with Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago in the 1970s. In 1970, only one-third of Chicago's population was first or second-generation immigrant. But its African American population was about thirty-three percent, and these Chicagoans demanded power. The politics of race would supersede the politics of ethnicity in the postindustrial city, and declining urban populations and wealth undermined the patronage basis for new machines.

Bibliography

Allswang, John M. Bosses, Machines, and Urban Voters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Politics: machine, political
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An administration of elected public officials who use their influential positions to solidify and perpetuate the power of their political party, often through dubious means. Machine politicians make free use of the spoils system and patronage, rewarding loyal party supporters with appointed government jobs. Other machine methods include gerrymandering election districts; planting party representatives in neighborhoods; making deals with judges, lawyers, and other professionals; and “buying” votes by offering social services to potential voters. When machine politics was especially strong in the United States, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, politicians would go so far as to offer beer for votes and would embezzle large amounts of public money. Machines also dominated party caucuses and conventions, thereby affecting politics at all levels of government.

  • Machines are usually associated with big-city politics.
  • The most impressive political machine of the twentieth century was that of Mayor Richard Daley, in Chicago.

  • WordNet: political machine
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    Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

    The noun has one meaning:

    Meaning #1: a group that controls the activities of a political party
      Synonym: machine


    Wikipedia: Political machine
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    In this 1899 cartoon from Puck, all of New York City politics revolves around boss Richard Croker

    A political machine (or simply machine) is a disciplined political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters (usually campaign workers), who receive rewards for their efforts. Although these elements are common to most political parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy and rewards for political power, often enforced by a strong party whip structure. Machines sometimes have a political boss, often rely on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead of for a single election or event. The term may have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt political machines.[1]

    Although the term "political machine" dates back to the 20th century in the United States, where such organizations have existed in some municipalities and states since the 18th century, similar machines have been described in Latin America, where the system has been called (under the name clientelism or political clientelism), especially in rural areas, and also in some African states and other emerging democracies, like postcommunist Eastern European countries. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is often cited as another political machine, maintaining power in suburban and rural areas through its control of farm bureaus and road construction agencies.[2] In Japan, the word jiban (literally "base" or "foundation") is the word used for political machine,[3] In the ancient Roman Republic, a similar patronage system existed. [4]

    Contents

    Definition

    Encyclopaedia Britannica defines "political machine" as, "in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state."[5] William Safire, in his Safire's Political Dictionary, defines "machine politics" as "the election of officials and the passage of legislation through the power of an organization created for political action."

    Hierarchy and discipline are hallmarks of political machines. "It generally means strict organization", according to Safire. He quoted Edward Flynn, a Bronx County Democratic leader who ran the borough from 1922 until his death in 1953,[6] wrote "[...] the so-called 'independent' voter is foolish to assume that a political machine is run solely on good will, or patronage. For it is not only a machine; it is an army. And in any organization as in any army, there must be discipline."[3]

    Political patronage, while often associated with political machines, is not essential to the definition for either Safire or Britannica.[3]

    The phrase is considered derogatory "because it suggests that the interest of the organization are placed before those of the general public", according to Safire. Machines are criticized as undemocratic and inevitably encouraging corruption.[3]

    Function

    A political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives-money, political jobs- and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity.

    "Political machine" started as a grass-roots campaign to gain the patronage needed to win the modern election. Having strong patronage, these "clubs" were the main driving force in gaining and getting out the "straight party vote" in the election districts.[7]

    Political machines in the United States

    Larger cities in the United States— Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, etc. — were accused of using political machines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[8] During this time "cities experienced rapid growth under inefficient government."[8] Each city's machine lived under a hierarchical system with a "boss" who held the allegiance of local business leaders, elected officials and their appointees, and who knew the proverbial buttons to push to get things done. Benefits and problems both resulted from the rule of political machines. [9][10]

    Lord Bryce describes these political bosses saying:

    An army led by a council seldom conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief, who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards the loyal, punishes the mutinous, concocts schemes, negotiates treaties. He generally avoids publicity, preferring the substance to the pomp of power, and is all the more dangerous because he sits, like a spider, hidden in the midst of his web. He is a Boss.[11]

    When asked if he was a boss, James Pendergast said simply,

    I've been called a boss. All there is to it is having friends, doing things for people, and then later on they'll do things for you...You can't coerce people into doing things for you--you can't make them vote for you. I never coerced anybody in my life. Wherever you see a man bulldozing anybody he don't last long.[8]

    Many machines formed in cities to serve immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th century who viewed machines as a vehicle for political enfranchisement. Additionally, many immigrants unfamiliar with the sense of civic duty that was part of American republicanism traded votes for power.[citation needed] Machine staffers helped win elections by turning out large numbers of voters on election day.

    Civic-minded citizens, such as the Anthony Alatzas, denounced the corruption of the political machines. They achieved national civil-service reform and worked to replace local patronage systems with civil service. By Theodore Roosevelt's time, the Progressive Era mobilized millions of civic minded citizens to fight the machines. In the 1930s, James A. Farley was the chief dispenser of the Democratic Party's patronage system through the Postal Department and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which eventually nationalized many of the job benefits machines provided. The New Deal allowed machines to recruit for the WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), making Farley's machine the most powerful, all patronage was screened through Farley including Presidential appointments. The New Deal machine fell apart after James A. Farley left the administration over the third term in 1940. Those agencies were abolished in 1943 and the machines suddenly lost much of their patronage. In any case the poor immigrants who benefited under James A. Farley's National machine had become assimilated and prosperous and no longer needed the informal or extralegal aides provided by machines. In the 1940s most of the big city machines collapsed, with the notable exception of the Chicago machine. A local political machine in Tennessee was forcibly removed in what was known as the Battle of Athens.

    Machines are often said to have drawn their strength from, and served as a power base for, ethnic immigrant populations. In truth it was primarily Irish immigrants who benefited from the Machine system, which reached its pinnacle under James A. Farley during Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal administration. Also, even among the Irish, help for new immigrants declined over time. It was in the party machines' interests to only maintain a minimally winning amount of support. Once they were in the majority and could count on a win, there was less need to recruit new members, as this only meant a thinner spread of the patronage rewards to be spread among the party members. As such, later-arriving immigrants, such as Jews, Italians, and other immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, rarely saw any reward from the machine system. At the same time, most of political machines' staunchest opponents were members of the established class (nativist Protestants).

    Since the 1960s, some historians have reevaluated political machines, considering them corrupt but also efficient. Machines were undemocratic, but at least responsive. They were corrupt, but they were also able to contain the spending demands of special interests. In Mayors and Money, a comparison of municipal government in Chicago and New York, Ester R. Fuchs credited the Chicago Democratic Machine with giving Mayor Richard J. Daley the political power to deny labor union contracts that the city could not afford and to make the state government assume burdensome costs like welfare and courts.[page needed] Describing New York, Fuchs wrote, "New York got reform, but it never got good government."[page needed] At the same time, as Dennis R. Judd and Todd Swanstrom point out in City Politics, this view often coincided with a lack of period alternatives.[page needed] They go on to point out that this is a falsehood, since there are certainly examples of reform oriented, anti-machine leaders during this time.

    Smaller communities as Parma, Ohio in the post-Cold War Era under Prosecutor Bill Mason's "Good Old Boys" and especially communities in the Deep South, where small-town machine politics are relatively common also feature what might be classified as political machines, although these organizations do not have the power and influence of the larger boss networks listed in this article. For example, the “Cracker Party” was a Democratic Party political machine that dominated city politics in Augusta, Georgia for over half of the 20th century.[12][13][14][15]

    See also

    Selected reading

    • Harold F Gosnell; Charles E Merriam (2007). Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt and Others. Lightning Source Inc. ISBN 1432588508. 
    • Jerome Mushkat (1971). Tammany; the Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815600798. 
    • Jacob M. Schlesinger (1999). Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Postwar Political Machine. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804734577. 
    • Gerald Kurland (1972). Political Machine: What Is Is, How It Works. Story House Corp. ISBN 0686072383. 
    • Harold Foote Gosnell (1968). Machine Politics: Chicago Model. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226304922. 
    • Paul Martin Sachs (1974). The Donegal Mafia: An Irish Political Machine. University of California. ISBN 0300020201. 
    • Thomas P Clifford (1975). The Political Machine: An American Institution. Vantage Press. ISBN 0533013747. 

    Further reading

    • Tuckel, P. and Maisel, R. (2008). Nativity Status and Voter Turnout in Early Twentieth-Century Urban United States. Historical Methods, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 99-107.

    References

    1. ^ "Political Machine". 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica.. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/467617/political-machine. Retrieved 2008-12-06. 
    2. ^ American Journey, 2005
    3. ^ a b c d Safire, William, Safire's Political Dictionary, pp 391-392, "Machine politics" article, first edition, 1978 (although the book existed in an earlier version titled "The New Language of Politics"), Random House
    4. ^ [1] |Congressional Quarterly reports 1973 v. 1
    5. ^ "Political machine" article, Encyclopaedia Britannica website, retrieved December 6, 2008
    6. ^ Glazer, Nathan and Monyhan, Daniel Patrick, Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and Irish of New York, "the Irish" chapter, p 226, The MIT Press, 1963 ("Ed Flynn ran the Bronx from 1922 until his death in 1953."
    7. ^ James Q. Wilson; American Government
    8. ^ a b c The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century: California Teacher's Edition. Evanston: McDougall Littell Inc.. 2006. pp. 267–268. 
    9. ^ Herbert Blumer (1915). The American Journal of Sociology. 20 (1914/1915). p. 603. ""The political machine is in fact an attempt to maintain, inside the formal administrative organization of the city, the control of a primary group."". 
    10. ^ Harold F. Gosnell (September 1933). "The Political Party versus the Political Machine". Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science 169: 21-28. "When the spoils element is predominant in a political organization, it is called a political machine.". 
    11. ^ http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us28.cfm
    12. ^ http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/110799/opi_124-1871.shtml
    13. ^ http://www.augusta.com/leaders/slideshow_local/slide14.html
    14. ^ http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-955
    15. ^ http://www.augusta.com/leaders/slideshow_local/slide10.html

     
     

     

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