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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

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.

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US History Encyclopedia: Political Machine

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

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.

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

    A political machine is an unofficial system of a political organization based on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. Machines sometimes have a boss, and always have a long-term corps of dedicated workers who depend on the patronage generated by government contracts and jobs. Machine politics has existed in many United States cities, especially between about 1875 and 1950, but continuing in some cases down to the present day. It is also common (under the name clientelism or political clientelism) in Latin America, 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. (American Journey, 2005)

    The key to a political machine is patronage: holding public office implies the ability to do favors (and also the ability to profit from graft). Political machines generally steer away from issue-based politics, favoring a quid pro quo (something for something) with certain aspects of a barter economy or gift economy: the patron or "boss" does favors for the constituents, who then vote as they are told to. Sometimes this system of favors is supplemented by threats of violence or harassment toward those who attempt to step outside of it.

    Political machines in the United States

    In the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century, it was mainly the larger cities that had machines — Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Philadelphia, etc. — and each city's machine was run by a "boss," a man who had the allegiance of local business leaders, elected officials and their appointees, and who knew the buttons to push to get things done. There were benefits and problems because of political machines ruling. Steps were also taken to combat these organizations.

    Many machines formed in cities to serve immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th century. Many immigrants viewed machines as a vehicle for political enfranchisement. Additionally, many immigrants were unfamiliar with the sense of civic duty that was part of American republicanism. They traded votes power. The main role of the machine staffers was to win elections—usually by turning out large numbers of voters on election day. Occasionally illegal tactics were used in local elections (but rarely in state or presidential elections).

    Civic minded citizens, such as the Mugwumps, denounced the corruption of the political machines. They achieved national civil service reform and worked to move local patronage systems to 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 Parties 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 Chicago. 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 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 Southern & Eastern Europeans, 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 unions contracts that the city could not afford and to make the state assume burdensome costs like welfare and courts. Describing New York, Fuchs wrote, "New York got reform, but it never got good government." At the same time, as Dennis R Judd, and Todd Swanstrom point out in City Politics, ISBN, this view often coincided with a lack of period alternatives. 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. Hazen Pingree is one such example. Though sometimes labeled as a "boss", Pingree in fact didn't operate under the same type of patronage system that characterized the Machines. While this hardly settles the matter in other direction, it is simply important to remember that the legacy of the Political Party Machines in the 19th and 20th centuries remains ambiguous at best.

    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. [1] [2] [3] [4]

    Notable "Bosses" and their political machines

    See also Political boss and Category:Political bosses.

    National Bosses

    State Bosses

    Ran the Democratic Political Machine that elected Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Governorships of New York State.

    County Bosses

    City Bosses

    References

    Further reading

    • John M. Allswang, Bosses, Machines, and Urban Voters (1986)
    • Erie, Steven P. Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840—1985 (1988).
    • Finegold, Kenneth. Experts and Politicians: Reform Challenges to Machine Politics in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago (1995) on Progressive Era
    • Harold F. Gosnell; Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Others. (1924)
    • Harold F. Gosnell; Machine Politics: Chicago Model (1937)
    • Kaufman, Robert R. "The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems" Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Jun., 1974) , pp. 284-308
    • Keefer, Philip. 2005. "Clientelism, Credibility and the Policy Choices of Young Democracies." Presented at The Quality of Government: What It Is, How to Get It, Why It Matters, International Conference, Göteborg, 17-19 November.
    • Mandelbaum, Seymour J. Boss Tweed's New York (1965) (ISBN)
    • Nylen, William. 2003. Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy: Lessons from Brazil. Palgrave-Macmillan, New York. [review]
    • Samuel P. Orth; The Boss and the Machine: A Chronicle of the Politicians and Party Organization (1919), short survey
    • M. Ostrogorski; Democracy and the Party System in the United States (1910)
    • William Riordan, Plunkett of Tammany Hall memoir of New York City ward boss
    • Scott, James C. "Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change" American Political Science Review, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1969) , pp.
    • Stave, Bruce M. and Sondra Astor Stave, eds., Urban Bosses, Machines, and Progressive Reformers (1984).
    • Stave, Bruce M. , John M. Allswang, Terrence J. McDonald, Jon C. Teaford. "A Reassessment of the Urban Political Boss: An Exchange of Views" History Teacher, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1988) , pp. 293-312
    • Steffens, Lincoln. The Shame of the Cities (1904) muckraking expose of machines in major cities
    • Harold B. Zink; City Bosses in the United States: A Study of Twenty Municipal Bosses (1930)

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    Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
    US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Politics. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
    WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Political machine".  Read more

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