Washington DC: Washington D.C. as a policy system seems neither fish nor fowl—through frequently is rather foul. The city does not possess an economic base of its own; its hinterland belongs to somebody else. To assert it is an industrial city, a creature of the industrial age risks furrowed eyebrows. Nevertheless, it is an American city and I’m sure that hidden in its canyons of power, there lay a policy system. In 1871, the half-built downtown and surrounding neighborhoods benefited from Congressional legislation that provided the city with a government modeled on territorial government. The President appointed a governor, and a upper chamber of the legislature (the lower being elected), and a “board of public works” with considerable powers, including the power to tax. The district was awarded a non-voting seat on the Congressional committee that administered/governed its operations. In an amazing act of hypocrisy during the Reconstruction Era, the legislation reduced the franchise of newly enfranchised Afro-Americans. On top of all this Congress authorized several new cabinet department buildings (War, State, and Navy) which would be placed in the hands of the newly authorized Bureau of Public Works.
One of the five members of the Bureau was Alexander Shepherd, a native of Washington and a former residential real estate developer. Simultaneously, he owned a number of paving and stone companies and served as board member of streetcar, railroad and banks—all with contracts and business relationships with his public works department. A friend of President Grant, he subsequently was appointed chair of the Bureau, and then Governor of the City. From the Bureau, Shepherd during the early1870’s constructed an administrative/political machine without benefit of an ethnic base or immigrant voting. As a former alderman, then chairman of the city’s Bureau of Public Works he envisioned the building of a modern city and a monumental capitol of the nation. This required, in his mind, an aggressive physical development program from which he linked with extensive patronage (complete with graft/kickbacks) system. The jobs or patronage went not to him, but to the national Republican Party.
His first project was a drainage system, requiring street leveling, extensive street paving and “views” from key monuments and structures. His plan was “to create a city with unrivaled sanitary facilities, and clean, well-paved, well-lighted thoroughfares”[1].In that when Shepherd started the project, Washington was described as a “swampy mud-hole and a physical mess of unpaved and ungraded streets, open sewers, and disorganized buildings” one can argue significant public benefit could follow from this infrastructure. What might surprise the reader is that it was ungodly expensive. But not to worry, the bond issue did not require voter approval but only Bureau of Public Works approval which could be obtained through recourse to methods and payments normally associated with political machines. “Creative accounting” in DC’s financial statements did the rest.
Upon the bond’s closing, D.C.’s debt soared, surpassed only by the total debt of seven states[2]. But the streets got paved and water/sewers installed. The city’s newspapers, however, pointedly compared Shepherd to Boss Tweed (then having his troubles displayed in court); indeed, an atmosphere of scandal pervaded the Town and the Grant Administration at the time. Shepherd came to be called “Boss Shepherd”. The Panic of 1873 hit, and Washington’s fiscal condition headed way south of the Mason-Dixon line. Congressional intervention alone saved DC from bankruptcy. Shepherd was ousted in 1874, the Board of Public Works abolished and Shepherd headed off to Mexico where he made a second fortune. There is a statute of him on Pennsylvania Avenue. Is Shepherd America’s first economic development “Boss”?[3] Whatever! Shepherd’s example suggest that a Boss, absent an electoral machine, was both possible, and augers future “bosses” hailing from obscure public bureaucracies.
[1] Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, A History of Urban America (New York, Macmillan Publishing Co, 1983) quote from architect Constance M. Green, p. 214.
[2] Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, A History of Urban America, op. cit., p. 214.
[3] Raymond Mohl, The New City, op. cit. pp. 100-101.
Ron W. Coan 