Gilded Age Political Machines
Machines, as defined in this history, probably existed somewhere and in some form since 1789. At least two critical drivers shaped the form and behavior of most Gilded Age political machines; a simply huge influx of impoverished, most non-English-speaking immigrants superimposed on an existing fragmented, chiefly business-dominated, yet almost fledging urban policy system. By 1890 rates of foreign born were in excess of 30%[1] in most Eastern/Midwestern Big Cities. Machine politicos were among the very first pure political class found in America and these folk matched the two drivers into a productive machine. They saw their opportunities and took them. Tweed was not an immigrant; he was Scotch-Irish and of middle class roots. He entered politics early in the 1840’s. Tammany as a social/political club had been around since 1789, but committed to an immigrant-oriented, social service ally of the Democrat Party only during and after the 1837-43 Panic. The Jeffersonian, now Jacksonian fragmented policy system had been in place since the start.
The real opportunity came from the continuous (to 1920) stream of crushingly poor, mostly, non-English-speaking immigrants who, for defensive reasons alone, clustered together in the oldest neighborhoods and housing their city had to offer. With no social service system of any consequence in existence, the famous social services of the machine obviously filled a gap. In this world, a vote for a turkey or a job was no big deal—after all most had no intrinsic loyalty to a democracy and little experience with it. The key insight is that provided by immigrants clustering into more or less homogeneous neighborhoods, onto which was grafted the political demarcation of “ward”. The ward is the key to understanding Gilded Age (and pre-1920) machines. Ward-dependent machines represented what today are called neighborhoods, and the policy outputs of these machines characteristically resolved neighborhood issues and addressed “people-based” demands (bathhouses and jobs).
… the foundation of party organization was not the central committee, but the many city wards. Though central supervision by party leaders developed in some municipalities, in every major urban area the ward or legislative district remained the base of the party framework from 1870 to 1900. The nomination process began at the ward level, with the primary election nor caucus. At this neighborhood, party loyalists nominated the candidate for district alderman and elected delegates to the city convention. The convention in turn chose nominees for such offices as mayor or comptroller.[2]
Machines, in addition to social services, ombudsmen, and jobs/patronage, also opposed nativism (anti-immigrant) politicians, parties (Know Nothing), and mobs. Whenever possible, machine policy outputs went to neighborhoods and their residents. From the machine’s eye, sewers, roads, street car routes, and electrification were appreciated through the prisms of ward-boundaries and neighborhoods. Gilded Age machines were not policy neutral as the conventional machine model assumes—rather they were indifferent to middle class-style policy. To the extent, these machines attempted city-wide economic development-like “growth” policies, it was to suck from them graft, kickbacks, abusive bond issuances, and patronage opportunities. This is where the Tweed types made their fortune. And why the business community went after them. Late Gilded Age machines, fearing a fate like Tweed, made their deal with the business community, siphoning off kickbacks from municipal jobholders (and franchise/contract kickbacks—some things never change).
From our policy system perspective Gilded Age machines did pursue a distinctive approach to policy (including economic development-like policies) and, in the context of their day, could be described as neighborhood-oriented and people-serving. Whether or not they are America’s first community developers, I’ll leave to the reader’s judgment, but overlap did exist. Structurally, there was only one place control of wards could lead—not to the city-wide mayor’s office—but to the city legislatures (most cities in the 1870’s had bicameral city councils). As Jon C. Teaford asserts Gilded Age political machines dominated the city councils of Big City America.
Although the city council of the late nineteenth century may have played a more limited role in formulating policy of city-wide significance …. It survived as the voice of the neighborhoods … by which the fragments of the metropolis could win concessions and favors from the ever-more-powerful executive offices of city government. It was the channel through which constituents won exemptions or licenses and neighborhoods obtained pavements, sewers, or water mains … Aldermen of the 1880’s and 1890’s were masters of the microcosm and not overseers of the macrocosm. They were big men at the corner saloon but small fry when compared with the bankers and brokers downtown.[3]
Businessman Mayors
Through their control over voting in immigrant neighborhoods, machines won dominance in city legislatures. That legislative power, significant through it was, did not afford machines, and the few bosses that emerged, sufficient strength to control the entire urban policy system. Starting just before the Civil War and accelerating after, mayoral power was on the rise. Before the midcentury, mayors were largely symbolic heads of state in the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian democratic policy system. The various pressures that fell on the city immediately previous to the War, and pressures associated with the Civil War required cities to greatly enhance their ability to get things done city-wide, on a number of fronts.
Providing veto power to the mayor was the first augmentation, and of the Big Cities New York City started it off in its charter reform of 1830. Boston and Philadelphia followed suit in 1854, Pittsburgh in 1874 was relatively late in allowing its mayors to veto[4]. The veto was an “item” or line veto which allowed mayors to strike down specific sections, projects, or budget authorizations. A mayor’s veto usually required a two-thirds legislative vote to override. Veto power was exercised liberally by mayors, for example New York City’s Mayor Hewitt in 1887 voted 285 City Board of Alderman ordinances out of 920—with only 48 overrides. Chicago mayors between 1882 and 1889 issued around 60 vetoes, with only 9 overrides. Baltimore mayors in the same period issued 169 vetoes, and suffered only 15 setbacks[5].
On top of the veto, the 1857 New York City charter commenced a national trend to afford mayors appointment power of city administrative officials. Again, St. Louis and Illinois state copying New York City provided appointment powers to their mayors in 1876 and 1872 respectively. The Boston and Philadelphia 1885 charters increased mayoral appointive powers, and in both instances city councils lost their right to veto mayoral appointments. Buffalo’s charter of 1892, New Orleans charter of 1896, and Baltimore charters of 1898 followed suit. By the turn of the century, Big City mayors were developing capacity to form an “administration” loyal to their policy and direction. It must be admitted, however, this appointment power had significant limitations in that, as shall be shortly discussed, many important department heads held office for specific terms, terms which seldom corresponded to the mayoral term in office. It was not at all unusual for mayors to have incomplete control over the departments until the later years of their term in office. Yet again, in 1895 New York City mayors acquitted authority to remove department heads appointed by previous mayors. Also, it was customary by the 1880’s, certainly 1890’s, for mayors to sit ex officio on the key boards, and commissions. By the end of the Gilded Age, most Big Cities mayors had acquired sufficient powers and authority to render them and the office the dominant force in city policy-making. In so doing, the mayors had transferred considerable power, away from machine-controlled legislature to the executive[6].
Administrative powers were one thing, electoral power was another. Gilded Age urban politics were hotly contested affairs, cities enjoyed viable two party competitive elections, and mayoral politics were not alderman politics writ city-wide. Machines may have controlled wards, but they did not consistently achieve city-wide victories. Mayoral candidates formed coalitions which inevitably included the most powerful of private sector leaders in the jurisdiction—who possessed sufficient “resources” to effectively compete with the machines for votes, especially middle class and non-immigrant votes. Mayors themselves were sufficiently wealthy to contribute sizeable sums from their own largesse to compete in elections—and many did.
Wealthy mayoral candidates prompt a logical question: “Who were these mayors of Gilded Age Big Cities”? If alderman were elected because their saloons offered the best “happy hour”, mayors came from a different breed. The mayor’s office held dignity and city-wide governance implied experience and ability, and demonstrated success in life. Obvious incompetents could easily mean future tax increases, wasteful boondoggles, and higher utility bills. Even bosses like Croker preferred to back “old-stock, downtown … elite Americans of Anglo-Saxon ancestry”; unlike Frank Skeffington the lifestyle of city bosses was aspirational, often living in country estates—Croker raised thoroughbred horses. Those Irish that were elected mayors were not “Shanty-Town Irish” but rather successful businessmen whose families were long-standing residents. Hugh O’Brian, Boston’s first and only Gilded Age Irish mayor, elected in 1889, was editor of the Shipping and Commercial List, a business publication.
Late nineteenth century mayors … throughout the nation … conformed to a pattern of business success, outward respectability, and city-wide influence … the preserve of that class of men who dominated the social and economic life of the city. … Mayors Cooper, Grace, Hewitt and Strong of New York City belonged to the same clubs as the Astors, the Duponts, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. Philadelphia’s chief executives were Union Leaguers, and Boston’s mayors were familiar faces to the clubmen of the Back Bay. Nineteen century Americans looked up the social ladder when choosing their mayors and elected those on the higher rungs.[7]
Only one Gilded Age New York City mayor departed from the pattern of businessman mayor (Thomas Gilroy); Chicago’s illustrious five-term mayor Carter Harrison Sr. was a successful businessman; in Boston two Quincy (father and son) served as mayors during the Gilded Age; and Baltimore’s famous Ferdinand Latrobe came from one of Maryland’s most distinguished families. With a few exceptions, the Northeast and Midwest Big Cities, regardless of partisan affiliation, consistently elected businessmen (or Civil War generals) as mayors during the Gilded Age[8].
Precious few businessmen mayors, however, recruited their own ward-heelers and formed neighborhood-level support groups. Most won in spite of their lack of neighborhood-level roots—and this proved to be the most important impediment to potential effectiveness of the businessman mayor, crippling his governance and future mayoral success in office. “In fact, a number seemed foolishly independent, tending to ignore political realities, offending powerful components of the electorate, and generally failing to manipulate the system to their own advantage …. (M)any mayors proved incapable of governing effectively”[9] The mayor’s office may well have been more powerful, but the political competence of its occupant was uneven.
Then, how did they get elected? They won elections with coalitions sufficiently powerful to attract the votes necessary from constituencies beyond the control of the immigrant ward-heeler machine. Businessmen mayors tapped the fears of the middle and upper classes that they would be overwhelmed by immigrant votes, and those classes viewed the mayor’s office as a check to the neighborhood controlled legislatures. The electoral vehicle most often relied upon was the “civic reform club”—not chambers of commerce (or boards of trade). The latter, with an exception or two, stayed out of electoral politics. The same business elite that served on chamber boards, however, formed a separate civic reform club to do the political dirty work of competing in elections. The chambers, “the clean jeans” could labor in the governance of the city; the civic reform associations could throw the bombs, endorse candidates, and make political contributions. In last decade of the Gilded Age, the distinctions between the two business organizations blurred, mostly on issue advocacy, but chambers remained reluctant to formally endorse/directly fund candidates.
This subtlety and nuance begs larger questions: Who and What are Chambers/Civic Clubs? From what primeval soup did they emerge? The answers have great importance to this history because these organizations, whatever their political role, also served as economic development organizations as well. This is especially true of chambers, boards of trade, which during the Gilded Age assumed the role as the jurisdictions primary/lead, multi-strategy EDO. In so doing they became the first, hence oldest private participant in the jurisdictional economic development policy process found in our contemporary economic development scene. Chambers are also the first ring of our infamous “onionization” process.
[1] Raymond A. Mohl, The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age 1860-1920, (Arlington Heights Illinois, Harlan Davidson Inc., 1985), Table 4, p. 20 (cited from Bureau of Census)
[2] Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., p. 176.
[3] Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., p. 15. A great deal of my perspective on the Gilded Age machine and city councils as neighborhood representatives is drawn from Teaford’s chapter “Neighborhood Power”. This chapter is among most powerful descriptor of Gilded Age politics encountered in my research.
[4] By the 1870’s some states such as Illinois in its 1872 Municipal Corporations Act provided state-wide mayoral item veto, and St. Louis new 1876 charter provided item vetoes to its mayor. By the end of the century, “mayors throughout the nation” had possessed the line item veto, Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., p.43.
[5] Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., p.44.
[6] Banfield and Wilson observe that beginning about 1850 there was a general movement toward dividing the authority of the legislature into small pieces. Bicameral councils were common (they report by 1900 six of the twelve largest cities still had them). The result of this trend, city legislatures had dramatically increased the size of their legislatures over that fifty year period. They make no comment on the effect of this trend, and I am unsure, except to increase the number machine-controlled alderman what affect that had on policy-making. It certainly facilitated the “neighborhood/people-style” focus of the legislature during this period; Edward C. Banfield and James Q. Wilson, City Politics, New York, A Vintage Book, 1963), p. 79.
[7] Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., pp. 48-49.”Most frequently, mayors began their elective career in the state legislature … But others had never held public office prior to election as chief executive. Such individuals relied upon their reputations as businessmen and community leaders to secure the city’s chief prize …. This was especially true of self-styled good-government reformers [New York City’s William Strong and Seth Low, for example] who viewed their own lack of political ties as virtue” (p. 50).
[8] The obvious question or rebuttal might be that bosses ran “their own businessman” for mayor. Teaford argues that with a very few exceptions this did not happen. “Yet in most cities there was no political boss to dictate policies, instead there were only a number of neighborhood and factional leaders with whom to bargain. Most mayors were to some degree independent operators. They had to compromise with party leaders, barter with them, and grant them favors and some patronage. But they were not subject to the commands of a machine boss …. Nineteenth century mayors, with a few exceptions, were not stooges, but men who wielded power”. Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., p. 52.
[9] Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., p. 52.
Ron W. Coan 