Political Machines: Monkey Wrench or People-Based Economic Development
Mention the words “political machine” and visions dance in one’s head of Tammany Hall, the Tweed Ring, serving Christmas turkeys to starving immigrant families, and the sadly corrupt, patronage-ridden, but well-meaning Spencer Tracy as Frank Skeffington (Boston’s James Michael Curley) uttering on his deathbed “The Hell I Would” putting the heartless Yankee in his place. To those in the Policy World the Gilded Age political machine usually revolves about Irish immigrants, selling their votes to benevolent hack ward-heelers, who took their opportunities when available, and who in turn were controlled by an evil corrupt, boss-led juggernaut “grand sachem” which dominated city after city for decades on end. Machines funneled public funds to private firms for unneeded extravagances, poorly constructed infrastructure and transportation/utility franchises that sprawled the city outward for private and machine profit. Cities went bankrupt, the middle class were outraged, and good government rendered impossible. But the urban poor got turkeys for Christmas.
The reader is now warned: this history does not adhere to the conventional image of political machines.
Political machines, in different forms, exist at the time of this writing, and they only remotely resemble Gilded Age machines—and there are several variants of those. Political machines are not simply creatures of the Gilded Age; they are a consistently found type of mostly municipal-level (sometimes, county; sometimes state) policy system that has occurred throughout American urban history. The conventional perspective has layered many periods of machine history into a timeless, homogeneous, essentially stereotypical image, constructing of a machine that imperfectly describes its actual policy system at any one point in time, or any individual city’s experience. The Tweed’s machine is not Richard Daley’s Chicago machine, and New York’s Croker Tammany Hall is not Boston’s Curley, nor Boss Crump’s Memphis.
Our concern in this history is the economic development policy process which is a component of a jurisdictional policy system. My research strongly suggests that different types of machines can create different urban policy systems. If so, the Gilded Age municipal level political machine-affected policy systems presented in chapter are not necessarily going to be helpful in assessing future urban policy systems which are likely to be significantly different. In short, machine-style policy systems vary by historical time period, and any economic development policy-making during each respective time period will be a creature of the larger policy system. To the extent that the conventional image of machines and Gilded Age political systems distorts a time period’s political/policy system, we lose understanding and inject artificiality to our history. So, we must first sort out political machines by time periods and secondly, appreciate that within any time period several variants of political machines can develop.
What is a political machine? It is an organization (often semi-formal extra-legal, and behind the scenes) applied to politics led by a political class (oligarchic) whose purpose it is to acquire votes and win elections, securing in the process benefits of value to the political class and constituencies that support it. Policy outputs in a machine-affected policy system, to the extent possible, will reward voters, constituencies, attract future voters, and secure those benefits desired by the machine-dependent political class. The ultimate goal is to sustain political control of the machine. As such, an important defining characteristic of a machine is its ability to continue over periods of time, changes in leadership, and even changes in constituency/voters.
Ultimately, the core political class is the principal driver (and beneficiary) of political machines. In my definition, a single dominant mayor/boss, absent some sort of formal/semi-formal structure which permits continuity to another “boss-leader”, is not a machine. The existence of pervasive corruption does not mean the system is dominated by a machine. A political machine, as shall be shortly supported, does not have to control the entire urban policy system—it can control or dominate only one element or institution within it. If a policy system is to be considered as a “machine” policy system, the machine ought to dominate the entire policy cycle and its eventual outputs.
Except for very brief episodes, most Gilded Age municipalities[1] were not “machine” dominated policy systems. Yet, nearly every municipal policy system in the Age exhibited somewhere in its policy systems, components and institutions that were, in fact, machine controlled. The impact of machines on the various policy areas varied enormously. Economic development was very much affected by machines because mostly it was, by default or consciously plan, delegated to non-governmental, business organizations. At the same time, however, some economic development-related activities and initiatives were strongly affected, by machine influences during both approval and implementation stages of the policy cycle. A great deal of Gilded Age economic development lay outside of machine control.
It would seem to be necessary and logical to our straw man conventional image of machines that city’s develop bosses who held sufficient power over a sustained period time so to control/manage a machine, run a city, and dominate its political and policy processes. The centrality of the boss to the conventional image of the political machine may, however, be its chief weakness. City-wide bosses were rare, enjoyed very brief tenures, and seldom acted as a boss, but more as a “broker”[2]. To us machine “brokers” shared policy-making with ever-stronger mayors, independent boards and commissions, comptrollers and aggressive business organizations such as the Chamber. To the extent they controlled anything, machine brokers dominated the city councils of Big City America. If bosses infrequently exist, and/or operate as brokers, our conception, advanced in the following sections, of ward-based, city council dominant political machines is considerably strengthened.
In the next section, I will explain (1) why I believe the conventional image of Gilded Age machine and policy systems distorts our understanding; (2) offer four sometimes brief, sometimes not, descriptions of individual city machines (Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York City, and Boston) with the object being to demonstrate the variants in machines during this period; and (3) disparage the notion that machines were led by bosses who allegedly dominated the municipality’s political and policy processes. In regards to the last point, there will be exceptions, but as a general rule Gilded Age municipal policy systems were not dominated by machine bosses. Bosses will be more common in periods other than the Gilded Age.
The Boss or The Broker
Perhaps the chief counter-argument to my Gilded Age, ward-based, city council dominant political machines policy system would be the citywide “Boss”. Except for Tammany, machines are linked to their famous Boss. The conventional model, I think, suggests that municipal politics of this Age were dominated by bosses and machine politics. I will argue in the following sections that this is largely incorrect. Gilded Age municipalities were overwhelmingly not controlled by bosses or by ethnic-based political machines. To this end, four descriptions of Gilded Age municipal machines that suggest variation among machines and the relative absence of city-wide machine bosses. Philadelphia will be developed in greater detail as it represents the best example of a successful political machine dominating over an extended period of time, a municipal policy system. The fly in this ointment, however, is the machine, and its bosses, are located not in Philadelphia, but rather in the state capital where the state Republican party was headquartered.
Philadelphia/Pennsylvania: The Republican Party controlled Washington D.C. during the Gilded Age[3]. Senator Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s first Secretary of War, quickly forged a state-level, Republican machine with a few years of the War’s end. From Washington, Simon, James and later David Cameron, along with Mathew Quay (Pittsburgh area) focused on a single purpose—controlling elections to ensure Republicans maintained state control and delivered a block of votes sufficient to exert great influence in Republican presidential selection, national elections and voting to support big Pennsylvania business. The Republican sate machine was effectively an alliance of Pennsylvania’s corporate elite and a new political class which controlled the state machine through control of both the federal government and of elections.
It was said by reformer Henry Demarest Lloyd that “John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company had done everything with the Pennsylvania legislature except refine it”.[4] The same was said of railroads. In Philadelphia, the Gas Works was a source of patronage, and Peter A. B. Widener, a city treasurer became one of the nation’s richest men, investing in suburban real estate and streetcar railways. The Pittsburgh level municipal machine incorporated the steel, oil, gas and coal corporate elites prominent in that City. A great deal of the machine’s attention and effort was focused not on making money as Tammany Hall made money, but on controlling the federal government and Presidential elections[5], often using Civil War generals as their candidates. Rhode Island, with a similar state-level Republican regime could match Pennsylvania for such control as could Ohio, under the Presidential king-maker, Mark Hanna. Maryland’s Democratic Gorman-Rasin Ring[6] was yet another example of Gilded Age state-level machines. None of the state-level “bosses”, however were included in Zink’s Twenty Bosses—but “King” James McManes is.
McManes forged the famous Gas House Trust Philadelphia machine. Its origins lie with the purchase by the city of a privately-owned gas-powered utility in 1841. To keep it out of politics, a special board was created to hold title and manage the facility as a municipal enterprise. The Trust could issue bonds, enter into contracts and do all the good things that improperly-done constitute corruption—in other words it was an opportunity in the making. By the end of the Civil War, the Trust employed two thousand workers and was the largest potential patronage block available in the city. At the same time James McManes, a Scotch-Irish-born Protestant, former Whig turned Republican, and after 1858 life-long ward-boss of Philadelphia’s 17th Ward. In 1865 McManes became a Gas Trust director and was off to the races.
Surviving an intense scandal at the Trust, McManes became known as “the King” and by the early 1870’s was informally recognized as Philadelphia’s Boss. Supplementing the Trust with the purchase of Philadelphia’s largest street car firm, provided the Gas Trust with not only the largest patronage block in the area, but perceived control of the city as well. McManes assessed anywhere from ten to twenty-five dollars per Trust and city employee to serve the machine’s needs. The 1870’s were the golden years for the Gas House Trust and during that time it was a true powerhouse machine, fitting very nicely the conventional machine image this history so vigorously disparages. Excepting, of course, that the machine was not ethnic or immigrant based and was firmly based on patronage and assessments. It also gingerly coexisted with the Cameron and Quay ruled state Republican machine[7]. McManes and the state leadership lived a tension-filled relationship, but so long as the former delivered predictable and safe votes, the latter tolerated as little decentralization in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia[8].
In 1880, however, two flies flew into the McManes ointment-both were of his own making. The first was a break with the state machine. At the 1880 Party nomination, Cameron supported a Grant for a third term as President; McManes publically supported Garfield and provided Philadelphia’s votes to his cause. The Republican state machine had publicly fractured and Ohio got the nomination. Cameron would never forget. The second problem materialized from a businessman reform coalition, the Committee of One Hundred, which cooperated with the Democratic Party (and the state Republican Party) to oust McManes. McManes after a horrific witch hunt retired to private life[9]. The state machine wasted no opportunity and established its patrimony over Philadelphia politicians—a hold it retained until 1933.
Until the 1880’s takeover by the state machine of the local machine, two rival, but independent, machines and bosses cooperated and fought. After the state takeover, the contest was primarily in local elections, and between reformer and machine. In this struggle, the Republican Party had become the machine’s organization—unlike Tammany Hall which stood apart from the Democratic Party but thoroughly shaped its patronage, its balanced ticked, and occasionally the platform of its candidates. Not so in Philadelphia—the Republican Party was the machine. That proved to be a serious problem to future business reformers who tended to be Republicans. “The recurring division within the [Philadelphia] reform movement over the issue of partisanship in local affairs suggests that many reform activists found it as difficult as the ‘average Philadelphian’ to overcome the ‘political trance [induced] by the purring cry of party regularity’ that is to resist their natural inclination to vote Republican”.[10]
All of which raises the issue of what was the Philadelphia Democratic Party up to? Unlike New York City, the Philadelphia Democratic Party, “experienced a phenomenal decline between the 1880’s and 1920’s, both in leadership strength and in grass-roots support”[11] Why? The Democrats got the blame for the 1893 Panic. So after 1894 there was a nation-wide shift away from the Democrats as the Republican Party enjoyed its Gilded Age golden years. Secondly, as the Democrats turned to William Jennings Bryan and free silver (1896), they lost the support of Philadelphia’s socially prominent Democratic families who participated in the so-called “Jeffersonian bolt” from the Democrats. This stripped that Party of its business and old wealth leadership. Absent this leadership, the Democrats disintegrated into factional, ward-based politics, which the Republicans wasted little time in “dividing and conquering”, and finally actually forging a bipartisan agreement with prominent ward-lords. That agreement exchanged patronage and appointments to independent boards and commissions (which were, in accordance with the state constitution supposed to be bipartisan). The net effect was the electoral collapse of Democrats in Philadelphia municipal elections. In 1891, the Democrats, for example, took 39% of the mayoral vote; by 1915, they garnered only 4%.[12] A normal two-party competitive system did not fully return until 1933. During most of the early twentieth century Philadelphia Democratic Party as a “kept organization” or, “a mere corrupt annex of the Republican Organization”.[13]
And that brings us back to the Republican Organization. How did bosses transform and then control the Republican Party and turn it into a political machine? After the collapse of the “Gas Ring” power within the Republican Party was centralized, and through Republican elected officials and appointed, the Republican Party took over Philadelphia’s government [sarcastically, Lenin could have learned from this because it is similar to his democratic centralism]. Patronage was central to power consolidation at the top in that a party boss acquired a virtual monopoly over the patronage pool that he could use to solidify personal and Organization control and discipline to reward the faithful, and “stave out those who were not”. “The administrative consolidation and centralization of authority under the new city charter of 1887 made available a large pool of patronage, and the Organization’s leadership established a monopoly over its distribution”.[14] But patronage alone did not create the Organization.
“It was also due to a number of changes in party methods, rules, recruitment, and finance implemented by state and city party leadership in a deliberate attempt to centralize power within the Republican Party.” The state party leader was first able to control the flow of policy and budgets in the state legislature. Accordingly, interest groups and corporate lobbyists dealt with him. Federal patronage also fell into this category as did support for federal legislation. When the day came that “utility monopolists” wanted street car or electric company franchises, it was the state level party leaders who made the decision and benefited (or not) from their support. This produced income for the Republican Party that it could use to finance its local operations. Given the reality of Dillon’s law, this also meant that anyone in Philadelphia that wanted a franchise or a state contract also had to reckon with state level party bosses as well as the designated city boss—there was no bypassing the Organization. Another key element of centralized power was the selection and installation of a willing and subordinate city boss. The first such boss, David Martin, effectively became the state-level boss’s satrap and political channel. Through the city boss, the state Boss was able to extend his influence into city affairs and politics. If ever there was an American state-level “House of Cards”, this was it (although I don’t believe it threw people off the roof).
Wisely, the Organization could adopt “reforms” when it became apparent that reform was tactically necessary. Civil Service was approved, adopted, and when helpful, actually practiced. A reform in time could not only save a later Supreme Court, it could take the wind out of a reformer’s campaign. Also, party rules were changed to shape the flow of decisions and elections within the Republican Party. This is where the higher levels effectively selected the lower levels of the party organization, and even controlled who would get the party nomination in a local elections (this is again Leninist democratic centralism). The net effect was that the top party leaders selected the ward leaders, the upside-down of what formerly existed.
Suffice it to say, this Republican Organization was a political juggernaut that came awfully close to being a state-level oligarchy. Lincoln Steffens, the famous muckraker concluded:
The Philadelphia Organization is upside down. It has its roots in the air, or rather like the banyon tree, it sends its roots from the center out both up and down and all around, and there lies its peculiar strength …. The Organization that rules Philadelphia is … not a mere municipal machine, but a city, State and national organization.[15]
The opportunities for personal and organization profit were so numerous that so-called “honest graft” became standard and the recourse to deep corruption became unnecessary. Efficiency and sound budgeting were another matter as padded payrolls may be legal, but far from fiscally desirable. A political machine of this nature, while it may have received its votes from immigrants, blacks and working class and rendered nominal services to them in return, was in no real way dependent on the lower classes. Immigrants and working class did not create the “need” for such a machine to exist, so the policy system that followed from its establishment by party leaders did not especially serve such needs or fulfill the various sociological functions seemingly required from a body politic. It served a variety of interests, of course, but none more so than those of the party hierarchy.
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh’s Magee-Finn machine (set up later in 1887) shared power with Quay and his Harrisburg Republicans. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were effectively one party cities and the machine exchanged patronage and public building/infrastructure construction for votes and money. In these two cities, reformers contested machine dominance and were able on occasion to oust the municipal boss for a term or two. Local chambers and local business elites also were an inconsistent opponent of the Republican machine at the municipal level—but not in national politics or state level politics.
[1] There is one exception: Pennsylvania’s Big Cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. This will be discussed below.
[2] Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, op. cit., pp. 176-182. Teaford describes city and city and demonstrates that boss was a title often thrust upon ward leaders, but lacking real substance as a city-wide machine bosses. His description of Chicago’s William Lorimer (p. 179) supports his assertion that “no one in Chicago during the late nineteenth century could legitimately claim the title of city boss”. Lorimer, he asserts, at the height of his power could at most lay claim to eight of the city’s thirty-five wards.
[3] Republicans controlled the Presidency from 1860 to 1912 excepting only Grover Cleveland (two terms).
[4] H.D. Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth (1881)
[5] From 1860 to 1932 Pennsylvania voted for Republicans in the Presidential elections
[6] See Chapter 5 in Richardson Dilworth (Ed), Cities in American Political History (Washington D.C., Sage, 2011) for a city by city description of the main outlines of politics for the major cities during this period. Freeman Rasin was an early example of the political class which was coming together in the post-Civil War. He joined Baltimore’s Democratic political club as a young man in 1864 and by the early 1870’s had become its leader. From that position he distributed patronage, mediated and controlled the ward bosses and dominated the city council—working through and with seven term mayor Ferdinand Latrobe. He was the key element in Gorman’s Maryland state organization and he remained in control until Democratic reformers ousted him in 1895. See Mohl, The New City, op. cit. p. 103.
[7] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Rule Philadelphia: the Emergence of the Republic Machine 1867- 1933 (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1933); Harold Zink, City Bosses in the United States, op. cit., pp. 194-205; and Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, A History of Urban America (3rd Ed) (New York, McMillan Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 211-212.
[8] Zink summarizes McManes “bossdom”: “The greater part of the “King’s” political power came from his position in the Gas Trust, from leadership of the Seventeenth Ward, and from loyal support of influential friends, including favor at Washington at times. … The army of jobs provided the very best fuel for the political organization which “King” McManes created” Harold Zink, City Bosses in the United States, op. cit., pp. 201. On p. 203 Zink describes the 1880 break with the Republican state leadership and p. 204 describes Cameron’s ouster of McManes. In 1885, the state Republican leadership compelled a new charter on Philadelphia which reinforced dominance of the state.
[9] Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, A History of Urban America (3rd Ed), op. cit., pp. 211-211.
[10] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia: the Emergence of the Republican Machine 1867-1933 (University Park, PA, the Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), p. 186.
[11] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia:, op. cit., p. 133ff
[12] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia:, op. cit., p. 134.
[13] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia:, op. cit., p. 134.
[14] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, op. cit., pp. 77-78.
[15] Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, op. cit., p. 98.
Ron W. Coan 