Urban Politics: Political Machines and Reforms

Merit, Knowledge, and Transparency are the Ingredients to Destroy Political Machines

In the mid-19th century, American cities grew rapidly, fueled by immigration and an increase in manufacturing and commerce. Immigrants arrived with great needs and few resources. Party organizations in these growing cities, known as political machines, offered immigrants help in exchange for political support. Loyal voters and party workers might receive patronage jobs, money or food in times of distress.

Machine politicians controlled access to public jobs and contracts through a system of graft and corruption. Kickback schemes were common. Real estate interests, public works builders, and aspiring judges often paid large sums of money to machine politicians to win offices, favors, and city contracts. At their worst, political machines sometimes fixed elections by stuffing or destroying ballot boxes in districts where the opposition was popular; although they often had majority support without such methods.

Reformers opposed the machine, calling for such improvements as civil service tests for jobs, closer control over how the city spent its money, and watching the polls on Election Day. Over time, such reforms weakened the power of political machines. But reformers rarely won elections since their appeals to higher principles were not as compelling to voters as the concrete benefits of jobs, help with the police, or money. Only the uncommon reformer, like Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York City, served more than one term. La Guardia was able to use the relief and public works projects of the 1930s New Deal to provide benefits for his working class and immigrant voting base. Indeed, it was the rise of the welfare state and the services it provided that greatly weakened political machines in the post-World War II period.

Source: City University of New York