Political machine 1

Political machine

In this 1899 cartoon from Puck, all of New York City politics revolves around bossRichard Croker.

A political machine is a politicalorganization in which an authoritative bossor small group commands the support of acorps of supporters and businesses (usuallycampaign workers), who receive rewards fortheir efforts. The machine's power is basedon the ability of the workers to get out thevote for their candidates on election day.

Although these elements are common tomost political parties and organizations, theyare essential to political machines, whichrely on hierarchy and rewards for politicalpower, often enforced by a strong partywhip structure. Machines sometimes have apolitical boss, often rely on patronage, thespoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representativedemocracy. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead of for a single election or event. The termmay have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt political machines.[1]

The term "political machine" dates back to the 20th century in the United States, where such organizations haveexisted in some municipalities and states since the 18th century. Similar machines have been described in LatinAmerica, where the system has been called clientelism or political clientelism (after the similar Clientela relationshipin the Roman Republic), 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 politicalmachine, maintaining power in suburban and rural areas through its control of farm bureaus and road constructionagencies.[2] In Japan, the word jiban (literally "base" or "foundation") is the word used for political machine.[3][4]

DefinitionThe Encyclopædia Britannica defines "political machine" as, "in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by asingle boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control ofa city, county, or state".[1] William Safire, in his Safire's Political Dictionary, defines "machine politics" as "theelection of officials and the passage of legislation through the power of an organization created for politicalaction".[3]

Hierarchy and discipline are hallmarks of political machines. "It generally means strict organization", according toSafire.[3] Quoting Edward Flynn, a Bronx County Democratic leader who ran the borough from 1922 until his deathin 1953,[5] he wrote "[...] the so-called 'independent' voter is foolish to assume that a political machine is run solelyon good will, or patronage. For it is not only a machine; it is an army. And in any organization as in any army, theremust be discipline."[3]

Political patronage, while often associated with political machines, is not essential to the definition for either Safireor Britannica.[3]

The phrase is considered derogatory "because it suggests that the interest of the organization are placed before thoseof the general public", according to Safire. Machines are criticized as undemocratic and inevitably encouragingcorruption.[3]

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FunctionA political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives—money,political jobs—and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity."Political machine" started as a grass-roots campaign to gain the patronage needed to win the modern election.Having strong patronage, these "clubs" were the main driving force in gaining and getting out the "straight partyvote" in the election districts.[6]

Political machines in the United StatesLarger cities in the United States—Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York City, Philadelphia, St.Louis—were accused of using political machines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[7] During this time "citiesexperienced rapid growth under inefficient government".[7] Each city's machine lived under a hierarchical systemwith a "boss" who held the allegiance of local business leaders, elected officials and their appointees, and who knewthe proverbial buttons to push to get things done. Benefits and problems both resulted from the rule of politicalmachines.[8][9]

Lord Bryce describes these political bosses saying:An army led by a council seldom conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief, who settles disputes, decidesin emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places,rewards the loyal, punishes the mutinous, concocts schemes, negotiates treaties. He generally avoids publicity,preferring the substance to the pomp of power, and is all the more dangerous because he sits, like a spider,hidden in the midst of his web. He is a Boss.[10]

When asked if he was a boss, James Pendergast said simply,I've been called a boss. All there is to it is having friends, doing things for people, and then later on they'll dothings for you... You can't coerce people into doing things for you—you can't make them vote for you. I nevercoerced anybody in my life. Wherever you see a man bulldozing anybody he don't last long.[7]

Many machines formed in cities to serve immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th century who viewed machines as avehicle for political enfranchisement. Machine staffers helped win elections by turning out large numbers of voterson election day. But even among the Irish, continued help for new immigrants declined over time. It was in the partymachines' interests to only maintain a minimally winning amount of support. Once they were in the majority andcould count on a win, there was less need to recruit new members, as this only meant a thinner spread of thepatronage rewards to be spread among the party members. As such, later-arriving immigrants, such as Jews, Italians,and other immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe between the 1880s and 1910s, rarely saw any reward fromthe machine system. At the same time, most of political machines' staunchest opponents were members of theestablished class (nativist Protestants).The corruption of the machines was denounced by private citizens. They achieved national civil-service reform andworked to replace local patronage systems with civil service. By Theodore Roosevelt's time, the Progressive Eramobilized millions of private citizens to vote against the machines.In the 1930s, James A. Farley was the chief dispenser of the Democratic Party's patronage system through the Postal Department and the Works Progress Administration which eventually nationalized many of the job benefits machines provided. The New Deal allowed machines to recruit for the WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps, making Farley's machine the most powerful. All patronage was screened through Farley, including presidential appointments. The New Deal machine fell apart after he left the administration over the third term in 1940. Those agencies were abolished in 1943 and the machines suddenly lost much of their patronage. The formerly poor immigrants who had benefited under Farley's national machine had become assimilated and prosperous and no longer needed the informal or extralegal aides provided by machines.[11] In the 1940s most of the big city machines collapsed, with the notable exception of the Chicago machine.[11] A local political machine in Tennessee was

Political machine 3

forcibly removed in what was known as the 1946 Battle of Athens.Since the 1960s, some historians have reevaluated political machines, considering them corrupt but efficient.Machines were undemocratic but responsive. They were also able to contain the spending demands of specialinterests. In Mayors and Money, a comparison of municipal government in Chicago and New York, Ester R. Fuchscredited the Cook County Democratic Organization with giving Mayor Richard J. Daley the political power to denylabor union contracts that the city could not afford and to make the state government assume burdensome costs likewelfare 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, this view often coincided with alack of period alternatives. They go on to point out that this is a falsehood, since there are certainly examples ofreform oriented, anti-machine leaders during this time.Smaller communities such as Parma, Ohio, in the post–Cold War Era under Prosecutor Bill Mason's "Good OldBoys" 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 andinfluence of the larger boss networks listed in this article. For example, the "Cracker Party" was a Democratic Partypolitical machine that dominated city politics in Augusta, Georgia, for over half of the 20th century.[12][13][14][15] [16]

References[1] "political machine" (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ EBchecked/ topic/ 467617/ political-machine). Encyclopaedia Britannica. . Retrieved

December 6, 2008.[2] The American Journey, Reconstruction to the Present (Student ed.). Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. 2005. ISBN 0078609801.[3] Safire, William (1978). ""Machine politics"". Safire's Political Dictionary (First ed.). Random House. pp. 391–392. (although the book

existed in an earlier version titled "The New Language of Politics")[4] Editorial Research Reports (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=Bo0KAAAAIAAJ& q="roman+ republic"+ "political+ patronage"&

dq="roman+ republic"+ "political+ patronage"& lr=& pgis=1), 1, Congressional Quarterly, 1973,[5] Glazer, Nathan; Monyhan, Daniel Patrick (1963). "The Irish". Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and Irish

of New York. The MIT Press. p. 226. "Ed Flynn ran the Bronx from 1922 until his death in 1953."[6] Wilson, James Q. (2005). American Government. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.[7] The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century: California Teacher's Edition. Evanston: McDougall Littell Inc. 2006. pp. 267–268.[8] Blumer, Herbert (1914/1915). The American Journal of Sociology. 20. p. 603. "The political machine is in fact an attempt to maintain, inside

the formal administrative organization of the city, the control of a primary group."[9] Gosnell, Harold F. (September 1933). "The Political Party versus the Political Machine". Annals of American Academy of Political and Social

Science 169: 21–28. doi:10.1177/000271623316900104. "When the spoils element is predominant in a political organization, it is called apolitical machine."

[10] "Urban Political Machines" (http:/ / www. digitalhistory. uh. edu/ historyonline/ us28. cfm), Digital History,[11] Political Machines (http:/ / autocww. colorado. edu/ ~toldy2/ E64ContentFiles/ PoliticsAndGovernment/ PoliticalMachines. htm),

University of Colorado, Boulder,[12] "Newspapers helped end long rule of corrupt Cracker Party" (http:/ / chronicle. augusta. com/ stories/ 110799/ opi_124-1871. shtml). The

Augusta Chronicle. Aug 29, 2010. .[13] "Search results for "Cracker Party"" (http:/ / search. augusta. com/ fast-elements. php?type=standard& profile=augustachronicle&

querystring="cracker+ party"& Go. x=0& Go. y=0& Go=Go). The Augusta Chronicle. . Retrieved 13 November 2012.[14] , http:/ / www. augusta. com/ leaders/ slideshow_local/ slide14. html[15] Cashin, Edward J. (2007-02-19). "Cites & Counties: Augusta" (http:/ / www. georgiaencyclopedia. org/ nge/ Article. jsp?id=h-955). The

New Georgia Encyclopedia. .[16] , http:/ / www. augusta. com/ leaders/ slideshow_local/ slide10. html

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Further reading• Clifford, Thomas P (1975). The Political Machine: An American Institution. Vantage Press. ISBN 0-533-01374-7.• Gosnell, Harold Foote (1968). Machine Politics: Chicago Model. University of Chicago Press.

ISBN 0-226-30492-2.• Gosnell, Harold F; Merriam, Charles E (2007). Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political

Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt and Others. Lightning Source Inc. ISBN 1-4325-8850-8.• Kurland, Gerald (1972). Political Machine: What It Is, How It Works. Story House Corp. ISBN 0-686-07238-3.• Mushkat, Jerome (1971). Tammany; the Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865. Syracuse University Press.

ISBN 0-8156-0079-8.• Sachs, Paul Martin (1974). The Donegal Mafia: An Irish Political Machine. University of California.

ISBN 0-300-02020-1.• Schlesinger, Jacob M. (1999). Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Postwar Political Machine.

Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3457-7.• Tuckel, P.; Maisel, R. (2008). "Nativity Status and Voter Turnout in Early Twentieth-Century Urban United

States". Historical Methods 41 (2): 99–107.

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