• Warn the class that some of the Upward Bound Students may come to visit this class
• Give students handout regarding the group project

• Last class, we discussed Federalism, looking specifically at the following questions:
• What is Federalism?
• Why Federalism?
• What is a Unitary system?
• What is Confederation?
• What the Founding Fathers had in mind when then created federalism (the intended consequences)
• What actually happens because of federalism (the unforeseen and unintended consequences)
• Weighing the good with the bad (this is where the Peterson reading comes in)

 

• The implied assumptions from last class:
• The Constitutional provisions of American Federalism decentralized political power and spread it thinly throughout the city and federal governments.
• Devolution (the new Federalism) pushed many responsibilities onto state and local governments, and, as a result, made it difficult for cities to govern themselves.
• For this class, we shift to another section, looking at how cities dealt with the difficult task of self-governance. The famous (or infamous) strategy was the urban political machine. We will discuss the following ideas in today;s lecture:

1. Immigration Patterns:

• There were 3 great waves of immigration in America
• Immigrants and Urban Settlement
• Why did immigrants settle in cities?
• Reactions from "Native" Americans to Immigration:
• Problems with anti-immigration policies:

 

2. Immegration and the Political Machine:

• Machines provided incentive-based politics to immigrants

 

3. Machine Politics:

• What are Political Machines?
• Strategies Associated with Machine-Style Politics:
• Why should we bother to understand or study machine politics?

4. Characteristics of Political Machines:

• Central control
• Offer incentives (material, service-based, brokerage-based)
• Lack of ideology
• Lack broad policy ideas or goals
• Personal relationships with voters

5. What caused the decline of political machines?

• Reform movement
• Nonpartisan elections
• Growth of the welfare state
• Change in immigration policy
• WWII
• Personal relationships

 

5. Persistence of Machine Politics Today

• Why? Merton: "machines last b/c they serve a function."

There were 3 great waves of immigration in America:

• 1815-1860: 5 million immigrants settled permanently in the U.S., mainly English, Irish, Germanic, Scandinavian, and others from northwestern Europe.
• 1865-1890: 10 million immigrants settled permanently, again mainly from northwestern Europe
• 1890-1914: 15 million immigrants, many of whom were Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, Lithuanian, Russian, Jewish, Greek, Italian, or Romanian. The third wave is the most relevant to our discussion.

• Although many immigrants did settle in rural America, a great majority of immigrants settled in cities. Concentration of immigrant populations was highest in four of America's largest cities at the time:
• New York
• Boston
• Pittsburgh
• Chicago

• 5 out of every 6 Irish and Russian immigrants lived in a city. 3 out of 4 Italian and Hungarian immigrants became urban dwellers, as did seven of ten English immigrants.

 

• Many immigrants came to America with very little money to buy farms or expensive farming equipment.
• Others settled in cities because farming in America was far different from what they had grown accustomed to in Europe.
• Some immigrants, such as many Slavs, simply came to America too late to acquire free or cheap land.
• Some, such as Irish and Jewish immigrants, preferred the city because it provided a chance to worship with other Jews without fear of persecution.
• One reason so many Irish settled in the city was that working the land reminded them painfully of home, where English landlords kept Irish tenant farmers in a constant state of oppression.
• Jews were also reminded of centuries of oppression and persecution, and often preferred cities to rural areas because cities afforded them the opportunity to recreate a mini-society of their own which emphasized religion, community, and education.

• The term "native" in this context refers not to Indigenous American Indians and Alaskan native tribes but rather to Americans who, although their ancestors had been immigrants just generations before, considered themselves "true Americans."
• New Nativism: Keep new immigrants out!
• Relevant example: Prop. 187 for Mexican immigrants
• Arguments against newcomers: Undermine US culture and economy by reducing wages of "natives", taking jobs away, overburdening welfare, raising crime levels, increasing school and housing problems, and even bringing in disease.
• FAIR The Federation of American Immigration Reform pushed these arguments

• Racial (racist) in orientation
• Illegal aliens are necessary and contribute to society
• Immigrants pay taxes
• America is the land of freedom and opportunity

Others (even the quote/unquote "natives") came for economic reasons.

• Immigrants faced tremendous difficulties, and they looked to politics for concrete and personal gains
• Machine offered many incentives for immigrants who had nothing. 1880-1920 heyday of both immigration and political machines. 4 key factors:
• Many personal needs of immigrants, but no government agencies to assist, fueled "need" for machines.
• Immigrants weren't familiar with American political system.
• Source of conflict between immigrants and WASPs who thought that government was no place for personal need, more a moral place for greater good.

 

What are Political Machines?

• Machine Politics, defined: "A political machine is a party organization that depends crucially upon incentives (carrots) that are both specific and material…a machine like any other organization offers a mixture of material and non-material benefits in order to get people to do what they want them to do."

• Material: emergency assistance, food, housing, jobs, bail money, payoffs, etc.
• Personal services: fix parking tickets, cleanup/community development, jobs
• Brokerage system: city favors (i.e. zoning permit in exchange for political contributions


…Note: The exchanging of favors and inducements for votes is known as clientelism.

• NYC model: Dangerous and poorly paid work, urban slums, hostility from natives.
• Produced the "Political Boss" who brokered his blocks of workers and votes for political gains; gave back jobs, food, and assistance
• Patronage: Political Boss got things done through reciprocity (i.e. favors for votes) or hardball politics (voter fraud, intimidation, control of officials).
• They also balance needs and profit from illicit vice enterprises

 
• Irish model: Politically clever and disdain for law; city politics and government employment

o Reform generally ineffective
o Established system of corruption too deep (payoffs, mock raids, poor prosecution)
o But bureaucratic pressures increased to save money by not having to pay graft

• They are still around
• Gives us better understanding of behind the scenes power
• Reformist movement was reactive to machines, cannot understand reformism w/o understanding machine politics

• Concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, big cities: NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Jersey City, Albany, and Chicago (once known as the America's Manufacturing Belt)
• Central control-hierarchy with party boss leading organization, making decisions.
• Use of material incentives
• Lack of ideology-only want to win elections
• No broad policy ideas or goals-only didn't want to lose support/controversy
• Personal relationships with voters

What caused the decline of political machines?

• Reform movement-merit system, no more patronage
• Nonpartisan elections, party was at the center of the political machine
• Growth of welfare state, picked up social service role
• Change in immigration policy
• W.W.II brought prosperity, less needs
• Changes in media and social life, diminished capacity for with residents.

• Still persists today in some cities-exchange/patronage over development projects like stadiums, contracts, gambling
• Mayor v. party centered regime, used to be latter more common, now mayor centered patronage systems are more common.
• Merton: machines lasted b/c they served a function. (His argument is summarized best in the editor's essay. Merton's essay is unnecessarily dense).
• Machines satisfy (latent/unintended) several social needs that governmental institutions neglect:
• Machine's ability to centralize (informal) power solved the issue weakly dispersed political power ala federalism. This made tough to govern cities more governable

Machines humanized and personalized assistance to the needy. This was especially important to immigrants because they were discriminated against in social welfare programs and patronage politics appealed more to their dignity
• Machines offers businesses the resources they needed to survive. [See if anyone is interested in researching the link between organized crime and machine politics]
• Machines provided immigrants with the opportunities for upward mobility. [Erie challenges this point in his reading on Irish machines. Erie argues that machines do more to hurt immigrant mobility than to help it.]