540 Chapter 20 From Smoke-Filled Rooms to Prairie Wildfire: 1877–1896
obsequious might, like discretion, be the better part
of valor. But Washington was asking them to give up
specific rights in return for vague promises of future
help. The cost was high in surrendered personal dig-
nity and lost hopes of obtaining real justice.
Washington’s career illustrates the terrible
dilemma that American blacks have always faced:
the choice between confrontation and accommoda-
tion. This choice was particularly difficult in the late
nineteenth century.
City Bosses
Outside of the South, the main issue concerned munic-
ipal government. This was complicated by the religious
and ethnic character of the city dwellers and by the spe-
cial problems of late-nineteenth-century urban life:
rapid, helter-skelter growth; the influx of European
immigrants; the need to develop costly transportation,
sanitation, and other public utility systems; and the
crime and corruption that the size, confusion, and
anonymity incidental to urban existence fostered.
The immigrants who flocked into American cities
in the 1880s and early 1890s were largely of peasant
stock, and having come from societies unacquainted
with democracy, they had no experience with repre-
sentative government. The tendency of urban work-
ers to move frequently in search of better jobs further
lessened the likelihood that they would develop polit-
ical influence independently.
Furthermore, the difficulties of life in the slums
bewildered and often overwhelmed newcomers, both
native- and foreign-born. Hopeful, but passive and
naive, they could hardly be expected to take a broad
view of social problems when so beset by personal
ones. This enabled shrewd urban politicians—most of
them in this period of Irish origin, since the Irish
being the first-comers among the migrants and,
according to mobility studies, more likely to stay
put—to take command of the city masses and march
them in obedient phalanxes to the polls.
Most city machines were loose-knit neighborhood
organizations headed by ward bosses, not tightly
geared hierarchical bureaucracies ruled by a single
leader. “Big Tim” Sullivan of New York’s Lower East
Side and “Hinky Dink” Kenna of Chicago were typical
of the breed. Sullivan, Kenna, and others like them per-
formed many useful services for people they liked to
think of as their constituents. They found jobs for new
arrivals and distributed food and other help to all in
bad times. Anyone in trouble with the law could obtain
at least a hearing from the ward boss, and often, if the
crime was minor or due to ignorance, the difficulty
was quietly “fixed” and the culprit was sent off with a
word of caution. Sullivan provided turkey dinners for
5,000 or more homeless people each Christmas, dis-
tributed new shoes to the poor children of his district
on his birthday, and arranged summer boat rides and
picnics for young and old alike. At any time of year the
victim of some sudden disaster could turn to the local
clubhouse for help. Informally, probably without con-
sciously intending to do so, the bosses educated the
immigrants in the complexities of American civiliza-
tion, helping them to leap the gulf between the almost
medieval society of their origins and the modern indus-
trial world.
The price of such aid—the bosses were not
altruists—was unquestioning political support, which
the bosses converted into cash. In New York, Sullivan
levied tribute on gambling, had a hand in the liquor
business, and controlled the issuance of peddlers’
licenses. When he died in 1913, he was reputedly
worth $1 million. Yet he and others like him were
immensely popular; 25,000 grieving constituents fol-
lowed Big Tim’s coffin on its way to the grave.
The more visible and better-known city bosses
played even less socially justifiable roles than the
ward bosses. Their principal technique for extract-
ing money from the public till was the kickback. To
get city contracts, suppliers were made to pad their
bills and, when paid for their work with funds from
the city treasury, turn over the excess to the politi-
cians. Similarly, operators of streetcar lines, gas and
electricity companies, and other public utilities
were compelled to pay huge bribes to obtain favor-
able franchises.
The most notorious of the nineteenth-century
city bosses was William Marcy Tweed, whose “Tweed
Ring” extracted tens of millions of dollars from New
York City during the brief period of 1869–1871.
Tweed was swiftly jailed. More typical was Richard
Croker, who ruled New York’s Tammany Hall orga-
nization from the mid-1880s to the end of the cen-
tury. Croker held a number of local offices, but his
power rested on his position as chairman of the
Tammany Hall finance committee. Although more
concerned than Tweed with the social and economic
services that machines provided, Croker was primarily
a corrupt political manipulator; he accumulated a
large fortune and owned a mansion and a stable of
racehorses, one of which was good enough to win the
English Derby.
Despite their welfare work and their popularity,
most bosses were essentially thieves. Efforts to
romanticize them as the Robin Hoods of industrial
society grossly distort the facts. However, the system
developed and survived because too many middle-
class city dwellers were indifferent to the fate of the
poor. Except during occasional reform waves, few
tried to check the rapaciousness of the politicos.