The Politics of City Growth
Cities filled with poor immigrants making little money required the same services as the middle class and wealthy. Public services such as electricity, sewage, police and fire protection, hospitals, and water required tax money. The middle class and wealthy paid the greater portion of taxes and complained to the overworked city government officials. Contracts to provide city services became big business for city governments and elected city officials. Some city officials represented the interests of the wealthy and middle class, and others represented the working class and poor immigrants. This political divide led to the rise of the "political machine."
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| Cartoon depicting Boss Tweed |
When groups of people would organize to back a certain elected city official, it was called a political machine. The head of the machine was called the "boss." The boss could be the elected official or he could be the one controlling the official’s financial backing. Political machines could control districts with many poor immigrants by making a voting block of immigrants. The boss could control the voting block of immigrants by helping them gain basic needs.
The boss could provide constituents with food, coal for fuel, or money for rent. The machine also made money. Elected officials who were part of the machine would use their jobs to get money by accepting money, or bribes, from contractors who wanted assurance that they would be awarded contracts. Money accepted by political machines was called “graft.”
One of the most familiar machines was the Tammany Hall machine, which was headed by William M. Tweed. Tweed became a New York City Congressional representative in the 1850s and a state senator in the 1860s. In the 1870s his machine controlled the city mayor and comptroller. He was said to have stolen over 100 million dollars in taxpayer money. His machine controlled a voting block of poor immigrants. Tweed was eventually caught and put in jail where he died in 1873.