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Legitimacy in New York Politics

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Legitimacy in New York Politics Leiden University Master Thesis North American Studies Legitimacy in New York politics The Political Machine versus Civil Service Reformers Name: Annabelle van Waes Student number: s1067443 Supervisor: Dr. E.F. van de Bilt Date: February 20, 2017 1 Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter 1: Bosses and patronage ............................................................................................. 13 1.1. Tammany Hall ........................................................................................................... 14 1.2. Machine politics ........................................................................................................ 23 Chapter 2: Civil Service Reformers ......................................................................................... 29 Chapter 3: Evaluation ............................................................................................................... 40 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 47 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 49 2 Introduction “It is an essential idea of democracy that these leaders shall be of the people; they must not be gentlemen of wealth and leisure, but they must ‒ the mass of them at any rate ‒ belong to the class that makes its own living. If, then, they are to devote their time to politics, politics must be made to pay” 1. This thesis will focus on the use of patronage and the role of the spoils system in the New York at the end of the 19th century. The features of a spoils system, in which government jobs are based on political affiliation, are particularly interesting when placed in the discussion of democratic legitimacy. The spoils system in the United States is strongly affiliated with urban political machines. The interpretations of these machines shifted over the years. Many historians of these political organizations denounce them as corrupt and undemocratic. But Theodore J. Lowi suggested in 1976 that the old machine system might actually run the cities more efficiently than the civil service-inspired procedures common in his days.2 He has a point that, when it comes to efficiency, the political machine ran the city well. The political leaders were closely connected to the citizens. Given the size of the population, it can be argued that the connection between political power brokers and the city neighborhoods was closer at the end of the 19th century than it was in the 1970s. However, with a much larger and changed society it is difficult to say whether the practices of the machine would have been possible in the 1970s. The machines were able to maintain their power by satisfying the needs of their voters, a large number of citizens. In a democracy, the larger number decides the election outcome. In the years after the American Civil War a debate between the political machine and civil service reformers began about the way the machine gathered its votes. With the spoils system and the use of patronage the machines used political means that, in the eyes of their opponents, raised questions about their legitimacy. This thesis will outline the contrast between the ideas of the defenders of the spoils system and the ideas of the civil service reformers in New York at the end of the nineteenth century to answer the question who has the best claim on democratic legitimacy in this New York debate between defenders of the spoils system and civil service reformers. 1 Carl Russell Fish, The Civil Service and the patronage (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1905), 156. 2 Theodore J. Lowi, “Machine politics- Old and New,” The Public Interest, 9 (1967), 91-92. 3 The ideas and arguments will be drawn from various primary sources. They include autobiographical works such as The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens by Lincoln Steffens (1931) and talks by George W. Plunkitt in Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, written down by William L. Riordon (1905). Government documents such as The National Civil Service Reform League’s evaluations will be used as well. Other primary sources include newspaper articles from for example the New York Times and Harper’s Weekly. In the quote at the beginning of this introduction Carl Russel Fish addresses a democratic principle that, he claims, is the true cause for the beginning of the spoils system. The leaders he refers to are the leaders of political parties. These political parties are necessary to organize the people. As the quote states, the men who devote their lives to politics must not only be allowed to do their work but also be rewarded. This is where the spoils system becomes evident: “the civil service becomes the pay-roll of the party leader; offices are apportioned according to the rank and merits of his subordinates, and, if duties are too heavy or new positions are needed, new offices may be created” 3 In this sense, the spoils system fulfills a need generated by the fundamentals of democracy. Two tendencies constitute the spoils system: “first, the custom of using the public offices openly and continuously as ammunition in party warfare; second, the evolution of the idea of rotation in office”4. The principle of rotation functioned as a motive to make removals.5 The civil service functioned as the prize of the elections. Every fourth of March, men would be betting “heavy expense and vast loss of time on the chance of getting something out of the hurly-burly.”6 Even the most revered president, Abraham Lincoln, skillfully used the powerful tool of patronage. He refused, however, to re-allot the offices after March 5, 1865, and the popularity of rotation gradually declined from that moment on.7 Still, after the Civil War the spoils system remained deeply rooted in the political institutions because of new economic, social and political forces. A materialistic decade followed that drove ambitious men to private enterprises instead of public affairs, which were now in the hands of professional politicians.8 The pre-war leaders were replaced by a new type of congressmen and local politicians who yet held on to a pre-war political philosophy, according to which “party loyalty was rewarded by 3 Fish, The Civil Service and the patronage, 157. 4 Ibid., 79. 5 Ibid., 159. 6 Ibid., 158. 7 Adelbert Bower Sageser, The First Two Decades of the Pendleton Act: A study of Civil Service Reform (Literary Licensing, LLC, 2013), 9-10. 8 Sageser, The First Two Decades Of The Pendleton Act, 9-10. 4 appointment to positions or sinecures”9. They continued to use the philosophy of the spoils system. Senator Charles Sumner introduced a bill in 1864 to create greater efficiency in the civil service that aimed to destroy the patronage system. With this bill, he opened a twenty-year campaign for competitive examination of government bureaucrats. The most practicable bill, however, was introduced by George H. Pendleton. The Pendleton Bill called for a commission of five members to assist the President “in making rules, supervise examinations, conduct investigations, and submit an annual report to the President” in relation to civil service10. The proposed bill asked for open competitive examinations where practical, merit and competition as basis for promotion, and the prohibition of compulsory political contributions. When Pendleton reintroduced his Bill at the end of 1881 he displayed the extremes to which the spoils system could lead by using the example of the assassination of President Garfield: Garfield was assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker.11 Between 1881 and 1883 the debate on the government civil service grew tremendously. Both the reformers and the opponents of reform came up with numerous arguments defending their convictions. One of the issues they addressed was the influence of the political parties. The reformers argued that the spoils system lowered the character of state and national legislatures since “the parties had been subsidized and debased so that there were frequent inducements for political crimes.”12 The reformers saw that the political machine emerged out of the spoils system, which extended the activities of the parties beyond their legitimate sphere. The reformers’ aim was to insist that the parties function without the use of patronage; they therefore introduced a Bill to establish a check on party influence. The opponents of reform, however, argued that there would be no parties without the spoils system. Those who wanted to serve their country in a government job lost their “patriotism” when they had to take a competency test.13 Parties would lose valuable workers: “with the destruction of the spoils system political devotion, gallantry, and love of country would become obsolete.”14 Eventually, President Arthur approved the Bill and to the satisfaction of the reformers it became law on January 16, 1883. The Pendleton Act aimed to end the spoils system by introducing government jobs based on merit instead of political affiliation. 9 Ibid., 11. 10 Ibid., 41. 11 Ibid., 36-43. 12 Ibid., 45. 13 William L. Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (1905), Chapter 17. 14 Sageser, The First Two Decades of The Pendleton Act, 47. 5 As I mentioned before, the spoils system in the United States is strongly affiliated with the concept of machine politics: “an institution peculiar
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