Political machine

“ The political machine and the political boss have come into existence in the interest of party politics. The parties were necessarily organized to capture elections. The political machine is merely a technical device invented for the purpose of achieving this end. ”

“ Seeing so closely the wheels of the political machine, and the actors that worked it, she shuddered at their want of union, and asked herself where was the man of sufficiently commanding political genius to weld together these heterogeneous elements. ”

“ If, on the other hand, we direct attention to the antagonistic element in the machine, to Public Opinion, to the alleged collective mind of the grey mass, and consider how it is brought to believe in itself and its possession of certain opinions by the concrete evidence of daily newspapers and eloquent persons saying as much, we may also very readily conjure up a contrasted vision of extraordinary demagogues or newspaper syndicates working the political machine from that direction. ”

“ And in a very great amount of current political speculation, the development and final emergence of this class is ignored, and attention is concentrated entirely upon the inherent process of development of the political machine. And even in that it is very easy to exaggerate the preponderance of one or other of what are really very evenly balanced forces in the machine of democratic government. ”

“ And at this point is to be observed a fact of capital significance to advocates of pure democracy. Whereas, in independent political movements, sooner or later a footing has been obtained by a machine, resulting in disintegration, in the trades organization, while political methods may occasionally corrupt leaders, the politician labor leader uniformly finds his fellow workmen turning their backs on him. ”

“ It takes the leadership of political organizations out of the hands of men fit to be leaders of opinion and workers for high aims, and turns it over to the organizers and leaders of bands of political marauders. It creates the boss and the machine, putting the boss into the place of the statesman, and the despotism of the machine in the place of an organized public opinion. ”

“ In reality, the country was ruled by what were called POLITICAL MACHINES. At first the machine bosses charged the master capitalists extortionate tolls for legislation; but in a short time the master capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines themselves and to hire the machine bosses. ”

“ On the one hand, we want the machinery of the government to be all-powerful, able to do anything, and on the other hand we want the engineer, the people, to have great power so as to be able to control that all-powerful machine. ”

“ The huge corporation and the political machine were both created to satisfy a real and a permanent need—the needs of specialized leadership and associated action in these two primary American activities. That in both of these cases the actual method of organization has threatened vital public interests, and even the very future of democracy has been due chiefly to the disregard by the official American political system of the necessity and the consequences of specialized leadership and associated action. ”

“ It would tend to increase the complexity of the political machine, and add a new spring to the operations of the government, the utility of which would be at least questionable, and might clog its just movements. ”

“ Let me say to you that, in my whole political experience, I have never known a man who was profoundly versed in the tricks of machine management, and had grown strong through their employment, that was willing to throw them aside when by them he could carry an important point. And what means will present itself to the man at the head of the machine in such a case? One but too well in accordance with the traditions, instincts and constant practice of the Democratic party—“the cohesive power of the public plunder.” ”

“ As to the machine, we are sometimes told by well-meaning persons that some sort of a party machine is necessary. Let us distinguish. Public-spirited citizens form a party because they have substantially the same objects of public interest in view; they seek to serve these objects by organized effort, and to that end form committees and clubs and whatever else an effective organization requires, all being composed of men animated with the desire of furthering the same public ends. This is a healthy, legitimate party organization. What is the machine? ”

“ Look at this much-lauded direct primary and see what it is actually giving us: the political machines have known from the beginning how to circumvent it, it often merely increases the power of the boss, and at its best it is accomplishing no integrating of the American people—the real task of democracy. No development of party machinery or reform of party machinery is going to give us the will of the people, only a new method. ”

“ We are a successful people in machinery, and so we take our analogy for political reforms from machinery. We found that by uniting various mechanical elements we could make machines which would do as much as one hundred or one thousand men in the same time. So we think that if we are only acute enough to devise a governmental machine which will work without effort on the part of the people, we can sit at home while elections run themselves so well that only what the good people desire in political action will necessarily result. ”

“ Our politicians tell us that they rely upon the voice of the people, yet often they employ the political machine which they control, for the express purpose of evading it. A few years ago a Liberal statesman was appointed to Cabinet-rank, and had in consequence to go to his constituency for re-election. ”

“ Far from being a historic account, these observations suggest that the literate political animal pursues political goals in line with the sequential nature of literacy in a context of centralized power, acknowledged hierarchies, and deterministic expectations. The political institution is a machine, one among many of the pragmatics of the Industrial Revolution. ”

“ THE POLITICIAN CLOSE TO HUMANITY The secret of the whole business lies in the fact that political machines, and the political bosses of all sizes and grades who make up their staffs, are powerful and long-lived in just the measure to which they grow out of and identify their activities with the rank and file of the community—clear down to the bottom. ”

“ They have pointed out that, with our present methods of machine nomination and our present methods of election, which give us nothing more than a choice between one set of machine nominees and another, we do not get representative government at all,—at least not government representative of the people, but merely government representative of political managers who serve their own interests and the interests of those with whom they find it profitable to establish partnerships. ”

“ Is it not manifest that a ruling body made up of many individuals, who differ in character, education, and aims, who belong to classes having antagonistic ideas and feelings, and who are severally swayed by the special {285} opinions of the districts deputing them, must be a cumbrous apparatus for the management of public affairs? When we devise a machine we take care that its parts are as few as possible; that they are adapted to their respective ends; that they are properly joined with one another; and that they work smoothly to their common purpose. ”

“ All defeated candidates regard the persons who defeated them as constituting a machine, and always imagine that there is some wicked conspiracy at the bottom of the machine. Some of the recent reformers regard the people who take part in the early stages of a political campaign—who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable American citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. ”

“ These men are able to keep their grip only by means of the singularly perfect way in which they have succeeded in organizing their respective parties and factions; and it is in consequence of the clock-work regularity and efficiency with which these several organizations play their parts, alike for good and for evil, that they have been nicknamed by outsiders “machines,” while the men who take part in and control, or, as they would themselves say, “run” them, now form a well-recognized and fairly well-defined class in the community, and are familiarly [Pg 103] known as machine politicians. ”

“ The nucleus is an administration party, which invites the co-operation of all who would [Pg 213] liberalize the organization. With the overthrow of "machine" control, as it has existed in New York and Pennsylvania, and the old would-be dictators remanded to their proper place, a great advance has been made towards that purer condition of political and public affairs that all honest men favor." ”

“ On the other hand, it is also to be borne in mind that political machinery does not act of itself. As it is first made, so it has to be worked, by men, and even by ordinary men. It needs, not their simple acquiescence, but their active participation; and must be adjusted to the capacities and qualities of such men as are available. This implies three conditions. The people for whom the form of government is intended must be willing to accept it, or, at least not so unwilling as to oppose an insurmountable obstacle to its establishment. ”

“ It all means that the new inventions, although at first seized upon by monopolists, are seen to be such as to provide channels through which the pent-up instincts and hopes of the masses can act with concerted power. It means that also political machinery is being devised for securing the public welfare and protecting opportunities for individual genius and talent. ”

“ States based on an electoral system which is not controlled by organised parties or by other social forces calculated to ensure its working in conformity with precise and certain rules, are subject to eruptions of disorder, which end in establishing the personal power of that individual who succeeds in making the political and administrative machine work with comparative regularity. ”

“ The natural tendency of the machine interest in them is rather in the direction of the exploitation of political power for the selfish ends of persons or cliques. But something of value may be accomplished if strong and intelligent influences from without are exerted with judgment and energy to encourage and strengthen the best elements within the organizations. And for this the present condition of politics seems to present unusual opportunities. Neither of the two parties commands a majority of the popular vote. ”

“ Hence probably by a further development of democratic institutions and machine industry, but democratic institutions neither authoritative nor laissez faire; machinery of which the hand and mind of men will be the guide, not the slave. ”

“ We hear much of many wonders of combination and concentration of industrial power which railway and telegraph have wrought. But nothing is said about what seems to me the greatest wonder of them all—how these forces have resulted in the concentration of the political power of upwards of twelve millions of our fifteen million voters; how the few can impose their ideas and their will upon widening circles, out and out, until all are included. The people are scattered; the powers confer, man to man, day by day. ”

“ The machine is cleverly constructed to make the will of certain party managers of mere sections of the constituencies the dominant factor. No wonder that they denounce Proportional Representation as a dangerous fad. ”

“ The machinery of democracy is cumbersome and very imperfect. It is often heartbreaking to try to move it. It does not easily register the popular will. But in spite of the imperfections, and the discouragements, and the downright corruption, the foundation on which it is built is the best that the world has yet found. There are many labor-saving devices still to be invented for the bettering of the machinery of government—protective measures to be found against political corruption and to safeguard the interests of the people. ”

“ The spoils system has brought forth that kind of machine politics one of whose characteristic features it is to look at every topic with reference to the advantage its treatment, one way or another, will yield at the next election, the parties thus living from hand to mouth. ”

“ It is just such machinery as they might have invented if they had been trying to make political devices to serve their purpose, and their processes call in question nothing less than the possibility of free self-government under the forms of a democratic republic. ”

“ There must be in each locality a body of conscientious voters slightly more numerous than the criminals and semi-criminals, and just as active politically, just as non-partizan in local affairs, and (here is usually the rub) just as coherent. Much good breath and good energy has been wasted in denouncing "machine politics." Machine politics are inevitable as the good government clubs and civic federations of the last few years well know. ”

“ It brings the agency, activity, energy, and patronage of government all to bear, with united force, on the means of general intelligence, and on the adoption or rejection of political opinions. It so completely perverts the true object of government, it so entirely revolutionizes our whole system, that the chief business of those in power is directed rather to the propagation of opinions favorable to themselves, than to the execution of the laws. ”