I worked on the powerpoint.Key questions:What was the political machine and what did they do for a city?Controlled the political party of a city. Offered services to citizens in return for political and financial support (basically gave things to people that voted in their preference). Organized like a pyramid, base was made up of local precinct workers and captains that gained local voting support for their "machine," ward boss worked to secure the votes of all the voting districts, top of the pyramid was the city boss who controlled all political party activities. All three positions worked together to gaurantee the success of the machine.Tell me about Boss Tweed and the Tweed Ring.Became head of the NYC Democratic political machine in 1868. For two years he led the Tweed Ring (made up of corrupt officials) in defrauding the city.An example of their graft is when building the New York County Courthouse, the political machine charged 13 million dollars for the contruction of it, however, the actual contruction cost was only 3 million, so they took the extra 10 million and put it in their own pockets.What caused all this corruption in government?They became more and more corrupt because the loyalty of a certain number of voters wasn't enough to carry an election. They started with election fraud where one person would use many fake names to cast extra votes for their machine. Once elected, machines could take advantage of many oppourtunities of graft (the usage of a political influence to receive personal gain). Graft consisted of putting a worker in a position in which they owed the machine for a service, whereupon the machine would request, for example a contruction worker, to add extra labor and material costs to the bill. The machine would take all the extra money charged and would also "kick-back" a portion of the cash to the worker who falsely added the costs. The machines would basically charge extra money from the taxpayers than they needed, and would keep whatever was leftover.What laws came about to reform government?Pendleton Civil Service Act - 1883: authorized a bipartisan civil service commision to make appointments to federal jobs using a merit system based on performance on an exam.McKinley Tariff Act - 1890: raised tariffs to their highest level yet.Wilson - Gorman Tariff - 1894: lowered taxes but increased a federal income tax.Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland and William Mckinley were all presidents during the late 1800's. Were they a reform president or a status quo president?Grant: Both. Used his presidential power to protect his family and friends guilty of graft as well as prosecute those who accused him and his family/friends.Hayes: Reformer.Garfield: Reformer.Arthur: Reformer.Cleveland: Reformer - tried to lower tariffs.Harrison: Status Quo - raised tariffs.McKinley: Status Quo - raised tariffs.Immigrants and the Political Machine:Immigrants fresh out of Ellis Island would predominately be in need of food, shelter; the basic start-up kit for a person who's poor and living in a new strange place. Political machines would often pay for homes to house these newcomers and would in-turn receive their votes for official positions. With the huge amounts of newcoming citizens, political machines would hunt down any new Americans, and with their desperate need for housing and nourishment, they would leap at the oppurtunity despite the fact that the machine they'd vote for would undoubtedly take many advantages of graft and extortion once voted into office.Immigrants would also become involved in supporting political machines. They would start off on the bottom rung of the ladder by gaining voters by advertising on the street and would eventually move up the ladder until they were/working for the city boss. This also moved the needs and the way of thinking of that of immigrants into politics.Terms:graft: illegal use of political influence for personal gainextortion: illegal use of a official position to obtain property or fundspatronage: giving of government jobs to people who helped the election of the winning candidate
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