Comparison Of Political Machines And The Reform

Nevertheless, urban machines collapsed during the 20th century, giving way to the reform movement whose two of its major goals were the moralization of politics and the de facto dominance of public over private interest. Furthermore, reformers believed that corruption could be reduced and governmental procedures could become more efficient only by the substitution of party-affiliated politicians for nonpartisan professional administrators. The latter would handle city politics in a businesslike way in order to secure an honest and methodical distribution of social services (schools, redevelopment projects, parks, etc.) among different city groups. Therefore, in contrast with machine politics, there was usually no room available for patronage into the reform movement. However, there was no room for citizen influence over decision making either. Especially when the adopted election system was at-large, nonpartisan and council-manager, constituency s only power laid on the ballot. Taking into consideration the voters lack of access to the city s mechanisms and often being influenced by business groups, the municipal council and the city s manager sometimes reached conclusions about the city s issues covertly. Although manager and council have always been in the area of power balance and mutual influence between them, the average citizen s only hope was in fact an insurgency.

Thus, we can see quite clearly that machines were effective in policy making. However, issues were raised on whether their methods were acceptable in an organized community. These issues were solved with the emergence of the reformers. But now it was the effectiveness of the system that was challenged.