A Few Positive Effects of the Boss System

As we all know, throughout the late 19th century and the early 20th century, corrupt political bosses emerged through pandering to poor, uneducated immigrants for votes through financial incentives. Over time, this centralization of power in the hands of the corrupt, Irish bosses ended up creating a racially-biased (the bosses gave most of their support to the Irish rather than other groups such as the Italians), unequal, and poor political system throughout many urban cities. This inevitably gave them more political and economical power, and as a result, less money and support went to solving social issues and promoting the general wellbeing, which caused public sanitation issues and poor living conditions. However, even though the Boss System was clearly an overall negative and corrupt political system for the United States, it is important to acknowledge that it did have some benefits, as described at the beginning of the Oxford Handbook, "Machine Bosses, Reformers, and the Politics of Ethnic and Minority Incorporation." As this essay explains, when Boss Tweed began to control areas of New York, "the city's electorate nearly doubled in size, from 71,000 to 135,000" and when his successor controlled the area, the city "continued to churn out now-eligible voters." (2) Because of this increase in citizenship, new immigrants were able to participate in the political process through voting, and could have all of the normal rights that go along with being a citizen of the United States. So through Tweed's agenda towards pandering to new immigrants from Europe, he was inevitably able to help them adapt to American life through gaining citizenship, which would indirectly benefit the nation's economy, as these new immigrants would be able to become "Americanized" and begin working faster. However, it's still important to recognize the fact that the main reason Tweed was doing this was to help his political machine gain power and that most of the immigrants he was directly supporting were from Ireland, which goes to show that this somewhat positive effect of his actions was mostly just a side-effect of corruption. Additionally, a second positive impact from the Boss System was that it helped curb discrimination to an extent. As the essay explains, because widely-hated ethnic groups such as the Jews in the Northeast of the United States (due to general prejudice) had a huge population, "Tammany diligently courted Jewish voters. Boss Murphy assiduously rooted out anti-Semitism within the party while Tammany-linked politicians in the state legislature provided strong symbolic support for the Jewish community through the introduction of legislation outlawing discrimination." (3,4) So clearly, even though the political bosses mostly wanted the support of minority groups in order to bolster their political power, their actions ended up directly giving ethnic communities such as the Jews equality to some extent. This is because as the essay describes, the political machines tried to "[outlaw] discrimination" and "[root] out anti-Semitism," which proves that their actions were beneficial to new, discriminated ethnic groups such as the Jews by socially supporting them. So overall, even though the Boss System's detriments to the communities of the United States ended up outweighing its positive aspects, it is still important to acknowledge that there were benefits to this system, since it helped minorities adapt to American culture to some extent, and promoted equality.