I'm Right Again Dot Com

A new commentary every Wednesday   -  September 30, 2015


POLITICS: The rise of political parties and political machines

    BASIC STUFF: Very early in life I was informed that every four years, local politicians of some note are dispatched from the grass roots of our democracy to grand conventions by their peers, charged with picking  the person best able to win the highest office in the land.  This is done in order to ultimately bring about the successful resolution of a political party's platform—it being intended to best serve We, the People. No small responsibility. The tumult and the shouting that was initiated early in the process continues to this day. A tribal thing you see, that keeps getting longer, and longer still, as the years roll by.

    I don't know whether it was planned one way or another in the beginning, but choosing who is to be the Presidential Nominees' Vice Presidential running mates on their tickets is customarily done by the Presidential nominees, who may or may not heed the advice of others around them in this regard.  

    There has always been mention of power-brokers, well-connected men, meeting privately in smoke-filled back rooms, in order to manipulate the process, without giving proper access to the will of the people. The methods most often used are campaign contributions, but since there are curbs on that, a vast amount of "black money" flows to the media to purchase advertising. There is little doubt that political advertising pays off for the investors, among them the nation's most important corporations and those who control them.

    Nowhere in our Constitution is there any mention of political parties. George Washington was never a member of a political party.  Just as a prominent star causes planets to coalesce in its gravitational field, adherents and advisors of political figures did the same around principles of governance. We learned in High School Civics that this phenomenon was spontaneous among our Founding Fathers. 

    In 1792, The Federalist Party formed around Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who espoused a strong central government.  He and his party were opposed almost immediately by a party gathered around James Madison and Thomas Jefferson who called themselves, and this may amuse you, the Democratic Republican (Anti-Federalist) party. It split under President Andrew Jackson and retained the first half of the name. The Republicans re-emerged powerfully around 1854, when advocating, among other things, national banks, national railroads and eventually, the end to slavery. 

    Yes, there have always other minor parties. From time to time, their nominees are allowed to appear on ballots and in public and be widely scorned. One President, #26, Theodore Roosevelt, Republican, beloved outdoorsman, war hero, canal builder and creator of parks, served two successful terms, after which he went on a long safari in Africa. By 1912, he found himself opposed to the policies of the Republican Poo-Bahs of the time. When they refused to nominate him for a third term in the oval office, he attempted to run on a splinter party ticket, and lost, resoundingly.  Yet, his face is sculpted on a mountain side in South Dakota, along with the iconic likenesses of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. No one, to my knowledge, has complained that he doesn't deserve to be there.

    In all of the years of my errant youth, a vast majority of the voters went to the polls and elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democratic Party Candidate to lead our nation for another term of office. The point I am trying to make is that 'way back then, things pretty well quieted down in the media for four years, while FDR decided how we were to be governed. 

    Not so anymore. The 24-hour news cycle demands content. How else could we be force-fed that interminable string of commercials? Before any occupant of the White House is sworn in, the chariot race for the next election begins. Never before in the history of humankind have so many people been deluged with so much politics for such a long periods of time. Even the Romans under Caligula were given a respite, until the Legions of his far-flung empire could capture more lions and Christians for the slaughter.

    Outlier: A word that has gained greater prominence of late. According to Websters, an outlier is a person who operates apart from a business, position or duty. Politics has had since the earliest of times, outliers who exert influence without being an official part of the process.  They exist in a vacuum, so to speak. They do not run for office. They have no position, yet by the dint of their personalities they exert influence, often great power, all due to something called patronage. There are appointive positions to be filled, spending bills to be introduced, lobbyists to be nurtured, projects to be carried out and of greatest importance, elective offices to be  manipulated, almost from the first moment after the Continental Congress chose Washington be our first President. He was quick to warn we citizens of a special danger in this regard. Monarchs always had a few about them they favored, in return for loyalty.

     Still, it seems, from that moment to this there has existed a spontaneous sprouting of political machines; a means of gathering votes by fair means or foul, and an opportunity to exploit greed.

    I've not the slightest idea of how it came to be known as "Graft." 

    Politics is just a hobby for a lot of people. Others are especially gifted in recognizing what must be done to achieve what is best for society. For others, the opportunity for graft, for stealing, is so compelling, so easy to initiate, so lucrative, it is irresistible. The greatest exponent of the art and science of Bossism was William M. Tweed of New York City.  He gained control of the  Society of St. Tammany, a Catholic Social Society, and soon turned "Tammany Hall" into a Democratic Party steam roller of mammoth proportions. By building a pyramidal organization of sub-bosses called Ward Heelers, "Boss" Tweed ensured the loyalty of voters by paying-off office holders who could create jobs that he could dispense—for a price. When he was convicted, the jury found that he had stolen $45-million of of taypayers' money, had become third largest land owner in New York City, was a Director of the Erie Railroad and the Tenth National Bank of New York State. This was in 1877.  Tweed showed outliers everywhere how to do it. There have since been many imitators.

    Running a political machine powered by graft is not always the way to succeed in life. Tweed ended his life a pauper, in prison.

    NEXT WEEK, WE'LL LOOK AT ANOTHER POLITICAL BOSS: TOM PENDERGAST OF KANSAS CITY.

 

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself" -  Joseph L. Menchen. 

  

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