Gilded Age Politics

The Gilded Age

• To be “Gilded” means to look like gold on the outside, while the inside is anything but gold.

• Politics during the late 1800’s were much the same.

• Robber Barons and politicians went from being poor to being wealthy through corrupt means

Mark Twain coined the term “Gilded Age”

Political Machines

• This is an organized group, often members of a political party, who control politics in a city.

• Political Machines used election fraud and grafts to make their members rich.

• “Grafts” = illegal use of power to gain wealth at the expense of others

Gaining Support from Voters

• Political Machines could only work if they had candidates elected into local offices such as the office of Mayor.

• To win elections, the machine would bribe voters by promising to give them money, jobs, hospitals, schools, parks, etc..

Immigrants join Political Machines

• Many “Bosses, leaders of Political Machines, were immigrants. They used their power to help new immigrants find jobs and get naturalization papers.

• Immigrants gave their support to poilitical machines because they viewed the Bosses as men who understood their problems

Fraud

• With support from the poor and fresh immigrants, Political Machines quickly dominated Local governments

• Machines used common people to rig elections by voting multiple times, using names of dead citizens to vote, intimidating others to vote a certain way, paying voters to support a candidate, etc.

Grafting the Public

• Once elected, a Political Machine Candidate began a program to steal money from the citizens to make the Boss and machine members wealthy.

• Machines would over charge on taxes and city projects. The tax payers pay the high sums while the machine pocketed the majority of the money.

The Tweed Ring

• William M. Tweed, “Boss Tweed,” ran the Democrat political machine in NY City.

• Their headquarters were in Tammany Hall.

• Boss Tweed used grafts to make millions at the expense of the tax payers

“Boss” William M. Tweed

Thomas Nast

• Thomas Nast was a political cartoonist. • He was angry at Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall

Machine. • Although newspaper articles had already

exposed Tweed’s corruption, immigrant voters still supported him.

• Nast realized that they supported him because they could not read, therefore they didn’t realize Tweed was robbing them.

Thomas Nast

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

• Nast began drawing cartoons that showed the illiterate immigrants what Tweed and his machine members had been doing.

• The Cartoons worked.

• Boss Tweed lost his support.

• The City turned against Tweed and his machine. Tweed was arrested and sentenced to jail

The Tammany Tiger

Who Stole the People’s Money?

Time to Prey

Tweed on the Run!

• Tweed however controlled the police and the prison system.

• Many guards were on his bribe pay roll

• Tweed escaped from jail and flees to Spain.

• However, police in Spain had seen Nast’s cartoons and identified Tweed. They arrested him and sent him to a new prison