TAMMANY HALL

Tammany Hall (or, the Executive Committee of the New York County Democratic Party) in the 1920s was the nation's most powerful political machine. It controlled New York City government, as it had with only brief interruptions since the days of the Tweed Ring (a group of corrupt politicans who dominated the Hall and New York City government in the 1860s.) It also dominated state politics, electing one of its own, Alfred E. Smith, as governor in 1918, 1922, 1924, and 1926. It even played a significant role in national Democratic Party politics: Smith captured the party's presidential nomination in 1928, and another Tammany graduate, Robert F. Wagner, sat in the U.S. Senate. However, after the death of its most able leader, Charles F. Murphy, in 1924, Tammany began a long decline. It was rent by internal squabbles, and population shifts to the other boroughs allowed the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens County Democratic organizations increasingly to assert their independence at Tammany's expense.

Tammany and the other party organizations did cooperate to elect James J. Walker mayor in 1925 and again in 1929. It was a disastrous choice. While "Gentleman Jimmy" played, his Tammany appointees looted the city. The electorate, which had been willing to overlook corruption and mismanagement in the booming 1920s, became more critical in the Depression. In response to mounting criticism, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Republican-controlled state senate launched three investigations of the Walker administration, all headed by Samuel Seabury. The inquiries uncovered sales of judgeships and extortion in the magistrates' courts, a district attorney's office that protected racketeers, and a pattern of citywide corruption that Walker knew of and tolerated. On the basis of these findings, Seabury recommended that Roosevelt remove the mayor from office in 1932.

At the 1932 national convention, angry Tammany chief John Curry led a delegation committed to Al Smith's presidential nomination and irreconcilably against Roosevelt's. Once Roosevelt triumphed, Tammany loyalists blocked a move to make the nomination unanimous. Later, candidate Roosevelt, eager to disassociate himself from Tammany's scandals, forced Walker's resignation. Even after Roosevelt's inauguration, Tammany did not follow the lead of most other urban Democratic machines and line up behind the president.

The Hall soon paid the price of its folly. The Roosevelt administration cut off all federal patronage, funneling it instead to Tammany's rivals, Bronx County Democratic Chairman Edward J. Flynn and Brooklyn County leader Frank Kelly. In 1933, a coalition of Republicans, anti-Tammany Democrats, and other reformers, disgusted by the Seabury revelations and Tammany's inability to handle the Depression-spawned fiscal and relief crises, organized the Fusion Party and elected Fiorello H. La Guardia mayor of New York City. La Guardia relentlessly cleared Tammany appointees from municipal posts, replacing them with people who were both Fusion backers and well qualified. By 1939, 74 percent of all city jobs were under civil service. Roosevelt wrote off Tammany and recognized in La Guardia an honest and progressive politician with whom he could work. Washington made it possible for La Guardia to build more public works and offer more services and jobs than the old political bosses ever could. The Works Progress Administration alone employed 700,000 city residents. To attract the votes of progressive Republicans, anti-Tammany Democrats, and independents for his own reelection in 1936, 1940, and 1944, and for La Guardia's in 1937 and 1941, Roosevelt gave his blessing to the establishment of the American Labor Party. In 1937 and 1941, the President endorsed La Guardia over his Democratic opponents.

Deprived of patronage, jobs, and money, the machine languished. By 1936, membership in Tammany clubs had declined by 70 percent. Its treasury was so empty by 1943 that it had to sell its headquarters to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. While it did help elect a string of Democratic mayors after La Guardia and briefly revived under the leadership of its first Italian boss, Carmine DeSapio, it never returned to its 1920s glory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blumberg, Barbara. The New Deal and the Unemployed: The View from New York City. 1979.

Connable, Alfred, and Edward Silberfarb. Tigers of Tammany: Nine Men Who Ran New York. 1967.

Eisenstein, Louis, and Elliot M. Rosenberg. A Stripe of Tammany's Tiger. 1966.

Flynn, Edward. You're the Boss: The Practice of American Politics. 1962.

Lankevich, George. American Metropolis: A History of New York City. 1998.

Savage, Sean J. Roosevelt: The Party Leader, 1932–1945. 1991.

Vos, Frank. "Tammany Hall." In The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. 1991.