Workers and Politics in the Immigrant City in the Early Twentieth-Century United States

Abstract

A consideration of workers and politics in early twentieth-century United States must take into account a variety of changes that confronted working class in this era: fashioning of a new national state role, remaking of politics, and finally remaking of working class itself. Analysis of American politics in this particular era has been dominated by paradigm of The of and model of urban machine These two concepts represent a widely accepted framework of analysis that demonstrates integration of working class into political system and consequent muting of class concerns within that system. Our task is to investigate these concepts to measure their useful ness in explaining working-class consciousness and its impact on politics. Specifically, investigation must examine dynamics of local-level politics, where working-people's activities had their greatest strength and resonance. This essay will examine these ideas and suggest an alternative understanding of politics of workers, and especially of immigrants, in this era. At turn of century, United States had recovered from economic and political turmoil of 1890s depression and entered three decades of political stability known as System of 1896. This system emerged after 1896 defeat of Democratic-Populist fusion by Republican party. As defined by E. E. Schattschneider and Walter Dean Burnham, it was characterized by national hegemony of Republi can party (outside Democratic Solid South); narrowing of politi cal debate; and a diminished party vitality, which was replaced by an ex panding administrative state. In addition, as revealed in declining rates of turnout for national elections, electoral system of 1896-1928 was one of demobilization of an alarmingly large portion of potential electorate in United States.1 This shrinking of American electorate has been attributed to a combination of an extreme one-party dominance in both North and South and cumulative impact of institutional change and changes in rules of game for voters. Republican hegemony in North and Dem ocratic hegemony in South went hand in hand with what Burnham has called the decomposition of political parties as action instrumentalities.2 One-party rule deprived voters of meaningful choices, thus leading to a decline in voter turnout. Moreover, as Burnham argued, interest groups had taken over political functions of bringing issues to bear on