In the essay "Philadelphia: Corrupt and Contented," by Lincoln Steffens claims, among many things, that the people of Philadelphia do not vote. This claim is quite true and is presented with some good evidence to support it.
Steffens says, "The Philadelphians do not vote The honest citizens of Philadelphia have no more rights at the polls than the Negroes down south" (Steffens 138). He is trying to say that much like the Negroes down south who are being intimidated by the white democrats, the Philadelphian people are very close to being useless at the polls since they are being intimidated by "the machine" which is a committee of twelve men who chose the candidate for the Republican ticket. They were not only intimidated by the machine but also by the police.
The law in Philadelphia prohibits police officers from being within thirty feet of voting polls but they were there anyway just to make sure everything went how "the machine" had planned.(Steffens 140) In some cases "the police help to beat citizens or elections officers who were trying to do their duty, then arrest the victim" (Steffens 140). Even after an announcement by John Weaver that said he would keep police and politics away from the polls allowing citizens to vote without fear many Philadelphians did not try to vote. They are too used to having their choices made for them, "they leave everything to the machine and the machine casts their ballots for them" (Steffens 141). The machine was like a business, it did what it had to do to better its position in society. In my opinion the machine is more like the mafia, trying to control its territory.
Steffens shows that the machine's territories are politics and the voting polls. He says that "The machine controls the whole process of voting", which includes the use of voting lists. The assessors filled their lists with fake names, using names ranging from those of dead dogs, children and people that did not even exist to add votes to their candidtates" total.
