The Urban Political Machine and the Seventeenth Amendment

More Means Different: Quantifying American Exceptionalism

“…We also know that farmer-immigrant coalitions stood behind the major electoral measures of the Progressive period, including railroad regulation, the Seventeenth Amendment, and the election of Woodrow Wilson to the presidency. 22 We furthermore note that immigration played a major role in determining the cultural dimension of Progressivism. Settlement houses focused on the problems not of laborers per se, but of immigrant laborers.…”

The Changing Nature of Progressive Reform Coalitions in the United States: An Analysis of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Amendments in the House of Representatives

“…Although it was traditionalIy thought that this group was non-partisan elites, it may in fact have been urban Democrats. Both Buenker (1969) and McDonagh (1989) writing respectively on the success of the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Amendments, advance the idea that support for these measures came largely from the urban political machines who pragmatically understood them to be in their own best interests. * This approach suggests that rigid characterizations of progressivism as a victorious effort by agents outside of the established party structures to limit the power of parties (targeting urban Democrats in particular) may be inaccurate.…”

“…Most notably, in her study of House passage of the women's suffrage amendment, McDonagh (1989) finds the roll call vote pattern to resemble some other progressive reforms but not all, suggesting "multidimensionality" to the progressive agenda. Buenker (1969) maintains that progressive reforms differed in terms of their potential attractiveness to the urban political machines.…”

“…While this view (increased voter input leading to a less corrupt Senate) is entirely plausible, one factor seems to have been largely ignored. Before this amendment passed, senators were chosen by state legislatures which were for the most part apportioned to the detriment of urban areas (Buenker 1969).…”

Urban History

“…Perhaps the most voluminous contribution in the area of urban-orientated historical studies is the expansion of traditional themes in the study of immigrant life (Barth, 1964;Korman, 1967;Nelli, 1970;Barton, 1975). Continuing interest in local politics sustained another wing of urban history (Dorsett, 1968;Miller, 1968, Holli, 1969Stave, 1970;Jackson, 1970;Allswang, 1971;Buenker, 1969;Bernard and Rice, 1975).…”