Al Smith argued material bribes would lose educated lower-class voters to reform parties

Evidence

Even though Smith felt that times—and people’s needs—were changing, he did not try to break away from the party but to change it to meet the times. Every Friday evening, Tammany’s sachems would meet for dinner in a private room at Delmonico’s Restaurant. Now, in those meetings, Smith began to try to persuade the older men that the party should begin taking a different stance. Tammany had always held the allegiance of the lower classes with the turkey baskets at Christmas and the outings and the civil service jobs, but now people were becoming better educated, he said. Their needs were broadening and increasing. They were beginning to ask for more—and to look to government to provide that more. Tammany should become the champion of social welfare legislation. It should do so because it was the party of the people and the new needs of the people were real needs. And it should do so because it was good politics. Why should Tammany take a chance of losing the massed votes of the Lower East Side to uptown reformers who even now were sponsoring such legislation? — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 566

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the shift away from patronage/turkey-basket machine politics toward programmatic government — an evolution echoed in my broader reading about parties that can no longer buy loyalty. — connects to: Al Smith entered politics for advancement, not to help the poor — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 505