Tammany embraced progressivism to shatter its corrupt Irish image and reach high office

Evidence

From the head of the table, Silent Charlie listened silently to Smith and other young sachems like Wagner. Murphy knew that Tammany must change. He knew it because of the reasons the young men gave—and he knew it because of a consideration of his own. Never had one of their own kind risen to Governor or senator; never, despite the power of Kelly and Croker before him, never, despite his own power, had a Tammany man ever come even close to the top prize in the Democratic Party for which Tammany supplied so many of the votes. Always Tammany was thought of as the party of Tweed and Kelly and Croker, of the poor from the Old Country who might be fit to sweep the streets but not to sit in the Governor’s Mansion or the White House. Becoming identified with Progressivism, becoming known as the party of social progress, would be a way to shatter that image forever. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 567

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier note that ‘Tammany never tapped a single Jew in seventy-three years’ and to closed social systems forcing outsiders to build parallel power—here Irish Catholics inside the dominant machine use reform identification to break a glass ceiling. — connects to: Social welfare legislation was adopted by Tammany as good politics — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 566; Tammany rebranded as progressive to break the Irish Catholic ceiling — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 567
• QUESTION: How does Murphy’s deliberate rebranding of an ethnic machine as ‘progressive’ complicate the standard story of reform movements as ideologically motivated?