George Edwin Waring, Jr. A MODEL FOR REFORMERS By RICHARD SKOLNIK* Ahe long tradition of machine politics in New York City assured that those claiming to be, or accused of being, reformers received little sympathy or understanding. To the machine stalwart, the reform crusade was largely a bogus and fraudulent affair, although nonetheless threatening. In part this was because the reform banner had frequently been a convenient rallying point for disaffected organization politicians, seeking only concessions from the machine. Furthermore, after the Civil War, the reformer came to be associated with a view of politics that rejected the apparatus, style, and goals of the machine in favor of a political approach that he claimed was more moral, efficient, and innovative.1 As a result, machine opposition to the reformer grew even more intense. Moreover, however dedicated to altering the political environment, the reformers, when in office, had rarely been able to demonstrate the efficacy of their system, and, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, their machine critics could still take comfort from their ineffectual, amateurish efforts and confidently declare that they alone possessed the capacity to govern New York City. In 1894, when a reform coalition defeated the Tammany Democratic machine, there seemed little reason to believe that reformers would be able to respond effectively to the challenge of their detractors. William Strong, the reform mayor-elect, exhibited little capacity to dramatize reform or rally New Yorkers to its program. A successful *The author is Assistant Professor of History at City College. 1 For the distinctive elements of the reform style see Edward C. Banfleld and James Q. Wilson, City Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: 1963); Wilson, The Amateur Democrat: Club Politics in Three Cities (Chicago: 1962); Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (NewYork: 1955). [3541