Corruption is a chronic public concern affecting America's cities. Greed, ethical lapses and lack of accountability have drained untold millions in tax dollars. Corrupt practices range from embezzlement, graft, bribery, kickbacks, extortion, nepotism and patronage to the misuse of funds, vehicles, equipment, supplies and other public resources. Court proceedings to investigate and prosecute perpetrators add to the cost. Media exposes have magnified the spectacle of abusive and unethical government. This book investigates the reasons behind corruption and imparts guidelines for better accountability.

Taking a hard look at the unprincipled lives of political bosses, police corruption, graft payments, and other political abuses of the time, the book set the style for future investigative reporting.

The Shame of the Cities is a book written by Lincoln Steffens. It accounts for the workings of corrupt political procedures in several major U.S. cities, along with a few attempts to fight against them.

Despite recent corporate scandals, the United States is among the world’s least corrupt nations. But in the nineteenth century, the degree of fraud and corruption in America approached that of today’s most corrupt developing nations, as municipal governments and robber barons alike found new ways to steal from taxpayers and swindle investors. In Corruption and Reform, contributors explore this shadowy period of United States history in search of better methods to fight corruption worldwide today. Contributors to this volume address the measurement and consequences of fraud and corruption and the forces that ultimately led to their decline within the United States. They show that various approaches to reducing corruption have met with success, such as deregulation, particularly “free banking,” in the 1830s. In the 1930s, corruption was kept in check when new federal bureaucracies replaced local administrations in doling out relief. Another deterrent to corruption was the independent press, which kept a watchful eye over government and business. These and other facets of American history analyzed in this volume make it indispensable as background for anyone interested in corruption today.

Discusses actual corrupt practices in one small city, showing both the mechanisms of corruption and the fundamental questions they raise, the answers to which will apply in many cities. He describes the background and conditions that made it possible for a local syndicate to take over an Eastern industrial center, "Wincanton." He discusses the many factors which permitted the take-over, stressing the citizens' lack of concern about links between petty gambling and the undermining of their local government.

This book is a new scholarly edition of Lincoln Steffens’ classic, “muck-raking” account of Gilded Age corruption in America. It provides the broader political background, theoretical and historical context needed to better understand the social and political roots of corruption in general terms: the social and moral nature of corruption and reform. Steffens enjoyed the support of a multitude of journalists with first-hand knowledge of their localities. He interviewed and came to know political bosses, crusading district attorneys and indicted corruptionists spanning a cast of hundreds. He also benefited from the support of a large-scale, nationally prominent network of anti-corruption specialists and luminaries, including President Theodore Roosevelt. Steffens explored in detail the high Gilded Age corruption of New York City, Chicago, “corrupt and contented” Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Minneapolis. His work culminated in a well-documented record of Gilded Age corruption in the cities; and, with the addition of the editorial annotations, Chronology and Introduction of this edition, the reader is placed in a position to gain an overview and considerable insight into the general, moral and social-political phenomenon of corruption. This book will be of interest for students and professionals in political philosophy, political science, American history and American studies.

Around the same time that Richard J. Daley governed Chicago, greasing the wheels of his notorious political machine during a tenure that lasted from 1955 to his death in 1976, Anthony “Dutch” Hamann’s “reform” government centralized authority to similar effect in San Jose. In light of their equally exclusive governing arrangements—a similarity that seems to defy their reputations—Jessica Trounstine asks whether so-called bosses and reformers are more alike than we might have realized. Situating her in-depth studies of Chicago and San Jose in the broad context of data drawn from more than 240 cities over the course of a century, she finds that the answer—a resounding yes—illuminates the nature of political power. Both political machines and reform governments, she reveals, bias the system in favor of incumbents, effectively establishing monopolies that free governing coalitions from dependence on the support of their broader communities. Ironically, Trounstine goes on to show, the resulting loss of democratic responsiveness eventually mobilizes residents to vote monopolistic regimes out of office. Envisioning an alternative future for American cities, Trounstine concludes by suggesting solutions designed to free urban politics from this damaging cycle.