Historic Philadelphia

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Top, left: Mayor Samuel H. Ashbridge
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, DEPARTMENT
OF RECORDS, CITY ARCHIVES.
Top, right: Senator Boies Penrose.
COURTESY OF THE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PORTRAITS.
Below: Patrons of Horn & Hardart’s
twentieth century wonder, the coin-operated
“automatic restaurant” called the Automat,
deposited a nickel, pulled a handle and saw
coffee pour into their cup from a nickelsilver
plated dolphin’s head.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA
98
police stations began using the Keystone for
official communications.
Joe Horn and Frank Hardart, whose lunch
counter had grown into a restaurant chain,
had an idea to launch Philadelphia into
the twentieth century with a German invention
called an Automat, which dispensed
restaurant food into customers’ hands
through little windows that opened when
coins were inserted in a slot. They ordered
one of the technological wonders. The boat
bringing it from Europe sank, and its
replacement didn’t get here until 1902, when
America’s first Automat opened at Eighth and
Chestnut Streets.
CORRUPT
& CONTENTED
In 1903 McClure’s Magazine published the
Philadelphia chapter of writer Lincoln
Steffens’ series exposing corruption in
American cities. It was entitled “Corrupt and
Contented,” a phrase Philadelphians have
enjoyed quoting ever since.
Steffens found many juicy examples of voting
fraud, such as 252 votes cast in one division that
had fewer than one hundred registered voters.
Women, the deceased, an occasional dog, and
other ineligible voters contributed to every
machine victory. Steffens reported assorted
misdeeds: contract rigging; payoffs demanded of
teachers who wanted to be hired; an attempt to
blackmail John Wanamaker because his son’s
newspaper was exposing corruption. Steffens’
series, which also applied the muck rake to St.
Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and
New York, was published as a book, The Shame
of the Cities, in 1904, and sold well nationally.
“Corrupt and contented” Philadelphia seemed to
capture the country’s imagination. “The people
seem to prefer to be ruled by a known thief than
an ambitious reformer,” Steffens suggested.
Senator Boies Penrose had a different view.
“I don’t believe people want to be reformed,”
he said. “They want to be left alone.” Penrose
was reelected to the Senate in 1903, and
named chairman of the Republican State
Committee. In 1904 he was elected to the
Republican National Committee, and
Matthew Quay died, leaving Penrose his designated
successor. Penrose was certainly not a
“known thief.” He raised millions for the GOP,
but lived on his own inherited wealth. He
spent a rumored $100,000 a year to maintain
a presence in Washington (twice the
President’s annual salary), and gave his entire
$10,000 senator’s salary to his secretary.
Political and business bigwigs backed a
franchise headed by John M. Mack to begin a
subway-elevated train system. The name
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company emerged