ecoming mayors and city officials, they began to appoint their own people to municipal jobs such as policemen, firefighters, and teachers.(20) This Irish machine had a democratic agenda, focusing on immigrant rights, restructuring of urban areas and changing social conditions. It was credited for creating a program for public disposal of garbage.(21) The Irish did not simply takeover the conventional apparatus of politics. They transformed American municipal politics.(22) However, the Irish machine also influenced national politics, helping to lead the government away from laissez-faire economics and making a strong argument for labor rights and union involvement throughout the U.S.(23) Around the same time that the Irish were stepping into the political arena, they also began to take a stand for workers and helped to reform some of the labor laws. This movement toward labor reform stemmed from their own experiences. The Irish worked in mining, quarrying and the building of bridges and rail roads, perilous work where many died.(24) It was speculated that there was an Irishman buried under every tie.(25) After the Civil War, the Irish began to enter skilled trades, especially as managers of bridge building and railroad construction, trades in which they had a great deal of expertise. However, not all Irish attained these higher paying jobs and many were forced to return to the hard, perilous jobs they held before the war. American capitalist injustice in industry was not unlike in principle the persecution by English landlords at home; therefore the Irish began to speak out against injustice and ventured forth into labor organization. An example is a group of anthracite coal miners in Pennsylvania, the Molly Maguires, who, in the 1860s, violently resisted their Scottish, English and Welsh mine bosses, who were said to be cruel and discriminating. Ten Mollies were found guilty on 9 counts of murder and hanged in 1876.(26) Despite the o...
