By 1903, Things Had Gotten Out of Hand
Philadelphia had become “the worst-governed city in America,” the progressive journalist Lincoln Steffens said in a magazine article titled “Philadelphia: Corrupt and Contented.” Not everyone was content, and on Nov. 14, 1904, a group of business and civic leaders that included names still familiar today (Strawbridge, Fels) met at the Philadelphia Bourse to do something about it. Two months later, the Committee of Seventy was up and running.
In the last 20 years, we have led the fight to defend campaign financing limits, established a city Board of Ethics and made lobbying (and the spending associated with it) a matter of public record. Our wars against pay-to-play politics and officeholder pension grabs helped to turn the ideas of better government and fair elections into a movement. We continue to be the go-to organization for trustworthy background and analysis on issues related to Philadelphia’s political culture and its government. We have broadened our scope and expanded our mission in recent years, but we have never lost sight of our founding principle in 1904: “To keep watch and ward over the public interests.”
Our Impact
Learn more on what we’ve done lately, or read on for the more detailed history below.
More About Our History
Origin and Early Years
How the rise in Progressivism in the late 1800s laid the groundwork for the Committee of Seventy.
Republican Bosses and Machines
One of the main reasons that there was a need for Seventy was because political influencers had come to dominate Philadelphia government.
Original Mission Statement
The longevity of Seventy is partially a product of its clearly stated and carefully reasoned goals.
The Battle is Joined at the Polls
As its first priority, Seventy worked at the base of the situation to eliminate the blatant voter fraud that was prevalent in Philadelphia elections.
Seventy’s “City Party”
As a second strategy for civic reform, Seventy employed an unusual measure for a nonpartisan organization: it established and financed its own independent political party in 1905.
A Push for Honest Elections
Early in the 1920s, the Committee of Seventy began to expand its scope of interest to include City finances as part of its concern for good government.