Although usually associated with the machine, Crowe occasionally deflected from the administration. In two meetings of the Council in 1939 he consistently voted against the machine, bringing his nominal voting percentage of agreeing with it down to 17 percent. (Excluding those meetings, he voted for the machine 50 percent of the time in 1939.) In addition to his work as alderman, Crowe was an Illinois delegate to the 1936 Democratic National Convention, as well as an alternate delegate to the 1944 and 1952 conventions.