It could place streets and other improvements in a manner to increase the value of tracts of land owned by members of the machine. It could benefit from petty graft such as bribes for the awarding of liquor licenses. It could enrich itself through city construction projects. The ways seemed limited by the imagination rather than the integrity of the boss. Bossism, as usually presented in the textbooks, was brought to an end by a great reform movement called Progressivism led by middle-class professionals who were disgusted by the corruption and wished to seize power from the immigrant lower classes.
Most textbooks interpret the boss very negatively.
He was a thoroughly corrupt and cynical individual who stole from the public treasury to enrich himself. Other, more recent textbooks, have incorporated revisionist interpretations that present the boss in a more favorable light. He found a way to get government assistance to the poor and needy whom the traditional municipal leaders had neglected. They served as much-needed assimilation agents for the immigrants. The revisionists criticize the Progressives as contemptuous elitists who cared little for the immigrants except as sources of labor.