The Machine

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This article is about a coalition of fraternities and sororities. For other uses, see Machine (disambiguation).

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The Machine, the former Alpha Rho chapter of Theta Nu Epsilon at the University of Alabama, is a select coalition of traditionally-white fraternities and sororities which formed a secret society with enormous influence over student politics. The group, which has operated in varying degrees of secrecy since 1914, is credited with selecting and ensuring the election of candidates for Student Government Association and other influential campus offices. It was dubbed "The Machine" in 1928 by Alabama's campus newspaper, The Crimson White and has become a serious player in the political careers of numerous Alabama politicians.

[edit] History

Theta Nu Epsilon started in 1870 as a class year society for sophomores at Wesleyan University. It was the first and only branch ever established by Yale University's Skull and Bones society, and it used the same constitution for its first two years.

The Alpha Rho Chapter of Theta Nu Epsilon was founded at the University of Alabama in the late 1890s. Its role in organizing the Machine was engineered by Lister Hill, the first president of the Student Government Association and later a United States Senator. Hill split the Alabama chapter of Theta Nu Epsilon from the national organization in 1914 and organized a number of other fraternities as a voting block. The group's founding mission was to "positively influence the campus and the community, and that when it failed to represent the students' wishes, it should be disbanded." ^{[citation needed]}

The existence of a select group exercising control over student government has met with continued, but largely ineffective resistance. Former Alabama governor George Wallace twice ran for student office as a non-Machine candidate. An April 1945, editorial in The Crimson White student newspaper read in part, "[t]he Machine should be commended for at least putting up candidates and seeing that their people vote. That is probably more than any other group will do. For that they should be commended."

Since its inception, only seven candidates have succeeded in winning the SGA Presidency without support from the Machine. These include Carl Elliott, 1936; Donald W. Stewart, 1963; Don Siegel, 1964; Jim Zeigler, 1971; Cleo Thomas, 1976; John Bolus, 1983; and John H. Merrill, 1986.

Over the years, numerous political groups have been formed on campus in an attempt to motivate independent students to vote for non-Machine candidates. One of these groups was the Alabama Student Party (ASP), which was founded by SGA Senators Fred L. Gibson, Jr. and O. Kevin Vincent in 1985, which ran a full slate of independent candidates and successfully challenged the Machine with the election of an independent President in 1986. The Alabama Student Party subsequently was involved in a Federal Court Case of Alabama Student Party v. Student Government Association of the University of Alabama, 867 F.2d 1344, 51 Ed. Law Rep. 1169 (11th Cir. 1989). Another group was the Independent Voter Association. The Mallet Assembly, a men's honors program founded by Dean of Men John Blackburn in the early 1960s, is traditionally opposed to Machine influence, and has campaigned for several candidates under the banner of the "Blue Door Party". More recently, a student group called CapstonePAC has formed with the intention of running issue-based campaigns on the model of Political Action Committees.

Allegations of intimidation by the Machine include the 1971 arson of the dormitory room of Jim Zeigler, a non-Machine candidate for SGA President, and wire-taps on the telephone of victorious opposition candidate John Bolus in 1983. Another winning opposition candidate, John Merrill, reported harassing phone calls and having his car tires emptied. He caught a group of students breaking into his campaign office. The suspects were photographed during the incident by the Crimson White and Merrill narrowly won a run-off.

The most controversial election took place in 1976 when Cleo Thomas, an African-American student and member of the historically black Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity was elected to the SGA Presidency with the support of the Mallet Assembly and a coalition of several sororities. During the campaign, multiple sorority members alleged harassment, and a cross was burned on the lawn of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Following the election, sororities were admitted to Theta Nu Epsilon for the first time.

In 1979 the Machine weathered an internal disagreement which resulted in the resignation of three fraternities who ran their own opposition candidates.

During the 1989 SGA election the Machine backed their first female presidential candidate, Lynn Yeldell. She won the election over Joey Viselli, the son of the owners of Bama-Bino's, a local pizza restaurant. The Machine led an ongoing boycott of the restaurant, which closed two years later. Allegations of voter fraud in that election led the university to remove the process from student oversight.

Esquire magazine published an expose of the Machine as its cover story in April 1992. Other publications, including The Guardian, CNN and USA Today have written about the group.

The next year, Minda Riley (daughter of current Governor Bob Riley) ran as an independent. Her reports of harassment and physical assault, which included a burning cross, led the University to suspend the Student Government Association altogether. It was reinstituted in 1996.

In 1999 signs promoting the candidacy of African American Fabien Zinga-Kanza were defaced with racist graffiti and he was threatened personally. CNN covered the story, referring to the history of intimidation attributed to the Machine.

Prior to the 2002 SGA election, the phrase "Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine." from Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" was chalked on the outer wall of the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library. Later, a group of students calling themselves "The Counter-friction" disrupted a class taught by university president Andrew Sorenson. Sorenson resigned shortly after to take over the presidency of the University of South Carolina.

Internet voting debuted in 2003, but the results were ruled invalid after allegations of fraud and the election was repeated with paper ballots the following week. During the next election in 2004 SGA senate candidate Emily Aviki detailed harassment she received for the Crimson White, which used it for an exposé entitled "You don't want to mess with us." Though her campaign was successful, Aviki transferred to Duke University.

The 2005 election was the focus of greater-than-normal controversy as independent candidate Zac Riddle gathered evidence in hopes of disqualifying Mary Margaret Carroll, his Machine-backed opponent. Though she was later found to have exceeded the allowed campaign budget and submitted false receipts to the Elections Board, her 500-vote margin of victory was ruled to be valid.

2005: In the spring, second-time presidential candidate Zac Riddle managed to gather extensive evidence that his Machine-backed opponent Mary Margaret Carroll had overspent her budget by as much as $1000 (out of the $600 allowed). His campaign team's unofficial report leveled three times as many violations as were necessary to disqualify Carroll, including alleged theft and fraud. Official receipts turned into the Elections Board included purchases made on February 29, 2005, a date which does not exist. Despite photographic evidence of her campaign materials, and despite the fact that she was in the end convicted of twice the number of violations needed to disqualify her, the election was validated, and Carroll won by roughly 500 votes. Carroll's sentence included a mandated voter awareness initiative and a ten-page essay. In 2006, Carroll admitted that she had once been a Machine member (an unusual disclosure for any member but especially so for a seated SGA officer) but claimed that she was no longer Machine-affiliated, and had not been since the 2004 SGA election.

In a February 16, 2006 article published in The Crimson White while she was the sitting President, Carroll admitted having been a member of the Machine [1], but claimed to have resigned from the group prior to the 2005 election.