Chapter XX: Section 2169: (not a | | | | | | (4)

The rule is [says an investigator at Los Angeles] that the wives
follow the party allegiance of their husbands, and vote with them.
The more intelligent, however, often think and act independently,
voting for what they believe is the good of their children. The
parents of the public-school children teach them to follow the
guidance and advice of the teachers. I myself, as one of the
accredited speakers of the Parent Teachers’ Federation of Los
Angeles, have marked hundreds of ballots for foreign women, and I
am called up on the telephone before each election and questioned
about candidates and measures. As a rule my advice is taken without
question. The foreign woman acts in such matters according to her
individual nature and her intelligent understanding. Some of them
vote secretly because their husbands have forbidden them to go to
the polls.

Miss Jane Addams, whose long and intimate acquaintance with foreign-born women, through her protracted residence in Hull House, Chicago, entitles her to speak with peculiar authority, describes a typical experience at a polling place in the Hull House neighborhood, which is populated almost entirely by immigrant families:

It was a great satisfaction to me to see what good judgment the
women showed. There was one Irishwoman, very bright, who could
not read, and therefore I was allowed to go into the booth with
her to help her mark her ballot. The first proposition was about
bonds for a new hospital. The Irishwoman said, “Is the same bunch
to spend the money that run the hospital we have now? Then I am
against it.” The next proposition was about a subway; the next
about a hospital for contagious cases, and so on. There were ten
propositions to be acted upon. I was scrupulous not to influence
her; yet on nine of them she voted, from her own common sense, just
as the Municipal League and the City Club had recommended as the
result of painstaking research. Italian women came in to vote who
knew more about our city than their husbands, who were away digging
railroads during six or nine months of the year.

Mrs. Emma Smith Devoe, President of the National Council of Women Voters,[158] describes the foreign-born woman citizen as taking in governmental affairs, as soon as she realizes that she is a voter, a most serious and conscientious interest, “making almost a religious duty of it.” The women, she says “are particularly impressed with the sacredness of the ballot, and they always vote for the betterment of humanity as they see it.”

Almost every foreign woman’s vote [says Mrs. Lucy B. Johnstone,
wife of the Chief Justice of Kansas][159] “represents a home where
there are children who are going to the public schools now and fast
becoming Americanized. The foreign-born women are, in the main,
ambitious for their children, and for that reason are learning,
in their way, about our institutions, and are zealous to take
advantage of our free educational opportunities”.

Senator Helen Ring Robinson of Colorado remarking that “the Italian women frequently do not vote, while the Pole always votes and takes a keen interest in local politics,” says:[160]

In the matters affecting the family purse, such as voting of a
bond issue, the acquisition of the water supply by the city, etc.,
I find the immigrant woman usually more keenly concerned than her
husband.

The immigrant woman in the coal camps--like the immigrant
man--often votes blindly at the dictate of the boss; but the
daughter of the immigrant woman often shows an independence, an
understanding, and a vision, in matters of public concern, well
worth the emulation of Daughters of the American Revolution I wot
of--and Colonial Dames. It is the daughter of the immigrant woman,
grown to the full stature of citizenship, who is proving one of the
most useful elements in our Colorado electorate.

Miss Edith Knight Holmes, editor of the Woman’s Department of the Portland _Oregonian_, wrote that:

Personally, I have noticed women who were born in various European
countries going early in the morning to vote, as soon as the
breakfast was over. They study their ballots carefully and seem
most conscientious in marking them. I know an old Scotch lady who
sat up half the night to study her ballot. A little English lady
whom I know always tries to be at the polls. She goes with one of
her sons to vote.

In families where there are several little children, sometimes the
mother next door will stay with the babies while the mother of
the family votes, and then when she returns she takes care of her
friend’s baby while she, too, casts her vote.

Of course, this is special pleading, and it is easy to exaggerate. Over against it might well be told that ancient story of the housemaid who was said to favor woman suffrage on the ground that it would augment the family income:

My father and my two brothers each gets five dollars for his vote,
and now mother and me will each get five--that makes twenty-five
dollars, all for a little while in one day.

The fact is, abundantly verified, that the foreign-born woman, when she votes at all, brings to the function a deep sense of solemnity; it is new to her to participate in government; she has not acquired from the streets a cynical contempt for the ballot, as her husband and sons are likely to have done. The effect of government upon her home and her children is a more desperate matter to her, and it will take long to demoralize her attitude on the subject.

But the fact is, also, that foreign-born women have not in any large measure awakened to the opportunity. Their devotion to their homes has taken on no public or political aspect. They are confined to those homes, not only by tradition, ignorance of American life and the English language, and the inertia of their existence, but even more by overwork and by the unremitting detail of family duty and care. They have hardly heard of their new and increasing privileges, and generally regard them, when they do hear of them, as only a new burden, unfamiliar and to be ignored if not resented. It is only in the home, and by a realization of its direct and inevitable effect upon the home, her home, that any interest in or enthusiasm about political action can reach her.

HOW THE WOMEN CAN BE REACHED

There would seem to be four ways in which the foreign-born woman citizen can be reached with effort to interest her in the political aspect of her citizenship:

1. The normal, direct attack of the political organizations, and voluntary efforts, organized and unorganized, of public-spirited citizens or others interested in “getting out the vote.” Generally speaking, the politicians have scarcely as yet discovered the voting power of the foreign-born woman citizen--especially such as do not speak the English language. The vote and political influence of the foreign-born woman have been negligible everywhere--except possibly in a few places where they have been rallied in a local-option election. One investigator reports two or three towns in Illinois where a “wet” result was attributed to the vote of foreign-born women. Other reports would indicate that the foreign-born woman, like her English-speaking sisters, have tended to favor the abolition of the saloon with its resulting (or, anyway, expected) reduction of home-coming drunkenness and deductions from the pay envelope.

In districts where politically active social settlements and similar organizations are influential, and in states which have had woman suffrage the longest, there is a considerable appearance of foreign-born women at the polls. But they are relatively few in numbers, and consist of younger women from the more radical parties, from those racial groups which display the keenest and most aggressive social intelligence, such as the Bohemians, and from such as in their own countries have had some experience with some measure of woman suffrage, such as the Swedes and Finns. There is quite as much tendency among foreign-born women as among native-born--perhaps considerably more--to follow the husband’s lead in politics and to duplicate his vote. In general, the political organizations have as yet made little effort to capitalize the “derivative vote.” The mass of it stays at home.

2. The campaign of the public schools, with or without the inspiration of the Naturalization Bureau, to induce the foreign-born woman to avail herself of formal educational work in the schools. As we have seen, she does not, to any appreciable extent, respond to this campaign. Social settlements, even attributing great influence to them--though as a matter of fact few of them exert any political influence whatever--are relatively few and far between; churches, as such, and other institutions of the same general kind, cannot be counted as substantially effective in this direction. The foreign-born woman goes to church in large numbers, but she does not get there any great impulse to interest herself in community affairs. She goes back to her babies and her washtub.

It is in her home, in the intervals between domestic duties and within arm’s length of the cradle and the kitchen table where she feeds her children, that she must be reached with this inspiration and instruction, if in any large measure she is to be reached at all. This brings us to

3. The Home Teacher. The movement in favor of the creation of a teaching force, employed by the public and organically a part of the public-school system, to go into the neighborhoods and into the homes and carry instruction in English, common-school branches, and the elements of civics, follows logically from the treatment of the foreign-born woman citizen as an individual, and from the fact that she must be dealt with in or close to her home. Classes grouped within a small section of a neighborhood, intensively instructed by teachers who realize the difficulties and limitations of their pupils, take on the aspect of social occasions, help to arouse a neighborhood spirit, encourage mutual acquaintance, and most effectively instruct those whom it is desired to reach. A movement of this kind, spreading over the country and backed by the public as such, follows the natural line of least resistance and tackles the problem where it really lives.

4. The direct and indirect influence of the children upon the mother. This is the best of all. And, while we are exciting ourselves about the ignorance and indifference of the foreign-born woman, and bemoaning her possible influence upon her children, it is well for us to remember that these children are in the American public schools, talking the English language, absorbing whatever there may be of “Americanism” in the social atmosphere about them, in daily sight of the Stars and Stripes, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” gaining enthusiasm for and pride in our country, and, what is most important, taking home daily to their foreign-born parents the direct and indirect influences of what they are learning, seeing, and feeling. The extent of this leavening process is impossible to estimate, but undoubtedly it is enormous.

A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE--IT WORKS

Perhaps the most striking and unmistakable exhibit of this process is to be found in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the work of the Americanization Society presents concrete and visible results. The work in process there since the fall of 1918 is susceptible of definite and even statistical study. It has produced effects upon elections which can be stated in figures, and results in homes upon concretely discoverable human beings about which there can be no question. It is socially physiological, so to speak; working in a normal way in consonance with known political methods and customs, along the rational lines of least resistance--making use of the natural, spontaneous life of the people in their ordinary social and political relationships and in their homes.

A battle with machine politics over a matter of local administration, especially as affecting the treatment of the poor, convinced those interested in the unselfish conduct of the city’s business that the way to win, and the only way, was to appeal to the people direct and get them to vote. There was no fear as to how they would vote, but the effort was not addressed to that aspect of the question. The slogans speak for themselves!

Whether or not you vote is not your business; it is Uncle Sam’s
business. HOW you vote is your business.

It’s always safe to trust all the people. If all the people vote,
they will vote right.

Cast your own ballot. When you don’t vote, somebody else votes for
you.

How many votes has a man? You say one. If you don’t vote somebody
else has TWO votes.

Tags were the weapons directly used, and they had a profound effect. Committees of women, drawn from mothers’ clubs, women’s clubs, parents’ associations, etc., gave out the tags at the polls, asked the voters to wear them, and pinned them on when they could. The only way to get a tag was to vote; everybody who voted found it to his interest to wear one; and those who didn’t have tags wished they had. For the tag said:

“I am an American. I voted. Did you?”

The effectiveness of these tactics in arousing not only sentimental enthusiasm, but that kind of practical personal action _at and in the ballot box_ which decides elections, is convincingly attested by the great increase in the registration and in the total vote.[161]

The essential purpose of the job was to get to the polls every individual entitled to vote; but incidentally, or perhaps better to say, fundamentally, to train the rising generation as to their privilege and duty of participation in public affairs, and to accelerate the naturalization and Americanization of the alien. In order to accomplish the first of these last two purposes, the campaign was carried into the public schools; in order to accomplish the second, great stress was laid upon naturalization. There were three other slogans:

Send the alien to the county clerk.

An early tag helps the flag.

Get your tag early. Ask the man who has none WHY?

This meant embarrassment for the untagged, and when the school children began to plague the untagged adult males it became unendurable. Woe to that father who came home at night without a tag! The family was disgraced in the eyes of the children. He was nagged, not about _how_ he voted, but about why he didn’t vote at all!

Meanwhile, woman suffrage was established in Michigan, and the women came in for their share of the bombardment. A great campaign was begun to make the women realize their political responsibilities. It bore fruit in the registration of 26,000 women for the election in April, 1919; in one day 1,500 women registered. For the primary election in March the tag system got out 28,700 votes, and it was estimated that a blizzard raging on that day prevented at least 3,000 more. At the April election all the candidates recommended by the Citizens’ League were elected, although the tag system involved no pressure as to particular candidates or causes. There were thirteen different matters to be voted upon, and the result showed notable discrimination in the voting--by 37,000 voters, while from 5,000 to 7,000 votes could not be cast because of inadequacy of the polling facilities.

WHAT THE CHILDREN DID

The children were a vital factor in the campaign. After the elections they were asked to collect tags and bring them to school. Out of 29,000 tags given out at one election, they brought back more than 17,000. After the next election they brought back 27,000 out of 37,000. Flags were given as prizes to the schools showing the highest totals.

In the schools--and all schools were enlisted, parochial and private as well as public schools--the children wrote letters, and later little essays, describing their experiences, telling why it was important to vote, and what the issues were. The response was instantaneous, enthusiastic; and it requires no special imagination to infer the effect in individual homes, not only in compelling American citizens to vote, but in virtually forcing alien fathers and mothers to avoid embarrassment at their own firesides by expediting their efforts to gain citizenship.

Space is not available for extensive quotation of the children’s essays; but their general tenor, and the reflex influence of their spirit upon the homes, may be imagined from such excerpts as these:

By an eleven-year-old boy, fifth grade: The men and women who are
citizens of the United States are regular voters; if they are not,
they should be.... If all the people voted, we should have a clean
city. If your mother has to do all the dishes, you can say, “Why,
mother, I can do the dishes while you go and vote.” Your father may
have to rake the yard. Why not rake the yard yourself and let your
father go and vote? Then the children and their parents will be
good citizens.

By a girl in the sixth grade: The American government is governed
by the people by means of voting. If people do not vote it is their
fault that we have poor officials.... The anarchist and the other
people who ignore our government are both destroying it, only the
anarchist destroys it violently and the people who ignore it,
slowly. Some aliens come here to enjoy all our privileges without
becoming citizens. They save their money and go back to their old
country. But some aliens appreciate our government, and are now
of the best citizens we have.... Join hands with the American
government. Mother, do not let Dad do it alone!

There is plenty of direct testimony as to the effect of this enterprise in the home, not only of the American citizens, but of the aliens. Thousands of mothers who otherwise might have remained prisoners to indifference and drudgery have been fairly driven out into the liberation of social contacts and into a broader life of interest in all the things that make for responsible citizenship _by the interest of their children_.

It is _in their homes_ that the foreign-born women must be reached with inspiration and enlightenment as to their part in the process of self-government and the privileges, duties, and responsibilities--and activities--which are essential to anything worthy to be called American citizenship.

XI

THE FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

There is not and never has been in the United States anything that could be segregated as the “labor vote,” although such a thing has been the dream of many labor leaders, the bugaboo--or rather the _ignis fatuus_--of politicians of many parties, and a permanently legendary figure in the popular speech. The absence of such a vote is the principle reason for the political futility of most of the efforts of the Socialist parties.

Time and again, since the beginning of our existence as a nation, efforts--some of them with a measure of success promising or menacing according to one’s sympathy and point of view--have been made to get united political action on the part of citizens who worked with their hands as supposedly distinguished from those who worked with their brains. The effort never has come to other than temporary local success; although it may be conceded that, in some measure, the issues upon which the efforts were predicated afterward came to be those upon which the great parties fought out their battles; or, more likely, came slowly to substantial acceptance through economic development or sometimes as the direct fruit of campaign agitation.

The reasons for this failure to precipitate and organize the mythical “labor vote” are many and diverse, but certain of them are essential and fairly evident:

First, the fact that in this country social and industrial conditions have hitherto been, and probably for an indefinite period will continue to be, such as to emphasize individualism. It is true, despite any denials or theories, that industry, initiative, enterprise, always have won, still win, and will continue to win advancement above the herd. The top is still open for those who can win to it by their own inherent qualities. There has been here, there is now, no permanent industrial or social caste classification to circumscribe ambition and create either a persisting intellectual leadership of “labor” or a stable body of hand-workers susceptible of political coherence or direction. All efforts to crystallize “class consciousness” for political action have failed, and probably will continue to fail as long as the social bars are down so that individuals can pass freely from one class to another.

Second, the immensity of our territory and the great diversity of interests and issues in the forefront of public attention in one section and another. Seldom, if ever, have the conditions which might have solidified any class been sufficiently widespread or synchronous to serve the purpose of united political sentiment or action. Add to this the fact that politicians of both the great parties, more or less intentionally, have managed always to frame the issues so as to encourage this diversity.

Third, the deliberate and long-standing policy of the most influential of the general leaders of the labor organizations--Mr. Samuel Gompers for the most conspicuous example--of keeping those organizations free from the entanglements and distractions of party politics, definitely preventing their acting as a political unit; by intention confining their activities to the industrial, the economic field. This alone, without regard to the fact that the higher-grade unions (using that expression solely with reference to skill) seldom see their interests to be common, so far as the ballot box is concerned. The radical agitation for the establishment of “One Big Union,” to include all classes of laborers as distinguished from capitalists, while it contemplates chiefly the exercise of industrial and economic power, includes the intention to concentrate political power as well.

Fourth, and most important, the fact that “labor,” in the sense in which most politicians, and virtually all of the public, use the term, means chiefly the _unskilled_ workers who contribute _muscle_ to industry. These are to a great extent unorganized, without any conscious unity of interest or purpose; their approach to both industry and political action is as individuals--individuals of more or less shifting residence and comparatively little feeling of political responsibility. Moreover, it is a matter of common knowledge that the great industrial concerns have fostered the existence of masses of unskilled labor, in excess of the actual needs of industry, in order to maintain an “overstocked” labor supply, for the purpose of constant wage-competition to keep down costs. This competition has the inevitable effect of discouraging united action of any kind. And, still further, we have found[162] that the unskilled laborer of foreign birth, on the average, is not available for political activity because he is not naturalized.

This body of the unskilled, industrially indispensable, but politically unassimilated, inarticulate, and unwholesome, consists almost entirely now, and must consist increasingly, of immigrants. Like any other mass of material in an organism, potentially digestible and useful but actually undigested and in the circumstances indigestible, it has clogged the process of assimilation and is infecting the body politic with dangerous toxins. The wonder is that we have got along with it so well. One of the reasons may be the very fact that its influences are not in the ordinary sense _political_.

Foreigners: the word is used advisedly. For out of the welter of prejudice and misinformation surrounding the subject has emerged clearly the fact that by the time the alien _man_ reaches the point of applying for citizenship and the political power that goes with it, he has been in this country _upward of ten years_, has advanced materially in social and economic status, and the process of assimilation is far on its way, if not substantially complete. In a majority of cases, he has passed out of the category of what is usually known as “common labor.”

DIVIDED BY RACIAL TRADITIONS

Another thing, conspicuous here as in no other country where “labor” might be regarded as directly a political factor, is the fact that even had these thousands of men been individually available for prompt assimilation, or manageable in their groups as material for political manipulation, they have constituted such a hodge-podge of conflicting racial and national antecedents, prejudices, and inhibitions that any coherent political action by them always has been out of the question. Scandinavian and Slav, Austrian and Italian, British and German, Greek and Turk; Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile--to say nothing of those smaller clan, village, and even family feuds, often of long-forgotten origin, within the racial groups ... at every turn some hoary animosity, born, perhaps, centuries ago out of historic or obscure conflicts of which the average native-born American maybe never heard in his life, has kept and doubtless long will continue to keep these racial groups apart and practically preclude any possibility of getting them to work together. The events and political by-products of the World War have only further confused and intensified these causes of disunion.

The Socialists alone, of all the considerable political parties, have tried to unite “labor” (chiefly meaning unskilled labor) by efforts to convince all the racial groups of a common political interest superior to any racial interest. They have almost completely failed.

Politicians, large and small, have been to some extent aware of this diversity of traditions and interests among the racial groups, based upon ancient or current controversies in old countries; but their approach to the subject always has been pragmatical and opportunistic, and usually unintelligent without real information about or understanding of the explosive matters with which they were meddling, or any but temporary or local concern about the consequences. The Fiume controversy, interesting both Italians and Jugo-Slavs; the Irish situation; the war between the Poles and the Bolsheviki in Russia; and conspicuously the whole stupendous question of the League of Nations--all are fine examples of international and interracial conflicts and emergencies of which American politicians of both parties have taken advantage for their own purposes without regard to consequences to the welfare of the world--or of their own country, for that matter.

ALIENS NOT WITHOUT POLITICAL INFLUENCE

As we have seen, the foreign born who become citizens, and as such are eligible to participate in our political processes, do so on the average only after a residence in this country of more than ten years. Also, notwithstanding the legend to the contrary, there appears to be no material distinction of race in their interest in our politics or their desire to become citizens. But it would be a cardinal mistake to suppose that the great mass of the unnaturalized foreign born, who have no votes themselves, represent no political influence. Neighborhood sentiment is a very great force in politics. The politician pays special heed to the wishes of voters; but he is exceedingly mindful of the desires, enthusiasms, and hatreds of those in his district who are audible all the year round. This is all the more true when he is of the same racial origin as the bulk of the population that surrounds him in a “Little Italy,” a “Little Hungary,” a “New Bohemia,” or a “Ghetto.”

THERE IS NO “FOREIGN VOTE”

What we have said of the mythical “labor vote” is equally true of the mythical “foreign vote.” Under circumstances of tense feeling between Italians and Jugo-Slavs, between Irish and English-born, between Swedes and Norwegians, the vote of Italian-born citizens and those of Serbian antecedents cannot be corralled together for a candidate of either racial origin, or for a ticket representing sympathy or tolerance for either, and so on down the lines; but no politician ever has been able to unite in one political movement all the heterogeneous mass that could, by any stretch of words, be called the “foreign vote.” There is no “foreign vote,” any more than there is a “labor vote.”

The wholesale enfranchisement of women, native and foreign-born citizens alike, under the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, brings into the situation a new and confusing factor, about which it would be perilous to prophesy. Foreign-born women, largely ignorant of everything that we are accustomed to regard as “American,” subject to all of the influences and limitations involved in the word “foreign,” are swept by our naturalization laws helter-skelter into citizenship by the mere fact of their marriage or filial relation to a naturalized man, without any restrictions as to length of residence or personal fitness. And now the constitutional amendment has armed them with the ballot, with the potential capacity not only to strengthen, but to offset and nullify, the vote of the intelligent; not only to offset and nullify, but to double the political power of the ignorant, the misled, and the corrupt. Fortunately, however, as we have pointed out elsewhere, this is a potential rather than an actual peril. The foreign-born woman is, and will continue to be, very slow in assuming the power for mischief, or for good, which we have thrust upon her.[163]

OLD EVILS ABOLISHED

There was a day in American political history when, especially in the great cities along the Atlantic seaboard, the immigrant, in many cases the newly landed immigrant, was herded to the ballot box, sometimes without even the empty formality of naturalization, to cast an open ballot thrust into his hand by his padrone or some one else of his race who saw to it that he got his pay, usually in cash, but sometimes in the form of a job. Such practices, while they survive sporadically in out-of-the-way mining regions or the like where supervision of elections is lax or lacking, are no longer in vogue.

The naturalization law of 1906, faithfully executed by the Naturalization Bureau, has completely abolished the old naturalization frauds and abuses, and the increasingly effective protection surrounding the ballot box, with the substitution of official ballots for the old voting ticket or open ballot, with more or less of the nonpartisan, alphabetical arrangement of candidates known as the “Australian” ballot, has made direct corruption, vote buying, not only perilous as a form of crime, but relatively useless because of the difficulty of knowing whether the goods are delivered. There is still bribery, but more and more it takes the form of payment for voting at all, of continued tenure of jobs within the gift or control of politicians and other oblique and indirect forms of remuneration.

It would be possible to occupy much space in this volume with a history of bygone days, when naturalization was a farce and a scandal, and the ignorant immigrant vote a real factor in American politics. As early as 1835, this was a source of alarm to the native Americans, the emotion being intensified and complicated by the religious sectarianism which was a large factor in the nativistic Know-Nothing movement. Congress was memorialized about

... the ease with which foreigners of doubtful morals and hostile
political principles acquired the right to vote, and pointed to
this as a source of real danger to the country. The petitioners saw
with great concern the influx of Roman Catholics. To such persons,
as men, they had no dislike. To their religion, as a religion, they
had no objection. But against their political opinions, interwoven
with their religious belief, they asked legislation.[164]

In those days the “New Immigration,” though the distinction between “old” and “new” now current had not been created, was more particularly of Irish and German--both races now generally regarded as of the “old,” the more desirable kind!

Ostrogorski, in his _Democracy and the Party System in the United States_, says:[165]

Owing to the facilities offered by the American naturalization
laws, the immigrants began to enjoy the rights of citizenship after
a short period of residence. Ignorant, with no political education,
these new members of the Commonwealth took service at once in the
party organization, and blindly followed the word of command.
Coming from countries the inhabitants of which were languishing in
wretchedness and degradation, as in Ireland, or gasping under the
vexatious regime of police-ridden and grandmotherly governments,
as in Germany with its _Polezei-Staat_, the immigrants could not
resist the seduction of the word “democrat,” and joined the ranks
of the Democratic organization wholesale, bound hand and foot.

Ostrogorski took his view from the situation in New York City, as many other writers have done; overlooking the fact that to a great extent the new voter, both native and foreign-born, has usually and naturally followed first the political partisan preference of his father and his racial associates, and second, the trend of party success. The dominating party machine in any city naturally has the prestige of success, and its ability to deliver patronage, large and small, draws those to whom a job is the vitally important thing in life. In New York City the power of the ignorant vote always has been a great source of strength to Tammany, which happens to be Democratic; in Philadelphia the same thing may be said of the local organization, which happens to be Republican.

CORRUPTION WAS NOT AN IMPORTATION

It is a common impression that the backbone of political corruption lies in the so-called “foreign vote.” Ostrogorski paid his respects to that idea. Said he:[166]

The most shameless venality is often met with in the country
districts, particularly in the states of the Atlantic seaboard;
nay, even in New England, inhabited by the descendants of the
Puritans. Votes are sold there openly, like an article of commerce;
there is a regular market quotation for them. And it is not only
needy people Who make a traffic of their votes, but well-to-do
farmers, of American stock, pious folk who always go to church on
Sunday. If the farmer’s son is an elector and dwells under the
paternal roof the father receives the price of his vote and that of
their help, who is under a sort of moral obligation to vote for the
same candidate as his master. A good many would not take a bribe
from the party which they regard as hostile; they keep faith with
their own party, but they, none the less, demand money for their
vote, in the form of an indemnity for their trouble, for loss of
time, for traveling expenses. In some country districts a quarter
or a third of the electors make money out of their votes.

HOME-GROWN IN ADAMS COUNTY, OHIO!

Once at least in our political history we had an opportunity to see Ostrogorski’s assertion convincingly illustrated, and legally attested by “judicial notice” of a competent court, in the case of Adams County, Ohio, where, a decade ago, in 1910, one brave local judge, by the name of A. Z. Blair, haled before him a whole countryside of farmers, and disfranchised for confessed corruption pretty much the whole population. Here was exactly the situation described by Ostrogorski--“votes sold openly, like an article of commerce,” ... “a regular market quotation,” ... “well-to-do farmers, of American stock,” ... “a third of the electors make money out of their votes.” By stress of a special grand jury Judge Blair brought out complete and all but universal confessions, and imposed fines and disfranchisement upon the majority of voters in a whole rural county.

It is instructive [said the _Outlook_ in its editorial comment]
to note that this slump of citizenship has not occurred among
foreigners or negroes, nor in the slums of cities, but in a purely
rural population, and among voters of native American stock.[167]

WHO IS THE BUYER OF VOTES?

Incidentally it may be remarked that in all this business of election bribery, which in past years has been all but omnipresent in American politics, the emphasis is laid upon those, American or foreign-born, who _sell_ their votes. Even if it were true that the purchasable voter was chiefly the voter of alien race, _every sale implies a purchase_. Before any voter can sell his vote, somebody must be prepared to buy it. The seat of corruption lies, not in the venal voter alone, but also in the system that gathers money for the purpose of buying him. And that system, from the very beginning, has been devised and engineered by the American politician, and those behind him in American business life who desire to control elections and the people’s representative selected therein, for their own “business” ends. It would not be difficult to point to elections of very great importance in America--even Presidential elections--in which the vote of great states was swayed one way or the other by the margin represented by the out-and-out purchase of votes at so much per head. Nor would any person above the age of six years seriously debate the question of the native-American origin of the people who incited and paid for the corruption.

William S. Bennet, then a member of Congress from New York City, and of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, put his finger exactly on the center of this question when he said:[168]

Much of our trouble in the past has sprung from the belief among
newly made citizens, justified by far too much evidence, that we
ourselves have regarded elections as contentions to be decided
not at all by argument, persuasion, or reason, but by trickery,
treachery, bribery, perjury, assault, forgery, deceit and even
murder.... The new and impressionable citizen of even but twenty
years ago had held out to him at election inducements to all that
was worst in his character. If he held our elections and our
institutions lightly, we had ourselves to blame for it.... Man
moves much along lines of least resistance, and the stranger adapts
himself to conditions as he finds them. Make your elections riotous
and corrupt, and your new-made, foreign-born citizen riots and
sells his vote with the native-born....

The new citizen has neither political inheritance, prejudice, nor
scars of conflict. He votes always in the present, sometimes for
the future, but never in the past. Being poor, it is quite true
that when there is corruption, he is among those approached. Being
ambitious, the lure of minor place sometimes weighs with him more
than principle.

Mr. Bennet, on the same occasion, emphasized the fact that a sharp distinction must be drawn between the mass of immigrants constituting the bulk of the foreign population, especially in the cities, and the small portion thereof actually participating in political activities:

It should be carefully borne in mind that in no great city is
the naturalized voter a newly arrived immigrant.... In cities
the newly made voter is a resident in this country certainly for
five, and usually for more, years, before he votes even for the
first time. Candidates in foreign-speaking localities frequently
address audiences the majority of whom, either by age or alienage,
are unable to vote.... The 644,000 electors who had a right to
participate in our recent election were, thus, either native-born
or having five years or more of residence. Of the 644,000 who
registered about 590,000 voted. These divided their votes roughly
as follows: Gaynor, Tammany and Democrat, 250,000; Bannard,
Republican and Fusion, 175,000; Hearst, 150,000. Four years ago,
the vote was, Tammany, 226,000; Hearst, 224,000; Republican,
137,000. Therefore this year both the Tammany and Republican
candidates gained at the expense of Hearst. The exact significance
of this is immaterial and accounted for readily by a variety of
causes. The important fact remains that 150,000 voters, without
particular leadership or organization, left the party ranks and
voted for an individual of their choice.

There is no substantial support, either in any careful study of elections as a whole or in particular, or in the experience of those who have lived close to the political processes of our country, for the widespread impression that the foreign-born voter is more given to or victim of political corruption than any other class.

ATTEMPTS TO FIND THE “FOREIGN VOTE”

It is exceedingly difficult to identify the part played in any particular election, or in elections generally, by foreign-born voters. Political leaders and others who make analyses of election returns have their theories and prepossessions, and find in figures what they want to find, to defend policies, support theories, and sustain positions generally. In the presidential election of 1920, this was especially evident. Those who supported the Republican ticket and platform and those who supported the Democratic; those violently opposed to the League of Nations and those devotedly in favor of it--alike found in the election returns, manipulated to suit their views, sustenance for argument as to the part played in the result by this, that, and the other racial group or political faction. Even the Socialists, whose basic theory is the most definitely declared of all political theories, find in a growing vote evidences of wide acceptance of their doctrines; in its shrinkage merely the desertion of mere protestors or sentimentalists who really do not understand Socialism at all! Personal prejudice and predilection exhibit themselves notoriously in political figuring. The process usually consists of more or less gratuitous assumptions, from which one may prove statistically--whatever he wants to prove.

An exceptional instance of an attempt to analyze an election without preliminary bias appears in a study of “The Political Mind of Foreign-born Americans,” contributed by Dr. Abram Lipsky to _Popular Science Monthly_ several years ago,[169] in which he undertook by analysis of the election returns from a number of Assembly Districts in Greater New York, predominantly of a certain racial complexion, to infer the attitude of those racial groups on certain subjects. But it is clear that the inferences, however they may have been justified by the figures from this election, were based upon questionable assumptions. Still more important, it is altogether fallacious to assume that in another election, wherein the issues were stated differently or the general political atmosphere was different, these very districts, these very individual voters of whatever race, might not vote quite otherwise. A state of mind among the Italian-born voters, provoked, for example, by their understanding of the attitude of Mr. Wilson on the subject of Fiume, might produce Republican votes in one election; whereas a year later, in an election in which their interests at home or abroad were believed by them to be otherwise affected, their votes might be overwhelmingly Democratic.

One of the questions which Doctor Lipsky undertook to answer from the election figures was whether the voters in the selected districts “read the Hearst papers regularly.” He inferred his answer from the vote cast in those districts for the candidates which happened to be favored by the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. But the basic assumption was fallacious, overlooking entirely the notorious fact that repeatedly elections in New York City have been won in spite of the opposition, or lost in spite of the support, of virtually the entire newspaper press of the city. As logically might one assume from any election that the vote, pro or contra, on any subject represented the circulation of some particular group of newspapers whose views the election indorsed.

Nearer the probabilities, but still subject to the same kind of discount, is Doctor Lipsky’s generalization as to the showing of one election on the subject of the attitude of certain racial groups as regards Tammany Hall and Socialism. This analysis is not without a certain degree of general significance.

Doctor Lipsky’s conclusion that “native-born Americans of American parents are opposed to Tammany government” is based upon a comparison of figures from districts predominantly of native Americans, in the elections for governor in 1910 and for mayor of New York in 1913, his primary assumption being that the candidacy of Judge Edward E. McCall for mayor embodied “Tammany” pure and simple, while that of John A. Dix for governor did not make “Tammany” a state issue. From this point of view Doctor Lipsky interprets the fact that the percentage of votes for McCall in those districts was strikingly lower than those for Dix in the state election of three years before:

TABLE XXXVII

PER CENT OF NEW YORK CITY VOTE CAST FOR MCCALL IN 1913 AND DIX IN
1910 BY VOTERS OF NATIVE PARENTS

======================================================
| PER CENT | |
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT | OF NATIVE | 1913 | 1910
| PARENTS | MCCALL | DIX
--------------------+-----------+----------+-----------
15th Manhattan | 45.3 | 33.7 | 58.1
19th “ | 40.0 | 33.2 | 52.3
25th “ | 44.1 | 35.3 | 48.4
27th “ | 51.5 | 37.6 | 55.8
4th Queens | 41.3 | 31.1 | 46.2
17th Brooklyn | 45.6 | 24.7 | 43.6
11th “ | 38.0 | 34.9 | 50.5
18th | 39.0 | 28.3 | 46.3
5th | 38.1 | 25.3 | 44.1
10th “ | 38.6 | 36.6 | 53.3
======================================================

But the Russians and Austrians also said “No” to Tammany, as Doctor Lipsky reads the figures:

TABLE XXXVIII

PER CENT OF NEW YORK CITY VOTE CAST FOR MCCALL IN 1913 AND DIX IN
1910 BY RUSSIANS AND AUSTRIANS

============================================================
|RUSSIANS|AUSTRIANS| BOTH | |
ASSEMBLY | PER | PER | PER | 1913 | 1910
DISTRICT | CENT | CENT | CENT | MCCALL | DIX
---------------+--------+---------+--------+--------+-------
8th Manhattan | 54.4 | 14.2 | 68.6 | 40.2 | 52.3
6th “ | 30.4 | 30.8 | 61.2 | 22.8 | 40.0
4th “ | 35.6 | 25.2 | 60.2 | 51.1 | 61.7
26th “ | 34.6 | 6.7 | 41.3 | 30.0 | 41.0
2d “ | 35.6 | 1.4 | 37.0 | 57.6 | 67.5
10th “ | 22.3 | 12.5 | 34.8 | 29.3 | 52.2
31st “ | 12.9 | 4.9 | 17.8 | 24.1 | 44.7
21st Brooklyn | 31.2 | 5.9 | 37.1 | 27.1 | 48.6
23d “ | 33.3 | 3.9 | 37.2 | 25.7 | 40.9
14th “ | 16.1 | 5.9 | 22.0 | 46.6 | 61.5
22d “ | 13.0 | 3.0 | 16.0 | 24.3 | 38.5
============================================================

The Irish voted for Tammany, as usual:

TABLE XXXIX

PER CENT OF NEW YORK CITY VOTE CAST FOR MCCALL IN 1913 AND DIX IN
1910 BY THE IRISH

===============================================
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT | PER CENT | 1913 | 1910
| OF IRISH | MCCALL | DIX
-------------------+----------+--------+-------
13th Manhattan | 16.4 | 61.0 | 58.1
16th “ | 14.0 | 51.7 | 61.4
11th “ | 12.2 | 55.6 | 60.5
14th “ | 12.4 | 54.7 | 61.2
5th “ | 11.2 | 64.4 | 67.6
===============================================

Allowance must be made here for some falling off of the vote in a municipal as compared with a state election; but a still greater allowance must be made for the fact that “Tammany” was indeed a state issue--Dix was distinctly charged by the opposition with being Tammany’s candidate, and there were, as always, confusing and inestimable factors of a subtle kind--such, for instance, as the fact that McCall had an Irish name, and Dix didn’t; or that the name “John A. Dix” had a sound historically familiar--even if not one regularly American-born person in a hundred could remember who the historic “John A. Dix” was!

Some years the Germans are supposed to have supported Tammany; this particular time Doctor Lipsky seems to find that they did not--in districts in which Germans made up a considerable percentage of the population. (See Table XL.)

Think what you will of the Italians’ attitude toward Tammany; you can stress the fact that the vote for McCall was so much below that of three years before for Dix, or you can philosophize about the fact that it was no greater! Doctor Lipsky’s inference that, on the whole, they supported Tammany is based on the figures from six districts. (See Table XLI.)

TABLE XL

PER CENT OF NEW YORK CITY VOTE CAST FOR MCCALL IN 1913 AND DIX IN
1910 BY GERMANS

==================================================
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT | PER CENT | 1913 | 1910
| OF GERMANS | MCCALL | DIX
--------------------+------------+--------+-------
3d Queens | 21.4 | 31.1 | 49.8
20th Brooklyn | 20.2 | 26.8 | 41.8
19th “ | 13.6 | 31.9 | 48.3
23d “ | 11.2 | 34.6 | 49.4
1st Queens | 11.1 | 41.4 | 55.2
22d Manhattan | 21.2 | 38.4 | 50.2
==================================================

TABLE XLI

PER CENT OF NEW YORK CITY VOTE CAST FOR MCCALL IN 1913 AND DIX IN
1910 BY THE ITALIANS

====================================================
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT | PER CENT | 1913 | 1910
| OF ITALIANS | MCCALL | DIX
---------------------+-------------+--------+-------
3d Manhattan | 30.3 | 67.6 | 77.7
1st “ | 25.2 | 59.6 | 67.8
28th “ | 26.8 | 42.6 | 55.8
3d Brooklyn | 23.2 | 63.7 | 73.1
2d Manhattan | 18.5 | 57.6 | 67.4
====================================================

“We are able,” says Doctor Lipsky, “to say that a decided ‘no’ was given to Tammany by native Americans of native parents, and by the Russians and Germans; a decided ‘Yes’ was given by the Italian and Irish.”

The thing that stands out in these figures, whatever else may be said, would seem to be the fact that, like the native Americans of native parentage, the voters of foreign racial antecedents changed their support with changing circumstances and influences. The conventional view of the foreign-born voter is that he votes in herds, as he is told to vote, and that in New York City Tammany does the herding. Well, in the mayoralty election of 1913, judging by these figures, it is evident that Tammany’s “herding” was not wholly successful with those “new-immigration” voters classed as Russians and Austrians! All sorts of factors, local and general, fundamental and temporary, almost Wholly incalculable, enter into elections, and one is free to analyze and interpret to suit himself.

On the subject of the “political mind of the foreign-born voter” as regards Socialism, Doctor Lipsky presents some interesting figures from ten assembly districts in which the Socialist candidate for mayor in 1913 received over 10 per cent of the total vote.

TABLE XLII

PER CENT OF SOCIALISTIC VOTE IN NEW YORK CITY IN 1910 AND 1913 BY
NATIONALITY

=====================================================================
| SOCIALIST |NATIVE| | | | |
ASSEMBLY | VOTE | OF | | | | |
DISTRICT +------+------+NATIVE|AUSTR-|GERMAN|IRISH| ITAL-| RUSS-
| 1910 | 1913 |PAREN-| IAN | | | IAN | IAN
| | | TAGE | | | | |
--------------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+------+------
21st Brooklyn | 12.4 | 16.1 | 12.6 | 5.9 | 4.1 | ... | 9.1 | 31.2
23d “ | 12.5 | 15.8 | 19.6 | 3.9 | 2.2 | 1.6 | 4.6 | 33.3
19th “ | 11.0 | 12.8 | 12.6 | .8 | 13.6 | ... | 9.9 | 11.9
4th Manhattan| 12.6 | 11.9 | 7.0 | 25.2 | .4 | 1.1 | 2.5 | 35.6
26th “ | 10.2 | 11.8 | 7.1 | 6.7 | 4.6 | 3.8 | 1.4 | 34.6
8th “ | 14.6 | 11.7 | 2.5 | 14.2 | .7 | ... | 4.1 | 54.4
22d “ | 13.1 | 11.7 | 10.6 | 4.6 | 21.2 | 5.3 | 1.6 | 3.6
6th “ | 10.0 | 11.2 | 2.4 | 30.8 | 1.1 | .7 | .7 | 30.4
24th “ | 10.4 | 11.2 | 11.1 | 3.9 | 4.3 | 6.2 | 11.1 | 20.6
10th “ | 11.1 | 10.8 | 5.9 | 12.5 | 4.7 | ... | 13.9 | 22.3
=====================================================================

“Our conclusion therefore is,” says Doctor Lipsky, “that the bulk of the Socialist vote is derived from the foreign Jewish element, and to a less degree from the Germans.”

Perhaps, but one may not ignore, for instance, the fact that in the district of these containing the largest percentage of native Americans of native parentage, the Socialist vote for Governor in 1910 was 12.5 per cent of the whole; or that in the one in which the Russian and Austrian percentage was very small and the German larger than in any other of the districts selected, the Socialist vote was about 13 per cent. We shall see later in this chapter the importance of the German factor in the Socialist party.

All such analyses of particular elections, we may say again, are interesting and in a measure instructive; but generalizations are exceedingly perilous and greatly conditioned by personal preconceptions, special temporary and local forces and circumstances, and the purposes of the statistician for the time being--for all of which the candid student will, and must, make heavy discounts.

RESPONSE TO PROGRESSIVE IDEAS

Coming to the question of the Progressive party’s campaign in 1912, Doctor Lipsky says, in part:

One of two facts in the election of 1912 ... are extremely
suggestive even though they do not cover the whole ground. In that
election Roosevelt ran ahead of Wilson in only four districts of
the city. One was the 23d of Manhattan, in which Taft also ran
ahead of Wilson--a strong Republican district. The other three
were the 6th, the 8th, and the 26th, the three districts in which
the Russians and Austrians constitute the great majority of the
electorate.

So there you are--make what you will of it. Why should the very districts in which we found heavy percentages of Russians and Austrians, and a relatively heavy Socialist vote, produce a preponderant vote for Roosevelt and the Progressive platform? Is there, after all, a common factor, overlooked--or anyway not dwelt upon--by Doctor Lipsky, to account for what otherwise might seem inexplicable? Here again one may philosophize to suit himself, but it is worth while to consider one phase of the matter too often ignored in discussions of the motives and impulses behind the radical vote.

William S. Bennet, previously quoted in the same address, dwelt upon this matter in speaking of the influence of Mr. Hearst:[170]