Chapter XXI: Section 2169: (not a | | | | | | (5)

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Mr. Hearst’s vote among the foreign born was great, and, more
than the other two candidates combined [speaking of an election
in which Mr. Hearst was himself a candidate], he attracted that
vote. It becomes important to analyze Mr. Hearst’s appeal. Much
of it we find to have been on right lines. We cannot quarrel,
because of those views, with a candidate who asks votes because he
has fought against railroad rebates, corporation exactions, and
fraudulent elections. Under New York City conditions we cannot
quarrel with one who advocates the building of immediate transit
facilities with city money. It was also rather begging the question
to assert that Mr. Hearst exaggerated his efforts and usefulness
in relation to those matters. The personal and temperamental
fitness of a candidate is always an element to be considered,
and in Mr. Hearst’s case it was, though more in private than in
public discussion. His record as a persistent absentee during his
congressional service and the legitimate argument from it that he
would be a negligent mayor, cost Mr. Hearst more votes among those
friendly to him among the foreign born than he probably imagines.

Mr. Hearst never made an appeal for support on the ground that
it would be of any personal assistance to himself. His appeal
was frequently to the self-interest of the individual, and quite
generally to his highest interest as a citizen in the welfare
of the whole body politic. He favored policies because, in his
expressed judgment, they were right, not because they might be
immediately successful; and opposed others because wrong, though by
many deemed expedient.

The point to be noted, then, is that in the propaganda of the Socialists, of the Progressive party, of Mr. Hearst, there was much stress upon and slogans about the common welfare, the improvement of social conditions, the square deal, honest politics and government, human brotherhood. The note never was outwardly selfish or materialistic. Always, in the main, it was idealism--whatever may have been the private motives actually underlying in any particular case.

It is the common experience of those who have worked with the foreign-born voter that he usually is responsive to this kind of appeal. Is it not really a tribute to ourselves, as well as an index of his own idea of what “America” stands for, that he acts at the ballot box as if he would like to see these things incarnated in the life of his adopted country?

Mr. Bennet went on to say that “we learn, certainly, concerning our most recent citizens, from the Hearst vote”:

1. They are independent voters.

2. They are not constrained to remain in the party in power
nationally.

3. Nor do they remain with a party simply because it is usually
dominant locally.

4. They are not afraid to sacrifice immediate possible benefit by
attaching themselves to a lesser party and temporary movement.

5. They are moved by appeals to good citizenship.

6. They are quite certain to range themselves on the right side of
a question of morals.

7. A certain proportion of them are moved by direct appeals, based
on alleged class distinctions.

8. The thinly veiled policy of license advanced by the Tammany
candidate did not draw them from Mr. Hearst, though he vigorously
condemned license and its advocacy.

And Mr. Bennet added, “these things have been proved concerning the immigrant. Without going into specifications, which are, however, well understood locally, these things are _not_ proved”:

1. That he always votes for a fellow countryman or a coreligionist.

2. That he can be invariably stampeded by a race or religious issue.

3. That he votes blindly.

SOME RESULTS FROM CLEVELAND

It is impossible to forecast the working out in our politics of the passions aroused by the World War among the various racial groups by the relations and enmities of their respective fatherlands in that vast turmoil, and the effects of the behavior of native-American elements toward particular races, and even toward “foreigners” generally. It is evident that for any intelligent understanding of what, in the long run and under approximately normal conditions, are the political attitudes and activities, we must derive our facts largely from an earlier period--at least antedating the armistice and the bitter conflicts growing out of the Peace Treaty and the partisanship characterizing the controversy about the League of Nations which so greatly confused the issues in the presidential election of 1920.

A series of elections in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, in the period between 1911 and 1918 seemed to offer opportunities for study of a number of large racial groups under reasonably normal conditions. It is not claimed that this Study was conclusive in its results or fully scientific in its method; but it certainly produced a significant exhibit of facts, and in general confirmed what is known to everyone who ever has worked With or candidly observed at first hand the part played by the foreign-born voter in American politics--namely, that he is in no important respect different from the native-born; that he is swayed by the same motives and emotions, and is not essentially different in respect of responsiveness to appeals to his civic pride.

The first step was to select for study a group of election precincts including as large a proportion as possible of the various nationalities, and for comparison another group of districts which would show the action of native-born voters. Ten of the latter were selected, including populations both relatively wealthy and relatively poor, and both habitually Republican and habitually Democratic. For foreign-born racial groups the following were selected as most important: Czechs, Magyars, Poles, Jugo-Slavs, Italians, and Jews. Owing to the scattered nature of the racial distribution, it was impossible to find a large number of districts predominantly of any particular race; but it was possible to segregate three for each of these races, and four for one, for comparison with them of the native born; so that 29 precincts were studied, as follows:

TABLE XLIII

DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONALITY IN TWENTY-NINE PRECINCTS IN CLEVELAND

Eight elections were covered by the inquiry, comparing the votes for:

Mayor 1911--Baker _vs._ Hogen.
Mayor 1913--Baker _vs._ Davis.
Mayor 1915--Witt, Davis, Ruthenberg.
Mayor 1917--Stinchcomb, Davis, Ruthenberg.
President 1916--Wilson, Hughes, Debs.
Governor 1916--Cox _vs._ Willis.
Governor 1918--Cox _vs._ Willis.
Congressman 1918--Candidates differing in different districts.

The returns were examined also for indications as to attitudes about woman suffrage and the question of no-license and prohibition, in elections between 1912 and 1918.

Of the native-born precincts, so called, five indicated almost straight Democratic tendencies; three were consistently Republican; and two were of varying complexion as between the two great parties. It should be remembered that the prevailing general complexion of the city of Cleveland in recent years, and regardless of the “landslide” of 1920, has been Democratic. Therefore the districts selected to show the tendencies of the native born were fairly representative of the situation.

The first election, 1911, was a straight partisan contest between Mr. Baker, a Democrat, and Mr. Hogen, a Republican. In 1913, the city tried, for the first time, its municipal nonpartisan ballot; but in that year the old political parties were as powerful as ever. In the election of 1915, Mr. Baker was not a candidate, but Peter Witt, long associated with Mayor Tom L. Johnson, was the Democratic candidate. This election exhibits circumstances and results significant not only of the attitude of the foreign-born voter and his responsiveness to political cross-currents, but of the extreme difficulty of isolating particular factors as especially influential upon these voters.

Mr. Witt had just completed four years of service as Street Railway Commissioner, and among the business and professional classes of the town had won a rather reluctant recognition for efficiency, the reluctance being largely due to the fact that in days when he was campaigning for Tom Johnson he had been regarded as ultra-radical. But his opponent in this campaign had no recognized record of administrative capacity, and the Republicans themselves acknowledged some doubt as to his ability, compared with the known ability of Witt, to fulfill the duties of the mayoralty. Both candidates were regarded without opposition by the “wet” element, though Mr. Davis was perhaps more circumspect in his utterances on the liquor question. The campaign did not touch the questions involved in the European War until the very end, when, on the Sunday before election, some supporter of Davis published and widely circulated among the Bohemians (Czechs), Russians, and Italians a pamphlet in which Witt was bitterly accused of being pro-German.

Now the results of the election in the wards dominated by those nationalities might rationally be held to show a pronounced effect of that propaganda, but it was no secret, the old “aristocratic” wards were presumably as keen about pro-Germanism as those inhabited by voters of alien origin, and there, if anywhere, would be the seat of the prejudice against Witt on the ground of alleged radicalism. Why, then, did the native-born conservatives waive their prejudices against Witt, the supposed radical, and overlook the charges of pro-Germanism? And why did the foreign born, who are conventionally expected to be radical, suddenly turn and vote against the only candidate who was accused of being radical? Why did Mr. Witt gain nothing in the heavily German wards (as in fact he did gain nothing) from his German name, his remote German ancestry, and the accusation of pro-Germanism? It was further noted at the time that among the Russian Jews the attack upon Witt turned many normally Democratic votes to the Davis Republican candidate. Why?

The following tables show what happened in the precincts studied:

TABLE XLIV

DISTRIBUTION OF DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN VOTES IN CLEVELAND IN
1913 AND 1915 AMONG CERTAIN RACIAL GROUPS

========================================================
| NUMBER OF VOTES | NUMBER OF VOTES
+--------+--------+--------+--------
PRECINCTS | 1913 | 1915
+--------+--------+--------+--------
| Baker | Davis | Witt | Davis
--------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Native born | 945 | 1,091 | 1,039 | 925
Czech | 343 | 223 | 275 | 373
Magyar | 207 | 204 | 302 | 204
Polish | 263 | 208 | 205 | 473
Jugo-Slav | 283 | 135 | 279 | 137
Italian | 239 | 282 | 136 | 394
Jewish | 260 | 256 | 273 | 212
========================================================

The three elections following--the presidential in 1916, the mayoralty election in 1917, and the governorship election in 1918--exhibit no tendencies attributable either to the war or to any special causes from which one may generalize anything with regard to the political activities and attitudes of the foreign-born voters which would distinguish them from the native-born. In 1912 Wilson carried Polish, Magyar, and Czech precincts. In 1916 he repeated--this presumably not because of any aspect of the war, but because those precincts are normally Democratic.

The Cleveland nonpartisan ballot provides for three choices. One of the objections urged against the nonpartisan ballot has been that the second and third choices would be used only by the more intelligent voter; that the less intelligent would vote for but one. In the elections studied in which this three-choice system was used, 20 per cent of the native born expressed second choices; the foreign born followed in this order:

TABLE XLV

PER CENT OF CERTAIN RACES EXERCISING SECOND AND THIRD CHOICES

=====================================================
|SECOND CHOICE| THIRD CHOICE
RACE | PER CENT | PER CENT
-------------------------+-------------+-------------
Native born | 20 | 7
Jugo-Slav | 18 | 7
Jews | 14 | 5
Italians | 12 | 7
Magyars and Bohemians | 10 | 7
Polish | 7 | 3
=====================================================

A smaller per cent exercises third choice, but three foreign-born groups equaled the native born with 7 per cent. The Jews with 5 per cent, Magyars with 4 per cent, Polish with 3 per cent, were the lowest.

While there is little in these figures to justify generalization, it may be said that, on the whole, the voters presumably more intelligent are in practice rather afraid of the second- and third-choice business because they recognize some danger that in expressing a second choice they may, in the final count, negative their first choice; therefore there is a marked tendency among the politically sophisticated to vote only a first choice. At all events, no substantial distinction can be drawn from any available statistics between native and foreign born, as such, with regard to their intelligence or their tendencies in the use of such a device.

When one comes to consider what might be called the _human_ aspects of politics, these elections in Cleveland show, what elections everywhere show, interesting but in no way surprising facts. One is that the voters of any race tend to support a candidate of that race, or a man well known as friendly to its members. Mr. Davis was exceedingly well known and popular among the Bohemians, who are both numerically strong and racially influential in Cleveland. In the first election studied, that of 1911, Mr. Baker, a Democrat, carried the three Bohemian (Czech) precincts by substantial pluralities as against Mr. Hogen. His total vote in these precincts aggregated 445 to Hogen’s 183. But in 1913 Mr. Davis carried one of the precincts. And over against this fact is the consideration that in 1913 Baker was generally much weaker as a candidate than in 1911--for reasons having no appreciable racial bearing. In 1915, as shown in the table above, there was a heavy swing in the three Bohemian districts in favor of Davis, the Republican candidate.

Under the head of _human_ tendencies one may consider the question of the immigrants’ attitude toward prohibition. The reaction is just what would be expected from voters of foreign extraction. The Magyars (Hungarians), normally Democratic, swung greatly enhanced Democratic pluralities when that party was recognized as opposed to prohibition. And the old-country attitudes about the position of woman showed clearly in the vote on woman suffrage, as they all voted against the “dry” proposals and candidates.

In the earlier days in Cleveland the Italians were led by a very influential Italian who was a Republican, and until recent years the Italian vote was preponderantly Republican. Now, however, the Cleveland politicians will tell you that this preponderance has passed; the Italians are said to be fairly evenly divided. But in any particular election the Italian vote may sway this way or that, under the influence of temporary factors that swing elections everywhere. In one Italian precinct, in four municipal elections, the Republican candidate was preferred in every case. Hughes had a small plurality over Wilson. But in two state elections the Democrats won--admittedly because the Republican candidate was regarded as “dry.”

Again the human factor--take the Jews. One of the Cleveland precincts studied is made up of an overwhelming majority of the more prosperous class of Jewish people. The other two are located in the Ghetto of the city. There is no similarity in the political trends of the two parts of the city. The wealthier Jews vote as a rule for Democrat or Republican. In 1917 the Socialist candidate for mayor carried both of the poorer districts. But do the Jews move away from the Socialist districts because they are opposed to Socialism, or do they turn from Socialism when they become more prosperous?

Persistent in most of the studies of this subject is the fallacy of assuming or attempting to find some constant factor attaching either to this or that particular race, or to the state of being foreign born or of foreign antecedents. The Jugo-Slavs in Cleveland are said, and appear to be shown in the statistics above, to be preponderantly Democratic. In 1916 Wilson received in the three Jugo-Slav precincts more than 70 per cent of the total vote. But, aside from the fact that Socialism is or has been at times politically strong among the Jugo-Slavs, we have no data to show how Jugo-Slavs voted in districts where they are in the minority; we do not know why they voted for Wilson in 1916, or how many of them did so vote. The 70 per cent above referred to included large numbers of voters in those precincts who were of other racial complexion, and the individual ballot in no instance discloses the inner mind of the voter.

“CIVIC INTEREST” IN GRAND RAPIDS

When we come down to the larger question, of the response of voters of foreign birth and origin to constructive efforts to interest them in civic matters, we are on surer ground. Given a sufficiently comprehensive survey, we can tell whether the “foreign wards” of a city are apathetic toward movements which they can recognize as embodying concrete things close to their own lives, and meaning a forward step in public administration. The testimony of all sorts of workers among the foreign born is unanimous on this point. The foreign-born voters are more responsive to things of this kind than the native-born. Possibly this is because their more recent introduction into American life makes them more naïve, less blasé--what you will as to the reason, the fact remains the same.

It so happens that we have a peculiarly apt and informing exhibit of this in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in statistics of five elections involving questions of municipal import, and showing in most striking fashion the results of a sustained effort, not to influence votes this way or that, but to impress citizens with the importance of voting at all. The following tables show the total vote cast in the three wards of the city of Grand Rapids at these elections:

TABLE XLVI

VOTE CAST IN PRECINCTS OF VARYING RACIAL MAKE-UP IN THREE WARDS OF
GRAND RAPIDS, 1918, 1919

First Ward
==================================================================
PRECINCT| RACIAL |MARCH |AUGUST|NOVEMBER|MARCH | APRIL
| COMPLEXION | 1918 | 1918 | 1918 | 1919 | 1919
--------+-------------------+------+------+--------+------+-------
1st | Lithuanian | 95 | 144 | 178 | 222 | 316
2d | Dutch | 267 | 402 | 443 | 483 | 601
3d | Polish | 359 | 608 | 672 | 721 | 1,105
4th | American | 197 | 311 | 347 | 358 | 593
5th | American | 334 | 508 | 555 | 757 | 1,063
6th | Polish | 239 | 386 | 407 | 532 | 764
7th | Polish | 305 | 464 | 541 | 729 | 946
8th | American | 213 | 338 | 386 | 536 | 719
9th | German | 210 | 349 | 419 | 535 | 752
10th | Mixed | 296 | 425 | 455 | 682 | 909
11th | Mixed | 263 | 427 | 484 | 643 | 899
12th | American | 260 | 403 | 461 | 685 | 940
--------+-------------------+------+------+--------+------+-------

Second Ward
--------+-------------------+------+------+--------+------+-------
1st | American | 270 | 438 | 499 | 682 | 907
2d | American | 251 | 322 | 423 | 557 | 796
3d | American | 360 | 519 | 549 | 738 | 885
4th | American | 227 | 393 | 434 | 475 | 658
5th | Polish | 166 | 227 | 291 | 363 | 467
6th | Polish | 277 | 449 | 514 | 721 | 952
7th | American | 292 | 407 | 496 | 837 | 881
8th | American | 206 | 300 | 375 | 574 | 732
9th | American | 129 | 245 | 324 | 238 | 434
10th | Dutch | 314 | 451 | 546 | 1,002| 1,139
11th | Dutch | 240 | 373 | 418 | 594 | 726
12th | American | 231 | 399 | 476 | 783 | 931
13th | American | 409 | 588 | 671 | 1,063| 1,297
14th | American | 331 | 457 | 544 | 1,085| 1,229
15th | Italian and Syrian| 291 | 486 | 618 | 1,168| 1,357
16th | Italian and Syrian| 89 | 155 | 187 | 187 | 285
17th | Italian and Syrian| 115 | 164 | 209 | 253 | 326
--------+-------------------+------+------+--------+------+-------

Third Ward
--------+-------------------+------+------+--------+------+-------
1st | Italian and Syrian| 178 | 247 | 328 | 379 | 540
2d | Italian and Syrian| 98 | 135 | 258 | 263 | 440
3d | American | 318 | 551 | 680 | 1,004| 1,298
4th | American | 354 | 546 | 619 | 980 | 1,203
5th | American | 422 | 613 | 681 | 861 | 1,019
6th | American | 241 | 380 | 433 | 674 | 848
7th | Dutch | 292 | 480 | 511 | 628 | 952
8th | American | 346 | 555 | 631 | 818 | 1,165
9th | American | 255 | 416 | 509 | 720 | 979
10th | American | 266 | 470 | 547 | 771 | 1,114
11th | American | 188 | 360 | 450 | 516 | 812
12th | Dutch | 291 | 488 | 578 | 717 | 986
13th | Dutch | 218 | 367 | 413 | 463 | 658
14th | American | 224 | 404 | 490 | 677 | 909
15th | American | 124 | 224 | 272 | 417 | 604
16th | American | 194 | 387 | 442 | 594 | 847
--------+-------------------+------+------+--------+------+-------
| Totals |11,245|17,820| 20,774|28,705|37,983
==================================================================

The population of Grand Rapids, about 112,500 by the census of 1910, by the spring of 1918 had grown to approximately 132,000. This would afford a potential male vote of upward of 26,000; so that at the primary election that March, considerably less than half of the possible vote was polled. At the election in August, 1918, this was increased to nearly 70 per cent, and to 80 per cent in November.

In 1919, however, the women came into the picture, and the efforts of the Americanization Society[171] were redoubled to bring the women out, first to register and then to vote. The report of the secretary of the society (made at the annual meeting in January, 1920) states that on February 15th, the last registration day before the March primary, 22,700 women had registered. And on March 20th, the last registration day before the election of April 7th, women had registered to a total of 26,500--an astounding proportion of the possible total of women citizens of voting age in a population of 132,000. It looks very much like 100 per cent!

The last two columns in the table above show the totals including the women voters, and the striking increase between the March primary and the April election in 1919. With a possible total vote of upward of 50,000 we have the results of the Americanization Society’s work as showing in the actual personal presence at the polls of at least 75 per cent of the voters of all racial groups. The vote cast on March 5, 1919, was 28,705, composed, it is said, of about half men and half women. At the election on April 7th, nearly 38,000 votes were cast, and it is estimated that from 7,000 to 10,000 voters were turned away from the polling places because of inadequate election facilities. A fairly impressive exhibit of the response of American citizenship to an appeal to American, nonpartisan, _civic interest_, in a large cosmopolitan city, regardless of racial complexion. Indeed, without meaning to stress the point unduly, it may be remarked in passing that the very few precincts which in any election failed to show a substantial increase over the vote at the previous election, are in every instance those in which the population is described as predominantly of the native born.

That it was the appeal to civic interest and duty, and nothing else, which in largest measure produced this result may be seen, for instance, in a comparison of the registration of women in Grand Rapids with that at the same time (February, 1919) in other Michigan cities in which there was no such intensive campaign to get the women out to the registration places:

TABLE XLVII

PER CENT OF WOMEN REGISTERED IN THIRTEEN MICHIGAN CITIES

============================================================
CITIES | POPULATION| WOMEN | PER CENT OF
| | REGISTERED| POPULATION
-----------------------+-----------+-----------+------------
Grand Rapids | 132,000 | 22,700 | 17.0
Saginaw | 65,000 | 8,509 | 13.0
Benton Harbor | 12,000 | 1,506 | 12.5
Traverse City | 12,000 | 1,388 | 11.6
Jackson | 50,000 | 5,388 | 10.8
Muskegon | 42,000 | 4,500 | 10.7
Bay City | 50,000 | 6,290 | 10.6
Port Huron | 25,000 | 2,706 | 10.1
Flint | 70,000 | 6,906 | 9.9
Kalamazoo | 50,166 | 4,308 | 8.6
Detroit | 986,699 | 65,040 | 6.5
Lansing | 55,000 | 3,000 | 6.3
Cadillac | 10,000 | 513 | 5.1
-----------------------+-----------+-----------+------------
Totals and average | 1,591,865 | 135,344 | 8.5
============================================================

Even then, however, the Grand Rapids movement was spreading to other Michigan cities; some of the results of that influence may well be visible in the larger percentages shown by some of these cities. Since then, indeed, the movement has become state-wide; and the results already visible show notably the same facts and tendencies so strikingly exhibited in the case of Grand Rapids, where it began.

MUNICIPAL VOTERS’ LEAGUE OF CHICAGO

The most conspicuously successful effort to mobilize all the resources of a great city behind the general movement for honesty and efficiency in city government is undoubtedly the Municipal Voters’ League of Chicago. Its record of accomplishment is too long and too brilliant to permit any serious discouragement from the fact that immediately following the war there appeared to be a setback and reaction in Chicago’s local elections. For the time being there seems to be everywhere a recession in nearly all forms of social idealism. That is the inevitable result of the moral overstrain that accompanies war. Much work must be done over again, but, at the worst, it must be recognized that the tide of advance during the past quarter-century left marks which will not be forgotten; standards of social welfare and responsibility which, in the long run, will continue to stand as a minimum of progress.

Another thing: Into Chicago has come, during the past few years, a vast population of negroes from the South, among whom never anywhere has a particle of work been done tending to teach them the smallest thing about political responsibility or civic pride. In the election of April, 1919, when William Hale Thompson was re-elected mayor of Chicago, despite the opposition of all the constructive elements in the city, a good deal more than half of Thompson’s plurality was gained in the Second Ward, which is _the_ negro ward of the city. It would be misleading to generalize from the results in the foreign wards, because the issues were greatly confused by the war and accusations of pro-Germanism against Thompson. Even so, Thompson in that election carried only one of the heavily German wards. In some of the wards, dominated by native-born voters, he won because, in spite of his alleged pro-Germanism, he was the candidate of the dyed-in-the-wool, stand-pat Republicans. The issue of decent government, by which one would test the constructive influence of any group of voters, was swamped in a wave of passion. So for any general judgment of the response of racial groups, or of the foreign-born voters as a whole, we must consider the whole experience of the Municipal Voters’ League during its effort of twenty-five years to raise the quality of character and public service in the city’s board of aldermen.

The genius of this organization of public-spirited volunteers lies in its reliance wholly upon _publicity of the records of candidates_. These records, carefully investigated, with full opportunity for the candidates or their friends to bring forward any facts or arguments in their behalf, were published in the newspapers and spread broadcast by means of pamphlets. The influence has been enormous and accelerating. In the early days the main stress was laid upon mere personal character--candidates must not be thieves; increasingly during succeeding years the test came to be that of _capacity_ as well as character. The war reactions and results have not destroyed, but only interrupted, this magnificent work.

How did the foreign-born voter respond to this effort and propaganda? The answer to this question, as found all through the twenty-odd years before the entrance of the United States into the war, is one of the most heartening things in American politics. But this statement must be taken with discrimination, and subject to certain qualifications. The League has had its hardest fights, and produced the least results, in those wards where solid blocks of immigrants of some one racial complexion encouraged a racial isolation; or where great masses of population were under the domination of some reactionary political or religious leadership, having some interest in maintaining a subservient representation in the City Hall. In the centers of poverty, where political strength is maintained by leaders of the old type through control of day-labor jobs, gifts of coal, shoes, and other forms of charity, it is difficult to interest a population to whom even a vision of clean streets is of importance secondary to to-day’s experience of empty stomachs. In a general way it may be said that the degree of response to movements like the Municipal Voters’ League is roughly commensurate with the degree of material prosperity. As the immigrant gains in quality and wage-return of his job, acquaintance with American essentials, and comfort of material surroundings, he gains interest in the ethical aspect of community life.

But the uplifting influence of a campaign like that of the League penetrates even into the most obdurate regions. The Seventeenth Ward of Chicago was long the scene of one of the hardest fights of the League. Through the hard work of Prof. Graham Taylor and the group of good citizens centering in and about the Chicago-Commons social settlement, the work came to great success--and held it--as long as the population was characteristically Scandinavian, German, Scotch, and Irish. In recent years, however, these people gradually moved out of the ward, and it came to be heavily Polish, under the domination of a reactionary control of the Polish Catholic Church. This element always has been hard to influence, and its priests are active directly in politics. Nevertheless, in a recent aldermanic campaign, a Polish Catholic alderman running for re-election told at a public meeting how his daughter came home from school crying, with a newspaper in her hand, demanding to know what her father had done to justify the newspapers in saying he had a bad record--his record set forth in cold type by the Municipal Voters’ League. This alderman at that meeting declared that he had been receiving patronage for his vote in the council, that he was going to drop that, try hereafter to serve the best interests of his ward, and make a record of which his children could be proud.

The Italians as a whole, in Chicago as in many other places, have been more united in their action than most other racial groups, and under their ancient habits of padrone leadership have shown a tendency to accept boss rule, though the Italian voter as an individual is no more amenable to corrupt influences than voters of any other race.

Over the whole history of the League’s activity it has been true that the races most responsive to its appeal are the Scandinavian, German, Irish, and Bohemian. Given a candidate of any race, other things being equal, the voters of that race will support him; as between two competing outsiders, the voters of these races have been more than willing to heed disinterested appeals from the point of view of good government. Some of the best aldermen during the past twenty years in Chicago have been Germans. The late Alderman Beilfuss, Republican, a native of Germany and an excellent official, was re-elected time after time in the Fifteenth Ward; but as the Scandinavians and Germans--especially Lutheran Germans--moved away and the scale of prosperity in the ward’s population deteriorated, his pluralities diminished, and in the year before his death he won by a narrow margin.

In the predominantly Bohemian Twelfth Ward aldermanic candidates recommended by the League were elected almost without exception for many years, regardless of political alignment. In that ward, from 1904 to 1909, inclusive, the Republican Bohemian and the Democratic German candidates, both indorsed by the League, alternated in winning elections, the pluralities running from 3,400 on one side to 3,100 on the other--in a ward casting a total of perhaps 15,000 votes a shift of 6,500. When Mayor Thompson, Republican, in 1915, carried the ward by nearly 4,000, Alderman Kerner, a Bohemian Democrat of excellent record, carried it in the same election by 3,350. In other words, there was a politically independent swing of nearly one-half of the 15,000 votes cast in the election.

The Irish voters generally pay close attention to what the League says. In the spring campaign of 1919, the League’s condemnation of a Democratic Irish alderman in the Thirtieth Ward furnished his opponent, whom the League recommended, with enough ammunition to defeat him for renomination, whereupon an Irish Republican, a former alderman with a good record, who received the final indorsement of the League, turned in and beat the Democratic nominee. In the Thirteenth Ward, largely Irish, which Mayor Thompson, Republican, lost in 1919 by more than 4,000, a Democratic alderman condemned by the League was defeated by a native-born Republican whom the League indorsed, by more than 1,800 votes.

SOME OTHER INSTANCES

Dr. Charles W. Eliot told the Good Government Conference at Cincinnati in 1909 of an incident in Massachusetts which reflected the interest of foreign-born voters in political questions on their merits regardless of racial or religious considerations:

A few years ago, largely through the efforts of a single citizen,
the Massachusetts Legislature changed the number of the school
committee of Boston from twenty-four to five--in itself a
prodigious improvement. Now, Boston is the home of three Roman
Catholic races, the Irish, the French Canadians, and the Italians.
The Italians have lately come in large numbers, and many of them
are from southern Italy and not from northern Italy. What did the
voters of Boston do in electing a school committee of five at
large? The election was not by wards, but at large. They elected
at the very first election--and have maintained the composition of
the committee as then determined ever since--two Catholics, two
Protestants, and one Jew, and the Jew has lately been the chairman
of the committee. Now is not that creditable to the Roman Catholic
majority in the city of Boston? They have a clear majority.
Moreover, does it not tell us something encouraging about the
manner in which voters of foreign birth will use the power of the
vote in our country?

A. C. Pleydell of New York, on the same occasion, contributed a testimony of the same general character:

In New Jersey a large settlement of Italians in a small country
township until lately have been the prey of the political leaders,
who are just as corrupt as in the city. A gentleman whom I know
who is, I believe, of a different political faith, moved out there
some years ago and began to take an interest in the local life of
the community. He started to clean up the school board and get
decent schoolhouses. There were sixty or seventy Italian children
at that little village school. The village has a population of
only a few hundred. This man got subscriptions from these poor
people, a little help from the outside, and contributed something
himself. For two or three years they have had neighborhood meetings
without regard to party, which these foreigners attended. One of
the finest and most inspiring sights I have ever seen was at the
school festival held in that little hall, largely filled by these
foreigners.... These foreigners, under the leadership of this one
man, have formed a good-government organization that has spread to
neighboring townships.... He uses for its motto, “Put the circles
on the square,” the square being the township and the circles being
little group organizations. They have broken up the political ring
in that township to-day by independent voting and nominations;
... as a result of this work in that township the movement has
spread into another township which has been more corrupt, although
inhabited almost altogether by native Americans. At the last
election the people in that other township took an inspiration from
the work that had been done by the foreign Italian population, and
cleaned up their township....

There is just as much democracy in those people as we have, and we
do not want to lose sight of the fact that they are human beings
just like everybody else. I am the son of an immigrant from another
part of Europe. The immigrants from the southern part have just as
much ambition as the immigrants from the northern part.

I. M. Wise of Cincinnati in the same discussion said:

We have had a very fine example of the independence of the foreign
voter during the last few years in Cincinnati. We had a movement
started for the purpose of electing a prosecutor, and we found,
after investigating the returns of the election, that the victory
was due almost entirely to the foreign vote. But we had another
example some years ago when there was a movement to sell the
Cincinnati Southern Railway. This measure was defeated by a small
majority, due entirely to the German citizens who usually show more
independence than the other foreign citizens.

William Bennett Munro, in his _Government of American Cities_,[172] discussing the reasons for the political misleading of the foreign-born voter by corrupt leadership, points out that “the discreet and sober use of the ballot is something not to be learned in a day or even in a generation,” and that “it is not a matter for surprise, then, if alien-born voters have often proved easy prey to the sophistry and cajolery of claptrap politicians.” He says, further:

We have the testimony of seasoned campaigners that the alien-born
voter is inclined to think for himself if he has the opportunity;
but too often he does not secure even that small amount of fair
information which is necessary to furnish food for thought. As
a rule, practically all he gets concerning the facts of the
municipal situation comes to him in such form that it leads to one
conclusion only.... Experience has proved that he cannot always be
stampeded by appeals to class prejudice, or delivered blindly to
some political faction. Given a fair chance, he is, according to
authoritative testimony, a voter of at least normal independence.

Considering the bewilderment with which thousands of old-stock native-born voters confront the complications of our Federal, state, and local governments, and the complexity of our inordinately long official ballots, it is small wonder that, like them, the foreign-born voter, even after many years’ residence in this country, follow shibboleths and leaders who to them represent a certain definiteness and clarity of purpose and action. This is especially true when the whole subject of governmental reform and efficiency comes to them in the guise of relatively arid abstractions in which they do not see their own interests, and by the voice of men living in far distant parts of the community, who do not understand their intimate problems, or speak the language of their daily lives. In almost every instance in which the issue was made clear and intelligible to them, the foreign-born voters of almost every nationality have responded in surprising fashion.

XII

THE FOREIGN BORN IN RADICAL MOVEMENTS

It would require an exhaustive investigation, beyond the space limits and the scope of this volume, to describe the part which the foreign born have played in the various radical movements marking the history of the United States. Of course, there is a sense in which anarchism, philosophical or violent, works toward a “political” end. The attempt to abolish all government and establish individual free will as the only law, is in that sense political. From that point of view one must discuss the influence of primitive Christianity, the teachings of such philosophers as Herbert Spencer, Tolstoy, Emerson, Thoreau, and a host of others in all countries. We confine ourselves here to the activities of the foreign born as they affect our ordinary political machinery and processes, participating or willfully failing to participate at the ballot box, or at least directly influencing political activities and policies.

We have to consider briefly the immigrant’s participation in these forms of activity: (a) Political Socialism. (b) Populism--lately embodied in the Nonpartisan League. (c) The Land Question--agitation, for example, for the so-called Single Tax. (d) Antipolitical organizations, as exemplified in the I. W. W., Communist party, etc.

It is a curious fact that radical movements in any country habitually are attributed to the foreign born. Bismarck assured the Germans that Socialism could not take permanent root in Germany because it was of English origin; while Gladstone declared that the “Social Democratic” doctrines could not abide in England because they were imported from Germany. It is common in this country and elsewhere to assert that Socialism is a movement inspired and carried on by Jews. There is no sound basis for this or kindred assertions. Socialism, and radicalism generally, are of no particular geographical or racial origin. Among a really prosperous and contented people radicalism is an academic affair; the common man is not interested. It is only when social and economic conditions produce extremes of wealth and poverty, and when primary discontent with the basis and atmosphere of daily life is widespread, that political radicalism of any kind attracts any but the fireside debaters. In the last analysis the only real and effective agitator is injustice. The Socialist movement appeared in Japan only after modern industrialism and the factory system had reached a stage of development creating a psychological soil in which it could grow.

Socialism appeared in America early in the nineteenth century, but it did not assume any political significance until the country had become rather industrial than agricultural. It did not originate among the foreign born, nor were its early protagonists of alien birth.

Long before the influence of Marx appeared in statements of Socialistic theory in this country, or any other, the essentials of Socialism were published and discussed on both sides of the Atlantic. When Karl Marx was a little boy Robert Owen reprinted in England a Socialist pamphlet by an American workingman. About the same time one Thomas Cooper of Columbia, South Carolina, published a book containing all that is essential of Socialist doctrine. And O. A. Brownson, editor of the Boston _Quarterly Review_, was preaching the inevitability of a class war, the abolition of the wage system, and the necessity of the “triumph of the proletariat.” In 1829, when Marx was eleven years old, Thomas Skidmore, R. L. Jennings, and L. Byllesby exercised a marked influence with the preaching of what would even now be recognized as “straight Socialism.” There was no influence of Marx or any other immigrant in the substantially Socialistic--and collectivist--teachings of such men as Horace Greeley, George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, Parke Godwin, Higginson, Channing, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell.

Socialism, in fact, is a spontaneous human reaction to individualist capitalism. In that hour when the grouping of privately owned wealth, in the hands and under the control of combined owners as partners or in the form of corporations, was made necessary by the increasing intricacy and expensiveness of machinery and the application thereto of steam power--the institution, in short, of the factory system--Socialism--the theory of the collective ownership of the means of production--became the inevitable reaction in the minds of persons and classes dissatisfied with the workings of the process. Naturally, these persons would be chiefly of the class of those who had nothing to contribute except their bare hands and brains--the proletariat. Bear in mind that we are not here discussing the merits of the theory.

What Marx did was to elaborate and systematize the theory. And he did something else. The earlier preachers of Socialism were largely idealists, most of them of the Christian faith, who appealed to the sense of brotherhood, talked in terms of the Sermon on the Mount and the Kingdom of God. Later came, notably in the writings of Marx, the reduction of the whole business to materialist terms; the disappearance of all sentimentalism and religious terminology from the propaganda. Logically it is a short step to the atheistic extremes of merciless dictatorship by minority and the harsh suppression of opposition, exemplified in the rule of the so-called Bolsheviki.

This is very important, because it affords the psychological background against which to see the reason why materialistic Socialism has to so great an extent failed to hold the allegiance of the naturally idealistic, church-bred, native American, and has so largely come to be a movement supported by the foreign born. For, whatever may be said about Socialism as not peculiarly of foreign origin, it nevertheless is a fact that in this country, in its aggressive political aspect, Socialism is preponderantly of foreign-born personnel, and to a large extent, though by no means exclusively, German and Jewish. It is impossible to present reliable statistics as to the number or racial distribution of Socialists, because, in the first place, there are thousands of persons of all races entertaining Socialistic ideas and theories who do not call themselves Socialists. The vote of the Socialist political parties includes large proportions of votes due to reasons other than Socialist views; the Socialist parties have in the past contained thousands of members who were not voters. Furthermore, there is no census or tabulation of Socialists that can be relied upon.

THE SOCIALIST PRESS

Some significance might be attached to the relative circulation of the Socialist daily press, which is largely foreign-speaking. There appear to be but two daily Socialist newspapers published in English--the Milwaukee _Leader_, claiming a circulation of 37,000, and the New York _Call_, credited with about 15,000. The potential circulation of these papers, and even more those in foreign languages, no doubt is much larger than this, the difficulties of distribution due in part to lack of capital, but still more to mailing restrictions inflicted during the war, preventing their free circulation. There are, or until a recent date were, at least thirteen Socialist papers published in foreign languages--one Bohemian, four Finnish, three German, one Hungarian, one Yiddish, one Lithuanian, one Polish, and one Russian. According to the _American Labor Year Book_ of 1916, nine of these foreign-language dailies approximated a total circulation of 302,000. Against these dailies, however, must be placed many Socialist and Socialistic periodicals, weekly and monthly, published in English. One source of information on this subject asserted that “those who have definitely accepted the Socialist philosophy of life read the Socialist daily newspapers.” This is hardly supported by the facts. For obvious reasons, the Socialist dailies are not very satisfactory sources of news information, and many convinced Socialists do not read them--perhaps cannot get them--but rely for their Socialist reading upon periodicals appearing at longer intervals. This would appear from the circulation of such papers in English as the _Appeal to Reason_, published at Girard, Kansas, which claims a circulation of 529,132, and the _National Rip-Saw_, published at St. Louis, which claims 200,000. To what extent these papers represent deeply convinced Socialists, and those holding more or less mildly Socialistic views, it is impossible to say.

DUES-PAYING SOCIALIST MEMBERS

According to the _Appeal Almanac_ for 1916, the dues-paying members of the Socialist party from 1903 to 1915 totaled:

TABLE XLVIII

NUMBER OF SOCIALISTS PAYING DUES EACH YEAR, FROM 1903 TO 1915

==========================================================
1903 | 15,975
1904 | 20,763
1905 | 23,327
1906 | 26,784
1907 | 29,270
1908 | 41,751
1909 | 41,479
1910 | 58,011
1911 | 84,716
1912 | 113,371
1913 | 95,401
1914 | 93,579
1915 | 79,374
==========================================================

The year 1912 was the year of the Roosevelt Progressive revolt against the Republican party; it may be that thousands of voters of radical or liberal tendency who resented the Republican attitude, but could not follow Mr. Roosevelt, or swung farther than the Progressive party was willing to go, went into the Socialist party. But it seems quite evident that the heavy slump between 1914 and 1915, when the figure dropped from 93,579 to 79,374, was due to the reactions of the war, and in particular to the increasing resentment of native Americans against the attitude of the party leaders which culminated in the platform adopted by the party organization at St. Louis--antiwar, and by most ordinary folk, including thousands of perfectly good Socialists, deemed not only pacifistic, but definitely pro-German. That situation alone drove a rift down through the Socialist ranks, and certainly made it legitimate henceforth--for the present, anyway--to regard the Socialist party, as constituted, as an organization distinctively of foreign stock and foreign born.

RACIAL GROUPS OF SOCIALISTS

Owing to the polyglot character of the Socialist movement, it became necessary to organize language groups. This movement was well under way in the years immediately preceding the war. The German Language Federation, which was formed in December, 1912, at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, at the end of the third year claimed a dues-paying membership of 4,577.[173] The Finnish Socialist Federation was credited with 10,616 in 1916. The French Language Federation reported 497 members in December, 1915. The Hungarian Language Federation claimed membership “well above 1,500.” The Italian Socialist Federation reported “about 1,000 members in good standing.” The Jewish Socialist Federation was stated to have “about 5,000 members.” The Lithuanian Socialist Federation stated that it had “a little over 2,000 members.” The South-Slavic Socialist Federation claimed about 2,000. The Scandinavian Federation gave its membership as 1,161, of whom 265 were women. There were recognized also organizations of Poles, Slovaks, Japanese, etc.

The Finnish _Kalenteri_ for 1918 gave a list of racial groups of Socialists in the United States in this order of relative strength. It is a striking fact that the Americans lead, but it must be remembered that for their statistical purposes a naturalized citizen may be as good an American as one native-born of old stock. (See Table XLIX.)

TABLE XLIX

RANKS OF RACE GROUPS IN RELATIVE SOCIALIST STRENGTH

This is well enough for rough purposes, but it is too loose for generalization as to racial tendencies. “Jews” might be of almost any nationality, and “Slavs” might cover natives of almost any of the countries east of the Carpathians and the Adriatic.

The foreign-language groups of the Socialist party in 1916 had an aggregate membership of over 29,000, and if we accept the estimate of the National Executive Secretary of the party, of 94,140, as the dues-paying membership during the first four months of that year, it would appear that 31 per cent of all dues-paying members of the party were foreign-born persons, either not citizens or so unfamiliar with English as to prefer to belong to a foreign-speaking branch of their political party.

There are two ways of looking at all this. One is to assume that, but for the war and the disorganization which it threw into the Socialist party’s ranks, including a virtual decision to confine membership to voters, there would have grown up a large political body of aliens, of unknown and probably menacing potentiality. The other is to recognize that, with the foreign-speaking organizations as a starting point, the immigrant would have been brought directly and early into an active interest in American politics, personal participation in the study of its affairs, and susceptibility far greater than it is common to acknowledge to the appeal of reason and experience in the solution of political questions. The present writer believes that to a considerable extent the fluctuations in the Socialist vote are due to changes of mind about Socialism _on the part of individual voters of all races_.

THE SOCIALIST VOTE

Previous to the organization of the Socialist party, the Socialist political activity in this country was in the custody of the old Socialist-Labor party. Its vote, as listed by the _Appeal Almanac_ for 1916, developed as follows:

TABLE L

SOCIALIST VOTE FOR PRESIDENT FROM 1888 TO 1898

========================================================
1888 | 2,068
1890 | 13,704
1892 | 21,512
1894 | 30,020
1896 | 36,275
1898 | 82,204
========================================================

After 1898 the vote of this party declined rapidly until, in 1914, its candidate polled only 21,827 votes.

On the whole, the best index of Socialist political strength is the vote recorded in the ballot box. A tabulation of the vote of the Socialist party in the presidential elections since and including that of 1900 is therefore germane. (See Table LI.)

TABLE LI

THE SOCIALIST VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY STATES FROM 1900 TO 1920{1}

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