Part 30
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.