Part 7

The appearance of Germans with capital which sought investment in lines of business already pursued by Americans was no doubt less welcome, and to some it may have seemed like an intrusion. Generally, however, Germans began their business enterprises on so modest a scale, and built them up so gradually, that no serious economic dislocations could have been felt in consequence. In some cases the German business men merely undertook to meet demands created by the presence of their own people, which demands were not fully cared for by existing American enterprise. Perhaps no better illustration of this tendency can be found than the local tobacco trade. “Groceries,” of course, carried the “plug tobacco” used so widely in those days by Americans of all classes, while drug stores handled cigars. But smoking was more nearly universal among European immigrants than among Americans. Germans accordingly set up tobacco shops, which usually included a department for the manufacture of cigars. The investments were all small, ranging from $50 to $4000, but the payroll was of some consequence to the city and the output considerable. It is believed that all firms of tobacconists or cigar manufacturers listed by the census takers in 1850 were Germans.

Another industry in which Germans were prominent in 1850 was tanning. This they did not monopolize, for several non-German tanners were operating at the same time. But G. Pfister and Company, Tanners, had an investment of $35,000 and, employing thirty-five men, manufactured an annual product valued at $45,000, while all other tanneries taken together had an aggregate investment of less than $7500.

In boot and shoe manufacturing one American firm was far in the lead.[50] Yet, on a smaller scale, German firms were participating in the business actively, while German craftsmen were an important element in the success of all shoe manufacturers. A similar statement will hold true in the department of brickmaking. A large number of Germans worked in the brickyards as experts, and several had small plants of their own. But the big brickyard of the city was not managed by Germans.[51] There was one single rope maker, who was a German, and also one glove and mitten manufacturer, who was also German. Both of these industries were small.

There remains the historically important Milwaukee industry of beer-brewing, popularly supposed to have been introduced by immigrants from Munich and other centers of beer manufacture in the fatherland. The census lists a total of ten establishments designated as breweries. Of these, seven were owned by Germans and three by non-Germans. The investments by the latter aggregated $27,000, those of the former $20,900. But the sum of the annual products of the German breweries was $41,062, while the aggregate product of the others was $32,425. The non-German brewery which had the largest investment was doing an annual business valued at less than the investment, while one of the German breweries having only $3000 invested reported a product valued at $18,000.[52]

When we consider mercantile lines as distinguished from the industrial, Germans were prominent in those which called for moderate investments. They had many small grocery stores scattered through the city, a number of meat markets, and of course a goodly proportion of liquor saloons. There were also several German clothing stores, confectioneries, and bakeries. That their business men expected to sell almost exclusively to Germans is indicated by the fact that for the most part they advertised only in the German language papers--the _Wisconsin Banner_ and the _Volksfreund_,--not in the English papers. On the other hand, the American merchants, as we have already seen, catered to the German trade by providing German salesmen,[53] and they also advertised extensively in the German papers.

There were German taverns which did a thriving trade; the restaurants made the sojourner from Berlin feel at home; and the German beer gardens were the despair of the pious Yankee mothers of boys. So indispensable did German musicians become, that when the Sons of the Pilgrims banqueted, a brass band directed by a German bandmaster discoursed “martial as well as festive” music.

One other form of coöperation between Yankee and Teuton deserves to be mentioned--the employment of German girls in Yankee homes. This custom, testified to by German writers and indicated unmistakably by the census, was widespread. Such service was an immediate resource to the poorer immigrant families, and a boon to the American families as well. By that means numbers of future German homemakers came promptly into possession of the manners and customs of the Yankees, acquired their speech, and gained some insight into their distinctive views of life.

The least numerous of the special classes into which we have analyzed the German population of Milwaukee, in 1850, was the professional class. Yet it is not for that reason least important, for the little group of forty-five[54] persons contained most of the individuals whose views swayed public opinion among the 6000 Milwaukee Germans. Among them were two newspaper editors, each in charge of a German language paper. There were six lawyers, nine teachers, and eleven clergymen and preachers. Four of the preachers are described as German Lutheran, one was Evangelical, and one Methodist.[55] Two, Joseph Salzman and Franz Fusseden, were Catholic priests. One, F. W. Helfer, was called a “rationalist preacher.” Two, John Mühlhauser and G. Klügel, were merely called preachers.

It is not strange that medicine, among all the professions, should have had the strongest representation. A physician, wherever trained, is equipped to practice anywhere, while a lawyer, clergyman, editor, or teacher is obliged to prepare for service by first fitting himself into the community he is to serve. German medical education was far superior to American at that time, and, in the western states at least, the supply of trained physicians was below the requirements. There were communities in Wisconsin where not one-fourth of the practitioners were graduates of medical schools or had honestly earned the title of “doctor.”[56] This condition made a splendid opportunity for German physicians, who could hope to win the patronage of Americans as well as Germans. That the prospect was alluring to them is shown by the fact that Milwaukee at the census date in 1850 had seventeen German physicians, some of them already men of note in the community.

The Yankees and the Germans came into such close and intimate contacts in Milwaukee, that it is easier to study their normal attitudes there than in the outlying portions of the state. On the whole those relations, in the period terminating with the Civil War, appear to have been marked by mutual respect, if not active friendship. At all events, if there were differences causing ill will on one side or the other, these--so far as they were the outgrowth of the social, economic, or commercial interplay of the two groups--rarely became serious enough to be reflected in the public press. The prosperity of the city, providing usually full employment and adequate returns to all who wanted to work, made the bond between capitalist and employees satisfactory, and this solved one important aspect of the class problem. The absence of any decided public interest in the immigrant problem as affecting the city--other than politically--is a fact which obtrudes itself upon one who canvasses the Milwaukee papers, English and German, during the fourteen years which intervened between the first constitutional convention and the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency.

Yet, there are not wanting evidences that the two groups were quite distinct and that the Germans, as a foreign group, were sensitively class conscious. This is shown, for example, by the race appeals in their business advertisements. To call attention to one’s nationality when offering services of a personal nature, like those of the physician, or the dentist, or even the druggist, is reasonable and correct. But there is no good ground for assuming that nationality makes a difference to the purchaser of lime. Why then the advertisement of a _Deutsche Kalk Haus_ (German lime house), unless there was a feeling that the German dealer would be favored by German buyers simply because he was German? This is a typical example which goes to show the existence of a city within a city, a German Milwaukee which tended to live its own group life, for which, as already explained, it possessed, within itself, great facilities.

Occasionally some relatively minor happening threw this feeling of separateness into strong relief, as when, in 1850, a German scholar published in the Milwaukee papers of his language the story of his relations with the chancellor and board of regents of the University. He thought they had promised him a chair, but afterwards they made it plain that no contract had been closed with him. He may or may not have had cause of complaint. But what he professed to do was to lay the whole matter before the Germans of Wisconsin, in order that they might know how the board of regents “flouts the wishes of the German citizens,” how it keeps its promises “to Germans,” and how little it regards the rules of ordinary courtesy “in dealing with Germans.”[57] No doubt the design was to bring political pressure to bear on the regents, but the device would not have been resorted to had not the recognized racial unity among the Germans rendered that a hopeful plan.

In a society like the present Milwaukee, where inter-racial marriages are a daily occurrence, and one is rarely conscious of race in cases of that kind, the condition of seventy years ago seems almost incomprehensible. For, a close scrutiny of the entire census record for Milwaukee in 1850 reveals that marriages between Germans and Americans of all derivations at that time were excessively rare. The aggregate number of such unions was twelve. But of marriages between Yankees and Germans I can provisionally identify only six, as follows: Margaret, twenty-six years of age, born in Germany, was the wife of John H. Butler, a livery-stable keeper, born in New York. Hiram Brooks, twenty-seven, born in New York, was married to Mary, twenty-three, born in Hesse Darmstadt. James Ridgeway, thirty, a cooper, native of New York, was married to Mary, born in Prussia. Abram Davis, twenty-five, a cooper, born in New York, was married to C--, twenty-three, native of Bavaria. Joseph Stadter, thirty-three, physician, rated at $2000, who was born in Bavaria, was married to Sarah Ann, nineteen, born in New York (but a female who was a member of the family, and may have been this woman’s mother, bore a German name). Finally, William Stamm, thirty-two, painter, native of Bremen, was married to Lucy, twenty-eight, a native of Massachusetts.

It is not possible to determine how many of the American born persons represented in the six cases may have belonged to German families, but doubtless some did. At all events, we can assert that in Milwaukee at that time, with its nearly 6000 Germans and nearly 4000 Yankees, not more than six cases can be found of marriages between them. No commentary is needed to establish the fact of the virtual segregation of the two great population groups.[58] If Chevalier, the French philosopher, was right in his conviction that “the Yankee is not a man of promiscuous society,” it is equally true that the German at that time was excessively clannish. His clannishness was due, no doubt, to natural and inevitable causes, but the fact needs to be recognized by the student of history.

This disposition on the part of Germans to “hang together” was promptly discovered by American politicians and exploited for partisan and personal ends. The outstanding fact of the political history of the period under review is the attachment of the immigrant Germans to the Democratic party. That relation was all but absolute and universal during the 1840’s, though a gradual change took place in the last half of the next decade. There was nothing mysterious about it. Germans found the country, on their arrival, living under a Democratic administration, to which they looked for favors and usually not in vain. The Democratic party was liberal in the bestowal of lands; it contended manfully against the principle of monopoly, especially in banking and other corporate activities; and it emphasized the doctrine of the equality of all men. The Germans, like the Irish and, in fact, all immigrants, were strongly attracted by the principles professed in Democratic platforms. The very word “democracy,” had its winning appeal. “Democracy,” wrote the editor of the _Banner_ in 1850, “is a glorious word. There are few other words, in any language, which can be compared to it. To the poor man it is peculiarly precious since he is aware that he owes to it his escape from the serfdom in which his oppressors held him, and can now look up into heaven and thank his God that he has ceased to be a serf. Democracy knows no distinctions between man and man. She sets all upon the broad foundation of equality.”[59]

The enormous prestige gained by the Democratic party under Jackson’s leadership easily floated the administrations of Van Buren and Polk. But, as an influence toward captivating the foreign element in Wisconsin, no other Democratic principle had quite the efficacy of the liberal suffrage provision which the party in power adopted at the beginning of our history as a state.

In Michigan the makers of the state constitution had granted the voting privilege to all aliens who were _bona fide_ residents and who had declared their intention to become citizens. That clause in her organic law drew the criticism of Whig members of Congress, but she was admitted to the union in spite of their opposition, and thus was established the principle that men might be voters without being citizens. When, in 1846, the territorial legislature of Wisconsin provided by law for the holding of a constitutional convention, a similar proviso was made to govern the election of delegates to the convention.

In Milwaukee County the Democrats nominated eight candidates for delegates. Dr. Franz Huebschmann was the sole German named. The _Wisconsin Banner_, while remarking that Germans constituting one-third of the population were to have but a single delegate, urged Germans to vote as one man for him. He was needed, said the editor, especially to contend for equality in the voting privilege, for which he had striven manfully during the past three years. In the neighbor county of Washington, Germans were urged to support two Irish candidates who favored equality of the voting privilege and whom the Whigs (so it was asserted) were trying to defeat by the same wiles they employed against Huebschmann. The moral of the _Banner_ editorials was: “Don’t trust the Whigs. They have always opposed the rights of the foreign born.”[60] In preparation for the vote on delegates, Milwaukee Germans who had not declared their intention were given every direction for completing that formality, and the indications are that a large number of voters were newly made for the occasion.

Dr. Huebschmann, in the first convention, was a powerful advocate of equality, giving as the chief ground in favor of the principle that it would tend to bring Americans and foreigners into more harmonious relations with one another. “The more distinctions you make between them politically,” he said, “the more you delay this great end [amalgamation], which is so essential to the future welfare of this state. And, in fact, I regard only one measure equally important as the political equality which I ask for, and that is a good common school system.... Political equality and good schools will make the people of Wisconsin an enlightened and happy people. They will make them one people.”[61]

On the educational question Huebschmann found the Yankee majority of the convention eager to welcome his coöperation. On the subject of suffrage their unity was less complete. While party lines were not strictly drawn, the chief contenders for equality were leading Democrats and the chief opponents leading Whigs. But both conventions adopted the principle, the first not quite frankly, and with the admission of Wisconsin into the union all foreign born persons who had resided in the state one year prior to any election had the right to vote, provided they had declared their intention to become citizens of the United States.

The adoption of such a liberal suffrage provision in the teeth of the nativist movement which had affected all parts of the country more or less, was considered a great triumph of Democratic principles. And there is no doubt about the gratitude of adoptive citizens to the party which secured them the boon. To the Germans it seemed thenceforward a simple question of loyalty to support the Democratic party, through thick and thin, through good report and evil report. Inasmuch as the Democratic party also supported the Germans’ views on the subject of temperance (prohibition), soon to become a burning issue,[62] and in their contest with the more serious manifestations of Know-Nothingism, which in this state reached its climax somewhat later, one almost wonders how any of the Germans were able to detach themselves from that party, despite its failure to represent them on the slavery and free-soil issues.

The temperance movement and nativism were the chief grounds of political contention between Germans and Yankees during this period. The first of these broke, in 1853-55, on the rock of German--which meant Democratic--opposition. For, although a referendum vote had gone in favor of the enactment of a “Maine Law,” the Democratic legislature chosen at the same time refused to accept the result as mandatory, and did not pass the law. And when the first Republican legislature did pass such a law, in the early months of the year 1855, Barstow, the Democratic governor, vetoed the bill. Never thereafter did the temperance issue become as acute as it had been during the seven years immediately following statehood, but it is not strange that their record on that question was one of the standing arguments against Republicanism among the German voters.[63]

The Know-Nothing issue, which was supposed to be dying out at the time of the Wisconsin constitutional conventions, 1846-1848, revived after the Mexican War, figured prominently in the defeat of General Scott in 1852, and in this state as well as in some other states rose to dramatic and even tragic interest in 1855. Thereafter it declined, to pass away for the time being with the election of Lincoln and the engulfing of the nation in war.

But the Know-Nothingism of 1855 was regarded by the Democratic party as sinister because, as that party professed to believe, it had got itself incorporated as an important if not controlling element in the new Republican party. This the Republican leaders and organs denied with vigor, but it is true that the general council of the _American_ party in this state urged the support of the Republican candidates and professed to have contributed 20,000 votes toward the election of Bashford. The Republicans had no objection to Know-Nothing votes, but they feared that the endorsement of their ticket by the Know-Nothings would cost them more foreign born votes than it would gain them nativists. It was tactically wise for the Democrats, and especially the German Democratic press, to keep the “Republican-Know-Nothing” idea before their people--and they made the best use of the opportunity.

“Temperance,” after all, was regarded by the Germans as merely a manifestation of Puritan fanaticism, which must be opposed in the interest of personal liberty. Much as they disliked it, their opposition does not seem to have developed excessive bitterness against the believers in or practicers of temperance. But nativism, which demanded that the suffrage be limited to citizens; that naturalization be made more difficult; that in some departments, as in the army, natives be favored to the exclusion of the foreign born, this they felt to be a deliberate and vicious attack upon the rights of the foreign born as a class. The advocacy of these principles involved much discussion of the unfitness of foreigners, their ignorance, their sordidness, their “un-American” habits and customs, in one important respect their “anti-American” religion.

All of this inevitably roused a bitter, fighting resentment on the part of all foreigners, as it did among radical natives also, and it is well known that many parts of the country suffered in consequence from riots and other manifestations of a class war. In Wisconsin there was less overt hostility than in some states where the foreign elements were not so powerful.[64] The Know-Nothing party as such functioned seriously only in the one year 1855, and its propaganda was relatively mild-mannered.[65] Its chief objects of attack were the foreign born Catholics, which class included a majority of the Irish but only a fraction of the Germans, most of whom--probably--were either Lutheran or Reformed, with an appreciable number of non-churchmen or “free-thinkers.”[66] Nevertheless, nativism, as entangled in the political psychology of this eventful year, had its full share in producing a tragedy in this state also.

It came in the form of a lynching, carried out with hideous barbarism by a body of the ruder Germans of Washington County, in August, 1855. It seems that a sickly, weak witted boy of nineteen, named George DeBar--a native of New York State--felt himself aggrieved by a German farmer and proposed to administer a beating. This he partly accomplished, at the farmer’s home, but his victim fled into the field, where he found a hiding place. Meantime, DeBar ran amuck, and meeting the man’s wife stabbed her severely but not fatally. He next pursued a fifteen-year-old boy, Paul Winderling, who was living with the farmer, attacked him with his pocketknife, and killed him. He then burned the farmer’s cabin. DeBar afterwards solemnly assured his attorneys that the only part of the transaction he could remember was striking the farmer himself with a stone knotted in his handkerchief. The belief was widespread that he became unbalanced mentally at this point, which theory is really the simplest explanation of his horrible crime, committed without assignable motive.

Immediately on DeBar’s arrest a plan was hatched to storm the jail, take him out, and hang him. The death penalty had been abolished at the instance, as many felt, of the Yankee sentimentalists, and the ignorance of some suggested that, since hanging was only justice in a case like this, and the state refused to execute a criminal, the people themselves had a right to take the matter into their own hands. Unfortunately, a similar case had happened two weeks earlier at Janesville, in which the avenging crowd was made up of Americans.[67] It was suggested by some that DeBar was himself a Know-Nothing, or at least trained with the Know-Nothing element, and there were dire whispers about the trial judge, Charles H. Larrabee. Doubtless these rumors were altogether wild. The nineteen-year-old DeBar, practically _non compos mentis_, was of no possible political consequence, while Judge Larrabee at the time was as sound a Democrat as could be found.[68] But passions once fully aroused hurl reason from its throne, and so it was in this case. The rowdies gathered at a drinking place in West Bend, and decided on a lynching.