Americans by Choice

Table XLII

Per Cent of Socialistic Vote in New York City in 1910 and 1913 by Nationality

———
———
Assembly District		Socialist Vote		Native of Native Parentage	Aus­trian	Ger­man	Irish	Ital­ian	Rus­sian
		1910	1913
———
21st	Brooklyn	12.4	16.1	12.6	5.9	4.1	....	9.1	31.2
23d	“	12.5	15.8	19.6	3.9	2.2	1.6	4.6	33.3
19th	“	11.0	12.8	12.6	.8	13.6	....	9.9	11.9
4th	Manhattan	12.6	11.9	7.0	25.2	.4	1.1	2.5	35.6
26th	“	10.2	11.8	7.1	6.7	4.6	3.8	1.4	34.6
8th	“	14.6	11.7	2.5	14.2	.7	....	4.1	54.4
22d	“	13.1	11.7	10.6	4.6	21.2	5.3	1.6	3.6
6th	“	10.0	11.2	2.4	30.8	1.1	.7	.7	30.4
24th	“	10.4	11.2	11.1	3.9	4.3	6.2	11.1	20.6
10th	“	11.1	10.8	5.9	12.5	4.7	....	13.9	22.3
———
———

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

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

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

Response to Progressive Ideas

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

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

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

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

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: