A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE—IT WORKS
Perhaps the most striking and unmistakable exhibit of this process is to be found in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the work of the Americanization Society presents concrete and visible results. The work in process there since the fall of 1918 is susceptible of definite and even statistical study. It has produced effects upon elections which can be stated in figures, and results in homes upon concretely discoverable human beings about which there can be no question. It is socially physiological, so to speak; working in a normal way in consonance with known political methods and customs, along the rational lines of least resistance—making use of the natural, spontaneous life of the people in their ordinary social and political relationships and in their homes.
A battle with machine politics over a matter of local administration, especially as affecting the treatment of the poor, convinced those interested in the unselfish conduct of the city’s business that the way to win, and the only way, was to appeal to the people direct and get them to vote. There was no fear as to how they would vote, but the effort was not addressed to that aspect of the question. The slogans speak for themselves!
Whether or not you vote is not your business; it is Uncle Sam’s business. HOW you vote is your business.
It’s always safe to trust all the people. If all the people vote, they will vote right.
Cast your own ballot. When you don’t vote, somebody else votes for you.
How many votes has a man? You say one. If you don’t vote somebody else has TWO votes.
Tags were the weapons directly used, and they had a profound effect. Committees of women, drawn from mothers’ clubs, women’s clubs, parents’ associations, etc., gave out the tags at the polls, asked the voters to wear them, and pinned them on when they could. The only way to get a tag was to vote; everybody who voted found it to his interest to wear one; and those who didn’t have tags wished they had. For the tag said:
“I am an American. I voted. Did you?”
The effectiveness of these tactics in arousing not only sentimental enthusiasm, but that kind of practical personal action at and in the ballot box which decides elections, is convincingly attested by the great increase in the registration and in the total vote.[161]
The essential purpose of the job was to get to the polls every individual entitled to vote; but incidentally, or perhaps better to say, fundamentally, to train the rising generation as to their privilege and duty of participation in public affairs, and to accelerate the naturalization and Americanization of the alien. In order to accomplish the first of these last two purposes, the campaign was carried into the public schools; in order to accomplish the second, great stress was laid upon naturalization. There were three other slogans:
Send the alien to the county clerk.
An early tag helps the flag.
Get your tag early. Ask the man who has none WHY?
This meant embarrassment for the untagged, and when the school children began to plague the untagged adult males it became unendurable. Woe to that father who came home at night without a tag! The family was disgraced in the eyes of the children. He was nagged, not about how he voted, but about why he didn’t vote at all!
Meanwhile, woman suffrage was established in Michigan, and the women came in for their share of the bombardment. A great campaign was begun to make the women realize their political responsibilities. It bore fruit in the registration of 26,000 women for the election in April, 1919; in one day 1,500 women registered. For the primary election in March the tag system got out 28,700 votes, and it was estimated that a blizzard raging on that day prevented at least 3,000 more. At the April election all the candidates recommended by the Citizens’ League were elected, although the tag system involved no pressure as to particular candidates or causes. There were thirteen different matters to be voted upon, and the result showed notable discrimination in the voting—by 37,000 voters, while from 5,000 to 7,000 votes could not be cast because of inadequacy of the polling facilities.