Americans by Choice

by John Palmer Gavit

ATTEMPTS TO FIND THE “FOREIGN VOTE”

It is exceedingly difficult to identify the part played in any particular election, or in elections generally, by foreign-born voters. Political leaders and others who make analyses of election returns have their theories and prepossessions, and find in figures what they want to find, to defend policies, support theories, and sustain positions generally. In the presidential election of 1920, this was especially evident. Those who supported the Republican ticket and platform and those who supported the Democratic; those violently opposed to the League of Nations and those devotedly in favor of it—alike found in the election returns, manipulated to suit their views, sustenance for argument as to the part played in the result by this, that, and the other racial group or political faction. Even the Socialists, whose basic theory is the most definitely declared of all political theories, find in a growing vote evidences of wide acceptance of their doctrines; in its shrinkage merely the desertion of mere protestors or sentimentalists who really do not understand Socialism at all! Personal prejudice and predilection exhibit themselves notoriously in political figuring. The process usually consists of more or less gratuitous assumptions, from which one may prove statistically—whatever he wants to prove.

An exceptional instance of an attempt to analyze an election without preliminary bias appears in a study of “The Political Mind of Foreign-born Americans,” contributed by Dr. Abram Lipsky to Popular Science Monthly several years ago,[169] in which he undertook by analysis of the election returns from a number of Assembly Districts in Greater New York, predominantly of a certain racial complexion, to infer the attitude of those racial groups on certain subjects. But it is clear that the inferences, however they may have been justified by the figures from this election, were based upon questionable assumptions. Still more important, it is altogether fallacious to assume that in another election, wherein the issues were stated differently or the general political atmosphere was different, these very districts, these very individual voters of whatever race, might not vote quite otherwise. A state of mind among the Italian-born voters, provoked, for example, by their understanding of the attitude of Mr. Wilson on the subject of Fiume, might produce Republican votes in one election; whereas a year later, in an election in which their interests at home or abroad were believed by them to be otherwise affected, their votes might be overwhelmingly Democratic.

One of the questions which Doctor Lipsky undertook to answer from the election figures was whether the voters in the selected districts “read the Hearst papers regularly.” He inferred his answer from the vote cast in those districts for the candidates which happened to be favored by the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. But the basic assumption was fallacious, overlooking entirely the notorious fact that repeatedly elections in New York City have been won in spite of the opposition, or lost in spite of the support, of virtually the entire newspaper press of the city. As logically might one assume from any election that the vote, pro or contra, on any subject represented the circulation of some particular group of newspapers whose views the election indorsed.

Nearer the probabilities, but still subject to the same kind of discount, is Doctor Lipsky’s generalization as to the showing of one election on the subject of the attitude of certain racial groups as regards Tammany Hall and Socialism. This analysis is not without a certain degree of general significance.

Doctor Lipsky’s conclusion that “native-born Americans of American parents are opposed to Tammany government” is based upon a comparison of figures from districts predominantly of native Americans, in the elections for governor in 1910 and for mayor of New York in 1913, his primary assumption being that the candidacy of Judge Edward E. McCall for mayor embodied “Tammany” pure and simple, while that of John A. Dix for governor did not make “Tammany” a state issue. From this point of view Doctor Lipsky interprets the fact that the percentage of votes for McCall in those districts was strikingly lower than those for Dix in the state election of three years before:

TABLE XXXVII

Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for McCall in 1913 and Dix in 1910 by Voters of Native Parents

Assembly District		Per Cent of Native Parents	1913 McCall	1910 Dix
15th	Manhattan	45.3	33.7	58.1
19th	“	40.0	33.2	52.3
25th	“	44.1	35.3	48.4
27th	“	51.5	37.6	55.8
4th	Queens	41.3	31.1	46.2
17th	Brooklyn	45.6	24.7	43.6
11th	“	38.0	34.9	50.5
18th		39.0	28.3	46.3
5th		38.1	25.3	44.1
10th	“	38.6	36.6	53.3

But the Russians and Austrians also said “No” to Tammany, as Doctor Lipsky reads the figures:

TABLE XXXVIII

Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for McCall in 1913 and Dix in 1910 by Russians and Austrians

Assembly District		Russians Per Cent	Austrians Per Cent	Both Per Cent	1913 McCall	1910 Dix
8th	Manhattan	54.4	14.2	68.6	40.2	52.3
6th	“	30.4	30.8	61.2	22.8	40.0
4th	“	35.6	25.2	60.2	51.1	61.7
26th	“	34.6	6.7	41.3	30.0	41.0
2d	“	35.6	1.4	37.0	57.6	67.5
10th	“	22.3	12.5	34.8	29.3	52.2
31st	“	12.9	4.9	17.8	24.1	44.7
21st	Brooklyn	31.2	5.9	37.1	27.1	48.6
23d	“	33.3	3.9	37.2	25.7	40.9
14th	“	16.1	5.9	22.0	46.6	61.5
22d	“	13.0	3.0	16.0	24.3	38.5

The Irish voted for Tammany, as usual:

TABLE XXXIX

Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for McCall in 1913 and Dix in 1910 by the Irish

Assembly District		Per Cent of Irish	1913 McCall	1910 Dix
13th	Manhattan	16.4	61.0	58.1
16th	“	14.0	51.7	61.4
11th	“	12.2	55.6	60.5
14th	“	12.4	54.7	61.2
5th	“	11.2	64.4	67.6

Allowance must be made here for some falling off of the vote in a municipal as compared with a state election; but a still greater allowance must be made for the fact that “Tammany” was indeed a state issue—Dix was distinctly charged by the opposition with being Tammany’s candidate, and there were, as always, confusing and inestimable factors of a subtle kind—such, for instance, as the fact that McCall had an Irish name, and Dix didn’t; or that the name “John A. Dix” had a sound historically familiar—even if not one regularly American-born person in a hundred could remember who the historic “John A. Dix” was!

Some years the Germans are supposed to have supported Tammany; this particular time Doctor Lipsky seems to find that they did not—in districts in which Germans made up a considerable percentage of the population. (See [Table XL].)

Think what you will of the Italians’ attitude toward Tammany; you can stress the fact that the vote for McCall was so much below that of three years before for Dix, or you can philosophize about the fact that it was no greater! Doctor Lipsky’s inference that, on the whole, they supported Tammany is based on the figures from six districts. (See [Table XLI].)

TABLE XL

Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for McCall in 1913 and Dix in 1910 by Germans

Assembly District		Per Cent of Germans	1913 McCall	1910 Dix
3d	Queens	21.4	31.1	49.8
20th	Brooklyn	20.2	26.8	41.8
19th	“	13.6	31.9	48.3
23d	“	11.2	34.6	49.4
1st	Queens	11.1	41.4	55.2
22d	Manhattan	21.2	38.4	50.2

TABLE XLI

Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for McCall in 1913 and Dix in 1910 by the Italians

Assembly District		Per Cent of Italians	1913 McCall	1910 Dix
3d	Manhattan	30.3	67.6	77.7
1st	“	25.2	59.6	67.8
28th	“	26.8	42.6	55.8
3d	Brooklyn	23.2	63.7	73.1
2d	Manhattan	18.5	57.6	67.4

“We are able,” says Doctor Lipsky, “to say that a decided ‘no’ was given to Tammany by native Americans of native parents, and by the Russians and Germans; a decided ‘Yes’ was given by the Italian and Irish.”

The thing that stands out in these figures, whatever else may be said, would seem to be the fact that, like the native Americans of native parentage, the voters of foreign racial antecedents changed their support with changing circumstances and influences. The conventional view of the foreign-born voter is that he votes in herds, as he is told to vote, and that in New York City Tammany does the herding. Well, in the mayoralty election of 1913, judging by these figures, it is evident that Tammany’s “herding” was not wholly successful with those “new-immigration” voters classed as Russians and Austrians! All sorts of factors, local and general, fundamental and temporary, almost Wholly incalculable, enter into elections, and one is free to analyze and interpret to suit himself.

On the subject of the “political mind of the foreign-born voter” as regards Socialism, Doctor Lipsky presents some interesting figures from ten assembly districts in which the Socialist candidate for mayor in 1913 received over 10 per cent of the total vote.

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.