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.