WHO IS THE BUYER OF VOTES?
Incidentally it may be remarked that in all this business of election bribery, which in past years has been all but omnipresent in American politics, the emphasis is laid upon those, American or foreign-born, who sell their votes. Even if it were true that the purchasable voter was chiefly the voter of alien race, every sale implies a purchase. Before any voter can sell his vote, somebody must be prepared to buy it. The seat of corruption lies, not in the venal voter alone, but also in the system that gathers money for the purpose of buying him. And that system, from the very beginning, has been devised and engineered by the American politician, and those behind him in American business life who desire to control elections and the people’s representative selected therein, for their own “business” ends. It would not be difficult to point to elections of very great importance in America—even Presidential elections—in which the vote of great states was swayed one way or the other by the margin represented by the out-and-out purchase of votes at so much per head. Nor would any person above the age of six years seriously debate the question of the native-American origin of the people who incited and paid for the corruption.
William S. Bennet, then a member of Congress from New York City, and of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, put his finger exactly on the center of this question when he said:[168]
Much of our trouble in the past has sprung from the belief among newly made citizens, justified by far too much evidence, that we ourselves have regarded elections as contentions to be decided not at all by argument, persuasion, or reason, but by trickery, treachery, bribery, perjury, assault, forgery, deceit and even murder.... The new and impressionable citizen of even but twenty years ago had held out to him at election inducements to all that was worst in his character. If he held our elections and our institutions lightly, we had ourselves to blame for it.... Man moves much along lines of least resistance, and the stranger adapts himself to conditions as he finds them. Make your elections riotous and corrupt, and your new-made, foreign-born citizen riots and sells his vote with the native-born....
The new citizen has neither political inheritance, prejudice, nor scars of conflict. He votes always in the present, sometimes for the future, but never in the past. Being poor, it is quite true that when there is corruption, he is among those approached. Being ambitious, the lure of minor place sometimes weighs with him more than principle.
Mr. Bennet, on the same occasion, emphasized the fact that a sharp distinction must be drawn between the mass of immigrants constituting the bulk of the foreign population, especially in the cities, and the small portion thereof actually participating in political activities:
It should be carefully borne in mind that in no great city is the naturalized voter a newly arrived immigrant.... In cities the newly made voter is a resident in this country certainly for five, and usually for more, years, before he votes even for the first time. Candidates in foreign-speaking localities frequently address audiences the majority of whom, either by age or alienage, are unable to vote.... The 644,000 electors who had a right to participate in our recent election were, thus, either native-born or having five years or more of residence. Of the 644,000 who registered about 590,000 voted. These divided their votes roughly as follows: Gaynor, Tammany and Democrat, 250,000; Bannard, Republican and Fusion, 175,000; Hearst, 150,000. Four years ago, the vote was, Tammany, 226,000; Hearst, 224,000; Republican, 137,000. Therefore this year both the Tammany and Republican candidates gained at the expense of Hearst. The exact significance of this is immaterial and accounted for readily by a variety of causes. The important fact remains that 150,000 voters, without particular leadership or organization, left the party ranks and voted for an individual of their choice.
There is no substantial support, either in any careful study of elections as a whole or in particular, or in the experience of those who have lived close to the political processes of our country, for the widespread impression that the foreign-born voter is more given to or victim of political corruption than any other class.