Photograph by Lodder
A Civic Banquet to "New Citizens," July 4th
Thirty years ago we knew as little of the ways of the ward boss as we knew of the megatherium or the great auk. The sources of his power were as mysterious as were the sources of the Nile before Speke and Baker. Now, thanks to Miss Addams and other settlement-workers who have studied him in action from close at hand, we have him on a film. The ward boss was the discoverer of the fact that the ordinary immigrant is a very poor, ignorant, and helpless man, in the greatest need of assistance and protection. Nevertheless, this man has, or soon will have, one thing the politician greatly covets, namely, a vote. The petty politician soon learned that by befriending and aiding the foreigners at the right time, he could build up an "influence" which he might use or sell to his own enrichment. So the ward politicians became pioneers in social work. For the sake of controlling votes, they did many things that the social settlement does for nothing.
It is Alderman Tim who gets the Italian a permit for his push-cart or fruit-stand, who finds him a city-hall job, or a place with a public-service corporation, who protects him if he violates law or ordinance in running his business, who goes his bail if he is arrested, and "fixes things" with the police judge or the state's attorney when he comes to trial. Even before Giuseppe is naturalized, it is Tim who remembers him at Christmas with a big turkey, pays his rent at a pinch, or wins his undying gratitude by saving his baby from a pauper burial or sending carriages and flowers to the funeral.
All this kindness and timely aid is prompted by selfish motives. Amply is Tim repaid by Giuseppe's vote on election day. But at first Giuseppe misses the secret of the politician's interest in him, and votes Tim-wise as one shows a favor to a friend. Little does he dream of the dollar-harvest from the public-service companies and the vice interests Tim reaps with the "power" he has built up out of the votes of the foreigners. If, however, Giuseppe starts to be independent in the election booth, he is startled by the Jekyll-Hyde transformation of his erstwhile friend and patron. He is menaced with loss of job, withdrawal of permit or license. Suddenly the current is turned on in the city ordinances affecting him, and he is horrified to find himself in a mysterious network of live wires. With the connivance of a corrupt police force, Tim can even ruin him on a trumped-up charge.
The law of Pennsylvania allows any voter who demands it to receive "assistance" in the marking of his ballot. So in Pittsburgh, Tim expects Giuseppe to demand "assistance" and to take Tim with him into the booth to mark his ballot for him. Sometimes the election judges let Tim thrust himself into the booth despite the foreigner's protests, and watch how he marks his ballot. In one precinct 92 per cent. of the voters received "assistance." Two Italians who refused it lost their jobs forthwith. The high-spirited North Italians resent such intrusion, and some of them threaten to cut to pieces the interloper. But always the system is too strong for them.
Thus the way of Tim is to allure or to intimidate, or even combine the two. The immigrant erecting a little store is visited by a building inspector and warned that his interior arrangements are all wrong. His friends urge the distracted man to "see Tim." He does so, and kind Tim "fixes it up," gaining thereby another loyal henchman. The victim never learns that the inspector was sent to teach him the need of a protector. So long as the immigrant is "right," he may put an encroaching bay-window on his house or store, keep open his saloon after midnight, or pack into his lodging-house more than the legal number of lodgers. Moved ostensibly by a deep concern for public health or safety or morals, the city council enacts a great variety of health, building, and trades ordinances, in order that Tim may have plenty of clubs to hold over the foreigner's head.
So between boss and immigrant grows up a relation like that between a feudal lord and his vassals. In return for the boss's help and protection, the immigrant gives regularly his vote. The small fry get drinks or jobs, or help in time of trouble. The padrone, liquor-dealer, or lodging-house keeper gets license or permit or immunity from prosecution, provided he "delivers" the votes of enough of his fellow-countrymen. The ward boss realizes perfectly what his political power rests on, and is very conscientious in looking after his supporters. Of the Irish "gray wolves" in the Chicago council I was told, "Each of them is a natural ward leader, and will go through hell-fire for his people and they for him."
To the boss with a hold on the immigrant the requirement that the poor fellow shall live five years in this country before voting presents itself as an empty legal formality. In 1905 a special examiner of the Federal Department of Justice reported: "Naturalization frauds have grown and spread with the growth and spread of the alien population of the United States, until there is scarcely a city or county-seat town ... where in some form these frauds have not from time to time been committed." In 1845 a Louisiana judge was impeached and removed for fraud, the principal evidence being that he had issued certificates to 400 aliens in one day. The legislature might have been more lenient could it have foreseen that in 1868 a single judge in New York would issue 2500 of such certificates in one day! The gigantic naturalization frauds committed in the Presidential campaign of 1868 resulted in an investigation by Congress and in the placing of congressional elections under Federal supervision. During the month of October two New York judges issued 54,000 certificates. An investigation in 1902 showed about 25,000 fraudulent certificates of naturalization in use in that city.
There is hardly need nowadays to recount what Tim and his kind have done with the power they filched through the votes of Giuseppe and Jan and Michael. They have sold out the city to the franchise-seeking corporations. They have jobbed public works and pocketed a "rake-off" on all municipal supplies. They have multiplied jobs and filled them with lazy henchmen. By making merchandise of building laws or health ordinances, they have caused an unknown number of people to be crushed, or burned, or poisoned. Worst of all, by selling immunity from police interference to the vice interests, they have let the race be preyed on and consumed in the bud. Thanks to their "protection," a shocking proportion of the inhabitants of our cities of mixed population are destroyed by drinking, dissipation, and venereal diseases.