This is a social responsibility on the part of America toward its foreign-born citizens. It does not belong to the courts, or, to any great degree, to the schools. These two agencies are to see to it that the candidate for naturalization knows and can use the English language, is of good moral character, and is “attached to the principles of the Constitution.” But at the best, the preparation for and the process of naturalization alone does not Americanize, does not qualify a man for the American vote in nation, state, or city.
With some sense of this, the schools that prepare for citizenship have within the last year been revising their courses in “civics” for aliens. They have put aside the paraphrases of the Constitution which have been the traditional textbooks for these classes and they have evolved a system of “community civics” designed to teach the alien his privileges and responsibilities in their simplest form, with direct reference to his everyday life and his own immediate points of contact with the laws of public health, of property, of parents’ obligations, etc.
This is a much-needed movement. But it should be accompanied by some organized effort to make the immigrant voters of this country an entirely intelligent political force. I am referring of course to the great body of adult immigrants who have attained most of their education in this country, outside of work hours. It would be invidious to suggest that certain of our immigrant voters need any assistance whatever for intelligent voting.
How can we best put the newly naturalized immigrant, alert, well-intentioned, but usually socially and politically unassimilated, in touch with the political issues of the day in their large national bearings, and in their practical expression.
I should like to see the political forum, in its best form, become a recognized part of American life. It is needed for the native born. It is practically indispensable for the foreign born. It would not be non-partisan, nor attempt to be. The forums would be conducted by the parties separately, but always openly, regularly, as a routine of community series of meetings for discussion and information. And the party that did its educational work best, and placed its ideas and objects most frankly in the light, would in the long run get the votes. But it would have to be a sustained piece of work, carried on from year to year, with quite as much zeal and quite as much sustained party support after elections as before. The most significant effort made in this direction was tried by the Progressive Party through its Progressive Service.[1] This educational division carried on political educational work throughout the country and drafted legislation, though it was not in office nor directly responsible to the people for its enactment. It failed temporarily because the average voter does not yet respond to national issues in the absence of danger and conflict; of controversy and emergency. He has been too long taught that he can learn all he needs to know at election time. This attempt to realize an ideal ahead of its time has suffered defeat but temporarily. So long as the party system prevails there will exist a need for political education by parties. How long it will be before leaders are freed from the spoils system and recognize this obligation cannot be foretold.
[1] “A New Spirit in Party Organization.” The North American Review, June, 1914.
Athens feared that if the town hall grew too small to hold a convocation of the people, Hellenic democracy would perish from the earth. Here in America we cannot revert to the town meeting. But in the interests of Americanism, I believe the political parties of this country will be forced, by the developing intelligence of public sentiment, to create systems of party education which will have to bear the light of day—and the challenge of severe competition. Party education now means campaign literature, speeches only by candidates or for them, a virulent emotionalism which even the unsophisticated voter no longer takes seriously. A party “stands firm” for “social and industrial justice” for all men and women alike. But these same men and women, who do not attend conventions, who are sorely in need of social and industrial justice or who would like to help in securing it for others, never learn what its concrete definition is, or how to secure it through the vote. Our political parties need, first of all, great leaders. And after the great leaders we need an informed and alert and sensitive citizen body, insistent for information, undismayed by long ballot sheets, at home among political ideas. We need party laboratories, publicists not advertisers, a thoroughgoing machinery for getting studies and facts and opinions to people in a form in which they can weigh and use them.
The very introduction of the word “political” revives the conventional fear that the immigrant will be “used” in dark and dangerous ways. It is certainly true that he has been. But what America really needs to face with greater apprehension is the immigrant that is not used. The time has passed for a negative position. How is the political force of the foreign-born residents and citizens to be intelligently and practically connected with the body politic? It is folly to let our fear of the word “political” justify our gross neglect of the political intelligence and potential power of from one third to one half the population of many of our important cities and towns. The use of the immigrant politically is more likely than anything else to put an end to the political abuse of him.
Many Americans have taken some satisfaction during late years in attributing radical votes and platforms to the foreign born. And yet in the last presidential election Ohio, with a population of about half that of New York, and with a native-born percentage of 87.4 as against New York’s 69.8, cast 27,000 more votes for the Socialist candidate. In that election, New York state, with a foreign-born population of 30 per cent, gave the Socialist candidate a vote amounting to seven tenths of one per cent of its total population. In the same year Kansas, with a foreign-born population of 8 per cent, gave the Socialist candidate a vote amounting to seven tenths of one per cent of its total population, or twice the New York Socialist vote. Oklahoma, with a native-born population of 97.6 per cent, cast a Socialist vote amounting to 2¹⁄₂ per cent of its population, or nearly four times the ratio for New York, nearly twice the ratio for Illinois, where the foreign born are one fifth of the population, and two and one half times the ratio for Pennsylvania, where the foreign-born population is almost one fifth of the total.
One of the most dangerous conditions—at least potentially—concerning the alien vote we have deliberately brought upon ourselves. In ten states of the Union we have been for years allowing immigrants to vote upon their first papers. In the last presidential election declarants voted in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas, Oregon, and Wisconsin. The result has been shameless grafting and fraud. In Nebraska the alien in order to vote need only have been in the state six months, and have made his declaration thirty days before election. In other words, an Italian or Russian or Pole or Armenian or Turk who landed at Ellis Island about six months before the last presidential election—say in April, 1912—and who went out to Nebraska at once and lived there until fall, making his declaration in October, could have voted at the last presidential election; and this absolutely without reference to whether he knew a word of English, understood a single provision of the Constitution, or knew even the name of the political party with which he was voting.