Americans by Choice

by John Palmer Gavit

Dr. Charles W. Eliot told the Good Government Conference at Cincinnati in 1909 of an incident in Massachusetts which reflected the interest of foreign-born voters in political questions on their merits regardless of racial or religious considerations:

A few years ago, largely through the efforts of a single citizen, the Massachusetts Legislature changed the number of the school committee of Boston from twenty-four to five—in itself a prodigious improvement. Now, Boston is the home of three Roman Catholic races, the Irish, the French Canadians, and the Italians. The Italians have lately come in large numbers, and many of them are from southern Italy and not from northern Italy. What did the voters of Boston do in electing a school committee of five at large? The election was not by wards, but at large. They elected at the very first election—and have maintained the composition of the committee as then determined ever since—two Catholics, two Protestants, and one Jew, and the Jew has lately been the chairman of the committee. Now is not that creditable to the Roman Catholic majority in the city of Boston? They have a clear majority. Moreover, does it not tell us something encouraging about the manner in which voters of foreign birth will use the power of the vote in our country?

A. C. Pleydell of New York, on the same occasion, contributed a testimony of the same general character:

In New Jersey a large settlement of Italians in a small country township until lately have been the prey of the political leaders, who are just as corrupt as in the city. A gentleman whom I know who is, I believe, of a different political faith, moved out there some years ago and began to take an interest in the local life of the community. He started to clean up the school board and get decent schoolhouses. There were sixty or seventy Italian children at that little village school. The village has a population of only a few hundred. This man got subscriptions from these poor people, a little help from the outside, and contributed something himself. For two or three years they have had neighborhood meetings without regard to party, which these foreigners attended. One of the finest and most inspiring sights I have ever seen was at the school festival held in that little hall, largely filled by these foreigners.... These foreigners, under the leadership of this one man, have formed a good-government organization that has spread to neighboring townships.... He uses for its motto, “Put the circles on the square,” the square being the township and the circles being little group organizations. They have broken up the political ring in that township to-day by independent voting and nominations; ... as a result of this work in that township the movement has spread into another township which has been more corrupt, although inhabited almost altogether by native Americans. At the last election the people in that other township took an inspiration from the work that had been done by the foreign Italian population, and cleaned up their township....

There is just as much democracy in those people as we have, and we do not want to lose sight of the fact that they are human beings just like everybody else. I am the son of an immigrant from another part of Europe. The immigrants from the southern part have just as much ambition as the immigrants from the northern part.

I. M. Wise of Cincinnati in the same discussion said:

We have had a very fine example of the independence of the foreign voter during the last few years in Cincinnati. We had a movement started for the purpose of electing a prosecutor, and we found, after investigating the returns of the election, that the victory was due almost entirely to the foreign vote. But we had another example some years ago when there was a movement to sell the Cincinnati Southern Railway. This measure was defeated by a small majority, due entirely to the German citizens who usually show more independence than the other foreign citizens.

William Bennett Munro, in his Government of American Cities,[172] discussing the reasons for the political misleading of the foreign-born voter by corrupt leadership, points out that “the discreet and sober use of the ballot is something not to be learned in a day or even in a generation,” and that “it is not a matter for surprise, then, if alien-born voters have often proved easy prey to the sophistry and cajolery of claptrap politicians.” He says, further:

We have the testimony of seasoned campaigners that the alien-born voter is inclined to think for himself if he has the opportunity; but too often he does not secure even that small amount of fair information which is necessary to furnish food for thought. As a rule, practically all he gets concerning the facts of the municipal situation comes to him in such form that it leads to one conclusion only.... Experience has proved that he cannot always be stampeded by appeals to class prejudice, or delivered blindly to some political faction. Given a fair chance, he is, according to authoritative testimony, a voter of at least normal independence.

Considering the bewilderment with which thousands of old-stock native-born voters confront the complications of our Federal, state, and local governments, and the complexity of our inordinately long official ballots, it is small wonder that, like them, the foreign-born voter, even after many years’ residence in this country, follow shibboleths and leaders who to them represent a certain definiteness and clarity of purpose and action. This is especially true when the whole subject of governmental reform and efficiency comes to them in the guise of relatively arid abstractions in which they do not see their own interests, and by the voice of men living in far distant parts of the community, who do not understand their intimate problems, or speak the language of their daily lives. In almost every instance in which the issue was made clear and intelligible to them, the foreign-born voters of almost every nationality have responded in surprising fashion.