Since the declaration of the St. Louis convention of the Socialists in 1917, which most outsiders and a large proportion of the Socialist rank and file regarded as not only consistently antiwar, but actually pro-German, it has been the fashion for Socialists of other than German leanings to minimize the German influence in the development of political Socialism in the United States. From the point of view of the loyally American or pro-Ally Socialists, of whom there are many thousands, it would no doubt be pleasing to clear it of the German atmosphere; but, unfortunately, the facts make such a proceeding difficult.
A great impulse was given to Socialism in this country by the German Socialists who were driven out of Germany forty years ago by Bismarck’s anti-Socialist legislation. They were men of a high degree of intelligence, largely mechanics of skill at their trades. They brought to America the Marxian orthodoxy, and stamped With their German rigidity of thought a movement which up to that time had been more or less a sentimental thing. Let us examine some figures which would seem to be significant.
The German-language press in this country has been largely confined to nine states. To the total circulation of the German-language press in the United States, their circulation in these nine states bears percentage ratio as follows:
TABLE LII
Per Cent Circulation of the German Press in Nine States
| State | Circulation{1} | |
| Per Cent | ||
| New York | } | 19.4 |
| New Jersey | } | |
| Wisconsin | 15.4 | |
| Illinois | 12.5 | |
| Ohio | 10.9 | |
| Nebraska | 7.6 | |
| Pennsylvania | 6.9 | |
| Missouri | 6.2 | |
| Minnesota | 5.8 | |
| Total | 84.7 | |
note 1: The circulation figures are based upon reports given in Ayer’s American Newspaper Annual and Directory for 1916. The influence of the war emotions and the rising cost of news-print paper, and other factors would make later figures misleading as to the general situation. Where Ayer’s fails to give circulation it is conservatively estimated. New York and New Jersey are combined because the German papers in New York were largely read in the preponderantly German towns along the New Jersey bank of the Hudson River.
It would thus appear that the German-language papers published in these nine states claimed a circulation of nearly 85 per cent of the total circulation of German-language papers in the whole United States. It is obvious, therefore, that in these nine states one would look for the bulk of the unassimilated immigrants of German birth. The census of 1910 sustains this expectation, for of the total of 2,501,333 German-born residents of the United States, 1,737,827, or 69.5 per cent, lived in the nine states.
What percentage of the Socialist vote is found in those nine states? We cannot answer this question as to the vote for the candidates of the Socialist-Labor party prior to 1900; but the vote for Socialist candidates subsequent to that gives us illuminating percentages.