University of Kentucky UKnowledge American Politics Political Science 1971 A House for All Peoples: Ethnic Politics in Chicago 1890–1936 John M. Allswang California State College Los Angeles Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Allswang, John M., "A House for All Peoples: Ethnic Politics in Chicago 1890–1936" (1971). American Politics. 7. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_american_politics/7 cA House for all Peoples This page intentionally left blank ~ House for all Peoples ETHNIC POLITICS IN CHICAGO 1890-1936 John M. Attswang T he University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978-0-8131-5098-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-119810 Copyright © 1971 by The University Press of Kentucky A statewide cooperative scholarly publishing agency serving Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky State College, Morehead State University, Murray State University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506 for my father, of blessed memory~ and my mother This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix PART ONE: ETHNIC POLITICS, 1890-1936 I. Ethnic Groups & Their Politics 3 II. Chicago's Ethnics & Their Politics to 191 7 15 III. Ethnic Voting Behavior, 1918- 1 936 37 IV. Some Measures of Ethnic Voting Behavior 60 V. Ethnic Group Party Identification 76 VI. Political Party Self-Conceptions 91 PART TWO: THE FORCES OF COALITION VII. Political Issues III VIII. Political Organization 139 IX. Crime & Reform 168 X. Socioeconomic Class 182 XI. Conclusion.' A House for all Peoples 205 Appendix 213 Bibliographical Essay 241 Index 249 This page intentionally left blank Preface In this book I am trying to investigate the relationship between ethnic pluralism and American politics in an era of political and social change. The study has been worked out over a lengthy period of time, in several stages. Where I originally sought to inquire into a limited area of political analysis and a small number of elections, I have found myself being pushed into a steadily expanding period of time and a wide variety of interrelated sociopolitical and intellectual problems. During the course of this intellectual voyage my conception of the problem has changed considerably; new questions have supplanted older ones. Similarly, new methods and tools have been required to deal adequately with the com­ plexities of the problem. The analysis of political behavior seems particularly suited to quanti­ tative analytical techniques. The methodological discussion in the Appen­ dix will explain how I have endeavored to build quantitative models for description and analysis. Hopefully a reasonable balance has been struck between the number and the word, with the strengths and weaknesses of each being duly recognized. Certainly the myriad forces involved in mass political behavior in a democratic society require all the analytical devices and insights the historian can bring to them. Throughout my work I have had the sage counsel of Prof. Samuel P. Hays of the University of Pittsburgh; he has shared with me his shrewd critical insights into specific problems and into historical inquiry gener­ ally, and I am most grateful to him. I have also been greatly assisted by the substantive and methodological work of a generation of social scien­ tists, a debt inadequately expressed in the impersonality of footnotes. I am grateful also to Profs. Richard Jensen of Washington University and Robert Zemsky of the University of Pennsylvania for their effective x Preface presentation of insights into the handling of quantitative techniques in history at the 1968 summer program of 1:he Inter-University Consortium for Political Research at Ann Arbor. ])espite these and other debts, remembered and forgotten, the responsibility for the substance and method of the study is of course my own. I would like to thank the following institutions for the facilities and assistance made available to me: the <:hicago Historical Society, the Newberry library, the American Jewish Archives, the Midwest Interli­ brary Center, the University of Chicago libraries, the Roosevelt Univer­ sity library, the Northern Michigan University library, the library of the National Opinion Research Center, and the Johnson Publishing Com­ pany. The Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago, and particularly its warehouse staff, were especially 'hospitable to my burden­ some needs on a number of occasions. And the Department of Economics of California State College-Los Angeles generously made available for my use its Underwood-Olivetti Programma desktop computer. My wife, Suzanne, has devoted hune.reds of hours to this study, in recording countless election returns, calculating endless percentages, help­ ing with the preparation of graphs and tables, proofreading, and relocat­ ing data which I was sure was lost forever. Additionally, she has rendered those intangible assistances which are so essential to sanity amidst schol­ arship; without her this book would J:lot have been completed. My daughter, Eden, contributed her smile. Part One Ethnic Politics I890-I936 This page intentionally left blank 1. Ethnic Groups & Their Politics This book comprises a study of the political behavior of the ethnic groups of a major American city from 1890 to 1936. More specifically, it centers on the role of those groups in the rise to unprecedented power of the Democratic party in Chicago. Thus emphasis will be placed on the period from the end of World War I to the first Roosevelt election. The central questions will be: what was the role of ethnic groups in Chicago's politics, and to what extent was the changing political balance of power attributable to their political behavior? I shall first be concerned with describing ethnic political behavior, and then with uncovering the reasons behind it. In the course of the inquiry, a number of ancillary questions will also arise. How do ethnic groups make their way into the American political system and into American society generally? What is the key to party and leadership success in the politics of a pluralistic society? What kinds of issues mean the most to American voters? Are local, state, and national politics one, or separate? What are the dynamics of political relationships and are they one-way or reciprocal? Do American political parties have discoverable ideologies or self-conceptions? A number of methodological questions will also arise. How are political relationships to be understood? How easily determined is the apparently simple question: to which party does a group of people belong? What are the best tools for analyzing political history? Which among a group of variables is most important in the only partly rational phenomenon called political behavior? The role of urban ethnic groups in bringing about the revival of the national Democratic party by the early 1930S has been appreciated by many historians. Only since they have begun to employ new methods, 4 A House fo, all Peoples however, have the origins and extent of this role begun really to be understood. Samuel Lubell, in his pace-setting The Future of American Politics, studied the political behavior of American counties and cities and used their demographic variations to explain political development. He pointed to the 1928 election as the great turning point in the revival of the Democratic party.1 Historians have followed his lead and have exam­ ined this development more intensively.2 The tools of social science have been central to this more careful understanding of the role of groups in the American political process. These tools have been important in two ways. First, they can be employed in historical analysis, providing more complete and more definite infor­ mation than was previously available. The use of quantification was a first step, and one that is still being taken.8 More sophisticated, not necessarily quantitative, social science concepts are now also available and pertinent to political history.4 And second, historians have been directed toward new foci of investigation-leaving behind traditional and stereotyped foci and moving on to consideration of perhaps more meaningful interrela­ tionships among men and groups of men.5 This study attempts to analyze political development through a com­ bination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Its statistics and meth­ odology are elementary and technically simple, which well suits the 1 Samuel Lubell, The Futu1'e of American Politics, 2d ed. (Garden City, N.Y., 1956). 2 E.g., J. Joseph Huthmacher, Massachusetts People and Politics, I9I9-I933 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); David Burner, The Politics of P1'ovincialism (New York, 1968). 8 See William C. Aydelotte, uQuantification in History," American HistoNcal Review 71 (April 1966): 803-25; and response by Samuel P. Hays and Lee Benson, American Historical Association Newslette1' 4 (June 1966): 8-16. 4 On voting, see Bernard Berelson and others, Voting: A Study of Opinion F01'mation in a Pf'esidential Campaign (Chicago, 1954); Angus Campbell and others, The Voter Decides (Evanston, 111., 1954); Paul Lazarsfeld and others, The People's Choice, 2d ed. (New York, 1948). An outstanding example of the kinds of conceptual tools afforded is Robert K. Merton, Social T heo1'y and Social St1'ucture, rev. 00. (Glencoe, 111., 1957). On the relevance of these concepts and methods to historiography, see Edward N. Saveth, ed., American Histof'Y and the Social Sciences (New York, 1964). 5 See Samuel P. Hays, uHistory as Human Behavior," Iowa Journal of Histof''' 58 (July 1960): 193-206, and uNew Approaches to American Political History, 1880-1920," Paper presented to the meetings of the American Historical Asso­ ciation, Dec.