MILWAUKEE'S PROTEST AGAINST MISGOVERNMENT
Mackenzie, Frederick W.
Milwaukee's Protest Against Misgovernment Whereby the Socialists Swept Into Control of the City Administration By FREDERICK W. MACKENZIE PEOPLE are fast getting accustom d to election surprises....
...widows who do washing for support of families to have water rates remitted by the city...
...The same is true in other wards...
...Granting the remarkable growth of the Social-Democratic party, it is not conclusive that twenty-eight thousand voters subscribe to the fundamental principles of socialism...
...they exclaimed...
...In 1898 the Social Democratic party polled 2,414 votes...
...clean street cars...
...We were accused of preaching bullets, not ballots...
...It is a composite of the views of many citizens...
...At the head of the Republican machine was Charles F. Pfister...
...Periodically, the Pfister crowd put up a "straw-man" candidate, and then helped Mayor Rose knock it down...
...They were thinking, and extravagant statements did not confuse' them...
...cheaper ice by means of a municipal plant...
...Apply the doctrines of international socialism as far as it is possible to do so "under the present system and the present laws...
...I don't think they can do so very much...
...Said one: "Not at all...
...better schools...
...And no doubt there are even well-meaning Social-Democrats who will expect the Co-operative Commonwealth to be established in five years because the Social-Democratic ticket has carried Milwaukee...
...It is our duty to give this city the best kind of an administration that a modern city can get under the present system, and the present laws...
...Graft and bribery flourished...
...We drew very largely from the Democratic party also...
...People have been getting wise to the fact that the city has been run by and for the large business interests...
...in 1900, 2,473...
...This was indeed disturbing...
...Men have been taken out of the city hall and sent to state prison for crookedness...
...Now the millenium, it will be generally admitted, is not to be easily reached...
...They swept into absolute control of the administration, except in cases where a two-thirds vote of the council is necessary to insure control, and except in the police, fire, and other departments whose personnel cannot be changed at once...
...The press was against us, almost unanimously...
...Democratic politicians declare that Republican defections caused the Social-Democratic gain...
...Every officer will have a voice...
...The figures tell a graphic story...
...And there is in it nothing to arouse a fear on the part of the business interests that is tangible enough to be felt or genuine enough to be contagious...
...initiative and referendum...
...in 1908, 20,887...
...cheap bread, by requiring standard weight in every loaf...
...How can the city's credit be injured," he asked, "by an honest administration...
...The Socialist officials are too intelligent to ruin their own party by attempting innovations so revolutionary that the people will repudiate them...
...He met it seriously...
...He served ably as councilman...
...cheaper and better light—and more of it—by means of a municipal plant...
...Campaign literature was spread broadcast over the city...
...It is not that the people at large have been won over to the idea that the millenium or even a "slice of it," is at hand...
...Social-Democrats contend that their party drew recruits from both the Republican and the Democratic ranks...
...Street railway franchises were granted and city lighting contracts let on the terms dictated by the local public utility company...
...The ideas they have been agitating and the reforms they have promised to brmg about are not of a startling nature...
...Only twice have I differed from them...
...We must show the people of Milwaukee that the philosophy of international socialism can be applied and will be applied to the local situation, and that it can be applied with advantage to any American city of the present day...
...And next morning they were all at their work...
...The remarkable growth of the independent vote during recent years has played unexpected pranks with "forecasts...
...A third ascribed the Socialist victory to the popular dissatisfaction with the course of the leaders of the Republican party in Congress, and particularly with the bi-partisan rule of Cannonism...
...If one of the newly elected officials should break with the party, he would not long be retained by the membership...
...Well, we gave Debs 17,000 votes...
...A People's Protest WHETHER Mayor-elect Seidel and his colleagues will succeed in putting into actual operation even a fraction of their program is a matter of speculation...
...They're pretty well hedged in...
...The gains we made this year are not out of proportion to those made in the past...
...First let me ask you if it isn't reasonable to suppose that every man is a bona fide Socialist who voted for 'Gene Debs for President— when men like Bryan and Taft (who was Roosevelt's candidate) were running...
...This loaf of idealism has been reposing undisturbed for ages on the very topmost shelf of the cosmic pantry...
...No Upheaval in Milwaukee MILWAUKEE peojple, I found, take the matter very calmly...
...Then your program contains nothing...
...Running on a platform of home rule, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall—with a few other reforms tacked on for good measure—the Social-Democrats won easily...
...in 1902, 8,453...
...At the head of the Democratic machine was Mayor David S. Rose...
...Today, leader of the dominant party in the county he looks back over twenty-six years of struggling to the time when he was the spokesman of a mere handful of "harmless visionaries...
...The law won't let 'em do much to hurt business...
...revolutionary...
...The economic principles agitated by the Socialists were an important element, but it appears that the fierce onslaught made upon these tenets, and the advocates thereof, made slight impression upon the voters...
...Thus was Big Business kept enthroned in the city hall...
...No sprees...
...It states our position...
...Then the Republicans didn't 'vote your party in?'" "Oh, no...
...We were called bloody revolutionists seeking to plant the red flag of blood lust upon the city hall...
...Special privileges were given to business interests high enough in the councils of the Rose-I fister dynasty to demand them...
...penny lunches...
...the recall...
...Since then it has incieased rapidly in numbers and influence...
...Businessmen were alarmed (it was said) and the credit of the city on a shaky basis...
...How can the Social-Democrats ruin the city's credit, when the tax limit and the bond limit are fixed by law, and new bond issues must go to a referendum vote of the people...
...How is it possible," he suggested, "when our form of organization does not permit one man to dominate the party...
...And yet all this'did not frighten the people...
...street car company to sprinkle streets...
...M. Beffel, the Republican candidate, made the most sensational attacks upon the Socialists...
...Here, this is what I have written for our paper...
...That was cheerfully admitted...
...three cent street car fare...
...City's Credit Goad BEFORE calling on Berger, I had found that the "shaky credit" rumors were laughed at by businessmen...
...He attributes the success of the Social-Democratic party to the long years of "education" of the voters...
...Is it Socialism...
...Vincent J. Schoenecker, Jr., the Democratic candidate, is personally popular but his association with the Rose machine and the fact that he was backed by Rose, is the reason generally given for his failure to secure more than 20,513 votes...
...They were not afraid of a name...
...There were two Polish dailies, two German dailies, six English dailies, and three or four weeklies—all opposing us...
...They had confidence in the Socialist candidates...
...Nevertheless most people were somewhat bewildered at the news that Milwaukee, the twelfth city of the United States, with a population of 350,000, had been carried overwhelmingly by the Socialists...
...Starting twenty-six years ago, it passed through a series of disruptions and reorganizations that left it spent and feeble, until 1898 when Victor Berger reorganized it on its present basis...
...Another replied: "It is possible...
...And his vote—27,622—is an indication that many voters overlooked his socialistic philosophy, and voted for his independence and integrity...
...That is real home rule...
...None of the drunkenness that lasted until the early morning hours in former years...
...Nothing like it was ever seen here...
...Disgusted with the rank misrule to which the city has been subjected in the past and impressed with the earnestness and honesty of the Social-Democratic members of the common council, the people turned against the old bi-partisan "gang" and voted to "give the Socialists a chance...
...Long Years of Struggle VICTOR BERGER is the big man of social democracy in Wisconsin, and a member of the national and the international councils...
...Mankind, it is argued, must increase exceedingly in stature before that is possible...
...All matters will be settled by conference^ plus the referendum...
...corporations to pay their full share of the taxes...
...It is not even an experimental program...
...Will the Socialists be able to carry out their--threats...
...For us there were only one English weekly, one Polish weekly (a paper only six months...
...We have drawn new members from both the old parties...
...Wiry, energetic, determined, clearheaded, earnest, pleasant spoken, —no better man could have been nominated by the Social-Democrats to lead the party...
...And he handed me a copy of his editorial in the Social-Democratic Herald, the mouth-piece of the party...
...work for the unemployed at union wages...
...The members themselves rule the party...
...GROSSING the Grand Avenue bridge one evening, two days after the election, I passed two men who were (like nearly everyone else in the city) discussing the result...
...We wanted to win the respect of the people by conducting a model campaign...
...A reaction will surely come...
...municipal ownership of public utilities...
...old), and one German weekly...
...We must above all be practical...
...and two of the civil judges...
...It was simply a matter of the Socialists "making good...
...That has been a Rose stronghold...
...That appears to be the working policy of the new administration...
...They have met here in this dingy little office to discuss matters upon which they were obliged to take action...
...What makes you think that...
...On all sides there appeared to be a conviction that if the Social-Democrats gave a clean, efficient, decent administration and did not attempt to apply "their theories" to the city's business, they might be able to hold their vote two years hence, and even increase it...
...It was his campaign of education—his "bullets of literature"—and his exceptional organizing ability that built up the Social-Democratic party in Milwaukee county...
...and in 1910, it captured all branches of the city administration with 27,622 votes...
...We were villificd and abused by our opponents...
...Politicians speak less certainly than of old about "strongholds" of party following...
...A widespread popular impression was voiced by the Chicago Daily News when it suggested, whimsically: "Milwaukee's socialist government is promising that city a substantial slice of the millenium, buttered on both sides...
...They put in their candidates for mayor, for comptroller, for city treasurer, and for city attorney...
...Well, I don't know," the other replied...
...Running on a platform of home rule, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, the Republican and the Democratic parties were hopelessly beaten...
...Their answers varied...
...There will be no one-man dictation of the new administration...
...The two years of Republican administration marked simply a breathing spell for Mayor Rose.* During this time Milwaukee was ruled by the worst type of a political machine...
...Take the Fourteenth ward, for example...
...Were they in fact holding out to the people a "slice of the millenium...
...It was merely a vote of protest against the misrule of the Rose-Pfister machine...
...Republican politicians say that thousands of old-time Democrats, dissatisfied with the Rose methods, turned to the Socialists...
...It is a wonderful triumph...
...Socialists Wax Strong MEANWHILE the Social-Democratic party was growing...
...For this reason the contest centered chiefly around the personnel of the tickets...
...Party names were used and party slogans chanted merely to manipulate the vote and to lend the appearance of a contest...
...in 1906, 16,837...
...The returns prove that mud-throwing is a poor vote-> getter...
...the surprising part of the election was the decisive manner in which the voters put it into power...
...The laws under which the city's affairs are administered were not changed by last Tuesday's election...
...It is because the old machine, grown drunk with continued power, paid too much attention to spoils and politics and gave too little thought to the city's welfare and popular needs...
...the reforms it proposes have been inaugurated elsewhere...
...This in itself is not an easy task...
...If you could have seen the jubilee meeting Tuesday night at West Side Turn hall you would understand the spirit in which our party works," he added, with some emotion...
...in 1904, 15,056...
...eight hour day for labor...
...Everywhere the query was heard: "What does it mean...
...On the other hand, we want to show our comrades all over the country that our principles will lose nothing of their revolutionary energy by being thus applied to a local situation...
...And like feudalism and capitalism, Socialism will never be ushered in at one stroke...
...No doubt there are some capitalists who believe that the revolution will break out within six weeks because the Social-Democratic ticket has been elected...
...To him it is not a matter of the Democrats or the Republicans putting the Social-Democrats into office...
...And when it was over they went home...
...No revelry...
...Loyal members of the party stood ready for every call...
...It was indeed decisive...
...Then you believe every person who voted the Social-Democratic ticket is a bona fide Socialist...
...Absurd...
...No doubt there are some union men who expect that everything will be unionized next week because the Social-Democratic ticket has been elected...
...He is a practical businessman—manager of a pattern manufacturing company—and is inclined to fight what he believes to be wrong conditions with facts rather than with theories...
...Berger says "Yes...
...Fearless, able, aggressive, undaunted by reverses, undismayed by...
...Converts to Socialism swelled the party till it overwhelmed the old parties...
...An Era of Spoils LET us look at the facts...
...His honesty is not to be questioned...
...See how our party has grown under its present organization...
...How much had they xromised...
...And your campaign...
...We have had as many as ten members of the council...
...He is respected even by his bitterest political opponents...
...What is Promised...
...Milwaukee has revolted against misgovemment...
...Likewise it is conservative...
...OES this election indicate that nearly thirty thousand A/ voters have become Socialists...
...But he disposed of it with characteristic vigor...
...Berger has an answer for that...
...he exclaimed...
...It may be stated briefly...
...But the same men who throw out these opinions will tell you that the Republican big businessmen supported the Democratic candidate, and that some voters of the Democratic faith, who could not stomach either the "democracy" of Mayor Rose or the socialism of Victor Berger, cast their ballots for the Republican candidate...
...They were cronies...
...he was asked...
...There is plenty of evidence that thousands of voters turned to the Social-Democratic party because that ticket was headed by men known to be able and honest, and because the conditions that had grown up under the old administrations were intolerable...
...She has done it through the means that lay nearest at hand...
...What were the "threats" of the Social-Democrats...
...Socialists in power are bound to become more conservative than Socialists out of power and if they give a decent administration the people may reconcile themselves to their revolutionary doctrines...
...And to local politicians familiar with the situation, the fact that this party polled a winning vote for mayor was not an occasion for surprise...
...If a rigidly honest administration that gives the people a maximum of efficiency for their money, that makes the city a better place to live in, and that shakes loose the grasp of special interests upon the city's affairs, can be called the millenium then we expect to give the people a very generous slice of it...
...It is still reposing there...
...And capitalism cannot be abolished in any one city nor in any one state...
...he added with enthusiasm...
...and on those two occasions I had to 'make good' with my contentions...
...Then there were reports emanating from Milwaukee not at all calculated to dispel this skepticism...
...I'll tell you why I say that...
...Everything is done by referendum...
...and if so what was it like...
...It contemplates the general welfare of all citizens...
...In it Berger said: "Now the very next question before us is that of applying- the international Socialist philosophy to present conditions and to Milwaukee...
...Socialism is an epoch of human history which will no doubt last many hundred years, possibly a thousand years in history-just as feudalism lasted a thousand years and as capitalism has lasted many hundred years...
...In a three-cornered contest, the Social-Democrats won by the largest plurality ever accorded a candidate for mayor in the city...
...Berger did not laugh at this rumor...
...No, no...
...It is apparent, however, that they start off with the good will cf the community...
...Workers eagerly volunteered to carry it from door to door...
...Under the old regime there have been 250 indictments brought against city officials for graft and bribery...
...Street car service was furnished with an eye on the stock ticker and not on the public needs...
...Why, do you know how it has been in the past...
...cheaper gas...
...It is a program of social betterment with the needs of the laboring class near the top...
...And besides, with authority comes a sense of responsibility...
...Berger explained it to me...
...Look at the figures," he replied...
...Scarcely had the ink become dry on the newspapers of April 6 than a huge question-mark began to take shape across the continent...
...poverty, unshaken by abuse, he has plied his pen and molded his membership...
...Then, you must remember that we stand for the referendum, and every important proposition like a bond issue must be submitted directly to the people...
...And people are api, to grow skeptical at the suggestion that the Social-Democratic party, or any other organization, can reach up that high and pluck therefrom the coveted prize...
...Nearly all...
...In fact there appears to be a very general disposition to accept the result of the election without uneasiness...
...This, too, in spite of the fact that both the Republican and the Democratic parties had inserted in their platforms the three main planks of the Social-Democratic platform, namely, home rule, the initiative and referendum, and the recall...
...We didn't have to hire our campaigning done for us...
...VICTOR BERGER analyzes the situation differently...
...It is not because they believe in destroying, post haste, the "capitalist system...
...the Social Democrats put themselves in...
...Could anything hurt a city's credit more than dishonest officials...
...Since 1904, therefore, the Social-Democratic party has been a factor in Milwaukee's politics that at all times had to be reckoned with...
...We have simply educated the people to believe in the principles and ideals of Socialism...
...Two years ago Rose carried it by 1,437 plurality...
...Thousands of people will be satisfied if they do no more than clean out the city hall and give an honest, intelligent administration...
...It was a campaign of education...
...It is claimed that this of itself reacted upon him and was a factor in holding his vote down to 11.262...
...I think that the Socialist administration will', if anything, improve the city's credit...
...trades unicn conditions of labor...
...For, after all, the Socialistic victory was at bottom a people's protest against bad government...
...Here was a situation where all three parties were pledged to the same reforms...
...not the favoritism of the few...
...So, throughout the state and nation, speculation ran riot as to what was going to happen to Milwaukee...
...otherwise they would be turned out of the city hall...
...This is a very general statement...
...A prospective slice of the millenium, in the future, is not to be compared to a real slice of bread and butter, in the dinner pail...
...They appeared to be prosperous, middle-aged businessmen...
...Emil Seidel, the Social-Democratic candidate, was not handicapped, either by questionable connections or by wild statements...
...They elected eleven of the sixteen county supervisors...
...So his opponents call him "Boss," and "Dictator...
...Not a Startling Program NOR does there appear to be serious concern over the "practical program" of the Socialists...
...this year we carried it by 145 plurality...
...To all these men we have this to say: "Socialism is not only the name of an economic and political theory, but it is even more the name of a phase of civilization— the phase which Is to follow capitalism...
...Here are some of them: Home rule...
...They secured twenty-one out of the thirty-five seats in the common council...
...When I asked how many would support the newly elected officials, the whole audience rose as one man and pledged themselves with a shout...
...There is a feeling that "anyhow it can't be worse than what we have had...
...It was an era of spoils...
...We did not reply to any of the abuse that was thrown at us, except where we were forced to...
...Thousands of people crowded into that hall and sang and cheered for the party's success...
...They say now that the new administration will not go far before disruptions will occur, and that "Berger's dictatorship will break his party into pieces...
...The people wanted new blood in the city offices...
...Still another expressed the belief that "it was not socialism that got the votes but the unimpeachable character of the men who were running on the Social-Democratic ticket...
...Conversation with leading citizens of all shades of political belief, and of all manner of business connections, leads to one conclusion...
...Over 20,000...
...I asked this question of men high in business and in public life...
...Said one: "Well, John, what do you think of it...
...For ten out of the past twelve years, Milwaukee has had a Democratic administration...
Vol. 2 • April 1910 • No. 15
