How the Centre Party Votes
Mason, John B.
HOW THE CENTRE PARTY VOTES By JOHN B. MASON THE political life of few countries has been as enriched and at times enlivened by the existence of a "Catholic" party as Germany. Ever...
...The Centre and the Bavarian People's party are almost solidly Catholic in their following...
...Johannes Schauff...
...590,000 21.8 1,875,000 69.3 Democratic party...
...Bavaria is again a surprise...
...From then on the percentage had declined, to 54.6 percent in 1912 and 51.8 percent in December, 1924...
...This Centre party is at present, as so often in the past, exercising a tremendous political influence...
...Of all Catholic votes, the Centre drew 58.1 percent, the Left parties combined 21 percent and the Right parties 17.8 percent, the rest being shared by other parties...
...In view of the political importance of the Centre, the question is a burning one as to whether it really is the political representative of Germany's 20,000,000 Catholics—one-third of her entire population...
...From recent German history and the analysis of the vote of German Catholics it is apparent that only political persecution will unite effectively members of a religious group for common political action...
...The Centre party was founded in the hectic years of the Kulturkampf to protect the Catholic Church by political means against the flagrant encroachments upon its religious freedom by a political institution, the state...
...Schauff has concluded that since the war only about one-half of the Catholic men voters have supported the Centre and Bavarian People's party...
...Cologne: J. P. Bachem) has revealed the extent to which a party is "Catholic" or "Protestant," often to the surprise of students of German politics...
...290,000 15.2 1,430,000 74.5 Socialists...
...Headed by Monsignor Kaas, a university professor, priest and statesman of no mean calibre, it counts among its representatives in the national cabinet the Chancellor Dr...
...The Centre thus gained at least 10 percent, and the Right and Middle parties more than the Left groups, though it had been the latter which had done most to give women the right to vote...
...Does Germany have the "Catholic vote" about which we have heard so much and which has at times been predicted for this country...
...54, of non-Centre Catholics voting for the Left has therefore to be evaluated still higher in consideration of the surprising Communist gains...
...There was a strong relationship between faithful Church membership and the number of Centre votes...
...The Centre made it its aim and purpose to obtain by constitutional means the repeal of obnoxious and oppressive laws and to protect the Church in the same way against future attacks...
...But many Catholics clearly voted for other parties, and it was the Communists who in relation to their strength drew more Catholic votes than any other non-Centre party, namely onefifth of their entire strength, or 590,000 votes...
...The percentage of women voters of a party was found to be the higher the more the party stressed religious or patriotic ideas...
...His work (Die deutschen Katholiken und die Zentrumspartei von Dr...
...That German Catholics ever formed a political party of their own, and that over a period of sixty years it received the loyal support of so many of them, has its reason particularly in German political and historical conditions...
...Ever since her unification in 1871 her national life has been deeply influenced by the well-organized Centre party which claims to be "the political representation of the Catholic element of the German people...
...Since the Kulturkampf, after 1871, durrng which the Catholic Church in Germany struggled doggedly with the government for its independence and freedom, relatively fewer Catholic than non-Catholic voters have taken part in the national elections, in spite of the existence of a "Catholic" party...
...Among the parties of the Right which combined drew 17.8 percent of the entire Catholic vote, or 46 percent of the non-Centre Catholic vote, we find again an unexpected Left tendency, expressing itself in a relatively stronger preference for Dr...
...Not only voted fewer Catholics for the Centre (58.1 percent in Prussia, 44 percent in Bavaria) but also many more for the Left parties who shared as much as 70 percent of the Bavarian non-Centre Catholic vote...
...In the Catholic districts of Bavaria, comprising 78 percent of Bavaria's Catholic population, the election results were very different...
...The Socialists were the strongest attraction to nonCentre Catholics, being supported by 10.8 percent of them...
...The important question is: How large a percentage of all the German Catholic voters support the Centre ? By means of mathematical calculations Dr...
...The following table shows the proportion of Catholic and Protestant votes received by the different parties, both in actual number and relative percentages: Non-Centre Parties CATHOLIC VOTES PROTESTANT ' VOTES Percentage of Percentage of total party total party Number vote Number vote Communists...
...Not only is she the preponderantly Catholic state in which the majority (56 percent) of Catholics do not support the Centre but she has also the most faithful Catholics, viz., 43.6 per cent, who do not vote for it...
...Briining's predecessor as chancellor was Dr...
...They found themselves attracted to other parties, often very inimical to the Centre, on account of their professional, economic or social interests...
...In 1907, e. g., in the fifteen electoral districts with an almost 100 percent Protestant population all but 15.7 percent of the voters went to the polls, while in the five districts with an equally large preponderance of Catholic population 31 percent of the voters failed to do so...
...Wilhelm Marx who five years ago ran against Hindenburg for president and was defeated by a plurality of only 800,000 votes...
...Of all Protestant votes combined, the Right drew 49 percent and the Left 51 percent...
...The Socialists and the Nationalists polled almost one-third each of the total number...
...The average relation of Right to Left (non-Centre) Catholic votes was 46 to 54...
...We may conclude that when Catholics leave the Centre, they usually go to the radical Left, the Socialists and Communists, especially in solid Catholic districts...
...Briining, the man at whose request President Hindenburg recently dissolved the Reichstag in accordance with the famous article 48 of the German constitution...
...While it also adopted a comprehensive and mostly liberal political and economic program on what it considered a Christian basis it lost, or never gained, the support of many Catholic voters...
...Johannes Schauff, has made detailed and painstaking statistical investigations into this question...
...The Centre may therefore undoubtedly be called "a party of Catholics" but not the or a "Catholic party" of Germany...
...Though in the last elections probably 98 percent of the Centre votes came from Catholics, this fact is not in itself proof of the existence of anything like a solid Catholic vote...
...The Centre was strongly entrenched in those districts where the population is strongly bekenntnistreu, and weak where it is less so...
...The extension of the suffrage to women has been especially advantageous to the Centre...
...While in the election of December, 1924, this party polled only 28 percent of the total vote in Prussia for the Socialists and Communists combined, or 22.9 percent of all votes going to the Left parties, it won in the same election in the Catholic districts of Prussia 41 percent of the Socialist plus Communist, or 36 percent of all the Left votes...
...Of all faithful (bekenntnistreu) Catholics, i. e., those who at least took the Easter Communion, 69 percent voted for the Centre and Bavarian People's party...
...Without Bavaria, the percentage was 24...
...The already high percentage, viz...
...According to Dr...
...For a period of sixty days after the dissolution, until a new Reichstag has been elected, Dr...
...1,117,000 14.9 6,240,000 78.5 People's party___ 365,000 12.1 2,635,000 87.8 National party...
...During the Kulturkampf the number of Catholic voters had been as high as 114 and even 120 percent of the total average for the Reich, only to decline in later years when the Catholic Church seemed less in eminent danger...
...Stresemann's People's party than for the National party, the Nationalists pure and simple...
...The Communist party followed second with fully 7.6 percent...
...The districts tending to the Left were in the majority...
...Even Prussian districts with a small Catholic minority surpass in this respect Catholic Bavaria...
...800,000 11.9 5,900,000 88.1 The National party is consequently the most "Protestant" party, only 10 percent less solidly "Protestant" than the Centre is solidly "Catholic...
...In the different parts of Prussia the relation varied, from 25 to 75 in the government district of Wiesbaden to 70 to 30 in Konigsberg...
...The new President appointed Marx chancellor as the only man able at the time to form a cabinet...
...A young German scholar, Dr...
...In all above calculations, those persons were considered Catholic who had designated themselves as such in the census...
...In distinction from Prussia, however, the Bavarian moderate Left is very strong and the extreme Left decidedly weak...
...In the Reich as a whole 31 percent of all faithful Catholics voted in December, 1924, for a party other than the Centre or Bavarian People's party...
...The People's party follows a very close second, with only 0.3 percent difference in its "Protestant" character...
...As long as religious freedom and tolerance are the policy of this or any other country, we need not anticipate the appearance of a "Catholic party" or "Catholic vote," or, as far as that is concerned, the foundation of any party or political group based upon a denominational basis...
...This was shown by a number of careful statistical investigations as, e. g., in the Reichstag election of 1920 when separate voting facilities were provided for 850,000 men and women in eighteen electoral districts...
...Schauff's findings, based on the December, 1924, national election, 58.1 percent of all Catholics, men and women, voted for the Centre, 17.8 percent for the Right, 21 percent for the Left, and 3.1 percent for other parties...
...Probably 98 percent of their 5,250,000 in December, 1924, came from Catholics...
...In 1871, the percentage had been 57.2 percent, rising in 1874 to 83 percent, and reaching the peak in 1881 with 86.3 percent...
...Briining and his cabinet, in cooperation with the President, will rule the country with dictatorial powers —an emergency measure provided for in the constitution...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 23
