Dove Sentiments Among Blue-Collar Workers
Hahn, Harlan
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR SOURCES of opposition to the Vietnam war? Who are the hawks? What does the "silent majority" really think? Among political commentators, public officials, and even antiwar...
...participation in the war...
...206-231...
...The Detroit survey also revealed that lower-class citizens were more anxious to participate in public decisions concerning Vietnam policy than high-status residents...
...3 Manual workers expressed stronger support for both an immediate and/or gradual withdrawal from Vietnam than persons in white-collar or professional and business occupations...
...participation in the Vietnam war ranged from 39 to 43 percent in such widely diverse localities as Dearborn, Michigan...
...205...
...Even during the initial stages of the conflict, military intervention in Vietnam was viewed less favorably by working-class than by middleor upper-middle-class voters...
...When "social position" was related to opinions regarding a gradual withdrawal of U.S...
...Although a report prepared for the President's Commission on Violence found that public opposition to the war has grown as the number of antiwar demonstrators increased,5 blue-collar workers seldom play an active role in mass protests or marches...
...204 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS what more reserved about publicizing their views than other groups, but their attitudes provided a firm base for the expansion of the antiwar movement...
...The average voter may, for example, have more chance of promoting a major change in farm-price supports or educational aid than in the conduct of the war...
...Unlike most domestic matters, foreign-policy decisions are somewhat insulated from popular sentiments or pressure...
...While high-status persons might view the Vietnam conflict in abstract terms, either as a necessary defense against Communist aggression or as an unwarranted intervention, working-class citizens tend to adopt a more personal orientation that focuses primarily upon the suffering, hardship, and tragedy of war...
...In general, the sons of blue-collar families face a greater probability of being inducted into military service, sent into combat, and suffer more casualties than middle- or upper-middle-class boys...
...Blue-collar voters, however, were some8 Victoria Bonnell and Chester Hartman, "Cambridge Votes on the Vietnam War," Dissent, March—April 1968, pp...
...troops was approved by 57 percent of the voters in Dearborn in November 1968...
...As American involvement in the war increased, this pattern seemed to continue, and even to intensify...
...Although most definitions of the "silent majority" have not been sufficiently explicit to identify this group precisely, available information suggests that the least articulate or forceful sectors of the population tend to oppose the Vietnam war...
...Whenever blue-collar voters were granted an opportunity to record their preferences on the Vietnam war issue directly, they have expressed strong disapproval of the war...
...Harlan Hahn, "Political Efficacy and Foreign Policy Attitudes," Social Problems, forthcoming...
...Largely, the failure of working-class voters to demonstrate strong disapproval of the war seems to be shaped by a feeling that there is little they can do about it...
...The evidence, therefore, suggests that antiwar feelings have not "trickled down" from upper-middle-class sources as much as they have "percolated up" from working-class citizens...
...439-445...
...How, THEN, DID THE MISUNDERSTANDING about lower-class attitudes toward the Vietnam war develop...
...A na202 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS tional survey in 1964, 1 for example, found that 53 percent of college graduates favored to bring more American soldiers to Vietnam, even if that would mean risking war with Communist China—but only one-third of persons with only a grade-school education endorsed this policy...
...Several studies of public attitudes have demonstrated that persons with meager incomes or limited education are more likely than those of higher status to oppose the escalation of the war and to support a withdrawal of U.S...
...40," October 1969, p. 25...
...forces was expressed by three-fourths of the survey's respondents with a college degree, compared to 38 percent of those who had not entered high school...
...Cambridge, Massachusetts...
...While blue-collar workers have not been staunch defenders of the present Vietnam policy, their ways of expressing themselves do resemble many of the characteristics President Nixon ascribes to the "silent majority...
...This pattern was confirmed by a 1966 survey of Detroit residents,7 in which support for an escalation of the war ranged from 29 percent among persons at low social positions to 42 percent among those at relatively high positions...
...Low-income segments of the population are, in general, less articulate and more reticent about divulging their opinions than high-income voters, particularly when those attitudes may be considered unconventional or unpatriotic...
...San Francisco, California...
...203 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS the Vietnam war...
...Lincoln, Massachusetts...
...Another national survey, conducted shortly after the 1964 elections, disclosed similar results...
...Perhaps most striking, however, was the fact that vote against the war in nearly all referendums was concentrated in working-class rather than in upper-middle-class segments of the communities...
...Working-class families often are bound together by close ties of kinship and economic dependence...
...The perspectives of lower-class Americans, therefore, may ultimately emerge as a potent political force for ending the war...
...In the first five referendums, held between November 1966 and early April 1968, opposition to U.S...
...31-32...
...10-11...
...The effects of blue-collar reticence are highlighted by a generally accepted measure of "social position," 6 which combines social and economic characteristics with other indications of low participation and articulation...
...As the social status of voters increased, opposition to the Vietnam war declined, and vice-versa...
...But the evidence does not support this conclusion...
...Moreover, civil rights leaders have been among the leading critics of the war...
...the strongest approval of a complete withdrawal from Vietnam, however, was registered among Americans who had not finished high school, those with annual incomes below $5,000, and among blue-collar employees...
...14-15...
...As a result, working-class sentiments about the Vietnam war are less visible than those of other groups...
...Where 59 percent of those of low social positions favored a withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, only 40 percent at an intermediate level and 31 percent at high social levels shared this attitude...
...Shortly after President Johnson's decision to retire and to limit the bombing of North Vietnam, in April 1968, Beverly Hills and Mill Valley, both in California, became the first American communities to pass antiwar resolutions...
...Mainly, because few people bothered to study or inquire into their opinions...
...Though it is difficult to obtain information about the social and economic backgrounds of draftees and veterans, some evidence has revealed that black citizens, Mexican-Americans, and other minority groups are exposed to a greater risk of service or death in Vietnam than young men from the white middle-class...
...Johan Galtung, "Foreign Policy Opinion as a Function of Social Position," Journal of Peace Research, 1964, pp...
...8 In Madison, the antiwar vote ranged from an average of 59 percent in lower-income areas to 37 percent in upperincome sections of the city...
...49," July 1969, pp...
...161-193...
...and Madison, Wisconsin...
...see also "Americans on the War: Divided, Glum, Unwilling to Wait," Time, October 31, 1969, pp...
...In addition, public discussions of the issue devote relatively little attention to the immediate or personal effects of military intervention in Vietnam...
...DESPITE THE FAILURE of most commentators to identify it, the explanation for widespread working-class opposition to the war is easily understood...
...4 Whether social status was measured by income, education, or occupation, the results were similar: high-status adults endorsed a "hawkish" attitude, and 1 Martin Patchen, "Social Class and Foreign Policy Attitudes," unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, September 1969...
...2 Richard F. Hamilton, "A Research Note on the Mass Support for 'Tough' Military Initiatives," American Sociological Review, June 1969, pp...
...see also Johan Galtung, "Social Position, Party Identification, and Foreign Policy Orientation: A Norwegian Case Study," in Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, James Rosenau, ed., Free Press, 1967, pp...
...Americans with low social and economic status expressed increasing resistance to U.S...
...soldiers in a 1968 national survey, the results disclosed that relatively low social status or social involvement was closely associated with opposition to Jerome Skolnick, The Politics of Protest, Ballantine Books, 1969, pp...
...Another referendum on a proposal to withdraw U.S...
...9 The death of thousands of young men has had a profound impact upon many working-class homes in white as well as black areas throughout the country...
...The "abstract" nature of international issues such as the Vietnam conflict is probably another major barrier to demonstrative bluecollar opposition to the war...
...Even in Cambridge, perhaps the only exception to this pattern, two observers noted that "support for the referendum was lower than anticipated in the predominantly upper-income university sections but substantially higher than anticipated in working-class districts...
...3 Gallup Opinion Index, "Report No...
...The "silent majority," it therefore seems, eventually may fail to support policies for continuing the war...
...Among political commentators, public officials, and even antiwar leaders, there has been a general—and unexamined—agreement that working-class citizens are not critical of the war...
...4 Gallup Opinion Index, "Report No...
...Opposition to the total withdrawal of U.S...
...Yet, a careful examination of public-opinion and voting data reveals that even in communities such as Dearborn or Beverly Hills, which have few black residents, and even when white attitudes are investigated separately elsewhere, opposition to the war still is centered primarily in blue-collar segments of the population...
...While the results of the elections were similar, the vote against the war in each of the referendums was almost 25 percent higher than the criticism disclosed by public opinion surveys conducted at the same time...
...Public opinion polls in 1968 and 1969 revealed that low-income and poorly educated citizens tended to call themselves "doves," while higher-status persons preferred the designation of "hawks...
...On the contrary...
...9 Harlan Hahn and Albert Sugarman, "A Referendum on Vietnam," War/Peace Report, May 1967, pp...
...The difficulties of recognizing working-class opposition to the war has also resulted from the different styles of registering political beliefs...
...From scattered displays of working-class patriotism, many observers have drawn the sweeping and erroneous conclusion that bluecollar Americans favor a more aggressive policy in Vietnam...
...Even in affluent suburbs, such as Dearborn and Beverly Hills, antiwar voting was more prevalent among segments of the electorate that earned less than $15,000 annually or did not have a college degree than among higher-status areas...
...Except for labor-union picketing, American workers tend to feel uncomfortable about participating in public demonstrations, and they are not effectively represented in the antiwar protest movement...
...The reactions of persons at various social levels, it seems, imply different attitudes toward war...
...2 Here major support for the escalation of the war was found among the college-educated, professional or managerial occupations, and among persons earning more than $10,000 annually...
...troops from Vietnam...
...In many blue-collar households, the actual or potential loss of a son, a brother, or a grandson—not to speak of a husband and father—may mean financial adversity as well as deep grief...
...While only 52 percent of the persons with low social status were willing to delegate major foreign-policy issues to government officials, 63 percent of those in the middle and 74 percent of those on top were content to leave Vietnam to the diplomats...
...13-15...
...Even opinion polls rarely ask people about Vietnam in concrete or personal terms and usually phrase their questions in relation to global problems or Southeast Asian policy...
...In San Francisco the average vote against the war in low-income neighborhoods was 43 percent, but in highstatus districts only 29 percent...
...These referendum votes seemed to parallel and even outpace the growth of antiwar sentiment in opinion polls...
...DURING THE LAST FIVE YEARS, at least seven communities held local referendums on the Vietnam war...
...105-106...
Vol. 17 • May 1970 • No. 3
