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Progressive Politics: Wisconsin an Example1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
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An examination of the relationship of the Democratic percentages in the various states to the Democratic percentage for the nation as a whole during the past forty years shows that several general patterns are discernible. In the north central and northwestern parts of the United States, one of these patterns may be clearly defined. When the country swings in one direction, the states in this region swing with it, but more strongly than the country as a whole. During the twenties, these states were more decidedly Republican than the nation, but during the thirties they became more strongly Democratic. This tendency to shift from one extreme to another is related to the progressive background of these states of which Wisconsin is typical. “Wisconsin,” “La Follette,” “progressive”—for decades these three terms have been almost indissolubly linked in the minds of politically aware observers of the American scene.
While Wisconsin has followed the Republican standard in presidential elections almost without exception from 1870 to 1932, it has shown progressive leanings. In 1912, Robert La Follette, Sr's. sulking greatly cut down the Progressive vote, but it was still large enough to split the normal Republican strength and throw the electoral vote to Wilson, and in 1924 the state went overwhelmingly for its own favorite son.
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- American Government and Politics
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1940
References
2 The following states very closely resemble Wisconsin: Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, Minnesota, California, Iowa, South Dakota, Michigan, and Wyoming. See Bean, L. H., Ballot Behavior (Washington, D.C., 1940).Google Scholar
3 The Wisconsin state legislature, which previously had been overwhelmingly Republican (both stalwart and progressive varieties), began a shift toward Democracy in 1930 which by 1934 assumed landslide proportions. The Republican party began to recoup its fortunes in 1936, and in 1938 regained its 1930 strength.
4 Edgeworth, F. Y. made a study of popular votes in three British parliamentary elections entitled “Miscellaneous Applications of the Calculus of Probabilities,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 61, pp. 534–544 (Sept., 1898)Google Scholar; Rice, S. A., “Time Series: Party Turnover in New Jersey, 1871–1924,” Quantitative Methods in Politics (New York, 1928), Chap. 21.Google Scholar
5 Average of prices, January, 1910, to December, 1914 = 100. See Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and Markets, Wisconsin Crop and Livestock Reporter, Vol. 18, p. 44 (July, 1939)Google Scholar, for farm price index used in this article.
6 Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin Crop and Livestock Reporting Service, Bulletin No. 188, pp. 1–3, 31.Google Scholar
7 The correlation coefficient between the percentage of the total vote for Roosevelt in 1932 by counties and the gross farm income per farm in 1933 by counties was –.07.
8 The correlation coefficient between the decrease in gross farm income, 1931–33, and the percentage for Roosevelt in 1932 less the percentage for Smith in 1928 equals .35.
9 The following sectional division is taken from the First Annual Report of the Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, Map 7, p. 207, with modifications based upon the Wisconsin Agriculture Bulletins.
10 The Northeast area consists of the counties of Forest, Florence, Marinette, Langlade, and Oconto; the Northwest section contains Douglas, Bayfield, Burnett, Washburn, Sawyer, and Rusk.
11 Kirkpatrick, T. and Boyton, A. M., Wisconsin's Human and Physical Resources (Madison, 1936), pp. 1–20, 130–140.Google Scholar
12 We have taken Jackson, Juneau, and Adams counties as the poor Central Sands area. The remainder of this area (rich Central Sands) was comparatively well off.
13 The Prairie Section is made up of Green, Rock, Walworth, Dane, Jefferson, Columbia, Dodge, and Green Lake counties. The Southwest consists of La Fayette, Grant, Iowa, Crawford, Richland, Vernon, and Sauk counties.
14 The Southeast counties are Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Waukesha. The Lake Winnebago and Michigan Lake Shore counties are: Door, Kewaunee, Brown, Outagamie, Waupaca, Winnebago, Calumet, Manitowoc, Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Washington, and Ozaukee.
15 Gosnell, H. F., Machine Politics: Chicago Model (Chicago, 1937), pp. 107, 110Google Scholar, and passim.
16 New York Times, Nov. 18, 1935, p. 1: 2.
17 Ibid., Aug. 21, 1936, p. 1: 1; Sept. 25, 1936, p. 1: 1.
18 Wisconsin Planning Board, op. cit., pp. 306–307.
19 Hull: New York Times, Oct. 8, 1936, 1: 1; Roosevelt: ibid., Oct. 13, 1936, 23: 6.
20 Cf. Turner Catledge, ibid., Oct. 15, 1936, 16:1 “… except for the isolated case of the beef cattle raisers, the effect of the reciprocal trade agreements, including the one with Canada, doesn't amount to ‘two whoops across the holler’ in relation to the election of Nov. 3.” Arthur Kroch, ibid., Oct. 22, 1936, 13: 2. “Nevertheless, the Republicans will make rural gains. They attribute this to Gov. Landon's tour, in which he stressed the treaty issue….”
21 Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Labor Market, Vol. 18, No. 12 (December, 1938), 2.Google Scholar
22 Wisconsin Public Welfare Review, Sept., 1938, p. 6; also ibid., June, 1938, p. 7. The greatest increases in relief cases (except for the northern cutover) during this period were recorded in the large urban industrial areas, and some of the wealthier rural counties even showed a decrease in per cent on relief for this period.
23 At any rate, the correlation between the per cent of population unemployed in twenty-one non-agricultural counties of the state and the per cent voting for Heil in those counties is −.82—a high negative relationship. Other economic indices bear out this result. Thus the coefficient between the per cent on public assistance in the state's counties in September, 1938, and the per cent for Heil is −.68. The correlation between the per cent for Heil and gross farm income in 1936 is .56—low compared to the other two measures, but higher than any of the correlations involving economic indices arrived at in the presidential elections.
24 The data for per cent rural-farm and per cent native white are from the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930.
25 One way of getting at this problem is to correlate the per cent for a given candidate in an election with the per cent rural farm, by counties. In the two presidential elections of the decade, the coefficients of correlation between the Roosevelt vote and the per cent rural-farm were −.42 in 1932 and −.53 in 1936.
26 The per cent rural-farm population was related to various political variables as follows: with the percentage for La Follette, Sr., in the 1924 presidential race in a small positive fashion (r = +.38); with the vote for Blaine, progressive Republican senatorial candidate in 1926, in a similar positive fashion (r = +.40); with Philip La Follette's vote in 1930, in a negative fashion (r = −.31); in the 1932 primary, in a positive manner (r = +.34); in 1934 and 1936, in a slightly positive fashion; and in the 1938 election, not at all (r = .05).
27 The coefficient of correlation between the per cent native white of native parentage and the percentage for Roosevelt were −.03 in 1932 and −.45 in 1936.
28 The coefficient of correlation between gross farm income in 1936 and the per cent native white of native parentage was .51.
29 In Iowa, H. F. Gosnell and N. Pearson found a similar rise in the coefficients of correlation between the Roosevelt vote and the per cent native white of native parentage (r = −.39 for 1932 and r = −.62 for 1936). Here also the foreign vote was probably influenced by economic considerations. The most foreign areas of the state were those which had suffered the least from the drought between 1932 and 1936, while the predominantly native white areas had suffered the most and reacted accordingly.
30 The correlation between the per cent for Heil, the Republican candidate, and this variable was +.52.
31 The tie between progressivism and the Scandinavians goes far back in the state's history. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., got his most substantial support from the Wisconsin Norwegians during the infancy of the progressive movement, and regardless of the reasons why this first occurred, the Scandinavian group seems to have remained predominantly progressive ever since. Barton, A. O., La Follelte's Winning of Wisconsin (Madison, 1922), pp. 57–58.Google Scholar Various reasons for the adherence of Norwegians to La Follette are suggested here.
32 That is, for every vote that the state candidates of the party received, the national candidate likewise received a vote. There is no warrant for stating that the same people voted for the national candidates of the party as for the state candidates, but we make the assumption that when there is a consistently high association of the two factors, there is strong indication of high party discipline or organization.
33 Regular (Stalwart) Republicans with Regular Republicans ('24-'38)
34 Progressive Republicans with Regular Republicans ('24-'34)
37 Another fact tending to lend credence to this view is that La Follette again, as in 1932, endorsed Roosevelt and probably carried many Progressive followers with him into the Roosevelt camp. Since the percentage of the votes of the Democratic and Progressive gubernatorial candidates combined is the complement of the percentage of the votes received by the Republican candidate, this would mean that the Progressive plus the Democratic vote would closely resemble the Roosevelt vote.
38 r = .86 (a = 9.8, b = .91, S = 4.54, σ = 8.94). The discipline between the two Progressive candidates, Philip La Follette and Ekern, was only slightly lower, while the Democratic party displayed a very weak organization. The Democratic candidate for governor, Bolens, received only nine per cent of the total vote, while his running mate, Duffy, got 25 per cent of the senatorial vote.
39 The coefficient of correlation between Henry's total vote in the primary (both Republican and Democratic) as a percentage of the total primary vote and the percentage vote for Heil in the general election was +.70.
40 The relationship between the per cent for Henry (Democratic and Republican) of total primary vote and the per cent native white of native parentage was positive (r = .42), between the Henry vote and the per cent of population on relief was negative (r = −.27), and between the Henry vote and the average gross farm increase in 1936 was positive (r =.33).
41 See supra.
43 The fifteen traditionally Democratic counties in approximate order of strength of party tradition are: Ozaukee, Milwaukee, Portage, Langlade, Brown, Calumet, Dodge, Manitowoc, Washington, Jefferson, Kewaunee, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Forest, and Crawford.
44 In the neighboring state of Iowa, also, the strongly Democratic elements of recent years were found to comprise the wealthiest section of the state, with the largest urban areas and relatively wet votes.
45 Buffalo, Burnett, Taylor, Trempealeau, Ashland, Monroe, Iron, Bayfield, Adams, Jackson, Barron, Shawano, Polk, Washburn, Vernon.
46 They are: Walworth, Rock, Florence, Richland, Dunn, Pierce, St. Croix, Eau Claire, Rusk, Waupaca, Waushara, Grant, Iowa, Chippewa, and Pepin.
47 X 1 = per cent vote for Rep. Gov. Heil (general election 1938)
X 2 = per cent native white of native parentage 1930
X 3 = average gross farm income per farm 1936
X 4 = per cent of population receiving public assistance September, 1938
X 5 = per cent vote for Henry (Dem. and Rep.) as per cent of total primary vote 1938
X 6 = per cent vote for Wiley (Rep. Gov. 1936)
Then X 1 = 37.88−.0400 X 2+.0022 X 3−.4219 X 4+.3637 X 5+.3414 X 6
R 1.23456 = .9249 S 1.23456 = 3.4013
The equation indicates that considerable weight should be attached to the relief situation in the state, for this factor has the highest parameter in the equation. This again bears out the importance that economic considerations played in this election, especially in the urban area and the northern cutover, since it was in these sections that relief or lack of it was a dominant issue. Of approximately equal weight would be the two political variables—the influence of the Republican traditional vote and the important part played by Henry's defection. Other considerations would be either of lesser import or else included in one of the major factors already discussed.
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