first, because the percentage of naturalization of the Irish is much greater than that of Italians or Russians on account of their being older immigrants and also more at home in the peculiar political milieu of New York; second, the native Irish of foreign parents usually outnumber the foreign born, whereas the opposite is true of the relation between native-born and foreign-born Russians and Italians. Besides, the Irish are widely scattered and massed in only a few districts. However, these are the districts we have, at present, in view, as giving a strong clue to what occurs less perceptibly where the concentration is less dense. The table follows:
Assembly District | Irish | 1913, McCall | 1910, Dix |
M 13 | 16.4 | 61.0 | 58.1 |
M 16 | 14.0 | 51.7 | 61.4 |
M 11 | 12.2 | 55.6 | 60.5 |
M 14 | 12.4 | 54.7 | 61.2 |
M 5 | 11.2 | 64.4 | 67.6 |
We have only five districts in which the naturalized Irishmen constitute clearly over 10 per cent, of the voting population. In every one the Tammany candidate received over 50 per cent, of the district's vote. Although not an exact measure of the strength of the Irish predilection for the organization, it is a clear indication of the tendency sufficiently demonstrated in other ways.
The Germans, like the Irish, are more diffused than the Russians and Italians. We find them constituting more than 10 per cent, of the voters in six districts. In two of these they far outnumber every other nationality—the third of Queens and second of Manhattan. In these they formed considerably more than twenty-one per cent, of the voters.
Assembly District | Germans | 1913, McCall | 1910, Dix |
Q 3 | 21.4 | 31.1 | 49.8 |
B 20 | 20.2 | 26.8 | 41.8 |
B 19 | 13.6 | 31.9 | 48.3 |
B 33 | 11.2 | 34.6 | 49.4 |
Q 1 | 11.1 | 41.4 | 55.2 |
M 22 | 21.2 | 38.4 | 50.5 |
Every one of these districts decisively rejected Tammany.
Summarizing the answers given to the first question put to the voters, which was "Are you for or against Tammany" we are able to say that a decided "no" was given by native Americans of native parents and by the Russians and Germans; a decided "yes" was given by the Italians and Irish.
Two other questions came sharply to the fore in 1913. One was radicalism in the form of socialism; the other was Hearstian radicalism.