Americanization; Civics; Immigrants -- United States; Naturalization -- United States; Noncitizens -- United States
==========================================================
1903 | 15,975
1904 | 20,763
1905 | 23,327
1906 | 26,784
1907 | 29,270
1908 | 41,751
1909 | 41,479
1910 | 58,011
1911 | 84,716
1912 | 113,371
1913 | 95,401
1914 | 93,579
1915 | 79,374
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The year 1912 was the year of the Roosevelt Progressive revolt
against the Republican party; it may be that thousands of voters of
radical or liberal tendency who resented the Republican attitude,
but could not follow Mr. Roosevelt, or swung farther than the
Progressive party was willing to go, went into the Socialist party.
But it seems quite evident that the heavy slump between 1914 and
1915, when the figure dropped from 93,579 to 79,374, was due to the
reactions of the war, and in particular to the increasing resentment
of native Americans against the attitude of the party leaders which
culminated in the platform adopted by the party organization at St.
Louis--antiwar, and by most ordinary folk, including thousands of
perfectly good Socialists, deemed not only pacifistic, but definitely
pro-German. That situation alone drove a rift down through the
Socialist ranks, and certainly made it legitimate henceforth--for the
present, anyway--to regard the Socialist party, as constituted, as an
organization distinctively of foreign stock and foreign born.
RACIAL GROUPS OF SOCIALISTS
Owing to the polyglot character of the Socialist movement, it became
necessary to organize language groups. This movement was well under
way in the years immediately preceding the war. The German Language
Federation, which was formed in December, 1912, at Newcastle,
Pennsylvania, at the end of the third year claimed a dues-paying
membership of 4,577.[173] The Finnish Socialist Federation was
credited with 10,616 in 1916. The French Language Federation reported
497 members in December, 1915. The Hungarian Language Federation
claimed membership “well above 1,500.” The Italian Socialist
Federation reported “about 1,000 members in good standing.” The
Jewish Socialist Federation was stated to have “about 5,000 members.”
The Lithuanian Socialist Federation stated that it had “a little over
2,000 members.” The South-Slavic Socialist Federation claimed about
2,000. The Scandinavian Federation gave its membership as 1,161, of
whom 265 were women. There were recognized also organizations of
Poles, Slovaks, Japanese, etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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