But the large majority of the Jewish laborers had enough of Socialism by the time they were entitled to citizenship; the number of voters of that party increased very slowly, and, like the above-mentioned case of the unions, they were not the same from year to year. While the Jewish population was increasing rapidly in some parts of New York and other large cities, and the number of non-Jewish, or rather non-immigrant, voters in some districts became very small or practically disappeared, the number of Socialist votes was fluctuating, and never became a majority or even a plurality in a district. While the leaders were preaching that all opportunities were now gone and all avenues of advancement were closed for the poor man, every individual among their followers was struggling to raise himself above his surroundings. Americanization meant the abandonment of extreme views on all subjects, and the naturalized immigrant, even when he remained a manual worker, was soon voting for one of the two great American parties. He still retained a leaning towards radical reform, for the Russian mind is much inclined to theorizing; but he would now seldom go further than support an American reformer or join one of the movements instituted by the better elements for the purpose of purifying city governments. But as the reform element usually signalizes its accession to power by a severe enforcement of Sunday-closing laws and other interferences with personal liberty which smack of persecution, the immigrant Jew usually joins the other disappointed classes to turn the reformers out of office at the next election. There was a slow and steady turning away from the dry and monotonous radical literature of that period, which was a counterpart of the turning away from extreme politics. In one respect the change in literary tastes or requirements amounted to a revulsion――one might almost say, to a revolution. The first attempt to publish in Yiddish a sensational novel in weekly or semi-weekly installments, popularly known as “Heften,” which was made in New York about 1890, met with extraordinary success. The number of such ventures soon multiplied, and the sales were large in other cities as well as in the place of publication. The Yiddish periodical press became endangered, but it saved――and revenged――itself by beginning to publish one, two and sometimes as much as three serial stories in daily installments, a practice which in a short time ruined the business of the “Heften.”