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Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 491
4. The Negro in Northern Politics
The Negro coming from the South to the North was as politically
innocent and Ignorant as the Immigrant from a country like Italy where
democratic politics was not well developed and was very different from
politics in the Northern United States. It was quite natural, therefore, for
Negro politics in the North to take forms similar to Italo-American
politics. Ignorance and poverty caused a disproportionate amount of non-
voting among Negroes, although not nearly as much as among Italian
immigrants who had to become citizens before they could exercise the
franchise. Nonvoting was perhaps accentuated among some Negroes by a
timidity caused by violence in the South. Other Negroes, perhaps, felt a
stronger urge to vote in the North because they had been disfranchised in
the South. Like other immigrants, since young adults migrate to a greater
extent than any other age group, Negroes formed a larger proportion of
the adult population than of the total population. Therefore they had a
potential voting strength greater than their total numbers would indicate.®^
Like other immigrants, they continually got into minor legal difficulties
and sought the friendly services of petty politicians. Like other immi-
grants, they often traded their votes for these material favors, although
they were perhaps not as wise or successful as some of the other immigrants
in getting a quid fro quo. Like other ignorant immigrants, they tended to
follow the narrow political leadership of those of their own group who
sought political plums for themselves. Still they were not unified, partly
because of the rivalry between the recent migrants from the South and
those longer established in the North. Du Bois gives an apt summary of
the voting behavior of Negroes in one Northern city, Philadelphia, In
1896, and this characterization remained largely valid right up to 1930.
The experiment of Negro suffrage in Philadelphia has developed three classes of
Negro voters: a large majority of voters who vote blindly at the dictates of the party
and, while not open to direct bribery, accept the indirect emoluments of office or
influence in return for party loyalty; a considerable group, centering in the slum
districts, which casts a corrupt purchasable vote for the highest bidder; lastly, a very
small group of independent voters who seek to use their vote to better present
conditions of municipal life.®^
There were some peculiarities about the political behavior of Negroes
in the North that differentiated it from that of the foreign-born whites as
well as from that of the native whites. In the first place, it was strongly
attached to the Republican party j
gratitude to the symbol of Lincoln, the
example of early leaders like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Wash-
ington, and the continuous spectacle of what the name ^^Democratic party”
meant in the South, all tied the bulk of Northern Negro voters to the
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