Francophone readers may be interested in my latest op-ed in Le Devoir, which discusses a landmark anniversary and the policy failure that gave us Franco-America.

In our day, Franco-American culture seldom intersects with electoral politics. Admittedly, Paul LePage’s background attracted some attention when he became the first Franco-American governor of Maine. Last month, Kelly Ayotte earned the same distinction in New Hampshire, though her ancestry has attracted much less attention. We shouldn’t be surprised. Relatively few Franco-Americans today identify strongly with their ancestral culture. More significantly, shared ethnic origins no longer play a part in Franco-Americans’ voting choices. Their values are informed by other factors, especially the major issues with which all Americans contend.

Reading the major works of Franco history, we might be led to believe that politics were never of great concern to immigrants from Quebec and the Maritimes—either because they stayed aloof or because they all voted, somewhat uncritically, the same way. But this is a trick of history. Early chroniclers of Franco-American life had a vested interest in minimizing dissent and disagreement in the community; they emphasized what was held in common, particularly the need for uniform action in the preservation of a shared culture. Many historians followed in these thinkers’ and writers’ footsteps.

In reality, though we like to imagine early Franco leaders as comrades-in-arms, they had bruising arguments, often precisely over politics. These disagreements even occurred within the same political family. In 1893, Louis Martel ran for the mayoralty of Lewiston. After his defeat, he blamed Irish defections from the Democratic fold. On March 25, Democratic publisher and editor Benjamin Lenthier took Martel and his paper to task for these claims. The problem, Lenthier argued, owed less to the party than to Martel’s handling of a private business matter. Perhaps, in any event, would Martel be better-advised to convert French Republicans than to go in search of Irish traitors.

This brings us to the political world of the late nineteenth-century, both eerily similar and impossibly foreign to our own. This was an era of identity politics. Immigrants in northern cities, a small band of reformers, and white Southerners were solidly Democratic constituencies. African Americans and Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the North and Midwest were committed Republicans. The country was split down the middle. There were few swing states and little fluctuation occurred from one election to the next. Typically, only major economic crises shook the established order.

Though Reconstruction and, later, monetary policy entered into the conversation, tariffs emerged as the single most important issue. High tariffs on manufactured goods—which the GOP favored—helped protect U.S. industry from foreign competition. That included the textile-manufacturing sector. Gilded-Age “robber barons” were made richer by this system. On the other hand, tariffs artificially raised the cost of living across the country. There was another dimension to this. Duties on imports filled government coffers prior to the introduction of an income tax. They paid for an expensive system of Civil War pensions that overwhelmingly benefited Republican voters. Democrats repeatedly challenged big government, the influence of the ultra-wealthy over Republican administrations, and what they perceived to be a vote-buying scheme.

In 1888, Republican Benjamin Harrison defeated the Democratic incumbent, Grover Cleveland, on the strength of the Electoral College. Cleveland had the popular vote as his dubious consolation prize. The following presidential election was a rematch. Cleveland notched a decisive victory in 1892, thus becoming the only president to serve non-consecutive terms until the twenty-first century. Cleveland also stands out as the only Democrat to win the White House between the Civil War and 1912.[1]

Through these debates, Franco-American community leaders were not of one mind. Attorney Hugo Dubuque of Fall River was a staunch Republican. As we have seen, Benjamin Lenthier, who had moved his newspaper from Plattsburgh to Lowell, was an equally fervent Democrat. Lenthier aimed to consolidate the Franco-American press to partisan ends; he would momentarily reap the rewards of Democratic patronage in 1893.

In the fall of 1892, Lenthier was all in; so was his National. In Lowell and beyond, French Canadians read about the merits of Grover Cleveland and Democratic ideals. The article below, carried in French in Le National on November 7, exemplifies how Franco-American newspapers connected the immigrant community with nationwide political issues and campaigns.

For more on Franco-Americans’ political involvement, see my “Tout nous serait possible”: Une histoire politique des Franco-Américains, 1874-1945 (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2021).

 

LAST APPEAL

The Democratic National Committee has just published the following manifesto, of which we recommend an attentive reading:

To the people of the United States:

The presidential campaign will soon be over. It is both just and necessary that we share a few words.

There is not in the United States a man, a woman, or a child that is not affected by our tariff policy. It has seeped into the ordinary life of every individual and shapes their expenses.

Since 1865, fewer than a thousand men in this country have been, through their own individual wealth or that gathered under their control, the masters of our tariff system. Their power has been sufficient to ensure the continuation and augmentation, in peacetime, of taxes on the necessities of life, which were first imposed in wartime, with the sole purpose of meeting the needs of the government.

Under the wartime tax policy thus continued, the conditions of life in this country have changed substantially. The wealth which, under prior laws, was distributed to all classes engaged in industry, has since been concentrated in the hands of a small number of people. They have amassed fortunes without precedent in any European state and have been to the world the example of unrestrained luxury.

The mass of people who toil in the fields or earn their bread in rural districts, or in cities by the exertion of their intelligence and their hands, struggle and await the help of our collective action.

You know this to be true. The strongest feeling in your breast today is the conviction that each one of you is obligated every day to pay on your salary and savings—for all necessities of life—a price that should not be imposed and of which a large portion goes not to the government, but to the small number of privileged individuals who today control the government.

You know that this class controls the government and makes it its instrument. It is a band of rich men who are united in a common goal and who truly control the Republican Party.

Federal civil servants are part of this machine, whose course of action is to intimidate workers and corrupt with money. In 1888, it managed to defeat Grover Cleveland through this method before you could be aware of the danger. Now you no longer ignore it.

In no country in the civilized world, where the people have the right to vote, have we seen such a visible desire to win an election by the use of money. Every one sees daily the enormous sums amassed from thousands of contributors; the character of men openly chosen to allocate this money where, according to their vulgar expression, it would do the most good; and the prostitution of the civil service to the most vile ends. You will not remain mute witnesses of this spectacle.

The people of New York State, recalling the elevated character and public services of Grover Cleveland, and knowing that his election is a strong guarantee of a wiser, better, and more honest government, joins us in supporting him. The Republicans of New York State—and there are many—who love their country and despise the men who control their party, will come to his aid, and he will earn a clear victory in his beloved state.

The farmers of Indiana, duped more than once by the infamous methods that are still used to control this state, will show that the thousand beneficiaries of federal legislation can no longer, through fraud, combination, and corruption, win the electoral vote of their state.

The population of New Jersey, justly irritated by efforts to overturn its will through the corruption of its worst elements, will give the thousand contributors, on election day, a lesson they never will forget.

Deprived of their rightful state government by the methods now being employed against Grover Cleveland, the farmers and workers of Connecticut will remember their grievances at the polling station on November 8. The people of Delaware and Virginia, outraged by the efforts made to corrupt and intimidate them, will follow that example.

You will remember that you owe to the few men who maintain the unfair and corrupting tariff both the initiative and the continuous threat of the Force Bill.[2] It is a measure whose purpose is to abet Republican plans. Under its authority, they could use the federal justice system to political ends and employ an army of federal officials—paid from the public treasury—to control the next presidential election and the election of members of Congress.

Having failed in this infamous project, they have again reached into their pockets and found campaign funds that the government, without their Force Bill, would have given them. But do not be deceived.

President Harrison favors the easy method of winning elections that this dangerous law provides. We are certain that the silence of Republican leaders who are managing this campaign does not fool you.

On November 8, you will have to make a choice that will affect your country’s interests.

The individual vote of each and every one of you will be of the greatest importance.

With Grover Cleveland as president, the highest aim and the general rule of his administration—indeed of the Democratic and independent votes united in his support—will be the greatest good of the greatest number, and every public position will be conscientiously regarded as a vow of public faith.

The civil service will not be dragged in spite of itself through the mud of conventions, but rather the laws that regulate it will be scrupulously applied. Developing continuously side by side under wiser laws, agriculture and commerce will add considerably to our national prosperity. Our factories will follow the march of agriculture and commerce, and producers will enjoy a greater measure of prosperity.

The worker, in the field and in the factory, will find his needs taken into consideration and his reasonable demands better heard.

No combination will be able to dictate laws to Grover Cleveland or to a Democratic majority in Congress.

The party we represent, the candidate we support, and the cause we defend serve only one thing: good government.

We ask each of you—everyone acting in his district and electoral riding—to work tirelessly for the election of Grover Cleveland and Adlai E. Stevenson[3] and for good government under a Democratic administration.

On election day, set aside all duties but the present one. Protect your polling places against fraud, corruption, and intimidation.

No form of authority gives a man the right to interfere with the legal casting of your ballot. There is behind each and every one of you the strength of public opinion and the real power of the law, which will strictly hold to account all of those who are presently working to prevent the free expression of your will.

The right is yours and we are confident of our victory. Help make it a shining triumph.

William F. Harrity, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Don. M. Dickinson, Chairman of the Campaign Committee

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[1] Of particular relevance to Franco-Americans is one of Cleveland’s last acts in office. In March 1897, he vetoed a curtailment of Canadian immigration advocated by nativists.

[2] Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, grandfather of the later Republican vice-presidential nominee of the same name, proposed the so-called Force Bill while Harrison was in the White House. It would have moved oversight of congressional elections from states to the federal government. Federal supervisors would have had the power to verify voters’ credentials and regulate access to the ballot box, mobilizing law enforcement in aid of their work if need be. Ultimately defeated in the Senate, the bill had promised to enhance protections for African-American voters in the South. Critics argued that this was a case of government overreach that would enable future presidents (if not Harrison himself) to manipulate the outcome of elections.

[3] This Adlai Stevenson was the grandfather of the later Democratic presidential nominee and ambassador to the United Nations.