The Big Vote: Gender, Consumer Culture, and the Politics of Exclusion, 1890s–1920s

3. "Vote as You Please"—But Vote!": The Leadership of the Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns [Includes Image Plates]

“VOTE AS YOU PLEASE—BUT VOTE!” The Leadership of the Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns “VOTE AS YOU PLEASE—BUT VOTE,” the stickers urged, patriotically presented in red, white, and blue (see fig. 9). Businessmen, factory owners, and merchants from coast to coast brought the GOTV message to colleagues, customers, and employees by pasting these stickers on business correspondence, newsletters, employee pay envelopes, and customers’ parcels. Once the GOTV emblem of a single business group, the “Vote as you please” slogan and the tricolor graphic were soon employed by a broad range of GOTV groups and even by advertisers selling products that had nothing to do with the campaigns. “Vote as you please,” in short, became a testament to the reach and penetration of the GOTV campaigns. The “Vote As You Please” slogan was coined by the National Association of Manufacturers, one of the leading Get-Out-the-Vote groups. In the profusion of the GOTV campaigns, five organizations stood out for the extraordinary scope and scale of their work. The League of Women Voters, the National Association of Manufacturers, Collier’s magazine , the National Civic Federation, and the American Legion spearheaded the biggest and most important GOTV campaigns. Each made GOTV a top priority within the organization, devoting substantial resources to the cause and organizing campaigns on a national scale. These groups comprised the campaigns’ activist core. Three of these groups—the League, the NAM, and Collier’s—claimed to have inaugurated the GOTV movement; the League, however, was the 3 only group with a legitimate claim to that distinction. Rather, each of these three groups took up GOTV independently, and each devised a plan of action and executed it autonomously. Collaboration amongst the national GOTV leaders was unusual: at the national level, only the National Civic Federation and the American Legion cooperated closely. Though the campaigns were independently conceived and run, they were synchronized by the rhythm of the election cycle. The biggest campaigns took place in presidential election years, in particular in 1924. In off years, many GOTV groups ran smaller campaigns to turn out voters for congressional or city elections or stepped back to assess their past work and plan for future elections. Over the years leadership roles shifted from group to group. The League, the NAM, and Collier’s all did their most intensive GOTV work in 1924. After 1924 the NAM and Collier ’s largely abandoned the project, but the National Civic Federation and the American Legion stepped in and in 1926 put on their largest campaigns. Only the League of Women Voters sustained a serious commitment to GOTV throughout the period, conducting substantial and intensive campaigns in 1924, 1926, and 1928. These, then, were the campaigns of the groups that did the most to lead GOTV. Why did each take up the cause? What precisely did each do to turn out more voters? How did each shape the overall campaigns, and how, in turn, was each shaped by them? Finally, in the aggregate, what did their efforts add up to? “Let Us Come to Our Citizens’ Duty 100% Strong”: The Vote Campaigns of the League of Women Voters In April 1923, the League of Women Voters, assembled in convention in Des Moines, Iowa, set new goals for the organization by passing two resolutions. The women agreed first that Whereas, in the last Presidential election less than fifty per cent of the men and women eligible to vote actually voted, therefore be it resolved , that the National League of Women Voters call upon the public -spirited men and women of all political parties and in every section of the United States to take part in a campaign for efficient citizenship to the end that at the next Presidential election at least seventy-five per cent of the voters accept the responsibility and the privilege of self government and cast their ballots according to the best information they can obtain.1 THE BIG VOTE 78 “VOTE AS YOU PLEASE—BUT VOTE!” 79 They then agreed that “Whereas, the realization of that purpose rests upon clear ideas of Government and Politics in the minds of energetic men and women,” they were further “resolved” that “each state League undertake a plan of study” of election laws, legislatures, and the “machinery” of government “with a view to full participation by the electorate.”2 With these two resolutions the League of Women Voters inaugurated the GOTV campaigns...