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| 111 16 Gangsters and Socialists on Election Day (memoir; 1944) Louis Waldman The labor lawyer Louis Waldman (1892–1982) immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine in 1909. He was twice elected to the New York Sate Assembly on the Socialist Party ticket. Although the Republican-controlled Assembly expelled Waldman and the other four Socialist Assemblyman on the first day of the 1920 legislative session, Waldman continued to run for office into the 1930s, polling over one hundred thousand votes in his gubernatorial campaigns. Waldman served as counsel for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, the New York Central Trades and Labor Council, and other unions. Election Day in this age of the voting machine is the day when a popular candidate, even if he belongs to a minority party, casts his vote to the click of news cameras and relaxes from the strain of his campaign. But when I first encountered politics, New York elections were often dirty and unsavory things, and a Socialist candidate on Election Day went through the experiences of a minor war. The polling places were generally in some untidy barbershop or in the elevating atmosphere of a funeral parlor. It was a common occurrence for toughs and gangsters to lounge about the polls, intimidating and browbeating voters. The polling inspectors and watchers for the two dominant parties were usually people to whom election of their candidates meant a job of some kind. Unscrupulous conduct at elections was, therefore, frequently a matter of economic self-preservation. In each district the political organizations, Republican as well as Democratic , were geared to take advantage of the existing inadequate election machinery. The captain of each block knew every resident voter, his needs, interests, and weaknesses. On Election Day, before noon, he would have before him a last-minute list of all registered voters who were not likely to 112 | In Struggle vote that day—the sick, the dead, and the absentees. In some sections, a stream of strangers would then flood the polls and, under the tolerant eyes of the party regulars, cast votes in the names of those who were absent, according to previous instructions. “Cemetery voters,” “mattress voters,” people who moved into a district overnight, all these weighed heavily against an honest poll. “Counting out” a candidate was an easy matter before the advent of the voting machine. With a small piece of lead concealed under a fingernail, the skillful ballot-counter would “mutilate” an opposition ballot and thus have it discredited as “spoiled.” Sometimes he would tear it slightly in the handling, to put it out of the count. These were only a few of the opposition tactics with which Socialist candidates had to contend. To guard against such dishonest practices, the Election Law authorizes each political party to appoint two official watchers for each polling place. But not a few of our watchers, under the threat of guns and blackjacks, had to abandon their posts on Election Day for fear of bodily harm. And many a time I had to storm the entrance of a polling place to which, as a candidate, I had legal right of entry. Among our most ardent watchers were Harry Donnenfeld and his young bride, Gea. By no fantastic stretch of the imagination could anyone have then guessed that cheerful, short, thin Harry would ever have any connection with the type of strong, invincible super-manhood that is today glorified by the fabulous Superman. He is now, however, that super-hero’s owner and publisher, and enjoys the affectionate nickname of “Superman” Donnenfeld.1 One Election Day during this period, Donnenfeld and I shared a typical experience that had all the elements of a Superman thriller except one. The setting was one of the East Side’s toughest polling places, a dingy, crowded, smoke-filled barbershop on Fourteenth Street. The villains were two political thugs whose task it was to keep out the Socialist watchers. The “heroes” were Harry and myself. Like Superman, we were crusaders, but there ended all similarity between us and the miracle-working foe of the underworld. Four of our watchers had already been persuaded to leave this polling place, and had numerous lumps, bruises, and contusions to prove it, when Donnenfeld and I set forth to establish the party’s legal rights there. A special reception awaited us. Hardly were we in the place when we were shoved into a corner and found ourselves staring into two evil-looking automatics and two pimply but...

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