Sauerkraut, Suspenders, and the Swiss: A Political History of Green County's Swiss Colony, 1845-1945

by Duane H. Freitag

Overview

From the first “Cheese Day” in 1874 to the “Great Limburger War” of 1935, author Duane H. Freitag peers into the nooks and crannies of the tumultuous political history of Green County, Wisconsin.

In this previously untold story, Freitag pulls back the curtain to uncover how the Swiss immigrants who settled in southern Wisconsin influenced Green County politics from 1845 to 1945. Buffeted by wars, dairy industry economics, murders, epidemics, the temperance movement, and LaFollette progressivism, this immigrant group was heavily involved in each major election, asserting their political will in candidates and through the polls.

In addition to exploring the politics of the region, Freitag also discusses what caused shifts in Wisconsin’s political winds throughout this period by placing Green County elections against the larger context of political landscape of the United States as a whole. In doing so, he examines the history of America and demonstrates how Swiss immigrants and other Wisconsin cultural groups responded to the events that shaped the nation.

From the abolition of slavery to prohibition, the Great Depression, and concerns about America’s involvement in two world wars, Sauerkraut, Suspenders, and the Swiss demonstrates the remarkable story of Wisconsin—and American—politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475907513
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/18/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	348
File size:	5 MB

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Sauerkraut, Suspenders, and the Swiss

A political history of Green County's Swiss colony 1845-1945

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By Duane H. Freitag

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Duane H. Freitag
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-0750-6

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Chapter One

A legacy of political involvement

The Swiss who settled in Wisconsin's Green County left a discernible and proud political legacy, stretching from the start of the Swiss colony in 1845 through World War II. That legacy reflects a statewide pattern among many ethnic voters: an early preference for the Democratic Party and a subsequent shift to the Republican Party. However, a closer look at individual elections reveals some amazing stories as the Swiss-Americans confronted various national and local issues.

Their involvement in politics was not without mild epithets being hurled at them — to some the Swiss immigrants were clod-hoppers, limburger, and sauerkraut. But that pales in comparison to the anti-Jewish bias that Solomon Levitan, the Swiss colony's most famous politician, faced throughout a career that included serving as state treasurer. Levitan often overcame the bias with his folksy story-telling. As this political story unfolds, it is spiced with that lore, including how a chance meeting with the young politician Robert M. LaFollette prompted then-peddler Levitan to sell him a pair of suspenders and "support him" ever after.

Miriam Theiler, in her centennial history of New Glarus, noted that about two-thirds of the voters in the Swiss community that was centered there generally supported the Democratic Party. "Politics is but another instance of conservatism among these Swiss settlers," she wrote, "for they adhered, for decades, through all changes, to the political creed they first embraced when they came to America. For a man to change his political beliefs was quite as rare as for him to change his religion." However, Theiler was repeating almost verbatim a comment made in the 1890s by John Luchsinger, a prominent local Swiss-American politician and historian of that era. Election returns from 1894 and later show that the Democratic tendency was no longer dominant. Theiler did acknowledge that younger generations had leaned toward the Republican Party — a fact that helped make Green County a Republican stronghold for many years — and that deserving persons known to the Swiss community were often supported without regard to party affiliations.

To the extent that the early Swiss settlers voted for Democrats, they were in concert with two major European groups who were pouring into Wisconsin in the same 19th Century period — the Germans and the Irish. Democrats were generally able to lay claim to being the party of those ethnic minorities (and others) because they succeeded in getting votes from immigrants who at times felt excluded due to their highly distinctive culture. An exception in Wisconsin was the Norwegians, who soon arrived in big numbers and were more inclined to vote Republican after the Civil War years.

In inspecting the details on voting in Green County, it can be seen how the original preference for the Democratic Party evolved with the changing socio-economic status and other factors. One is able to watch those changes occur because for much of the period from the beginning of the Swiss colony in 1845 to 1945 the Swiss culture was distinctive and concentrated in a homogeneous area in the north central part of Green County. Over time, the picture becomes a complex political tapestry that encourages one to limit generalizations about ethnic voting. While party loyalty seems to be extremely strong, that was a fact that continued on both sides of the political spectrum all across the state. Political scientists note that in Wisconsin's rural counties that were settled by Germans, Democrats continued to be favored well into the 20th Century, continuing a pattern that was established by 1860. Similarly, an 1893 study of voting patterns in the Wisconsin Legislature showed that a third of roll calls found legislators uniformly backing party stands, especially on social issues.

It is somewhat surprising to see the extent to which the Swiss immigrants and their descendants took part in politics, given that historians have implied that the Swiss were a bit less interested than other early immigrants. Voter turnout seems rather heavy in the early years. By the 1890s, candidates and party activists were more numerous and cultural assimilation was well underway. At times a candidate's "Swissness" helped obtain votes, although more often it was a matter of supporting the hometown candidate.

What may seem incongruous is to say that the Swiss colony's most famous politician was someone who was not Swiss. That can be explained, however, using Sol Levitan's own words from a speech that he made at the Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C., in 1938: "I settled down in a Swiss community in New Glarus, Wisconsin. These people were very democratic, very industrious, economical and kind-hearted. I learned to speak the Swiss language, and was considered one of them, entering into their social life practically every way." In a similar vein, the New Glarus Post printed a letter in 1931 that Levitan had received from an A. Baumgartner of Zurich, Switzerland. Baumgartner was born in 1844 and had relatives in New Glarus who praised Levitan. "I know how much you are esteemed by all ... and I also know that, generally speaking, you love Switzerland and the Swiss people," he wrote. "The fact that you are looked up to is a great thing."

The early Swiss immigrants who came to Green County lived in a time of intense political turmoil, both in Switzerland and in the United States. While there were a handful of Swiss in southwestern Wisconsin in the state's formative years, including some who had been part of Lord Selkirk's Red River settlement in Canada, the most significant immigration began with the settlement of New Glarus in August of 1845 as an emigration project of Canton Glarus, Switzerland. Their native country had undergone profound changes. Napoleon's France had overrun Switzerland in 1798 and set up a new national government. Swiss independence and neutrality were restored in 1815, but the loose confederation that followed saw continued strife between conservative and liberal factions (with religious overtones). There was even a brief war — the Sonderbund — before Switzerland developed a new constitution in 1848, which was modeled on that of the United States. And it should also be noted that the Swiss from Canton Glarus in particular had a long history of democracy as reflected in the renowned Landesgemeinde, an annual outdoor meeting of all of the voters that was first documented in 1387 and is still the supreme authority of the canton. Upon arriving in Wisconsin, the Swiss immigrants found a nation that was split into raucous factions who had been for and against President Andrew Jackson. The Jacksonian Democrats, generally dominant on the frontier including in the nearby lead mining territory of southwestern Wisconsin, reached out to immigrant groups to secure their votes. The anti-Jackson partisans, who became known as the Whigs, were centered in the industrial northeast and although they certainly had their adherents in Wisconsin, they were not always a significant factor. There was also an active anti-slavery or Free-Soil movement, which had a strong following in Wisconsin under the Liberty Party banner, as well as a latent anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know Nothing movement that gained strength in the 1850s.

While all this political ferment swirled about them, the county's first Swiss immigrants were likely mostly focused on getting settled in the New World. To the extent that they were involved in bigger affairs, it was most frequently expressed as griping about how Canton Glarus' Emigration Society was treating them. But state and national politics soon intruded. The Territory of Wisconsin was preparing for statehood and the Swiss began to have contact with government on a more individual level as census takers came to their homes in 1846 and 1847. Politicians were also reaching out to the Swiss not long after the initial settlement. A story reflecting that is recorded in Butterfield's 1884 History of Green County. Christopher Martin, an immigrant Irish farmer from the Town of Monroe, was passing through New Glarus and for some reason was "treating" some of the villagers — perhaps he was just trying to help out those who he perceived as poorer. "He noticed the people gathered in a little group and looking at him from time to time, talking amongst themselves; pretty soon he treated again, their curiosity was so aroused that one of the group constituting himself spokesman for the rest, walked up to Mr. Martin and asked him: 'Bees you von politic man?' 'No,' says Mr. Martin. At this the man seemed astonished and exclaimed: 'Vell vat for you treat us then?' showing by this that politicians had already been tampering with them." On the other hand, one wonders if anyone was paying attention to politics in the early years. Joshua Wild, a Swiss immigrant who came to Green County in 1850, noted in his autobiography that when he served briefly as postmaster in New Glarus in the early 1850s "there were no newspapers and very few letters for which I was responsible." If the average person in the Swiss colony did see a newspaper, it most likely was one obtained when someone hauled wheat to the Milwaukee market. That community already had a German language newspaper as early as 1845. A German language paper also appeared in Madison in the 1850s.

Chapter Two

The first elections

The question of statehood for Wisconsin was first put to a vote in 1846. For immigrants, it was a heady thing — the state's constitutional convention had proposed that every white male age 21 or over who had resided in Wisconsin for six months and was either a citizen or had declared his intention to become one could vote on the question of statehood. For various reasons, the first proposed state constitution was rejected as being too utopian. A second, more moderate proposal for statehood was approved by voters in March of 1848. It seems likely that the possibility of being able to participate in that vote was a principal reason for groups of Swiss starting to go to the courthouse in Monroe in 1847 to file citizenship papers. Technically, it was possible that many of the Green County Swiss could have taken part in the 1848 vote, although there is no known record showing whether any of them did. Naturalization and elections continued to go hand-in-hand for years, as is noted in Helen Bingham's 1877 History of Green County: "Usually before an election each party had an agent at the colony who offered to pay the naturalization fees of all who would vote for his candidate."

1848-1850

Based on the earlier territorial stand, Wisconsin's new state constitution contained the most liberal voting law in the country. It allowed what became known as "declarant alien voting." As with the territorial vote, immigrants who had lived in the state a year and had filed their declaration of intention could participate.

Following statehood, school districts as we know them today came into being and the town governments were organized. Therefore, some of the first expressions of secular voting in the Swiss colony were in nonpartisan local government elections.

Since the founding of New Glarus in 1845, there had been several efforts at operating schools. Jacob Ernst, who joined the colonists that first fall, ran a German-language school starting in the winter of 1846-'47 with meager resources. Then J. Jacob Tschudy, who had arrived from Switzerland in 1846 to manage the colony, organized a school district under the territorial laws. Classes were held in several homes. With statehood, New Glarus School District #1 was established and in 1849 a log schoolhouse was constructed on colony land that had been set aside for that purpose.

Until statehood, Green County operated with a Southern-style county commissioner government. Now it had to set up New England- style town boards in each township, with the chairmen of those boards constituting the county board. On January 10, 1849, the county ordered that town government elections be held in every township in the county — except New Glarus, which was instead attached to the Town of York. Nothing was recorded as to why New Glarus was not included, but it no doubt had to do with language and uncertainties about citizenship. Later that year residents of the township petitioned the county board to organize their own government, and on November 16, 1849, the board ordered an election to be held the following April in the new log schoolhouse. John Westcott, 61, one of a handful of Yankees living in the Town of New Glarus, not only presided at that first meeting but was selected as the first chairman of the newly created town board. His son, Jefferson F. Westcott, 24, was selected as clerk. Joseph Trogner, 39, an immigrant from Germany, and Henry Hoesly, 32, who was part of the original 1845 Swiss colony, were the "side supervisors." The younger Westcott recalled in later years that he and his father took care of most of the official duties at first because of the language problem. Within a couple of years, all of the town government positions were generally held by the Swiss.

In the concurrent years there were national and state partisan elections, but participation by the Swiss is unknown. Likewise, their knowledge of and opinions on the Mexican War and the slavery issues involved in Kansas statehood are not known. In the first voting after statehood, Green County narrowly supported the Democrats in presidential, congressional, gubernatorial, and legislative elections. Nationally, the Whigs regained power with the election of Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor as president in the fall of 1848. In Green County, the Whigs likely had the support of many of the Yankees who were settling in the area. Indeed, when Monroe finally got a permanent weekly newspaper in 1851, the Monroe Sentinel was at first a voice for the Whig point of view.

1851

The first election in which we can reliably detect the Swiss vote is from the fall of 1851. At that time state administrative officials were elected for two- year terms in odd-numbered years, a practice that continued until the 1880s. In the Legislature, assemblymen were elected each year and state senators served for two years, which continued until an 1881 constitutional amendment doubled the length of the terms.

Don A.J. Upham, a widely known Milwaukee lawyer, was the Democratic Party's candidate for governor in 1851. He hoped to replace Cassville Democrat Nelson Dewey, who was the state's first governor but was not running for re-election. However, when the votes were counted, Upham narrowly lost to Whig Leonard J. Farwell. It turned out to be the Whig Party's last triumph in the state. The victory was attributed not only to the fact that Farwell had the support of the Free-Soil movement, but that he also benefited from a banking referendum that was on the ballot. Wisconsin voters, who once held the frontier populist disdain for banks, had by this time changed their mind and now strongly supported chartering banks for the economic well-being of the state.

Despite his loss, Upham managed to carry Green County, 530-504. The vote led the now-Democratic Monroe Sentinel to crow that Green County remained "true to the interests of the Democratic Party. ... Here she stands, as she has stood for years, upon the Rock of Democracy." A closer look at the election returns shows that the Democratic rock was definitely a solid one in the Town of New Glarus — of the 45 votes cast, Upham received all but one. And the turnout there was pretty good too — roughly seventy percent. Democrats also did well in the Town of Washington and the Town of Mt. Pleasant, perhaps in part reflecting a solid Swiss vote. Whigs had strength in the adjacent townships of York and Exeter. By this time the Swiss made up about sixty-two percent of the homes in the Town of New Glarus and about forty-three percent in Washington, where a second organized group of Swiss from Canton Glarus had settled in 1847.

When it came to picking representatives for the Legislature, a different pattern emerged. For both state senator and assemblyman, the vote was nearly evenly split, with Democrat Thomas S. Bowen endorsed for the Senate and Whig Truman J. Safford for the Assembly. Both also carried the county.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Sauerkraut, Suspenders, and the Swiss by Duane H. Freitag Copyright © 2012 by Duane H. Freitag. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

In Memoriam....................vi
Illustrations....................vii
PREFACE....................ix
1. A legacy of political involvement....................1
2. The first elections (1845-'53)....................7
3. Some Swiss become Republicans (1854-'59)....................17
4. Lincoln and the Civil War (1860-'67)....................30
5. Cheese changes the landscape (1868-'76)....................47
6. German press, Greenbacker politics (1877-'82)....................70
7. The LaFollette era begins (1884-'88)....................86
8. Ethnic pride and a new majority (1890-'94)....................100
9. New Glarus' most famous politician (1896-'98)....................117
10. Progressivism takes root (1900-'12)....................131
11. Swissness and loyalty (1914-'18)....................176
12. Wine, women, and song (1920-'28)....................206
13. Depression and war (1930-'45)....................247
Afterword....................309
Sources and additional notes....................313
Index....................330