David Frum: What If the Allies Had Lost World War One?

[crazy canuck]

dps, did you miss the Civil Rights Movement? I'd have thought you and grumbler were old enough to actually experience it.

Careful now.  I am old enough to remember at least parts of it.

[dps]

dps, did you miss the Civil Rights Movement? I'd have thought you and grumbler were old enough to actually experience it.

Careful now.  I am old enough to remember at least parts of it.

The civil rights movement is still a work in progress.  If you're posting here, you're still living through it.

[crazy canuck]

dps, did you miss the Civil Rights Movement? I'd have thought you and grumbler were old enough to actually experience it.

Careful now.  I am old enough to remember at least parts of it.

The civil rights movement is still a work in progress.  If you're posting here, you're still living through it.

This is more like v 2.0 or perhaps 3.0

[Razgovory]

Because that is the way Frum describes it.  For Frum, and the position Berkut is defending, the US was a shining beacon of democracy compared to the alternatives.  If the US had a larger percentage of adults who were allowed to vote, it wasn't by much of a percentage.

Put another way, only a US audience would buy the fact that Britain was not a democracy during WWI.

Oh, I imagine a French audience might be receptive to that idea as well.  Now that I think of it, an Indian audience might agree with that sentiment, Actually most of the former British colonies would be inclined to agree.

[crazy canuck]

Because that is the way Frum describes it.  For Frum, and the position Berkut is defending, the US was a shining beacon of democracy compared to the alternatives.  If the US had a larger percentage of adults who were allowed to vote, it wasn't by much of a percentage.

Put another way, only a US audience would buy the fact that Britain was not a democracy during WWI.

Oh, I imagine a French audience might be receptive to that idea as well. 

You have a good imagination 

[Martinus]

If the Allies lost WW1, we would have a half-functioning united European economical zone dominated by Germany and hindered by various national petty differences and half-baked policies.

So, the EU?

[Zanza]

[Tonitrus]

Right after I had read that post, I thought of putting in the same pic, but decided against it.

[Berkut]

Actually, it is not - because the point he was making is that it wasn't much a democracy in the context of the idea that the US entered the war to protect democracies, as opposed to the idea of democracy (as identified at that time by the US).

What democracy would you rate as better than that of the democracy found in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand during that period of time?   If you want to answer the US, as Frum thinks, then you will have to explain away all the restrictions the US Federal and State governments put on the Franchise until about the 1960s 

NO, if I want to say the US I have to simply point out that a vastly larger percentage of the "ought to be able to vote" population could in fact vote in the US compared to the UK.

Considering that in the UK, the voting population in 1917 was 1/3rd what it was in 1918, it doesn't seem like a difficult argument to make.

Yes, there was plenty of disenfranchisement in the US, but the scale was very different.

[Berkut]

Actually, it is not - because the point he was making is that it wasn't much a democracy in the context of the idea that the US entered the war to protect democracies, as opposed to the idea of democracy (as identified at that time by the US).

What democracy would you rate as better than that of the democracy found in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand during that period of time?   If you want to answer the US, as Frum thinks, then you will have to explain away all the restrictions the US Federal and State governments put on the Franchise until about the 1960s 

Well the trouble with British democracy is that the vote did not extend to the many millions of brown people under its control in the colonies...

As opposed to the US, where the vote did not extend to many millions of brown people right at home. 

Except that by and large that actually is not true, at least, not true in the sense that you are stating it.

There were southern states that passed laws intending to disenfranchise black voters, and of course in those places it worked to varying degrees. But it is still only in those places, which was a minority of the US overall. The most populous parts of the country, the industrial northeast, Chicago, etc., had no such restrictions, and of course blacks there voted freely.

This cannot compare to the UK, where the rules restricting the poor from voting, for example, were universal and applied with perfect effect. All such restrictions were long since done away with in the US I think (IIRC) after the Civil War at the latest.

Again, I am hardly trying to excuse the blot on the US that was Jim Crow laws, but I suspect you would radically have to exaggerate their effects to conclude that it resulted in anything like 40% of the "ought to vote" public from being able to vote, which is what the property ownership laws in the UK did.

[Berkut]

It would appear that North Carolina was the last state to abandon property ownership as a requirement for voting. In 1856.

[Berkut]

A little more research:

1920 saw federal women's suffrage in the US, but prior to that it was decided on a state by state basis. And in fact, even before 1920 a significant majority of states allowed women to vote in some fashion or another - since it was decided on a state by state basis, of course there was considerable variance. But in 16 states there was full suffrage, and that included New York, California, and Illinois, which I would guess would have been the most populous states. There were only 11 states by then that still had nearly complete disenfranchisement for women (mostly in the South of course - why didn't we just let them go in 1861?).

So again, going back to 1914, if you include women in the "ought to be able to vote" category, then the US was very far ahead of the UK in total percentage allowed to vote who "ought" to be allowed to vote. It is hard to find exact numbers though, since there was no seminal point where a huge enfranchisement happened to compare to, like in 1918 in the UK.

I am not making this argument out of some "Rah rah Go US!" stance though - it is a moot point from an emotional level, since I think Jim Crow laws and such give the US no place to feel much pride in our enfranchisement. But from the standpoint of Frum's point, his argument is certainly defensible, if you look at it WITHOUT some emotional need to "defend" the UK.

[The Minsky Moment]

New Jersey had women's suffrage around the time of the American Revolution but then quashed it shortly after.

[Valmy]

New Jersey had women's suffrage around the time of the American Revolution but then quashed it shortly after.

Sort of. Only for widowed land owners. It such a tiny number that there is no record of a reaction when the law was changed. Quashed kind of sounds like they set out to overturn but really they kind of did so by accident I think, not even being aware women could previously vote if they were members of this very specific demographic.

[Malthus]

A little more research:

1920 saw federal women's suffrage in the US, but prior to that it was decided on a state by state basis. And in fact, even before 1920 a significant majority of states allowed women to vote in some fashion or another - since it was decided on a state by state basis, of course there was considerable variance. But in 16 states there was full suffrage, and that included New York, California, and Illinois, which I would guess would have been the most populous states. There were only 11 states by then that still had nearly complete disenfranchisement for women (mostly in the South of course - why didn't we just let them go in 1861?).

So again, going back to 1914, if you include women in the "ought to be able to vote" category, then the US was very far ahead of the UK in total percentage allowed to vote who "ought" to be allowed to vote. It is hard to find exact numbers though, since there was no seminal point where a huge enfranchisement happened to compare to, like in 1918 in the UK.

I am not making this argument out of some "Rah rah Go US!" stance though - it is a moot point from an emotional level, since I think Jim Crow laws and such give the US no place to feel much pride in our enfranchisement. But from the standpoint of Frum's point, his argument is certainly defensible, if you look at it WITHOUT some emotional need to "defend" the UK.

The issue is this: were the differences in enfranchisement and disenfranchisement between the US and UK really differences of degree, or were they differences of kind?

I think the better answer by far were that they were differences of degree and not of kind.

Sure, the UK had property restrictions and did not extend the franchise to women. Both factors were, however, also true in the US - only to a lesser degree, as such rules went by state and some states were more liberal than others: notably, the Northern states as you say. No-one, however, ever argues that the States were 'not a democracy' because of Jim Crow laws or lack of woman's sufferage, only that the democrasy they had wasn't perfect - it was however evolving towards universal sufferage -- just like the democracy in the UK (and in fact, the UK's evolution took less time - Jim Crow was still around after WW2). 

This makes it slightly absurd to take the Frum position. 'The US had real democracy totally unlike the UK! Well, at least, they did in Illinois'.