How conservative were Northeastern Republicans before the 60's?

[soniquemd21921]

Back in the days when 3-1 GOP support was the standard in rural New England and upstate New York (i.e. the 1850's through the early 1960's), just how conservative were those voters (especially considering that FDR failed to get more than a third of the vote in 22 counties in the Northeast in 1936)? Probably not as conservative as today's "base", but perhaps more conservative than the Javits/Jeffords/Snowe/Weld types of the mid/late 20th century.

[freepcrusher]

my guess is that they would be 50% Moderate, 30% Liberal, 20% Conservative. It also depends on the region. In New England, New Hampshire was the only part of the state with any conservatives. In the mid Atlantic, there were more conservatives, though not as many as in the midwest and rocky mountains states.

The most conservative areas were (and still are) Central Pennsylvania and parts of upstate New York. The most conservative members at the time would be guys like Taber and Reed who were old guard isolationist type republicans. Someone like Joseph Martin who was from Bristol County and republican minority leader/speaker would probably be what the median NE republican was at the time.

[All Along The Watchtower]

In New England, New Hampshire was the only part of the state with any conservatives.=

False.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Brewster

[memphis]

1. Against the spread of slavery before the Civil War.
2. Pro-Reconstruction after the Civil War
3. For a high tariff.
4. For assimilation/betterment/education of all Americans, forcibly if necessary.
5. Anti-organized labor
6. Expansionist before WWI
7. Isolationist and strongly nativist/anti-immigration after WWI
8. Obstructionist under FDR and Truman
Label "conservative" or "liberal" at your peril. Amongst the most notable, roughly in chronological order, as issues changed over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Greeley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cabot_Lodge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_William_Martin,_Jr.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I'm from the Midwest but have an affinity for Northeastern Republicans.  I would say that I'm pretty conservative (although in the past, I probably would have been considered one of the moderates or even liberals of the day.)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Depends on how you define Conservatism. Taft style conservatism was very popular in the rural parts of New England. The coastal and urban areas, comprising your urban middle class (they actually lived in the cities back then), business people and "old money blue bloods" would have been your Pro-business/commercial wing. You had the prohibitionists who wanted to perfect society by eliminating alcohol the same way their parents had seen abolition as a means to "perfect society". A lot of this was inspired/motivated by puritantical religious movements and such. People tend to not realize this because today's New England is a hotbed for atheism, agnosticism and so forth, but outside of the Unitarian and Univeralists, bulk of the Congragational and other mainline protestants back then were conservative, certainly by today's standards. Then of course you had the Catholics were also very conservative, if not necessarily so on banning beer and whiskey, but certainly on other things. That map of states laws on abortion from I think 1970 is very insightfull with regards to this.

Outside of the inner city ethnics and working class voters who were much more inclined to the Democrats, the Conservatism of the 1920's GOP did very well in the Northeast and it was seen again in 1946. The problem is that you see right after those periods (1930's in the former, 1948 in the later), what happened when the working class and ethnics got organized and turned out rather than sitting on their hands. Post 1896 (really post 1789 with the Federalists) the party was determined to be the business oriented one, and then post New Deal the party was determined to be the one for lesser gov't (in general, still okay for selected interests). You couldn't maintain a conservative GOP off just the Midwest and Northeast save for your wave years, because in most elections you would get decimated. That is why in the 1950's they began looking South again, reviving three decades old strategies from the 1928 campaign to tear those regions away from the Democratic party.

People can simplistically refer to parties flipping and so forth, but little stuff "that really mattered" (like whose interest is primarily served by the party) was changed. What did change was demographic reality of the Northeast and midwest caught with a party that no longer sought gov't to grow, when it ceased to advance commerical interests. Sure you had a moderate/liberal wing of the party that really got left behind between somewhere between the region shifts and restoration of partisanship along the new lines.

[soniquemd21921]

Another interesting fact I've stumbled across: in 1948, there was a referendum in Massachusetts to make birth control in the state legal. Due to a heavy Catholic turnout it lost considerably (a turnout that also benefited Truman in the state). In heavily Catholic and Democratic cities and factory towns it was soundly defeated, but in the ultra-Republican Yankee towns across the state it won in a landslide.

Did New England Republicans support birth control because they felt it would prevent adding more Democratic votes (since Catholics had big families then) or what?

[muon2]

Another interesting fact I've stumbled across: in 1948, there was a referendum in Massachusetts to make birth control in the state legal. Due to a heavy Catholic turnout it lost considerably (a turnout that also benefited Truman in the state). In heavily Catholic and Democratic cities and factory towns it was soundly defeated, but in the ultra-Republican Yankee towns across the state it won in a landslide.

Did New England Republicans support birth control because they felt it would prevent adding more Democratic votes (since Catholics had big families then) or what?

I doubt it was that sophisticated. New England Yankeeism would be considered strong libertarian by today's standards. Government should stay out of both business and personal affairs was the philosophy in the mid 20th century. The federal government was expected to intervene to protect liberties being taken by other individuals and other units of government. However, many mid-century Yankees had puritanical views and that colored what they might view liberties compared to today.