WORLDS AND SOCIAL OUTLOOKS OF BABBITT, PLUNKITT AND ADDAMS

Plunkitt was second generation Irish and never forgot his roots, favoring in his politics and patronage the interests of the poor Irish and Ger serviceman Catholic immigrants who predominated in his District. Self-employed as a butcher and moderately well off from do goods realize through real estate speculation, Plunkitt became a wealthy man as a result of his involve workforcet in municipal politics.

Plunkitt was voted out of office in 1904-1906. He became a prime(a) target of municipal government reformers, such as E. L. Godson of the new(a) York Evening Post and muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens. Plunkitt had always attempted to portray himself as a man of the people. His truism was: " active like your neighbors even if you have the means to live better" (Riordon 76). Some of his critics say that as he became wealthier, he became a bit of a dandy and lost megabucks of his crucify roots.

George Babbitt became prominent in Zenith, just as the boom of the 1920s was beginning to sweep across America. Of humble white anglo-saxon origins, he was typical of white Protestant middle class Americans who benefitted from and took advantage of the broadening prosperity of that period. He was a Solid Citizen, a Booster, a joiner, a kindly climber and a thoroughly conventional conformist. He determine with the values of the business class and rejoiced in its material possessions, suc

Babbitt and Plunkitt are both hustlers, men on the make, who are not above bending the rules to profit from the system. The founder of machine politics in upstart York was stamp Tweed whose corrupt methods were so blatant that he terminate up in prison. His successors, including Plunkitt, used more than indirect methods, and were more conscious of their public relations.

However, Plunkitt was clearly dishonest by today's standards, if not by the standards of his time. Consider, for example, the following remarkable admission:

Addams and ward-heeling politicians like Plunkitt were mortal enemies; however, Addams understood the appeal of men like Plunkitt and criticized the efforts of high brow reformers who came into lower class districts during election campaigns and criticized the poor for selling their votes. She say that corrupt alderman were popular because they helped the poor.

broadly tolerant attitude toward differing origins and mores contrasted sharply with a rising nativism . . . She favored a pluralistic hostelry in which assimilation did not mean elimination of differences" (156-157).

In 1920 as Babbitt begins, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was launching his raids on suspected anarchists and bolsheviks and deporting suspected radicals as part of the post-World War I Red Scare. Restrictive immigration laws were adopted in 1921 and 1924.

Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.

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