Benjamin Franklin.—In his pointed comments on the disfavor with which practical politicians regard the independent voter in politics, Prof. A.B. Faust, of Cornell University, in his valuable work, “The German Element in the United States,” says of conditions in Pennsylvania preceding the Revolution: “The Germans, with few exceptions, could not be relied upon either by demagogues or by astute party men to vote consistently with their party organization. The politician catering to the German vote often found himself strangely deceived. He never expected that the German might think for himself and vote as seemed right to him. The politician in his wrath would declare the Germans politically incapable. From his point of view they were un-American. They did not cling to one party. The fact of the matter is, they were independent voters, and they appeared as such at a very early period. Benjamin Franklin made the discovery before the Revolutionary War, and he was provoked to an extent surprising in that suave diplomatist.” In a letter to Peter Collinson, dated Philadelphia, May9, 1753, Franklin says:

I am perfectly of your mind that measures of great temper are necessary with the Germans, and am not without apprehension that through their indiscretion, or ours, or both, great disorders may one day amongus.

Then he speaks of the ignorance of the Germans, their incapability of using the English language, the impossibility of removing their prejudices—“not being used to liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it,”etc.

They are under no restraint from any ecclesiastical government; they behave, however, submissively enough to the civil government, which I wish they may continue to do, for I remember when they modestly declined to meddle in our elections, but now they come in droves and carry all before them except in one or two counties.

The last sentence, comments Faust, betrays the learned writer of the letter; the uncertainty of their votes is the cause for his accusations of ignorance and prejudice.

On the point of ignorance we get contradictory evidence in the same letter. “Few of their children in the country know English. They import many books from Germany and of the six printing houses in the province, two are entirely German, two are half-German, half English, and but two entirely English. (This large use and production of books disproves want of education. Their lack of familiarity with the English language was popularly looked upon as ignorance.—Faust.) They have one German newspaper and one half German. Advertisements intended to be general are now printed in Dutch (German) and English. The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages, and in some places, only German. They begin of late to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own language, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our courts, where the German business so increases that there is continued need of interpreters; and I suppose within a few years they will also be necessary in the Assembly, to tell one half of our legislators what the other half say. In short, unless the stream of importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so outnumber us that the advantages we have will, in my opinion, be not able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”

It is obvious from many indications that Benjamin Franklin did not adhere to his point of view and learned to regard the Germans in a far more favorable light than in1753, twenty-three years before the Declaration of Independence. The Revolution, as Bancroft relates, found no Tories among the German settlers of Pennsylvania, but a unanimous sentiment for independence, and their full quota of fighting men in the American ranks.

When queried before the English Parliament concerning the dissatisfaction of the Americans with the Stamp Act, he was asked how many Germans were in Pennsylvania. His answer was, “About one-third of the whole population, but I cannot tell with certainty.” Again the question was put whether any part of them had seen service in Europe. He answered, “Many, as well in Europe as America.”

When asked whether they were as dissatisfied with the Stamp Act as the native population, he said, “Yes, even more, as they are justified, because in many cases they must pay double for their stamp paper and parchments.”

If the German element felt the injustice of the Stamp Act more keenly than their neighbors, the conclusion is patent that they could not have been ignorant, as the illiterate and ignorant were least affected by its harshness. Even the honor of being the first printer of German books belongs to Franklin, for he furnished three volumes of mystical songs in German for Conrad Beissel, 1730-36. When the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia (1743) agitated for the foundation of the “Public Academy of the City of Philadelphia,” the institution that later developed into the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin designed its curriculum and recommended the study of German and French, besides English. In 1766 he attended a meeting of the Royal Society of Science in GÖttingen while on a trip through Germany and visited Dr. Hartmann in Hanover to see his apparatus for electrical experiments. He was made a member of the GÖttingen learned society.

Conclusive proof of Franklin’s change of view is furnished by his testimony before a committee of the British House of Commons in1766. Referring to the Germans, who, he said, constituted about one-third of the population of 160,000 whites in Pennsylvania, he described them as “a people who brought with them the greatest of wealth—industry and integrity, and characters that had been superpoised and developed by years of suffering and persecution.” (Penn. Hist. Magazine, iv,3.)