I shall attempt to discover the territorial distribution of the voting public' son a number of issues which have come before the electorate during the past few years. Municipal questions divide the voting public into two groups-those in favor and those opposed. After a campaign which varies in intensity according to the nature of the issue, a vote is taken and the result apparently accepted by both sides. The geographical distribution of the losing minority seems of little consequence. From the standpoint of law enforcement, however, it becomes a very significant matter whether one city neighborhood has imposed its will on a numerically smaller neighborhood entirely out of sympathy with the decision. Without the support of the local opinion of the neighborhood it becomes extremely difficult to enforce legislative enactments. If, on the other hand, the losing minority does not happen to be segregated in particular neighborhoods, but is scattered evenly throughout the city, the question of law enforcement is of a much more simple

nature.

In order to ascertain the types of municipal questions on which local segregation of voters takes place, I have made a study of the voting records on eight different issues on which the electorate of Columbus have voted during the past few years. The percentage of affirmative votes on each of the eight municipal questions recorded in Table XXV has been determined for each ward. The results are compared with the percentage of the affirmative votes on each issue for the city as a whole. The deviations of each ward from the city's average is thus taken as a measure of the ward segregation of voters on each question.

This table shows very distinctly that there is much greater segregation of voters on subjects pertaining to the mores, or social customs, than on subjects which deal with economic questions. In the first group of subjects, designated Class A, the ward deviations from the city's average range from 6 to 12-a fact which shows that there is a very pronounced local bunching of similar attitudes on

'Any unorganized association of individuals bound together by common opinions, sentiments, or desires and too numerous for each to maintain personal relations with the others, constitutes a public in the broadest sense of the term."—W. J. Shepard, "Public Opinion," Amer. Jour. of Sociol., XV, 36.

TABLE XXV

AVERAGE DEVIATIONS OF WARD VOTES FROM THE GENERAL AVERAGE FOR COLUMBUS

Class B:

4.4-20.9-10.1+4.0+10.1+7.3+1.5-4.1-20.3-2.7+11.6-11.2+2.7+2.4+22.7+18.9 9.7

these questions. Wards 15 and 16, which show the highest positive deviations, stand in striking contrast to Wards 2, 3, and 9, which show almost as large negative deviations from the average for the city as a whole. With respect to the economic issues, grouped in Class B, the ward deviations from the city's average are relatively slight. On no subject is the average deviation for all the wards in Class B as great as that found for any of the issues in Class A. The most conspicuous bunching of opposites is found in Wards 3 and 15, especially on the city tax levy issue of 1917.

Although small deviations are found on the School Bond issue of 1917, nevertheless, from the standpoint of community interest and campaign enthusiasm, this was an unusually hotly contested local issue. The two publics concerned, however, were geographically dispersed almost uniformly over the entire city. Athough the final vote stood 9,738 for, to 22,918 against, not a single precinct in the city voted a majority in favor of the proposed bond issue.

There seems to be little correlation between high economic status and the tendency to support measures involving an increase in taxation. While Wards 4 and 5 rank highest in the city with respect to economic status, still, on the average, they do not support economic measures as well as Ward 9 which stands at the bottom of the economic scale for the city. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the deviations of Wards 1, 2, and 3, wards which comprise the large German neighborhood, are negative on all questions listed in our table; while the deviations in Wards 14, 15, and 16 are positive on all issues. Wards 9 and 101 have negative deviations on all issues in Class A but tend to support taxation measures. This may be partially accounted for by the relatively small number of large taxpayers in these wards.

Let us now examine more closely the territorial distribution of the publics supporting and opposing each of the foregoing subjects grouped in Class A, as representing the mores, that is, questions involving conceptions of right and wrong. Of course the ward is too large a geographical unit to furnish a true picture of the details of local sentiment on these subjects. Local groups of diametrically opposite points of view are frequently bunched together within the These wards embrace the disorganized neighborhood already studied.

same ward. The precinct, therefore, is a better unit than the ward, to bring into relief the natural boundaries of the local group. In order to illustrate the various regional attitudes on questions pertaining to the mores I have prepared Maps XIV, XV, and XVI.

These maps are constructed on the basis of the voting precinct and represent the percentage of electors for each precinct voting affirma

tively on the three subjects in question-prohibition, woman's suffrage, and the non-employment of women in liquor shops. The similarity of shading of the various sections of the city in all three of these maps is significant. The local areas that supported

prohibition invariably supported woman's suffrage to approximately the same degree. The areas surrounding the central business section of the city stand out conspicuously as opposed to both

Alum Creek