It wouldn’t be an election year without major-party candidates being called fascists. Dire warnings about impending dictatorships are nearly as common today as campaign speeches.
In the 1930s, the fanatical reigns of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy made fascism a global concern. Surprisingly, the fascist regimes, at least initially, garnered approval from some Americans in the Great Depression.
Ross Stagner (1909-1997), an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Akron, developed a 1935 study to gauge public sympathy toward fascism.
Stagner taught at UA from 1935 to 1939 and developed an interest in labor unions, eventually becoming an expert in the field of industrial and organizational psychology.
“We have his personal papers and a number of things here,” said David B. Baker, executive director of the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron. “… He cut his teeth in social justice and social action when he was a young assistant professor here in 1936. He used to walk down to the corner of Market and Main and [watch] the rubber workers organize.”
Lizette Royer Barton, a reference archivist at the center, gathered materials that helped piece together Stagner’s test on fascism.
The exam originally was presented in 1935 to 224 students at three Midwest universities — believed to be UA, Wisconsin and Northwestern.
After analyzing core fascist beliefs in Europe, including nationalism, imperialism, militarism, racial antagonism, anti-radicalism and a strongman philosophy of government, Stagner created a true-or-false quiz with the misleading name “Opinions About the Depression” so test takers wouldn’t know the true purpose of the exercise.
Imbedded in the test were 18 questions that Stagner believed reflected sympathy toward fascism.
Are you a fascist? Take the quiz to see if you meet Stagner’s standards. Some of the references are dated today, but the general meaning remains clear.
Let’s get started.
True or false?
The test
1. Conditions are likely to get better this year.
2. The farmers have been hit harder than the city workers.
3. Recovery has been delayed by the large number of strikes.
4. The U.S. should stop immigration to give American workers more jobs.
5. The depression has caused an increase in crime.
6. This country should try to get more foreign markets so as to increase prosperity.
7. What we need is a strong president who will make people cooperate for recovery.
8. If we buy European-made goods, we make the depression in this country last longer.
9. Many workers have been unemployed for five years through no fault of their own.
10. Recognition of Soviet Russia was a big mistake.
11. Building a bigger Navy would give men jobs and protect our foreign markets, so that should be done.
12. Most labor trouble happens only because of radical agitators.
13. The unemployed should be given military training so our country could be protected in time of war.
14. Capital and labor should get together for a fair wage and a fair profit.
15. The sales tax is an unfair way of raising relief money.
16. The people who complain most about the depression wouldn’t take a job if you gave it to them.
17. We must all sacrifice a little to build a strong American nation.
18. The president was all right until he became influenced by communistic ideals.
19. What we need is more international cooperation, not less.
20. Prosperity would come back if we could show businessmen that they could invest money at a profit.
21. Any able-bodied man could get a job right now if he tried hard enough.
22. Munitions makers probably don’t have near as much to do with starting wars as the papers claim.
23. Most people on relief are living in reasonable comfort.
24. We must protect our trade in the Philippines against the Japanese.
25. Italy has taken the wrong way out of the depression.
26. We will always have depressions.
27. The government must first balance the budget.
28. Civilian Conservation Corps camps where the boys learned military discipline and self-control would be a good idea.
29. The average person isn’t intelligent enough to vote his way out of the depression.
30. The president was justified in protecting U.S. interests in Cuba.
31. Inflation would solve most of the problems of the depression.
32. There is no excuse for depressions.
33. The formation of big trusts bankrupted many small businesses and so brought on the depression.
34. Labor unions are all right, but we can’t have strikes.
35. The Wall Street bankers brought on the depression to clean up on the little fellows.
36. If we had stayed out of the World War, we would never have had this depression.
37. The U.S. should make these European countries pay off their war debts.
38. We’d get out of the depression quicker if we had a strong intelligent man with full power to run things.
39. If the government didn’t meddle so much with business, everything would work out all right.
40. We should consider our duty to our country first in this time of crisis.
41. The collapse in 1929 was due primarily to overproduction.
42. While raising the standard of living, we must safeguard property rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.
43. Unemployment insurance would saddle us with a nation of idlers.
44. America has plenty of plans — what it needs is strong men who are willing to work for recovery.
45. If we have unemployment, we should deport the excess workers back to their home countries.
46. These unemployed organizations are just a bunch of chronic complainers.
47. The National Recovery Administration would have worked if so many strikes hadn’t been organized.
48. People should not be allowed to vote unless they are educated and intelligent.
49. The U.S. ought to demand its fair share of trade with China.
50. What we need is more businesslike government.
The key
So how did you do? Unlike the 1935 participants, you knew the true purpose of the test.
According to Stagner, exam takers were regarded as having a pro-fascist attitude if they marked “true” next to questions 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 34, 37, 42, 43 and 46. The more checks next to those questions, the more sympathy toward fascism, he theorized.
“The essence of the general ‘pro-fascist’ attitude which seems to be indicated by this study lies in the attitude of class superiority taken by many individuals toward the elements of the population which are below them in an economic and industrial sense,” Stagner wrote. “The anti-radical attitude is also markedly involved, and nationalism and racial antagonism are manifested.”
So are you a fascist?
If you plan a career in politics, be careful how you answer.
Visit http://www.uakron.edu/chp to learn more about UA’s Center for the History of Psychology. Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.