A group of Democrats break from party opposition to the Bennett Law

Address of Democratic Bennett Law League

Official support for the Bennett Law divided along party lines in Wisconsin: Republicans, who had initiated and passed the bill, supported it while Democrats generally opposed it. Consensus within each party was not clear-cut though, as individual members often disagreed with the state party platform. The Democratic Bennett Law League was one such group. While the Wisconsin Democratic party platform opposed the law, the Democratic Bennett Law League supported it, and accused the state party of entering into an "unholy alliance" with the German Republican Lutheran Church simply to win their votes. The League believed that these German Republicans would remain Republicans despite the law, and that the Democrats were compromising party values in crossing political lines to win votes. They saw no problem with a law that required students to receive some instruction in English, claiming that much of the law had been interpreted incorrectly by its detractors. This pamphlet, produced in 1890, lays out the League's position in regard to the Bennett Law and the state Democratic party.

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