MIA : Early American Marxism: Socialist Party of America Download Page: 1895-1905

The Socialist Party of America

(1897-1905)

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1897

 

JUNE

 

“Address of Eugene V. Debs at the Opening of the Special Convention of the American Railway Union: Handel Hall, Chicago — June 15, 1897." The first convention of the Social Democracy of America, forerunner of the Socialist Party of America, was also the last convention of the American Railroad Union, the industrial union launched by Eugene V. Debs. The gathering opened with this keynote speech by the fiery Indiana orator. “The wage system, in spite of all the refinements of sophistication, is the same in all ages, in all lands, and in all climes. Its victims work, propagate their species, bear all the burdens, and perish,” Debs declares. He holds the model of cooperative effort by like-minded individuals as the mechanism for the winning of the Cooperative Commonwealth on a national basis, marking the efforts of the Mormons in Utah as the greatest contemporary example, and indicates the goal of the convention is to prepare for the first model colony. Any one of several Western states, which are sparsely settled and where the people are very largely in sympathy with the enterprise can be selected for the beginning, adding that “we propose to colonize it with men and women thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of economics as applied to industrial affairs, men and women whose philosophy has taught them to deal with the knowable and the attainable, men and women of profound convictions...” In furtherance of this end “an organization of a million workers whose hearts are with us is the first thing in order,” in Debs’ view.

 

“Declaration of Principles of The Social Democracy of America: Adopted at the Special Convention Held Under the Auspices of the American Railway Union, June 15-21, 1897.” On June 15, 1897, a final convention of Eugene Debs’ American Railway Union was convened in Chicago, where it spent three days wrapping up the affairs of the union. On Friday, June 18, the organization officially changed its name to The Social Democracy in America and the convention threw open its doors to delegates from other organizations. This Declaration of Principles was adopted by the new organization. The document asserts that “our despotic system of economics is the direct opposite of our democratic system of politics” and urges “all honest citizens to unite under the banner of the Social Democracy of America, so that we may be ready to conquer capitalism by making use of our political liberty and by taking possession of the public power, so that we may put an end to the present barbarous struggle, by the abolition of capitalism, the restoration of the land, and of all the means of production, transportation, and distribution, to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war, and social disorder.” Eight “specific demands for relief” are appended, including demands for nationalization of monopolies, public utilities, mines and mineral resources, reduction of hours of labor, inauguration of a system of public works for the unemployed, free use of inventions, establishment of postal savings banks, and adoption of the initiative and referendum.

 

“Milwaukee Enthused: Debs Speaks to Tremendous Meetings in the Cream City.” [July 15, 1897] Unsigned report from the official organ of the Social Democracy of America reporting an organizing speech by Executive Board Chairman Eugene Debs. Debs stated that there were two antithetical schools of economics long in conflict—individualists and collectivists. The former “claimed they had the right to live upon the toil of others,” while the latter “believed that ’the earth and the fullness thereof’ belonged to the people,” Debs told the enthusiastic throng assembled July 7 at West Side Turner Hall in Milwaukee. As a result of the hegemony of the economic individualists, unemployment and poverty was rampant and child labor scarred the land. Concentration of manufacturers into trusts drove down wages, further impoverishing the working people, Debs noted. The competitive system was “abnormal” in that it produced “millionaires and millions of mendicants” and perversely paid the hardest workers the least. The Social Democracy was launched to change this capitalist system and “achieve the Cooperative Commonwealth, where men would stand shoulder to shoulder for the uplifting of our common humanity.” Debs also explained the Social Democracy’s colonization strategy—”to go to some state sparsely settled, which has been favored by nature, and there mass sufficient people to get control of the state government.” Legal means were to be used and the colonization plan was conceived as a temporary measure until the Cooperative Commonwealth was achieved.

 

AUGUST

“A Call to the People,” by Eugene V. Debs [Aug. 23, 1897] In the midst of a bitter coal mine strike, Eugene Debs issued this appeal on the front page of the official organ of the Social Democracy of America lending his support to an August 30 conclave in St. Louis in support of the miners’ job action. Debs calls for an end to “cowardly, brutal, and wholly un-American reign of injunctional government.” He states that “There is no relief in the courts. We have tried them all, from the bottom to the top, and they are all against labor. So far as I am a concerned we will appeal no more. We will now appeal to the American people.” Debs notes the one-sided way in which law enforcement authorities “proceed to shoot and club workingmen if they are not as servile and obedient as if they were so many savages off their reservation.” He adds that “Injunctions, soldiers, marshals, deputies, thugs, and jails are for the exclusive benefit of the workingmen.” Summoning the specter of 1776, Debs declares that “Judges by the usurpation of power, playing the role of tyrants, have annihilated the constitution, abrogated the right of trial by jury, forbidden free speech, suppressed peaceable assemblage, and transformed our republic into an absolute despotism. They are guilty of judicial treason and should be made to answer at the bar of an outraged people.”

 

“To the Hosts of the Social Democracy of America. [Labor Day Message—1897]” by Eugene V. Debs [Aug. 30, 1897] The purple prose of Eugene Debs runneth over in this somewhat lengthy Labor Day essay to Labor and the members of the newly organized Social Democracy of America, published in the pages of the SDA’s official organ. Debs declares the situation of labor gloomy—impoverished and denied their rights of free speech and free assembly by the injunctions of a judiciary at the beck and call of a heartless and soulless plutocracy. Yet there is hope on this Labor Day, Debs declares amidst heavy Christian overtones: “In this supreme hour, when hope is giving way to despair, and stout-hearted men are yielding to what they term the ’decree of fate,’ the star of the Social Democracy, like that which the wise men saw when Christ was born, blazes above the horizon and hope revives and again is heard by ears attuned to the minstrelsy of humanity, ’Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.’” Debs states that “The Social Democracy deals with the possible, with the practical, with axiomatic propositions in the everyday affairs of life,” and then ushers forth a 230 word sentence poetically glorifying the new political organization that would have reduced William Faulkner to astonished genuflection.

 

NOVEMBER

“The Social Democracy,” by Cyrus Field Willard. A fascinating article, essentially the “missing link” between Eugene V. Debs’ American Railway Union and Julius A. Wayland’s Ruskin Colony in Tennessee. Williard, one of the three members of the Colonization Commission of the Social Democracy of America (formed by the final national convention of the ARU) talks about the plans of that body to establish a socialist colony in Tennessee and a proposal to the city of Nashville to construct 75 miles of railway for the city—a project which would put the (blacklisted) unemployed workers of the ARU/Social Democracy of America to work and help advance the cause of collective ownership in a single stroke. First published in the November 1897 issue of The New Time, published by Charles H. Kerr & Co.

 

1898

 

MAY

“Against Fusion: Debs Reiterates his Declaration for the Benefit of Doubters: He Urges the Importance of the Convention, Where a National Platform Will Be Adopted,” by Eugene V. Debs [May 19, 1898] The split of the Social Democracy of America in two groups came suddenly, as evidenced by this article by Eugene Debs published little more than 2 weeks before the fractious first regular convention. Debs gives nary a hint of any fundamental disagreements within the organization between colonization exponents and advocates of political action. “We confidently look forward to our first national convention as a Socialist convention of such character and proportion as to immensely strengthen the movement and inspire the whole membership with fresh zeal in the cause,” he enthusiastically declares. The main point which Debs seeks to make with the article is that speculation about a proposed fusion of the Social Democracy with the Populist Party in the 1898 elections was idle, since the Social Democracy was a socialist political party, whereas “the Populist Party is a capitalist party and the Social Democracy will not fuse with it any more than it will with the Republican or Democratic Party.” “The only object of such fusion would be the securing of office—the loaves and fishes. We are not after office, we want Socialism. We care nothing about office except in so far as it represents the triumph of Socialism,” Debs declares. Debs also denounces the war craze of 1898 in no uncertain terms: “We are opposed to war, but if it ever becomes necessary for us to enlist in the murderous business it will be to wipe out capitalism, the common enemy of the oppressed and downtrodden in all countries. We are not afflicted with the kind of patriotism which makes the slaves of our nation itch to murder the slaves of another nation in the interest of a plutocracy that wields the same lash over them all.”

 

JUNE

“Report of the Colonization Commission to the First Annual Convention of the Social Democracy of America,” by C.F. Willard [delivered June 9, 1898] The definitive account of the actions of the 3 member Colonization Commission of the Social Democracy of America during the 10 months of its existence, from its formation in Aug. 1897 through the first days of June 1898. While the original scheme of the SD of A was to establish colonies in a single relatively unpopulated western state—Washington or Idaho—and to thereafter take over the state government via the ballot box, late in September 1897 the Colonization Commission received from a real estate broker an offer of sale of thousands of acres in rural Tennessee at a favorable price. The commission spent the better part of the year investigating this property, negotiating terms of the deal, and establishing a legal entity, the Cooperative Commonwealth Company, for the sale of bonds and the holding of property deeds. The eruption of hostilities between the United States and Spain seems to have disrupted financial markets, however, and at the 11th hour the owner of the Tennessee property proved unwilling to undergo the expense of deeding the property and placing it into escrow pending the successful sale of $2.5 million in interest-bearing bonds—a dubious prosepect. Finally on May 13, 1898—less than one month before the first annual convention of the SD of A—an impasse was declared and the Tennessee land deal effectively scrapped. The Colonization Commission then made the ill-advised decision to immediately leap into an alternate proposal for a colony, this the purchase of a Colorado gold mine for $5,000 within 90 days and $95,000 funded through the sale of bonds, to be paid off from gold extracted from the mine. This was the colonization proposal taken to the first (and only) regular convention of the Social Democracy of America in June 1898, which resulted in a split of the political actionist minority headed by Victor Berger to form the Social Democratic Party of America.

 

“Speech to the First Annual Convention of the Social Democracy of America, June 9, 1898 - excerpt,” by Eugene V. Debs Short extract from the hour-long speech delivered by Chairman of the National Executive Board of the Social Democracy of America, Eugene Debs, to the ill-fate Chicago convention of that organization. During the course of his remarks, Debs comes out for a reduction in the rate of dues from the current 15 cents per month (dues were ultimately reduced to $1 per year) and says of the SLP that “it is too narrow to appeal to the great broad spirit of American Socialists.” Although no doubt tendentiously excerpted for use in the factional struggle agains the political actionist minority headed by Victor Berger, Debs is quoted as saying: “I have not changed in regard to our procedure. Give me 10,000 men, aye, 1,000 in a western state, with access to the sources of production, and we will change the economic conditions and we will convince the people of that state, win their hearts and their intelligence. We will lay hold upon the reins of government, and plant the flag of Socialism on the state house.” Debs notes that the division of the USA into states is a great boon for the American Socialist movement not found in any European country: “We can take possession of one state, and not wait until we get the whole United States. We must get one state at a time.”

 

“Statement of Principles of the Social Democratic Party”: Adopted at Chicago, June 11, 1898. A first platform issued by the fledgling socialist political organization which was to merge with the insurgent so-called “Kangaroo” faction of the Socialist Labor Party to form the Socialist Party of America in 1901. In this document, the Social Democratic Party of America categorized socialism as “the collective ownership of the means of production for the common good and welfare” and called upon “the wage-workers and all those in sympathy with their historical mission to realize a higher civilization” to sever ties with existing conservative capitalist and reformist political parties and to instead work for “the establishment of a system of cooperative production and distribution.”

 

“The Convention: A Notable Gathering of the People Representing Socialism: Stirring Events in Which Those Who Stood For Political Action Exclusively Were Defeated—They Bolt.” [June 16, 1898] Participant’s account [by W.P. Borland?] of the 1st regular convention of the Social Democracy of America, held in Chicago from June 7-11, 1898, published in the official organ of the pro-colonization faction. The author reduces the struggle between the two groups to a battle between “old German Socialist methods, with its ‘class-consciousness’ club tactics” and “American Socialist methods.” The former position, that of the convention minority which bolted the gathering to form the Social Democratic Party of America on June 11, 1898, stood for political action alone. The latter position, that of the convention majority, stood for “both political action and colonization,” in the words of the author. This position had been supported at the convention in an hour-long report delivered by National Executive Board Chairman Eugene Debs on June 9. Factional leaders were Victor Berger of Milwaukee and Isaac Hourwich of New York (father of future CPA leader Nicholas Hourwich) for the adherents of the “old German Socialist methods” and John F. Lloyd of Illinois and James Hogan of Utah for the “American Socialism” pro-colonization faction.

 

“A Weak Argument: Laurence Gronlund Condemns the Action of the Bolters: Berger’s Platform Analyzed and Its Defects Pointed Out—Americans Demand a Practical Movement,” by Laurence Gronlund [June 23, 1898] While Eugene Debs split with the political action wing of the Social Democracy of America to help found the Social Democratic Party in June 1898, the second “big name” in the American movement stayed loyal to the SDA. Laurence Gronlund, author of the enormously influential book The Cooperative Commonwealth, published this critique of the actions and program of Victor Berger and the political actionists in the final issue of the official organ of the SDA. Gronlund calls Berger and friends “childish” for refusing to accede to the decision of the majority of the June convention to proceed with colonization, thereby attempting “to break up and destroy a new and splendid instrument for the emancipation of the masses,” the Social Democracy of America. “No matter how right they have been on the question of political action vs. colonization, they should for the time being have bowed to the will of the majority and afterwards tried to persuade and convince their comrades,” Gronlund opines. Gronlund likens the new SDP to the Socialist Labor Party, now 25 years old and which “has just as little chance of winning an American majority as a 50 year old maiden has of being married.” In the realm of ideas, Gronlund sharply criticizes Berger’s adherence to the “fatal German theory” of class consciousness, which he characterizes as “entirely un-American.” Gronlund observes that “The theory of class consciousness means that society is divided by a horizontal line into two sections: the wage-earners below the line and the possessing classes above the line, and then a class war is proclaimed between the two sections.... There is, to be sure, a dividing line in society...but it should be a vertical line through all classes, so that we have friends of our cause in all classes, and unfortunately there will to the last be workingmen who are our foes.”

 

JULY

“American Socialism,”, by Victor L. Berger [July 9, 1898] The first regular convention of the Social Democracy of America, held in Chicago June 7-11, 1898, was also its last, resulting in a split of the organization between a majority faction intent on pursuing the strategy of establishing cooperative colonies in a western state and attempting to take over the state government for socialism by democratic means, and a minority faction which rejected the notion of rural communalism as retrograde and which instead sought to win the entire nation for socialism via the power of the ballot box. The minority faction bolted the organization and on June 11, 1898, established the Social Democratic Party of America. This article by SDP leader Victor Berger from the debut issue of the party’s official newspaper, The Social Democratic Herald, explained the basic political ideas of this new organization in contradistinction to the so-called “American Socialism” of his factional opponents. Berger rejected out of hand the notion that there was anything particularly American about rural cooperative communes, which he derided as an alien import to American soil, declaring “not one of the innumerable communistic or cooperative colonies that have been founded and failed in America, even if made up of American membership, was of American origin. Not one. They were all founded upon the ideas of French or German utopian Socialists—notably Fourier, Cabet, and Weitling.” The recent spate of so-called socialist communities influenced by the writings of Edward Bellamy—including that of the Social Democracy of America and the Ruskin Cooperative Association in Tennessee—were unconvincingly stripped of “American” status due to the fact that Bellamy “had no original Socialist ideas” but merely gave the ideas of German scientific socialists in utopian form. As opposed to the implied barbarism of rural cooperative colonies, Berger contrasts the idea of Socialism, “the child of civilization,” based upon the collective ownership of large-scale modern productive machinery. Socialism’s success depended upon its adoption on a national scale, with America alone possessing the size and economic independence that might make socialism achievable in one nation alone. The mechanism for winning power would be the electoral process, for “the ballot, if used rightly, forms a far more powerful weapon in this country than in any other.” “We want to make use of our political liberty and take possession of the public powers,” Berger declares, adding that “while this process is going on we also want to lighten the burdens on the shoulders of the wage workers and producers in general by constantly agitating, enacting, and enforcing laws in their favor, so as to strengthen their power of resistance in the great struggle.” In this battle the Social Democratic Party would fight alone, “open and aboveboard everywhere” and in opposition to all capitalist parties alike, Berger indicates.

 

“The Future”, by Eugene V. Debs [July 16, 1898] Letter from the former head of the industrial American Railway Union and leading participant of the Social Democracy in America to the members of the newly-formed Social Democratic Party of America. Debs gives his wholehearted blessing to the new political organization and remarks upon the recent split of the Social Democracy in America between the SDP political action faction and the colonization faction as follows: “The separation at the late convention was inevitable. It had to come. The contemplation of division was painful, as only those can fully realize who were party to it. But painful as it was, the operation had to be performed.” Debs notest that all members of the new SDPA “are full fledged Socialists. They are in accord with the program of International Socialism. There is not only in the number opposed to independent political action, not one that asks or expects anything from any old capitalist party, by whatever name it may be called.” He adds that “There is harmony. There is oneness of purpose, there is true-hearted fidelity to principle, there is unrelaxing energy, and these qualities in alliance presage success.”

 

1900

JAUNARY

“A Trip to Girard,.” by “Wayfarer” [Jan. 1900] Brief first hand account of a trip by a pseudonymous Midwestern member of the Social Democratic Party to the “modern Mecca of Socialism,” Girard, Kansas to visit the editor of the seminal socialist weekly newspaper, The Appeal to Reason, J.A. Wayland. “Wayfarer” manages to become closely acquainted with Wayland, and remarks on Wayland’ s dedication to the ideas of John Ruskin. He quotes Wayland as saying that “The Appeal editorials are simply Ruskin turned into the language of the common people.” Wayland relates the story of how he became involved in the socialist movement to “Wayfarer,” giving credit to a Pueblo, Colorado shoe store proprietor named “Bredfield” who plied him with conversation and radical literature—in the first place Gronlund’ s The Cooperative Commonwealth. The story of Wayland’ s unsuccessful Ruskin colony is related, featuring a scam in which purported colonists were misrepresenting the situation in the colony and using funds earmarked for the Tennessee group’ s development were instead misdirected to quarter the colonists at a hotel at Tennessee City, at which they were “living in luxury on the money [Wayland] had forwarded.” Wayland is proclaimed to be “decidedly my kind of good fellow” by the author of the piece.

 

“A Brief History of Socialism in America.” [Published January 1900] Morris Hillquit’s 1903 History of Socialism in the United States has been long regarded as the first comprehensive history of the American Socialist movement in the English language written by a participant. In actuality, Hillquit’s book was the second; this history of the American Socialist movement by an unnamed founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America predated Hillquit’s work by over 3 1/2 years! First put into print in January 1900 by the fledgling publishing house of Eugene V. Debs as a primary part of The Social Democracy Red Book, the section reproduced here picks up the story with the coming of Marxian socialism to America in the 1850s—a lengthy discussion of the various permutations of communal socialism in the 19th Century having been omitted. Detail is strong for the history of the Socialist Labor Party of the late 1880s. The work is especially valuable for its account the formation of the Social Democracy of America and the Social Democratic Party of America which emerged from it. The fine detail relating to the split at the 1898 convention indicates this unsigned work was clearly the product of a participant—although equally clearly not that of Gene Debs himself. One passage of particular interest demonstrates the deep fissure in the American Socialist movement between Social Democratic and proto-Communist wings even as early as 1900: “Social Democracy is but another term for democratic Socialism. In this sketch of the development of the Socialist movement in America, we have seen...in the Socialist Labor Party, a kind of Socialism, or rather of Socialistic propaganda, in which a hierarchy ruled, and which, besides heresy-hunting among its own members, instinctively stood for a Socialist state in which the administration of affairs would, to say the least, be bureaucratic. Such an administration would be quite apt to develop into a despotism. Presented in such a spirit, Socialism had little attraction for the Yankee lover of freedom, and so it had to make way historically for a truly democratic type—for a party standing for social democracy.” Historians interested in the origins of the Socialist Party of America will want to print out and preserve this 18 page document, which includes illustrations of four early SDP activists: successful Massachusetts politician James F. Carey, editor of the official organ A.S. Edwards, pioneer Texas Socialist W.E. Farmer, and little-known SDP founding member Margaret Haile. (Rather large file, 425 k.)

 

MARCH

“The Truth About Colonies,” by Herbert N. Casson [March 10, 1900] Older, wiser, and $1,000 poorer, veteran of the Ruskin utopian socialist colony in Tennessee Herbert Casson attempts to prevent others from repeating his mistakes with this article in the Appeal to Reason, published by fellow Ruskin defector Julius Wayland. Miserable food, pathetic lodging, and disaffected fellow inmates are what are in store for those attempting to make their way into the woods to attempt to carve out a utopia. “There is not today, and there never has been, a single successful socialist colony in America,” Casson emphasizes. Not only Ruskin but the Equality Colony in Washington state and the Christian Commonwealth of Georgia suffer identically miserable conditions, Casson says. All attempt to put up hand-labor against machine-labor, “which is like arming soldiers with bows and arrows against men with Mausers.” Casson charges that all “ignore the value of specialists in production, and thus produce an inferior quality of goods. They can find no market except by appealing to the sympathy of socialists, who buy their stuff for the sake of the ’cause.’” He declares that his fellow “evolutionary socialists” have “no right to huddle together, as if we were saints and all other folks were sinners. We should rather stay with the crowd, teach them what we know, and learn more.”

 

MAY

“The Negro and Socialism,” by J.A. Wayland [May 12, 1900] Socialism would solve the problem or racial relations in America by making possible a perfect, segregated world intimates publisher and editor of the Appeal to Reason Julius Augustus Wayland. Wayland supposes that in the Socialist future every citizen, black and white, would be raised in a decent environment and trained in some useful calling upon maturity. Since he regards as axiomatic the idea that “the white population would not like to have the black work side by side with it, as it does today, nor would the black like to work where it felt a difference between them,” cities and sections would consequently emerge “where the colored race would be supreme.” In these places “they would have as good homes and factories and surroundings as the white race, because the whole nation would be interested in them having such conditions,” Wayland blandly prophesies. Both races would thereby be freed for cultural and economic development in parallel — and thus would Socialism “solve the race question.”

 

JULY

“Debs’ Denial,” by J.A. Wayland [July 23, 1900] With the Presidential campaign heating up in the summer of 1900, the Democratic Party reached into its bountiful bag of dirty tricks in an effort to undermine the new left wing opposition represented by the Social Democratic Party. False reports were trafficked indicating that SDP candidate Eugene V. Debs would be dropping out of the race on Oct. 1 to throw his support to the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan. This allegation brought immediate refutation by the Social Democratic Party candidate and his brother at the National Office — the full text of which is reproduced here. Gene Debs declares himself “equally opposed to all capitalist parties of whatever name,” while his brother notes that socialist activists remained “highly amused” to the crude attempt at trickery by the Democratic Party. Appeal to Reason editor J.A. Wayland indicates a target of a million votes for the new party and likens the place of Debs on the ticket to that of Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1856.

 

AUGUST

“Constitution of Local St. Louis of the Social Democratic Party of America (Adopted August 5, 1900).” Basic document of organizational law of the 210-member Local St. Louis of the Springfield SDP. This document specifies the election of four officers by Local St. Louis and the division of the membership into geographic branches for propaganda work (there were a total of 7 of these early in 1901). Each branch elected an organizer who would sit with the officers of the Local on a “City Central Committee” to govern the affairs of the Local, subject to its instructions. Dues were set at 25 cents per month, plus an additional 10 cents a quarter to pay for an official publication. An order of business for the monthly general meetings of Local St. Louis is specified. No provision is made for language-based branches, branches were constructed strictly on the basis of city voting wards. Branches were instructed to “devote their attention solely to propaganda and organization work in their respective localities.”

SEPTEMBER

“Platform of the Social Democratic Party of America, 1900." [Sept. 15, 1900] The election of November 1900 marked the first time that the Social Democratic Party of America was able to field a national ticket, featuring Eugene V. Debs for President and Job Harriman for Vice-President. This document reproduces the national platform of the SDP in this inaugural campaign. The maximum program is short and sweet, two planks calling for the organization of the working class into a political party and the abolition of “wage slavery” in favor of a system of cooperative industry on the basis of the social ownership of capital and the means of distribution. A 12 plank minimum program is also part of the platform, featuring two planks in favor of women’s rights; several in favor of public ownership of utilities, natural resources, and means of transportation and communication; establishment of the initiative and referendum; and initiation of programs of national accident and unemployment insurance and old age pensions.

 

“E.V. Debs." (St. Louis Chronicle) [Sept. 29, 1900] A published personal biography from the first Debs Presidential campaign by a reporter (unfortunately unnamed) who conducted extensive interviews with Debs and others who knew him in constructing a detailed, positive piece. Debs is quoted directly and at great length. The formation and demise of the American Railway Union is recent history and is therefore covered in detail here, including interesting material on the Chicago trial and potential legal peril he faced. Debs indicates that he left working as a railway fireman following the death on the job of a friend, at his mother’s request. Glowing testimonials of a local Terre Haute clothing manufacturer and a Baptist minister are directly quoted as evidence of Debs’ quality as a human being.

 

“A Brief History of Socialism in America.” [Published January 1900] Morris Hillquit’ s 1903 History of Socialism in the United States has been long regarded as the first comprehensive history of the American Socialist movement in the English language written by a participant. In actuality, Hillquit’ s book was the second; this history of the American Socialist movement by an unnamed founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America predated Hillquit’ s work by over 3 1/2 years! First put into print in January 1900 by the fledgling publishing house of Eugene V. Debs as a primary part of The Social Democracy Red Book, the section reproduced here picks up the story with the coming of Marxian socialism to America in the 1850s—a lengthy discussion of the various permutations of communal socialism in the 19th Century having been omitted. Detail is strong for the history of the Socialist Labor Party of the late 1880s. The work is especially valuable for its account the formation of the Social Democracy of America and the Social Democratic Party of America which emerged from it. The fine detail relating to the split at the 1898 convention indicates this unsigned work was clearly the product of a participant—although equally clearly not that of Gene Debs himself. One passage of particular interest demonstrates the deep fissure in the American Socialist movement between Social Democratic and proto-Communist wings even as early as 1900: “Social Democracy is but another term for democratic Socialism. In this sketch of the development of the Socialist movement in America, we have seen...in the Socialist Labor Party, a kind of Socialism, or rather of Socialistic propaganda, in which a hierarchy ruled, and which, besides heresy-hunting among its own members, instinctively stood for a Socialist state in which the administration of affairs would, to say the least, be bureaucratic. Such an administration would be quite apt to develop into a despotism. Presented in such a spirit, Socialism had little attraction for the Yankee lover of freedom, and so it had to make way historically for a truly democratic type—for a party standing for social democracy.” Historians interested in the origins of the Socialist Party of America will want to print out and preserve this 18 page document, which includes illustrations of four early SDP activists: successful Massachusetts politician James F. Carey, editor of the official organ A.S. Edwards, pioneer Texas Socialist W.E. Farmer, and little-known SDP founding member Margaret Haile. (Rather large file, 425 k.)

 

“Why I Am a Socialist,” by George Herron [Sept. 1900] A speech by Professor George D. Herron to a campaign meeting of the Social Democratic Party held at Central Music Hall in Chicago on September 29, 1900. Herron argues that three main historical lines were coming together in the struggle for socialism in America: the “dogmatic” European Marxist trend exemplified by the Socialist Labor Party; the historic trend seeking individual liberty in the tradition of Rousseau, Jefferson, and the French Revolution; and a new religious sensibility seeking spiritual freedom through common economic liberation. Herron states that neither existing party was conscious of the reconstructive task facing society but rather sought to prop up the brute lawlessness of capitalism. Only common ownership of the resources and productive tools needed jointly by all would allow for the “full liberty of the human soul,” Herron stated, and only the action of the working class itself could win this liberty.

 

OCTOBER

“Why I Shall Vote with the Social Democracy,” by Walter Thomas Mills [Oct. 20, 1900] The “ Little Giant” of constructive socialism, Walter Thomas Mills, explains why he will be voting for the Social Democratic ticket of Eugene V. Debs and Job Harriman in the November 1900 elections. Radical change was impossible through the old parties, in Mills’ view, since both were wedded to commercialism and thus the need to establish imperialist markets abroad. The protestations of the Democrats that they were opposed to military-driven imperialism was fatally undermined by the fact that the workers would continue to receive sufficient wages only to purchase a portion of their output, thereby making the pursuit of markets abroad inevitable. Moreover, the Democrats sought to destroy the economic trusts, Mills notes, while he instead sought to have them “ socialized and all the people made sharers in their benefits.” Mills theorizes that a million votes for the Social Democracy will cause the old parties to begin join operations to defeat the new socialist threat, thereby making possible “ the speedy overthrow of both.”

 

NOVEMBER

“A Plea for Unity of American Socialists,” by George Herron. [Nov. 1900] The stenographic report of a speech delivered by Christian Socialist stalwart George Herron to a mass meeting of Chicago Socialists on Nov. 18, 1900. Herron states that only disunity and factional strife could derail the socialist movement from ultimate victory (“for a generation or a century”) and arguing that a united movement could make use of the quasi-religious sensibilities of the educated segment of society in a mass movement for human liberation. An excellent exposition of SPA ideology from the university professor who co-founded the Rand School of Social Science.

 

DECEMBER

 

“Open Letter to Theodore Debs of the Social Democratic Party in Chicago from William Butscher of the Social Democratic Party in Springfield, Dec. 15, 1900.” The road to unity between the two organizations calling themselves the Social Democratic Party of America was neither simple nor the road straight. Despite fielding a joint ticket of Debs (Chicago SDP) and Harriman (Springfield SDP) in the November 1900 Presidential campaign, obstacles remained to the achievement of organic unity of the two parties. This letter from Springfield SDP Executive Secretary William Butscher to his de facto counterpart in the Chicago organization, Theodore Debs, urges the latter organization to drop its hesitance to unification. Butscher notes that while some party leaders ̶o;were busy arguing on the line of rejecting union for the sake of unity and analyzing the spirit of their fellow workers in the field of Socialism, the rank and file of the Social Democrats saw nothing but the approaching national campaign, and joined hands in the battle against the common foe — capitalism.” Butscher notes that the rank-and-file in the state of Illinois had forced a complete united ticket in that state over the heads of the national leadership in Chicago. Butscher expresses concern over the motivation behind a newly slated January 15, 1901 convention of the Chicago organization. “To wantonly split our movement just now is an act against our great obligation, a crime against this country, and you are apparently willing to doubly commit this iniquity in your manifest efforts to make the discord in the Socialist ranks permanent,” Butscher declares, and he asks for a postponement until the rank and file is allowed to state its opinion on the unity question.

 

“Unity Referendum of the Social Democratic Party (Springfield NEC group), December 29, 1900.” The Socialist Party of America, established in the summer of 1901, was the product of grassroots pressure for unity from locals of the Social Democratic Party. This is the text of the unity referendum submitted to the SDP associated with the National Executive Committee headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts — the former “kangaroos” of the SLP featuring most prominently New York City attorneys Henry L. Slobodin and Morris Hillquit. The referendum was submitted by National Secretary William Butscher in the form of eleven questions asking whether a unity convention should be held, with whom, and whether the basis of representation should be 1 delegate per local and 1 additional delegate per 100 members or major fraction thereof. Authorization was also sought by the NEC to negotiate changes to this referendum required by its prospective main unity partner, the Social Democratic Party with headquarters in Chicago (Berger, Debs & Co.).

1901

JANUARY

 

“An Address to Populists Setting Forth the Difference between the Populist Movement and the Socialist Movement — Populists Should Join the SDP, but They Must Realize What It Means,” by “Wage Earner” [Jan. 5, 1901] A lengthy appeal from the Springfield Social Democratic Party paper St. Louis Labor, calling for disaffected left wing members of the faltering People’s Party to join the Social Democratic Party of America. The tepid program of the People’s Party is the subject of scorn here: “The Middle-of-the-Road platform upholds individualism; the private ownership of capital; the competitive system; the profit system; wage slavery, and ignores the class struggle,” the author notes, adding that the platform is merely providing lip service for a dying class. “The middle class capitalist will be completely buried within the next four years,” the author predicts. “No power on earth can save him. The evolution of civilization has decreed the extinction of the middle class.” To the currency reform obsessed Populists, the author submits a highly utopian alternative: “Under socialism, private ownership and barter in capital being at an end, money would lose the functions which it possessed under capitalism and would be abolished. The Socialists propose to use non-transferable labor certificates which each individual would receive in an amount equal to his per capita proportion of the annual national product.”

 

FEBRUARY

“The Negro Problem” by Charles H. Vail [Feb. 1901] New edition. Lengthy article from the International Socialist Review by Rev. Charles H. Vail, National Organizer for the Social Democratic Party of America and later the Socialist Party. Vail states that it was the unprofitableness of the chattel slavery system that led to its abandonment in the northern states, replaced by the even more onerous system of wage slavery, in which workers were placed in the unenviable position of competing against one another to sell their labor-power on the market. According to Vail, “The chattel method was fully as desirable for the slave, for the owner, having a stake in the life and health of his slave, desired to keep him in good condition. The wage slave-owner however, does not particularly care whether his wage slave lives or dies, for he has no money invested in him, and there are thousands of others to take his place.” The race question was largely an element of the main question: capitalist exploitation of all labor. In Vail’ s view the solution of this lay in “the abolition of wage slavery and the emancipation of both black and white from the servitude to capitalist masters.” Under socialism, educational opportunities for workers of all races would be developed and racial bigotry would be gradually eliminated since “race prejudice cannot exist with true enlightenment.” Vail declares that “Socialism recognizes no class nor race distinction. It draws no line of exclusion. Under Socialism the Negro will enjoy, equally with the whites, the advantages and opportunities for culture and refinement. In this higher education we may be sure race prejudices will be obliterated.”

 

MARCH

 

“Report of the Provisional National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party of America, March 9, 1901,” by Henry L. Slobodin Published minutes of the March 1901 session of the National Executive Committee of the Springfield organization of the Social Democratic Party of America. Revealed here are the results of balloting on the question of a unity convention. The rank-and-file of the Springfield SDP is overwhelmingly supportive of a unity convention being held, with only 2.6% of those voting opposing the notion. Support for including the Socialist Labor Party (from whence the Springfield SDP came) in this convention is similarly overwhelming, with only 3.9% of voters opposing such an appeal. All 11 points submitted in the referendum were approved by a similar margin. Chief vote-getter for location of the convention is Indianapolis — apparently echoing the first choice of the Chicago SDP — with Chicago and Buffalo each getting a like number of votes. The list of new locals is heavy in the states of Washington and New York, clearly two centers of Springfield SDP activity. A five member arrangements committee, chaired by Leon Greenbaum of St. Louis, is appointed to conduct further negotiations with the Chicago SDP and others for the unity convention. The Springfield SDP objects to the suggestion of September 1901 for the joint unity convention, preferring a meeting in June or July.

 

APRIL

 

Letter to Theodore Debs, National Secretary of the ”Chicago“ Social Democratic Party from William Butscher, National Secretary of the ”Springfield“ Social Democratic Party, April 18, 1901. Further correspondence between the head of the ex-SLP ”Springfield“ Social Democratic Party and his counterpart atop the ex-SDA ”Chicago“ organization. Butscher acknowledges the receipt from Theodore Debs (brother of Gene Debs) of a convention call for a Unity Convention approved by the membership of the Chicago organization. ”While your party was voting upon your call, our party, by practically unanimous vote, adopted a resolution, a copy of which I enclose and which, you will notice, calls for a general convention of the Socialists in terms similar to those in your call,“ Butscher notes, adding ”It is with great pleasure that we exercise the authority conferred on us by the said resolution and accept your invitation for a joint unity convention.“ The two organizations would subsequently unite with a couple smaller grouplets as the Socialist Party of America.

 

“Socialists Who Would Emasculate Socialism,” by Eugene V. Debs [April 20, 1901] In this column from the official organ of the Social Democratic Party of America, Eugene Debs takes aim at middle class reformers who deny the reality of the class struggle and thus “betray their trusting victims to the class that robs them without pity and riots in the proceeds without shame.” Debs asserts that “We count every one against us who is not with us and opposed to the capitalist class, especially those ‘reformers’ of chicken hearts who are for everybody, especially themselves, and against nobody.” While he acknowledges that while most such reformers are “honest and well-meaning, I know that some of them, by no means inconspicuous, are charlatans and frauds. They are the representatives of middle class interests, and the shrewd old politicians of the capitalist parties are not slow to perceive and take advantage of their influence. They are ‘Socialists’ for no other purpose than to emasculate Socialism. Beaten in the capitalist game by better shufflers, dealers, and players, they have turned ‘reformers’ and are playing that for what there is in it. They were failures as preaches and lawyers and politicians and capitalists. In their new role as “reformers” they dare not offend the capitalist exploiters, for their revenue depends upon their treason to the exploited slaves over whom they mourn dolefully and shed crocodile tears.” In an unrelated tidbit, Debs provides bulletin board material for Left Wing professors everywhere: “Free speech is not tolerated in the Stanford University, nor in any other university, and whatever may be the boast of the educators in such institutions, the fact remains that they are as certainly the wage-slaves of capitalism as are the coal diggers in the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania.”

 

JUNE

 

“Minutes of the Meeting of the National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party of America: Springfield, MA — June 1, 1901,” by Henry L. Slobodin This document contains the full text of the Springfield SDP’s official convention call for the Joint Unity Convention which established the Socialist Party of America. Rather than dealing with phantom locals and paper members, the basis of representation was to be on the basis of individual signatures on convention documents. Each state was instructed to select an official state delegate, who would receive the credential signatures of any local or branch not electing a delegate. Locals electing delegates were left to their own devices as whether to join with other locals to elect a single delegate or to elect one or more delegates themselves; they were also to assign signatures (which would translate into votes at the convention) as they saw fit. Executive Secretary William Butscher was designated to write and give the official report of the Springfield SDP at the Unity Convention, which was slated to begin July 29, 1901 in Indianapolis.

 

“Ruskin College: The American Side of the Oxford Movement.” (Appeal to Reason) [June 1, 1901 ] Short blurb promoting Walter Vrooman’s new adult education facility, Ruskin College, located in the small town of Trenton, Missouri and modeled after Vrooman’s similarly-named endeavor in Oxford, England. The $40,000 building was located on a 1500 acre farm and was the site not only of standard academic classes but also vocational activities, including a carpentry shop, farming, and sewing. The school was loose and unstructured: “There is no ironclad curriculum; on the contrary, the course is at all times subject to change and improvement, thus offering many advantages over the old-fashioned way. this plan, one can readily see, is conducive to growth on the part of the faculty, and stimulates and brings forth their best effort.” End degree was a Bachelor of Arts, the blurb indicates. Includes a color photo of the building as it appears today (largely unchanged, it would seem.)

 

“The July Convention,” by Eugene V. Debs [June 15, 1901] With the July 1901 Socialist Unity Conference approaching, Social Democratic Party leader Eugene Debs shared the following thoughts with the party faithful in the organization’s official organ, the Social Democratic Herald. All parties except for the (Regular) SLP had accepted the invitation to the Indianapolis convention, Debs said. While regrettable in one sense, at the same time Debs thought that this might be for the best, since “it must be admitted that more or less danger attends the converging of factions which have long been divided and are still (being human) influenced by their prejudices and their antipathies.” Debs expressed his belief that a united party was “inevitable” and expressed the view that a primary necessity for the new organization would be “a platform that will bear the test of critical analysis. By this I do not mean that we shall quibble and split hairs, but that so far as the fundamental principles of Socialism are concerned, they shall be stated with such clearness as to silence all reasonable question as to our party being free from the taint of compromise and in harmonious alliance with the Socialist movement of the world.” He expressed a strong preference for a decentralized organization, one in which “every state absolutely control its own affairs, thus leaving little for the national party to do except in years of Presidential campaigns. In this particular we can safely follow the methods of the old parties, whose leaders are adepts at organization.” Interestingly, Debs foresees a problem in rapid organizational growth, calling it “a danger which will threaten the Socialist movement more and more as it advances to political prominence.”

 

“Some of the Theories of Party Organization: Before the Form of an Instrument is Decided There Must be a Clear Conception of the Use to be Made of It,” by Margaret Haile [June 22, 1901] Social Democratic Party National Executive Board member Margaret Haile published this rather lengthy article in the official organ of the party in an attempt to advance discussion in the ranks of the SDP as to what form of organization it desired in the forthcoming Socialist Party. Haile advocated a modified form of current party structure, noting “At the present juncture we are in danger of tinkering too much with the form of organization, without reference to the work that has to be done.... We are not striving after an association which shall exemplify the principles of pure democracy, as the primary object of its existence; nor yet a political party whose first object shall be to boost men with political hankerings into their desired haven.” Instead, she saw the party’s task as primarily educational, that of converting a “majority of the people” to the cause of socialism. “The election of a socialist to office here and there is not so important as new recruits in our ranks are apt to imagine, except for its educational effect. What kind of a benefit has socialism received from having a socialist may here and there or a socialist representative or two in the state house? Principally the advertising it gives the movement and the strength and courage imparted to us by success,” she states. Rather, the most pressing need she saw was for a careful analysis of the labor situation in America, followed by the creation and propagation of a specialized literature, targeted to specific groups and written in a comprehensible language. Early SDP political successes had both advantages and disadvantages, in Haile’s view: “They have infected many of us with the political fever, to the detriment of the great work of national education. It is possible for a new party to carry too much political sail for the depth of its educational keel and the weight of its numerical ballast. Socialism must not be cramped into ward politics any more than into colonies.” Structurally, Haile favors an idea which had gained currency in the party—a “National Committee” composed of a representative of each state in the new organization—but seeks retention of centralized national organization, of which state and local units were to be an intrinsic part, and continuation of membership dues rather than a new form of voluntary financing. She asks for further comments on her ideas or alternative proposals.

 

JULY

“The Task of the Convention: An Unparalleled Opportunity to Organize the Socialist Forces for Future Progress,” by Morris Hillquit [July 28, 1901] Leader of the Springfield SDP (former SLP Right) Morris Hillquit offers his perspective on the forthcoming founding convention of the Socialist Party of America, to be held in Indianapolis in a matter of days. Thousands of American workers were “ripe for Socialism,” Hillquit states, lacking only a political organization “to shape those popular currents and to organize these elements in a well directed battle against the forces of capital.” Hillquit states that the forthcoming convention “will either create such a party, and thus become one of the greatest landmarks in the history of our movement, or it will miss the splendid opportunity and thus become a lamentable failure. Whether it will do the one or the other the future will show.” Hillquit states that the ideal Socialist party is one which has two things: (1) a clear and definite understanding of scientific Socialism as applied to the social conditions of the country in which it is organized (a good platform); and (2) an intelligent, active, and enthusiastic membership working in unison for the propaganda of Socialism on a well planned system of division of labor and in complete harmony with each other (an efficient form of organization). Hillquit offers a rather muted critique of Victor Berger’s conception of state autonomy; such a model might work suitably for a fully developed organization, in Hillquit’s opinion, but excessive state autonomy would retard the growth and success of a fledgling organization. “While the party is weak and scattered in small organizations all over the country, a central administrative body with large powers is the only thing that will united these scattered bodies into one compact party, and extend and strengthen the organization,” Hillquit states. As the organization develops, the need for such a strong central authority will diminish, in his view.

 

“’The Mission of Socialism is Wide as the World’: Speech at Chicago, Illinois,” by Eugene V. Debs [July 4, 1901] Lengthy Independence Day speech by Eugene Debs, never republished since its original appearance in the pages of the Social Democratic Herald. Debs takes a rather more radical position on the American flag than he would a decade hence, declaring “I am not of those who worship the flag. I have no respect for the stars and stripes, or for any other flag that symbolizes slavery. It does not matter to me what others may think, say, or do.... Not very long ago the President of the country [William McKinley], in the attitude of mock heroics, asked who would haul down the flag. I will tell him. Triumphant Socialism will haul down that flag and every other that symbolizes capitalist class rule and wage slavery.” Debs adds that “I am a patriot, but in the sense that I love all countries,” giving the highest praise for an aphorism of Thomas Paine: “Where liberty is honored, that is my country.” Debs explains the rise and fall of chattel slavery and its replacement by wage slavery as a by-product of the development of industrial technology. He calls upon the working class to organize itself and to assert its class interests as vigorously as the capitalist class advances theirs. He tells his audience “It will not do for you to go to the polls and vote for some good men on some of the tickets and expect relief in that way. What can a good man do if he should happen to get to Congress? What could he do? Why, he simply would be polluted or helpless, or both. What we want is not to reform the capitalist system. We want to get rid of it.” Debs states that “The revolution is under way, but, like all revolutions, it is totally blind. It is in the nature of great social forces that they sometimes sweep humanity down. Let us work so that this revolution may come in peace. Socialists are organized to pave the way for its peaceful culmination.” He adds that whether socialism comes “next year or next century, or in a thousand centuries” is of no particular concern to him, that if but a single Socialist should survive “I would be that one against the world”—and he advises his listeners to think likewise.

 

AUGUST

“A Veteran’s Appeal for Unity: Address to the Founding Convention of the Socialist Party of America, Indianapolis, IN, July 30, 1901,” by Julius Vahlteich Vahlteich, a 61 year old German-American with 44 years’ participation in the Socialist movement in Germany and America, delivered the first English-language speech in his life to the Socialist Unity Convention that established the Socialist Party of America. Regarding the possible failure to achieve unity by the convention as a potential disaster, Vahlteich states that he considers it his duty to “at least attempt to bring to bear my influence on the hot-headed in our camp, inasmuch that they learn to know and appreciate the first duty of every soldier of the Revolution—the subordination of personal interests, personal feelings and thoughts to the common interest of all.” Vahlteich acknowledges that throughout the history of modern socialism “there are two principal views which struggle with each other.” On the one hand are those who “proclaim themselves as loudly as possible to be revolutionists.” This tendency “speak warmly against compromise, and would like to see the socialist army corps guarded against every touch of the non-socialists. They have a keen scent for traitors in their own ranks, mistrust all who are not toilers, and are impatient to deliver the last deciding stroke for the foundation of socialist society.” On the other hand are those who “do not believe in the theory of a catastrophe, but rather in the organic growth of the old society into the new one.” This group “do not fear compromises or temporary companionship with non-socialistic parties. They do not want to restrict their activity to participation in elections, but also seek to influence the people in an educational way, especially by furthering the cooperative work.” Vahlteich notes that programs change over time and cites the example of the unification of the German movement at Gotha in 1875 as a model for the American socialist movement to emultate. Though right in his criticism of specifics of the program, the German movement was still more right to unite on the basis of that program—“never since 1875 have the German socialists given to the world the disgraceful spectacle of political disruption in the fight against the common foe,” Vahlteich notes.

 

“Minority Report of the Platform Committee Made to the Socialist Unity Convention, Indianapolis, IN—August 1, 1901,” by A.M. Simons Chicago journalist Algie Simons represented the Left Wing at the founding convention of the Socialist Party of America, reporting out of the Platform Committee as a committee of 1 and addressing the convention with his proposal to eliminate all planks calling for ameliorative reform from the platform of the new party. Simons argues that “economic development demands that we should stand clear-cut and square on the fact that between us and capitalism there is no common ground; that between us there is naught but an abyss into which he who seeks to bridge it will only fall into absolute oblivion. “ This was not to be confused with an absolute rejection of all ameliorative reform, he notes, but rather the set of proposals advocated in the Socialist platform. He challenges his opponents that “It devolves upon you to demonstrate that these measures are ameliorative to the working class of America. You will have made a strong point if you can demonstrate that these immediate demands are something of which the benefit to the laborers will be commensurate with the sidetracking of the Socialist movement, with the turning aside of the forces of revolution, and with the energy that must be exerted in order to push them forward.” Simons implores, “Let us stand as the representatives of the clearest-cut opposition to capitalism the world has ever seen; let us stand in the forefront of the revolutionary movement of the world; let us send out from here a platform that will represent revolutionary socialism...”

 

“In Defense of ‘Immediate Demands’: A Reply to A.M. Simons at the Socialist Unity Convention, Indianapolis, IN—August 1, 1901,” by Gustav A. “Gus” Hoehn Veteran St. Louis Socialist Gus Hoehn takes on Algie Simons for proposing the deletion of all “immediate demands” from the platform of the new Socialist Party of America. Hoehn contends that far from being a clear-cut expression of revolutionary Socialism, Simons’ position is “the most ridiculous and most reactionary position that was ever taken by any labor representative in the Socialist movement.” Hoehn warns that “if a platform of this kind should be adopted by the Social Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party would be a thing of the past. Because you cannot feed the people on wind, and all that your so-called revolutionary position amounts to is to go out to the people of the country, to the wage working class, and preach revolutionary wind. “ Hoehn cites the example of the 1880s social revolutionist trend in the SLP, which interrupted the progress of a socialist party that had elected officials to city and state offices by adopting a platform which went to “the extreme of adopting the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; and to show that they were the revolutionary party, that they were the true Socialist Party, they cut out of the Communist Manifesto the immediate demands.” For the Socialist Party to do the same thing “would lead us right back into the old anarchist movement, and in less than 5 years, instead of having a Socialist movement, you would have another anarchist movement,” Hoehn warns, adding that such a state of events is exactly what the capitalist politicians of America desired.

 

“A Veteran’s Appeal for Unity: Address to the Founding Convention of the Socialist Party of America, Indianapolis, IN—August 1, 1901,”; by Julius Valteich ** REPOST: CORRECTS DATE OF SPEECH, SPELLING OF SURNAME, ONE FOOTNOTE.** Valteich, a 61 year old German-American with 44 years’ participation in the Socialist movement in Germany and America, delivered the first English-language speech in his life to the Socialist Unity Convention that established the Socialist Party of America. Regarding the possible failure to achieve unity by the convention as a potential disaster, Valteich states that he considers it his duty to “at least attempt to bring to bear my influence on the hot-headed in our camp, inasmuch that they learn to know and appreciate the first duty of every soldier of the Revolution—the subordination of personal interests, personal feelings and thoughts to the common interest of all.” Valteich acknowledges that throughout the history of modern socialism “there are two principal views which struggle with each other.” On the one hand are those who “proclaim themselves as loudly as possible to be revolutionists.” This tendency “speak warmly against compromise, and would like to see the socialist army corps guarded against every touch of the non-socialists. They have a keen scent for traitors in their own ranks, mistrust all who are not toilers, and are impatient to deliver the last deciding stroke for the foundation of socialist society.” On the other hand are those who “do not believe in the theory of a catastrophe, but rather in the organic growth of the old society into the new one.” This group “do not fear compromises or temporary companionship with non-socialistic parties. They do not want to restrict their activity to participation in elections, but also seek to influence the people in an educational way, especially by furthering the cooperative work.” Valteich notes that programs change over time and cites the example of the unification of the German movement at Gotha in 1875 as a model for the American socialist movement to emulate. Though Marx is called right in his criticism of specifics of the program, the German movement was still more right to unite on the basis of that program—”never since 1875 have the German socialists given to the world the disgraceful spectacle of political disruption in the fight against the common foe,” Valteich notes.

 

“The Unity Convention,” by Walter Thomas Mills [Aug. 1, 1901 ] Short report regarding the formation of the Socialist Party by socialist orator and correspondence school administrator Walter Thomas Mills. The 150 delegates in attendance at Indianapolis represented a membership of 12,000, Mills observes, adding that the work over the four days of the convention had been earnest and unmarred by personal strife. “The new constitution provides for state autonomy, there is to be no national organ, each organized state will carry on its own propaganda, each state will furnish its own share of the national funds in its own way — with or without dues as it may elect,” Mills notes. He indicates that party headquarters will be in St. Louis, MO — not an irrational choice as it was at the time the 4th largest city in America with a massive German-American population. Leon Greenbaum had been chosen as the group’s first National Secretary, Mills remarks.

 

“The Socialist Party: Indianapolis Convention Effects Union of All Parties Represented in Response to Call of the Social Democratic Party: State Autonomy Guaranteed: Immediate Demands Adopted After Prolonged Debate—Headquarters Located in St. Louis - The New Constitution.” [events of July 29-Aug. 1, 1901] This is an extremely important document, the definitive newspaper account of the Joint Unity Convention which established the Socialist Party of America. Amalgamating were two main groups—the “Chicago” Social Democratic Party of Victor Berger, the Debs Bros., Margaret Haile, and youngsters John Work and James Oneal; and the “Springfield (MA)” Social Democratic Party of Morris Hillquit, Henry Slobodin, James Carey, Max Hayes, William Mailly, and Job Harriman. Also joining the unification party were independent state socialist parties from Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kentucky. Chairman of the convention by acclamation was Christian Socialist George Herron—a pro-unity independent figure married to neither post-SLP Kautskyianism or post-Populist Bernsteinism. This lengthy document (9 pages) includes a sketch of daily happenings, committee assingments, text of various resolutions, the full text of the SPA’s platform and constitution, and a complete list of delegates. Published in the (now Milwaukee) Social Democratic Herald and thus indicative of the Berger SDP’s perspective, rather than that of the Hillquit group. Includes copious footnotes. An indispensable resource for those interested in the history of 20th Century American Socialism—print and save.

 

“Convention at Indianapolis: Delegates Execute the Mandate of the Rank and File and Secure a United Socialist Party—Synopsis of the Proceedings—Selection of Committees—“Immediate Demands”—Platform, Constitution, and Resolutions—Name “Socialist Party” Adopted - St. Louis Selected as Seat of National Committee with Greenbaum as National Secretary—Harmony Marks the Entire Proceedings...” by A.M. Simons [events of July 29-Aug. 1, 1901] Algie Simons, former member of the SLP, editor of the Chicago Workers’ Call and International Socialist Review, was one of the leading figures of the Left Wing at the founding convention of the Socialist Party of America in 1901—an advocate of the abolition of all “Immediate Demands” from the party platform. This is his account of the convention, which he characterized as enormously successful and the turning point from which “a new era had arisen in the history of socialism.” Simons provides a day-by-day account of events and lists the two biggest topics of debate as the question of “Immediate Demands” (the inclusion of which was decided by a vote of 5,358 to 1,325 proxies) and the matter of “State Autonomy” (as opposed to a centralized party) decided in favor of autonomous state organizations and a weak national office, though Simons provides no detail on this debate. A resonant quotation appears in Simons’ concluding remarks, when he says: “the spirit of stupid intolerance has been largely eradicated, while not an atom of the revolutionary position has been abandoned. Disruption, based upon personalities and misunderstandings which accumulate in intensity as opponents obstinately resolve not to understand or make reasonable allowances for each other’s position, differences on minor details of tactics, we may assert with tolerable assurance, will never again be permitted to occur.... Disruption can only come in the future when fundamental principles are threatened. In such cases it seems unavoidable, and on the whole perhaps it is best that this should be so. If there is any tendency in the future which will bring fundamental differences of principle into the Socialist ranks...then internal struggles will break forth anew despite our efforts; but if not, it devolves upon us entirely to see that minor questions and disputes and misunderstandings are not permitted to produce an effect that can only be reasonably caused by divergence on essential principles.”

 

“Constitution of the Socialist Party of America: Adopted by the Socialist Unity Convention, Indianapolis, IN—July 29 to Aug. 1, 1901.” Basic document of party law of the newly established Socialist Party of America. The initial SPA Constitution provided for “state autonomy”—an extremely weak central organization, funded by 5 cent contributions per member per month by the various state organizations. It was the state organizations which were to retain “sole jurisdiction of the members residing within their respective territories, and the sole control of all matters pertaining to the propaganda, organization, and financial affairs within such state or territory, and the National Executive Committee and sub-committees or officers thereof shall have no right to interfere in such matters without the consent of the respective state or territorial organizations.” Authority between conventions was vested in a governing National Committee of the party, consisting of one elected Committeeman from each state, plus five additional members from the headquarters city named as a “Local Quorum” to act in an executive capacity. The National Committee was to meet regularly no more than once each year. It was given the power to select the National Secretary and the Local Quorum, but the constitution expressly stated that it “shall neither publish nor designate any official organ.” The result was a federation of largely autonomous state organizations, each of which “may organize in such way or manner, and under such rules and regulations, as it may determine, but not in conflict with the provisions of this constitution.”

 

“Letter to State, Territorial, and Local Organizations of the Socialist Party of America, August 10, 1901,” by Leon Greenbaum Initial communication to the members of the newly established Socialist Party from first Executive Secretary of the organization, Leon Greenbaum. Greenbaum announces that he and the provisional St. Louis Local Quorum are officially ready for action, with the first task at hand designing new charters for Locals of the organization, to be obtained through exchange for the charters in hand of the old constituent parties of the organization. The National Committee is to be funded by a 5 cent per member per month assessment, to be paid by state organizations and the locals themselves in unorganized states and territories. “The amount and character of the work performed by your National Committee depends in a great measure on the promptness with which said committee is supplied with funds,” he reminds the party members.

 

“Decoy Ducks and Quack Remedies,” by Leon Greenbaum [Aug. 10, 1901 ] Pamphlet-length propaganda article by St. Louis trade unionist Leon Greenbaum, the first Executive Secretary of the newly formed Socialist Party of America. Greenbaum explains the relationship between mechanization in industry and unemployment and holds up Socialism as the only possible way for the working class to escape from an increasingly grim “wage slavery.” Greenbaum particularly warns of “independent reform parties” as the “decoy ducks” of the capitalist class, tricking the workers to maintain the wage labor system of capitalism with their temporary and insufficient ameliorative reform proposals, thereby leaving themselves at the mercy of the employers. “In order to rescue the people from the clutches of the capitalist class, we must have public ownership of lands, houses, dry goods, shoes, etc., and all other capital. Then the private capitalist will no longer squeeze us with the profit system. The public will be its own capitalist. It won’t squeeze itself. It will just hug itself for joy,” Greenbaum opines. “If you believe in Socialism, vote for it. It will never come any other way,” Greenbaum declares.

 

“The National Committee at Work,” by Walter Thomas Mills [Aug. 20, 1901 ] Socialist lecturer Walter Thomas Mills pays a visit on Socialist Party Headquarters in St. Louis to find the governing National Committee in session, he reports in this short dispatch to the Appeal to Reason. He finds the one room office occupied by the party to be “large, light, conveniently finished” and the National Committee to be “direct and businesslike.” National Organizer Charles Vail was on hand to make a report, fresh from a Western tour, and he reported big meetings everywhere with a trend for former members of the People’s Party to join the newly organized SPA, especially in the states of Oregon and Washington. Vail noted that these former Populists shared a common conviction that their party had failed because it tried to reform within the capitalist system, Mills reports.

 

“Constitution of the Socialist Party of St. Louis: Adopted August 26th, 1901.” What is today known as “instruction creep” is evident in the constitution of the Local St. Louis of the newly organized Socialist Party, with the document more than twice as long as the equivalent document for Local St. Louis of the Social Democratic Party from one year previous. The Missouri Socialist (later renamed St. Louis Labor) is specified as the official organ of Local St. Louis. Organization is on the basis of electoral ward branches, with only five members needed for the establishment of a branch. Expulsion procedures are spelled out in detail. Dues of 15 cents per member per month paid to the City Central Committee are specified.

 

OCTOBER

“A Remarkable Growth: List of Local Branches and Secretaries of the Socialist Party of America Up to Oct. 30, 1901.” Early records relating to the total membership and structure of the Socialist Party of America are sporadic. This listing of “local branches” published in the Appeal to Reason in the fall of 1901 indicates that the framework was more substantial than the “loose federation of 23 state organizations” mentioned in the literature. Appearing here are the names of “local branches” and their secretaries in 43 states and territories. While most of these names are forgotten, a certain number of these secretaries reappear in Socialist Party history, including State Secretaries James Oneal (Indiana) and Charles H. Kerr (Illinois) as well as local secretaries Julius Gerber (New York City), Emil Herman (Lyman, WA), Anna Maley (Minneapolis), E.N. Richardson (Girard, KS), and Emil Seidel (Renton, WA). As it only took 5 signatures and 5 cents a name dues to the National Office in St. Louis, many of these “local branches” may have been ephemeral. Most developed structures seem to have been in Massachusetts, California, and Washington as well as Wisconsin — which did not formally register its locals with the National Office until 1905.

 

Will Meet in a Tent by E. Val Putnam [event of Oct. 18-19, 1901] News account of the forthcoming first convention of the Socialist Party of Missouri. In the aftermath of the September 1901 assassination of William McKinley by an anarchist, a red scare ensued, during which the Sedalia Citizens’ Alliance organized a boycott by meeting hall owners to prevent the Socialist Party of Missouri from renting a hall in the town for their scheduled state convention, to be held Oct. 19. Rather than cancel or move the gathering, plans were made to obtain a “monster tent which will accommodate 1,000 people” in which to hold the convention. The article reprints quotes from prominent Socialist orators Gene Debs and Walter Thomas Mills and Appeal to Reason Assistant Editor Fred Warren promising to attend the Sedalia conclave. “There is a prospect of great times and every branch in the state should make herculean efforts to send at least one delegate,” the article notes.

 

Missouri Convention by E. Val Putnam [event of Oct. 18-19, 1901] Fissures appeared in the boycott of the Socialist Party of Missouri’s attempt to rent space for its first convention in Sedalia, MO, this article from the party’s weekly newspaper reveals. A vacant lot had been successfully rented in downtown Sedalia for the pitching of a big top tent for the convocation of the meeting. However, at the 11th hour the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias had offered to break the boycott by renting space. While this article indicates that plans for raising a tent were continued, the more practical and conventional venue was ultimately chosen. Walter Thomas Mills announced as keynote speaker at a mass meeting to be held the night before the Oct. 19 opening of the formal convention.

 

Victory Over Ignorance: State Convention is a Great Event for the Socialist Movement by E. Val Putnam [events of Oct. 18-19, 1901] The Sedalia Citizens’ Alliance boycott was ultimately broken by the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias and a massive vacant storeroom owned by the lodge was rented to the Socialist Party of Missouri for conduct of its first convention, this newspaper article reports. Constitutional revisions were debated, resolutions passed, and new officers elected for the state organization. The Missouri Socialist was turned over by Local St. Louis to the ownership and control of the state organization, with editor E. Val Putnam retained. Putnam was also elected as the first State Secretary of the SPM, succeeding Chairman of the State Committee George H. Turner, who was himself elected as the state’s delegate to the SPA’s National Committee. A mass meeting following the conclusion of the convention was attended by 1,000 wildly applauding residents of Sedalia, according to the report, with Debs speaking for 90 minutes, accompanied by a brass band which played “The Marseillaise.”

 

NOVEMBER

 

“Appeal to Reason Circulation by States.” [Nov. 9, 1901] A snapshot of American Socialist organization at the time of formation of the SPA, as expressed in terms of subscriber count to the weekly Appeal to Reason, the largest circulation socialist publication in the country. Although by reputation a semi-populist agrarian-oriented newspaper focused on the Midwest, California tops the subscriber rolls to the Kansas broadsheet, with 8.6% of total subscribers. On a population basis, Washington’s nearly 6500 subscribers in a state of approximately 550,000 people means that nearly 1.25% of the state’s residents received the Appeal. The Midwest is well represented, including 4 of the top 5 states — Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. Penetration of the South, unsurprisingly, is slight.

1902

JANUARY

“Secretary’s Full Report: Doings of the National Organization Since Unity Convention Set Forth: Numerous Issues Have Been Raised,” by Leon Greenbaum [Jan. 24, 1902] This is a seminal document, the extremely lengthy status report of Executive Secretary Leon Greenbaum about the status and affairs of the Socialist Party during its first 5 months of operation (Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, 1901). A few observations: (1) It is evident from this report that, contrary to previous belief, the first Executive Secretary of the SPA was quite competent from an administrative standpoint, and precise records were maintained. In fact, based on this detailed report an exact 1901 monthly average of “Dues Actually Paid” for the SPA can be calculated for the first time—3,971. (Bear in mind not all states were paying dues regularly and reliably and the number of individuals identifying themselves with the organization may well have been approximately double this figure.) (2) Greenbaum and the St. Louis Quorum obviously placed primacy on the task of forging ties between the Socialist Party and the mainstream of the American labor movement embodied in the American Federation of Labor; more trade unionist than political actionist; (3) The early SPA was impoverished and on the brink of insolvency; despite this and the fact that the party did not produce an official organ, the paid staff of the National Office swelled to 4; (4) Many organizations, including the powerful Social Democratic Party of Wisconsin, did not pay ONE SINGLE MONTHLY DUES NICKEL to the National Office of the Socialist Party in 1901; despite this, they remained affiliated with the organization and represented on its National Council; (5) As with the Socialist Labor Party before it and the Communist movement after it, the Socialist Party of America experienced ongoing factional warfare from its birth to the present day, exemplified in this report by summaries of the situation in Kansas and New Hampshire. Intra-party factionalism seems to be the norm among political organizations in general and radical political organizations in particular. Includes photos of Leon Greenbaum, Charles H. Vail, and John C. Chase.

 

“Good Work Well Done: National Committee Holds 3 Days’ Session and Accomplishes Much Work: Minutes of Meeting Show What Was Done.” [Jan. 24-26, 1902] Despite the self-congratulatory headline in St. Louis Labor, the first annual gathering of the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America much hot air and little sweat was generated by the meeting. Regardless of the NC’s ponderous pace, there were fundamental decisions taken which shaped the form of the organization for years to come: (1) The extensive report of National Secretary Leon Greenbaum was received and acted upon; (2) A list of approved party speakers was to be established and made available to the various state organizations, with arrangements to be made by the national office directly with locals if necessary (a softening of the “state autonomy” concept); (3) Decision was made to establish a uniform system of national dues stamps and cards since during the last 5 months of 1901 several states apparently made use of their own stamps for dues collections or used no stamps at all; (4) NC member George Boomer was dispatched by the National Committee as a plenipotentiary to Utah in order to resolve the faction fight gripping that state. (This marked an extension of the power of the center over the semi-autonomous state party organizations); (5) A referendum was initiated establishing a logo for the party, pitting clasped hands superimposed over a globe against a red flag design. (The clasped hands logo eventually won in the ensuing 1902 referendum.)

 

February

National Movement in Danger: The Neglect of State Committees in Sending National Dues Must Be Rectified by the Comrades (St. Louis Labor). In reaction to tendency towards centralization and individual domination in the Socialist Labor Party which preceded it, the Socialist Party of America was founded on the concept of “State Autonomy” -- as a federation of semi-independent state affiliates. This structure was not without its difficulties, including among them a tendency of State Secretaries to ignore the timely remission of national dues to the National Office in St. Louis. This article from the Socialist Party of Missouri's St. Louis Labor reproduces National Secretary Leon Greenbaum's distress call to the states regarding the party's “very critical” financial situation. “Eleven State Committees failed to send national dues in January [1902],” Greenbaum writes, adding “Twenty State Committees have sent no national dues for February up to this writing,” thus leaving the national Socialist Party with “barely enough money for salaries of office help.” The St. Louis Labor article writer urges immediate national efforts to force the various State Secretaries to fulfill their duty sending in dues money. “If this is not done then it will become absolutely necessary to take some steps looking toward the payment of national dues, direct to the National Office, in order to prevent a complete collapse,” the writer warns.

SEPTEMBER

“National Constitution of the Socialist Party" [1902, not before April 12] Large file. Basic document of organizational law of the Socialist Party of America. Extremely rare first version of the national constitution of the SPA, with full original text plus text of first amendment, dated April 12, 1902. As National Secretary Leon Greenbaum was replaced by the National Committee at its January 1903 annual meeting and the headquarters moved from St. Louis to Omaha, this leaflet can thus be dated with precision to 1902, not before April 12. In general the Socialist Party in this period was a federation of largely autonomous state organizations. The national organization was governed by an annual meeting of the National Committee, consisting of one member of each organized state or territory. This group would in turn elect a “local quorum” of five members living in the “headquarters city” of the organization. These would assist the National Secretary — also elected by the National Committee — in the day-to-day operation of the organization. Dues of 5 cents per member per month were remitted by the State organizations to the National Office to support its operations. Higher resolution version available from Archive.org.

 

JULY

“Immediate Demands,” by Seymour Steadman, [July 1902] The case for support of a “minimum program” for the Socialist Party of America is made here by Seymour Steadman, a Chicago lawyer who remained an important member of the Socialist Party for the rest of his life. Incremental improvement of the life of the workers weakened the grip of the capitalist class, Steadman argued, while failure to support a program of social reform would “leave no program for a possible elected candidate, and the conceit of it will breed sterility, and make DeLeon the true Messiah.” A document making clear the ideological division of the SPA between reformist and revolutionary trends, dating back to the initial days of the party.

 

AUGUST

“Lines of Division in American Socialism,” by A.M. Simons [Aug. 1902] Editorial from the pages of the International Socialist Review by Editor Algie Simons. Simons notes the division of the American socialist movement between a Western-based, rural, agrarian element, largely native-born, which came to socialism through daily struggles and an Eastern-based, urban, trade union element, largely immigrant in ethnic origin, which came to socialism “quite largely through direct ideological propaganda.” The process of amalgamation of these two sometimes contradictory tendencies was imcomplete and the potential for a split was great due to a lack of mutual understanding and an ill-conceived insistence of the Eastern group to dictate to the indigenous radicals from the frontier. “The older Socialist of the cities lays great stress on certain phrases and forms of organization and manners of transacting business, and he uses the knowledge of these phrases and compliance with these forms and mannerisms as tests of the orthodoxy of his Western comrade of the prairies,” Simons says. The Western farmers, on the other hand, are “in revolt against capitalism” and when they are “met with a catechism especially prepared for the factory wage-worker” and put forward by those who are many times “most ridiculously ignorant of the economic conditions surrounding” these farmers, a sharply negative reaction results. Just as urban socialists would receive poorly a propagandist who was a farmer with no conception of the workings to the factory or the place of the unions, neither should urban Eastern socialists presume to lecture to the agrarian radicals of the West, Simons states. The farmers, possessors of greater individual initiative than the industrial wage-workers of the East, “are going to revolt politically whether the Socialists have the sagacity to work with them or not,” he states. Both the Eastern trade unionists and the Western radicalized agrarians provide promising fields for the Socialist Party’s work — the latter being “equally rich, if not richer” than the former, according to Simons.

 

SEPTEMBER

“Socialist Agitation Among Farmers in America,” by Karl Kautsky (translated by Ernest Untermann) [Sept. 1902] The dean of European Marxism weighs in on American capitalism in the pages of Die Neue Zeit. Kautsky indicates that the torch has been passed in the capitalist world, that “while in the middle of the last [19th] century it was necessary to study England in order to understand the tendencies of modern capitalism, our knowledge on this subject today must be derived from America.” Further, more information was available about the “last phase” of capitalism through the study of Germany than England. As for America, “Nowhere are all the means of political power so shamelessly purchasable as in America: administration, popular representation, courts, police and press; nowhere are they so directly dependent on the great capitalists.” Kautsky sees America as dominated by an Anglo-Saxon national character: “The Anglo-Saxon is of an eminently practical nature. He prefers inductive reasoning in science to the deductive method, and keeps as much as possible out of the way of generalizing statements. In politics he only approaches problems that promise immediate success, and he prefers to overcome arising difficulties as he meets them instead of penetrating to the bottom of them.” In politics the Anglo-American workers consequently pursued a “shortsighted policy which should take heed only of the moment and regard it more practical to run after a bourgeois swindler who promises real successes for tomorrow, instead of standing by a party of their own class which is honest enough to confess that it has nothing but struggles and sacrifices in store for the next future, and which declares it to be foolish to expect to reap immediately after sowing.” Kautsky then delves at length into the new book by International Socialist Review editor Algie Simons, The American Farmer, which he touts as a “welcome beginning” of a “new scientific literature for the American socialist movement. While acknowledging Simons’ statistic that farmers make up 40% of American voters compared to the mere 25% represented by industrial workers, Kautsky remains clear to whom the Socialist Party should make its appeal: “At present it is not a question of winning the political power, but taking root in the popular mind. For this purpose the industrial proletariat is certainly better fitted than the farming population. To agitate among farmers when the mass of the city workers are still strangers to Socialism is equivalent to bringing rocky soil under cultivation at great expense and leaving fertile soil untouched from lack of labor power.” Kautsky declares that “It is the class struggle of the present which forms parties and keeps them together. But in this struggle the farmers have different interests than the industrial laborers”; therefore it would be a mistake to make a concentrated appeal to them. “A new attempt to unite large farmers and proletarians in the same party would end the same way as the Greenback and the Populist movement, or, what is more likely, will fail in the outset,” Kautsky emphatically states.

 

“Semi-Annual Report of the National Committee of the Socialist Party, Sept. 12, 1902.” This 2nd constitutionally-required report of the Socialist Party’s governing National Committee, prepared by the St. Louis Local Quorum, is sharply critical of structural defects which revealed themselves in the first year of the organization’s operations. “we are fast becoming a mere ’federation of Socialist Parties,’ each of these parties having its territorial limits and jealously guarding against any encroachment upon its domain,” the NC Report charges. The national organization was entirely at the mercy of the various State Committees, which turned in their per capita assessments late and without adequate documentation. Seven state organizations (including the major SPA states of Illinois, New York, and Wisconsin) were in arrears for various lengths of time, the report noted, adding that “the national constitution makes it mandatory upon State Committees to pay national dues monthly, but the National Committee has no power to enforce this provision, which the State Committees for the most part have not lived up to.” State Committees failed to make their required semi-annual reports to the National Committee including their locals and membership counts. “As a consequence, the National Secretary [Leon Greenbaum] is unable to determine whether the states are forwarding their full quota of national dues,” the NC Report states, adding that as a result “It has been impossible since the Unity Convention [July-Aug. 1901] to determine the number of locals and membership of the party in the United States.” The federative structure of the party and lack of state compliance with the constitution had left the national organization underfunded and unable to finance necessary national propaganda or even to pay off the party’s creditors, the NC Report charges, resulting in costly and spasmodic state and local efforts on a piecemeal basis and “embarrassment” on the part of the Local Quorum. Further, extreme state autonomy had also been a boon to disruptive factionalism, with faction fights taking place in 5 state organizations during the SPA’s first 18 months. The Local Quorum consequently recommends the convocation of a special national convention to address these defects.

 

NOVEBMER

“The Western Labor Movement”, by Eugene V. Debs [Nov. 1902] Socialist leader Gene Debs takes strong exception to the “uncalled for, unwise, and wholly unaccountable official pronunciamento of the St. Louis ’Quorum,’ purporting to speak for the National Committee” which asserted that “While the Socialist Party in national convention has solemnly pledged itself to the unification of the trade unions, yet a contrary policy has been set up in the West by comrades acting in a dual capacity as organizers of the American Labor Union and the Socialist Party, thus misrepresenting the attitude of our party and compromising it in their attempts to build up a rival organization to the American Federation of Labor.” Debs charges that “Stripped of unnecessary verbiage and free from subterfuge, the Socialist Party has been placed in the attitude of turning its back upon the young, virile, class-conscious union movement of the West, and fawning at the feet of the ’pure and simple’ movement of the East.” He expounds the history of the American Labor Union from its origins in the Western Federation of Miners, which felt itself abandoned in the midst of a bitter strike by the other member unions of the American Federation of Labor (to which the UFM also affiliated). In response, the Western Federation of Miners left the AF of L to help for the Western Labor Union—an organization which later styled itself anew as the American Labor Union, a Socialist labor federation on a national scale. Debs asserts it was not the ALU which was the cause of dualism and factional struggle in the labor movement, but rather the crushing policies of the AF of L, which threatened destruction of the ALU and its affiliates if it did not return to the AF of L umbrella. Debs reveals himself supportive of radical dualism in the labor movement when he declares: “There is one way and one only to unite the American trade union movement. The American Federation of Labor must go forward to the American Labor Union; the American Labor Union will never go back to the American Federation of Labor. Numbers count for nothing; principle and progress for everything.”

 

DECEMBER

“The American Labor Movement: A reply to Eugene Debs”, by G.A. Hoehn [Dec. 1902] Editor of St. Louis Labor, Socialist Party Local Quorum member, and partisan of the American Federation of Labor Gustav “Gus” Hoehn responds to Gene Debs’ Nov. 1902 International Socialist Review article, “The Western Labor Movement” with an ISR piece of his own. Hoehn declares that “the relationship between trade unionism and Socialism, i.e., the attitude of the politically organized Socialists toward the Trade Union and general labor movement, is the most vital question in the American Socialist movement.” He sees in the fledgling American Labor Union a repetition of the grave error of Daniel DeLeon and his associates in establishing a dual federation, the Socialist Trades & Labor Alliance, in opposition to the American Federation of Labor in 1896. The ST&LA conducted a “warfare of revenge and destruction on the economic field,” Hoehn states, leading to “the demoralization and the suicidal work of the Socialist Labor Party itself” when the party was inexorably drawn into factional turmoil within the various national unions themselves. The forerunner of the Socialist Party of America broke with the SLP’s trade union policy and based itself on a separation of the economic (trade union) and political (party) wings of the labor movement. While “every Socialist applauded” the Western Labor Union’s decision to endorse Socialism at its 1902 convention, Hoehn notes that “the Western Labor Union changed its name into American Labor Union and decided to extend its field of operation to the Eastern states”—thus unleashing disruptional factional war in the union movement. “Our Socialist Party movement cannot afford, has no right, to be dragged into a fight between two national Federations of Trade Unions,” Hoehn declares, adding “The St. Louis “Quorum” took action on the ALU matter after it was called upon to issue an organizer’s commission of the Socialist Party to a general officer and organizer of the American Labor Union, and after considerable confusion had been created amongst our comrades in various parts of the country, which goes to show that an attempt was made to drag the Socialist Party right into this trade union controversy and rivalry.”

 

1903

JANUARY

“Auguries for the New Year: E.V. Debs Writes of His Late Tour,”by Eugene V. Debs [Jan. 3, 1903] Report from the road by Socialist leader Gene Debs. Debs notes that he had visited 10 states during his most recent trip and everywhere lectured before enthusiastic crowds filling the house. Whereas a few years hence he would have been met with derision, in this latest outing he had been welcomed by city fathers and important dignitaries in many of the communities he visited, marking an advance in the status of the socialist movement. Debs spoke in schools, colleges, churches, and in local opera houses under a wide variety of auspices—only twice at meetings sponsored by Socialist locals themselves. Debs declares that “the people everywhere are not only ready for the gospel of Socialism, but receive it with every mark of enthusiasm, and the telling points in a speaker’s argument are applauded just as heartily in a church or school room as they are in a Socialist propaganda meeting.”

“Two Resolutions of Local St. Louis, Socialist Party, January 4, 1903.” The early Socialist Party was structured as a federation of semi-autonomous state organizations, governed by a strong “National Committee” of state representatives, with operations coordinated by a weak National Office. Day to day affairs of the National Office were to be governed by a paid National Executive Secretary and 5 members of the local of the city in which the National Office was located, called the “Local Quorum.” St. Louis was established as the first location of the National Office by the founding convention of the SPA in the summer of 1901. The 5 member Local Quorum from St. Louis, including Executive Secretary Greenbaum, sought to assert themselves in favor of the experiment in political alliance being conducted with some success in San Francisco—an action condemned as anathema to the principles of the Socialist Party by many party members. These two resolutions, adopted at the January 1903 General Meeting of Local St. Louis, formally condemn the San Francisco “fusion” experiment, and call upon Executive Secretary Greenbaum and 3 members of the Local Quorum to resign, for having written and spoken in favor of the San Francisco model. One resolution cites the Socialist Party platform, which states: “The Democratic, Republican, the bourgeois public ownership parties, and all other parties which do not stand for a complete overthrow of the capitalist system of production, are alike political representatives of the capitalist class” as justification for this action. If Greenbaum and his associates refuse to submit their resignations, the second resolution calls for the National Committee to remove them. At the end of Jan. 1903, the annual meeting of the National Committee voted to move the National Office to Omaha, Nebraska, thus ending the St. Louis fusion controversy.

 

FEBRUARY

“Cooperation in Publishing Socialist Literature,” by Charles H. Kerr [Feb. 1903] The man behind America’ s leading Marxist publishing house of the first two decades of the 20th Century explains his operation to prospective financial supporters in this essay, published as a pamphlet in 1903. Kerr notes the origins of Charles H. Kerr & Co. as a publisher of Unitarian literature in 1886; his turn to populism in 1893, which severed him from his Unitarian base of support; his launching in 1897 of the magazine The New Time, with former editor of The Arena B.O. Flower of Boston at the editorial helm; and his move to “International Socialism” in 1899 and hiring of A.M. Simons, former editor of The Chicago Socialist, in 1900. Kerr explains the economics of book publishing in some detail, as well as his plan of selling $10 shares of stock in the company, which entitled the shareholder to purchase socialist publications at cost. Kerr also makes a pitch for donations and loans (interest free or 5%) to fund an advertising campaign to spread the message of scientific socialism through ads in the socialist and capitalist press.

 

“National Committee: The Policy of the Socialist Movement Outlined for Another Year: An Enthusiastic Gathering: St. Louis, Missouri” Jan. 29-Feb. 1, 1903,” by Allan W. Ricker Leading Appeal to Reason journalist Allan Ricker leaves this account of the seminal 1903 annual gathering of the National Committee of the Socialist Party—a conclave similar in form and content (if not size) to a national convention. Ricker approvingly notes the disavowal of the St. Louis Quorum’s policy of fusionism with the emerging Union Labor Party movement, including the text of the resolution on the matter which concluded, “in no uncertain tones” that “no state or local organization, or member of the party shall under any circumstances, fuse, combine, or compromise with any political party or organization, or refrain from making nominations in order to further the interests of candidates of such parties or organizations.” Ricker also notes the choice of William Mailly of Massachusetts over W.G. Critchlow of Ohio as the new National Secretary of the SPA. Ricker hints at the division of the 22 delegates into two camps: the post-Populist “West” and the international Socialist “East.” With regards to the National Secretary, he states: “The West...wished to be generous with the East, and while considerable distrust of Western Socialists was manifested on the part of Comrades Carey, of Massachusetts, and Hillquit, of New York, and while the West by uniting could have selected both the Secretary and the headquarters, yet they manifested no purpose to exert their power, and on the final vote, Berlyn, of Illinois, and Christensen, of Omaha, voted for Mailly, thus electing him.” The Western Socialists did win the day on the question of location of headquarters however, with Omaha chosen. “Omaha is the center of the revolutionary section of the United States. No argument need be adduced to prove this to a Western man,” Ricker declares. Ricker includes very brief character sketches of a few of the National Committee members as well as the text of the Resolution on Trade Unions, which reaffirmed the line of the 1901 Unity Convention delineating between the Socialist Party and the union movement as the distinct and specific political and economic arms of the labor movement. Ricker summarizes the policy: “The Socialist Party will assist and support every union in its economic conflicts with capitalism, whether that union has endorsed Socialism or not, because its true mission is to fight the political battles of the working class. It will not enter any internal conflicts between labor organizations [i.e. the AFL vs. the ALU]... The Socialist Party will adopt the honorable course of confining its efforts to converting individuals to the philosophy of Socialism, and will content itself with the knowledge that in due time all union men will become Socialists.”

 

Review of National Committee Meeting: St. Louis - Jan. 29-Feb. 1, 1903,” by Victor L. Berger Wisconsin National Committee member Victor Berger presents his contrarian account of the seminal 1903 National Committee meeting, which renounced the tactics of the St. Louis Quorum, elected a new National Secretary, moved party headquarters from St. Louis to Omaha, and reaffirmed the party’s anti-interventionist trade union policy. Berger indicates that a “really remarkable change” had taken place over the course of the past year among the members of the NC on the question nearest and dearest to his heart, that of “state autonomy” within the SPA. “Thanks to the conduct of the St. Louis Quorum, the sentiment of almost all the committeemen was outspoken in favor of state autonomy. Every member felt that the success of the party last year was due in no small degree to the many organizations of the many states and to the consequent multiplied intensity of energy. Indeed our party would have been lost if in last fall’s elections it had been even left to the initiative of the Local Quorum in St. Louis,” Berger declares. Berger emphasizes that the majority of NC members in 1903 had been relative newcomers to Socialism, former “middle of the roader” Populists for whom “fusionism” was as a curse word. Berger is critical of the majority’s lynch mob attitude toward the St. Louis Quorum and National Secretary Leon Greenbaum and for their “rather high-handed” interpretation of the party constitution in moving headquarters without resort to party referendum and for completely restructuring the governing Local Quorum without resort to constitutional amendment. Berger believes the newly selected Local Quorum shows a “strong agrarian coloring” which “would be absolutely out of touch with the proletarian masses of the country which the Socialist Party must win before all things if it wants to have success.” Referenda to overturn both of these erroneous decisions were forthcoming, Berger indicates.

 

MARCH

“Social Democrats in Convention: Large, Enthusiastic, and Intelligent Gathering." [events of March 6-9, 1900] Unsigned account from the pages of the Appeal to Reason of the so-called “1st National Convention” of the Social Democratic Party, a gathering of the Chicago-based organization which included participation by representatives of the rival organization by the same name based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Unity negotiations and the nomination of a Presidential slate dominated the proceedings, with a joint committee returning with a recommendation for merger or the two competing organizations but unable to agree upon a name. A 12 point platform for the party was moved for acceptance by Eugene Debs—a program which interestingly marked the organization in favor of “equal civil and political rights for men and women” but which failed to mention the question of race. The convention was nearly split by the apparently unexpected refusal of Debs to stand as the party’s nominee for President of the United States and a similar refusal by Job Harriman of California. An informal committee seems to have met with debs on the night of March 8 and to have pushed him into reluctantly accepting the party’s nomination. Harriman of the Springfield SDP was similarly nominated by acclamation as nominee for Vice-President. Party name was to be decided by membership referendum, the convention determined, with the adoption of the name “Social Democratic Party” explicitly endorsed.

 

“The Social Democratic Convention has Emphasized Startling Truths,” by Eugene V. Debs [March 24, 1900] In the wake of a convention two weeks earlier which seemed to move the Social Democratic movement in America towards unity and growth, party leader and Presidential candidate Gene Debs offered the following assessment of the organization and its prospects to readers of the weekly Appeal to Reason. “The Social Democratic Party is not a reform party, but a revolutionary party,” Debs declares. “It does not propose to modify the competitive system, but to abolish it. An examination of its platform shows that it stands unequivocally for the collective ownership and control of all the means of wealth production and distribution — in a word, socialism.” Debs notes that the Social Democratic Party now had a presence in 25 states, of which Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Washington were “marked for early conquest” by virtue of the movement’s impressive roots there. Debs declares that “the reins of government” is the party’s goal and that it refused to be moved “from the straight course mapped out for it by Marx and Engels, its founders, and pursued with unflagging fidelity by their millions of followers.”

 

APRIL

“How I Became a Socialist” by Federic F. Heath”, [April 1903] Autobiographical account of the intellectual journey of Milwaukee Socialist Frederic Heath from liberal Republican to Bellamy Nationalist to founding member of the Social Democracy in America. While acknowledging the role played by Socialist Labor Party literature in formation of his personal philosophy, Heath draws a sharp line between his own views, which he believes steeped in “democracy,” and those of the SLP. A “Cooperative Commonwesath secured through cataclysm” is called a “wild dream,” utopian and contrary to the teaching of history. Further evidence of the long-running division of the American movement between the proto-Bolshevik SLP and the dominant social democratic trend in the Socialist Party of America.

 

MAY

“In Dixie: Things Seen from a Car Window—New Machinery for Cotton Production—The Negro and Politics”, by Allan W. Ricker [May 9, 1903] The Debsian Socialist Party has been charged—with some justification—with having turned a blind eye to the question of racism and the struggle for emancipation by American blacks, rather piously reducing the great question of systemic racism to a minor footnote of the colorblind class struggle. But facts show that the Socialist Party was not entirely silent on the matter. This article by leading Appeal to Reason columnist A.W. Ricker deals at some length with the so-called “Negro problem.” Ricker describes his conversation with a group of Southerners in a rail car en route to Birmingham, using the quoted remarks of a Mississippi county clerk to expose racist thinking and the anti-democratic nature of one party Yellow Dog Democratic rule in the South: “In the land of democracy, there is no democracy, for whenever this Democratic machine is threatened, it will attempt to count out the white working class of the South, along with the colored. I imagine that if I were Mr. Bryan I would feel awfully proud of having been the representative of a political party that its national platform mourns over a few million barbarians who have come under the rule of American capitalism, while my chief political support came from a region that has denied self-government not only to 5 or 10 millions of penurious negroes, but about one-fourth of that many whites,” Ricker declares. Against this reactionary Southern Democratic machine are allayed two progressive forces, “the Republican Party, representing the capitalist class,” and “the Socialist Party, representing the working class.” Citing the proletarian nature of the region, Ricker makes note of the little-known base of support for the Populist Party—and by extension, Socialism—in the deep South. He notes: “The People’s Party carried both Georgia and Alabama, but were counted out by the Democratic machine. In Alabama the Populists carried by big majorities 30 counties, tied the Democrats in 30 more, and then the Democratic machine returned enough majority in the 6 black counties to overcome all of the foregoing. The democracy counted all the negroes for the Democratic ticket. Now the Democratic politicians, thinking all opposition destroyed, has disfranchised the negro vote, and by so doing have severed their own jugulars.” Prospects for Socialist organization in the region are thus positive, he believes.

 

JUNE

“On the Color Question”, by Eugene V. Debs [June 20, 1903] Extended excerpt of an article written by Socialist Party publicist Gene Debs at the invitation of the editor for the Indianapolis World—a “Negro” newspaper. Debs sees an economic basis for the racism of those unions denying black workers the right of membership: “There was a time when organized labor in the main was hostile to the Negro, and it must be admitted in all candor that certain unions, such as the railroad brotherhoods, still ignorantly guard the trades they represent, as well as their unions, against invasion by the colored man, and in this they have always had the active support of the corporation in whose interest it is to have workingmen at each others’ throats, that they may keep them all, black and white, in subjection.” Debs asserts that by way of contrast “the Socialist Party, the political wing of the labor movement, is absolutely free from color prejudice.” He optimistically indicates his belief that the labor union, the economic wing of the labor movement is rapidly becoming free of racist prejudice, and that “in the next few years not a trace of it will remain even in the so-called black belt of Southern States.” Racism is nothing more than an aspect of the class struggle, in Debs’ view: “There is no ’Negro problem,’ apart from the general labor problem. The Negro is no one whit worse off than thousands of white slaves who throng the same labor market to sell their labor-power to the same industrial masters. The workers, white and black, want land and mines and factories and machinery, and they are organizing to put themselves in possession of these means of production and then they will be their own employers, they will get all they produce and the problem will be solved.”

 

JULY

"Socialist Party of Washington State Constitution." [as amended July 1903] Beginning in 1903 the National Office of the Socialist Party of America began to be regularized, selling dues stamps and tracking the number of paid memberships in its state affiliates. The state parties themselves, however, remained largely autonomous — joined as a loose federation under the aegis of the national party. This second surviving variant of the constitution of the radical Socialist Party of Washington continues unchanged the previous model of locals paying the State Committee dues of 10 cents per member per month. A new tier of party bureaucracy has been added, the “county organization,” consisting of four or more locals in county. In practical terms this was a vehicle for the coordination of the activities of the locals of Seattle’ s King County. The provision calling for the expulsion of any individual advocating for “fusion” with groups which are not advocates of “revolutionary socialism” is expanded and the appeals procedure defined. Provision for mandatory approval of the actions of the annual State Conventions by membership vote are specified. The salaries of designated organizers by the State Committee is formally limited by resolution of the 1903 Convention to $3 per day plus $2 expenses.

 

“State Secretary Reports.” [July 1903] In July of 1903, the weekly Appeal to Reason published a special issue which included individual reports by 23 of the State Secretaries of the Socialist Party of America. Many of these recounted the history of the socialist movement in their state up to that juncture, details difficult to uncover from any other source. The result is an extremely important primary source document, an excellent starting place for in depth research of specific state histories. State Secretaries reporting here included those from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

 

OCTOBER

 

“The Disintegration of the SLP and the Establishment of the Socialist Party of America,” by Morris Hillquit [Oct. 1903] Section from Hillquit’s History of Socialism in the United States (1903) in which he relates the story of the 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party and the subsequent negotiations of the SLP’s “Rochester faction” (so-called “Kangaroos”) for unity with the Social Democratic Party of America — two events in which Hillquit was himself a primary participant. Hillquit lists two primary factors behind the split of the SLP: the Socialist Trade and Labor Association, the umbrella association of dual unions “sprung as a surprise on the convention of 1896,” which was billed as being a tool for “organization of the unorganized” but which instead “within a few years succeeded in placing the party in a position of antagonism to organized labor, as well as to all socialistic and semi-socialistic elements outside of the party organization;” secondly, an intolerant internal party regime in which the “strict disciplinarians” developed into “intolerant fanatics.” “ Every criticism of their policy was resented by them as an act of treachery, every dissension from their views was decried as an act of heresy, and the offenders were dealt with unmercifully. Insubordinate members were expelled by scores, and recalcitrant ’sections’ were suspended with little ceremony,” according to Hillquit. Hillquit also provides the best extant memoir of the negotiations between the insurgent SLP Right with which he was associated and the Social Democratic Party — a process which resulted in a split of the SDP before eventual reunification at the founding convention of the Socialist Party of America in 1901.

 

“What Revolutionary Socialism Means,” by Carl D. Thompson [Oct. 1903] Very explicit exposition of the term “Revolutionary Socialism” by a leading figure in Victor D. Berger’s Social Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Rev. Thompson quotes Karl Kautsky at length to “settle” his assertion that “revolutionary Socialism” has no connection to violent overthrow of the state, but is rather a synonym for “scientific Socialism”—meaning one who believes in the use of “the independent political party to capture the powers of government by a hitherto oppressed class as a means of securing Socialism.” While the term “revolutionary Socialism” is misunderstood by an “ordinary audience,” it remains a phrase necessary to “distinguish us as Socialists from those who merely wish to patch up the present system and keep it,” according to Thompson. “It is to make the point of difference clear and to distinguish sharply between [reform] programs and Socialism that the Socialists use the term ‘revolutionary.’ We are not ‘reformers’—we are ‘revolutionists.’” Thompson continues by stating, “It is safe to say that every scientific Socialist in the world would regard it a calamity to the cause, as well as to humanity, to have a violent upheaval in society.... Socialism offers a possible, a peaceful solution.”

 

NOVEMBER

“The Negro and the Class Struggle,” by Eugene V. Debs [Nov. 1903] A fearless and principled defense of black Americans delivered by the past and future candidate of the Socialist Party of America. While acknowledging that “malign spirit of race hatred” was so pervasive in the south that even some socialists had succumbed to the reactionary ideology, Debs unflinchingly stated that “The whole world is under obligation to the negro, and that the white heel is still upon the black neck is simply proof that the world is not yet civilized.The history of the negro in the United States is a history of crime without a parallel.” Debs argued that the whole question of “social equality” was inseparably linked to the struggle for economic freedom, for socialism—“there never was any social inferiority that was not the shrivelled fruit of economic inequality,” he says. The prescription was clear to Debs: “Our position as socialists and as a party is perfectly plain. We have simply to say: ‘The class struggle is colorless.’ The capitalists, white, black, and all other colors, on the other side.”

 

1904

JANUARY

“The ABC of Socialism,” by Hermon F. Titus [Jan. 3, 1904] A brief agitational outline of the principles of socialism written for a special propaganda issue of The Socialist (Seattle) by Left Wing leader Hermon Titus. The goal of socialism is “abundance for all” writes Titus, and he declares the means to this end to be for the working class and its allies to “Take to ourselves these vast new inventions and use them for producing new wealth for all instead of producing it for a few.” “The only reason we are not all well off now is that a few people own these great modern tools and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves,” he adds. “We are a very practical lot, we Socialists, we political Socialists,” writes Titus, adding, “We indulge in no dreams or false hopes. We say to the worker, now destitute: ‘Come with us, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power of government to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.’” While his vision for obtaining power is electoral, Titus clearly envisions something approximating a proletarian vanguard party, when he writes: “The great present mission of the Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the Means of Production, and also to shut out of the party the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system.” Includes short biography and portrait of Hermon F. Titus.

 

JANUARY

“The ABC of Socialism,” by Hermon F. Titus [Jan. 3, 1904] A brief agitational outline of the principles of socialism written for a special propaganda issue of The Socialist (Seattle) by Left Wing leader Hermon Titus. The goal of socialism is “abundance for all” writes Titus, and he declares the means to this end to be for the working class and its allies to “Take to ourselves these vast new inventions and use them for producing new wealth for all instead of producing it for a few.” “The only reason we are not all well off now is that a few people own these great modern tools and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves,” he adds. “We are a very practical lot, we Socialists, we political Socialists,” writes Titus, adding, “We indulge in no dreams or false hopes. We say to the worker, now destitute: ‘Come with us, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power of government to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.’” While his vision for obtaining power is electoral, Titus clearly envisions something approximating a proletarian vanguard party, when he writes: “The great present mission of the Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the Means of Production, and also to shut out of the party the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system.” Includes short biography and portrait of Hermon F. Titus.

 

APRIL

“The Multnomah County, Oregon, Socialist Party Convention of 1904: Two Reports from the Contemporary Press.” An esoteric piece of local history, this file consists of two pieces of newspaper reportage on the Multnomah County Convention held by the Socialist Party of Oregon in Portland in April 1904. The convention nominated a complete slate of candidates for the November 1904 election, a complete list of which appears in the article. A demonstration of the deep roots of the early SPA in the periphery of America, far away from the urban meccas of Chicago and New York.

 

“Constitution of the Socialist Party of America: Adopted in National Convention at Indianapolis, Ind., August 1, 1901—as revised.” This is the version of the SPA’s constitution in effect on the eve of the 1904 Party Convention, with editorial footnotes indicating the specific alterations made to the document over the party’s first 2-1/2 years. Chief among the changes made in this interval were a respecification of the Local Quorum—a 5 member body that approximated the National Executive Committee in function; the alteration of the position of National Secretary to a position with a fixed 1 year term of office; and the elimination of constitutionally-required reporting by the Executive Secretary and the National Committee to the state organizations. Also apparently removed was a paragraph that was probably regarded as superfluous at the time but which would be a matter of extreme importance 15 years hence, specifically: “The platform of the Socialist Party, adopted in convention or by referendum vote, shall be the supreme declaration of the party, and all state and municipal organizations shall, in the adoption of their platforms, conform thereto.” This fundamental position remains in less strenuous language in Art. VI, Sec. 1: “Each state or territory may organize in such way or manner, and under such rules and regulations, as it may determine, but not in conflict with the provisions of this constitution.”

 

MAY

“The Working Class Convention: National Convention of Socialist Party at Chicago, May 1 to May 6, 1904,” by Hermon F. Titus Eyewitness account of the 2nd Convention of the Socialist Party of America by Washington delegate Hermon F. Titus—Socialist publisher, medical doctor, and for over a decade a former Baptist preacher. Titus makes use of language of a religious revivalist in hailing the convention as a gathering of comrades “aflame with an enthusiasm born of awakening class consciousness and determined to effect their own emancipation,” who saw their “enthusiasm and determination” made more intense by the “sense of fellowship and union which gradually developed during those 6 days’ sessions.” Titus declares that “Suspicions and differences disappeared as it became evident that the great majority of the delegates stood unmistakably for the working class first, last, and all the time. Factions and schemes were annihilated before the proletarian will that asserted itself in every test vote. There were no combinations or caucuses to effect this result.” Titus asserts that there was an effort on the part of the delegates of Kansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin to arrive at slates for key convention committees ahead of the gathering, but that this effort came to nothing and “there were no more caucuses during that convention.” The sharpest points of contention came upon the Trade Union resolution and the new program for the party. The contentious “immediate demands” which divided the founding convention in 1901 were reduced to a “Program for State and Municipal Socialist Officials,” a set of “mere suggestions for action where we succeed in electing candidates before our full triumph.” Includes short biography and picture of Hermon F. Titus.

 

“The Chicago Convention: National Socialist Party Convention Held at Chicago, Ill., May 1-6, 1904: Official Report of H.F. Titus, Delegate-at-Large from State of Washington.” Delegate Hermon Titus details for the membership of the Socialist Party of Washington his actions on their behalf at the 2nd Convention of the Socialist Party of America. Titus notes three challenges of delegates before the Committee on Credentials on which he sat, those of Gridley of Indiana (for being a city engineer for a capitalist government), J. Stitt Wilson of California (for sending a congratulatory telegram to a Mayoral victor who was a member of another party), and Charles Randall of Utah (who was the delegate of a Walter Thomas Mills-backed faction embroiled in a dispute with another recognized Utah state organization with ties to the radical Socialist Party of Washington). Titus also details his work on the platform committee and notes that he made the nominating speech for Ben Hanford for Vice President of the United States—a nomination which received many seconds and which was approved unanimously by the convention. Mills notes his additional efforts to stir up enough locals around the country to demand the submission of the constitution, platform, and resolutions of the Chicago Convention to the membership for ratification by referendum vote. “I freely said and still maintain that the platform adopted at Indianapolis and confirmed by referendum of the party, remains our national platform until another is adopted by the party membership itself,” Titus notes. Titus also points out two actions he took in an attempt to reduce overhead costs of the SPA—the reduction of the party’s representation to the forthcoming International Socialist Congress from 3 to 1 (successful), and to scale back the salary of the National Secretary from $1500 to $1200 per year (failed). “I urged that our dues are paid by workingmen on small wages and that we must economize in every possible way,” Titus reports.

 

JULY

“The Federal Government and the Pullman Strike: Eugene V. Debs’ Reply to Grover Cleveland’s Magazine Article,” by Eugene V. Debs [circa July 7, 1904” The 10 year anniversary of the seminal 1894 Pullman Strike was the inspiration for former President Grover Cleveland to pen a tendentious history of the event, published in the pages of McClure’s magazine. Cleveland’s one-sided misrepresentation of the affair drew the ire of former head of the American Railway Union, Eugene V. Debs, who wrote this lengthy article in reply (rejected by McClure’s and ultimately published in the pages of The Appeal to Reason). Cleveland’s triumphalist self-vindication was based on inaccurate information; Cleveland had seemingly not even bothered to consult the report of his own hand-picked commission to investigate the strike, Debs states. The strike had been peacefully and effectively won by the strikers, Debs indicates, before the organized railway managers in collusion with a railroad lawyer appointed by President Cleveland as special counsel to the government, gained relief through the courts via an injunction against the ARU. Working hand-in-glove with the Chicago police, the railroads had thousands of unsavory “thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts” hired as “deputy marshals,” who caused acts of violence, including the burning of boxcars and the cutting of fire hoses to insure the spreading of the flames. This ploy in turn gave the Cleveland administration a pretext to intervene with federal troops—against the explicit recommendations of the Mayor of Chicago and the Governor of Illinois. Thereafter, an effort was made to decapitate the ARU by trial of its officers for “conspiracy”—but before documents could be brought into the trial proving the culpability of the Railway Managers’ Association and winning, the trial was suddenly halted due to the suspicious “illness” of a juror. Instead, the ARU officers were summarily sentenced to jail terms ranging from 3 to 6 months for “contempt of court” by the judge—a procedure of dubious legality which was finally upheld by a bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court composed of former corporate lawyers, in Debs’ view.

 

“To The Socialist and Its Readers,” by Eugene V. Debs [July 10, 1904] When Hermon Titus’ Left Wing weekly The Socialist ran into financial trouble in the summer of 1904, SPA Presidential hopeful Eugene V. Debs immediately contributed a full-length article expressing his support for the publication and upbraiding Socialists for lack of support of the party press. Debs insists that readers of The Socialist make an immediate 50 cent contribution to help put the publication on its feet financially: “Socialists are not consistent, to put it mildly, when they talk continually about ‘education’ while they let their own press starve to death. Socialists, who stand against exploitation, have no right to exploit those who serve them.” Debs notes that “Trade unionists, made up wholly of workers, manage to support their press, at least a large part of it, in decent order, so that the press can live comfortably and serve instead of starving and dying. I have always been opposed to a two-for-five press. I want to see a substantial paper, the best that can be produced, and a reasonable price paid for it, instead of a flimsy sheet on crutches that manages to limp from one issue to another, almost a walking epitaph.” Debs demands that “The Socialist must be put upon its feet, and at once. Dr. Titus and his colleagues have done their whole duty and gone far beyond it, and now we have got to show some inclination to do ours.”

 

“Letter to S.S. McClure in New York from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, July 22, 1904.” On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Pullman Strike of 1894, McClure’s magazine published a lengthy article on the affair by former President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland’s one-sided account inspired strike leader Eugene Debs to write an extensive article in reply. This Debs article was rejected by publisher S.S. McClure, who wrote to Debs that “Instead of giving a plain narrative of the strike seen from your point of view, you have taken up most of your space in calling to witness the unfairness of the other side and abusing the same.” He invited Debs to rewrite the piece for publication—which Debs rejected in no uncertain terms with this July 22, 1904 letter. Debs replied that “If a statement of absolute facts taken from the official records and made in decorous language is not a ‘sober’ statement it is simply because the facts do not admit of sober treatment. I quite realize that there is “nothing so eloquent as the facts,” but when the facts prove the highest public official of a great nation to have debauched his trust at the behest of corporate capital they may not appear so eloquent to him or to his friends, but they lose none of their charm of eloquence for men whose record and character are such that they can face the facts without fear of dishonor.” Debs adds that “In answering Mr. Cleveland I wrote under great restraint to keep within the bounds of prudent expression and I would rather far have the article rejected than have it appear emasculated, a miserable apology, deserving of contempt.”

 

AUGUST

“Apostrophe to Liberty,” by Eugene V. Debs [Aug. 27, 1904] Short florid prose poem dripping with florid language and dedicated to the importance of liberty by the 2-time Presidential candidate Gene Debs: “If liberty is ostracized and exiled, man is a slave, and the world rolls in space and whirls around the sun a gilded prison, a domed dungeon, and though painted in all the enchanting hues that infinite art could command, it must stand forth a blotch amidst the shining spheres of the sidereal heavens, and those who cull from their vocabularies of nations, living or dead, their flashing phrases with which to apostrophize Liberty, are engaged in perpetuating the most stupendous delusion the ages have known. Strike down liberty, no matter by what subtle and infernal art the deed is done, the spinal cord of humanity is sundered and the world is paralyzed by the indescribable crime.”

 

DECEMEBER

 

“1904 Average Paid Membership by States, Socialist Party of America.” Alphabetical listing of official state-by-state totals of average paid membership in the SPA. Data for all 37 organized states is included. Top five state memberships included: Illinois (1,851), New York (1,791), California (1,566), Washington (1,146), and Massachusetts (1,101). There was an average paid membership of just 145 in Oklahoma in 1904, while Wisconsin surprisingly finished behind the state of Missouri, 775 to 650.

 

1905

 

FEBRUARY

“Aid for Russia.” [An appeal published in The International Socialist Review, Feb. 1905] As revolution against the oppressive Tsarist regime swept the vast Russian empire, a group of 15 leading luminaries of the Socialist Party of America consituted themselves as a fundraising committee, placing this appeal in the socialist press. “The cowardly murder of thousands of peaceful workingmen and women has revealed to the world the brutality of the Russian governing classes in all its hideous nakedness, and has made the hitherto inert masses of the Russian population susceptible to the world-redeeming gospel of socialism the appeal declared, adding that the financial resources of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party were entirely inadequate to the grand task. Socialists were called upon to send funds for the RSDRP to Dr. S. Interman of New York, who would in turn cable the money to the Russian party. “If there ever was an occasion for a practical demonstration of the international solidarity of the socialist movement, this is the occasion. If it ever was our duty to assist our struggling brethren abroad, this is our duty now.” This appeal was signed by Victor Berger, John Chase, Eugene Debs, Ben Hanford, Max Hayes, Morris Hillquit, S. Interman, Alexander Jonas, Jack London, William Mailly, Algie Simons, Henry Slobodin, and Julius Wayland.

 

MARCH

“Editorial in Opposition to Paul Carpenter for County Court Judge,” by Victor L. Berger [March 18, 1905] This editorial by newly-elected member of the Socialist Party’s National Executive Committee Victor L. Berger ignited a firestorm in the party, culminating in his removal by the National Committee and subsequent reinstatement by party referendum. At issue was Berger’s endorsement of former Milwaukee mayor Emil Wallber against sitting judge Paul Carpenter in a non-partisan race for County Judge—an election for which the Social Democratic Party of Wisconsin (state affiliate of the SPA) did not field candidates. Berger stated that Carpenter had spoken against Socialism and the Socialist Party at a meetings of Catholic societies and had used his position to assign dependent children to Catholic charities rather than to the public institution established for that purpose. Berger’s endorsement of a non-Socialist political candidate was considered a brazen violation of the party constitution’s prohibition of “fusion” with other political organizations, and great hay was made of the transgression by Berger’s Left Wing opponents, who immediately moved to have him removed from the NEC.

 

“Motion to the National Committee, SPA [on Apparent Fusionism in Milwaukee],” by William Trautmann [March 23, 1905] Text of the motion of Left Wing SPA National Committee member William Trautmann of Ohio, which “calls upon the State Executive Board of Wisconsin to proceed at once with an investigation” as to whether there was collusion between Local Milwaukee SPA and any capitalist political party surrounding the endorsement by Victor Berger of former Milwaukee mayor Emil Wallber in the race for the judicial seat held by Paul Carpenter. Includes text of Berger’s editorials and Trautmann’s explanation of the thinking behind the action. Trautman states: “It is absolutely necessary for the Socialist Party as a whole to find out whether it is in line with Socialist tactics, discipline, and the integrity of the party to allow such bargain counter and counter-bargaining deals prevail in any part of the Union. If the party membership of Milwaukee has sanctioned such policy, then the Socialists all over the United States ought to know it; if they have not, then they will demand and give themselves such an explanation as will set them clear before the Socialists, and bring those who are responsible for this to give account for.”

 

APRIL

“Letter to the National Committee, SPA from Victor L. Berger, National Committeeman for Wisconsin.”; [published April 1, 1905] Reply by Victor Berger to the motion of William Trautmann calling for an investigation of the published endorsement of a non-Socialist judicial candidate which he made in March 1905. Berger calls Trautmann’s insinuation that “there is a collusion, or secret or open understanding in the city of Milwaukee between the Social Democratic Party organization or a member or members thereof and representatives of capitalist parties” a “miserable and cowardly slander.” Berger explains the thinking behind the decision of Milwaukee Socialist organization not to run candidates in the judicial campaign and the reasoning behind his call for negative action against sitting judge Paul Carpenter, a “Catholic zealot” and avowed enemy of Socialism. Berger states that he in no way violated the constitution of the Socialist Party, which he interprets as providing “the absolute and irrevocable duty of every Social Democrat” to vote a straight Socialist ticket whenever the party names one, but “whenever and wherever the Social Democratic Party has no ticket in the field, any member individually has a right to vote or not to vote just as he pleases.” Berger claims personal motives behind Trautmann’s motion against him: “Trautmann is simply bitter, because I refused to endorse his plan of splitting up the national trade union movement. After trying to split the economic movement of the working class, Trautmann would like also to split up the political movement of the working class.” Berger declares that “we are a political party, not a politico-religious order. We are not Dominicans nor Franciscans. We want strict party discipline, and there is no man who stands for good discipline more than I do. But whenever discipline turns into oppressive fanaticism, then I oppose it.”

 

“At the Parting of the Ways,” by Hermon F. Titus [April 8, 1905] In this important article by Left Wing Socialist Hermon Titus, Titus argues that the simultaneous eruption of “Impossibilism” and “Opportunism” has brought the Socialist Party “sharply, but not unexpectedly, to the parting of the ways.” On the one hand he cites the example of Thomas J. Hagerty, a radical industrial unionist who advocated the doctrine that “economic organization of the working class must precede and dominate political organization.” Titus characterizes this as the same sort of “ruinous” thinking long espoused by Daniel DeLeon, a “propaganda of expletives, of misrepresentations, of meaningless mouthings of revolutionary phrases”—leading ultimately to suspicion and distrust of the Socialist Party and political action in general and the subjugation of the political movement to the temporal needs of the trade union movement. At the other pole, Titus states, is the “opportunism” of Victor Berger. Berger and the doctrine of “state autonomy” which he espoused implied an inability of the national Socialist Party to enforce its principles—“especially the principle of no compromise with capitalism.” Titus observes that “state autonomy is not the cause of compromise, any more than industrial unionism is the cause of impossibilism. State autonomy is but the shield behind which compromise can hide. As the doctrine of states’ rights was used to defend and uphold chattel slavery, so can state autonomy in our day be used to cover and bolster up compromise in the Socialist movement.” It is for this reason that Berger must be reined in for his transgressions and his doctrine of state autonomy crushed, in Titus’ view. “If the impossibilists stand for anything it is for a species of Socialism which would ultimately make political action impossible, magnify the importance of economic action, and end with the ‘general strike,’ the anarchist method of revolution. To follow opportunism, fortified by state autonomy, to its logical conclusion would be to make the state independent of the national organization, the local of the state, and the individual of the local, thus arriving also at individualism, the essence of anarchism, and establishing an affinity between the impossibilist and the opportunist of which they are perhaps both unaware,” Titus declares.

 

MAY

"An Object Lesson in Referendums,” Hermon F. Titus [May 4, 1905] Although controlled by adherents of the ideology of the Socialist Party’ s Left Wing from its earliest days, the Socialist Party of Washington was the scene of a non-stop factional war, driven by the Center-Right minority that controlled Seattle’ s King County organization. Godfather of Washington’ s majority Left Wing was former Baptist preacher turned Seattle newspaper publisher Hermon F. Titus. During the first decade of the 20th Century Titus’ s paper, The Socialist, gained a national readership as a semi-official organ of the Left Wing — standing in opposition, say, to the electorally-oriented neo-populism of Julius Wayland’ s bigger and better-known Kansas weekly, The Appeal to Reason. With Titus exiting the state to greener pastures in Toledo, Ohio, enemies brought charges against Titus, alleging irregularities in a ballot distributed at Seattle’ s radical Pike Street Branch. A new state constitutional referendum was now being pushed by conservative forces in the Washington Party, aiming at eliminating the branch system of organization and replacing it with a division of the cities of the state based upon electoral districts. Titus characterizes the charges against him as personally motivated, politically driven, and trivial and charges that the timing of the charges was intentionally such as to prevent Titus from defending himself in person.

 

“Moderation, Comrades!” by Morris Hillquit [May 6, 1905] New York’s SPA National Committee representative Morris Hillquit weighs in on the Berger Affair with this letter to the Toledo Socialist, a Left Wing weekly edited by Hermon Titus, the business manager of which was former SPA Executive Secretary William Mailly. Hillquit states that while he disapproved “unqualifiedly” of Berger’s decision to endorse a friendly capitalist judicial candidate over an unfriendly capitalist judicial candidate, at the same time “I am opposed to any punishment or disciplinary measures against the organization of the state of Wisconsin or that of the city of Milwaukee or against Victor L. Berger personally.” Instead, the Socialist Party needed to “adopt clear and unambiguous rules against the recurrence of such conditions as have brought about the Milwaukee trouble.” Hillquit states that “I believe that as soon as a fallacious or injurious tendency is noticed in any quarter of our movement, it should be energetically combatted, but combatted by argument and not by punishment—by discussion, not by expulsion. Our comrades are voluntary fighters for a great cause, not soldiers in compulsory service. We can maintain the purity and integrity of our party by educating the membership to a proper understanding of the nature and spirit of our movement, but never by a system of rigid discipline.” Hillquit states that while he greatly respects Titus and Mailly, at the same time they had come to take their self-appointed task of the preservation of Socialist Party purity “a trifle too strenuously.” “Within the comparatively short career of our movement we have managed to develop two new types within our ranks, the ‘Opportunist’ and the ‘Impossibilist,’ and I hardly think it will be conducive to our welfare to enrich our anthropological museum by a new species, that of the “Alarmist,” Hillquit declares.

 

“Shield No One: A Reply to Morris Hillquit,” by William Mailly [May 6, 1905] Business manager of the Toledo Socialist, NEC member, and former Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party William Mailly responds to Morris HIllquit’s defense of Victor Berger with this article. Mailly notes that Hillquit expresses agreement with his strong disapproval of Berger’s actions in endorsing a non-Socialist judicial candidate in Milwaukee, but had thereupon retreated into a sort of “Tolstoian nonresistance to evil.” Mailly declares that “I...believe that any party member who willfully supports a capitalist candidate for any office is not qualified to represent the Socialist Party in any capacity and in this immediate case the offense is all the greater because the offender has been honored by the national party with a place on its National Executive Committee and he therefore owed and still owes a duty to the national party which rises above any petty, local political interest.” Berger was well aware of precedent in this matter, Mailly insists, yet he still unapologetically chose to proceed along a prohibited course of action, and he should be subject to disciplinary measures the same as any other less famous party member. Further, contrary to Hillquit’s pooh-poohing of the assertion that Berger was planning to split from the Socialist Party and form a new organization if events turned against him, in fact Berger had declared this very thing at the most recent meeting of the National Executive Committee. “Impossibilism exists because Opportunism has been allowed to flourish. One is the complement of the other. Let the national party go on record in favor of placating (and that is all it will be) Opportunism and compromise, and Impossibilism will receive an impetus from which it will take the party years to recover,” Mailly insists.

 

JUNE

“Berger and His Opponents,” by Eugene V. Debs [June 17, 1905] Eugene Debs chimes in on the Berger Affair in this letter to the editor of Hermon Titus’ Left Wing Socialist weekly, The Socialist, the publication which broke the story of Berger’s transgression and which stirred the pot most vigorously after the matter came to a boil. Debs declares that while Berger’s actions were “wrong, flagrantly wrong, in my judgment,” it was excessive to remove him from the National Executive Committee, a “position of trust in a party he helped to organize and for which he worked with all his strength of mind and body.” Debs argues that for his error, Berger “should have been called to account, but there was, and is, nothing in the case to warrant the extreme measures that have been taken against him and that, if carried into effect, would make of an unfortunate tactical blunder an act of foulest treason.” The excessiveness of the penalty will serve only to make Berger a martyr among many in the party, defeating the efficacy of his punishment. “A reasonable rebuke would have served a good purpose, while extreme harshness will react in favor of the accused and make his offense the means of praise instead of blame,” Debs warns. “Let us preserve the party purity and vigilantly guard its uncompromising tactics, but let us not be too swift to condemn a mistake as a crime and an erring comrade as a vicious traitor,” Debs declares. Debs seeks an end to the matter: “Let us have done with the Berger case. He has been more than punished and the incident should now be closed. There is no danger of repetition of the offense.”

 

JULY

“The Industrial Workers: The Convention and Its Work,” by Eugene V. Debs [July 29, 1905] This article on the recent founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) by prominent Socialist Gene Debs written for The Socialist, published by Hermon Titus in Toledo, Ohio. Debs characterizes the new union as a major step forward for the American working class, the existing structure unions hopelessly splintered, bureaucratic, and supportive of the capitalist regime. “To me it seems not only impossible but absurd to expect the American Federation of Labor, under its capitalistic Civic Federation supervision, to turn itself inside out, as certain of our comrades expect it will do in the course of a few years or centuries,” Debs writes. As for the charge made against the IWW of “splitting” the trade union movement, Debs cites the myriad of competing unions already in the field and calls the charge “something so silly and stupid about it in the light of existing facts that it seems nothing less than idiotic.” Under the umbrella of the American Federation of Labor “every handful of men that are ground through the hopper of industrial evolution must have a separate union, separate jurisdiction, and above all, and most important of all, a separate set of ‘grand’ or ‘supreme’ officers, of whom there is an army and to whose personal interest it is to keep the workers divided into innumerable petty factions,” Debs states. “The working class are going to unite, economically and politically, for their emancipation,” Debs declares, and he indicates that the formation of the IWW is a historic step forward down this path.

 

AUGUST

“The Industrial Convention,” by Eugene V. Debs. [Aug. 1905] Socialist Party leader Debs attacks what he claims was systematic and intentional misrepresentation and distortion in its reporting of the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. Debs alleged that these papers “resorted to downright mendacity to accomplish their purpose of defeating a body of men who by their records had proved that they were above the corrupting influences of capitalist bribery and whose object it was to unite the working clas for their emancipation from wage-slavery.” The capitalist press was loyal to the AF of L, Debs charged, adding that “silly and stupid falsehoods” about DeLeon “capturing” the organization or Debs being “disgusted” with it would “have no effect” upon the body.

 

OCTOBER

“The Coming Union,” by Eugene V. Debs [Oct. 26, 1905] A defense of the fledgling Industrial Workers of the World against its “numerous, varied, and powerful” opponents by Socialist Party leader Gene Debs. “These opponents, strange as it may seem, embrace, besides the capitalist class and their ‘labor lieutenants,’” Debs declares, noting that the IWW is the “only national labor union that recognizes the class struggle” and therefore the union worthy of the support of class-conscious workers and Socialists. “The American Federation of Labor, which is simply an attempt to harmonize pure and simple trade unions, that were built up on tools long since discarded and on principles long out of date, is the enemy of working class solidarity. It is in control of the capitalist class,” Debs states. While some Socialists continued to follow the “boring-from-within” approach with regards to the AF of L, Debs believes that such a tactic is an unmitigated failure: “When the moon turns into green cheese will these Socialists succeed in converting the American Federation of Labor, honeycombed with capitalistic influences, into a revolutionary working class organization.” Debs states that opposition to the IWW among Socialists based upon the fact that Daniel DeLeon and his acolytes were closely involved with the project was “puerile, to say the least,” adding “DeLeon is sound on the question of trade unionism and to that extent, whether I like him or not personally, I am with him. My personal likes and dislikes are secondary to my allegiance to the working class.” The choice should be simple for Socialists, in Debs’ opinion: “The AF of L is for the wages system; the Industrial Workers of the World for its abolition. How can a Socialist hesitate in his choice an instant? The AF of L keeps the working class divided into trades which have ceased to exist; the Industrial Workers unites them into one compact militant body. Which of these truly expresses the present industrial situation and which actually stands for working class solidarity?”

 

NOVEMBER

Winning a World,” by Eugene V. Debs [Nov. 1905]. Article from the November 1905 issue of Wilshire’s Magazine, believed to be republished here for the first time. Debs waxes eloquent as to the lofty task of the Socialist movement, “to win the world—the whole world—from animalism, and consecrate it to humanity.” This is to be achieved as a result of releasing the “imprisoned productive forces from the vandal horde that has seized them, that they may be operated, not spasmodically and in the interest of a favored class, as at present, but freely and in the common interest of all.” For this the working class must be “roused” and Debs urges his readers to “Spread Wilshire’s Magazine, the weekly Socialist papers, the pamphlets, tracts, and leaflets among the people” and thereby educate the working class. He calls for both economic and political action, “One Great, All-embracing Industrial Union and One Great, All-embracing Political Party, and both revolutionary to the core—two hearts with but a single soul.” Includes a photographic image of Debs from a circa 1904 postcard.

 

Class Unionism: Speech at South Chicago,” by Eugene V. Debs [Nov. 24, 1905] In 1905, Socialist leader Gene Debs went on the campaign trail on behalf of the newly organized Industrial Workers of the World, singing the organization’s praises. This is one of Debs’ longest preserved speeches, an analysis of the evolution of trade unionism from its “;ld and outgrown and out-of-date” origins in craft association to its present necessity for organization on an industrial basis to correspond with the concentration and enlargement of industry. Debs characterizes the situation as thus: “You have this great body of workers parceled out among scores of petty and purposeless unions, which are in ceaseless conflict with each other, jealous to preserve their craft identity. As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. Craft unionism is the negation of class solidarity.” Debs cites his previous experience attempting to organize the American Railway Union on an industrial basis in 1894 and the way in which state power was brought to bear in an attempt to crush that fledgling labor organization. The Industrial Workers of the World is depicted as the continuation of the spirit and practice of the ARU on a broader basis. Debs hails the revolutionary industrial union, leading strikes of “class-conscious, revolutionary workingmen, who, while they are striking for an immediate advantage, at the same time have their eyes clearly fixed upon the goal. And what is that goal? It is the overthrow of the capitalist system, and the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery.” Debs declares: “We have declared war upon the capitalist class, and upon the capitalist system. We are of the working class. We say: Arouse, you workingmen! It is in your power to put an end to this system. It is your duty to build tip this great revolutionary economic organization of your class, to seize and take control of the tools with which you work, and make yourselves the masters instead of being the slaves of industry. Wipe out the wage system, so that you can walk this earth free men!”

 

DECEMBER

“1905 Average Paid Membership by States, Socialist Party of America.” Alphabetical listing of official state-by-state totals of average paid membership in the SPA. Data for all 38 organized states is included. Top five state memberships included: Illinois (2,412), New York (2,083), California (1,710), Wisconsin (1,666—a massive gain from the previous year’s total), and Ohio (1,541). Other states with more than 1,000 average paid members included Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Washington, and New Jersey. Oklahoma membership was up to 505, still trailing the unlikely state of Missouri.

 

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