Social Democratic Party Annual Membership Figures

According to figures cited at the "First Convention" of March 6-9, 1900, the Social Democratic Party had added about 1000 dues paying members from the first of the year, to stand at a total of about 4,500 at the time of the Convention. [Social Democratic Herald, March 17, 1900, pg. 1]

1899 ------------ "About 3,500"

1900 ------------ "About 4,500"

 


 

Socialist Party of America Annual Membership Figures

The Socialist Party collected dues monthly rather than annually, using a system of membership cards and dues stamps. Under this system, stamps would be advanced in bulk to State Party organizations and Language Federations, who then sold these stamps to the membership at meetings. Members missing a previous meeting would generally buy more than one stamp at a time to pay for dues in arrears. Local and State organizations -- or Language Federations, as the case may be -- would get a share of the money for each dues stamp sold and would remit the balance of funds to the National Office.

This system, borrowed from trade unions of earlier days, inevitably resulted in a fluctuation of the number of stamps sold by the National Office each month. The standard method of calculating the membership of such organizations involves the average number of stamps sold over the course of a particular quarter or year. Scholars should remain dubious of any single monthly stamp sales total being presented as indicative of a group's true membership size, as partisans of the day often did.

It does not seem that the records of the National Office for the years 1901 and 1902 were preserved by the William Mailly administration coming into power in 1903, and for over 100 years it was believed that no precise membership figures were extant. In March 2007, I located and transcribed the annual report of National Secretary Leon Greenbaum in the weekly St. Louis Labor, however. This report for 1901, far from being an example of "poor record keeping," as I had previously believe to have typified the SPA in its first 2 years, provided precise month-by-month figures for both dues actually paid as well as the sum of members claimed by the various State Committees but for whom dues were not paid (a figure with appears below in brackets).

A 1912 estimate of "about 4,000" members at the time of the Unity Convention made by the Social Democratic Herald (an astonishingly accurate estimate of the monthly dues actually paid for the year!) is thus superceded by actual statistics -- Secretary Greenbaum asserting that he had accounted for 6,657 paper members in the various states in August 1901. [Report of Jan. 24, 1902, St. Louis Labor, Jan. 25, 1902, pg. 5]

No hard numbers for 1902 membership are currently available, but the rough and overly round estimate given in Secretary William Mailly's report for 1903 may be regarded as approximately correct.

The monthly figures for 1903 and 1904 come from Appeal to Reason no. 405 (Sept. 5, 1903) and another issue or two which I neglected to note. The rest of the series of average monthly dues stamp sales per year is based upon the official statistics published annually in The American Labor Year Book by the Rand School of Social Science, a Socialist Party training school. The figures may be regarded as official and were not subject to any form of systemic falsification:

 

1901 ------------ 4,759 paid (of 7,629)

Aug. 1901 -- 821 -- [6,657 paper members] - omitted from average

Sept. 1901 -- 2,984 -- [6,867 paper members]

Oct. 1901 -- 3,781 -- [7,309 paper members]

Nov. 1901 -- 7,032 -- [7,774 paper members]

Dec. 1901 -- 5,239 -- [8,567 paper members]

 

1902 ------------ 9,949

[Source: Carl D. Thompson, "The Rising Tide of Socialism," Columbus OH Socialist, Aug. 12, 1911, pg. 2.]

"The average payment per month during 1902 was upon 10,000 members," according to Secretary Mailly's Annual Report for 1903 (see The Socialist [Seattle], March 27, 1904, pg. 2.)

 

1903 ------------ 15,975 ----- + 59.8%

Jan. 1903 -- 14,223

Feb. 1903 -- 11,939

Mar. 1903 -- 14,565

Apr. 1903 -- 16,458

May 1903 -- 12,246

June 1903 -- 11,472

July 1903 -- 17,296

Aug. 1903 -- 17,014

Sept. 1903 -- 14,559

Oct. 1903 -- 20,556

Nov. 1903 -- 17,404

Dec. 1903 -- 24,048

1904 ------------ 20,763 -- -- + 30.0%

Jan. 1904 -- 19,049

Feb. 1904 -- 24,646

Mar. 1904 -- 21,546

Apr. 1904 -- 22,282

May 1904 -- 18,900

June 1904 -- 18,366

July 1904 -- 19,529

Aug. 1904 -- 18,069

Sept. 1904 -- 18,713

Oct. 1904 -- 26,863

Nov. 1904 -- 18,261

Dec. 1904 -- 22,752

Source: Socialist Party Official Bulletin, January 1905, pg. 1.

1905 ------------ 23,327 ------ + 12.3%

1906 ------------ 26,784 ------ + 14.8%

1907 ------------ 29,270 ------- + 9.3%

1908 ------------ 41,751 ------ + 42.6%

1909 ------------ 41,470 ------- - 0.7%

In April 1909, the National Office published membership composition data:

American birth -- 71%

German birth -- 8.5%

Scandinavian birth -- 5%

English birth -- 4%

Finnish birth -- 2%

Austrian birth -- 0.5%

Others ----- 9%

Source: SP Official Bulletin, April 1909, cited in Appeal Arsenal of Facts, 1914.

1910 ------------ 58,011 ------ + 39.9%

1911 ------------ 84,716 ------ + 46.0%

1912 ----------- 118,045 --- --- + 39.3%

1913 ------------ 95,957 ------ - 18.7%

Figure above includes 743 exempt members.


Jan. 1913 --- 101,207

Feb. 1913 --- 110,429

March 1913 --- 105, 168

Q-I Average: 105,601

April 1913 --- 95,026

May 1913 --- 83,427

June 1913 --- 80,961

Q-II Average: 86,471

July 1913 --- 83,484

Aug. 1913 --- 86,927

Sept. 1913 --- 89,144

Q-III Average: 86,516

Oct. 1913 --- 96,851

Q-IV Average (calculated): 105,240


Plus exempt membership for first 10 months: average 3,670


Source: The Party Builder, Oct. 11, 1913; Nov. 8, 1913; Dec. 13, 1913.

Finnish Federation --- 13,000 (33.3% female)

German Federation --- 5,000 (15% female)

Jewish Federation --- 3,000 (10% female)

South Slavic Federation --- 2,400 (1% female)

Polish Federation --- 2,000 (10% female)

Bohemian Federation --- 1,400 (10% female)

Italian Federation --- 1,400 (1% female)

Scandinavian Federation --- 1,200 (15% female)

TOTAL FEDERATIONS --- 28,400 = 29.6% of party

Source: The Party Builder, Feb. 7, 1914, pg. 5.

1914 ------------ 93,579 ------- - 2.5%

Jan. 1914 --- 110,448 paid + 7,450 exempt

Source: The Party Builder, Feb. 7, 1914, pg. 1.

Average for first 3 months --- 103,753 + 1,898 exempt

June 1914 --- 87,668

July 1914 --- 81,362

Aug. 1914 --- 78,624

1915 ------------ 79,374 ------ - 15.2%

1916 ------------ 83,284 ---- -- + 4.9%

Jan. 1916 --- 86,794 -- (of which 1,160 exempt)

Feb. 1916 --- 96,222 -- (of which 3,325 exempt)

Mar. 1916 -- 103,408 -- (of which 2,782 exempt)

Apr. 1916 --- 90,134 -- (of which 2,486 exempt)

1917 ------------ 80,379 ------- - 2.5%

of which the 15 Federations averaged approximately 35,500 (44.2% of party)

July 1917 --- 92,316

Aug. 1917 --- 81,283

Sept. 1917 --- 77,605

 

1918 ------------ 82,344 ------- + 2.4%

of which the 15 Federations averaged approximately 37,700 (45.8% of party)

 

1919 (Q-1) ------ 104,822 ------ + 27.3%

of which the 15 Federations averaged 56,740 (54.1% of party)

Jan. 1919 --- 109,589

Feb. 1919 --- 103,565

Mar. 1919 --- 101,315

 

1919 (Q-2) ------ 71,279

Apr. 1919 --- 104,108

May 1919 --- 67,512

June 1919 --- 42,217

July 1919 --- 39,750

 

These official membership figures included those obtaining special "dual" stamps issued for husband and wife as well as "exempt" stamps issued to unemployed or striking members. For example, in 1914 there were 86,140 "regular" members, 3,766 "dual" members, and 3,673 "exempt" members, netting the total of 93,579. [The American Socialist, Jan. 23, 1915, pg. 3.]

The 1917-19 Q-I federation membership statistics come from a document prepared by Adolph Germer.

A few things should be noted from the above figures: (1) That the Socialist Party showed its most explosive period of growth in the years 1910-12; (2) That despite the defection of the party's Right Wing over the issue of the war, the SPA held its own in 1917-18 despite its uncompromising anti-militarist stance and the harsh government persecution related to this, which included the jailing of members and the financial destruction of a majority of the SP-allied press; (3) That the alleged "flooding" of the membership with new elements during the first quarter of 1919 was well within historical parameters of growth for the group both in terms of absolute number of members and the percentage rate of growth which the new recruits represented.

After the suspensions, expulsions, and defections ensuing from the party crisis of 1919 and its aftermath, Socialist Party membership plummeted. At the time of the1919 Emergency National Convention, the SPA claimed an actually paid membership of 39,750, according to a report in the NY Call, Aug. 30, 1919, pg. 1. Figures above for 1919 are from the report delivered by Adolph Germer to the 1919 Convention (NY Call, Sept. 2, 1919, pg. 7).

Figures below for1920 average are from Trachtenberg and Glassberg (eds.), The American Labor Year Book, 1921-1922, pg. 392; for monthly totals and English totals, Jan.-Nov. 1920, from "Memorandum 6: Publications," Theodore Draper Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 30, pg. 6. Figures for 1921-1922 from DeLeon and Fine (eds.), The American Labor Year Book, 1925, pg. 141:

 

1919 (Q-4) ------- 34,926 --- -- - 66.7% from the Q1 average

1920 ------    ------ 26,766 ------ - 23.4%


Jan. 1920 --- 38,386 [English = 24,684]

Feb. 1920 --- 28,667 [English = 17,506]

Mar. 1920 --- 36,829 [English = 16,504]

Q-I Average: 34,627

Apr. 1920 --- 27,816 [English = 13,131]

May 1920 --- 20,856 [English = 8,969]

June 1920 --- 24,470 [English = 14,904]

Q-II Average: 24,381

July 1920 --- 22,313 [English = 10,930]

Aug. 1920 --- 22,502 [English = 12,169]

Sept. 1920 --- 22,796 [English = 10,789]

Q-III Average: 22,537

Oct. 1920 --- 28,183 [English = 14,315]

Nov. 1920 --- 27,420 [English = 17,534]

Dec. 1920 --- 20,451

Q-IV Average: 25,351


1921 ------------ 13,484 ------ - 49.6%

Jan. 1921 --- 24,587

1922 ------------ 11,019 ------ - 18.3%

 

The 1921 figure includes the loss of the approximately 7,000 member Finnish Socialist Federation, which severed ties with the SPA effective Dec. 31, 1920. After maintaining its independence for the better part of 1921, this organization later affiliated with the Workers Party of America.

After 1922 the SP became no less secretive than the Communist movement about its actual membership figures. Instead of releasing a membership count, which would publicize the magnitude of the party's implosion, the membership series for the party stopped appearing in print and cumulative vote totals for Socialist candidates across the country began to be published instead. Party membership seems to have dropped below 10,000 around 1923 and to have remained under that mark for the remainder of the 1920s. Publicly claimed memberships -- all very highly suspect -- of 18,000 (1924), 25,000 (1925) and "about 15,000" (1926) provide top estimates for the period. No internal documents have emerged to date to confirm or correct those all-too-round and obviously too high numbers.

It should be emphasized that the party crisis of 1919-1921 did not have a long-term effect of "Americanizing" the SP from foreign-born members -- even after the smoke cleared from the mass purges of the Language Federations and defections, the Socialist Party retained a very high foreign language-speaking component. Some 41.6% of SP members in the first quarter of 1922 were affiliated with the party through Language Federations, according to the SP's own statistics. [See: DeLeon and Fine (eds.), The American Labor Year Book, 1923-1924, (New York: Rand School Press, 1924), pg. 125.] In short, many of the members of the Language Federations proved just as loyal to the institution of Socialist Party as their English-speaking comrades.

With immigration restricted and the membership aging, the SPA's Language Federations showed decline throughout the decade of the 1920s. The percentage of the SP maintaining membership through the Language Federations fell from 34.8% to 30.1% of the party between 1927 and 1928, according to figures in the report of Executive Henry cited above. The SP maintained 5 federations during these years -- Finnish, Yugoslav [Slovenian], Jewish, Italian, and Lithuanian. The component enrolled in English language branches rose by 9.3% over the same interval.

 

Monthly and quarterly figures for specific months in 1927, 1928, and 1929 have been gathered from official party financial reports on reel 75 of the Socialist Party Papers microfilm.

 

1927 ---------- -------------- xxxx


Jan. 1927 --- 10,702 [English = 5,732]

Feb. 1927 --- 5,984 [English = 2,911]

March 1927 --- 9,340 [English = 4877]

Q-I AVERAGE --- 8,675 [English = 4,506]

July 1927 --- 10,059 [English = 4,438]

Aug. 1927 --- 5,039 [English = 2,219]

 

1928 ----------7,793 [English = 4,337]--- xxxx


Jan. 1928 --- 9,901 [English = 5,314]

Feb. 1928 --- 7,678 [English = 4,528]

March 1928 --- 8,529 [English = 5,325]

Q-I AVERAGE --- 8,703 [English = 5,056]

April 1928 --- no data

May 1928 --- no data

June 1928 --- no data

July 1928 --- 13,624 [English = 8,529]

Aug. 1928 --- 6,812 [English = 4,265]

Sept. 1928 --- no data

Oct. 1928 --- no data

Nov. 1928 --- 7,360 [English = 3,578]

Dec. 1928 --- 6,909 [English = 3,359]

 

The early 1930s saw a modest comeback of the Socialist Party in terms of membership growth and influence under the leadership of Norman Thomas before the party blew apart in factional warfare in the second half of the decade:

 

1929 ------------------ 9,560 [English = 4,269]

1930 ------------------ 9,736 [English = 6,291]


Jan. 1930 --- 11,281 [English = 6,867]

Feb. 1930 --- 7,753 [English = 4,397]

Mar. 1930 --- 7,029 [English - 2,306]

Q-I Average: 8,688

Apr. 1930 --- 6,847 [English = 2,812]

May 1930 --- 5,983 [English = 3,371]

June 1930 --- 7,626 [English = 4,286]

Q-II Average: 6,819

July 1930 --- 5,307 [English = 3,067]

Aug. 1930 --- 3,214 [English = 1,582]

Sept. 1930 --- 4,674 [English = 2,024]

Q-III Average: 4,398

Oct. 1930 --- 6,576 [English = 4,182]

Nov. 1930 --- 2,951

Dec. 1930 --- 6,316

Q-IV Average: 5,281


1931 ----------------- 10,389 [English = 7,024]

1932 ----------------- 16,863 [English = 13,854]

1933 ----------------- 18,548 [English = 15,413]

1934 ----------------- 20,951 [English = 17,030]

1935 ----------------- 19,121 [English = 15,698]

Dec. 1935 --- 19,120


Sources: The 1929-1935 numbers are the report printed for delegates to the party's 1937 Special National Convention, figures which include both paid and dues-exempt memberships. Month totals for 1930 appear to be "Dues Actually Paid" figures. The 1936 decline was exacerbated by the disaffiliation of the Finnish and Jewish Federations, organizations loyal to the Old Guard faction, with 1,137 and 606 members, respectively. The date of last report for these federations was May 1936.


1936 ----------------- 11,290 [English = 10,955]

Jan. 1936 --- 16,656

Feb. 1936 --- 15,648

1937  ------------------ 5,748
 

Source: 1936 and 1937 numbers from Frederic Cornell, A History of the Rand School of Social Science, 1906 to 1956. PhD dissertation. Columbia University Teachers College, 1976. Table 1: "Membership of the Socialist Party of America," pg. 259.


 





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Content by Tim Davenport. Last updated Jan. 24, 2014.