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JULY 1879
"Resignation of Paul Grottkau" (Chicagoer Arbeiter Zeitung). [July 19, 1879] Published resignation letter by Chicago Socialist Paul Grottkau, announcing that he is leaving the editorship of the Chicago Arbeiter Zeitung, the Fackel, and the Vorbote.
Grottkau indicates that the cause of his discontent is an unnamed
official of the Socialistic Publishing Society, publisher of these
papers. This individual is said to have told Grottkau that he was
incompetent, inefficient, the cause of financial ruin of the papers,
and standing in the way of a more qualified candidate. Other officials
of the Socialistic
Publishing Society did not defend Grottkau from this "defamation,"
prompting his resignation. Translated from the original German by the
Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey.
DECEMBER 1879
"Report
of the NEC to the 2nd National Convention of the Socialist Labor
Party of America, Allegheny City, PA," by Philip Van Patten [Dec. 26, 1879] This
lengthy keynote report to the 2nd National Congress of the Socialist
Labor Party details the activities of that organization since its
previous national gathering, held in 1877. Outstanding detail is give
about the party press and the development of the various Sections of
the organization, as well as electoral activities. The NEC of the SLP
had based itself in Cincinnati, Ohio in March 1878, in accord with the
decision of the 1st National Congress of 1877, but had seen that
Section, previously one of the most vital in the entire organization,
shattered by factional infighting and discouragement over plummeting
vote totals. Sometime in the following 24 months Corresponding
Secretary Van Patten and the NEC had made their way to Detroit, site of
a more vital local movement. Van Patten details the bitter struggle
between the Detroit-based NEC and Section Chicago over the latter's
willingness to allow armed units of the workers militia groups known as
the Lehr und Wehr Verein (Educational and Defense Societies) to march
under a red banner, bearing arms. This had been the cause of
sensational coverage in the popular press, leading the
electorally-oriented NEC headed by Van Patten to attempt to reign in
the radicals of Section Chicago -- who had only recently seen 18
strikers killed by the National Guard in an 1877 railroad strike of
which Van Patten himself had been a prominent leader. The squabble had
been fanned in the pages of the SLP's official German-language weekly,
Vorbote, which bitterly criticized the NEC and provoked the latter to
briefly severe its connection with the paper. The rationale behind the
NEC's advisement of party members to cease participation in the Lehr
und Wehr Verein is carefully explained.
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