JANUARY 1909
"The Party Referendum," by E.E. Carr [Jan. 1, 1909] This article by Rev. E.E. Carr, editor of The Christian Socialist, demonstrates that there was a tradition of inner-party factional campaigning within the Socialist Party years before the abrogated National Executive Committee election of 1919 -- which was set aside by the outgoing NEC on the various pretexts of factional membership organization within the party, existence of slates and bloc voting, and purported election fraud. Carr endorses the re-election of Victor Berger, Carl Thompson, Graham Phelps-Stokes, and John Work -- considering the re-election of Morris Hillquit, Algie Simons, and A.H. Floaten assured. Carr also lends his support to the re-election campaign of J. Mahlon Barnes as Executive Secretary of the party, noting that "he has been faithful, fair, and efficient in that office..." Seemingly without noting the contradiction of his own factional organization in order to defeat factional organization, Carr notes that "a freer and more general comment in all our papers concerning the fitness of candidates would be decidedly helpful to the party, and it is the only way to prevent dangerous cliques. Some who oppose an open discussion of these matters are the very ones who are most incessant at star-chamber scheming -- and open discussions are likely to upset their secret plans!"
"The Gompers Jail Sentence," by Eugene V. Debs [Jan. 9, 1909] Former American Railway Union president Eugene Debs -- who himself did jail time in 1895 as a result of a judge's unilateral declaration of his being in "contempt of court" -- weighs in on the landmark Buck Stove and Range Co. case, which had resulted in American Federation of Labor chief Samuel Gompers being sentenced to a year in jail and two of his associates to lesser terms for maintaining an unfair-to-labor list in the face of a judicial injunction. Debs makes an idealist and non-Marxist assertion that while the decision was logical and faultless "so far as those who regard labor as a commodity are concerned," nevertheless "labor is not a commodity but life, human life, with a soul in it, and as sacred as the God who created it, and that is why Justice Wright’s decision is heartless and infamous." Debs contrasts the harsh judicial treatment of labor leaders maintaining boycott lists with the green light given to employers to maintain employee blacklists and attributes this to corporation attorneys sitting as judges. He calls for radical and conservative unionists alike to join in "widespread, emphatic, and determined protest as will not only rebuke the court and prevent the sentence from being carried into execution, but absolutely secure them against any such despotic decision in the future."
MARCH 1909
"In Memoriam: Comrade Anna Ferry Smith Died in San Diego, Cal.," by G.A. Hoehn [March 6, 1909] Memorial for Anna Ferry Smith, one of the 33 delegates that split the 1898 convention of the Social Democracy in June 1898 over the question of political action v. colonization to form the Social Democratic Party -- one of the forerunner organizations of the Socialist Party of America. Hoehn, founding editor of the St. Louis Arbeiter-Zeitung, the city's socialist weekly established in August 1898, recalls Smith's role as a founder of the Socialist movement in St. Louis and recounts a humorous episode of her defeat of a cockroach infestation at party headquarters. Also included is a reprint of a memorial by Francis M. Elliott from the Appeal to Reason, which lauded the "impulsive, combative, Celtic" Comrade Smith as "one of the grand apostles of human liberty, whose presence may be divinely discerned far out upon the frontier of human progress in every age of man." Bedridden in her last years, Smith had managed to fulfill her final wish of seeing Gene Debs nominated for President in 1908 and learning the "disappointing results of that contest."
"Epigrams of Merit," by Eugene V. Debs [March 27, 1909] A short collection of politically charged quips and witticisms gathered for publication in the Socialist Party of Missouri's weekly, St. Louis Labor. A few good examples include "The millionaire has as much too much as the tramp has too little," "I would rather be right with the minority than wrong with the majority," and "Books are better than beer."
MAY 1909
"Fred Warren Convicted by a Packed Jury," by Eugene V. Debs [May 15, 1909] Radical journalism by Socialist publicist Eugene Debs of the Appeal to Reason editorial staff. In 1907, Appeal to Reason Editor Fred D. Warren sent out a mailer offering to pay a $1,000 reward for anyone capturing and returning fugitive ex-Governor Taylor to Kentucky, where he was under indictment for murder -- an attempt to ironically play upon the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States had earlier refused to rule on the legality of the kidnapping and transportation to Idaho of William D. Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners in a sensational and thoroughly politicized murder trial. Some two years later, in 1909,.a new Republican Governor of Kentucky had pardoned his predecessor freeing the federal government's hand to move against Editor Warren, charging him with violation of federal postal regulations. Debs charges that the federal marshal had packed the jury pool and that the post office inspector serving as the chief prosecution witness had lied under oath to influence the jury. In addition, Debs charges that the name of the recipient of the single letter which purportedly triggered the proceeding was a fictional creation of the authorities -- that no one had ever heard of "Pierson" of California, nor did any such name appeal on the mailing roles of The Appeal. "The fact is the prosecution had no evidence at all, or anything worthy to be called by that name. It was the flimsiest case ever tried outside of a mock court," Debs states. Despite the packed jury, division resulted in a 22 hour deliberation before a guilty verdict was returned, Debs notes.
"Trial and Conviction of Fred D. Warren: Summary of the Celebrated Case -- Liberty of the Press the Issue -- Two Years in the Federal Courts and the Motive Behind It," by Eugene V. Debs [May 22, 1909] This follow-up article on the sensational May 1909 trial of Appeal to Reason editor Fred Warren emphasizes the central issue of the affair -- freedom of the press. "The specific charge in the indictment was that Warren had violated the federal statute prohibiting the mailing of 'scurrilous, defamatory, and threatening matter.'" By no stretch of the imagination can the matter complained of be construed as having any such meaning," Debs states. Debs charges that the entire affair was little more than a premeditated political hit against the Appeal, noting that several costly continuances had been granted the prosecution and quoting an unnamed federal official who stated that "if The Appeal could be reached in no other way it could be kept in court indefinitely and loaded with fees and costs until 'the damned reptile was bled to death.'" Debs is emphatic that "Without The Appeal to Reason this case would never have been heard of. Warren might have deposited the same envelope in the post office every day to the end of his life and no grand jury would ever have dreamed of indicting him."
"Constitution of the Christian Socialist Fellowship: Adopted at the 4th General Conference, Toledo, OH -- May 29, 1909." The controversial 4th General Conference of the Christian Socialist Fellowship attempted to ameliorate a growing factional controversy between its feuding New York and Chicago affiliates. It also enacted this new constitution for the organization, which at this time had approximately 525 members. The new constitution once again depicted the class struggle as a problem to be rectified rather than an immutable part of capitalism, expressing the object of the CSF as follows: "To proclaim Socialism to churches and other religious organizations; to show the necessity of Socialism to the complete triumph of Christianity; to end the class struggle by establishing industrial and political democracy; and to hasten the reign of justice and brotherhood -- the Kingdom of God on earth." Under the new constitution, dues were raised and made payable monthly and the structure and role of local, district, and state organizations were defined for the first time. The size of the governing General Executive Committee was additionally cut in half, from 50 to 25 members.
JUNE 1909
"The Socialist Press," by Eugene V. Debs [June 5, 1909] Short article by Socialist Party leader Gene Debs castigating the 50,000 members of the Socialist movement for their niggardly support of the party press. "Whether Socialist papers are privately owned or party owned, whether they are narrow and dogmatic or liberal and opportunist, they encounter the same difficulties and with scarcely an exception they are compelled to waste their means and energies in keeping going from day to day," Debs observes. Debs states that the average Socialist editor "works harder, longer, and more conscientiously than any other person in the movement, and he does it under circumstances that would break the spirit and drive out in despair and disgust anyone not literally harnessed to the movement by chains of steel." He notes the support of capitalists for their press and urges emulation. "Without a press of our own" in times of emergency or crisis, "we are practically helpless -- at the mercy of the enemy," Debs warns.
"Letter to Fred D. Warren in Girard, KS from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, IN, circa June 8, 1909." This letter from Debs to Appeal to Reason Editor Fred Warren (not published in the 3 volume collection of Debs' letters) offers Debs' views on the sensational assertion made in the paper the previous week that federal authorities were planning a lawsuit against Debs and publisher Julius Wayland for libel for charging that the jury pool in the Warren trial had been hand-picked by the federal marshal to include all Republicans. Debs writes: "As for having libeled the marshal that is uproariously funny. If he brings that action I will give him his money's worth. I already know a good deal about him and his record and I have it very straight. I will make it my business to get the rest if he opens fire. My only concern in the case is The Appeal. For myself I do not care. I know they can send me to the pen if they want to, but that will matter very little. We are in this fight and it is just beginning and some of us will have to go and it might as well be myself as anybody else. But I am thinking about what effect it will have on The Appeal?" However, Debs believes that the government's backdoor effort to silence the country's biggest and most influential Socialist newspaper through trumped up legal actions will be unsuccessful. "The only consideration with the administration and its corporation supporters is the breaking of The Appeal and I'll stake anything I have that they can not do it. If the government brings these suits The Appeal will gain more than it will lose," Debs declares.
AUGUST 1909
"Where Do We Stand On the Woman Question?" by Theresa Malkiel [Aug. 1909] Former garment worker turned Socialist journalist Theresa Malkiel takes aim at Socialist Party weakness and inconsistency on the so-called "Woman Question," declaring that "in the heat of the battle for human freedom the proletarians seem to forget that the woman question is nothing more or less than a question of human rights." Malkiel hits Italian socialist Enrico Ferri and others of his mindset for their contention that equality of the sexes is an assertion which "cannot possibly be maintained." Rather, the backwards place of women in science and the arts is but a reflection of "woman's long subjection" which has stilted intellectual development among many, Malkiel argues. Working women find themselves between two fires, Malkiel indicates, capitalists intent on forestalling female emancipation on the one hand, male workers on the other, "utterly listless to the outcome of her struggle." As for the Socialist Party, Malkiel indicates that only 2,000 of 50,000 party members (4%) are female. "We will not achieve any considerable progress until our men will change their views as to woman's scope of activity in the movement," Malkiel insists.
OCTOBER 1909
"The Danger of Centralized Power," by W.J. Bell [Oct. 1909] A critique of the fundamental structure of the Socialist Party by Texas organizer W.J. Bell. Basing his argument on the axioms that "centralization spells autocracy" while "decentralization spells democracy," Bell argues that the history of the left wing labor movement has been marked by the damaging effects of centralization, particularly in the cases of the Socialist Labor Party and the Knights of Labor. Hearing from non-party members complaints of possible bureaucratic danger in the event of Socialist Party victory, Bell advises the neutralization of this critique by an immediate attack upon centralization in the structure of the Socialist Party itself. Bell advocates the SPA emulate the Republican Party in adjourning its National Committee and abolishing its National Executive Committee, leaving party affairs and the bulk of party dues payments in the hands of the autonomous state organizations, which he indicates utilize propaganda funds far more efficiently. Bell further argues that the Socialist Party should follow the example of the Cigar Makers' International Union by abolishing costly and inherently unrepresentative national conventions, replacing these with expanded membership referenda.
"What is the Matter with the Socialist Party?" by Charles H. Kerr [Nov. 1909] The Communist movement did not magically materialize from thin air in 1919; it had deep roots in American radicalism older than the Socialist Party of America from whence it emerged. One might reasonably argue that the historic trend which lead to the 1919 split began with the disappointing performance of the SPA in the 1908 electoral campaign. This editorial by Charles H. Kerr in The International Socialist Review gives voice to the proto-communist revolutionary socialist wing inside the Socialist Party: "Long enough we have cringed before the aristocracy of labor begging for votes that we did not get. Long enough we have experimented with 'immediate demands' that might swell our apparent strength by winning the votes of people opposed to revolution. The time has come for the proletarians of the party and those who believe the party should be proletarian in its tactics to bring about a revolution in the party. Let us not withdraw...but take possession. Let us put wage-workers on the National Executive Committee. Let us cut the "immediate demands" out of our platform and leave reformers to wrangle over reforms. Let us make our chief task to spread the propaganda of revolution and of the new industrial unionism, and when we elect members of our own class to office, let us instruct them that their most important work is to hamper the ruling class in the war it will be waging on the revolutionary unions."
DECEMBER 1909
"Socialist Propaganda Through Moving Pictures," by J. Mahlon Barnes [Dec. 11, 1909] Perhaps the earliest effort of the American socialist movement to make use of motion pictures for propaganda purposes was the Adrem Company, an unfruitful and obscure 1909 effort by Socialist Party National Secretary J. Mahlon Barnes and others to establish a socialist movie house in Chicago, for which it was planned to produce propaganda films. "This way to the minds of men and women means converts by the thousands, where cold logic and a windy corner would not hold a corporal’s guard," Barnes hopefully speculates. Declaring the moving picture to be "a medium as mighty as the daily newspaper," Barnes even proposes the radical new idea of the newsreel (created in France in 1908): "It is even possible to picture the tragedies of a big city upon the very day that they have happened. Photographs are taken, rushed to the studio, printed upon films, and thrown upon the screens before eager audiences within a few hours after their actual occurrence." The Adrem Company was to donate 50% of it profits to the Socialist Party, Barnes indicates, clearly implying the remaining 50% distributed to owners of $1 "profit-sharing certificates."
"Direct Action," by A.M. Stirton [Dec. 18, 1909] Unsigned editorial in the first issue of the new Eastern weekly newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World. The term "Direct Action" is used by editor Stirton not as description of a form of tactics, but rather than as a descriptive for the strategy of the industrial organization of the working class directly in their workplaces and their exertion of demands at the workplace level. Stirton rhetorically asks: "Why tinker and hesitate and compromise when all we need to put complete power in our hands is organization? Why go 'round and round the barberry bush' when the simple, direct action of the working class in the place where they work, the place where the fight is actually on, is ten times cheaper and more effective? Why make contracts with bosses when industrial organization will enable us to dictate terms? Why spend money on lawyers to fight injunctions when the industrial organization of the working class will make all the injunctions of Christendom as out of date as the edicts of Julius Caesar?" As military force relies upon industrial production, universal organization of the working class would make this impossible, Stirton intimates. "Direct action, therefore, leads away from violence and not toward it," Stirton concludes.
"State Platform of the Socialist Party of Oklahoma: Adopted at the Annual State Convention, Oklahoma City -- Dec. 28-29, 1909." The frontier state of Oklahoma was one of the greatest hotbeds of Socialist activity in the United States during the first two decades of the 20th Century. This document, the 1910 state platform of the Socialist Party of Oklahoma, helps to illustrate the source of organizational strength -- a strong commitment to agricultural reform. Opening with a declaration that the SPO a "party of the working class" committed to the principles of International Socialism, the program abstractly expresses a goal of "socializing the means of production," but advances a minimum program only calling for the establishment of state sawmills, cement plants, coal mines, and gas and oil wells. The bulk of the document is dedicated to various plans for land acquisition by the state, the construction of model farms, establishment of state disaster insurance for farmers, construction of state grain elevators, and state finance of mortgages for homes, warehouses, and the purchase of farmland.
"A Matter of Vital Importance," by E.H. Thomas [Dec. 31, 1909] Rotation of candidates in office is dismissed as a capitalist principle, a fad, and a tool for the radical left wing of the Socialist Party of America to take over the organization in this short piece by Elizabeth H. Thomas -- already for a decade the State Secretary of the Social Democratic of Wisconsin. Thomas points to the experience of the German, Belgian, and Austrian socialist parties in keeping "able, faithful, and experienced leaders" in positions of trust. The governing National Executive Committee of the SPA, consisting of right wing socialists Robert Hunter, Algie Simons, Victor Berger, and John Spargo, and centrist Morris Hillquit is just such a collection of "tried and true veterans" worthy of return to office in the "present crisis" -- to whom she would add Wisconsin's own Rev. Carl D. Thompson to fill the vacancy left by the departure of left winger A.H. Floaten. "Comrades, this is no time to experiment with the party... Preserve the Socialist Party!" Thomas vigorously declares."1909 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 41 organized states is included. Top five state memberships included New York (4,333), Illinois (3,517), Pennsylvania (3,266), Massachusetts (2,526), and Ohio (2,512). Other states with over 1,000 members included: California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Texas, Michigan, Kansas, and Missouri. A total of 41 states were organized by the SPA. Weakest of the organized states was Vermont, with an average paid monthly membership of 82.
