In
1901 the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
merged with Socialist Labor Party
to form the Socialist Party of America. Leading figures in this party
included Eugene Debs, Victor
Berger, Ella Reeve Bloor, Emil
Seidel, Daniel De Leon, Philip
Randolph, Chandler Owen, William
Z. Foster, Abraham Cahan, Sidney
Hillman, Morris Hillquit, Walter
Reuther, Bill Haywood, Margaret
Sanger, Florence Kelley, Rose
Pastor Stokes, Mary White Ovington,
Helen Keller, Inez
Milholland, Floyd Dell, William
Du Bois, Hubert Harrison, Upton
Sinclair, Agnes Smedley, Victor
Berger, Robert Hunter, George
Herron, Kate Richards O'Hare, Helen
Keller, Claude McKay, Sinclair
Lewis, Daniel Hoan, Frank
Zeidler, Max Eastman, Bayard
Rustin, James Larkin, William
Walling and Jack London .
In 1904 Eugene Debs was the new party's
presidential candidate and got 400,000 votes. He was also the party's
candidate in 1908, and 1912, when with his running-mate, Emil
Seidel, he won 897,011 votes. Between 1901 and 1912 membership
of the Socialist Party of America grew from 13,000 to 118,000. By
1913 its journal, Appeal to Reason,
reached a circulation of over 760,000.
The party contained both moderate and radical socialists. Eventually,
in 1912 Victor Berger and Morris
Hillquit, the leaders of the right-wing, gained control and expelled
the left-wing led by Bill Haywood.
On the outbreak of the First World War most
socialists in the United States were opposed to the conflict. They
argued that the war had been caused by the imperialist competitive
system and argued that the America should remain neutral. This was
also the view expressed in the three main socialist journals, Appeal
to Reason, The Masses
and The Call. Other important journals
published at this time included the International
Socialist Review (1900-1917) and The
Revolutionary Age (1918-1919).
After the USA declared war on the Central
Powers in 1917, the government passed the Espionage
Act. Under this act it was an offence to make speeches that undermined
the war effort. Criticised as unconstitutional, the act resulted in
the imprisonment of many members of the anti-war movement including
450 conscientious objectors. The Call
was also prosecuted but the Appeal
to Reason decided to support the war effort to remain
in business.
During the First World War several Socialist
Party members, including Eugene Debs, Kate
Richards O'Hare, Victor Berger and
Rose Pastor Stokes were imprisoned for
their anti-war activities.
People working for The Masses were
also prosecuted and the magazine was forced to close. In 1918 the
same people who produced the journal went on the publish The
Liberator.
The journal published information about socialist
movements throughout the world and was the first to break the news
that the Allies had invaded Russia.
After the First World War, the attorney general,
A. Mitchell Palmer, became convinced
that communist and socialists were planning to overthrow the American
government. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover
as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage
Act (1917) and the Sedition Act
(1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.
In January 1919 the Socialist Party of America had 104,000 members.
The right-wing leadership of the party opposed the Russian
Revolution. On 24th May 1919 the leadership expelled 20,000 members
who supported the Soviet government. The process continued and by
the beginning of July two-thirds of the party had been suspended or
expelled.
Some
of these people, including John Reed, William
Z. Foster, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn,
Ella Reeve Bloor, Claude
McKay, Michael Gold and Robert
Minor, decided to form the American
Communist Party. By August 1919 it had 60,000 members whereas
the Socialist Party of America had only 40,000.
The
growth of the left worried Woodrow Wilson
and his administration and America entered what became known as the
Red Scare period. On 7th November, 1919,
the second anniversary of the revolution, Alexander
Mitchell Palmer, Wilson's attorney general, ordered the arrest
of over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists. These people were
charged with "advocating force, violence and unlawful means to
overthrow the Government".
On
7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution,
over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested in what
became known as the Palmer Raids. Palmer
and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number
of these suspects were held without trial for a long time. The vast
majority were eventually released but Emma
Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Mollie
Steimer, and 245 other people, were deported to Russia.
In 1920 Eugene Debs, the Socialist
Party of America presidential candidate, received 919,799 votes
while still in Atlanta Penitentiary. His program included proposals
for improved labour conditions, housing and welfare legislation and
an increase in the number of people who could vote in elections.
As a result of this Red Scare people
became worried about subscribing to left-wing journals and the Appeal
to Reason, which was selling 760,000 a week before
the First World War, was forced to close in
November, 1922. The following year The Call
ceased publication.
After the death of Eugene Debs in 1926 Norman
Thomas became the leader of the party and was its presidential
candidate in 1928, 1932 and 1936. As a result of Franklin
D. Roosevelt and his successful New
Deal policies, some members of the party such as David
Dubinsky, called for socialists to vote for the Democratic
Party, in 1936. As a result the Socialist Party vote dropped to
185,000, less than 20 per cent of that achieved in 1932. However the
party continued to do well in certain cities such as Milwaukee,
where Daniel Hoan was mayor of the city
between 1916 and 1940.
During the McCarthy Era membership
of the party fell to below 2,000 members. A large number of socialists
including Walter Reuther, Philip
Randolph and Bayard Rustin, left the
party with the view that you had more chance of achieving progressive
reform by being active in the Democratic
Party.
Under the leadership of Michael Harrington,
the Socialist Party Conference in 1968 passed a resolution endorsing
Hubert Humphrey for president. In 1972
the party supported George McGovern.
In 1976 the Socialist Party ran a presidential campaign for the first
time in twenty years. Frank Zeidler,
the former mayor of Milwaukee (1948-60),
was nominated as president. Other presidential candidates have included
David McReynolds (1980), Willa Kenoyer (1988), Quinn Brisben (1992)
and Mary Cal Hollis (1996).
(1)
Agnes
Smedley,
she joined the Socialist Party in 1916. She wrote about her experiences
in her book, Daughters of the Earth (1929)
About me
at that time (1916) were small Socialist groups who knew little more
than I did. We often met in a little dark room to discuss the war
and to study various problems and Socialist ideas. The room was over
a pool room and led into a larger square room with a splintery floor;
in the, corner stood a sad looking piano. In the little hall leading
to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers,
tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper. The
subjects treated were technical Marxist theories. Now and then some
Party member would announce a study circle, and I would join it, along
with some ten or twelve working men and women.
I joined
another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small
print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask
questions. It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand
it nor did I know what questions to ask.
Once or
twice a month our Socialist local would announce a dance and try to
draw young workers into it. Twenty or thirty of us would gather in
the square, dingy room with splintery floor. The Socialist lawyer
of the city came, with his wife and daughter. They were very intelligent
and kindly people upon whose shoulders most of the Socialist work
in town rested. The wife had baked a cake for the occasion and her
daughter, a student, played a cornet. While the piano rattled away
and the cornet blared, we circled about the room, trying to be gay.
(2)
Socialist Party leaflet, The Gold Brick Twins (1916)
The Democratic platform
does not differ from the Republican platform fundamentally at all.
Of course, the Democratic convention was held a week later than the
Republican, and this gave the Democrats a chance to see what the Republicans
had done. Naturally they decided to go the Republicans one better
in bidding for the labor vote. Like the Republican Party, the Democratic
Party stands for the interests of the capitalist class, and it will
do just as little for the working class as it can and get by. The
labor planks were frightened out of the Democratic
Party by the rising Socialist vote. Therefore
the Socialist Party, not the Democratic
Party, is entitled to the credit for them.
They also straddle the
suffrage question, leaving
it to the states. Like the Republicans,
they dodged this issue altogether until it
became popular.
These scanty labor and
suffrage planks are
minor matters to the Democratic Party. Their
purpose is merely to catch votes.
The great body of the
platform is devoted
to boasting about the alleged achievements
of the Democratic administration, and
boosting for nationalism, so-called preparedness,
and foreign markets.
The platform says that
the life, health, and
strength of the men, women, and children
of the nation are its greatest asset.
This is true.
If the platform stood
for principles which would
give the utmost life, health, and strength
to the men, women, and children of
the nation, it would be all right.
But it does not.
On the contrary, after
boasting about the achievements of the administration - of which all
the good ones were frightened
out of it by the rising Socialist vote - they proceed to say that
they must now remove, as far as possible, every remaining element
of unrest and uncertainty from the path of the business of America
and secure for them a continued period of quiet, assured, and confident
prosperity.
Do you get that?
If the Democratic Party
had ever been anything else than a political representative of capitalism,
one could say that this plank is a complete surrender to the capitalist
class. But how can a party surrender to those who already own and
control it?
This plank merely shows
distinctly who does own and control the party. It shows that the party
is body and soul the property of the capitalist class. It stands for
the continuation of capitalism, with its long and hideous train of
woes.
In order to abolish evils,
it is entirely necessary to cause unrest and uncertainty among the
big businessmen who profit by the continuance of these evils.
But the Democratic Party
says we must not disturb their serenity. In other words, it stands
for the continuation of the great existing
social evils.
The Republican and Democratic
platforms are more remarkable for what they do not say than for what
they do say.
The Republicans and Democrats
are fully aware of the fact that hundreds of Americans die of starvation
each year. They know that millions of Americans are underfed all the
time. They know that hundreds of thousands of Americans are compelled
to accept degrading charity. They know that every little while millions
of Americans tramp the streets in a vain attempt to find an opportunity
to earn a living. They know that thousands of Americans are killed
and hundreds of
thousands injured by preventable accidents. They know that thousands
of Americans are driven to suicide. They know that thousands of Americans
are driven to insanity. They know that hundreds of thousands of Americans
are driven to crime. They know that hundreds of thousands of American
women and girls are driven to prostitution. They know that the masses
of the American people are in poverty. They know that the masses of
the people are compelled to starve themselves mentally, morally, and
spiritually in order to keep from starving physically. They know that
the private ownership of the industries enables a comparatively few
capitalists to get for themselves the bulk of the earnings of the
rest of the people.
(3)
Upton Sinclair, letter of resignation from
the Socialist Party (September, 1917)
I have lived in Germany and know its language and literature, and
the spirit and ideals of its rulers. Having given many years to a
study of American capitalism. I am not blind to the defects of my
own country; but, in spite of these defects, I assert that the difference
between the ruling class of Germany and that of America is the difference
between the seventeenth century and the twentieth.
No question can be settled by force, my pacifist friends all say.
And this in a country in which a civil war was fought and the question
of slavery and secession settled! I can speak with especial certainty
of this question, because all my ancestors were Southerners and fought
on the rebel side; I myself am living testimony to the fact that force
can and does settle questions - when it is used with intelligence.
In the same way I say if Germany be allowed to win this war - then
we in America shall have to drop every other activity and devote the
next twenty or thirty years to preparing for a last-ditch defence
of the democratic principle.
(4)
Upton Sinclair, letter to John
Reed (22nd October, 1918)
American capitalism is predatory, and American politics are corrupt:
The same thing is true in England and the same in France; but in all
these three countries the dominating fact is that whatever the people
get ready to change the government, they can change it. The same thing
is not true of Germany, and until it was made true in Germany, there
could be no free political democracy anywhere else in the world -
to say nothing of any free social democracy. My revolutionary friends
who will not recognize this fact seem to me like a bunch of musicians
sitting down to play a symphony concert in a forest where there is
a man-eating tiger lose. For my part, much as I enjoy symphony concerts,
I want to put my fiddle away in its case and get a rifle and go out
and settle with the tiger.
(5)
John Reed letter to Upton
Sinclair (25th October, 1918)
You are simply a theoretician, Upton, there is only one tiger
in the forest. To me there is a whole flock of tigers - the tiger
who eats me and the tigers who eat other people. These tigers are
fighting, and whichever side wins, I get eaten just the same. Under
the circumstances it is a bit heartless to imagine any of us, at any
time, playing symphony concerts. I have been around a bit and I have
yet to see the world's working-class playing symphony-concerts - but
I hope to see them, sitting on the carcasses of those tigers.
(6)
Upton Sinclair, letter to Norman
Thomas (25th September, 1951)
The American People will take
Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in
the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes,
and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000.
I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have
succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by
a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
