"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.

 

"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."

 

"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."

 

"Socialist Party Membership Data: A survey circulated in 1908." Compiled by Emma Pischel. In December 1907, the NEC of the Socialist Party determined to survey the entire party membership in attempt to better understand the social composition and demographic makeup of the organization. While certain state organizations in the industrial Northeast (MA, NJ, CT) and the Socialist strongholds of Wisconsin and Oklahoma and the big Western state of California did not respond, an excellent sample of over 15% of party members did. This document quantifies the 6,310 survey replies and provides an unparalleled quantitative snapshot of the Debsian Socialist Party. The first myth smashed by the 1908 membership survey is the tendentious assertion that the Socialist Party was little more than a conglomeration of shopkeepers and professionals. Nearly 2/3 of survey respondents were of the proletariat -- with "craftsmen" outnumbering "laborers" by a margin of 2-1, both of these groups dwarfing the number of transportation workers. Another 17% of respondents were farmers -- a percentage probably slightly inflated by the lack of participation in the survey by the various industrial centers. Less than 10% of the party was involved in commerce and less than 5% in professional occupations, according to the survey. The second myth shattered by the 1908 survey was the depiction of the Debsian SPA as comprised of innumerable youthful idealists and few greyheads. An astounding 70% of survey respondents were over the age of 30, with over 30% of the party over the age of 45. The survey also shows that over 3/4 of survey respondents were of American birth and that the most widely subscribed Socialist publication -- by a wide margin -- was The Appeal to Reason, with nearly 2/3 of respondents receiving that publication each week. Also interesting (given the Socialist movement's obsession with the medium) is the very low efficacy of leaflets in the swaying of political views, with less than 5% listing this as their own factor of primary importance.

 

"Conference of the Polish Socialist Organizations: National Headquarters, Socialist Party of America: Chicago -- Oct. 29, 1910: Minutes by Mabel H. Hudson, Secretary." The year 1910 saw a move for admittance to the Socialist Party by the Polish Socialist Alliance [Zwiazek Socjalisów Polskich -- ZSP], which sought to join the Polish Socialist Section [Zwiazek Polskiej Partii Socjalistyczne -- ZPPS] in the ranks of the Socialist Party of America. A conference of the two organizations and NEC member George Goebel was held in Chicago on Oct. 29, 1910 to discuss possible obstacles to the ZSP's joining the Socialist Party. Chief among ZSP concerns was the prospect of an excessive rate of dues (it needing to support its own official organ and propaganda efforts) as well as to an overly complex set of requirements for payment of dues to state and county organizations. There seems to have been little if any turf-related controversy between the ZSP and the ZPPS and ZSP delegate L. Banka seems to have been satisfied by the SPA's dues policy towards federations (of which he had not been previously aware, apparently adopted in 1909). The ZSP and ZPPS agreed to exchange fraternal delegates to each others' organizational conventions, scheduled to be held in the 4th quarter of 1910.

 

"Rights of Democracy Menaced by Duluth Police Officials: Raid West End Meeting, Although Federal Authorities Acknowledge That Speeches Were Not Contrary to Federal Statutes: Scott Nearing Arrested: Trials Set for Wednesday Morning on Charges of Vagrancy Under Safety Commission Ordinance," by W.E. Reynolds [event of Nov. 12, 1917] News report from the pages of Duluth Truth by editor W.E. Reynolds detailing the Nov. 12, 1917 meeting of over 800 people in Duluth addressed by Scott Nearing that was raided by local authorities. After Reynolds had made a preliminary speech of about 5 minutes' duration, Dr. Nearing took the podium and spoke for about half an hour "mostly quoting statistics about labor conditions and reading from President Wilson's book, The New Freedom." About 40 uniformed officers suddenly filed into the hall. The meeting was ordered to disburse, which it did. Five persons were arrested, including Nearing, Reynolds, and Reynolds' wife Laura. These three were booked at the station "Captain Fiskett first giving sedition as the charge, then he changed it to 'making seditious speeches against the government in its conduct of the war.' Then he again changed his mind and ordered the charge left blank." The next day the zealous local police chieftain learned that no federal charges were to be preferred against any of those arrested. Nearing took a deal an plead guilty to a lesser charge of "disorderly conduct," paying a $52.50 fine and canceling the rest of a planned speaking tour, returning home instead. The other four refused to plead out on charges of disorderly conduct; one sat in jail on principle, while Reynolds, his wife, and one other woman were released on $100 bail pending court proceedings to answer a farcical charge of "vagrancy." In such ways were the constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of assembly crushed in the localities during the so-called "War to make the world safe for democracy."

 

"Towards the Rising Sun," by Eugene V. Debs [Feb. 15, 1918] The quasi-religious aspect of Socialist publicist Gene Debs' political faith are evident in this gushing paean to freedom from the pages of Duluth Truth: "Prophets and philosophers, catching the spirit of coming events, force and proclaim them; and as they approach, poets and pamphleteers, orators and agitators, dramatists and musicians, animated by the new spirit, acclaim the glad tidings of the sunrise of the morrow. These are the heralds of the dawn; the torchbearers of progress, the evangels of advancing civilization. Living, they are hated and reviled, crucified and damned. Dead, they live again and forever. Freedom is the universal shibboleth of the present age." Debs declares that "Freedom in its true sense is yet unknown to man. It cannot abide where slavery exists." Only with the abolition of wage-slavery can freedom be truly achieved, Debs indicates, adding "the earth is not yet fit for human habitation; but the long dark night is passing, and humanity is moving grandly towards the sunrise." Debs states as axiom that "The development of machinery necessitates the concentration of capital, and this in turn crushes out the middle class and compels the revolutionary organization of the working class." "Wage servitude in the capitalist system is the last phase of Labor's slavery. This system, like those that preceded it, must go the way of all things," he declares. Includes an extended prayer to Freedom in archaic and biblical King James English.

 

"Circular Letter to the Members of the Communist Party of America from C.E. Ruthenberg, Executive Secretary, Oct. 15, 1919." This letter from Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg to the members of the Communist Party of America declares that the organization is "alive to the present struggles of the workers" and will "aim to enter actively into every struggle of the workers." By its deeds, the fledgling CPA would demonstrate that its slogan declaring itself a "party of action" is "no idle boast," Ruthenberg states. In practice, these deeds of the young organization consisted of the coordinated distribution of leaflets -- available for $1.50 per thousand from the party's national office in Chicago. "The Capitalists Challenge You, Workingmen" was to be distributed in the second half of October 1919; "Declaration of the Communist Party on the Blockade of Russia" from Nov. 1 to 9; and "Your Shop" for the balance of November. "Action, and more action, comrades, that must be our goal. Begin a widespread distribution of these Communist Party leaflets. Each one, while dealing with specific problems contains the argument for Communist principles. Our party will grow strong and powerful as we show ourselves worthy of support of the workers. Make the party what it should be by active participation in this literature campaign," Ruthenberg implores.

 

"Letter to the Unity Committee of the UCP in New York from Charles Dirba, Executive Secretary of the CPA in New York, Dec. 30, 1920." ***REPOST*** In November of 1920, the United Communist Party and the Communist Party of America exchanged their books and membership documents so that each might verify the claims of the other in conjunction with a forthcoming Joint Unity Convention -- delegates to which were to be apportioned on the basis of dues actually paid for the months of July, August, September, and October 1920. This is the letter from CPA Executive Secretary Charles Dirba accepting the claims made by the UCP. What is most interesting about the document is the revelation it makes that the UCP did not track its members in terms of dues stamps sold, but rather that it tracked the cash value of dues collected -- $12,004.70 for the period in question, which when divided by the monthly dues rate of 75 cents per member yields an average paid membership of 4,001. This number was inflated by the UCP -- the inflation accepted by the CPA, albeit declared "a little too high" -- by 150 for membership in two districts without paid DOs, the funds of which stayed in the district for organizational purposes; 150 to account for "dual" husband/wife memberships, for which only one stamp was sold; and 260 to compensate for dues collected at a lower rate in the merger month of July 1920. The UCP membership figure accepted for merger was thus 4,561 -- as compared to the claim of 7,552 made by the CPA. It was now the UCP that was stonewalling in the face of these figures. "It is up to you now to act on our statement," declared Dirba, "The time for the joint convention is very short. Every day must be counted and used in the preliminary arrangements.... We insist that your committee come to meet with our committee again in the next few days."

 

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