"Direct Action and Sabotage," by Moses Oppenheimer. [Jan. 25, 1913] There has been a tendency in the literature to dismiss the Socialist Party's "Anti-Sabotage" faction fight of 1912-13 as a historical event having little relationship to the Communist/Socialist split of 1919. In reality, both of these episodes were chapters in the same long-running saga, heated political events linked to an ideological division within the SPA dating back to the 1901 establishment of the party and before. This January 1913 discussion of the newly-installed "Anti-Sabotage" section of the SPA constitution by New York activist Moses Oppenheimer helps to demonstrate this connection. Oppenheimer -- a major figure in the Left Wing Section, Socialist Party six years hence -- is sharply critical of the new "Anti-Sabotage" section, arguing that the two ideological concepts anathematized by the May 1912 Convention were either untested as to efficacy (in the case of Direct Action and the General Strike) or were merely a new name for a long-established defensive tactic of the labor movement (in the case of Sabotage). Oppenheimer considers the decision to rely on the political ground rules established by the reactionary and biased capitalist courts to be ridiculous. He further notes that the majority of the party had not spoken out on the matter, with only 20% voting on the referenda in question and both the contradictory majority and minority reports being approved by majorities of those voting. Oppenheimer sees Direct Action and Sabotage as being distinct from Anarchism due to their coordinated, mass nature, in contradistinction to Anarchist philosophy and practice.
"Debs on Syndicalism: A Letter to H.M. Hyndman in London from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, Indiana, January 30, 1913." This letter to British Socialist H.M. Hyndman was widely published in the American Socialist press as a means of propagating Debs' views on the bitter conflict over "syndicalism" which divided the Socialist Party. Debs wrote: "Syndicalism has swooped down upon us, and the capitalist papers and magazines are giving it unlimited space, but the Socialist Party is in no danger on account of it. Just at present there are some sharp divisions and some bitter controversies on account of it, but the Socialist Party will emerge all the stronger after syndicalism has had its fling. The Anarchists are all jubilant over the prospect that syndicalism may disrupt the Socialist Party, but they will again be disappointed. There are many of our Socialists who favor syndicalism and sabotage, or think they do, but the party is overwhelmingly opposed to both, and will stick to the main track to the end."
FEBRUARY 1913
"Sound Socialist Tactics," by Eugene V. Debs [Feb. 1913] Popular Socialist leader Gene Debs weighs in on the controversy over syndicalism and sabotage that was sweeping the Socialist Party in this lengthy article from the pages of the Left Wing theoretical journal The International Socialist Review. Debs declares that "the disagreements and dissensions among Socialists relate almost wholly to tactics. The party splits which have occurred in the past have been due to the same cause, and if the party should ever divide again, which it is to be hoped it will not, it will be on the rock of tactics." Echoing a controversial passage in a pamphlet by Haywood and Bohn, Debs declares that "As a revolutionist I can have no respect for capitalist property laws, nor the least scruple about violating them." However, the response to such injustices must be collective and not individualistic, Debs believes: "If I had the force to overthrow these despotic laws I would use it without an instant's hesitation or delay, but I haven't got it, and so I am law-abiding under protest -- not from scruple -- and bide my time." So, too, with the principles of "sabotage" and "direct action" -- concepts which Debs opposes. He indicates that "I have not a bit of use for the 'propaganda of the deed.' These are the tactics of anarchist individualists and not of Socialist collectivists." While there may be "acute situations arising and grave emergencies occurring, with perhaps life at stake, when recourse to violence might be justified," Debs states that the socialist movement "cannot predicate its tactical procedure upon such exceptional instances." Advocacy of sabotage and direct action by the SPA would not only alienate the law-abiding American working class, in Debs' view, but it would essentially be an open invitation to agent provocateurs to infiltrate and destroy the party, as "the Socialist Party would stand responsible for the deed of every spy or madman." Debs declares that "I am opposed to any tactics which involve stealth, secrecy, intrigue, and necessitate acts of individual violence for their execution. The work of the Socialist movement must all be done out in the broad open light of day. Nothing can be done by stealth that can be of any advantage to it in this country."
"The Rights of Working Women," by Eugene V. Debs [March 1913] Socialist Party publicist Eugene Debs takes aim at Cardinal James Gibbons and other members of the conservative Catholic hierarchy for an address in opposition to woman suffrage. Gibbons and his peers are deemed by Debs to be "pious agents of the master class who admonish their subjects to obey their masters and be content with their lot." Moreover, "Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland, and other high priests have not only declared against the right of women to vote but they have announced their opposition to the initiative and referendum, the recall, and every other measure that has to do with democracy and self-government," Debs declares. "These gentlemen in gowns speak for Wall Street, for the plutocracy, the ruling class. They traffic in the ignorant reverence of the masses. At heart they hold the common people in contempt. They pretend to be chosen of God and to be his representatives on earth, a pious invention that has served in every age to keep the ignorant masses at their mercy." Blind obedience "is not religious duty but debasing slavery," says Debs, and he urges working women to end their passivity and submission and to insist upon their rights. "The day of awakening is at hand," Debs pronounces. "The workers of all the world are breaking away from kingcraft and priestcraft and swelling the conquering hosts of the international army of emancipation."
"Debs on IWW: A Letter to William English Walling from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, Indiana, March 5, 1913." This letter to William English Walling was widely reprinted in the Socialist Party press as a means of making known SPA leader Eugene V. Debs' view of the party's "Anti-Sabotage" provision and the recent recall of Bill Haywood from the SPA's National Executive Committee. "I regret to see Haywood's recall, but it was inevitable. He brought it on himself. I should not have put Section 6 in the constitution, but it is there, and put there by the party, and Haywood deliberately violated it. Is not this a fact?" Debs declared. He added that "The IWW for which Haywood stands and speaks is an anarchist organization in all except in name, and this is the cause of all the trouble. Anarchism and Socialism have never mixed and never will. The IWW has treated the Socialist Party most indecently, to put it very mildly. When it gets into trouble it frantically appeals to the Socialist Party for aid, which has always been freely rendered, and after it's all over, the IWW kicks the Socialist Party in the face. That is the case put in plain words, and the Socialist Party has had enough of that sort of business, and I don't blame them a bit."
"The Paterson Strike," by Patrick L. Quinlan [March 15, 1913] Early report on the events of the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike written by Industrial Workers of the World activist Patrick L. Quinlan, arrested by authorities at a mass meeting of strikers on February 25 -- the first day that the strike went general among the city's fabric mills. Quinlan is quite definite as to the cause of the strike: "up to [Feb. 25] the fight was limited to one factory, the Doherty mill. The cause of the dispute being Doherty’s attempt to introduce the three- and four-loom system instead of the two-loom, as was customary. The Doherty workers had been on strike for more than a month. Three weeks ago the workers themselves saw that if Doherty succeeded in installing the three- and four-loom system it would be generally introduced throughout the silk industry." Despite the arrest of IWW strike organizers Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Quinlan, the strike continued to gain strength throughout the rest of the month, Quinlan indicates, until at the time of this writing an estimated 25,000 mill workers were out on strike. Quinlan notes a "splendid solidarity" and "complete burial of all race and religious differences" among the strikers. He is enthusiastic that "the middle class is brought to its knees. It is terrified and helpless. The storekeepers are no longer propagandists for the bosses. They are neutral."
"The Psychology of Syndicalism (An Editorial)," by Gaylord Wilshire. [March 1913] During the first years of the 1910s, a new radicalism blossomed both inside and outside the ranks of the Socialist Party of America. This left wing moment, centered its orientation around building revolutionary industrial trade unions and winning power through use of the tactic of the general strike. This movement, while in some sense a mere continuation of the dichotomy between "Lassallean-political action" and "Marxian-trade unionism" that had divided the modern radical movement for its entire history, nevertheless gained momentum on an international basis and self-consciousness as something entirely new -- "Syndicalism." The "new" radical industrial unionist movement gained important adherents in the American Socialist movement -- the monthly magazine of the Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co. The International Socialist Review; the upstart New York theoretical journal The New Review; and, as this editorial demonstrates, the well-established (albeit ethically sketchy) Wilshire's Magazine. This editorial by Gaylord Wilshire notes that "the revolutionary union is the product of the automatic machine and the trustification of capital. It is the only form of organization which can meet the present juncture, for the knell of craft unions was rung by the automatism of the machine." Socialism, or "Revolution by voting," is an anachronistic and futile enterprise, Wilshire indicates, colorfully stating that "voting is merely praying in a ballot box."
APRIL 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 1 [April 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 1st issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: R.A. Maynard: "The Sunshine of Socialism." Emanuel Julius: "A Piece of Paper." Chester M. Wright: "Battling at the Bread LIne." Carl Sandburg: "What Happened March Fourth" (on Victor Berger). Sidney Hillyard: "King Rent." Columns by Mila Tupper Maynard (Drama), Emanuel Julius (Books), Eleanor Wentworth (Women's).
"A National Organization is On Its Way!" by J. Louis Engdahl [April 1913] Powered by the success of the Los Angeles Young People's Socialist League, with 1200 members, and the support of State Secretary of the Socialist Party of California T.W. Williams, movement was for the establishment of the national YPSL organization had finally begun, according to this report by Chicago Socialist Louis Engdahl. An estimated 200 autonomous and "practically independent" Socialist youth organizations had sprung up in American, needing "only a centralized movement to put them in active operation," Engdahl indicated. In accordance with this objective, information was being gathered about the strength and resources of each for presentation to the forthcoming annual meeting of the Party's National Committee (essentially a convention with representatives present from each state organization). A debate was underway over the structure of such an organization, with some favoring a sovereign but associated organization electing its own National Secretary and 3 of 5 of the member s of its National Committee, while others favored creation of a subordinate youth department of the Socialist Party, akin to the structure already extant for women.
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 2 [May 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 2nd issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: Stanley B. Wilson: "Economics in the Quee-Macks." Emanuel Julius: "The Conquest of Prudery." Chester M. Wright: "The Case of the Girl." Rob Wagner: "The Painted Pigeon." Job Harriman: "Making Dreams Come True." R.A. Maynard: "Heroes of the Social Revolution." Harold Story: "Message of the New Revolution." Columns by Mila Tupper Maynard (Drama), Emanuel Julius (Books), Eleanor Wentworth (Women's).
"The Finnish Young Socialists of the United States" by J. Louis Engdahl [May 1913] With a decision by the Socialist Party's National Committee on the organization of a national young people's section looming, Louis Engdahl analyzes the division of the youth sections on language lines, the most important section of which was the Finnish Gymnastic Societies organized by the various Socialist Party branches. There were some 53 of these societies at the end of 1911, Engdahl states: 22 in the Finnish Federation's Eastern District, 17 in the Middle District, and 14 in the Western District. A total of 1,156 young men and women were affiliated with these societies, which paid no dues to the Socialist Party but were funded by Party branches. In addition to these gymnastic societies, the Finns had choral societies, dramatic societies, dancing clubs, and other organized group activities -- projects that were advanced by the fact that many Finnish branches possessed their own halls. Engdahl notes that the Finnish and English language Socialist organizations had long remained segregated and that the task of integrating these sections of the party to work on matters of common concern remained largely unresolved.
"Report of the Finnish Federation to the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America, May 1913," by J.W. Sarlund. Report by the Translator-Secretary of the Finnish Socialist Organization in the United States to the 1913 plenum of the National Committee of the Socialist Party. The Finnish Federation was at this time the Socialist Party's largest (roughly 10% of the entire party), and Sarlund details the Finnish Federations finances and activities for the year 1912 and the first quarter of 1913. Sarlund remarks that the Finnish Federation's three-pronged regional daily press "is and has been the secret of our success."
"Report of the German Language Federation to the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America, May 1913," by A. Dreifuss. The German Federation of the Socialist Party was organized late in December of 1912. This was the first report of Translator-Secretary Adolph Dreifuss to the 1913 plenum of the SPA's governing National Committee. Details of the first National Convention and the size and structure of the federation are provided here. Difficulty with Local San Francisco over the new federation structure in the party is noted, with loss of dues revenue under the new system identified as probable cause for the difficulty.
"Report of the Hungarian Socialist Federation to the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America, May 1913," by Armin Loewy. The Hungarian Socialist Federation was formed when the United Hungarian Federation voted to affiliate with the SPA in 1912. This first report of the Translator-Secretary of the Hungarian Federation to the 1913 plenum of the SPA's National Committee details the organization's activities in the first 8 months of affiliation. Included is an interesting table detailing size, number of initiations, number of meetings held, and amounts spent on dues stamps, the Hungarian socialist press, and literature by each of the component branches of the Hungarian Federation.
"Report of the Jewish Translator-Secretary to the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America, May 1913," by J.B. Salutsky. The Jewish Federation of the Socialist Party established itself in the summer of 1912 and had sent its Secretary, Jacob Salutsky, to serve as Translator-Secretary in the SPA's National Office on December 20. Over the next nine months the group nearly tripled in size, to a paid membership of nearly 2,000 in 68 branches. This is Salutsky's report to the 1913 plenum of the SPA National Committee, detailing the history and growth of the Jewish Federation.
"Report of the South Slavic Socialist Federation to the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America, May 1913," by Alex Susnar. The South Slavic Socialist Federation affiliated with the Socialist Party of America in January of 1911. This is the report of the new Translator-Secretary of the Yugoslav Federation to the 1913 plenum of the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America. Some details about organizational size over time are provided.
"The National Committee Meeting," by Tom Clifford [events of May 11-16, 1913] Account of the 1913 annual meeting of the Socialist Party's National Committee -- a national gathering of elected delegates roughly equivalent in function to the quadrennial National Conventions of the organization. Clifford, a future member of the Communist Labor Party, depicts that gathering as one which was "anything but harmonious," as "lines were clearly drawn between the revolutionists and conservatives." The Left Wing managed to have an investigating committee appointed to examine alleged "inefficiency and maladministration" by the centrist-dominated National Office, which found the accusations of ineptitude unfounded. Effort was also made to expose electoral shenanigans between party leader Morris Hillquit and 1912 national campaign manager Mahlon Barnes in holding up the party referendum aimed at removing Barnes from that post. A motion to eliminate the recently-adopted party constitutional amendment providing from expulsion of opponents of electoral politics was defeated by a vote of 46 to 16.
JUNE 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 3 [June 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 3rd issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: R.A. Maynard: "California of Today and Tomorrow." Cameron H. King: "The Vindication of Woman Suffrage." Anna A. Maley: "A Woman in the Race." Stanley B. Wilson: "Padre Blanco and the Outlaw." Emanuel Julius: "The Pessimism of Jack London." Chester M. Wright: "The Socialist Spirit in the City." Columns by Mila Tupper Maynard (Drama), Emanuel Julius (Books), Eleanor Wentworth (Women's).
"To Work with Young People," by James M. Reilly [June 1913] Short article in The Young Socialists' Magazine by a Socialist Party National Committee member from New Jersey announcing the May 1913 decision of the NC to establish a Youth Department attached to the National Office, effective October 1, 1913. Reilly states that "It is not the intention of the Party to interfere with any of the young people's Socialist organizations now in existence. The aim is rather to lend assistance and cooperation.....The department will also be a sort of clearing house for Socialist literature especially suitable for the young." He notes that "We Socialists do not believe in forcing our faith -- so to speak -- on anyone. We do not wish our children to be Socialists because we are. The true Socialist wants his children to do their own thinking, and of course form their own conclusions." However, the SPA had been negligent in providing even rudimentary information about itself to young people in any systematic way. Through this new department it was hoped that first steps would soon be taken in this regard.
JULY 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 4 [July 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 4th issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: Walter Lanfersiek: "A Word to the West from the New National Executive Secretary." Emanuel Julius: "Rob Wagner, the Artistic Red." Carl D. Thompson: "Fighting for Labor in State Legislatures." R.A. Maynard: "The General Strike for a Better Life." Winfield R. Gaylord: "Organizing the 'Capacity of Self Control.'" Frank E. Wolfe, "The Movie Revolution." Stanley B. Wilson: "Padre Blanco and the Preacher." Chester M. Wright: "Disarming the Pessimist." Willis Church LaMont: "Socialilsm, Moral Substitute for War." Columns by Mila Tupper Maynard (Drama), Eleanor Wentworth (Women's).
"The Seattle Riots: Shown to Have Been Prearranged by Capitalist 'Patriots' -- IWW Gains As Usual," by Frank R. Schleis [events of July 17-18, 1913] An IWW account of the so-called Potlatch Riots of July 1913, during which a mob of right wing sailors and soldiers ransacked Seattle headquarters of the IWW and the Socialist Party, burning the papers and property of those organizations in the street. Schleis reveals the cause of the disturbance was the heckling and disruption by drunken sailors of a Thursday night soapbox speech by feminist speaker Anna Miller. After seizing the speaking platform the instigator raised his hand to strike Miller, who was intent on taking back the borrowed stand. A fight ensued during which the sailors seem to have received the worst of it. Schleis indicates that the nationalist Seattle Times used the tried-and-true tactics of yellow journalism to incite the sailors to revenge, which took place according to a premeditated plan at 7:30 pm the following evening. Two headquarters offices of the IWW and two of the Socialist Party were hit by the rampaging mob in sequence. Attempts the following day to shut down the city's saloons and impose prior restraint censorship upon the Times were stopped with a speedy injunction. Thereafter, Schleis relates, the Times published a sensational and completely fictitious story "telling of the death of one of the wounded soldiers, even describing minutely the death agonies endured" in an attempt to further inflame sentiment against the IWW. This had been revealed by the other newspapers of the city as a complete fabrication, however, moving one Seattle paper to call Times publisher Alden J. Blethen to "pull down the American flag from the top of his editorial page" since it had been "dishonored and disgraced by its use on the Times."
AUGUST 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 5 [Aug. 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 5th issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: Mila Tupper Maynard: "Garrison, Judged by Gettysburg." Gordon Nye: "Frank F. Stone: A Sculptor with a Message." Chester M. Wright: "The Toiler and His Hire." Frank E. Wolfe: "Making a Socialist Film." N.A. Richardson: "The Awakening of Georgia." Icie Bowdry: "The Truth About the Canal." Emanuel Julius: "Four Bits." Marion Louise Israel: "Woman, A Social Creator." Fred C. Wheeler: "Labor Conditions, Past and Present." E.E. Kirk: "From Behind Jail Bars" (interview with Harry M. McKee). Columns by Mila Tupper Maynard (Drama), Eleanor Wentworth (Women's).
"Must Defend Hop Pickers." (Solidarity) [events of Aug. 3, 1913] Sensational first report in the Eastern IWW newspaper Solidarity on the August 3, 1913 events at the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, California, best known as the Wheatland Hop Riot. Although erroneous in some particulars, the report provides an indication of the total number of workers involved (2300 -- far lower than some current accounts would indicate) and a count of the posse size (about 12) and indicates that there was a frenzied stampede of the crowd when the shooting started, a detail omitted in subsequent histories. Deputy Sheriff Dakin is credited with killing the Puerto Rican who used a gun against the District Attorney and Deputy killed in the affair. A total of 9 arrests were made in the immediate aftermath, the story indicates, and a $1500 defense fund was called for to establish a "jungle camp" for hundreds of potential witnesses for the defense. "The authorities know absolutely nothing about the facts, which will make it all the worse as the sheriff's posse which fled will have to resort to their usual tactics in such a case," the article presciently notes.
"Let Us Build," by Eugene V. Debs [Aug. 9, 1913] The Socialist Party's great mediator, Gene Debs, attempts to patch up the factional war between radicals and moderates in this 1913 article from the SPA's official bulletin. "We have heard and still hear a great deal about 'the Reds' and 'the Yellows' in the Socialist Party," Debs remarks. "I know a good many of both, and so far as I am able to discern, they are very much alike. The actual difference between them, were it fire, would hardly be enough to light a cigarette." Debs calls for an end to internecine factional warfare so that fire can be directed upon the actual enemy, declaring "If we mean to destroy capitalism we must develop the power of our class, and we can only do that through the class-conscious unity and the energetic and harmonious cooperation of our forces." Despite this sentiment, Debs voices an opinion clearly in harmony with the Center-Right alliance in control of the party apparatus rather than the syndicalist Left Wing when he proclaims "The Socialist Party, it should be remembered, is a political party, and there is room enough in it for everyone who subscribes to its principles and upholds them in good faith, but there is no room in it for those who either openly sneer at political action or who avow it falsely to mask their treachery while they carry on their work of disruption."
SEPTEMBER 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 6 [Sept. 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 6th issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M Wright. Key Contents: Emanuel Julius: "The Prophet." Chester M. Wright: "The Gun is Not Our Weapon." J. Stitt Wilson: "The Story of a Socialist Mayor." John R. Haynes: "The Terrible Mining Game: A Plea for Federal Control." George W. Carey: "A Vision of the New Time." Lillian Pelee: "The Flare of the New." Thomas W. Williams: "The World's Back Yard." Stanley B. Wilson: "A Try-out in the Woods." Chester M. Wright: "What's Wrong with the Newspaper Game." E.E. Hitchcock: "The Intercollegiate Socialist Society." Sydney Hillyard: "The Socialist." Columns by Mila Tupper Maynard (Drama), Eleanor Wentworth (Women's).
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 7 [Oct. 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 7th issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: John M. Work: "My Confession." Chester M. Wright: "Harry McKee is Out of Jail." William Morris Feigenbaum: "The Impeachment of Sulzer." Stanley B. Wilson: "The Socialist Movement in California (Part 1)." J. Louis Engdahl: "The Underground War." Emanuel Julius: "Circumstantial Evidence." Rob Wagner: "A Unique Melange of Red and Black." E.E. Hitchcock: "The Intercollegiate Socialist Society." Leo W. Wax: "Public Education and Social Progress (Part 1)." Columns by M. Louise Grant (Drama), Emanuel Julius (Books).
"Socialism and the Municipalities," by Henry L. Slobodin. [Oct. 1913] A short defense of the strategy of Socialist engagement in civic electoral politics en route to the social revolution. Not only would an educated, well-housed, and well-fed working class do more to advance the Socialist cause than an ignorant and impoverished working class, Slobodin argues, social revolutions historically always had been urban events. In such a scenario, victory would belong to those who controlled the city governments -- with the number of Socialist politicians sitting in Congress a comparatively unimportant detail. Slobodin was the Executive Secretary of the SLP Right (the so-called "Kangaroos") during the 1899 party split before moving into the Socialist Party. First published in The New Review, October 1913.
"Lobbying and Class Rule" by Louis C. Fraina. [Oct. 1913] The relationship between financial power, corruption, and state control is explored in this article published in The New Review in October 1913. Fraina argues that lobbying and financial intervention in the political process are not class measures but rather "clique measures in the interest of one capitalist clique against another clique," specifically the needs of the plutocracy against the interests of petty capitalism. The legislative and judicial branches of government inevitably represented the most powerful capitalist interests, Fraina argues. Retrospectively interesting is the observation that corruption "is no more a necessary condition of class rule than violence is a necessary condition of proletarian struggle. Both, in a measure, may be unavoidable, but they are not inherently necessary."
NOVEMBER 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 8 [Nov. 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 8th issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson. Key Contents: Elsa Unterman: "When Girls Go On Strike" (on SF cloakmakers). Emanuel Julius: "A Matter of Clothes." Stanley B. Wilson: "The Socialist Movement in California (Part 2)." Chester M. Wright: "We Call It War." Adriana Spadoni: "The Seamstress" (reprint from The Masses). J. Louis Engdahl: "The Federation Idea." Georgia Kotsch: "The Lilies of the Field." O.L. Anderson: "The Ignominy of a Hobby Rider." Stanley B. Wilson: "The World Drama." Agnes H. Downing: "Amusements for the Young." Sydney Hillyard: "Capital." Leo W. Wax: "Public Education and Social Progress (Part 2)." Columns by Eleanor Wentworth (Women's), Emanuel Julius (Books).
DECEMBER 1913
The Western Comrade, v. 1, no. 9 [Dec. 1913] Large file. Graphic pdf of the 9th issue of The Western Comrade, edited by Stanley B. Wilson and Chester M. Wright. Key Contents: "What Are We Going to Do About It?" (on machine guns). Walter Lanfersiek: "The Fall Elections." N.A. Richardson: "The Murderers at Wheatland." Emanuel Julius: "The Rise of Frank Dunne: A Newspaper Story." Chester M. Wright: "Putting the 'NOW' into Socialism: An Interview with a Woman Wizard." William Morris Feigenbaum: "On the Passing of Tammany." Stanley B. Wilson, "The Socialist Movement in California (Part 3)." Brame Hillyard: "The Case Against Man." J.E. Pottenger: "Socialism and the Single Tax." Chester M. Wright: "It's Just Got to Come." David Fulton Karsner: "Unheralded Heroes." Eleanor Wentworth: "The Awakening." Stanley B. Wilson: "The Simple Story of Karl Marx, the Man." Harold Everhart: "The Situation in Mexico." Columns by M. Louise Grant (Drama), Emanuel Julius (Books).
"The Wheatland Boys" (International Socialist Review). [Dec. 1913] Summary of the events behind the Wheatland Hop Riot, a strike meeting at the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, California raided by local authorities. Sheriff Voss of Yuba County fired his gun into the air in an attempt to break up the gathering, called by a strike committee consisting of members of the Industrial Workers of the World. A gun was dropped and in the melee which followed the district attorney and a sheriff's deputy had been killed by a Puerto Rican picker, who was also killed, along with a English-born bystander. In the aftermath the National Guard had been called out by Gov. Hiram Johnson and agents of the Burns Detective Agency brought in to track down and capture "witnesses." Arrestees had been held incommunicado for as long as 60 days without charges filed, access to legal counsel had been systematically denied, contact with members of the press prohibited, and physical used during the interrogation process, this article indicates. On prisoner, Nels Nelson, who had lost an arm during the gunfire, had committed suicide and strike leader Herman Suhr had been driven to attempt the same in the Alameda County Jail. A plea is made for funds for the defense committee to the aid of defense witnesses, who "ill paid and irregularly employed at best, must be housed and fed."
