Charles H. Vail

Charles Henry Vail (April 28, 1866 – June 16, 1924) was an American Universalist clergyman and Christian socialist political activist and writer.

[2] In August 1888, Vail married Mary C. Ellis of Owasco, New York, but his wife fell ill and lived only a short time.

[2] He was married a second time in July 1892 to Niva Bedell of Geneva, New York, a classmate from divinity school and fellow graduate of the class of 1892.

In the immediate aftermath of the August assassination of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, Vail faced hostile crowds and suffered cancelled meetings by those who confused the doctrines of socialism and anarchism.

[2] During the first decade of the 20th century, Vail served in a succession of Universalist pastorates, including positions at Richfield Springs and Albion, New York.

[7] Vail continued to preach until his final years, serving as half-time pastor of a congregation in the small town of Merom, Indiana during the early 1920s.

Charles H. Vail as he appeared in 1900
Vail's 1899 book Principles of Scientific Socialism was one of the standard introductions to the subject during the first two decades of the 20th century. A translation was published by Finnish-American socialists in Oregon in 1911.
Vail's Christian socialist aphorisms continued to be printed in the radical press into the 1920s.