The case of the "Five Socialist Assemblymen" became a cause célèbre of the Red Scare of 1919-20 and its resolution started the process of curbing war hysteria in the United States.

Louis Waldman, Samuel Orr, August Claessens and Sam DeWitt) for alleged disloyalty due to membership in the Socialist Party of America.

During the course of the proceedings, testimony was taken from two New York City policemen who had attempted to stop a crowd of about 2,000 from disrupting a streetcar line in conjunction with a strike in the summer of 1919.

Assemblyman Solomon, the legislative representative of the district in which the disruption was taking place, was said to have forced his way to the front of the crowd, shouting "Pull the scabs off the cars!"

[8] He was sworn in two days later[9] and held the position for the next 24 years, being reappointed by subsequent mayors Vincent R. Impellitteri and Robert F. Wagner Jr.[10] before retiring at the end of 1959.

[12] Solomon was a social democrat, believing in gradualist ameliorative reform and the use of the ballot box rather than relying upon violent seizure of power.

Following its loss on the floor of the Detroit Convention, the SP's Old Guard took its case to the rank and file of the party, which had been called upon to either approve or defeat the new Declaration of Principles in referendum vote.

In this polemical piece, Solomon decried the Detroit Declaration of Principles as "reckless," observing pointedly that "furious phrases cannot take the place of organized mass power.

"The Declaration of Principles has brought to the surface divergences which are deep, antagonisms which make of our party not a coherent political organization working harmoniously for a common objective but a battle ground of internecine strife.