Philip Van Patten
Simon Philip Van Patten was born February 22, 1852, in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., in the United States,[1] the son of ethnic Dutch heritage.
[2] One early socialist historian characterized Van Patten as "an American of good family, with an excellent education.
[6] He arrived as the boom of building construction necessitated by the great Chicago fire had gone bust due to a national financial crisis.
[9] In July 1876 the SDP joined with trade union-oriented groups loyal to the First International at a Unity Congress to establish the Workingmen's Party of the United States.
[14] In June 1877 another cut of 10 percent was announced by several major rail lines and strikes erupted in response.
[16] Van Patten was arrested as a strike leader, taken to police headquarters, and threatened with hanging — as had been Parsons earlier in the day.
[15] Violence was indeed escalated on July 24, when police fired upon strikers at the railroad yards, killing 3 and wounding at least 8 others; they used their clubs again later in the day to break up a Workingmen's Party rally.
[15] The headquarters city of the Socialist Labor Party moved several times in its early years and Philip Van Patten followed it.
[21] By May and June 1878, the popular press was filled with sensational stories positing an armed insurrection to seize the state by these groups.
[24] Section Chicago was specifically requested to exclude the Lehr und Weir Verein from a scheduled public demonstration which was in the offing.
[26] This was not held against Van Patten personally, however, and he was returned as National Secretary by the convention, which was ultimately controlled by the moderate rather than the radical wing of the party.
[29] Despite their failure to materially influence the program of the Greenbackers, Van Patten and his associates requested that SLP members support the Greenback Party ticket in the fall campaign — an attitude which further deepened the division between the NEC and the radical trade unionists of Section Chicago.
[32] The convention made New York the headquarters city for the organization and returned Philip Van Patten as National Secretary.
[33] Van Patten remarked to a correspondent at the time that his re-election related to the party's "difficulty in getting anyone who could write correct English" and was made possible by the absence at the convention of what he called the "thick-headed, dyspeptic element.
Together with the seeming disintegration of the SLP as an electoral force, this general situation was said to have left Van Patten "despondent and dejected.
"[2] In the middle of April 1883, Van Patten crated up all his books and papers and shipped them away to an unknown destination from his lodgings in Manhattan.
[2] On April 22, 1883, friends of Van Patten called New York City police authorities to report him missing.
