Allan Louis Benson (November 6, 1871 – August 19, 1940) was an American newspaper editor and author who was the Socialist Party of America nominee for President of the United States in 1916.

[2] He began to regularly visit the offices of the various Detroit newspapers in search of a position and was finally hired as a reporter, earning the starvation wage of $6 a week.

He married Mary Hugh in Windsor, Ontario, on November 19, 1899, and had four children.During his tenure as a newspaper editor, Benson read an encyclopedia article on the topic of socialism written by an English Fabian and was thereby won over to the socialist movement.

[3] He joined the staff of the Appeal to Reason, a mass circulation socialist weekly published in Girard, Kansas, and his editorials for that publication made him into a nationally recognized figure among radical American political activists.

[4] With Eugene V. Debs opting out of the 1916 presidential race so that he could attempt to win election to the US House of Representatives from his home state of Indiana, Benson was left free to run against labor leader James H. Maurer of Pennsylvania and Arthur LeSueur of North Dakota.

"[6] In this article Benson condemned as "anarchist" the idea that "the workers have no country," and accused "IWWs" with having conducted unceasing sabotage within the party against their opponents.

"[6] Having remained an inactive member of a party for a year, Benson formally severed his connection with the organization around the first of July 1918 in order to join a new pro-war political rival, the Social Democratic League of America.

"[7] Following his switch of organizational affiliation, Benson was hired by managing editor Emanuel Haldeman-Julius as a staff writer for The New Appeal, which had evolved into the semi-official organ of the Social Democratic League.

"I am suffering not from pernicious anemia but from the injury to my nervous system that this disease did when four dumbbell doctors (who were supposed to be good) did not recognize it for what it was and let it go until I collapsed, was in bed for six months and have scarcely been able to walk across the room ever since.