Socialist Party of Missouri
[1] In 1850 St. Louis was largely an immigrant city, with more than half of its citizens born outside of the United States, including most importantly ethnic Germans and Irish.
[1] Nevertheless, the city retained a strong ethnic character, with its population supplemented by Italians, Eastern European Jews, Czechs, Poles, and other nationalities as waves of immigrants arrived and were integrated into the American economy as wage workers.
[2] A party press soon followed, including the German-language weekly Arbeiter Zeitung (Workers' Newspaper) and the English-language Missouri Socialist — the name of which was later changed to St. Louis Labor.
[3] This Eastern organization, headed by William Butscher as National Secretary and including New York attorneys Henry L. Slobodin and Morris Hillquit among its top leaders, was formed as the result of a split of the orthodox Marxist Socialist Labor Party of America.
The deemphasis of the word "socialism" in both title and content of the publication resulted in increased participation by advertisers and a doubling of the paper's physical size, from four pages to eight.
[15] Headquarters were moved shortly thereafter for what would prove to be a brief stint in Omaha before a permanent home would ultimately be found in the industrial mecca of Chicago.
These periodicals, St. Louis Labor and the privately owned German-language Arbeiter Zeitung, attempted to popularize socialist ideas and publicized the party's frequent ward branch meetings.
[20] In subsequent years there would also be St. Louis Socialist branches which conducted their business in Lithuanian, Latvian, Czech, Italian, Slovenian, and Yiddish.
[21] This expansion of the organization's structure found a parallel expression in an apparent growth in curiosity in the Socialist Party's ideas by those outside the group's formal ranks.
[22] Outside the auditorium labor organizer "Mother" Mary Harris Jones and other socialist speakers addressed approximately 4,000 listeners at an impromptu overflow meeting.
[22] The party's 1911 platform for the city of St. Louis called for municipal ownership of public utilities, the streetcar system, ice plants, and lodging houses.
[16] The party argued that in two wards it had been cheated out of election by systematic undercounting of its vote, with G. A. Hoehn and William M. Brandt narrowly falling to their Republican opponents.
The gathering assembled at the Planters Hotel on the morning of Saturday, April 7, with 172 elected delegates representing the Socialist Parties of 43 states in attendance.
[29] In the interval between the calling and convening of the St. Louis Emergency Convention, the United States Congress declared war on Germany at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson.
[30] This committee met continuously for three days, including night sessions, ultimately appointing a subcommittee consisting of moderates Morris Hillquit and Algernon Lee of New York and radical C. E. Ruthenberg of Ohio to draft the final resolution.
"[32] The resolution pledged the Socialist Party to "continuous, active, and public opposition to the war, through demonstrations, mass petitions, and all other means within our power" and promised to conduct "consistent propaganda against military training" and "vigorous resistance" to "all reactionary measures," such as conscription, postal and press censorship, and restrictions upon free speech and freedom of assembly.
[34] In the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley by an anarchist the previous month, a small "red scare" swept America, threatening to scuttle the socialist convention.
[12] With the scheduled date just weeks away, convention organizers made plans to rent a vacant lot in downtown Sedalia and to erect there a big-top tent capable of seating 1,000 people.
[12] At the eleventh hour the organized boycott was broken by a local lodge of the Knights of Pythias, who allowed the rental of their massive storeroom in downtown Sedalia, capable of seating 1,000.
[12] An initial mass meeting was held Friday, October 18, and was addressed by prominent socialist lecturer Walter Thomas Mills.
[35] A new platform was adopted which declared the American people to be in the midst of "the most radical and far-reaching political realignment in the history of our country" and announced itself for "the abolition of the wage and profit system.
[37] State Secretary Otto Vierling delivered a keynote report to the gathering and committees on Ways and Means, Platform and Resolutions, and Constitution were elected.
[37] This institution was to attempt to reconcile couples threatening divorce, and in the event this was unsuccessful, to report to the court factually on the situation so that a remedy could be achieved "without the interference of a lawyer.
[38] The following night a mass meeting was held under the auspices of the Socialist Party of St. Louis, with State Secretary William Garver chairing the event.
[39] A platform was passed which called for "the orderly transfer of banks and public utilities, natural resources and key industries to social ownership and democratic management.
Note: This alphabetical list includes privately owned and party-owned publications associated the Socialist Party of America and its predecessor organizations.
