Thomas J. Morgan

[1] Thomas Senior, a former member of the Chartist movement,[1] was a maker of nails, working long hours in an oftentimes futile effort to eke out a modest living.

Never an adherent of anarchist methods himself, the task fell upon Morgan and a handful of his co-thinkers to reestablish the Chicago socialist organization in the aftermath of the Haymarket Affair.

[4] This committee was charged with calling another convention in September to nominate a citywide slate of candidates for the fall elections under the banner of the United Labor Party.

[5] The meeting was not harmonious and following a spate of factional shenanigans a group of 26 conservative trade unionists were excluded from the gathering on the basis of their professed support for candidates of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

[6] Although not himself a candidate, Morgan played a key role behind the scenes of the United Labor Party, chairing the important committee on platform and resolutions at the nominating convention, and helping to shape the final program of the organization.

[3] He came to develop philosophical differences with SLP leaders over trade union policy, however, so he exited to join the Social Democratic Party of America in 1900.

[11] In the summer of 1901 that organization, headed by Eugene V. Debs and Victor L. Berger, merged with a rival political group to establish the Socialist Party of America (SPA).

[1] Morgan was a frequent candidate of the SPA, running for Chicago city attorney in 1903, for Cook County Superior Court judge in 1903 and 1907, and for U.S. Senate in 1909.

[2] In 1910 Morgan was enlisted by veteran trade union activist "Mother" Mary Harris Jones to collect a 5-year old $250 debt from the Socialist Party's National Secretary, J. Mahlon Barnes.

"[15] The investigating committee also weighed in on Morgan's newspaper, calling The Provoker, "a publication largely for the dissemination of malice, slander, falsification, and misinformation.

[16] Additional material, including 26 issues of Morgan's The Provoker, is held in the Special Collections department of the library at the University of Chicago.