William Edlin (May 3, 1878 – November 30, 1947) was a Ukrainian-born Jewish-American journalist, editor, and labor activist.
In 1897, he wrote an English work called The Coming Socialist Struggle: Capitalist Contradictions Exposed, Socialism Defined.
In 1899, he became manager of the Folks-tsaytung (People's Newspaper), which was published by a group that split from the Socialist Labor Party known as the "Kangaroos."
When that paper collapsed shortly afterwards, he joined fellow Kangaroos Benjamin Feigenbaum, Louis B. Boudin, Leon Kobrin, Morris Hillquit, Morris Winchevsky, and Abraham Cahan and founded the weekly Sotsyal-demokrat (Social democrat), with Edlin the first editor of the paper.
[2] After writing independently for four years, he returned to Der Tog in 1929 as music and drama critic.
In 1931, Adler's Theatre staged a play he wrote with Leon Kuperman called "Der Yid."
B. Gorin claimed it was adopted from Henri Bernstein's play "Israel," although Edlin denied it.
[10] In the 1936 United States House of Representatives election, he unsuccessfully ran in New York's 17th congressional district against Theodore A.