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The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a Socialist Political Party in the United States . It was formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party and a wing of the older Socialist Labor Party Of America . It flourished in numerous ethnic enclaves 1904-1912, with Eugene Debs as presidential candidate. It splintered over World War I and the Russian Revolution , and was a minor political movement after 1920, often nominating Norman Thomas for president. HISTORY Early history , Socialist Party of America candidate for President, 1904]] From 1901 to the onset of World War I , the Socialist Party had numerous elected officials. There were two Socialist members of Congress, Meyer London of New York City and Victor Berger of Milwaukee (a part of the Sewer Socialism movement); Over 70 Mayors , and many state legislators and city councilors. Its voting strength was greatest among recent Jewish, Finnish and German immigrants, coal miners, and former Populist farmers in the Midwest.Shannon (1951) Early political perspectives ranged from radical socialism to social democracy, with New York party leader Morris Hillquit and Congressman Berger on the more social democratic or right wing of the party and radical socialists and syndicalists, including members of the Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW) and the party's frequent candidate, Eugene V. Debs, on the left wing of the party. As well there were Agrarian utopian-leaning radicals, such as Julius Wayland of Kansas, who edited the party's leading national newspaper, '' Appeal To Reason '' along with trade unionists; Jewish, Finnish, and German immigrants; and intellectuals such as Walter Lippmann . The party had a hostile relationship with the American Federation Of Labor (AFL). The AFL leadership was strongly opposed to the SPA, but moderate Socialists like Berger and Hillquit urged cooperation with the AFL in hopes of eventually forming a broader Labor Party. Their leading ally in the AFL was Max Hayes , president of the International Typographical Union . These efforts were bitterly spurned, however, by the majority of the Socialist Party, who held to either the IWW view or the Wayland view. The party's opposition to World War I caused a sharp decline in membership. An increase in the membership of its Language Federation s from areas involved in the Bolshevik Revolution proved illusory, since these members were soon lost to the Communist Labor Party . The party also lost some of its most prominent members, who had been in favor of America's entry into World War I, including Walter Lippmann , John Spargo , George Phelps Stokes , and William English Walling . They briefly formed an outfit called the National Party , which hoped to merge with the remnants of Theodore Roosevelt 's Progressive Party and the Prohibition Party , but did not do so. In June 1918 the Party's best-known leader, ; he was arrested under the Sedition Act Of 1918 , convicted and sentenced to serve ten years in prison. He was pardoned by President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Expulsion of Bolshevists In January 1919 Vladimir Lenin invited the Communist wing of the Socialist Party to join in the founding of the Communist Third International, the Comintern . The Bolshevists held a conference in June 1919 to plan to regain control of the party by bringing delegations from the sections of the party that had been expelled to demand that they be seated. However, the language federations, eventually joined by Charles Ruthenberg and Louis Fraina , broke away from that effort and formed their own party, the Communist Party Of America , at a separate convention in Chicago on September 2 1919 . Meanwhile plans led by John Reed and Benjamin Gitlow to crash the Socialist Party convention went ahead. Tipped off, the incumbents called the police, who obligingly expelled the Bolshevists from the hall. The remaining Bolshevist delegates walked out and, meeting with the expelled delegates, formed the Communist Labor Party on September 1 , 1919 . The Communist Labor Party merged with the Communist Party of America in 1921 to form the predecessor of the Communist Party USA . Expulsion of Socialists from the New York Assembly In 1920, the New York State Assembly expelled five Socialist members on the grounds that being a member of the Socialist Party constituted as disloyalty. These members included Louis Waldman , Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon, August Claessens and Sam Dewitt . This case was brought before the Supreme Court, and the members were permitted back into the Assembly. Electoral campaigns From 1904 to 1912, the Socialist Party ran Eugene Debs for President at each election. The best showing ever for a Socialist ticket was in 1912 , when Debs gained 901,551 total votes, or 6% of the popular vote. In 1920 Debs ran again, this time from prison, and received 913,693 votes, 3.4% of the total. The Socialist Party did not run a presidential candidate in 1924 , but supported Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and his ad-hoc Progressive Party . LaFollette's party disbanded after his death in 1925. In 1928, the Socialist Party returned as an independent electoral entity under the leadership of Norman Thomas , a Protestant minister in New York City. Thomas repeatedly ran as the party's presidential candidate through 1948. A turn to the left The party experienced a major growth spurt during the Great Depression , primarily among youth. These youth leaders, however, were quickly won over to the proposition of reconciliation and reunification with the Communist Party, in keeping with new Popular Front policy of the Comintern . Leaders of the United Front faction included Reinhold Niebuhr , Andrew Biemiller , Daniel Hoan , and Gus Tyler . Most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans For Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War Liberal organization. The "militants", as they were called, were triumphant at the Socialist Party's national convention in Detroit in June 1934, which precipitated the exodus of the opposing "old guard"—led by Louis Waldman and David Dubinsky —which favored the formation of a national Farmer-Labor Party that would have been likely led by Huey Long . After this fell through, in 1936 the old guard leaders formed the Social Democratic Federation and reluctantly endorsed Franklin Roosevelt . By this time, however, the militants as well were on the Roosevelt bandwagon, in keeping with the dictates of the Popular Front . The party was then buttressed by the mass entry of the American followers of Leon Trotsky from the U.S Workers Party in keeping with the so-called French Turn , by which Trotskyists recruited to their Revolutionary perspectives. The revolutionary perspectives of the Trotskyists caused enough havoc, however, that they were expelled by 1938. The Socialist Party's youth group, the Young People's Socialist League , left with the Trotskyists. Waning years By 1940, only a small committed core remained in the party which opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal . In 1940 Norman Thomas was the only presidential candidate opposed to a pro- Soviet foreign policy. This also led Thomas to serve as an active spokesman for the isolationist America First Committee during 1941. Thomas led his last presidential campaign in 1948, after which he became a critical supporter of the postwar liberal consensus. The party retained some pockets of local success, in cities such as Milwaukee , Bridgeport, Connecticut , and Reading, Pennsylvania . In New York City, they often ran their own candidates on the Liberal Party line. In 1956, the party reconciled and reunified with the Social Democratic Federation. |
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