Socialist Party

I

Introduction

Socialist Party, political party of the United States, founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1901. The first political party in the United States dedicated to the promotion of socialism was the Socialist Labor Party, founded in 1877. In 1890 leadership of this party was assumed by Daniel De Leon, an authoritarian follower of Karl Marx’s revolutionary policies.

In 1899, moderate members of the Socialist Labor Party, led by lawyer Morris Hillquit, broke with De Leon and resigned. Meanwhile, in 1898, the Social Democratic Party had been founded by labor leader Eugene V. Debs and newspaper publisher Victor Berger. This party had some early success in local elections in Massachusetts, and Debs received about 100,000 votes as its presidential candidate in 1900. Congregationalist minister George Davis Herron became a socialist in 1899, hoping to give the movement a Christian orientation.

II

Formation of the Socialist Party of America

In 1901 a unity convention was held and several groups merged to form the Socialist Party of America. They included Hillquit and his faction of the Socialist Labor Party; Debs, Berger, and other Social Democrats; and Herron’s Christian Socialists. By 1912 party membership had increased to approximately 118,000. Debs was the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate in 1904, 1908, and 1912. He received about 900,000 votes, or 6 percent of the popular vote, in the 1912 election. In that year the party had more than 1,000 members in public office, including mayors, aldermen and councilmen, policemen, and other officials. Influential publications circulated the reformist policies, or “immediate demands,” of the party, dedicated to achieving socialism through peaceful, democratic methods. The party also played an important role in the growth of labor unions in the United States.

The Socialist Party opposed World War I (1914-1918) and the belligerent role of the United States in what it regarded as an imperialist conflict. However, some of the party’s leaders resigned to support U.S. involvement in the war. The party’s antiwar stance was an important factor in its undoing. Debs was arrested in Canton, Ohio, for a speech criticizing the war effort and sentenced to ten years in prison under the Espionage Act of 1917. Dozens of like-minded Socialists were jailed under the Sedition Act of 1918. Party membership also declined drastically because of the antiwar policy.

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In 1920, while in prison, Debs was again the party candidate for the presidency. He received 919,799 votes, the largest vote ever cast for a presidential candidate of the Socialist Party. Meanwhile, the Russian Revolutions of 1917 led to a split in the party in 1919. The left wing of the party, which later came to constitute the Communist Party (see Communism), advocated similar revolutionary methods and recommended the establishment of a dictatorship by the workers in the United States. The moderate wing was anti-Communist. The establishment of the Farmer-Labor Party in 1920 also drew many of the Socialist Party’s members. By then, Socialist Party membership had declined to approximately one-fourth its size in 1918.

III

Coalition with the Progressive Party

In 1924 the Socialist Party, striving to create a farmer-labor coalition, endorsed Robert M. La Follette, U.S. senator from Wisconsin, in the presidential election. La Follette, running as the candidate of the League for Progressive Political Action (see Progressive Party), polled about 4,831,000 votes, or 16.5 percent of the ballots cast. Although the American Federation of Labor (AFL) also supported La Follette, the labor organization pulled away from the Socialists after the election. The alliance with farmers and labor that the Socialists had hoped for failed to materialize.

IV

Gains and Losses from the New Deal

After the death of Debs in 1926 and the end of the La Follette movement, the Socialist Party was led by Norman M. Thomas, a former Presbyterian minister. Thomas was the party’s candidate for the U.S. presidency in six elections, from 1928 through 1948. While the Socialist Party declined in numbers and influence during this time, many of the social reforms it had advocated became accepted facts of American life. During the first administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, from 1933 through 1936, much social legislation was passed—including the Social Security Act of 1935—that had first been advocated by Socialist Party members. Roosevelt’s New Deal labor and economic policies won support from many socialists and other leftists, as well as from labor. After 1932 Thomas received far fewer votes in presidential elections than Debs had.

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