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.