Ohio History Journal

LYSLE E. MEYER

 

 

Radical Responses to Capitalism

in Ohio Before 1913

 

 

 

 

By the time Ohio entered the last two decades of the nineteenth century, various

forms of radicalism had already emerged which challenged the basic tenets of the

prevailing style of life. A number of communitarian settlements had been estab-

lished in the state, beginning with the first Shaker experiments, Union Village in

1805 and Shakertown in 1806. The Wurttemberg Separatists, soon after, founded

the Zoar community in 1817. Some of these settlements represented apocalyptic

sectarian communism with emphasis on withdrawal from the neighboring world for

the purpose of religious and social regeneration. As such, they were the outgrowths

of religious movements ultimately traceable to the Protestant Reformation. All re-

jected individualism as offering no hope to a troubled world.¹ The social and eco-

nomic aspects of the Shaker program, for instance, included the following considera-

tions:

The great inequality of rights and privileges which prevails so extensively throughout the

world, is a striking evidence of the importance of a reformation of some kind . . . .

The United Society of Believers (called Shakers) was founded upon the principles of

equal rights and privileges, with a united interest in all things, both spiritual and temporal. . . .2

Not all communitarian experiments were basically religious movements; some

were clearly secular and designed primarily for social reform. Perhaps the best

examples of the secular type were those based upon the theories of the European

utopian socialists Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. After achieving fame as

founder of the model factory town of New Lanark in Scotland, Owen, a wealthy,

self-made British industrialist, established a community in New Harmony, Indiana,

in 1825. Here he hoped to put into practice his beliefs in the equality of men and

the necessity for community ownership of goods. It was Owen's view that controlled

environmental improvement was the key to social progress. Although New Harmony

was unsuccessful, due largely to inadequate planning and supervision, Owen's

 

 

1. Arthur E. Bestor, Jr., Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian

Socialism in America, 1663-1829 (Philadelphia, 1950), 5-7; Albert T. Mollegen, "The Religious Basis of

Western Socialism," in Donald Drew Egbert and Stow Persons, eds., Socialism and American Life

(Princeton, 1952), I, 114.

2. Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, A Summary View of the Millennial Church, or United Society of

Believers, Commonly Called Shakers . . . (Albany, 1848), 2-3.

Mr. Meyer is chairman, department of history, Moorhead State College, Moorhead, Minnesota.

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194                                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

dream inspired other similar experiments in America. Indeed, even before New

Harmony took shape, some other reformers assembled a community at Yellow

Springs, Greene County, in 1825. Within a year and a half this effort failed, but

other Owenites had slightly more success with the Kendal community in Stark

County from 1826 to 1829. And in the southwestern part of the state during the

same period still other like-minded communitarians, such as the Rational Brethern

of Oxford and the Swedenborgians, had their brief flings at creating better worlds

in microcosm.³

Fourier, the French visionary, proposed a model society which would abolish

evil through a transformation of the social environment but would use the phalanx

to accomplish the goal. The phalanx was a social unit within which there would be

communal living, free choice of occupations, and easy mobility from one occupation

to another but not economic equality. The phalanxes were to be cooperative associ-

ations in rural settings where annual profits would be divided in ratio of five-twelfths

to the laborers, four-twelfths to the investors of capital, and three-twelfths to the

intellectuals or imaginative leaders who provided the ideas.⁴ Over forty schemes,

based more or less on the phalanx plan, were put into operation in the United

States, four of them in Ohio during the 1840's. The Fourierists of Ohio, however,

had no more success than the followers of Robert Owen.

Although these groups, both religious and secular, never attracted large num-

bers into their ranks, it would be a mistake to discount completely their effect on

the attitudes of others. By means of books and pamphlets many persons received

information about their ideas and activities. In some cases, such as the Zoar com-

munity, outstanding management and high quality production units focused atten-

tion on the project, giving the group an influence on its neighbors out of proportion

to its size.

Other radical currents passed through Ohio after the Civil War, several of them

lingering on as a result of certain long-standing conditions. Liberal Republicanism,

the Cheap Freight Railway League, the Free-Trade League, and Greenbackism

were some of the responses generated in the Midwest by reformers and specific

interest groups. The Greenback movement, of particular importance, represented

strong support on the part of farmers and debtor classes in Ohio for inflationary

measures by the Federal Government. Eventually, in 1877, these increasing demands

for financial relief were brought to a head with the formation in Columbus of an

"Independent Greenback Club" which later became the Greenback party. In addi-

tion to an altered monetary policy, the Greenbackers called for governmental re-

strictions on all corporations and demanded Federal programs to insure fuller

employment as well as a graduated income tax--in short, economic equality for

all segments of the population.⁵

The foregoing expressions of discontent were rurally based. During the same

period conditions in the cities also encouraged unrest and dissatisfaction with the

status quo. The rapid growth after the Civil War of the principal cities engendered

the explosive political and social problems which were to arouse ever-increasing

 

3. Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, 160-201, 205-213; Mark Holloway, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Com-

munities in America, 1680-1880 (New York, 1966), 104-106; Wendall P. Fox, "The Kendal Community,"

Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, XX (1911), 176-219.

4. Holloway, Utopian Communities, Chapter 8.

5. Chester McArthur Destler, "Western Radicalism, 1865-1901: Concepts and Origins," Mississippi

Valley Historical Review, XXXI (December 1944), 339-341; Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 1873-

1900 (Carl Wittke, ed. The History of the State of Ohio, V, Columbus, 1943), 154-155.

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Responses to Capitalism                                                       195

 

cries for reform in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus toward the end of the

century. As industry progressed and business expanded, the cities attracted greater

numbers from rural areas and from overcrowded countries of Europe. The labor

movement gradually became a more significant element for reform in the larger

urban areas amid wretched working conditions and oppressive policies of employers.

Working women and children were especially ill-treated and their situation con-

tinued to demand rectification. Through the seventies, hardship was rife among

city workers; wage cuts, unsuccessful strikes, and severe unemployment were the

lot of Ohio's labor.⁶

Scientific socialism, the doctrine of Marx and Engels, was an imported ideology

which had come to the United States with European immigrants. The German

newcomers were the principal supporters of this type of socialism in the 1850's.

The "forty-eighters," refugees of revolutions in 1848, established the first socialist

clubs in the United States. After the Civil War, the German influx continued, and

from 1881 to 1885 Germans represented the largest single group of annual arrivals

to the United States and to Ohio. In the census of 1880, Cincinnati showed the

largest German population in the state--greater, in fact, than that of Cleveland,

Columbus, and Toledo combined.⁷

The first American socialist organizations were sections of the Marxist Interna-

tional Working Men's Association and were set up shortly after the Civil War. By

1872 there were about thirty sections with five thousand members of the First

International in the United States. Lassallean socialists, who differed from the Marx-

ists in that they tended to ignore the labor union movement and concentrate

exclusively on the formation of workers' political parties, founded the "Social-

Democratic Party of North America" in 1874. These two antagonistic organizations

existed concurrently until 1876, when they merged into the new Working Men's

party of the United States. The new party had a Marxist platform but was directed

by Lassalleans. Conflict continued between the two wings of the party, and the

Lassalleans won complete control in 1877, changing the name of the group to the

"Socialist Labor Party of North America.^"8

The new party concentrated its efforts on mobilizing the working class to vote. It

was, in fact, the first socialist party in the United States that was intended for par-

ticipation in national elections. Local and state elections gave the Socialists some

successes from 1876 to 1878, as the nation still smarted from the Panic of 1873.

Party membership rose from 3000 to 10,000 in that period. Specific local conditions

also assisted the Socialists. In the municipal elections in Cincinnati, for instance, the

party won 9000 votes in 1877 as a result of the serious strikes preceding the elec-

tions, but this artificial boom was soon over and the vote the next year was a meager

500. This great fluctuation can be explained partly as the result of Cincinnati Social-

ists' failure to build any ties with the trade unions in that city. Generally, member-

ship in the party as a whole grew in the late seventies, but, as some degree of

prosperity returned to the country after 1879, the party rolls shrank, the national

 

 

6. Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger, A History of Ohio (Columbus, 1956), 228-229.

7. Ira Kipnis, The American Socialist Movement, 1897-1912 (New York, 1952), 6-7; Ohio, Annual

Report of the Secretary of State, 1885. p. 888; United States Bureau of the Census, Immigrants and

Their Children 1920, Census Monographs VII (1927), 395.

8. Kipnis, American Socialist Movement, 7-10. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) was the founder of

the German Social Democratic movement. He emphasized the importance of political action toward

such goals as universal suffrage, but he eschewed all violence.

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196                                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

total being about 1500 members in 1880, of whom only ten percent were native

Americans.⁹

Organization and expansion of the party in the 1880's was difficult because inter-

nal party strife increased. Since trade union forces within the Socialist ranks had

enjoyed no tangible results from limited election successes, they wanted to give all

their attention to union activity. Other, more extreme factions, believed that direct

action was necessary; these elements increasingly joined emerging anarchist groups.

Not surprisingly, the dissension prevented effective electioneering for socialist pro-

grams, with the result that the party supported Greenback candidates for the presi-

dency in 1880, evidently hoping to capitalize on some of that organization's

spectacular success in 1878. The disastrous failure of the Greenbackers in 1880 as

well as their own internal troubles, caused the Socialists to abstain from the 1884

election. Even in 1888, although an independent ticket was put forward, candidates

were run only in New York.10

All through the eighties the Greenback party campaigned in Ohio and had pro-

labor planks in its platform.11 The Greenbackers made "Labor" part of their title in

1883 and the Greenback Labor party was born. Faced with such competition, the

Ohio Socialist Labor party found itself working with the Greenbackers, supporting

their local candidates while becoming less active and influential in its own cause.

Socialists might have had a brief local appeal in connection with particular labor

disputes, such as the serious Hocking Valley coal strike of 1884, but their popularity

was short-lived.

Among other obstacles to Socialists' progress at this time was the fact that the

party was composed predominately of foreigners and had few English-speaking

organizers to work in the state. The only English-language Socialist paper in Ohio

was moved from Cincinnati to Chicago after the severe party defeat in 1878 in that

major Ohio city. Also of concern to the Socialists during the early 1880's was the

challenge from the anarchist ranks. The increasingly successful appeal of this im-

ported Russian ideology was considered detrimental to Socialist interests in urban

centers. By 1885 there were some English-speaking groups in Cleveland and Cin-

cinnati that were affiliated with the Black International (Mikhail Bakunin's Anarch-

ist International Working People's Association) as well as an indefinite number of

foreign language units. The competition between the Socialists and anarchists was

resolved in favor of the Socialists as a result of the infamous Haymarket Massacre

of 1886, in which a group of anarchists was accused of throwing a bomb that caused

heavy casualties among a Chicago police unit. After this bloodshed the Socialist

party was able to increase the number of its sections in most of the midwestern

states.12

During this same period another response evoked by the socioeconomic system

was the Single Tax movement conceived by Henry George (1839-1897). In 1871

the former newspaper man published a forty-eight page pamphlet Our Land and

Land Policy, which was expanded into a book length presentation, Progress and

Poverty, in 1879. In these works George advocated the destruction of land monopoly

 

9. Ibid.; John R. Commons and others, History of Labor in the United States (New York, 1918),

II, 282; Daniel Bell, "The Background and Development of Marxian Socialism in the United States,"

in Egbert and Persons, Socialism, I, 237.

10. Kipnis, American Socialist Movement, 10-11; George Harmon Knoles, "Populism and Socialism

with Special Reference to the Election of 1892," Pacific Historical Review, XII (1943), 297-298.

11. Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia . . . 1881, VI, 701-702.

12. Commons, History of Labor, II, 282, 300, 390.

• 4
 

as a solution to the nation's economic ills. He would accomplish his purpose by shifting all taxes from labor and the products of labor to land. Land was considered to be the essential commodity for taxable purposes since he saw it as the source of all employment. To correct the unequal distribution of wealth as well as cure the abuse of recurring business depression the Single Tax on the value of land, irres- pective of improvement, should be adopted. Such a tax would make "land specu- lation unprofitable, land monopoly impossible, and so open to the possessors of the power to labor the ability of converting it [the ability to work] by exertion into wealth or purchasing power" and thus eliminate the preposterous situation in which "a man able to work suffers from want of things that work produces."13 George's writings were widely distributed, and by 1886 he was asked to run for mayor by the Central Labor Union of New York City. He was nominated, he said, "because it was believed that I best represented the protest against unjust social 13. Henry George, Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth, The Remedy (Cincinnati, 1905), 263-294; Henry George, "Causes of Business Depression," essay by George based on his book Progress and Poverty, reprinted by the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New York, 1930, pp. 12-13.

• 5
 

Tom L. Johnson, c. 1896. conditions [inflicted on the Irish workingmen] and the best means of remedying them." Pitted against him in a hotly contested campaign were Abram S. Hewitt, Democrat, and Theodore Roosevelt, Republican. The official result of the balloting was Hewitt, 90,552; George, 68,110; Roosevelt, 60,435.14 Even though George lost in the election, he gained widespread publicity and many converts to his ideas. One such person was the thirty-one year old business- man Tom L. Johnson, who would become Ohio's Congressman from 1891 to 1895 and be mayor of Cleveland, 1901-1909. In an effort to publicize George's ideas, Johnson in 1892 led a small group of Single Taxers in the House in a project to read into the Congressional Record another of the reformer's books, Protection or Free Trade, as part of their remarks on the tariff question then at issue. The 332 page book was subsequently mailed, without cost, to Single Taxers (more than 1,200,000) under the franking privilege, after printing costs had been paid by those wishing to circulate the information. Also, in Ohio, a Single Tax League was formed which claimed that a total of forty-one towns had Single Tax clubs or committees. It published a paper that carried attacks on tariffs and taxes along with appropriate 14. Arthur Nichols Young, The Single Tax Movement in the United States (Princeton, 1916), 95-107.

• 6
 

Edward Bellamy, c. 1890. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS quotes from George, Herbert Spencer, and Thomas Huxley. From an office in Cleve- land the league mailed to members the names of likely prospects for its propaganda barrage and weekly missives were sent to the contacts.15 When Tom Johnson became mayor of Cleveland, he continued his allegiance to George's ideas and the struggle against "Privilege." This he defined as "the ad- vantage conferred on one by law," and identified five major classes of privileges: land monopolies, taxation monopolies, transportation monopolies, municipal monop- olies, and patent monopolies, emphasizing that "the greatest of all governmental favors or special privileges is land monopoly, made possible by the exemption from taxation of land values." Johnson explained carefully what he meant by "land value" in a speech to farmers that was published and widely distributed in pamphlet form by the Joseph Fels Fund of America in 1908. To Johnson the "single-tax" would not be on the amount of land a person owned, which would unjustly penalize farm- ers, but on "land values" or value due to improvements or mineral wealth of all kinds. The burden of taxation would then be lifted from farmers and workingmen 15. Ibid., 142-145; Tom L. Johnson, My Story, edited by Elizabeth J. Hauser (New York, 1915), 52; Single Tax (Cincinnati), March 15, 1890.

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200                                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

and be placed on those who were profiting most from the monopolies. Even though

the Single Taxers were not able to pass direct legislation in the Ohio Assembly,

efforts by Johnson and like-minded disciples of Henry George helped swell the

ranks of those clamoring for reforms, especially among the middle class in Ohio.¹⁶

Another radical response which caught the imagination of Ohioans in the late

nineteenth century for improvement of the economic system was the American-born

socialist movement known as "Bellamy Nationalism." This was the name given, at

the suggestion of William Dean Howells, by Edward Bellamy to the utopian system

portrayed in his novel, Looking Backward, 2000-1887. Published in January 1888,

200,000 copies had been sold by December 1889. In place of the laissez faire prac-

tices of the Gilded Age, Bellamy advocated a paternalistic state that would main-

tain an economy of abundance in which all citizens, even those infirm and insane,

would share equally. To achieve this goal he advocated such reforms as municipal

ownership of water, gas, electricity, and street railways; government ownership of

railroads, telegraph, and telephone; government regulation and eventual ownership

of all mines; the initiative, the referendum, and minority representation; and several

other reforms as well.

Bellamy's ideas were initially advanced through clubs established by his followers.

The first Nationalist club in Ohio was formed in Cincinnati in 1889, one year after

the first had been established in Boston. Thereafter clubs were founded by middle-

class elements in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, and Findlay, and other groups ex-

isted, such as the Dayton Citizens' Club and the Cleveland Citizens' Alliance, which

espoused principles related to those of Nationalism. In 1893 the Nationalists, in

cooperation with the National Farmers' Alliance, formed a new political party, the

Peoples Party of Ohio or Populist party. Nationalist influence in Ohio reached its

climax in 1894 when the Labor party joined in a coalition with the Populist party.

At a convention in Columbus that year the platform adopted was a composite,

including, in addition to those Nationalist aims cited above, the following

Nationalist-oriented planks: collective public ownership of all means of production

and distribution, passage of fair labor laws, currency reform, and female suffrage;

it also included a vaguely worded single-tax plank denouncing land monopoly.

After a poor showing at the polls in 1894, the Nationalist movement declined, and

in 1896 the Populist party merged with the Democratic party, leaving the Nation-

alist faction without coalition support. The Nationalist clubs thereafter quickly dis-

appeared from Ohio, but it may be assumed that more than one person found

Socialism via Bellamy Nationalism.17

Following the Panic of 1893, Ohio experienced a depression. The spirit of unrest

was widespread and strikes were common throughout the state. Unemployment was

high and no relief was in sight. In 1894 Jacob S. Coxey, an Ohio businessman-

politician, decided to do something about this situation. He organized a so-called

"industrial army" of the unemployed and marched to the nation's capital. The

march was to call attention to the workers' distress and bring to the Government

 

16. Johnson, My Story, xxxv-xxxvi; Johnson "Tom Johnson to Farmers," leaflet published by The

Joseph Fels Fund of America, Cincinnati, n.d., n.p. For a fuller discussion of the work of Single Taxers

in Ohio, see Lloyd Sponholtz, "The 1912 Constitutional Convention in Ohio: The Call-up and Non-

partisan Selection of Delegates," in this issue.

17. This discussion of the Bellamy movement is based on William F. Zornow's article, "Bellamy

Nationalism in Ohio 1891 to 1896," Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, LVIII (April

1949), 152-170; Arthur E. Morgan, Edward Bellamy (New York, 1944), 248, 276-277; Appletons'Annual

Cyclopaedia, 1894, 627; Ohio State Journal (Columbus), August 8, 16, 18, 1894.

• 8
 

pleas for Federal work projects to relieve the unemployment. Coxey's home town of Massillon, Ohio, was the starting point of the demonstration, but many partici- pants were from Cleveland and Chicago, and workingmen were added to the group along the way. In desperation men joined "The Commonweal of Christ." This was the name adopted by Carl Browne, one of the leaders, who fostered a religious aspect in the movement. One observer noted, nevertheless, that their minds were "unfortunately, fast grounded on socialism." It is likely that many of the discour- aged marchers returned home only to become associated with more radical ele- ments. Coxey, however, turned to the Populists for support and was run for gover- nor in 1895, receiving 50,000 votes. His early radicalism evidently did not leave an indelible mark on him, for in 1932, while mayor of Massillon, Coxey polled 75,000 votes in the Republican presidential preference primary.18 Another movement responding to the economic and social problems in Ohio was Christian socialism. This effort represented the new liberal tendencies in theology, 18. Donald L. McMurry, Coxey's Army: A Study of the Industrial Army Movement of 1894 (Boston, 1929), 32-53; Roseboom and Weisenburger, A History of Ohio, 248. See also Osman C. Hooper, "The Coxey Movement in Ohio," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, IX (1901), 155-176.

• 9
 

the basic concern for social justice, the influence of political economists, as well as the response to charges made against religion by Socialists, labor leaders, and others. Organized Christianity was said to be unconcerned with the many social ills bred by the industrial revolution in America. Leaders of the Social Gospel took up this challenge and tried to stem the tide of individualism which long had dominated Christian thinking. These leaders placed emphasis on the salvation of society in addition to that of individuals.19 Among the foremost exponents of the Social Gospel was Washington Gladden, pastor in Columbus from 1882 until his death in 1918. An indefatigable leader in the movement to keep Christianity a dynamic force in a changing industrial society, he took the offensive and questioned the premises of the Socialists and other re- formers. He attempted to show that the great problem of society was the proper relationship of man to his fellow-man; that man's relation to persons is deeper and diviner than his relation to things. Gladden appreciated the plight of the common man and did much to organize charity for relief of the suffering. The capitalist class 19. James Dombrowski, The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America (New York, 1936), 3-13.

• 10
 

was told to recognize the good sense in helping labor to become prosperous so that everyone would benefit, and the urban dwellers were told that responsibility for good city government was theirs--they could not expect to receive benefits while they ignored their obligations. Gladden probably went further than most of his colleagues in his tolerant attitude toward Socialism; he held that "It is not wise to denounce Socialism and Socialists hotly and by wholesale, as so many do; it is much better to try to understand what they have to say and to discern the truth which is mingled with what we may admit to be their errors and exaggerations."20 Churchmen of many denominations participated in the Christian socialist move- ment in one degree or another, speaking out for reform or giving direct comfort to the unfortunate groups in society. During the 1890's an increasing number of theo- logical seminaries conducted special lecture courses on the relationship of the church to social problems. One such conference in 1894 on the subject, "Causes and Pro- posed Remedies for Poverty," was held at Oberlin College, sponsored by the Ameri- can Institute of Christian Sociology. This seminar was exceptional in that Socialist 20. Washington Gladden, Christianity and Socialism (New York, 1905), 51-53, 140, 230-231, 241-244. Gladden was well regarded in some Socialist papers; see The Socialist (Columbus), January 21, 1911.

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204                                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

Thomas J. Morgan, labor leader Samuel Gompers, and Rev. Washington Gladden

were asked to be speakers stating their own cases. Professor John R. Commons,

the institute's secretary, was on the faculty of Oberlin and was partly responsible

for that institution's leadership in the teaching of social Christianity.²¹

In the period 1899-1914, Ohio rose from eighth to third in the nation in the in-

crease of number of wage earners.²² This factor, when taken into consideration with

other conditions previously mentioned, helps to account for the growth of the Social-

ist party during this period. Ohio ranked third nationally in total Socialist vote in

1904 and was first by 1910. Lucas and Montgomery counties began to return rela-

tively more Socialist votes by 1900, ahead of the Prohibition party, with both coun-

ties surpassing the Franklin County Socialist vote that year. Candidates for president

that year were William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, and Eugene V. Debs.23

Indicative of growing Socialist influence was the expansion of the Socialist press.

Not only did additional newspapers appear but there was also a concerted attempt

to coordinate the journalistic efforts of foreign-speaking and English-speaking sec-

tions of the party. This question of coordination, of course, was part of the larger

problem of over-all cooperation and consistency between language groups in the

movement. It was estimated at one time that many foreign language sections of

the Socialist party in Cleveland were practically isolated from the main units; they

were so much in ignorance and behind the times that some of them still circulated

literature against feudalistic institutions and called for separation of Church and

State.24

Socialist party sections were organized throughout Ohio during the first decade

of the twentieth century. Some of these groups in small hamlets such as Rawson,

Roseville, Aurora, and Alpha had only half a dozen members, but all contributed

to the movement. Nor was membership a simple automatic procedure. An applica-

tion had to be filed; the applicant had to endorse without qualification the prin-

ciples of Socialism; he had to be supported by a party member; and the prospective

member was then examined by a committee. The party was specific in expressing

its determination not to accept for membership anyone who was an "old ward-

heeler type." It was claimed that such elements "could not break into the Socialist

party with an ax." An incomplete breakdown of the delegates who made up the

1910 Ohio state convention of the Socialist party showed the following backgrounds

represented:

Capitalists and small businessmen                                                   8

Professional men                                                                            11

Wage workers                                                                                 115

Farmers                                                                                          11

Also noteworthy was the fact that 113 representatives were native born and only

seventeen foreign born, giving clear indication of the success of the party's "Ameri-

canization" process.25

In the drive to make Socialism appeal to native-born Ohioans, the party organized

21. Dombrowski, Christian Socialism, 72.

22. United States Bureau of the Census, The Growth of Manufactures 1899-1923, Census Monographs

VIII (1928), 84.

23. Socialist, April 13, 1912; Ohio, Annual Report of the Secretary of State, 1900, pp. 188-189.

24. Socialist Party, Proceedings of the National Convention . . . Indianapolis, Indiana, May 12-18,

1912 (Chicago, 1912), 86.

25. Socialist, February 10, 17, March 2, 1912. Forty-nine of the workers were labor union members.

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Responses to Capitalism                                                   205

 

programs similar to those sponsored by many middle-class organizations. In Colum-

bus there was a Socialist Dramatic Club, a Glee Club, and a Young People's Social-

ist League. Annual outings held in Olentangy Park attracted as many as 20,000

Socialists, their families and friends from all over the state. They were urged to

come and see the balloon ascensions and, by congregating in large numbers, also

to "strike terror to [the] hearts of plutes." In Mansfield, the party members occu-

pied themselves with the distribution of leaflets and campaign literature, the mail-

ing of a party paper, the maintenance of a Socialist library, and the arrangements

for lectures and speeches.²⁶ These activities probably represented the largest share

of the work done by the general membership in the state. Thus it seems that be-

cause of the need to appeal to the predominately bourgeois values of the American

working class, a type of "respectable" radicalism was evolving which could attract

a wider following than could the parties of the 1880's which were commonly asso-

ciated with the lunatic fringe.

Lectures were regular affairs in major Ohio Socialist centers. In Columbus the

"Chicago Daily Socialist Lyceum Course and Lectures" were offered. These com-

prised a series of evening talks and discussions which were crowned on the final

night with a concert by the Socialist Quartette Concert Company. Speakers were

invited to tour the state, and such figures as Big Bill Haywood, Ella Reeve Bloor,

Eugene Debs, and Victor Berger made appearances at various times and places in

Ohio. When the first-mentioned speaker arrived he was heralded by the following

notices in the Columbus Socialist:

 

Come and Hear the Radical Speaker

of the Industrial Fight. He Talks

Common, Everyday, United States Language.

If you are Timid or Middle Class,

you had Best Beware for He will Jar You.²⁷

Haywood, the indefatigable organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World,

evidently was a great drawing card, providing a vicarious thrill to those who liked

to hear someone utter radical phrases they could not bring themselves to express

in public.

The colleges and universities in the state were not neglected. Socialist speakers

addressed the students at Ohio State University on several occassions. In 1911,

"Comrade" Frank Bohn, as associate editor of the International Socialist Review,

spoke in the university chapel under the auspices of the school's Socialist Club.

Another Socialist spoke to "a goodly number" on the Columbus campus and

described how the American workingman was being exploited by the "money

power." Also, an Intercollegiate Socialist Society, composed of representatives from

many schools across the country, had clubs at Ohio Northern and Ohio Wesleyan.28

The Socialist party press broadcast official views, continually disseminated propa-

ganda, and spoke out on local issues. Taking the Columbus Socialist as an example

of expressed opinion, one can ascertain how the party stood on important questions

of the time. Organized charity was termed a "fake"; the workers, it was said, wanted

justice not charity. The contract system for prison labor was a major object of

26. Ibid., May 27, 1911; February 17, 1912.

27. Ibid., January 14, 1911; April 6, 1912.

28. Ohio State Lantern, October 11, 1911; Socialist, April 6, March 16, 1912.

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Socialist ire in this period and was termed an abusive practice by which the state made millionaires. Southern anti-Negro legislation was attacked by Socialists, as were matters such as poor slaughtering inspection and bad streetcar service. Party support was voiced for the eight-hour day for women. Daily fare in a Socialist paper, of course, was a diatribe against the capitalists and monopolists in general, or certain employers and "slave drivers" in particular. Then, too, the capitalist press was usually taken to task for its poor coverage of Socialist activities.29 All this effort paid dividends, for some startling results were achieved by the Socialist party in 1910. In the race for governor with Judson Harmon and Warren G. Harding the leading Democratic and Republican contenders, the Ohio Socialists doubled their vote of 1908 and became the major Socialist state in the nation with 62,356 votes, followed by Pennsylvania with 59,630, Illinois with 49,896, and New York with 48,982. In 1911 Socialists were elected to city council posts in Columbus and to mayoralties in St. Marys, Salem, Cuyahoga Falls, Barberton, Lorian, Martins Ferry, Canton, Mt. Vernon, Fostoria, Toronto (Jefferson County), and Lima. In 1910 Columbus registered a Socialist vote more than twelve times that of 1908 and larger than that of Cleveland and Cincinnati combined. The victory in Columbus in 1911 was due to several factors. There had been serious labor disturbances in the city during 1909 and 1910. The most important was the streetcar strike during the latter year which occupied center stage for three months. The transit authority (Columbus Railway and Light Company) refused to recognize the employees' union and discharged some of its members for reasons interpreted by the union as retalia- tory. When initial attempts at arbitration threatened to break down, Republican 29. Ibid., March 4, February 18, 1911; December 24, 31, 1910.

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Responses to Capitalism                                                    207

 

Governor Harmon readied the militia in anticipation of trouble. Troops eventually

camped in several parts of the city, despite the mayor's assurances that he could

control the situation without soldiers.30

In typical fashion for the time, strike-breakers were imported by the company,

and before the regular car operators walked out they were ordered to teach these

"scabs" their jobs. Union men protested that they had to train workmen who

"cursed unionism and bragged of successful strikebreaking" elsewhere. Even the

police were shocked at the apparent injustice of the company's stand, and about

fifty of their number mutinied, refusing to obey commands to guard streetcars.

Columbus was exposed to numerous incidents of violence during this bitter con-

frontation as cars and carbarns were dynamited and troops, deputies, and detectives

clashed with strikers. Organized labor further was enraged by a judicial order halt-

ing picketing and the distribution of union leaflets against the company. Eventually

the workers gave in but enjoyed no concessions from their employers. Many men

were not rehired. It seemed that all authority was against the working class. The

Governor, the courts, the Chamber of Commerce--all were held to be in collusion

with capitalist management. A Socialist candidate for Congress suggested that the

people could expect nothing else; the company owned the line and could control

it any way it saw fit. The only solution, he declared, was public ownership. The

strike understandably was the prominent issue with the blue-collar groups of cen-

tral Ohio by election time.31

Also significant in explaining Socialist gains is the fact that Columbus won spe-

cial attention from party organizers. Hoping to exploit a favorable situation, Emil

Ruthenberg, the state leader of the Socialist party, brought Ella Reeve Bloor, a

highly dedicated and experienced Socialist, to Columbus for an all-out organizing

campaign in Ohio. Much work was done in the capital itself, as the party claimed

that thirteen branches held weekly meetings before the election. Mrs. Bloor's efforts

in other parts of the state seem to have been crowned with some success, but none

more than in her Columbus headquarters.³²

Eventually new troubles for Socialism loomed on the horizon. Ohio's fourth

constitutional convention in 1912 paved the way for important reforms in the

state, many of which had been championed by Socialists. A Democratic adminis-

tration led by Governor James M. Cox took over the reins of government in 1912

and proceeded to enact some of these reforms into law. It was a new era in con-

structive legislation. Labor benefited by laws regulating child labor, restricting cate-

gories of work demanding more than an eight hour day and setting up precautions

against occupational hazards. These and other reforms understandably took some

of the wind out of the Socialists' sails. The Ohio Socialist party continued to have

successes in 1912, but its 90,144 out of a total of 1,037,094 votes that year marked

the peak. In 1913 the Socialist party began to lose ground nationally, and in the

following year the Ohio unit had only 51,000 supporters at the polls. The "golden

age" of American Socialism was at an end.³³

External factors, such as the general progressive movement, the brief rise of

Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive party, and the appeal of President Wilson and

 

 

30. Ibid., November 11, 1911; April 13, 1912; Ohio, Annual Report of the Secretary of State, 1910,

pp. 268, 290, 311; Ohio State Journal, June 21, June 29, July 3, July 4, 1910; see also, Ella Reeve Bloor,

We Are Many (New York, 1940), 95.

31. Ohio State Journal, July 30, August 14, 30, 1910.

32. Ibid., September 16, 1910; Bloor, We Are Many, 96.

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208                                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

his policies, while certainly contributing markedly to the decline of socialist strength,

nevertheless do not in themselves sufficiently explain this phenomenon. Party fac-

tionalism had become extremely disruptive and must further account for the Social-

ist party's changing fortunes. A key party convention took place in 1912 at which

a major split occurred. Elements opposed to violence passed a resolution outlawing

acts of sabotage as a means for achieving Socialist ends. This resolution was aimed

directly at the syndicalists in the movement. The pacifist element then proceeded

to force the leading syndicalist, Bill Haywood, to resign from the national executive

committee. This resulted in the latter deserting the party along with many left wing

sympathizers. Such a purge, however, did not end factionalism. The non-syndicalist

radicals who remained in the organization, though opposed to violence, were none-

theless political actionists who continued to fight the gradualism of the more con-

servative group then controlling the party. These currents clearly were felt in Ohio,

where the state organization took the initiative in striking out at the national leader-

ship. Bitter divisions bred in these circumstances were not to be easily nor quickly

healed.³⁴

In review it can be seen that radicalism in Ohio in its various forms was not a

dominant force in Ohio history during the period discussed here, but it had a

definite influence on the ultimate course of events. As a response to the shortcom-

ings of the prevailing capitalistic system, its many-headed presence helped make

people more aware of the need for economic and social reform, even though the

system itself was modified only slightly.

 

33. Ohio, Annual Report of the Secretary of State, 1914, pp. 259-261. For an account of the reform

legislation enacted 1912-1917, see John D. Buenker, "Cleveland's New Stock Lawmakers and Progres-

sive Reform, Ohio History, LXXVIII (Spring 1969), 116-137.

34. Bell, "Marxian Socialism," I, 292; David A. Shannon, Socialist Party of America: A History

(New York, 1955), 76-80. See also Kipnis, American Socialist Movement, Chapter 18, for a somewhat

different interpretation of these events. There was great dissension within Socialist ranks over the posi-

tion to be taken on the European war, and when the United States entered the conflict, Socialists were

often persecuted for their opposition to the war and America's part in it. See Richard A. Folk, "Social-

ist Party of Ohio--War and Free Speech," Ohio History, LXXVIII (Spring 1969), 104-115.

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