examining the public and private life of the women who filled the position of first lady and her influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama. sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. week, american history tv sits in on a lecture with one of the nation's college professors. you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern and sundays at 1:00 p.m.. this week, columbia university history professor eric foner discusses the rise of socialism in america in the 21st century. professor foner discusses the socialist party in new york city and milwaukee and the campaigns of eugene debs. this class is one hour and 10 minutes. prof. foner: this is called the

american radical tradition. we started with the american revolution and have been going through the abolitionist movement, early feminism, the civil war reconstruction, labor conflict in the gilded age, the populist movement, now we are entering into the 20th century. in the next couple of weeks, we will look at the progressive era, a period of a lot of labor unrest, industrial workers of the world, the women's suffrage movement coming to the fore, municipal reform, many other things. but today, our subject is the socialist party. the rise of socialism as a key element of american radicalism in the early 20th century. on a reading list, the chapter by michael casing gives a good quick summary of this moment in the various kinds of socialism at that time. onward, thereeast

had been some kind of socialist presence in the u.s. but largely confined to immigrants from europe, particularly germans, english. the emergence of a mass socialist movement with a base in the political -- the u.s. political system follows the final flowering of the 19th century radical tradition and the defeat of the populist party in the 1890's. the inheritors of 19th century radicalism were forced to kind of think about new ways of confronting the problems and inequities of the rapidly changing industrial society of that's time. -- of that time. it is often said by those who write about the history of socialism that american social -- american socialism was particularly on theoretical, --

untheoretical. very few americans produced theoretical works about this. many more socialists here were influenced by their experience in populism. or just the experience of the labor movement, then reading sarl mark -- karl marx's dad capital. by the 20th century, all socialism, in some way or another, derived from the thinking and writing of karl marx, although introverted in very different ways. -- although interpreted in very different ways. one could give a whole course on karl marx, which is what i'm not going to do. ist people learned from marx that history is the history of class struggle. that is the driving force of history. he claimed that under capitalism, societies being divided inexorably into two

classes, the working-class, or proletariat, and divorce was the -- the bourgeosie, the owning class. production is concentrated in fewer hands, giant corporations. the gap between, what i guess today, they call the 1% in the 99%, the gap between the very rich and everyone else would inevitably get wider and wider. some of this resonates, of course, to the present day. 30 years of the administrations of ronald reagan and bush and clinton and bush and obama have done more to confirm marx's production of the rich getting richer and everyone else falling behind than 75 years of the soviet union. in marx waspealing t that at the time of this dominant free contract ideology,

which the supreme court and others were in fomenting -- were incrementing -- social darwinism, that the marketplace is a site where equal participants compete, the result is best for all. marx piereces through to the underpinning of the labor market and labor relations. he shows that it is based on inequality, exploitation, and wage earners not getting what they deserve. something that has, of course, being an idea floating among american radicalism for a long time. what was different is that he insisted capitalism was inevitably creating the instrument of its own destruction. that was what he called the proletariat, workers. whose coming self-awareness would lead them to seize power and change the whole system. not because they were any better than anyone else, but because the very nature of their social

existence made it inexorably pushed towards changing the whole system. they cannot abolish the room conditions of life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of present-day society. oddly in the year 2000 and soon after that, there was a flurry of rediscovery of karl marx. the new yorker, at the time of the millennium in 2000, published an article saying, "man of the 21st century: karl marx." why? because marx, among other things, is the profit of globalized capitalism. the man who saw through, that capitalism must expand to make itself a global system. unlike the previous american radicals, marx analyzes capitalism as a system, not as

bad individuals, not trusts corrupting the political system, not non-producers trying to conspire. the system itself has a logic which has to be understood. in a way, you can put marx, and many people do anything category of thinker as darwin. darwin tried to understand the underlying principles of the natural world. or freud, a little later, try to understand the underlying principles of the internal human mind. marx is trying to understand the underlying principles of the economic system, the economic world. the first principle is, as he says -- i will just read a couple since his from the communist manifesto -- from the communist manifesto. it is a political polemic, highly oversupplied. then waded through the 3

ultradense volumes of das k apital. what did they find when they turned to this manifesto? first they found that the relation -- that the revolutionary element in the world is capitalism. the bourgeosie cannot revolutionize without changing the instruments of production and with them the whole relations of society. conservation of the old modes of production in almost a form -- in on orchard -- in unaltered form. constant revolutionizing production, interrupted disturbance of all social conditions is what cap lysis the present world, he says. all frozen relations are swept away, all new form once become antiquated before they can ossify. the often quoted sentence, "all that is solid melts into air." that is our condition right now. all that is solid melts into air.

that is the essence of the system. the constant revolutionizing of everything. there is no nostalgia here. marx is not like earlier radicals trying to go back to a previous golden age. there is no previous golden age. the nature of life now is jus this constant change of everything. then, as i say, it's not a national system. the need for a constantly expanding market chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. it must nestle everywhere, several everywhere, establish connections everywhere. and itsgeoisie explication of the world market given a cosmopolitan character in every country. national industry is destroyed, he says. this is 1848. national industry destroyed? it's just getting going. today, that is what is happening. national industries destroyed. by the inexorable forces of globalization. more than 150 years later.

all established national industries have been destroyed or are merely being destroyed. new wants, requiring a satisfaction the products of distant lands and climbs. national one sightedness becomes more and more impossible. in other words, this is a global system, a global world, a global interchange. and that's good. this is not a critique. that is good. that is part of the progress of history because capitalism is creating the conditions in which a humane life is possible. it is overcoming the barriers of nature and population to massive production. the possibility for an equal or fair distribution of wealth around the world is for the first time created by advanced capitalism. many people read the communist manifesto are very surprised

that most of it is praising capitalism for sweeping away all these old systems that are an obstacle to progress. marx -- many of the people that follow marx thought of him as scientific. later on its called scientific socialism, because he tried to understand the system. there are very few protections in marx. -- very few predictions in marx. much of his writing is analytical, not predictive. even though there is a teleology, i mean history is moving in a certain direction, it's not inevitable by any means. although later, readers would see it as an annex will progress to a predetermined end. -- and inexorable progress to a predetermined end. john swinton, a labor journalist, went to england and interviewed marx. he asked marx, what do you see for the future?

and marx answered, thought for a minute, and answered in one word -- struggle. the future will see struggle. he didn't say the end of that struggle is inevitable. he didn't say what that struggle is going to lead to. as we will see in a minute, many people saw in marxism a way of predicting the future, which i think is not the essence of what he is talking about. the point is the whole analysis suggested that once you marry the productive capacity, the radical productive capacity of socialism to a more equitable distribution, and a more democratic control of the economy, it's a utopian world. it's like bellamy, his utopian world of equality. socialism appealed to people on an ethical level as much is on an analytical level. it was an unbounded dream.

the italian socialist said, all children will grow up to be galileo'under socialism. marx had shown, according to people that followed him, that it was inevitable in a way. not exactly inevitable but the process of history working in that direction. ultimately, especially the u.s., the ultimate appeal of socialism is ethical, moral as much as analytical and economic. eugene debs -- capitalism, said debs is simply wrong. the vast inequality is simply wrong. it's a kind of christian underlying notion of morality beneath the sort of scientific analysis. anyway, in the 1890's -- we

mentioned this last time -- the main expression of socialism in the u.s. was a tiny socialist labor party, headed by daniel de leon. de leon, a very strange and difficult guy, was one of the first to think in the u.s. of some of the modern problems of radicalism. the rise of mass culture. what does that mean for alternatives? already you are getting mass newspapers and magazines and things like that. what should radicals do in a society where a certain dominant culture -- this goes back to goodwin -- is permeating the society? he concluded the way to do that is to form and uncover my singly -- uncover my thing -- uncompromisingly radical party that would work with radical unions to mobilize workers, to get them to think in a radical way. not a new idea.

but he also concluded that the entire labor movement was basically an obstacle to this. particularly the american federation of labor, which he said was dominated by "labor fakers" and that the immediate role of socialism was to destroy the existing labor movement and create new radical unions. you can imagine that the existing unions were not too happy with the notion that the role of socialism was first to destroy their units. some of them had joined the socialist labour party in the 1890's. then they said, wait a minute, why is my political party trying to destroy the union i am working with? many of them left rather quickly. de leon, as i say, his views actually would influence the industrial workers of the world, which attempted to mobilize those mask productive -- those mass productive workers.

when the socialist party of 1,erica is founded in 19091, de leon and his group are the socialist that remain outside of this group. so who does come together in 1901 to form this umbrella group called the socialist party of america? a conglomeration of people. after the defeat of ryan in , some followers of eugene debs and others formed the group called the brotherhood of the cooperative commonwealth. they wanted to move en masse to some western state with limited population and basically take over the state by people moving in. they thought about planned colonies in the state of washington or something. it didn't get anywhere, but i

was the old unitarian egos. -- ethos. the brotherhood of the commonwealth is part of this socialist party. many people who were disaffected by the failure of populism, q uite a few labor unions, the american really a union of debs -- american railroad union of debs. under this umbrella they formed the socialist party of america. very small group. within a decade or so, up to world war i -- this is really the point -- between 1901 and world war i, which bricks out in 1914, -- which breaks out in 1914. socialism grows to become a significant part of the political discourse in the united states. a facottor in american life.

not a majority by any means. but not a fringe, sectarian group, as it would later become. the first thing we have to do to think about this is to remember my admonition, which i mentioned before, to read history forward, not backward. you cannot understand the socialist party of the pre-world war i. -- people who want period -- pre world war i period without forgetting about the russian revolution, the cold war, and many other things that will happen in the history of socialism, then communism, which will split socialism into sectarian groups, which will discredit it in many ways. but nobody knows that is coming in the period 1901-1914. socialismy,, to the extent that it exists at all in our political discourse, is just an all-purpose term of abuse,

rigfhht? you hear on tv, obama is a socialist. what did the people who say that mean? they don't either a stand obama or socialism. it's just a way of saying i don't like obama. i don't like to think that he is done, that thing he's done, there enough. but to: a socialist is absurd. -- to call him a socialist is absurd. we have to go back before that, before all these events of the 20th century to understand his context. it is difficult to do because the historical literature doesn't help us all that much. which isistorians, majority, think socialism is really irrelevant, because the real story is the rise of 20th century liberalism, with woodrow wilson through the new deal of fdr to the great society.

that is the trajectory, and socialism is just irrelevant next to that. on the other hand, communist historians who wrote in the 1930's and 50's saw the socialist party as lacking in revolutionary fervor. it seemed kind of moderate and mild compared to the radicalism of communists later on. they did not think much of it either. the fact is that a broadly based socialist movement did exist in america in the two decades coming up to world war i. at the height of their influence, the socialist party dues-paying members. today to be a part of a political party, you just have to vote in the primary. but they had dues. there were hundreds of socialist's papers scattered across the country. nearly --912, told

got nearly one million votes running for president in the four-way presidential election of 1912. more than 1000 public officials were elected by the socialist party, from places like ridge port, connecticut to milwaukee. congressman from new york. -congressmen from new york. in industrial areas, but also in the west. local socialist legislators, mayors, etc. when the american federation of labor had their annual meeting, at least 1/3 of the unions were headed by people who call themselves socialists of one kind or another. moreover, the socialist party was not a narrow fringe. it was a kind of umbrella, in which many people passed or took part, who were connected to major movements of the time. women's suffrage, for example, connected to the socialist party

in some ways. municipal reform. labor legislation of this era. demands for public ownership of utilities like streetcar lines and gasworks. in other words, it was a broad, amorphous all-encompassing party. many leading figures at the time either work in it were connected to it, or sympathetic in some way or another. the idea of socialism was a rather vague idea too many people, but it was part of the political discourse. party had many diverse elements. there was often tension between them. site -- often it is described as left versus right, radical versus reformer, within the socialist party. what held the party together, what did they have in common? one central thread, which takes us back into the radical

tradition of the 19th entry, with a faith in education as the way to build a mass socialist movement. marx wrote of socialism in the communist manifesto as a revolutionary doctrine. a doctrine of revolution. but american socialist were not revolutionaries, although had some revolutionary r hetoric. the way social change would come is like education, convincing people. you could convince people to be socialists by talking to them, by giving them things to read, etc. as long as you did it in the language of american society, not in this european jargon, as many socialists said. a leading socialist writer at aretime says, "too long socialist writings up by the application of a german metaphysics to english economic

theory with a french vocabulary." " the great task of socialist writers in the next two years is to interpret american experience in a language and style which will appeal to the american people." in a straightforward, common sense, non-theoretical, non-european language. and this writer himself tries to do this in not hundreds of thing -- not uninteresting works of american history. in 1905, he publishes first socialist history of the u.s., called "class struggles in american history." it's written in a very popular manner. it's essentially, in a way, borrowed from frederick jackson turner, who had developed the frontier thesis. in the 1890's. american history starting in a very democratic mode. then the rise of corporations,

greater inequality, leading up to a socialist movement. that is his effort to bring socialism into people in that language. the notion of education is broader than that. and we should understand this, being in a great university like this. heirsts saw themselves as of the western tradition. this is hard to understand when people seek socialist ideas as alien. they were the heirs of the enlightenment, they felt. the heirs of the western tradition. socialism was part of legacy of the enlightenment. the rational, the effort to analyze society rationally. and to understand it and to try to improve it. 1980's, one of these french movies, i can't remember the name.

a bunch of guys sitting around talking for two hours. that's it, that's the movie. low-budget, but still. i kind of like his movies. -- these movies. this was about the so-called new philosophers at the time. one was asked in his movie by the narrator, do you think that marx is dead? his answer, i thought was interesting. it marks is dead, that means shakespeare is dead, einstein is dead, and i'm not feeling all that well myself. in other words, this is part of an intellectual heritage. it doesn't mean you have to accept it or not accepted, but you have to know it. you have to find out what it is. and indeed, the socialist pressed, even though were talking about americanizing it, published articles not only about pompeii and other radicals, but about aristotle, about plato. education of workers is a

general education. tv, i won't even comment on the notion floating around in our political discourse that people don't really need to go to college and learn anything. believe we did need to learn. even ordinary workers how to write to learn. -- have a right to learn. high culture. they believed in high culture, not popular culture. culture, to them, was high culture. we are getting now to the point where my own family history begins to intersect with the rest of history. i once asked my mother, who grew up in this world of new york city socialism about the yiddish theater. she came from a socialist family in russia. they didn't even go to the yiddish theater as a kid. no, we went to see shakespeare.

we don't want to go to the yiddish theater. shakespeare was actually done in yiddish in some of those theaters. but the notion of high culture, that this is part of what people are entitled to. it can be rather condescending toward others, the socialists didn't have much interest in other expressions, like african-american culture, which was a thriving narrative product of our society. it was more this higher enlightenment version of civilization. study, to them, insisted that what marks suggested -- what marx suggested was happening. monopolies and corporations were consolidating. working-class life was pretty bad in the 20th century. socialism was coming. that was the study. when, exactly how, they didn't know. all these socialists held that view of education and progress

with a capital p. the differences in the socialist party are sometimes described as left versus right, or maybe it is more political action versus other action. in a way, the same debate that took among the abolitionists. have you operate to change society? do you work within the system, or immediate reform? or do you try to make a standard of radical reform, and not accept compromise? what is the relationship tween immediate change and long-term goals? nobody has ever really solve this. they all debated it. the problem in the u.s. is exacerbated by the fact that the official labor movement, the american federation of labor, is becoming more and more conservative at this time. if you believe that the working-class is the agent of change, well, have you deal with

a conservative labor movement? q just try to destroy it like deo leon said, work with it in some way, or try to build another labor movement, like the iww does? the more moderate socialists wanted to make socialism ofevant to the everyday life ordinary people by stressing immediate reforms. the socialist party platform, 1904, 1908, 1912 fudge this form -- for immediate reforms and radical change. the socialist platform includes issues like public ownership of the railroads, free university education, not a bad idea. aid to the unemployed.

more say on how the government operates. and they said the class struggle is irreconcilable and the ultimate aim is to transform society, get rid of capitalism and have a socialist society in which the means of production are controlled by a democratic state. the more conservative, the so-called right-wing socialists, were you might say evolutionists. like a bellamy, it would just happen. you can read marx to say we do not have to do much. capitalism is evolving in this direction, let's wait for it to happen. -- the process area note bleon mobil -- exonera example. the trick is to help it along. this is what kaisen talks about.

evolvingn of history in a particular known direction. now, the so-called moderate or right-wing socialists, the two centers were new york city and milwaukee. since we're here in new york city, let's look at the great socialist culture that emerged i new york city in world war era. centered in german and particular jewish immigrants, immigrants from the czarist empire who came in larger numbers in the 1890's and early 20th century. the foundation of jewish socialism was the super exploitation other jewish working class. womenrment workers, workers in factories in the sweatshops. the leaders were professional oudein,like louie b

writers. the leaders were quite familiar with marx and studied him and interpret him to mean a revolution does not just come about but a slow process. and at goal is to propagate socialist ideas and run socialist candidates for office isn't the way you educate people. run candidates for office. awonderful cartoon from yiddish newspaper of that time. here is karl marx kind of as moses, right? leading the children of israel into the promised land with socialism. you are absorbing marx into this jewish heritage, right? somewhat brought over from russia in hebrew. you know, in the yiddish language. there is marx leading the people

to the promised land. and, new york city is a time ,ere, in new york city as i say i will give you one other picture here. the workers, the working women -- here are women at a sweatshop, ok? i am not sure the year. a lot of migrant women, a lot of at how you women producing clothing -- italian women reducing clothing for tiny wages -- producing clothing for tiny wages. of socialiste organizations and the labor movement. the garment workers union and others. the lower east side, that is 1920, soin every year many immigrants living in

manhattan, the population density of manhattan was greater than the city of calcutta and india. almost three times as many people living on manhattan island and 10 then there are now. -- then then there are now. packed densely mostly into the working-class districts way downtown. london was elected to congress in 1914. london, another guy, speaking the language of socialism in the american tradition. partiesdon, just as the preceded the civil war, how much of the abolitionist shaped this thinking of later radical spring just as the numerous parties preceded the civil war had the slavery as its issue, parties

today dividing the issue of whether the industrial oligarchy should survive and democracy parish or the republic will survive and wage slavery will perish. it is the abolitionist movement of the 20th century. great quote for you the socialist movement is the abolitionist movement of the 20th century. the trajectory of american radicalism. in new york city, not only on the lower east side but also whichlle, upper east side was heavily german population at the time and even in other districts, a full, vibrant socialist counterculture developed. something like good when talked about-- goodwin talks based on massive labor unrest. the strikes a 20,000 women garment workers in 1919.

male cloak workers. and many other strikes in new york city which became outpourings of communities of community support. of 1916, the streetcar drivers went on strike in new york city. we had been crisscrossed with the streetcars before building the subway. the parade of striking streetcar workers from uptown yorkville like 86 and lexington down to union square, 14th street. as they left yorkville, relatives and friends cheered for two hours. great lines lined at madison. it reached the cloak of making district and a windows of the factories were black with workers. men ceased work on buildings to cheer as the carmen pastorally.

teamsters parked their cars and a policeman grand and manifested their pleasure. this was the era of constant parades in new york city. there were election parades, eight hour day parade, musical entertainment from around the world like france. there was a protest parade of over 100,000 people in 1911. after one of the great disasters the 100era, anniversary, the triangle fire. down in greenwich village where women, jewish and italian were killed when a fire broke out in the triangle shirtwaist factory which is on the top of the floors of an eight story building. this is a picture i like. it does not seem very dramatic. the fireoking up at

but these are the dead bodies of women who had leaked to avoid the flames and are now lying on the ground. leaped 8 stories. the latter's would only reach -- ladders would only reach to the 5th floor. it led to the first serious issue to regulate conditions of work. intoity and state moving beginning the process of actually trying to make sure safe working conditions and things like that. it's kind of galvanized the protest in new york city. the socialist party, an era of different -- no tv, no internet, no big campaign ads. people campaigned door-to-door and on street corners. the socialist party was adept at street corners speaking.

and a socialist press in new york, for example, the daily newspaper published commentary on different street corners. what should you sound the street corners? how do you spread the message? 96th and 2nd avenue, theoretical, marcus -- marxist speeches do not go down easily. keep it simple. then one irish neighborhood, they are talking about, religious discussions no matter how well conducted have no place in a propaganda meetings here. kill capitalism, like -- let the other fellow kill god. do not worry about that. do not get into religious controversies. one of the most popular streetcorner speakers in new york was a guy named gerald

fitzgibbons. is an account of him as a speaker. since gibbons -- fitzgibbons never used mysterious phrases. for one hour he was funny. much funnier than any vaudeville act. when he described how the rich lived, the audience nearly died laughing. when he described how the poor suffered, they laughed too. he will star with a working man getting up at dawn and a sloppy breakfast and the field the shop and has to lunch -- feel the lunch.nd the hasty kl 6 days of it said,er marx may have since gibbons knew his -- fitzgibbons knew his stuff.

when the audience was tired of laughing, he would shout, fools, how long will you stand this slavery? she explained the economics of capitalism. the trouble was the people who worked were robbed by the people of means and to let on the wealth produced by those who operated the means. what was the solution? abolish the system. turn the private organization over to the people. very simple. since gibbons was a very -- fitzgibbons was very popular. here in new york socialism was a movement that transcended the andsion between workplace public place and existed and the public as well is in the shop interest send it as boundaries -- transcended ethnic boundaries for some irish, fitzgibbons, not that many, many ethnic groups attracted to the socialist party.

terms, very important in internationalists, socialism is the first american radical movement that thinks of itself fully as part of an international movement. the abolitionist had that connection with england and transatlantic, no question. women's suffrage, back and forth. socialists were global in a sense. talked about the irish struggle for independence and talked about india and anti-colonialism and talked about russian revolution and what happened. they talked about the liberation czaristews in the empire. people they were part of a worldwide movement. they spoken american language but not an exceptionalism that said we are so superior to everybody we do not to think

about anything happening in other countries. and they did. bridging the gap between high culture and maybe a little culture. many writers were associated with the socialists, they had public event free isadora duncan -- event. -- isadora duncan. you would not have it today without isadora duncan. came to new york from california and gave benefit performances for the socialist party. they were at the cutting edge of culture. political you know, thought. there was even, believe it or not, a socialist persons at columbia university. an article from "the new york times" january 1911. shelters socialist, professor boyson is one.

here is what is said. a professor at columbia was lecturing some time ago the smaller new england colleges and made in the course of rooms marks radical observations. camef the other professors to discuss series with him. i would have been surprised to hear a college professor setting forth such ideas except you are from columbia. [laughter] prof. foner: we all know how radical columbia men are. no women at the time. the university is not radical, the president and trustees are perfectly prepared to stand in the old paths for an indefinite period. there are radicals. when eugene debs spoke on socialism before the students at columbia, the audience that wanted to hear him was so large that none of the university

halls were big enough. umm --all right. the other great center of what is called moderate right-wing, non-revolutionary was milwaukee. milwaukee, wisconsin. the leader there was a man named victor berger. born, a teacher, politician, newspaper editor who in the 1890's formed a social democratic society of milwaukee with close ties to the populist movement and trade union, american federation of trade unions in milwaukee. and brought his group into the socialist party in 1901. said socialist have to win the trade union, the skilled craft union. and local elections

offices and that's the way to get to socialism. run candidates for offices. into office,get you govern in a good way and when people's confidence. it is evolutionary process. we educate, he said. we enlighten and we reason. we also bring law, reason, discipline, and progress. socialism offers a way out of the conflict that is wrecking american society. berger disliked talk of revolution. do social democrats he said not expect success from a revolution. that is a riot. he sees revolution as an aimless riot. from a real revolution, the revolution of mind, you convince people. that is a revolution not just take it to the street, he said. the social democrats refused to break off the threat and when he

-- and anyone plays. a seamless web that does not just break as people advocating revolution says berger. arger offered socialism as way to prevent class conflict from degenerating as had happened in caesar's column, remember the great book of donnelly? socialism is the way to avoid that. and to have peaceful evolution to a better society. moreover, the concentration of industry was created the conditions. capitalism is doing the socialist work, bringing gomorrah more for production under fewer and fewer hands and eventually taking over -- bringing more and more hands for production under fewer hands for eventually taking over. it was all like the new york

socialist tied in with the women's movement. berger is a strict family man, witharchal, understanding the men, head of the family and the woman at home. he is rather racist and anti-black. timery few blacks at the but hughes races the language like any other -- but he can use racist language like any other politician at the time. milwaukee is the best example of municipal socialism, at the city level. the socialist could win control. slidell is elected for the socialist party. and they actually govern quite well. in fact, ironically, the credit rating of milwaukee rises under the socialist administration. unlike the main parties, they are not stealing everything. they are not corrupt and not a

political machine. if you law money to the socialist government, you're likely to get into that. people are impressed with his honesty. slidell is related not because everybody is a socialist but he ran in honest municipal government. he provides aid to the unemployed and arbitrate strikes refused to allow the police to intimidate strikers. they improved public health. very typical progressive era urban reform. try to get control of the chaotic situation of the new industrial cities in the socialist party as part of it in many cities. in new york, reading, pennsylvania, you can run down city after city, socialist administrations come to power and operate as progressive era reformers. other socialist say it is not good enough. a great journalist starting out

at the time as a writer, as a , if socialists is to make anything of political action, we have to distinguish ourselves from the progressives and at least cut the returns to properties. try to cut down on the profits of business. they tried to run a good, honest government based on the skilled unions, the nativeborn white. it is an old-fashioned kind of working-class, particularly german immigrants and their children which is governing in milwaukee. and in other cities. berger's position is what we call the left of the socialist party. like bill unionists haywood that say no, was socialist have to do is organize the unorganized workers. the unskilled workers, the

factory floor. the workers who are left out of the american federation of labor , skilled organizations. lift up the lowest ranks of labor. socialist, it is not just middle-class reformers. strongest, first of all, in places where socialism was weaker, no chance of winning elections. you may tend to gravitate to more ideologically pure and radical position. particularly in the west. haywood comes out of the west, mining regions of colorado, idaho, etc., some of the old populist regions. the center of the left wing so to speak of the socialist party. as a set of problems left a address are the unskilled workers, the new immigrants and

a new factory. problems thethe left have to workplace conflict, how to improve and increase changest commitment and society not a by electing people to office. again, strong and these mining areas. the timbre workers of places like washington and oregon. place were the class struggle was wrong, really -- raw, really raw in your face. pretty violent. timber workers often with bitter labor struggles. unlike in the east where workers , you might almost say made an accommodation with capitalism through the afl. debs when he ran for president got 1/3 of his vote east of the

mississippi. that is where the centers of more radical socialist work. the strongest was actually oklahoma. socialistociate with proclivities. that is where debs did the best. the populist tradition flows into the early socialist party, farm tendencies is extensive. oklahoma is sort of a segregated state but not part of the old confederacy. it does not have the weight of the civil war sitting on political alignment the way states like louisiana or georgia , making it difficult for any insurgency. 16%, 1/6 ine debs 1912. was popular among

the prisoners. the warden of the state penitentiary in oklahoma took a poll and the majority all the white prisoners voted for debs. the majority of the black prisoners still would've voted for the republican, the party of lincoln. leftther stronghold of the is in the states of montana, washington, idaho, nevada. all of the states debs got over 10% from mine workers in timber workers. these westerners were suspicious of what do they consider the respectability of eastern socialists like berger or the new york city socialists. in 1912, the national convention of the socialist party was held in indianapolis. a jewish delegate from new york, arranged to have

dinner with a group or oregonian delegates and i walked around looking for an appropriate restaurant. saw a place that looks nice and the oregonians said we are not going to the place with tablecloths. to bourgeois. they pick the place called the red devil. now for its cuisine but for its name that sounded kind of radical. ballot in the east, they thought to elect people, if you controlled municipal government, you could always prevent the police from used against strikes, etc. the western socialist this the victories in milwaukee as not really socialist in essence. finally, standing with one foot in each camp and is the only leader around whom the

socialists could unite nationally was eugene debs, the greatest of all the socialist leaders. here is debs addressing a very large crowd. he is way on the left. in chicago, chicago, yeah. i am not sure what part. debs speaking to a large crowd. symbol of both the class consciousness and the idealism of socialism. he came out of the american railroad union remember which has suffered the great deceit in 1894 of the national -- defeat in 1894 of the national because of the use of federal troops. both confronted devastating losses in the 1890's. nd holmstead and

debs. they drew 2 different conclusions. gompers that you have to make a deal and you cannot fight the system. debs went to war socialism. he became a socialist bouquet -- because the only way to the front the power the corporation was to use political power against them. the only countervailing power in society. use the power of the state to confront the power of the corporation. both of them in their own way reflected the exhaustion of the earlier types of radical -- radicalism. debs was a democrat, aging the democrat with a small "d." he was a leader in believed he was a leader.

he said i would not lead you to the promised land if i could because if i could lead you in, someone else can lead you out. movements are not made by leaders. change is not made by leaders. by mass organization, he said. he is willing to be the spokesman for that. debs is sort of suspicion for the american federation of union. we will see next time. he is a unifying factor in the socialist party. but he goes way beyond that. in his career, he literally spoke to millions of americans. he was beloved by far more socialistt voted green hughes quintessentially american. he came from indiana. -- that voter socialist. -- he was quintessentially

american. he told dialect jokes. he was beloved by the jewish immigrants of new york city and the prairie populist of kansas and nebraska and oklahoma. socialism was the social that socialism of heart and he was not be a radical. he just spoke the language of outrage against injustice. -- he was not theoretical. ,he drew on american language the declaration of independence, all men are created equal, and christian language. he himself is not a religious man at all but more of a reader of thomas pain. radicalism ofian jesus throwing the money out of the temples. the evil of riches.

and he opposed call of violence, sabotage. again he said it was to come through democratic means, organization. way tobe the best summarize him is through his great speech. for918 when he is jailed opposing american involvement in world war i. he can suspect -- famous speech at his sentencing where he says while there is a lower class, i am in it. while there is a criminal element, i am of it. while there is a soul in prison, i'm not free. he puts himself as the representative of the oppressed groups in american society. .ut debs is not a politician he is not really a politician and not interesting enough the battles within the socialist party. as a result of that, generally speaking, at the national party

level is not where the party operates, that the service more right-wing are in control. at the grassroots, always this battle. finally, one other element, rather obscure of the party called the foreign-language federations. immigrants who organized socialist federations in their own foreign -- in their own indigenous language. and suppose they do not speak english and they had their own newspapers, publications, and the other socialist had no idea of what they were saying or doing. you had tara reid finish to find out what the finish -- you had to read finnish to find out what the finnish were doing. a wild card group. i mentioned the finns because they were one of the most radical groups. midwest inpper

michigan and the mining areas, minnesota, wisconsin, the finns are a major part of the socialist movement. one might almost say that too big groups are new immigrants immigrants from the russian empire, jews and finns. people who fled the czarist empire are pretty wild up about things -- riled up about things. i once went to a paper at a conference given by a woman who grew up in a finnish radical family and she was talking about her mother who have been immigrants before world war i. , theyid they brought brought their radicalism with them. ambition for me was i would be the person

assassinated -- i would be the person who assassinated the star. if you want to do something useful, assassinate the czar. there also slavic federations, it's how you and federations, but that is up -- italian federations, but as a whole other group. ago, we are years entering now a presidential campaign, we are in it. it will last until november. 1912. the most momentous presidential campaigns in american history. remember the four-way campaign. very unusual in american politics. the only other time we have for credible candidates was 1860. you had president william howard taft representing the sort of mainstream republicans. ex-president theodore roosevelt running as the candidate of the

new progressive party. fromvelt had broken off the republican. he was on the grounds that have was under -- taft was undermining some of his reforms informed the progressive party. the progressive party platform of 1912 was well worth reading. the blueprint for 20th century liberalism. modern liberalism as the working out other progressive party platform of 1912 in some ways. some implemented in the new deal as some is a great society. health it like universal insurance still not implemented 100 years later. and there was woodrow wilson running as the democratic party candidate. also a progressive. every one of those three people claim to be part of the progressive movement and claim to have an answer to the inequalities of wealth and then there was eugene debs running as

the socialist candidate. win but a partto of the political campaign. in 1912, socialism appeared to the a rising force not only in the united states but elsewhere in germany, the social democratic party, the largest in the west, had almost a majority of the parliament. they seemed to them the verge of coming to power through electoral process in germany. democrats, the social were up around 40% of the vote in that district. in austria, 25%. britain, the labour party, had a socialist platform was a major factor in british politics. elected.wilson is theodore roosevelt comes in hadnd and taft and debs

over 6% of the total. not a tremendous amount but enough to be a factor in the election. in the same year, max hayes running as a socialist for president of the american federation of labor against 1/3 of theers gets vote annual convention. the largest weekly periodical in the nation is a socialist magazine called "the appeal to 700,000which had over subscribers. the "appeal to reason" i will show you something from it. it published all sorts of articles. wait, wait. here we go.

some of them. articles about socialism. by debs.t capitalism side-by-side with oddball ads. book "outen keller's of the dark." she was a socialist. socialist pennants. socialism movies. how to be successful -- so on. socialist watch at an antitrust price. you know. for stocks and medicine and medicines to cure the ills of wage slavery and things like that. a popular in kind of offbeat but serious magazine. their most popular columnist was a guy called warbling. on a bicycle travel

around the great plains and sold tor 100,000 subscriptions "the appeal to reason." it was only one of 300 socialist newspapers and magazines in that year. in new york city, the jewish daily forward in new york, a 00ddish magazine had 150,0 readers. another had 150,000 readers. the socialist party was not only concentrated among workers but as i say, small farmers, small towns. a few ethnic groups. some strong. even a few millionaires joined the socialist party. most prominently gaylord wilshire who after home wilshire boulevard in l.a. is named.

it attracted intellectuals like of 10 sinclair and jack london upton sinclair and jack london. many women suffrage activists. socialism is coming says "the in 1912. reason," socialism is coming. it is common like a prairie fire. nothing can stop it. the next three years will give the nation to the socialist party. this optimism. if you look more closely in 1912, you would see real serious weaknesses. the socialist party was not attracting the new immigrant working-class. the factory workers. the people transforming once again the nature of american work and working-class life. the working-class of being

remade by massive immigration but outside of new york city, most of the appeal is to old immigrants and not the new ones or middle-class or lower middle class farmers. the real challenge was how could they appeal to the new immigrant workers in the heart of american industry if they claim to be the party of workers? the time we will see how socialist party and industrial workers of the work -- world try to address this problem of how to organize the new industrial patella terry and. -- protalitarian. that is all for today. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer bank join of each saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight for a class of lectures across of the country on different topics. lectures in history are available as podcasts. visit our website at www.c-span.org/history/podcast. announcer: coming up next john brown university history professor preston jones on the growth and development of anchorage, alaska since its founding 100 years ago. this 50 minute program was hosted by the cook inlet historical society. [applause] professor jones: thank you very much. as you can see, i have images here and i will use them as we go and i will refer often to the images.