THE HOME FRONT
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN The Way We Have Come 1-% HIS CELEBRATION of Algernon Lee's 75th birthday has started all sorts of reminiscences and ruminations. Fifty-three years ago— that...
...I began to get a sort of bird's-eye view of the way we have come...
...It happens— and it did not just happen-that in the days of its growth and vitality, it was precisely in these two states that tiie Socialist Party was strong...
...So the Socialist Party has not failed—and your life has been a great success...
...In the course of the campaign tho dictatorial DeLeon dipped into the State of Minnesota to make a campaign speech in the town of Winona...
...The Democrats of New York and the Progressives of Wisconsin were ideologically and personally close to the Socialists...
...Democratic or Republican, have gradually accepted...
...The little hall was practically filled by some GO or 70 lumbermen...
...That was 53 years ago...
...A man named Charles H. Matchctt was running, considerably behind the field, fpr the presidency of the United States...
...But the speaker and the chairman were both struck by the fact that there was not one round of applause and not one expression of approval...
...They had been sent tliere to report...
...Louis Waldnian related how, in 1917, he and Algernon Lee had addressed a crowd of 5,000 people from the balcony of the very building in which we were talking and eating...
...And it was from the New Deal State of Now York that FDR went to Washington ti nationalize concepts which had been previously developed here...
...The idea of Socialism was represented in this country by the Socialist Y&bor Party, of which Daniel DoLeon was v e r y definitely and dynamically the leader...
...THE OTHER DAY I had the pleasure of attending a luncheon tendered to Algernon Lee by his friends...
...One after another the men rose and said, in substance, to Algernon Lee: "Socialism is not coming under the banner of the Socialist Party as we thought it would...
...There were enough Socialists in this town to hire a hall and announce a meeting, but...
...Now it happened that in New York and Wisconsin the Socialists were strong enough to elect delegations to the legislatures...
...Fifty-three years ago— that is in 189G—this man Lee was a tall, straight and slender student at the University of Minnesota...
...fellows were not standing up because they liked to stand up or because they couldn't find seats," reported the man, "they were the bosses from the mill...
...At the end of the meeting the men in the audience rose and quietly departed...
...Among us were several who could think back over 50 years or more...
...When he asked for an explanation, one of the sawmill hands replied: "Well, did you see those big fellows standing against the wall...
...From the beginning to the end of the rather long and theoretical address they sat quietly and gave close attention...
...Among them were a number of men who have played important parts in the development of the trade unions and of the Socialist movement...
...Lee had l>een elected to the City Council and Waldman to the State Legislature...
...It had its roots especially in two states, New York and Wisconsin...
...Any guy that spoke out of turn would have lost his job...
...But names dont matter...
...for reasons which will appear later, not one of them cared to serve as chairman of the occasion...
...Many New Yorkers, for example, would have been surprised to Learn how close were the relations between Al Smith and Senator Wagner on the one hand and Morris Hillquit and Meyer London on the other...
...THAT LUNCHEON which I mentioned was held in a little restaurant on Second Avenue...
...They thought—the crowd thought—that this was the beginning of great things for the Socialist movement...
...It is life that matters...
...The performance struck the young man from Minneapolis as strange...
...As these men related tlieir experiences, a picture began to form in my mind...
...And this was not all...
...Actually, of course, it began much earlier...
...But the good things for which we worked are coming...
...The abolition of child-labor, the protection of women, the provision of employers' liability, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, old-age care, equality of opportunity in jobs and in education, abolition of inequalities due to differences in race, nationality or color—¦ things like these tlie Socialists were working for back in the years from 1904 to 1917...
...From the beginning the Socialist Parly had in its platform most of the elements which went into the making of the New Deal and into the more hunume views of life which most Americans...
...It was five o'clock on the morning after election day that the votes were finally counted and, tired and happy, the successful candidates joined in tlie celebration with their supporters...
...Those...
...They come in various ways and under different names...
...I recall sitting for a long evening with William Carlin while he outlined for me the evolution of labor law in New York State...
...So tlie call went up to the university and the young student, Algernon Lee, went down to Winona to meet the fiery Daniel and to do the honors...
...It is customary to think of the NewDeal as beginning in 1933, when FDR came to the national scene...
...It is people that matter...
...Everyone, of course, had seen them...
...Beginning with the workmen's compensation acts, the program which later became identified with what we call the New Deal was spread on the statute books by Democratic legislators and governors, but with the panstaking help of Socialists and the trade unionists and social workers who were either Socialists or men and women full of Socialist ideas...
Vol. 32 • March 1949 • No. 13
