The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn The Passing of A Fighting Idealist Iwas deep in my vacation when a Times headline shocked me into the realization that the life of an old friend had come to its...
...Way off amid the relaxation of the New England coast, my thoughts were forced back to different scenes and interests centering on the life of Julius Gerber...
...In the famous Chicago convention, when the leftists were about to succeed in securing acceptance of Lenin's 21 points, he was the man who reorganized the delegates and threw the Communists out...
...He was one of the founders of Sheetmetal Workers Local 28 and became its business agent...
...But one cause of the party's weakness was the fact that it was practically a political party without politicians...
...This position he occupied until the division and virtual destruction of the organization in 1936...
...Getting a job as a sheet-metal worker, he soon became an expert at his trade...
...But the speeches he made were always addressed to committees or other party groups where actions were to be determined upon and programs carried out...
...THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn The Passing of A Fighting Idealist Iwas deep in my vacation when a Times headline shocked me into the realization that the life of an old friend had come to its end...
...I remember numerous Socialists of the old days who were magnificent characters...
...Even before the founding of the Socialist party in 1901, Julius Gerber was active in the Socialist movement of Brooklyn...
...There, surrounded by filing cases filled with membership cards and by pictures of party leaders from Gene Debs on down to local captains, he quietly and effectively kept his eye on what was happening in the most distant and unimportant precinct...
...No one whose connection with American Socialism is limited to recent years can imagine how lively that movement was in the years leading up to 1920...
...One of his sons said to me the other day: "Pop never asked anyone else to do anything that he wouldn't do himself...
...He insisted that party organizers know the people in their homes and see to it that they came out to register and vote...
...This quiet, gentle, patient organizer could, on occasion, exhibit physical courage and a talent for leadership...
...In 1836, when the flood of migration was at its height, Julius came to this country...
...He and Morris Hillquit were playfellows there in their boyhood...
...They would wear themselves out explaining Socialist principles to their neighbors, but they had no idea how to go about electing members of the Legislature or the City Council...
...When I think of the meetings which were held, the papers and magazines which were published, and the campaigns which were carried on, it seems impossible that so much activity should so quickly have come to an end...
...It was because he was different from most Socialists in this respect that Julius Gerber stands out in my memory...
...Members of his family tell with amusement how he became acquainted with old John D. Rockefeller while installing a heating apparatus in his home and spent long hours, for which the Rockefellers paid regular rates, in the discussion of economics and labor problems...
...The so-called Socialist party was more like a church than a party...
...Julius was born in Riga, Latvia in 1870...
...It is well that such men should be remembered...
...From roughly 1904 to 1920, the Socialist movement was really moving, and it was during these years that Julius played an important part in the trade-union movement and in the political life of New York...
...By 1904, he was party secretary for the City of New York...
...Among them were many men and women of talent and conspicuous position...
...In the days when both our ballots and our watchers used to be thrown out of the election places, he led the fighters and often risked a black eye or a bloody nose standing up for an honest count...
...He knew as much about the principles of the Socialist movement as the next party member...
...He knew the wards of the city as he knew his own back yard...
...People of all classes were joining in all parts of the country...
...He never harangued the public...
...In most parts of the country, it was not a party at all in the sense in which Democrats and Republicans use the word...
...Many of them were notable orators, fine writers, good economists and political theorists, but only here and there could you find a man with talent or taste for political activity...
...I think of him as he quietly went about his business in the Socialist offices on the top floor of the Rand School Building...
...The reasons for the disappearance of Socialism as a political power in America have been long and ponderously discussed and will be debated for years to come...
...In the early 1920s, when the fight against Communism fell- almost exclusively on the Socialist party, Julius Gerber was always in the forefront...
...The members would give their last cent and their last ounce of energy...
...He inspired and directed party workers...
...He was the sort of constructive labor leader who did this sort of thing...
...Later, along with leading employers in the business, he helped establish the Building Trades Arbitration Board...
...This quiet and serious-minded trade-union leader had passed away on July 16, and the Times had paid him honor in one of its rather wooden and stiffly official biographies...
Vol. 39 • August 1956 • No. 34
