Fifth Avenue is laid in gold, every mansion
a citadel of money and power.
You too have a right to share your neighbors'
bread, but they are sapping your blood.
They will go on robbing you, your children,
and your children's children unless you wake
up, unless you become daring enough to demand
your rights.
Demonstrate before the palaces of the rich.
Demand work.
If they do not give you work, demand bread.
If they deny you both, take bread.
It is your sacred right.
In 1893, the most dangerous woman in America
spoke those words to a packed crowd in New
York's Union Square.
She was promptly arrested.
Her name was Emma Goldman, but the city's
elite knew her as a triple threat: anarchist,
labor activist, and advocate for what we now
call reproductive rights.
Goldman was a prominent voice in America's
fast growing socialist movement, a genuine
radical celebrity at a time when much of the
culture was obsessed with its elite, the clever
captains of industry and their fashionable
heirs.
The years between the abolition of slavery
and the eruption of World War I saw the United
States become a world power.
The country's western territories, now flooded
with settlers connected by railroads and telegraph
lines, became states.
In 1898, the U.S. expanded its influence beyond
the continent, seizing Cuba and the Philippines
from Spain.
By 1913, America was responsible for one third
of the world's industrial output.
The Industrial Revolution saw the production
of steel become cheaper, transportation faster,
assembly lines more efficient.
These advantages would have been meaningless
without raw materials.
Fortunately for American industry, there was
an entire continent to exploit, thousands
of miles of territory to log, mine, dam, and
drill.
New cities sprang up, while the old expanded.
But the economy's demand for labor outpaced
even the growing numbers of Americans making
the transition from farming to factory work.
Immigrants, especially those from Eastern
and Southern Europe, arrived by the millions
to supplement the native workforce.
Sixty hour weeks and dangerous working conditions
were the status quo.
Panics and depressions, such as the Long Depression
of 1873 to 1879, wiped out savings for millions
and made employment increasingly unstable
at the same time that America's population
was exploding.
But the working class wasn't about to accept
this exploitation.
Socialists, communists, and anarchists of
the American tradition united with already
radicalized immigrants, who introduced new
ideas and strategies honed in Europe.
Emma Goldman, who
hailed from the former Russian Empire, was
one such immigrant.
Her fiery speech at Union Square had thirty
years of American labor organizing behind
it.
One of the most powerful unions of Goldman's
day was the Knights of Labor.
Formed in 1869, the group famously spearheaded
a successful strike against railroad tycoon
Jay Gould in 1885.
Emboldened workers took notice, and the Knights
expanded their membership to 700,000 in the
years following.
Meanwhile, an offshoot of the Knights called
The American Federation of Labor would become
one of the 20th century's largest industrial
unions.
Founded in 1905, the Industrial Workers of
the World were
distinctly more revolutionary and anti-capitalist
than the Knights or the AFL.
Tensions between moderate and radical factions
of the labor movement would continue and deepen
over the coming years.
Whether militant or moderate, the working
class was making demands, and America's elite
took notice.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 led to
the establishment of armories in major cities,
not for the defense of the public, but to
quickly deploy troops against striking men,
women, and even children on behalf of the
richest men in America.
In addition to using state power, capitalists
also turned to the market for solutions.
To meet their demands, a new industry was
born: professional strike-breaking.
For a price, mercenaries and private security
firms like the Pinkerton Detective Agency
promised a return to business as usual, by
any means necessary.
On May 1st, 1886, three hundred and fifty
thousand workers across
the country went on strike to demand an eight
hour workday.
The first three days passed
relatively peacefully, but on May 4th, a rally
at Chicago's Haymarket Square devolved into
a
bloody riot that made headlines coast to coast.
Accounts varied, but all agreed that someone
threw dynamite at a group of police, who responded
with gunfire.
At least eleven died.
Over one hundred were shot, maimed, beaten, or trampled.
Despite a lack of evidence, the authorities
charged eight prominent anarchists with carrying
out the attack.
Four were hanged, one committed suicide in
prison, and the rest had their sentences commuted
in 1893.
The brutality of Capital's counter-attack
still failed to weaken America's enthusiasm
for socialism.
In Milwaukee and other Midwestern Cities, socialists began building power through the
ballot box.
Their opponents slandered them as "Sewer Socialists," a label they embraced.
Instead of direct action, they advocated for infrastructure improvements, such as sanitation
systems, public housing, and pensions for
aging workers.
In 1910, socialists won an overwhelming majority of seats on the Milwaukee city council and
county board.
Victor Berger, an Austrian Jewish
immigrant, was elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives as a congressman for Wisconsin's
fifth district.
He would be the first of only a handful of
self-proclaimed socialists to win national
office.
One of the most famous socialist politicians was Eugene Debs.
A former Democrat, Debs was radicalized through
his experiences as a labor organizer, particularly
during the Pullman railroad strike of 1894.
He was a founding member of multiple labor
groups and left parties, including The I.W.W.,
the American Railroad Union, the Social Democratic
Party, and the Socialist Party of America.
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal
element, I am of it, and while there is a
soul in prison, I am not free.
Debs's deep connection and loyalty to the
working class drove turnout to support him
through five presidential campaigns.
His final run garnered one million votes despite
Debs being two years into a ten-year prison
sentence.
The working class who fight all the battles,
the working class who make the supreme sacrifices,
the working class who freely shed their blood
and furnish the corpses, have never yet had
a voice in either declaring war or making peace.
Debs had been jailed under the Sedition Act of 1918, passed by Congress to criminalize
opposition to America's entry into the Great War in Europe one year earlier.
The war divided radicals, but many opposed it on the grounds that a German worker and
an American worker were not obliged to spill each other's blood to settle a feud between
their governments.
Hundreds were jailed or deported, including Debs and Goldman.
In Russia, the country's absolute monarch, Tsar Nicholas II, was far less successful
at suppressing opposition to the war.
Antiwar sentiment turned into open rebellion in 1917, ushering in a revolution that swept
the aristocracy from power and emboldened the nation's socialist movement.
In the years to come, American socialists would turn their eyes to the Russian experiment
with interest as they grappled with questions of how to obtain and wield state power in
the 20th century.
Join us next time as we explore the next phase of America's socialist history, a period of
rampant speculation, economic collapse, and free-floating paranoia about the nation's
new "red menace.”
