Sewer Socialism
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Sewer Socialism was a term, originally more or less pejorative, for the American socialist movement that centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and existed from around 1892 to 1940.[1] Milwaukee's "Sewer Socialists" fought to clean up what they saw as "the dirty and polluted legacy of the Industrial Revolution," cleaning up neighborhoods and factories with new sanitation systems, city-owned water and power systems as well as improved education. The beginning of this movement started with the organization of the Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin. With the creation of the Socialist Party of America, this group formed the core of an element which was less Marxist than it was social democratic, playing down social theory and revolutionary rhetoric and emphasizing honest government and public health (thus the term "Sewer Socialism", which the Milwaukee element countered with claims that their critics were "impossibilists who could not win any elections").
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[edit] Victor Berger
Victor Berger is seen as the manifestation of Sewer Socialism, often compared to Robert La Follette and his representation of Progressivism. He was an Austrian immigrant, who published English and German daily newspapers. With their Socialist editorial position, he gave free versions to every household in Milwaukee before elections. He was the best-known local leader of this tendency. In 1910, he went to Washington, DC as the first Socialist United States congressman. Victor Berger again won a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1918, but was excluded from the House for his vigorous anti-World War I statements at a St. Louis, Missouri Socialist convention. (This was labeled as a violation of the Federal Espionage Act.)
[edit] 1910 and Seidel
In 1910, the Socialists won most of the seats in the Milwaukee city council and county board. This included the first Socialist mayor in the United States, Emil Seidel. As mentioned before, Victor Berger won the first Socialist seat in congress.
[edit] The following years
Seidel and Berger both lost their campaigns in 1912, but in 1916, a new Socialist mayor was elected, Daniel Hoan. He stayed in office until 1940. During those 24 years, the word "mayor" became synonymous with "Daniel Hoan." Socialists never regained total control over the local government as they did in 1910, but continued to show major influence until the defeat of Daniel Hoan in 1940. The Sewer Socialists elected one more mayor in Milwaukee, Frank P. Zeidler, who served for three full terms (1948-1960).
[edit] Relationship with the Progressives
Although the Sewer Socialists had many ideas superficially similar to those of the La Follette Progressives, they still had numerous tensions, primarily due to differences in underlying ideology. They rarely cooperated on elections (one notable exception was the 1924 Presidential campaign of Robert M. La Follette, Sr.), although as a rule the Progressives and Socialists did not run candidates against each other in Milwaukee. The Socialists wanted nothing to do with the Republicans, while the Progressives sometimes worked with their parent party.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Beck, Elmer A. The Sewer Socialists: A History of the Socialist Party of Wisconsin, 1897–1940. Fennimore, WI: Westburg Associates, 1982.
- Bekken, Jon. "'No Weapon So Powerful': Working-Class Newspapers in the United States," Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 104-119 (1988)
- Miller, Sally M. Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Early Twentieth-Century American Socialism. Garland Reference Library of Social Science, vol. 880. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1996.
- Zeidler, Frank P. A Liberal in City Government: My Experiences as Mayor of Milwaukee. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Publishers, 2005.
[edit] External links
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