Arthur LeSueur

Arthur LeSueur as he was depicted on a 1914 poster produced by the Socialist Party of North Dakota.

Arthur LeSueur (1867–1950) was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, and lawyer. LeSeuer is best remembered as the Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota, a post to which he was elected in 1912, and as stepfather to author Meridel LeSueur.

Biography

Early years

Arthur LeSueur was born on December 7, 1867 in Nininger, Minnesota to John and Amy LeSueur, a farming family who had recently arrived in America from Jersey, in the Channel Islands.[1] His mother died in an accident when he was a small boy and Arthur was forced along with his siblings into farm work at a very young age.[2]

In 1880, Arthur left the family farm and moved to Arvilla, North Dakota, where he worked as a wood-cutter in the winter months and a grain thresher during the harvest season.[3] Money made above and beyond living expenses was saved for tuition to law school.[3]

Arthur studied law at the University of Michigan for one year and in 1889 began working at a law office in Grand Forks.[4]

On October 17, 1896, LaSueur married Ida M. Winslow in Arvilla. LeSueur relocated to Minot, where he established his own law practice.

Socialist politician

A committed socialist, in 1902 LeSueur was one of the primary organizers of the Socialist Party of North Dakota, establishing this state affiliate of the Socialist Party of America along with Fargo activist Arthur Bassett and others.[5] Speaking around the state constantly in support of the organization and the cause, LeSuer became the best known representative of the socialist movement in the state.[5]

Le Sueur served as the editor for the Iconoclast, a socialist paper printed in Minot. He was elected to the Minot City Commission in 1911 and in the following year LeSueur was elected as mayor of the city of Minot.[5] The candidates of the Socialist across the state of North Dakota drew about 8% of the total vote in the 1912 election — the high-water mark for the movement in that state.[5]

During the years of World War I, LeSueur was tapped to head the legal department of People's College, a socialist-oriented correspondence school located in Fort Scott, Kansas.[6] It was there that he met Marian Wharton, the head of the English department at the school.[6] The pair soon married and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. LeSueur thereby became the stepfather of the writer Meridel Le Sueur.[7]

During the years of World War I the Socialist Party of North Dakota essentially dissolved, with its adherents joining the fledgling National Non-Partisan League, headed by Arthur C. Townley. LeSueur was active in support of this new organization.[8] After a brief flurry of successful campaigns and policy initiatives, this organization developed financial problems in 1921, leading Townley to resign his post as president of the organization the following year.[8] The NPL was finally terminated in 1923.[8]

Death and legacy

Arthur LeSueur died on March 19, 1950. He was 72 years old at the time of his death.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Meridel LeSueur, Crusaders: The Radical Legacy of Marian and Arthur LeSueur. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984; pg. 15.
  2. ↑ LeSueur, Crusaders, pg. 16.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 LeSueur, Crusaders, pg. 21.
  4. ↑ William B.Hennessy (ed.), History of North Dakota, Embracing a Relation of the History of the State from the Earliest Times Down to the Present Day, Including the Biographies of the Builders of the Commonwealth. Bismarck: Bismarck Tribune Company, 1910.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Elwyn B. Robinson, History of North Dakota. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1966; pg. 329.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 LeSueur, Crusaders, pg. 32.
  7. ↑ For a biography of Marian Wharton LeSueur and her relationship with Arthur LeSueur, see Meridel LeSueur, Crusaders: The Radical Legacy of Marian and Arthur LeSueur" (1984), passim.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Robinson, History of North Dakota, pg. 350.
Arthur LeSueur died in 1954 not 1950.

Works