John Weigel, veteran Socialist, member of the S.L.P. then S.P., leader of the Brewery Workers Union and editor of its paper, dies at 44 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

‘Death of John P. Weigel’ from The Worker (New York). Vol. 16 No. 21. August 25, 1906.

John P. Weigel, editor of the “Brewers Journal,” official organ of the National Union of United Brewery Workmen, died at Cincinnati, August 15, of heart disease. Two weeks before, while attending a meeting of a local brewers union, he was stricken but rallied, and hopes were entertained of his recovery. His death came, however, without warning. Just after rising in the morning, and before his wife, who was in an adjoining room, could reach him.

Comrade Welgel was an active member of the Socialist Party ever since he entered it as a member of the Socialist Labor Party, when unity was effected in 1900. He was then in Elizabeth, N.J., and afterwards moved to Boston to act as an official of the Brewery Workers. He went to Cincinnati last year to become editor of the brewers’ national organ. Wherever he went Comrade Weigel worked hard for the party organization and he was most effective as an organizer among German workingmen. He was secretary of the campaign committee of Local Cincinnati at the time of his death.

As a member of the Brewery Workers’ National Union Comrade Weigel had been chosen to represent it at a number of the A.F. of L. conventions and filled other positions of responsibility and importance. He was a good writer and fluent speaker in both German and English. His funeral took place Sunday, Aug. 19, and in accordance with his wishes, the remains were cremated. In him the Socialist movement has lost another one of the old guard that fought to make Socialism the power it is, and did it when it was not as easy or as popular to do it as it is now.

The Worker, and its predecessor The People, emerged from the 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party of America led by Henry Slobodin and Morris Hillquit, who published their own edition of the SLP’s paper in Springfield, Massachusetts. Their ‘The People’ had the same banner, format, and numbering as their rival De Leon’s. The new group emerged as the Social Democratic Party and with a Chicago group of the same name these two Social Democratic Parties would become the Socialist Party of America at a 1901 conference. That same year the paper’s name was changed from The People to The Worker with publishing moved to New York City. The Worker continued as a weekly until December 1908 when it was folded into the socialist daily, The New York Call.

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