The Progressive Woman provides us with sketches of the three women Socialist Party delegates to the Eighth Congress of the Second International in Copenhagen., 1910. They were May Wood Simons, Luella Twinning, and Lena Morrow Lewis.

‘Our Women Delegates to the International’ from The Progressive Woman. Vol. 4 No. 39. August, 1910.

May Wood Simons by Milla Tupper Maynard

Have you ever asked yourself who have entered into the modern opportunities for women most fully? I have, and my thought always turns to our Comrade May.

She has enjoyed the best the schools could give her, having done the work not only for a first degree, but for a doctor of philosophy at Chicago university. That she has kept in the scholarly habit was proven last year by the remarkable feat of winning the Harrison prize for an essay in economics over many men competitors and judged by the heads of the department of economics in five great western universities.

But many women have done admirable work in scholarship. Mrs. Simons has been able to use hers steadily in practical service in the greatest cause of the age. She has worked for Socialism as teacher, lecturer or writer constantly, for the past twelve years or more. At present and since the establishment of the Daily Socialist she has been associate editor of that paper. Her husband, A. M. Simons is editor-in-chief. Already her activities and influence are world-wide and after this summer her place in the international movement will be still more pronounced and effective.

But no women, or normal man, for that matter, is content with world service alone. Fortunately indeed, is one for whom home life and life work are inextricably blended. It is interesting to note that the woman who seems to me to have reaped the fullest harvest from the new ideals and possibilities of our time both in public and private life happens also to be the most devoted mother of my acquaintance.

The genuine good of old standards need never be lost in gaining the genuine good of new freedom and opportunity. It is a satisfaction to have this demonstrated in the self-effaced beautiful little woman who will help to represent American Socialists in the greatest organization the world has known.

Luella Twining by Milla Tupper Maynard

Comrade Luella Twining was barely old enough to join the party when she and her mother became standbys in the Denver local. For nearly two years she studied under, my husband and I and later worked hard in other forms of training.

In preparation for what? She did not know then. She only knew the movement needed the best that was in each one and she worked as faithfully as if her life depended upon her knowledge and her ability to express her thought.

Singularly free from personal ambition or pleasure in the glare of footlights, she might have remained a Jennie Higgins to the end of time, had not the imprisonment of the Western Federation of Miners’ officials brought the occasion for far-reaching service. Even then, other conditions took her East, but filled as she was with horror at the fate which would meet those men if aid was not forthcoming, she quickly found herself in the thick of the fight. The work she did is well known. The Federation officials, finding her services so valuable, insisted that she work for them directly. Through her efforts an enormous amount was raised to fight the battle. It was through her also, largely, that the phenomenal May Day Protest meetings were held in 1906-demonstrations most effective in informing the public that,

“If Moyer and Haywood die, Twenty million working men, Will know the reason why.”

Comrade Luella’s later work has been less dramatic but no less important. In the Mexican Refugee work, the Warren case and in the Philadelphia strike, she has given invaluable service.

Wherever the fight of the workers is thickest, wherever the cause of freedom can best be served there you will find this ardent worker for one common cause.

Lena Morrow Lewis by A Comrade

During my acquaintance with Lena Morrow Lewis, I have learned a few personal things about her: That she is the daughter of a minister—of a whole line of ministers, I believe that she began her public life in the sort of work that women can do in the church organization; that she developed early into a temperance worker, taking the platform for the national movement; that from that she evolved into the suffrage movement, and became one of the national speakers of that organization; that she was sent into the unions to speak on suffrage for women, and thus became interested in the industrial phase of modern society. Gradually, feeling her way step by step, she came into our ranks, a full-fledged Socialist.

Some where, prior to all this, Comrade Lewis had a good college education. That is, good, as college educations go. I believe she doesn’t bank much on that today.

What she does bank on, is the knowledge gained through long and close contact with the people, the working classes the producing and disinherited folk, and the scientific and Socialist literature of the age. For Lena Morrow Lewis knows the life of the miners and lumbermen of the western coast; she knows the shriveled existence of the southern “cracker,” and the pinched poverty of the eastern mill hand.

From actual life to book life is not an easy transition for some people, and many never attempt to correlate the two. But Comrade Lewis keeps at hand always her books on biology, on sociology, on political science, on Socialism, and she constantly applies what she finds in them, to common every-day life, the life of the lumberman, the miner, the cracker, the mill hand, the millionaire.

And also to the woman in her relation to man and society, and to man’s relation to woman and to society. For Comrade Lewis believes that men and women are the most important factors in the universe, and that the study of men and women, in their various social relations is absolutely essential to human progress.

Whatever Lena Morrow Lewis does, is done with a conscientious thoroughness which is bound to spell success for any man or woman. She is one of the best sellers of literature in the Socialist movement because she has made a study of the work. She is one of the most convincing and polished among our speakers, because she has sought carefully for the right thought and the right words with which to express it. She serves well on the national executive committee—and she is the first woman to serve in that capacity-because she has at her finger’s ends knowledge of the party’s affairs sufficient to render her a good servant in that capacity. She is a national organizer because she is painstaking, efficient and careful as to details and results.

In short, Lena Morrow Lewis is a worker. She has hammered herself into shape for competent service in the Socialist movement, and she is giving it. The comrades in thirty out of forty-four states who voted for her as one of the eight delegates to represent them at the International Congress believed in her efficiency—and they will not be disappointed.

The Socialist Woman was a monthly magazine edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko from 1907 with this aim: “The Socialist Woman exists for the sole purpose of bringing women into touch with the Socialist idea. We intend to make this paper a forum for the discussion of problems that lie closest to women’s lives, from the Socialist standpoint”. In 1908, Conger-Kaneko and her husband Japanese socialist Kiichi Kaneko moved to Girard, Kansas home of Appeal to Reason, which would print Socialist Woman. In 1909 it was renamed The Progressive Woman, and The Coming Nation in 1913. Its contributors included Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O’Hare, Alice Stone Blackwell, Eugene V. Debs, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and others. A treat of the journal was the For Kiddies in Socialist Homes column by Elizabeth Vincent.The Progressive Woman lasted until 1916.

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-woman/100800-progressivewoman-v4w39.pdf