‘Indiana Socialists at Work’ from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 17 No. 1. July, 1916.

The above picture was taken at the close of a regular business meeting. Comrade Noble C. Wilson, who is managing the Debs campaign in Indiana, adds:

“Farmer locals are springing up rapidly in Putnam county. Comrade J.Hollingsworth, a lifelong friend of Gene, is doing splendid work. Schoolhouse meetings are being held and each meeting is a great surprise.

“We are doing good work among the Quakers of Hendricks county, which we are flooding with anti-war literature.

“We want to get the best literature into the hands of the Industrial Workers of this district, as we have 4,000 Italians and a great number of Hungarians to reach, also a large number of Germans, and their organization is growing by leaps and bounds.

“Ten thousand miners, all members of the U.M.W. of A., are also lining up, but there is so much work to be done among them.

“Every person in the United States has heard of the rotten political corruption which has flourished in Terre Haute for years. One hundred and twenty-six politicians are now serving terms in Fort Leavenworth and the Marion county jail, including the mayor, county and city judge, the sheriff and other political grafters. But the big political bosses who financed the job escaped “justice” and spent their winter in Florida and Porto Rico.

“Terre Haute politics have been controlled for years by brewery and traction interests, so you can see we have big capital to buck against. The Republican candidate for Congress is an attorney for the traction company, while the present Congressman in this district is an old line, stand pat, Democratic politician. It is unnecessary to inform the comrades over the nation that if they give us their support we will send Gene to Congress.”

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v17n01-jul-1916-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf