The Socialist Labor Party reports on their sponsored tour of Eleanor Marx, Wilhelm Liebknecht, and He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named through the heavily German Ohio Valley cities of Louisville, Cincinnati, and Dayton in 1886.

‘The Avelings’ Tour’ from Workmen’s Advocate (New Haven). Vol. 2 No. 11. December 12, 1886.

Louisville, Cincinnati and Dayton Visited American Sections Organizing.

Although the meeting addressed by the Avelings on the 9th at Louisville, Ky., was not very large in numbers, it was a great success all the same, and both speakers and organizers were more than satisfied. One result of this meeting, it is hoped and expected, will be the reformation of the at present disbanded Section of the S.L.P. here. The press of Louisville quite distinguished itself by its stupid and insolent attacks on Socialism and its teachers. Among other pleasant little amenities of the same sort the Louisville Evening News called the Avelings “tramps” and waxed indignant at the idea of the “dollars” they make out of the poor working people. Both speakers “went for” the News in a way that delighted the audience. The News next day retaliated with the brilliant remark that the Avelings were “poor speakers.” A poor argument with which to meet the doctrines expounded at the meeting!

On Thursday, December 2d, the Cincinnati meeting was held at Music Hall, with a larger audience than we had any right to expect on such a night. It was the first really cold day of the year, and men and women who had intended to come to the meeting were kept at home by the keen north-western wind that seemed to have been laid on by the capitalists on purpose. It is worth recording that the theatres and concerts suffered far more from the sudden cold than did our meeting, many of these being quite deserted, while any less luminous place than Music Hall could have been well filled by those who came to hear the Avelings. On the platform with them sat, besides the chairman, twenty-five vice-presidents (of whom many were women), and many representing Labor organizations and being “Americans.” The audience, a remarkably intelligent and critical one, was roused to the utmost enthusiasm, and dozens of men and women came forward at the close of the meeting to say that they had never before had so clear a conception of the true meaning of Socialism as after listening to the speeches of Dr. and Mrs. Aveling. We expect to get a strong American Section at Cincinnati, and the comrades who worked so hard and so well to insure the success of Thursday’s meeting, feel that their labor has not been in vain. “This is the first time Americans have had a chance of understanding the question” is what is being said on all sides. As the Avelings are staying a few days at Cincinnati (they make that town their headquarters for a week, only away Saturday and Sunday to Dayton and Springfield) they are going to give an evening of recitations from English and American writers, for the benefit of the S.L.P. Many friends are going to help by contributing music, choirs, quartets and soloists, and a great success is expected. At this “evening” (Wednesday, December 8), an American section, for which many names have already been given in, will be formally started. The Cincinnati papers have behaved very finely, and the Avelings have been overrun with “interviews,” while whole columns have been devoted to the reporting of their public and private utterances. It is not very pleasant for them, of course, but it is very useful for the Party.

The last meeting, and the last of the week, was held at Dayton, O., on Saturday, December 4. The Sedalia Hall was filled to overflowing, and as the editor of the Dayton Democrat observed, “it was a a far larger meeting than he should have supposed possible at Dayton. The Dayton Section had formally applied to the City Council for the use of the City” Hall. These referred it to the Building Committee to “inquire into the intentions of the meeting,” an action which Dr. Aveling characterized in his speech as “the most impertinent thing he had heard of even in America,” and this committee reported without any recommendation, but sent meantime for the platform of the Party, and on the ground of its advocating communism in its views on the family relations, refused to give us the hall. The Council consists of sixteen members, “bosses,” lawyers and such like, of whom only one voted in favor of granting us the hall. The best part of it all is that the Dayton Section of the S.L.P. was founded at a meeting held in the same City Hall, by Dr. Otto Wolster! Of course Dr. and Mrs. Aveling dealt in their speeches with the City Council and explained what communism is, and what sort of “family relations” Socialists believe to be really pure and moral. An interesting comment on the freedom of workers in America was furnished by the action of the large firm of railway car makers; Messrs. Barney & Smith, who on that same day had dismissed twenty-four men because they were supposed to have sympathized and abetted a deputation of four employees who had asked for a slight advance in wages! Dr. Aveling referred to this shameful affair, and denounced the conduct of Messrs. Barney & Smith, to the delight, and amid the applause, of the crowded meeting. In Dayton also many Americans came forward after the meeting and declared their willingness to join the S.L.P.

At every meeting the Avelings have urged all who sympathize with the cause of labor not to spend a cent on papers that only calumniate and vilify the workers, and to support their own organs, especially the Workmen’s Advocate.

The Workmen’s Advocate (not to be confused with Chicago’s Workingman’s Advocate) began in 1883 as the irregular voice of workers then on strike at the New Haven Daily Palladium in Connecticut. In October, 1885 the Workmen’s Advocate transformed into as a regular weekly paper covering the local labor movement, including the Knights of Labor and the Greenback Labor Party and was affiliated with the Workingmen’s Party. In 1886, as the Workingmen’s Party changed their name to the Socialistic Labor Party, as a consciously Marxist party making this paper among the first English-language papers of an avowedly Marxist group in the US. The paper covered European socialism and the tours of Wilhlelm Liebknecht, Edward Aveling, and Eleanor Marx. In 1889 the DeLeonist’s took control of the SLP and Lucien Sanial became editor. In March 1891, the SLP replaced the Workmen’s Advocate with The People based in New York.

Access to PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90065027/1886-12-12/ed-1/seq-1/