A valuable report to the Socialist Party’s National Executive from the Illinois State Secretary on the first two years of the organization’s work in the state.

‘The Illinois Comrades’ by Socialist Party State Secretary James S. Smith from Appeal to Reason. No. 398. July 18, 1903.

The present Socialist Party of Illinois dates from the Unity Convention held at Chicago, Sept. 29th, 1901, as a direct result of the National Unity Convention of Indianapolis in July of the same year. Prior to that there were two parties in the field, the Socialist Labor, dating from the middle-’80s, and the Social Democratic Party, dating from 1891. Immediately after this convention preparations were made to carry the work of agitation and organization into the state, which sadly needed attention since but few organizations survived the disastrous war of factions which started with the split in the SLP of 1899.

Little by little the organization was pushed out into the various industrial centers, until today most of the larger cities are in line for the organization. Some of them developed into very active locals, well able to take care of themselves. However, as an actual factor in the field of politics, it is only the groundwork upon which the future party will have to be built.

With the exception of Cook County (Chicago), the first Socialist ticket appeared in 1896, when we polled 985 votes out of a total of 1,086,262 votes in the state. At the next election in 1898 we raised our vote to 4,527, which in 1900 went up to 9,897 for the Socialist ticket headed by Debs and Harriman.

No better demonstration could be had of the value of organization than was shown in the campaign of 1902, which was begun early in the year when an organizer was sent out by the state committee to pioneer through the state. Gradually the few Socialists scattered over the state were got together and where enough of them could be found to form locals were at once attached to the state organization, which enabled the state committee to reach over a larger area than could have been done otherwise. This, together with the agitation caused by the coal strike, gave us the gratifying result of 20,167 votes, or about 2-1/2% of the total vote in the state.

While still a long way off from being able to elect our candidates on the state ticket, in Chicago we broke the ice last spring, when we elected our aldermanic candidate in the 33rd Ward, Comrade William Johnson, who is very likely to be followed by another next year.

In Cook County we have perhaps the best organization of any county in the country. Indeed, 60% of the strength of the state is in the county, where the comrades own and publish a weekly paper, The Chicago Socialist, our state organ.

At present there are 42 locals in the state, with 48 branches in Chicago — a total of 90 organizations. During the first half of the present year, the state committee has paid the national organization $440.00 as dues, using to date 8,600 due stamps. The number of due stamps bought so far this year shows an average paid up membership of 1,433.

It is now the intention of the state committee to organize every county in the state as strongly in proportion as Cook County and with this end in view the services of Comrade John Collins, one of the ablest agitators in the whole movement, were secured. He will put in his whole time now to organize and agitate and with the active financial support of the membership, such as this undertaking well deserves, there is no reason why Illinois should not be at the head of the list of active states in the union.

James S. Smith, State Secretary.

The Appeal to Reason was among the most important and widely read left papers in the United States. With a weekly run of over 550,000 copies by 1910, it remains the largest socialist paper in US history. Founded by utopian socialist and Ruskin Colony leader Julius Wayland it was published privately in Girard, Kansas from 1895 until 1922. The paper came from the Midwestern populist tradition to become the leading national voice in support of the Socialist Party of America in 1901. A ‘popular’ paper, the Appeal was Eugene Debs main literary outlet and saw writings by Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Mary “Mother” Jones, Helen Keller and many others.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/030718-appealtoreason-w398-DEFECTIVE.pdf