‘Commune Celebration a Splendid Success’ from St. Louis Labor. Vol. 6 No. 373. March 28, 1908.

A SUCCESSFUL AFFAIR Was the Annual Commune Celebration of the St. Louis Socialists.

Comrade Thompson Tells His Audience How Socialists Are Doing Things—No Longer a Question of “How Are You Going to Do It?”

The Socialists of St. Louis gave their annual Commune Celebration at Concordia Turner Hall last Saturday evening, and everybody attending the affair. agreed on this one point: It was a splendid success!

When the program, was opened a few minutes past 8 o’clock the hall was fairly filled, but the main portion of the crowd came thronging in during the next half hour. At 9 o’clock, when Comrade Carl D. Thompson began speaking, the hall was packed with an attentive audience and the galleries were equally crowded with people who had come to listen to the address of the Socialist legislator from Wisconsin. Comrade Thompson had been announced for a “one hour’s speech,” but speaker and audience seemed to get so intensely interested in the “subject before the house” that fully one hour and a half was taken up by the speaking, and the audience would have listened another hour if the time for the program had permitted it.

With many new students in the audience, Comrade Thompson solved a very vital point, namely, the question: “Socialism is all right, but how are you going to do it?” or “Where do you get the money from to do it with?”

These questions were answered by the speaker in a masterly way, and his humorous remarks interjected into his answers caused storms of applause and laughter. “With us in Wisconsin it is no longer a question as to how the Socialists are going to do it, or where to get the money from to do it with. Up in Wisconsin we have been doing it for some time, and we know where to get the money to carry out the reform measures proposed by the Socialists.”

The good effect of Comrade Thompson’s address could best be seen by the fact that several hundred copies of his latest pamphlet, “The Constructive Program of Socialism,” were sold in the hall- in fact, every copy on hand was disposed of.

As to the rest of the program the following may be said: La Marseillaise was ably played by the orchestra. Mr. Wm. May, a member of Cigar Makers’ Union No. 44, aroused the audience to enthusiasm and hearty applause by his song, “Battle Cry of Labor.” Master Rudolf Klimt, a talented youth, gave a nice song. Next came Miss Annie Sadlo; a violin artiste with rare abilities, with a fine solo, with piano accompaniment by Master Edmond Siroky. Comrade L.E. Hildebrand gave a ten minutes’ talk in behalf of our press, calling attention to the present Brewery Workers’ lockout and the anti-labor attitude of the capitalist daily press. After the playing of “John Brown” by the orchestra, Comrade Louis Volkert took the audience by storm with his Union Labor song. In this week’s St. Louis Labor we publish this song in full and we propose that at our big campaign demonstration at Lemp’s Park in July this song should be sung by at least one hundred children. Possibly the Socialist Sunday School and Comrade Volkert could co-operate and organize the chorus for that occasion.

The United Workingmen’s Singing Societies were at their post, as usual, and contributed two well and ably rendered Socialist songs, much to the success of this year’s Commune celebration.

Our comrades of the Socialist Women’s Club had their hands full at the lunch stand, at the flower and fruit stands and at the literature stand.

The 3.500 locked-out brothers of the Brewery Workers were not forgotten during the celebration. Before Comrade Thompson appeared on the stage to deliver the address of the evening, the following resolution was read and unanimously indorsed by the audience:

Resolution in Behalf of the Locked-Out Brewery Employes.

“Whereas, The Brewery Owners of St. Louis forced upon their employes a fight for the right of organization whereby 3,500 people were thrown out of work:

“Whereas, The lockout so treacherously declared against the membership of the local Brewery Workers’ Unions is a deliberate attempt to destroy the usefulness of the International Union; there- fore be it

Resolved, That the workingmen and women assembled at the annual March Festival of the Socialist Party at Concordia Turner Hall hereby pledge themselves to give their full support to the United Brewery Workers’ International Union in their just struggle against the conspiracy of the combined brewery magnates of St. Louis.”

A long-running socialist paper begun in 1901 as the Missouri Socialist published by the Labor Publishing Company, this was the paper of the Social Democratic Party of St. Louis and the region’s labor movement. The paper became St. Louis Labor, and the official record of the St. Louis Socialist Party, then simply Labor, running until 1925. The SP in St. Louis was particularly strong, with the socialist and working class radical tradition in the city dating to before the Civil War. The paper holds a wealth of information on the St Louis workers movement, particularly its German working class.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/missouri-socialist/080328-stlouislabor-v06w373.pdf