In 1913 the Socialist Party had 100,000 members. Carl D. Thompson, here the party’s Director of Information takes readers on a valuable tour of the Chicago National Headquarters and the work of its various departments: Executive Secretary, Literature, Lyceum, Party Builder, Information, Woman’s, Young People’s, Foreign Speaking Organizations, and Campaigns.

‘Socialist Party National Headquarters: A Busy Institution’ by Carl D. Thompson from The Party Builder (Official National Bulletin of the Socialist Party). No. 56. November 29, 1913.

The National Headquarters of the Socialist party is no small affair. Its activities cover a wide field, and involve a great number of different lines of effort.

If you come to Chicago, visit the National Office. It is interesting as well as instructive.

In the first place, the National Office is a big institution. It occupies an entire floor of one of the big city buildings. Fifty-nine hundred square feet- one-fourth of a city block- about one-eighth of an acre of space. Here you will find, in ordinary times, not less than thirty persons at work, each at his desk, most of them with typewriters-all pounding away at top speed. On special occasions, and in times of special rush, this force is increased by the addition of from twenty to thirty, or even forty more. Ordinarily, therefore, the headquarters is a mighty busy place, and on special occasions it is a rush and roar of activity.

In the second place, this National Office handles an enormous amount of business, amounting last year (1912) to $230,000. It is the central office of forty-eight state organizations. Here are kept the books, accounts of due stamps, contributions to the party, and all other matters passing between the state organizations of the various states from California to Maine and from Florida to Washington, as well as from Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Canal Zone, an organization of over a hundred thousand members, representing a voting power of over 900,000.

In the third place, the National Office is rapidly becoming a highly organized and systematized institution. Already there are nine different departments, each assigned its specific function and particular line of effort. These departments are (1) Executive Secretary, (2) Literature, (3) Lyceum, (4) Party Builder, (5) Information, (6) Woman’s, (7) Young People’s, (8) Foreign Speaking Organizations, and, in campaign years, (9) Campaign.

The Executive Secretary.

Everything must have a head- a general directing and supervising force to co-ordinate and adjust the various functions and duties and make them work together as a unit for efficiency. So, too, this big institution in the National Headquarters. The National Executive Secretary is this head.

He is a busy man. He is secretary not only of both the National Committee and the National Executive Committee, but also the secretary of the whole National Socialist party. Moreover, he is also the treasurer of the party. And, as the Socialist party has no national chairman, he must also perform the duties and functions generally assigned to such an official. In short he is practically the secretary, treasurer and chairman of the National Socialist party, all in one.

The national secretary keeps the accounts and handles the money of the party. And that in itself is no small task for an institution that does $230,000 worth of business in a year. There are two big safes, and the money handled is banked every day. The keeping of the accounts is especially important in the Socialist party, since any nickel may represent to some hard working, loyal comrade as much of toil and sacrifice as ten dollars would to those in other parties. Every cent, therefore, must be carefully and rigidly accounted for. And, besides, a hundred thousand members must have confidence 2nd know that the accounts are not only honestly but accurately kept. Hence, every six months an outside expert and certified auditing company is hired to go through the books of the National Office with a fine toothed comb and a spy glass. If anything is wrong, or even “off color,” they report it.

Besides the accounts, the executive secretary’s department receives all the mail-between three and four hundred letters, to say nothing of a whole cart load of papers, books, circulars, etc., in a single day, during ordinary times. Nearly one-fourth of this mail must be handled by the executive secretary’s department and the rest distributed to the various departments. Then there is the sale of due stamps and the careful accounting with every state secretary and foreign language organization; the handling of all the official correspondence and printing; the numerous national committee and executive committee motions, and national referendums; and last, but not least, the filing of every letter, postal card or communication received, as well as a copy of every reply that goes out, so that anyone of the hundreds of thousands of them handled during the year may be located at a moment’s call.

For all this work the national secretary has one assistant, who is also his stenographer, a filing clerk, a bookkeeper, and half the time of a clerk handling the due stamps.

Center of Ten National Organizations.

Besides the regular work of the party organization, the National Office is the headquarters of ten different foreign speaking organizations, all of which are affiliated with the regular Socialist party organization. Here the organization of the Finnish Socialists of America have their translator secretary and his assistant. They represent a total membership of 13,000 in twenty-eight states. This organization in itself is a big affair. For one thing, the Finnish Socialists of America own something like $800,000 worth of buildings to say nothing of numerous newspapers, co-operative societies and other organizations co-operating with their movement.

Here also is the national translator secretary of the German Socialists of America, of the Bohemian, Hungarian, Italian, Jewish, Polish, Scandinavian, Slovak and South Slavic. Each secretary represents a national organization. Each has his desk in this National Office of the party. Each will be seen busy with the work of Socialist propaganda and agitation.

Conducts Vast Campaigns.

One vital and very important feature of the work of the national headquarters of the Socialist party is the conduct of the great national campaigns. The last one was, of course, the greatest of all. The volume of business handled by the National Headquarters, in connection with the campaign of 1912, was over $66,000. At that time it was necessary to increase the area occupied by the National Office and an entire separate floor was engaged for the campaign months which practically doubled the space mentioned above.

The characteristic feature of the national campaign of 1908, was, as we all remember, the famous “Red Special” that blazed its way back and forth across the continent. To finance that enterprise alone involved the collection and expenditure of $43,000. The special feature of the campaign of 1912, however, was literature. The campaign committee undertook the enormous and inspiring task of putting at least one piece of Socialist literature into every home in America. They fell short of that goal, of course, but as a matter of fact, they did print, and the party did distribute, 6,518,975 pieces of literature.

So the literature campaign was, without a doubt, the greatest of its kind ever waged by the Socialist movement. Yet the present fiscal year promises to see that enormous work duplicated, if not surpassed, and this in spite of the fact that 1913 is an “off” year. We shall refer to this again later.

In addition to the literature campaign there were the presidential candidates and about twenty-five other speakers routed back and forth across the continent.

One feature of the work of the campaign committee was the compilation and publication, for the first time, of a complete and exhaustive campaign book. This contains the most vital and essential information gathered out of the writings and investigations made by the Socialists and others, and compiled and indexed for the use of the party. The cost of compiling and publishing this book was nearly $3,000, but the work once done forms a basis for new editions, which, with the present arrangement, can be brought out at very little additional cost.

Every national campaign of the Socialist party is greater than any that has preceded, and this crescendo will undoubtedly continue for many campaigns to come. This activity, of course, must al- ways center at the National Office.

Center of Literature Distribution.

Next in importance to the great campaigns conducted from the National Office perhaps is the work of literature distribution. In this respect the work of the National Office has been growing and promises to grow rapidly in the future.

A department has recently been created to take charge of this work, and the sale of literature has increased from $676.90 in June, to $1,859.47 in October. From June 1 to. November of 1913 over 1,500,000 pieces of literature have been sent out from the National Office. The number of leaflets alone sent out during the month of October was 589,955. If the record for the month of October were maintained during the entire year, it would amount to a showing of nearly 7,000,000 leaflets.

This involves an immense amount of routine work. The order clerk must receive, make out and forward every order received, forward a receipt for all money sent in, keep an inventory of the stock on hand and make out all requisitions; the shipping clerk must see that the great bundles and boxes of literature are received and properly placed and that the innumerable orders, large and small, are filled properly and as promptly as possible.

Special attention is now given to the preparation of leaflets suitable for use in campaigns-municipal, state and national as well as general education and propaganda work. Pamphlets and booklets are being prepared with the same idea of adapting them to the actual needs of the movement. This is bound to increase enormously the demand for literature from the National Office, and naturally, therefore, the activity of this department is growing rapidly.

Propaganda and Education.

For three years the National Office has had a Lyceum Department. This department has had in its employ as high as twenty-five and thirty persons at rush times and an average of ten employes throughout the year. Lecture courses were arranged that covered the whole United States and involved the delivering of as many as 4,000 lectures per year and the distribution in connection with the lectures of literature, books and pamphlets, that reached into the millions of copies. The magnitude of the work of this department may be judged from the fact that the volume of business handled reached $75,000 per year.

A change in the arrangements has recently been made by vote of the National Committee and the National Executive Committee, so that hereafter these activities will be handled in a different way and on a somewhat different plan, but it is safe to say that activities along these lines will be maintained, and, of course, the National Office will necessarily be the center.

In addition to the lectures, the National Office supplies a propaganda press service, sending out mimeographed articles prepared by one or another of the Socialist writers to upwards of 400 Socialist and labor papers throughout the United States. In this way the propaganda material is given a wide circulation in every part of the nation. During the time that Comrade Berger was in Congress, the National Office also maintained a national press service in order to keep the party press, as well as the movement in general, posted on the work of the Socialist congressman in his struggle for the working class in Congress.

Publishes a Weekly Paper.

The publishing of a weekly paper is in itself a considerable task. THE PARTY BUILDER, which is the official bulletin of the national organization, has now reached a circulation of 19,000 and is growing every week. The work of editing and publishing this publication is done entirely by the force in the National Office, with all that is involved in the keeping of lists and handling a 20,000 circulation.

National Conventions and Conferences.

No small part of the work of the National Office is in arranging for the meetings of the National Executive Committee, the National Committee and particularly the national conventions. The National Executive Committee meets on an average of four or five times a year, spending from two to three days at each session, taking up all important matters bearing upon the work of the party and assisting the national executive secretary in directing the many activities of the party. The National Committee, according to the new Constitution, now meets once each year. There are seventy-one in this committee, coming from all of the states, and as their mileage and a per diem of $2.50 is paid them, a meeting of the National Committee is a matter of considerable importance from a financial standpoint as well as for the welfare of the movement. Many weeks of time are spent by the National Office in preparation for these meetings, in getting up the reports, having them printed, etc., and in carrying out the directions of the committees after the meetings are over.

But most important of all in this respect are the meetings of the national convention. At Indianapolis there were about four hundred delegates present, and the size of the task of arranging and conducting such a convention may be judged from the fact that it cost the party nearly $18,000. The thousand and one details that have to be arranged for beforehand, carried through successfully during the seven or eight days of the session, and finally worked out after the meeting is over, make in themselves an enormous task placed upon the National Office.

Besides the meetings mentioned above, there are the meetings of the special committees, such as the Woman’s National Committee, the Educational Committee, the committees on the commission form of government and various other subjects. These meetings, and the work of the various special investigating committees that are appointed from time to time, all have to be taken care of by the National Headquarters of the party.

Information and Research.

One of the departments recently created (in November, 1912) is the Information Department. The purpose of this department is to gather, classify and make available information on economic, industrial and political problems, especially for the elected officials of the party and the general workers in the cause. In this department you will find four comrades busy with the hundreds of inquiries that are sent to the National Office from the locals throughout the country. Some comrade in an unorganized region is inquiring for the best methods to use in getting the comrades together and organizing a local; another wants to know how to draft a county constitution; another is trying to draft a platform for a municipal campaign; city officials are wrestling with problems of city government, street construction, building of electric light plants and other similar matters-and need the information of the central organization of the party. Also, there are legal problems arising everywhere. Socialists generally are not in a position to employ skillful legal talent. They send their questions to the National Office. Two hundred Socialist attorneys in different parts of the nation have volunteered their assistance in this line. Scientists and civil engineers and specialists in various lines, who are Socialists and party members, are helping with the technical problems of construction work. The department publishes bulletins and pamphlets, assists in the drafting of the leaflets for the Literature Department publishes weekly a page in The Party Builder. The present cost of the department to the party is about $4,800 per year.

Special Work Among Women.

In the center of the National Office will be found the general correspondent of the Woman’s National Committee, elected by the National Committee to direct the special lines of effort among women. The recent enfranchisement of women in a number of states has made special propaganda work among women a necessity. This, together with the conduct of a teachers’ bureau and all activities that may have the effect of bringing into the Socialist movement the womanhood of the nation, come under the direction of this department. In connection with this work, an especially effective series of leaflets has been prepared and is being widely distributed throughout the nation. Because of the work of the woman’s department, the party membership among women has measurably increased and thirty-nine states have entered the field for special propaganda work among women.

The department also sends out special woman’s organizers. A trade union organizer will be sent to the industrial centers the first of the year. She will do intensive organization work among wage earning women, delivering five organization and one propaganda talks each week. This is a departure from the general organizing work and is partly a matter of experiment. This department entails a yearly cost of about $3,000.

Young People’s Department.

The last department to be added to the functions of the National Office is that of a director of the young people’s organizations. In view of the fact that there have been already springing up in various parts of the country, in particular all of the larger cities, special organizations of the young people, it became absolutely necessary to establish a central directing agency of the party for these organizations. The work, of course, is only as yet begun, having been established in October of this year (1913), but it is easy to see great possibilities and important service ahead in this department.

Strike Benefits and Special Funds.

Along with all of the rest of the duties of the national office comes the responsibility for handling the funds for the various strikes, the assistance for the workers in their struggles on the economic field, and the Socialist Party has done some notable work along that line in the last few years. Thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars have been solicited, collected, accounted for, every cent, and distributed to the various labor unions that went on strike. The anthracite miners, the Western Federation of Miners, the garment workers, the textile workers (Lawrence), the timber workers, the Muscatine button makers, the Little Falls textile workers, even our comrades who were on general strike for suffrage in Belgium and the sufferers in the Bulgarian troubles, and now, last of all, the miners of the Calumet district in Michigan, all of these have had the thought and assistance of the Socialist Party. Every cent received must be carefully accounted for and forwarded to its proper place, involving thousands of entries in the books, as well as in immense amount of correspondence and postage.

Big Things Ahead.

Great and inspiring as the work of these last years has been it is only a prophecy of what lies. just ahead of us. Everything indicates that the Socialist Party is in the beginning of another period. of rapid and inspiring growth.

With a membership of over a hundred thousand we start the new four year period extending up to the next presidential campaign with twenty thousand, more than twice as many members as we had at the beginning of the last four year period. We had 41,479 members in 1909, the year following the preceding presidential campaign. We now have 100,521 (October, 1913). With our forces doubled it is not unreasonable to expect a proportionate increase of activity all along the line. And as our opportunities are certainly more than doubled the coming four years are sure to be years of rapid growth and vital achievement.

For a variety of reasons, the national Socialist Party of America did not have an official publication until May 1904 when the national convention mandated the monthly Socialist Party Official Bulletin as a way for the Party to communicate to its members. The name was changed to Socialist Party Monthly Bulletin in October 1911. The Party Builder became the name in 1913 and also became a subscription paper and a weekly. In 1914 the Socialist Party replaced The Party Builder with a regular propaganda newspaper, The American Socialist. These Party paper contain National Committee and National Executive Committee minutes, National Secretary reports, membership figures, financial statements, letters from party members, articles by prominent party leaders, and the figures for election of party officers and internal questions.

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