A report on the small, but vibrant community of activists gathered around the Chinese Socialist Club in San Francisco in the early 1910s.

‘Socialism in Frisco’s Chinatown’ by G.L. Harding from Buffalo Socialist. Vol. 2 No. 99. April 25, 1914.

Some time ago Comrade Giang Kang Hoo, formerly president of the Socialist party of China, arrived in San Francisco as one of the score of exiles daily being driven out of China by the Russianized Government, headed by Yaun Shi Kai. Within a few weeks of his arrival he had started, a Chinese Socialist bi-weekly newspaper, and now his activities have begun to show practical results in the shape of a Chinese Socialist Club of a hundred-odd members. The club meets fortnightly in a large office building in Chinatown, and already has ambitious plans for establishing a co-operative printing plant for the purpose of issuing Socialist literature. It has started to publish a paper, the English translation of which is “People’s Tongue.” The first number of the “People’s Tongue” appeared in March, and so great was the demand for it in Chinatown alone that the issue was exhausted in a week. The next number is due on April 10. The editor of the “People’s Tongue” is Mr. Feng Chi Yan, ex-director of the revolutionary Bureau of Merit in China. Among its contributors is Sun Fo, son of China’s Socialist ex-president, Dr. Sun Yat Sen. Comrade Sun is a student at the University of California at Berkeley and has translated a number of socialist articles into Chinese. Some of these are later to be issued as pamphlets by the projected publishing bureau as the basis of propaganda in China, but the field for this work is at present so small that the Chinese can do very little until they get official assistance from the officials of the Socialist Party in this and other countries.

Meanwhile Sun Fo and his friends have launched an interesting movement among 500 or more Chinese students scattered among American colleges. They have written the first appeal in Chinese and have proposed that the Intercollegiate Socialist Society send this appeal to all the Chinese students in America. They have the directory of these students and are in the position to follow up their campaign vigorously and make a concerted attempt to bring Socialism before the notice of these picked men who are to play so powerful a part in the future of China. The Inter-Collegiate Socialist Society has heartily seconded the plan, and unless there is an unfortunate postponement, the appeal should be in the hands of the Chinese students some time during the present month.

Besides the branch in Chinatown, Comrade Kiang Kang Hoo proposes to form Socialist branches in other western cities. A live Intercollegiate Socialist Society has already been started among the Chinese students of the University of California, among whom are several women.

The Buffalo Socialist was a weekly published in Buffalo New York by the Buffalo Socialist Publishing Company from 1911-1915 and aligned with the Socialist Party of America. Edited by Max Sherover, the company also produced a weekly women’s newspaper, New Age, from 1915.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/buffalo-socialist/v2n99-apr-25-1914-Buf-Soc.pdf