Pat Quinlan looks at the electoral campaign in Paterson, New Jersey that took place shortly after the monumental strike in that city in which the Socialist Party came close to winning.

‘Glorious Paterson’ by Patrick Quinlan the International Socialist Review. Vol. 14 No. 6 December, 1913.

(Comrade Quinlan is out on $5, 000 bail, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court. He also was compelled to give bail on four other indictments, amounting to an additional $7,500. Quinlan was one of the best fighters during the long strike of the silk workers.)

HERE has just been concluded in the silk city the most remarkable, the most unique and the most significant electoral battle ever waged in the annals of American municipal politics. The story of the great industrial battle that was fought last spring and summer in Paterson has been told in the REVIEW, and indeed in nearly every Socialist periodical in America, and is now a part of the industrial and labor history of this country. Our readers will easily recall the dramatic incidents of that historic struggle with its dynamic energy and electric enthusiasm. Well, that great industrial fight was transferred completely into the political arena, and this political contest had all the elements of the former, minus the tragedies that put a shadow over it. There was no gloom to darken the community, no tragedy to bring sorrow to the proletarian firesides.

The strike of the 22,000 silk workers of Haledon, Prospect Park, Clifton, Lakeview and the city of Paterson was scarcely ended —the wounds were not healed—when the Socialist party began its campaign. Local and imported speakers began to arouse interest in the campaign and made things hum.

But, like all street campaigns, the impression made was hardly noticeable for a time. Then came the railroading of the writer to state’s prison on the historic Third of July. This stirred the fires of class hatred that were beginning to decline to new life. A demand for political action that was almost volcanic was made all over the city. And the climax was reached when I was released from Trenton on the 29th of July, when I attended a reception of organized men under the auspices of the party a night or two after. Fully 15,000 men and women attended the meeting and the demand for political power was made in clear and forcible language.

From then on to the 30th of October large and small meetings were held all over town, the slogans at every one of them being, “Carry your industrial solidarity to the ballot box.” “Control the city hall and the police stations.” “Use both arms in the fight this time and we’ll win future battles with less suffering and sacrifice.” Questions of municipal ownership, political graft and the maladministration of the MacBride executive were mentioned as a matter of course in the printed platform.

They were not accentuated on the soap box or the forum. These were left to Blauvelt, the progressive candidate.

It was the class struggle in all its industrial bitterness and fierceness elevated to the high plane of social warfare. No attempt was made to conciliate the business element, big or little, nor was there any attempt to hide our purpose by speaking of taxes or efficiency.

It was war to the knife on the capitalists all along the line. We asked no quarter; made no deals. Yet the bourgeoisie were not frightened. They thought the workers would continue in the same old way, voting like sheep or cattle, and I am sorry to state many, indeed, the majority of our own party members thought likewise. Not until a few days before election did they wake up to the splendid possibilities at hand. (They are more surprised than the capitalists at the vote that was polled in spite of them.) Only a few of us had the vision. But it was a prize we could not capture for lack of confidence at home and lack of support abroad. The German sick and death benefit societies contributed to our appeal for funds $500; the national office $50; Local New York City $5. Money from the people of Paterson came in very small quantities, naturally. They are still financially crippled since the strike. But despite all these great handicaps we made things hum. The politicians and their wooden-headed followers were thrown into fits—consternation was in the air all round them—when the climax of all our agitation was reached on’ the night of October 31, when the most spacious auditorium in the city, the High School, was packed to its limit and as many as twenty-five hundred persons attended. the overflow meeting outside, braving the bitter cold and sharp, cutting wind to hear speeches delivered by the writer, James M. Reilly, candidate for governor, and Gordon Demearest a candidate for mayor.

The next day, Nov. 1, the capitalist press was panic stricken and a demand was made on the Democrats to vote for Fordyce, the Republican-Fusion conservative Progressive candidate, in order to beat the Socialists. The betting was between Demarest and the banker, Fordyce. All the evening papers, the one Sunday paper, all Monday morning and evening papers had full page advertisements in which they stated that “If Demarest is elected Quinlan will be the mayor. A vote for the Democratic candidate Robert Roe is half a vote for Quinlan and his I.W.W. gang.”

On election morning there was no mistaking how the workers were voting. Strong Democratic districts were going over to the Socialists, and big raids were made in the Republican bailiwicks by Demarest. At noon the word went out to all the dyed-in-the-wool organization Democrats to vote for Fordyce, and beat the Socialists. The Evening Press got out a special extra every hour up to the time Fordyce’s election was safe. By 11 :30 we knew that Demarest was second in the race over a thousand ahead of the Democrats. Blauvelt, an honest Progressive, deserved better, but was deserted by his party for the banker. He only polled 880 votes, the head of the ticket getting 2,000 more. The other candidates trailed behind out of sight. Fordyce had 7,300, Demarest 5,160, with about 500 Socialist ballots rejected on technicalities.

The smoke of the battle has blown away, the din and noise of the conflict has ceased. ‘Only the echo remains; we have now time to analyze the vote, to see who supported the ticket, and look for those who did not help the political fight of the working class.

First, the vote was as class-conscious and as determined as was ever cast in a municipal election. Second, it came principally from the silk workers. Third, it can hardly be called a protest vote, it was an honest attempt to capture the political power of the city so that it could be used for defensive or offensive purposes in the future industrial battles. Now it remains as we conclude, to ask: Who did not vote the ticket? Why was not Gordon Demarest, the Socialist, elected? The answer is simple. The craft union men did not vote for him. Though a machinist by trade, and affiliated with the A.F. of L., the majority of the crafts affiliated with local trades council, the building trades, the musicians, the bartenders, the brewery workers, and others, voted for the old party machines. Because four or five of their members were given places on the Democratic and Republican ballots, they sold their birthright and betrayed their class in the hour of need. (With a few honorable exceptions, especially the cigarmakers.) One can not help recalling the words of the national poet of Ireland, Thomas Moore, when Irish traitors sold their country and blasted its hopes for more than a hundred years. Moore said:

“Oh, for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason and whose cowardly blight
Comes o’er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might.”

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n06-dec-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf