A fine article from Frank Bohn on the expansive role of Socialist offices as social centers for working class life.

‘The Local Headquarters As a Social Center’ by Frank Bohn from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 14. No 7. January, 1914.

IF THE Socialist party wishes to succeed in the matter of organization it must do more than confine itself to political agitation. Young working people who are worth while do not come to the Socialist movement because they see the vote growing. The vote grows wherever we attract, hold and develop a force of active people. As a movement we must not expect to rely wholly upon our promise to perform wonders in the future. We can-not get something for nothing in the present. We must render service for service. Herein lies the main motive for the establishment of the social and educational center. This is not a luxury but a necessity of Socialist progress.

In the absence of accurate statistics it is a reasonable estimate that one-half of our working people between the ages of eighteen and forty years are unmarried. Immediately surrounding the business center of every large city is the zone of the cheap rooming house and proletarian restaurant. Here the young worker, male or female, gets a room for two-fifty per week, and his dinner (soup, coffee and pie included, if you please), for thirty cents. It would be interesting to know just how many young workers swarm in the great rooming house district of Chicago between the river and North Avenue and west from the Lake to Orleans street. There must be at least 20, 000. This army, clerks and apprentices, skilled mechanics and common laborers, nearly as many women and girls as men and boys, is a field dead ripe for Socialist propaganda and organization. Its counterpart exists in every city in the land of over 100,000 population.

Into this mass the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. thrust their roots. The decaying protestant churches, furnishing free music, cake and ice cream instead of the old-fashioned prayer meetings, work these districts with funds contributed by the rich philanthropist, who seeks salvation and notoriety. These young people want above all, amusement. They work eight or ten hours a day at the most deadening labor. Their wages, after their absolute necessaries of life are paid for, leave almost nothing for amusement. Two forms of recreation are universal—the movies and, during pleasant weather, walking in the park, if they are fortunate enough to be near one. For the boys and young men there is, of course, a third resort, namely the saloon and the pool room. The saddest commentary possible on the intellectual condition prevailing among this army of young people in the Chicago district described, is the fact that the great Newberry Reference Library, located in the heart of this district, attracts none of them. Our young American workers have no opportunities for either intellectual development or decent social intercourse. Ten in a rooming house live often lonely, hopeless lives.

The Great Precedent.

From the social and political movement of Germany, which developed in the middle of the last century, the German labor movement inherited a large degree of its political and intellectual idealism. The German Turn Verein was a popular athletic movement, the influence of which spread into every realm of the workers’ lives. The Verein developed a system of athletic exercises in which everybody could take a part In America our young clerk or factory slave, with every limb and organ stifled from want of exercise, takes the only half dollar which he can save from his weekly pay envelope and pays it into the bursting coffers of the baseball trust. This trust hires eighteen men and pays them salaries to take the exercise for eighteen thousand anaemic slaves and overfed business men. Such is “sport” in America.

The German Turn Verein, adapting its exercises to individual needs, proceeded to develop not only the physical but the social life of the German workers. It organized singing societies and dramatic clubs. It founded libraries and organized lecture courses. It brought the young of both sexes together in a well rounded, vigorous and satisfying social life. What a commentary on the American city that the second generation of young Germans are content to see the turner societies of their fathers neglected and decadent.

At present the Finnish Socialists are furnishing the finest example of workers’ clubs in America. Many a group of less than two hundred Finns possesses a Socialist headquarters and clubhouse worth fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. These Finnish Socialists pay a dollar a year extra dues to support their excellent Socialist college at Spirit Lake, Minn. One of the results of these activities is that, out of 150,000 Finns in the country, 14,000 are dues-paying members of the Socialist party.

The Socialist Party’s Opportunity.

The Socialist party has before it a clear field for the development of a real social and intellectual movement among the workers. From the feeble efforts now being put forth by the average Socialist local or branch, it ought to be easy enough, through careful organization, to develop what we here have in mind. Practical results are what we want. In this article we can but describe the ideal and make suggestions for the beginning of a movement toward its realization. If one local or branch headquarters can really succeed in accomplishing what we have in mind, others can profit by its experience. What we are anxious to find are locals and branches ready to proceed along the lines we here indicate.

The practical way is to begin with what we have and develop it. The average local in a city of a hundred thousand or branch in a larger city has a business meeting once a week or twice a month. It arranges propaganda street meetings during the summer months and conducts. Sunday evening lectures in the winter. Very few have as yet tried to do more than this. Some have organized a class in economics, a Socialist woman’s club, or a chapter of the Young People’s Socialist League. In almost all Socialist headquarters there are a few books and Socialist papers. The social side of the branch organization has been almost totally neglected.

The Social Center of the Future

The headquarters and social center should be located with great care. Of course, it should be easy of access to all sections of the district which it aims to serve. For instance, in Columbus it should be near Capitol Square and not more than a block from High Street. In the Harlem of New York, on 125th street, near some elevated or subway line. Let it be remembered that most workers will not walk far. Therefore, it should be centrally located and easily accessible by street car.

The institution should begin with at least a large and a small hall. The small hall should be used for local meetings, classes, and perhaps it will at first serve as a reading room. The large hall, which may be rented to other organizations a portion of the time, can be used both for mass meetings and lectures and for dances and other social events. One of the most important features of a social center is the clubroom. Opportunities should be here offered for conversation and games. Membership in the party should carry with it all the privileges of the social center, but the opportunities of the social center should not be confined to members of the party. Control of the center in all of its activities should be entirely maintained by the party membership, otherwise there is danger that the Socialist character of the institution be entirely lost.

The main purpose of the social center is its educational work. Almost all young working people will desire to read widely or pursue some definite course of study if the whole atmosphere of the center is permeated by intellectual ideals. The reading room of the club should contain not only the regular Socialist and labor periodicals, but also a selected number of interesting literary and scientific publications.

The organized educational work naturally takes two forms—the popular lecture and the study class. The former has been already so well developed as to need no emphasis here. The latter are harder to develop. Nine out of ten of our Socialist study classes end in failure. The common cause of failure is either the lack of a teacher or the fact that half the members of the class wish to displace the teacher. Pedagogy is a science and teaching is an art. No bricklayer is permitted to “butt in” on the plumber’s job nor does the machinist tell the carpenter how to build a stainfray. If a class in Socialist economics, government or natural science is organized, a capable teacher should be put in charge. The class should be conducted quite the same as it is in an up-to-date public school. That means that the teacher must outline and conduct the work of the class. It is far better to start with a class of ten who will continue throughout the season, completing the work as outlined, than to start with a hundred and end up with none at all. A class should not be asked to meet oftener than once a week, and sessions should not continue beyond an hour. The Socialist movement is now quite able in most cities to secure the services of a professional school teacher to conduct such a class. Classes in economics and government can usually find instructors among our party teachers and writers. The course, when organized, should be planned to include a certain definite number of meetings. We suggest either twelve lessons, which will take three months, or twenty-four lessons, which will take six months.

Naturally, the first class organized will be for the study of Socialist economics. Other subjects recommended are the government of the United States, federal and state; the government of municipalities; an introduction to biology; the history of industrial society; and the industrial history of the United States.

Almost every young Socialist wishes to become a speaker and should be given the opportunity to develop his talents. But this desire should not interfere with the work of the study class. A debating society or public discussion meeting should be organized separately. A committee elected at the first meeting, with the assistance of the membership, should choose subjects for discussion for a month in advance. The election of a new chairman at each meeting gives opportunity for training in that capacity.

Usually speeches should be limited to three or five minutes. For some meetings debates may be arranged with leaders who are given ten minutes each to start the discussion. This open forum will give vent to the oratorical powers of the young members which otherwise will be a continual disturbance to the regular party meetings or the work of the study classes.

Whence the Funds?

The first question to arise in the minds of the experienced party workers is, How can these activities be financed? Let us repeat what we have already observed, that such an institution cannot be established in a day, but must develop gradually. Where valuable work is done, it can easily be paid for. The money can be drawn from two sources. The people who are served by the institution will gladly pay their share. Then the Socialist party has a large number of ardent sympathizers among the skilled mechanics and people of the professional and middle classes who are in a position to contribute liberally if they see results. The less they do in active service the more they are willing to be called upon to pay. Requests for contributions from party members and sympathizers should not be made in a haphazard manner. The financial committee of the local should be composed only of experienced and trustworthy members who are willing to devote much time to formulating and executing plans pertaining to the budget. To burden the membership at the local meeting with all the intricacies and detail of accounting is the quickest way to drive members away. All the work of organization should be carefully planned in committee and reported for action to the local. Regular quarterly financial statements can be mimeographed and sent by mail to each member. This method specializes the work and inspires confidence.

The Socialist party is soon to meet the carefully organized social and political work of progressivism. The middle class, assisted by the intelligent members of the plutocracy, are even now hunting for working-class brains to help brace the tottering political framework of capitalism. We should be first in the field, with an effective machinery to organize, educate and inspire the young workers, if we are to successfully make headway against the forces of progressivism. The social center is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

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/v14n07-jan-1914-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf