In 1908, the Socialist vote for Debs in West Virginia was 3,420–in 1912 it was 13,659. In 1908 the Party had an average of 207 dues-paying members–in 1912 it was 1,175. The Party’s State Secretary Harold W. Houston on the special role West Virginia plays in the economy, the recent growth of the Party, and the opportunist dangers it presented.

‘The Dangers of Party Growth’ by H.W. Houston from The Labor Star (Huntington, W.V.). Vol. 2 No. 52. May 29, 1914.

The phenomenal growth of the Socialist Party of West Virginia has its attendant dangers. It will be recalled that the last campaign developed the fact that the growth of our party in this State was far greater than in any section of the nation. During a period of four years it had grown in voting strength over three) hundred per cent. The reason for this wonderful awakening is not hard to find. It is to be found, first, in the fact that West Virginia is a great coal bin, wherein lie the vast deposits of fuel that must fire the boilers of the nation’s industries. That here are approximately seventy-five thousand miners representing a large proportion of the State’s voting population, the veritable slaves of the Coal Oligarchy. The reason of this awakening of the workers is further found in the fact that the northern portion of the state and particularly the north western section, lies within the north of the Ohio River basin which it destined in the near future to become the machine shop of the Western World. Already this section is the geographical center of the American branch of the International Socialist Movement.

As every Marxian knows, the Machine is the prince of propagandists. It is the flying shuttle and the whirling bobbin that weaves the warp and woof of the red banner of the Social Revolution. All the revolutions of the centuries, with all their blood and tears, with all their violence and destruction, dwarf into insignificance in comparison with the revolution of the Machine. It was the Machine that snatched the old hand tools from the workers of other days, and tossed them on the scrap heap. It was the Machine that miraculously converted the handicraftsman into a wage slave, and made his labor power a mere commodity to be bought and sold in the open market like the merest junk. In the wake of the Machine there follows an ever-growing army of desperate hungry, propertyless proletarians.

Producing the fuel for the Machine, West Virginia thus becomes a child of the Social Revolution. It is to this that the awakening of our worker-folk is due. It is to this that the expanding of the Socialist party of the state is to be attributed. So, today our party has become a political factor of no mean proportions. It has won numerous victories in various parts of the state. It has alarmed the Coal Autocracy to such an extent that they deemed it expedient to raise a large fund for its suppression.

Another element of no small importance has fostered the growth of the party. That element has been the attitude of the State’s official machinery. Deficient in understanding of the working class movement, and with minds stuffed with Rip Van Winkle political philosophy, they have aided us with bullets and bayonets, with military commissions and executive proclamations, with court decisions and busted constitutions, thus blindly hoping to stem the current of irresistible industrial evolution.

With our growing political importance, we are ever beset by an increasing danger. That danger is our seduction from the path of revolutionary activity. Above all else we must never let the allurements of office lessen our devotion to revolutionary ideals. The strength and vitality of the movement depends on our unwavering loyalty. Trading and compromise at this period of our development means the introduction of the germs of disease and death. Only through faithful devotion can we give to the movement that fine and unquenchable spirit of militancy that will fill the hearts of the workers with hope and enthusiasm.

Already have the insidious whisperings of treason gone thru our camps. Already have schemes of compromise and trading been suggested. On every hand can be heard the pleadings of “friends of Labor” bidding for the Socialist vote. Many devices are being framed to divert the workers from the real issue, and lead them to the shambles of some non-socialist party. Fayette and Raleigh counties are overrun by these political buccaneers, and many of these “friends of Labor” are advocating decoy “Labor” parties. Even some of the troglodyte officials of the United Mine Workers of America and their petty hangers-on are playing this crooked game against the workers.

Let everyone who classes himself as a Socialist remember that compromise means death to the working class movement. It opens the way for our assimilation by some other party that adheres to the ways of capitalism. It means the continued enslavement of the workers and the indefinite postponement of the day of liberation. No, we must not be dazzled by the allurements of political power. Better a thousand times that we go down in defeat with the red flag at the mast, than that we creep into office shorn of every vestige of principle. The Socialist party does not exist for the purpose of giving jobs to political aspirants. We must fight with all our power against those who would use the party merely as a stepping-stone to office. We must never permit the party to be made a tail to the kite of political pie-hunters. For many years I have seen the party go down to defeat, but not once has it gone down in despair. No sooner had the election returns been recorded than the comrades returned to the field of battle. With our idea of a nation without slaves, of a land wherein all may live lives of joy and plenty, wherein no master may shut any man, woman or child from the sunlight of life, we will never lose hope and spirit. But once yield to the seductive wiles of political prostitutes, and we will lose our high-spiritedness and forget the ideals that gave birth the greatest uprising of the working class that the world has ever known.

Begun in 1912, the Socialist and Labor Star (later just Labor Star) was published in Huntington, West Virginia as “the official organ of the Socialist Party and of the Huntington Trades & Labor Assembly” and edited by Wyatt Thompson, West Virginian and former coal miner then printer’s apprentice. Labor issues, including the UMWA strike in Paint and Cabin Creeks, as well as US foreign policy, religion, and local political affair were features of the paper. It was often at odds with both the leadership of the Socialist party and of the UMWA. In the beginning of 1915, the Socialist and Labor Star merged with the Charleston Labor Argus to form the Argus Star, Thompson continued to serve as editor of the Argus Star.

Access to full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059765/1914-05-29/ed-1/seq-2/