Much more representative of the fight in 1919 was the confused situation in California. The Socialist Party in 1919 had 2,257 dues-paying members, well down from its 1911 high of 6,700 members, indicative that the split happening between Left and Right had already come to California. Indeed, much of the California Left walked away from the Party after Haywood’s recall, with many joining the I.W.W. Future Communist leaders to come from the California Socialist Party include Max Bedacht, James Dolson, and were associated with the Communist Labor Party.

‘The California Convention’ by Alanson Sessions from Truth (Duluth). Vol. 3 No. 25. June 27, 1919.

The California State Convention of the Socialist Party, held on May 30th, 31st and June 1st at San Francisco, resulted in a more or less definite decision to affiliate with the Left Wing movement of the American Socialist Party. The greater part of Sunday, June 1st, was spent in a discussion of the practicability of the Left Wing Program. It is unfortunate that a clear-cut decision was not taken before the adjournment of the convention.

While Left Wing sentiment seemed to be dominant, a vote on the subject was either adroitly avoided by the machinations of the Right or overlooked by the Left. The first two days of the convention were occupied in the discussion of methods of organization and propaganda and on the nature and future of the Socialist press. But from the outset it was clear to all that such discussion was futile until the momentous question of basic party policy was determined. The subject of organization and propaganda must be confused and incoherent if the party does not know precisely where it stands with relation to the Left Wing. It was to be expected, therefore, that the first two days of the convention would be wasted in tiresome verbosity.

The third day proved that the majority of the membership is Left Wing by sentiment, if not by intellectual conviction. Most of the delegates felt that there is a dire need for a radical alteration in tactics, but few of them had done any serious and consecutive thinking on the subject. Taylor, slate secretary, and Dolsen, one of the most prominent of the party organizers, are both Left Wing. Others like Lillian B. Symes and Cameron King, recognized as big figures in the California movement, were emphatically Right Wing in their attitude. King especially bitterly attacked the Left Wing Program and denounced “frenzied Fraina” as a phrase-monger and a vulgar disrupter. King bused his argument principally on the fact that a revolution in the United States is not likely for many years to come.

This being the case, he contended, it was idle to agitate for a dictatorship of the proletariat and an application of Russian tactics to American conditions. The leader of the Left Wing, Comrade Coleman, in answer to King, argued that the possibility of an immediate overturn in this country was something quite beside the point that the Left Wing wished only to make the party strictly revolutionary in its aims and tactics and to prepare thoroughly for the revolution when it comes.

There is little doubt that the referendum vote on the Left Wing and Right Wing issue will result in favor of the former. The leaders of the Left, however, recognize the fact that many of their supporters are not well-grounded, and they are carrying on a strenuous campaign of education among their ranks.

It is interesting to note although the Left Wingers have been denounced by the Right Wingers as hysterical, etc., at the California convention the exponents of the Left Wing were far more scholarly and unhysterical than their opponents. Cameron King, for instance did not hesitate to resort to epithets and personal denunciation in his speeches, while Coleman’s talk was a dispassionate, impersonal analysis of the situation.

This convention is a preliminary convention to larger and more representative one which will be held in the near future.

Truth emerged from the The Duluth Labor Leader, a weekly English language publication of the Scandinavian local of the Socialist Party in Duluth, Minnesota and began on May Day, 1917 as a Left Wing alternative to the Duluth Labor World. The paper was aligned to both the SP and the IWW leading to the paper being closed down in the first big anti-IWW raids in September, 1917. The paper was reborn as Truth, with the Duluth Scandinavian Socialists joining the Communist Labor Party of America in 1919. Shortly after the editor, Jack Carney, was arrested and convicted of espionage in 1920. Truth continued to publish with a new editor JO Bentall until 1923 as an unofficial paper of the CP.

PDF of full issue: https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn89081142/1919-06-27/ed-1/seq-1