From 20 to 250 members in five years, Ella Rapport with a brief history of the Bronx Young Socialists.

‘History of the Bronx Y.P.S.L.’ by Ella Rapport from Young Socialists Magazine. Vol. 11 No. 9. September, 1917.

Never do I realize the progress of the Y.P.S.L. of the Bronx so much as when I look back to the time of its birth. In April, 1912, about twenty young people, mostly children of Socialist parents, formed what they called “The Young People’s Educational Association.” Every week they met in the damp, dark cellar of the old, time-worn “Labor Lyceum,” to study Socialism. In winter they kept their coats on: and, were anyone so brave as to attempt to draw a tune from the five or six good notes of the “piano,” he was sure to have his fingers frozen for his pains. And yet we were satisfied. What cared we for cold or dampness? Such trifles were forgotten in a heated discussion of a current question.

How well I remember our first change of meeting rooms! To us it was a momentous occasion, for was not Berger’s Casino a palace? At first we feared that it would be too large, but we grew rapidly. Before we had had a membership of working boys and girls, but now the student element appeared. How strong we felt then, when we could count as many as thirty people present at one of our lectures. Every member was busy. They distributed announcements of Socialist meetings, sold literature and took up collections at the meetings, in fact, in many ways helping along the Party and, incidentally, themselves. In the organization itself the spirit of work was predominant. We started out after a “Mile of Pennies,” established the club paper, “The Critic,” and united the members that, unlike other organizations of young people, we flourished rather than declined during the hot summer months.

We outgrew the Casino in a few months and moved again. Our rooms at 164th Street and Third Avenue were always crowded. Never will I forget our first “Olde Fashioned Halloween Eve.” So large was the attendance and so great the influx of new members, attracted by the originality of our entertainments, that we realized we must find still larger rooms. And so we moved to McKinley Square Casino.

Do not think, Comrades, that we had forgotten our educational work. Quite the contrary. We had lectures by all the prominent speakers in the party: even the programs of our socials were mostly educational. Debates, discussions by the members, and essay writing (let me mention here that one of our members took second prize in the National Essay Contest then held) gave the boys and girls a chance to express their thoughts.

In the autumn of 1914, our membership was over 100, with only a few, if any, in arrears. Then came the demand for another circle in the lower Bronx to accommodate those who could not come up to McKinley Square. Thus in December 1914. Circle 2 was organized. For a long while they struggled to secure meeting rooms which were very scarce in that section. At last they were received at the headquarters of the Lettish Branch of the Socialist Party where they now meet.

This was but the beginning of our branching out. The next winter a group of Jewish young men and women applied and were admitted as Circle 3, meeting in the upper Bronx. Last year Circle 4 was formed in the eastern part of the Borough, and that completes the quota. The circles are hound together by a County Committee which has upon it the most active members of the four circles.

And so, from a small group of earnest, thoughtful young people has sprung up here, as all over the country, a strong united league, numbering in the Bronx at least 250 in good standing.

As, month after month, our members advance to take up the work in the Socialist Party, we feel that we have done something to help along the cause of universal brotherhood.

Young Socialist’s Magazine was the journal of the original Young People’s Socialist League and grew of of the Socialist Sunday School Movement, with its audience being children rather than the ‘young adults’ of later Socialist youth groups. Beginning in 1908 as The Little Socialist Magazine. In 1911 it changed to The Young Socialists’ Magazine and its audience skewed older. By the time of the entry into World War One, the Y.P.S.L.’s, then led by future Communists like Oliver Carlson and Martin Abern, had a strong Left Wing, creating a fractious internal life and infrequent publication, ceasing entirely in 1920.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/youngsocialist/v11n09-sep-1917_Young%20Socialists.pdf