A report from a minority Leftist delegate on the Wisconsin State Socialist Party’s war-time convention.

‘The Convention of the Wisconsin Socialist Party’ by Joseph R. Booth. From Truth (Duluth). Vol. 2 No. 27. July 5, 1918.

The convention of the Socialist The convention Party of Wisconsin was held June 15th and 16th, in the Brisbane Hall, Milwaukee. There were 140 delegates present from various parts of the State.

Resolutions were adopted protesting against the denial of our constitutional rights and many radical speeches were made in regard to the war and its aims. The convention will never be forgotten on account of the crisis we are now passing through. Although many good speeches and resolutions were made, the convention failed to represent the party many times.

On arriving at the convention, one was struck with the lack of real democracy. Instead of allowing the delegates to select their own committees, a select few had gathered together and decided who should be on the various committees. Of course the chairman camouflaged it all by appointing the members himself. It would have been better if he had been frank about the whole thing and said, “The delegates were all picked out for the various committees, so that we would be sure they were all nice boys.” In other words, we were afraid of allowing any radicals to support our program.

Comrade Nelson, after traveling all night to get to the convention, was honored by a place on the credentials committee. They trusted to luck, owing to him being a stranger, that he would not steal any credentials. Of course we protested to the State secretary, with the result that comrade Booth was placed on the resolutions committee. It was worth fighting for, because on the resolutions committee you have a chance of knowing what is being advocated by the comrades and the sentiments and feelings of the comrades.

A resolution was presented by the Douglas County delegates, urging the party to come out boldly for industrial unionism. Of course, we expect to get a big vote from the A. F. of L., so we did not allow this resolution to go through. If you are politicians, you must compromise, you must not meet facts square in the face, so despite the hard fight that lasted over three hours, we were beaten. But we are not pessimistic about the failure of our resolution to pass, time will prove the wisdom of our action in asking the party to indorse industrial unionism. They tried to pacify the industrialists by appointing a committee of two, who were opposed to industrial unionism, to bring in a resolution. The resolution was made to read without industrial unionism, but after fighting once more, they decided to indorse industrial unionism, but would not say that trade unionism had failed. Another resolution indorsing the Forward Labor movement, which advocated workers to join the trade unions, was altered to read labor movement. A distinction without difference, as Dooley would say.

A doctor brought in a resolution to STOP THE WAR IN IN SIXTY DAYS. It was tabled.

Among many other resolutions brought in was one by the Douglas County delegates against compromising with the Nonpartisan League and to expel from party membership those working for the League. A very hot discussion took place. They could not very well give in to this, because they would have to expel not common ordinary members but prominent socialists like Walter Thomas Mills. AND THEY ALSO WERE AFRAID OF LOSING THE FARMERS’ VOTE. Our resolution was voted down. A shameful substitute was brought in to appoint a committee of three, to meet with the officials of the Nonpartisan League, to League, to co-operate with them if possible. It was passed by a vote of 56 to 24. In vain the minority delegates tried to rule it out of order, stating it was a direct violation of the national resolution opposing compromising with the League.

The platform adopted ignores the class struggle entirely. But the strength of the socialist movement was always weighed and measured by the vote and the elected officials. A motion to insert that both economical and political power is essential to bring socialism, was lost. It speaks of legislation for wage-workers but not a word about organizing on the job, lauds public ownership but not democratic control of industry by the workers. It is out for compelling the PARASITIC NON-PRODUCING CAPITALISTIC CLASS TO PAY FOR THE WAR, but its greatest remedy to remove all the evils that beset the working class, is to fight for the right to use any language in church services and so forth.

With our criticism we do not intend to bring in discouragement and dissension in the socialist movement, but we mean to say that the time has come for the rank and file to run the organization so as to put it on a sound basis. We are exploited at the point of production, therefore we must urge the workers to organize industrially not only for the everyday struggle but for the historic mission of taking over and running the industries after capitalism is overthrown. And political action must be a tool for the industrial movement.

The convention was closed with three cheers for the industrial revolution.

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 I.W.W. leading to the paper being closed down in the first big anti-I.W.W. 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 J.O. Bentall until 1923 as an unofficial paper of the C.P.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/truth/1918/v02n27-jul-05-1918-truth.pdf