The Social Democratic League of America (SDLA) was a short-lived social-democratic political party established in 1917 by electorally-oriented socialists who favored the participation of the United States in World War I. Led by such intellectuals as John Spargo, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, and William English Walling, the SDLA maintained effective control over the venerable American socialist newspaper The Appeal to Reason (then known as The New Appeal) during 1918, the year of the group's greatest public influence.
Claiming a membership of 2,500 at its peak — a number possibly inflated — the SDLA achieved some limited success in building support for the military effort among the wavering socialists of France and Great Britain during the last weary months of the war. Following the end of the European fighting, the SDLA lost much of its raison d'être and dissolved amidst personal acrimony, as did the National Party, a parallel political umbrella organization with which it was closely associated.
Organizational history
Background American entry into World War I came in the immediate aftermath of President Woodrow Wilson's successful November 1916 re-election campaign, which made prominent use of the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War". Just months after Wilson's resounding victory, the resumption of unlimited submarine warfare by Germany early in 1917 pushed Wilson and the United States towards intervention in the European conflict.
For its part, the Socialist Party of America (SPA) had been steadfast in its opposition to militarism and American participation in the bloodbath on the other side of the Atlantic. Throughout 1915 and 1916, the SPA had consistently put forward pacifist views in opposition to the Preparedness Movement.
With the Wilson Administration clearly careening towards war, the Socialist Party had called an Emergency National Convention to open in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, where the party was to once again reiterate its anti-war stance and attempt to generate publicity so as to mobilize public opinion to keep America out of the war.
Events proved to outpace the best pacifistic intentions of the Socialists, however, and on April 6, 1917 Woodrow Wilson addressed the United States Congress in calling for a declaration of war against Germany. By the time the Socialist Party assembled in St. Louis on April 7, the direct participation of the United States in the war was an accomplished fact.
The most important work group at the Socialist Party's St. Louis Emergency National Convention was its Committee on War and Militarism, chaired by veteran party leader Morris Hillquit and including notably his New York comrade Algernon Lee, head of the Rand School of Social Science, and Cleveland radical C.E. Ruthenberg. This committee passed a majority resolution branding the American government's entrance into the European conflict as "a crime against the people of the United States and against the nations of the world" and promising "continuous, active, and public opposition to the war."
A pro-war minority, headed by Vermont author John Spargo put forward a competing resolution which charged Germany with having committed a "crime against Socialist principles" through its invasion of Belgium and affirming the "right of nations to defend themselves" as a fundamental principle of internationalism.John Spargo, "Second Minority Report of the Committee on War and Militarism: St. Louis — April 11, 1917." Corvallis, OR: 1000 Flowers Publishing, 2007. Spargo's alternative resolutions garnered just 5 votes out of the nearly 200 delegates assembled in St. Louis and gained no headway when brought to the party membership as part of the process of ratifying the decisions of the Emergency Convention.The Hillquit-Lee-Ruthenberg majority resolution was approved by rank-and-file Socialist Party members by a vote of 22,345 to 2,752. See: Tim Davenport, "Socialist Party of America (1897-1946): Party History," Early American Marxism website. Spargo and his co-thinkers soon found themselves outside the Socialist Party and in search of a new political organization to achieve their political intentions.
Establishment
Spargo's idea was for the establishment of a new socialist propaganda organization called the Social Democratic League of America (SDLA).Markku Ruotsila, John Spargo and American Socialism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; pg. 79. Working hand in glove with Spargo for the group's formation was New York "millionaire socialist" Graham Phelps Stokes, popular journalist Charles Edward Russell, author William J. Ghent, and New York attorney and movement veteran Henry L. Slobodin, among others.Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr., "The Pro-War Socialists, the Social Democratic League, and the Ill-Fated Drive for Industrial Democracy in America, 1917-1920," Labor History, vol. 11, no. 3 (Summer 1970), pp. 308-310.
Graham Stokes began work on a manifesto for the new organization during the second half of April 1917, intending to advance a vision of so-called "industrial democracy" which would prove attractive to great numbers of Americans.Hendrickson, "The Pro-War Socialists, the Social Democratic League, and the Ill-Fated Drive for Industrial Democracy in America, 1917-1920," pg. 310. Stokes strove to step away from the Marxist idea of the class struggle, instead seeking to build a "spirit of cooperation with all who seek the same ends."
In its initial incarnation, the SDLA was conceived as a social democratic left wing of the pro-war movement, a propaganda group within a larger movement. The broader political umbrella group in which the SDLA was to function was the National Party, formed in a conclave held July 6–8, 1917 at the home of future Committee of 48 leader J.A.H. Hopkins in Morristown, New Jersey.Hendrickson, "The Pro-War Socialists, the Social Democratic League, and the Ill-Fated Drive for Industrial Democracy in America, 1917-1920," pg. 311. Joining in this political organization would be members of the Single-Tax movement, the Nonpartisan League, and the Prohibition Party, among others.
Adding to the organizational confusion was yet another group with a largely overlapping membership base. Many of those involved in the SDLA would also soon be participants in the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, a wartime entity closely associated with the American Federation of Labor and sought to shift that organization and the AF of L onto a more leftward political course through the tactic of boring from within.
While Graham Stokes made claim of a membership of 2,500 for the new organization late in 1917, historian Kenneth Hendrickson noted this to be a strictly "paper membership," with "almost all" of these inactive.Hendrickson, "The Pro-War Socialists, the Social Democratic League, and the Ill-Fated Drive for Industrial Democracy in America, 1917-1920," pg. 315. Outside of the prominent intellectuals who made up the SDLA's leadership "the organization must be said to have existed on paper only," Hendrickson judged.
1918 reorganization Very nearly stillborn, an effort was made to boldly relaunch the Social Democratic League in 1918. An 87-member Organization Committee was cobbled together, consisting of like-minded representatives from 27 American states. This body in turn elected a provisional National Administrative Committee, headed by former Socialist Party member Henry L. Slobodin of New York. This body met frequently throughout the summer and fall of 1918. John Spargo was formally named the first chairman of the organization.
A simple three point set of general objects of the league were published in July 1918, including support of the war, support of Woodrow Wilson's peace terms "as interpreted by the Inter-Allied Socialist and Labor Conference of London," and securing for the United States "the program of social reconstruction set forth by the British Labour Party.""Here are Some Reasons Why You Should Join the League that Will Further Cause of Social Democracy," The New Appeal, whole no. 1,180 (July 13, 1918), pg. 1. The organization disclaimed any intent to be a political party, instead professing a desire to build "cooperation with all forces working for the [its] general aims."
In May 1918 the British-born Spargo appealed to the Wilson administration to send him on a mission to Europe in an effort to rally the flagging spirits of the socialist movement there to the war effort. Wilson, fearful of weakening popular resolve in France, Great Britain, and Italy, approved this idea and a six-member labor mission including Spargo was dispatched on a mission lasting two months.Ruotsila, John Spargo and American Socialism, pg. 80.
Among the group was former Socialist Party member A.M. Simons, who declared the group's mission that of presenting "to the Socialists of Europe the American interpretation of democratic internationalism.""Mission's Work Outlined in Statement by Simons," The New Appeal, whole no. 1,178 (June 29, 1918), pg. 2. Declaring the SDLA's complete opposition to the notion of a Stockholm peace conference, Simons observed that there was no such apprehension about "the right kind of conference." Such a conference was to be limited, Simons noted, exclusively to delegates "lending their whole power to democracy in its present warfare against autocracy."
In England Spargo and the labor delegation met with Henry Hyndman and worked closely with his Social Democratic Federation in an effort to undermine the growing strength of pacifist forces in the Labour Party headed by Ramsay MacDonald. The group addressed a crowd packed into Trafalgar Square in an effort to hear American socialists' views on the war and were feted afterwards by leaders of the House of Commons, who served a dinner in their honor.Louis Kopelin, "Kopelin Cables Report of The New Appeal Mission's Doings in England," The New Appeal, whole no. 1,182 (July 27, 1918), pg. 1. Some 30 Labour Members of Parliament were in attendance to exchange toasts and speeches. Kansas mine workers union leader Alexander Howat addressed several large meetings of British miners encouraging their renewed efforts in support of the war.Louis Kopelin, "The Mission Begins Work in Paris by Holding Important Interview with Premier Clemenceau," The New Appeal, whole no. 1,184 (Aug. 10, 1918), pg. 1.
Proceeding to France, the delegation conducted personal interviews with Premier Georges Clemenceau, deposed Russian leader Alexander Kerensky, and French socialist leaders Marcel Sembat and Jean Longuet. A dinner was again held in honor of the American delegation, attended by 40 French Socialist deputies, and John Spargo issued a statement noting the Americans were "trying to arrange the organization of a pro-war Socialist league of all the Allied countries."
Structure The provisional organization was formalized at a two-day conference held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in New York City on October 27 and 28, 1918."Ask Help for Russia: Social Democratic League Calls for Military Intervention to Drive Germany Out," New York Times, October 28, 1918. This gathering restructured the organization, which was subsequently to be governed by a National Executive Committee of 15, headed by a non-voting Chairman. Muckraking journalist and author Charles Edward Russell was elected as the new chairman of the organization, with Slobodin tapped as vice-chairman, William English Walling as Secretary, and Graham Stokes as Treasurer.
Dues in the Social Democratic League were set at $1 per annum — a fraction of the dues amount charged by rival organizations such as the Socialist Party, the Non-partisan League, and the Industrial Workers of the World. By the fall of 1918 the organization claimed a paid membership of 1,100.