Table XLVIII
Number of Socialists Paying Dues Each Year, from 1903 to 1915
| ——— | |
| ——— | |
| 1903 | 15,975 |
| 1904 | 20,763 |
| 1905 | 23,327 |
| 1906 | 26,784 |
| 1907 | 29,270 |
| 1908 | 41,751 |
| 1909 | 41,479 |
| 1910 | 58,011 |
| 1911 | 84,716 |
| 1912 | 113,371 |
| 1913 | 95,401 |
| 1914 | 93,579 |
| 1915 | 79,374 |
| ——— | |
| ——— | |
The year 1912 was the year of the Roosevelt Progressive revolt against the Republican party; it may be that thousands of voters of radical or liberal tendency who resented the Republican attitude, but could not follow Mr. Roosevelt, or swung farther than the Progressive party was willing to go, went into the Socialist party. But it seems quite evident that the heavy slump between 1914 and 1915, when the figure dropped from 93,579 to 79,374, was due to the reactions of the war, and in particular to the increasing resentment of native Americans against the attitude of the party leaders which culminated in the platform adopted by the party organization at St. Louis—antiwar, and by most ordinary folk, including thousands of perfectly good Socialists, deemed not only pacifistic, but definitely pro-German. That situation alone drove a rift down through the Socialist ranks, and certainly made it legitimate henceforth—for the present, anyway—to regard the Socialist party, as constituted, as an organization distinctively of foreign stock and foreign born.
Racial Groups of Socialists
Owing to the polyglot character of the Socialist movement, it became necessary to organize language groups. This movement was well under way in the years immediately preceding the war. The German Language Federation, which was formed in December, 1912, at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, at the end of the third year claimed a dues-paying membership of 4,577.173 The Finnish Socialist Federation was credited with 10,616 in 1916. The French Language Federation reported 497 members in December, 1915. The Hungarian Language Federation claimed membership “well above 1,500.” The Italian Socialist Federation reported “about 1,000 members in good standing.” The Jewish Socialist Federation was stated to have “about 5,000 members.” The Lithuanian Socialist Federation stated that it had “a little over 2,000 members.” The South-Slavic Socialist Federation claimed about 2,000. The Scandinavian Federation gave its membership as 1,161, of whom 265 were women. There were recognized also organizations of Poles, Slovaks, Japanese, etc.
The Finnish Kalenteri for 1918 gave a list of racial groups of Socialists in the United States in this order of relative strength. It is a striking fact that the Americans lead, but it must be remembered that for their statistical purposes a naturalized citizen may be as good an American as one native-born of old stock. (See Table XLIX.)