You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday October 11, 1914
From the Appeal to Reason: Victor Berger Represented the Interest of the Working Class
As the only Socialist yet elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, Victor Berger fought for the working class. This week's
Appeal lists the many accomplishments of Representative Berger, who never wavered in his efforts to fight for the interests of working class men and women even as he was overwhelmingly outnumbered by his fellow congressman elected from the parties of the privileged class:
What One Socialist Congressman Accomplished
VICTOR L. BERGER was the only Socialist congressman the United States has had. He was elected from a Milwaukee district in 1910, serving two years. He was defeated by a combination of all other parties against him, though polling a larger vote when defeated than when elected.
During his term of office he introduced 24 measures reflecting the wishes of the working class; addressed congress and congressional committees 18 times; forced a corrupt federal judge to resign from office; secured the admission of four Russian political refugees who had been detained by immigration authorities; and forced a settlement of the Lawrence mill strike with victory for the workers.
Following are some of the measures he introduced into the house: Bill providing for old age pensions; bill to revise the interstate extradition law; bill to prohibit employment of children by the federal government ; bill to create a public store in Washington for civil service employes; bill for government ownership and operation of railroads, telegraphs, telephones and express service; bill for government ownership of wireless; bill to provide employment for all willing workers.
Joint resolutions were introduced by Berger as follows: Demanding withdrawal of federal troops from Mexican border; for a constitutional amendment giving congress power to call a constitutional convention; for a constitutional amendment abolishing the senate, the veto power of the president, and the invalidating powers of the courts; for a constitutional amendment extending right of suffrage to women.
House resolutions were introduced by Berger to investigate the strike on the Harriman lines; to investigate the Lawrence strike; and impeaching Judge Cornelius H. Hanford.
As the only Socialist member of congress Berger was not able to force his bills through. He did, however, secure the investigation and settlement of the Lawrence strike. He so frightened Judge Hanford that the latter resigned to avoid investigation. He did secure the release o political refugees about to be returned to Russia for execution. He did visit the president and various departments, to make representation about many injustices on refugees and workers, and in many cases secured the needed relief. He addressed several house committees, and appeared before the postoffice and naval departments with pleas for the toilers.
As the only working class representative in Washington, Berger was in receipt of a tremendous mail, not only from Socialists, but also from unions and workers in general. His tariff speech, in which he ridiculed both the republican and democratic positions, was given wide publicity by the capitalist press. In spite of standing alone in his politics, he commanded the respect of all his fellow congressmen, and influenced some to vote for measures which he conceived to be of interest to the workers.
It is doubtful if there ever was a congressman who did as much as Berger did for the workers, or who provoked as much agitation by his measures as did he. And this was not so much because it was Berger as because he was a Socialist. Twenty like him would have made more than twenty times as much agitation and been able to do more than twenty times as much service for the working class.
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-of Oct 10, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
BROADSIDES
-by VICTOR L. BERGER of Milwaukee
First Socialist Congressman
Social-Democratic Publishing Company, 1912
https://archive.org/...
"House Member Introduces Resolution to Abolish the Senate"
-April 27, 1911
http://www.senate.gov/...
IMAGE
Victor Berger
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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Saturday October 11, 2014
More on Victor Berger and the Conversion of Eugene Debs to Socialism
King Debs by W A Rogers
Harper's Weekly of July 14, 1894
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Following the Pullman Strike of 1894 and in connection with his role as leader of the American Railway Union, Eugene Debs was imprisoned in the Woodstock Jail in Woodstock, Illinois. There he was visited by Victor Berger. Debs later described his conversion to Socialism, there in the Woodstock Jail, and the role played by Comrade Berger:
The Chicago jail sentences were followed by six months at Woodstock and it was here that Socialism gradually laid hold of me in its own irresistible fashion. Books and pamphlets and letters from socialists came by every mail and I began to read and think and dissect the anatomy of the system in which workingmen, however organized, could be shattered and battered and splintered at a single stroke. The writings of Bellamy and Blanchford early appealed to me. The “Cooperative Commonwealth’ of Gronlund also impressed me, but the writings of Kautsky were so clear and conclusive that I readily grasped, not merely his argument, but also caught the spirit of his socialist utterance—and I thank him and all who helped me out of darkness into light.
It was at this time[*], when the first glimmerings of Socialism were beginning to penetrate, that Victor L. Berger—and I have loved him ever since—came to Woodstock, as if a providential instrument, and delivered the first impassioned message of Socialism I had ever heard—the very first to set the “wires humming in my system.’ As a souvenir of that visit there is in my library a volume of “Capital,’ by Karl Marx, inscribed with the compliments of Victor L. Berger, which I cherish as a token of priceless value.
*I searched for but could not find the exact date of Berger's visit. However the text states:
Debs was sentenced to serve six months in the Woodstock Jail, Woodstock, Illinois,for contempt of court. He completed his sentence on November 22, 1895.
SOURCE
Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters
from Woodstock Prison to Atlanta
-by David Karsner
Boni and Liveright, 1919
(search with "victor berger" & choose p.178)
(search with "labor unionist and woodstock" & choose p.130)
http://books.google.com/...
See also:
(To more easily read-)
"How I Became a Socialist"
-by Eugene Debs
First Published: 1902, New York Comrade, April, 1902
https://www.marxists.org/...
IMAGE
King Debs
http://publications.newberry.org/...
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Waiting for a Train - Jimmie Rodgers
My pocket book is empty
And my heart is filled with pain
I'm a thousand Miles away from home
Just Waiting for a train
-Jimmie Rodgers
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