Morris Hillquit
Encyclopedia
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America
and prominent labor lawyer in New York City
's Lower East Side
during the early 20th century.
, Latvia
, on August 1, 1869, the second son of German-speaking ethnic Jewish factory owners. From the time he was 13, young Moishe attended a non-Jewish secular school, the Russian language Alexander gymnasium. At the age of 15, in 1884, Moishe's father, Benjamin Hillkowitz, lost his factory in Riga and decided to leave for America to improve the family's financial situation. In 1886, Benjamin sent for the rest of the family and they emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City. The family remained poor in the new world, living in a tenement in a predominately Jewish area of the lower East Side
. In this period Moishe worked various short-term jobs in the New York city textile industry and as a picture frame maker in a factory.
Hillquit's biographer Norma Fain Pratt remarks that Moishe was quickly drawn to the socialist movement in America:
On his 18th birthday in August 1887, the future Hillquit joined the Socialist Labor Party of America, brought into the ranks by a fellow garment worker and Russian language socialist newspaper editor, Louis Miller. Moishe became a member of Section New York's Branch 17, a Russian-speaking unit established by Jewish émigrés from tsar
ist Russia
not long before his joining.
Within a year or so of joining the SLP, biographer Pratt notes, Moishe Hillkowitz became one of the party's leading crusaders against anarchism, publishing a lengthy article "Sotzializm un anarchizm" in the Arbeter zeitung [Workers' News], a Yiddish newspaper that he helped to establish. Hillkowitz contrasted the individualism of anarchism with the communalism of socialism in this piece. During this time the 19 year old HIllkowitz worked as the business manager of the Arbeter zeitung, a paper which was jointly founded with Abraham Cahan
, Louis Miller, and Morris Winchevsky
in an effort to speak to the city's Yiddish-speaking immigrant working class about socialism in their own idiom. Hillkowitz, ironically, was not fluent in Yiddish, having been raised with the German and Russian languages.
He helped to found the United Hebrew Trades, a garment workers' union formed in 1888, while writing for the Arbeiter Zeitung, a Yiddish-language newspaper. He later graduated from New York University Law School in 1893. He was admitted to the New York State Bar Association
in November of that same year.
Hillquit led the departure of a dissident faction from Daniel De Leon
's Socialist Labor Party in 1899 and was a delegate to the group's convention at Rochester, New York
in 1900. He was a strong supporter of unity with the Chicago-based Social Democratic Party
of Victor Berger and Eugene V. Debs
. In August 1901 the two groups managed to bury their differences and come together to form the Socialist Party of America
(SPA) at a convention in Indianapolis
which Hillquit also attended.
Morris Hillquit remained one of the paramount political leaders of the Socialist Party for the rest of his life.
In 1904, Hillquit attended the International Socialist Congress
at Amsterdam and was involved in moving the proposed Anti-Immigration Resolution, which opposed any legislation which forbade or hindered the immigration of foreign working men, some of which were forced by misery to migrate. However, following "further consideration of the fact that workingmen of backward races (Chinese, Negroes, etc.) are often imported by capitalists to keep down the native workingmen by means of cheap labour, which constitutes a willing object of exploitation, lives in an ill-concealed state of slavery" as something which should be combatted by Social Democracy
"with all its energy."
Hillquit ran for US Congress in the New York 9th Congressional District in 1908, winning 21.23% of the vote in a losing effort against a Democratic
incumbent. After this campaign, Hillquit turned his attention to inner-party affairs. This brought him into conflict with the SPA's syndicalist
Left Wing. His biographer notes at least four serious points of departure between Hillquit and the Industrial Workers of the World
wing of the party: (1) a disbelief in the stability and efficacy of industrial unions; (2) A distaste for the strike-oriented tactics of the IWW as opposed to collective bargaining; (3) A belief in the separation of functions between the political and labor wings of the workers' movement, as opposed to the IWW's desire to make industrial organization primary; and (4) The radical
tone of IWW propaganda, which Hillquit believed served to alienate much of society from the socialist movement and marginalize the left. His biographer declares that
In 1911, IWW leader William "Big Bill" Haywood
was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, on which Hillquit also served. The syndicalist and the electoral socialist squared off in a lively public debate in New York City's Cooper Union on Jan. 11, 1912. Haywood declared that Hillquit and the socialists ought to try "a little sabotage in the right place at the proper time" and attacked Hillquit for having abandoned the class struggle by helping the New York garment workers negotiate an industrial agreement with their employers. Hillquit replied that he had no new message rather than to reiterate a belief in a two-sided workers movement, with separate and equal political and trade union arms. "A mere change of structural forms would not revolutionize the American labor movement as claimed by our extreme industrialists," he declared.
Hillquit's battle against the syndicalist left of the party continued at the 1912 National Convention, held in May in Indianapolis. Hillquit's biographer notes that
The issue of "syndicalism vs. socialism" was bitterly fought over the next two years, consummated by "Big Bill" Haywood's recall from the SP's NEC and the departure of a broad section of the left wing from the organization. The radical wing never forgave Hillquit for his anti-IWW orientation of these years and made him a major whipping boy in the big split that was to come.
and antimilitarist
, Hillquit represented the ideological center of the Socialist Party during the years of World War I
, which controlled the organization in coalition with the more pragmatist right wing exemplified by such locally-oriented leaders, politicians, and journalists as Victor Berger, Daniel Hoan
, John Spargo
, and Charles Edward Russell
. He was elected to the SP's governing National Executive Committee on multiple occasions and was a frequent speaker at national conventions of the party. Due to his foreign birth, however, Hillquit was not constitutionally eligible to serve as President
or Vice President
of the United States and was thus never a candidate of the party for national office.
Hillquit was a principal co-author of the resolution against the United States' entry into World War One which was passed overwhelmingly both by an emergency Socialist Party convention held just after the April 6th, 1917, U.S. declaration of war and by a subsequent membership referendum. Despite official repression, popular patriotic pressure and vigilante action against the SP of A's organization, members and press, Hillquit never wavered on the issue of intervention, staunchly backing Debs, Berger, Kate Richards O'Hare
and other socialists charged under the Espionage Act for opposing the war effort.
On January 26, 1916, Hillquit was part of a three person delegation to President Wilson
to advocate part of the Socialist Party's peace program, which proposed that "the President of the United States convoke a congress of neutral nations, which shall offer mediation to the belligerents and remain in permanent session until the termination of the war." A resolution to this effect had been offered in the House of Representatives by the SP's lone Congressman, Meyer London
of New York, and Wilson received Hillquit, London, and socialist trade unionist James H. Maurer
at the White House
, along with various other delegations. Hillquit later recalled that Wilson was at first "inclined to give us a short and perfunctory hearing" but as the Socialists made their case to him, the session "developed into a serious and confidential conversation." Wilson told the group that he had already considered a similar plan but chose not to put it into effect because he was not sure of its reception by other neutral nations. "The fact is," Wilson claimed, "that the United States is the only important country that may be said to be neutral and disinterested. Practically all other neutral countries are in one way or another tied up with some belligerent power and dependent on it."
Beginning in June 1917, Hillquit served as chief defense lawyer in a series of high profile cases on behalf of various socialist magazines and newspapers. The Wilson administration, headed in the matter by Postmaster General
Albert Burleson, began to systematically ban specific issues or entire publications from the mail, or to force publications into financial peril by denying them access to low cost periodical rates. Hillquit argued cases on behalf of a number of important radical publications, including Max Eastman's
radical artistic and literary magazine, The Masses
; the two socialist dailies — the New York Call
and the Milwaukee Leader
; the SP's official weekly, The American Socialist; the popular monthly Pearson's Magazine
; and the Yiddish language Jewish Daily Forward. In each of these cases, Hillquit argued that the socialist press was truly "American" and that a socialist definition of "patriotism" included the freedoms of press and speech and the right to criticize in a democratic society. Hillquit was unsuccessful in winning access to the mails for the papers he represented, but he did manage to keep the proprietors of The Masses out of prison.
In the summer of 1917, with nationalism and pro-war sentiment sweeping the nation, Hillquit ran for Mayor of New York City
. Hillquit's campaign was based on an anti-war platform and commitment to economical public services and drew the diverse support both of committed socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists, and pro-war liberals endorsing his campaign as a protest against the government's "sedition" policy, which effectively served to curb freedoms of speech and press. Hillquit seems to have been largely immune from attack by the Socialist Party's left wing or other radicals during this high-profile campaign, which ended with Hillquit collecting an impressive 22% of the citywide vote. This campaign, combined with the ongoing electoral success of Congressman Meyer London
(elected as a Socialist in 1914, 1916, and 1920) marked the high point for Socialist Party politics in New York City.
As a member of the SP's National Executive Committee Hillquit worked closely with National Secretary Adolph Germer
and James Oneal
to defend the party from what in modern parlance might be described as an "unfriendly takeover" by its revolutionary socialist left wing. However, due to ill health Hillquit did not participate in the pivotal 1919 Emergency National Convention
at Chicago which formalized the split of the left wing from the Socialist Party to form the Communist Labor Party
and the Communist Party of America. Instead, Hillquit was ensconced in a sanitorium in upstate New York, recovering from another bout of tuberculosis
, and was informed about the events of the convention after the fact.
. Hillquit's efforts to see Assemblymen Orr
, Claessens
, Waldman
, DeWitt
, and Solomon
restored to office was ultimately unsuccessful.
From 1922 through the election of 1924, Hillquit was a leading advocate of Socialist Party participation in the Conference for Progressive Political Action
(CPPA).
As a celebrated leader of American Marxism and acculturated
Jew, Hillquit never became closely associated with the specifically Jewish left wing
, but he played a role in the Jewish trade union movement, being for a time the lawyer of the ILGWU
. He also never became a Jewish nationalist of any kind; quite the contrary, he was ideologically disposed against it, but in 1926 he confessed, "Zionism
makes a strong emotional appeal to me, chiefly as a manifestation of awakening national self respect of the Jewish people." He quickly added however that Zionism, like all other national movements, must guard itself against the dangers of degeneration into jingoism
—"If it ever developed in that direction, it will forfeit all claims to Socialist sympathy."
In 1932, shortly before his death from tuberculosis, Hillquit received over one-eighth of the vote in his second campaign for Mayor. This proved to be Hillquit's final electoral run; during his life, he had been twice a candidate for Mayor of New York City
and on five times a nominee for Congress
.
Hillquit was first and foremost an orator, delivering a torrent of public talks on socialist themes to various audiences throughout his life. In his memoirs, Hillquit conservatively estimates the total number of such speeches to have been "at least 2,000." He often appeared in public debates taking up the socialist banner. He wrote frequently for popular magazines and the party press but fairly infrequently for publication in leaflet or pamphlet form. Despite the fact that Hillquit was not a prolific pamphleteer, he did author of a number of substantial books, including a serious academic history of socialism, History of Socialism in the United States (1903, revised 1910 — translated into both Russian and German); works of popularization, such as Socialism in Theory and Practice (1909) and Socialism Summed Up (1912); a short theoretical piece, From Marx to Lenin (1921); as well as a posthumously published memoir, Loose Leaves from a Busy Life (1934).
Hillquit's papers are housed at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison
and are available on microfilm.
One of the buildings of the East River Housing Corporation, a housing cooperative
started by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
in Cooperative Village
on the Lower East Side, was named in Hillquit's honor.
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
and prominent labor lawyer in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
during the early 20th century.
Early years
The future Morris Hillquit was born Moishe Hillkowitz in RigaRiga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, on August 1, 1869, the second son of German-speaking ethnic Jewish factory owners. From the time he was 13, young Moishe attended a non-Jewish secular school, the Russian language Alexander gymnasium. At the age of 15, in 1884, Moishe's father, Benjamin Hillkowitz, lost his factory in Riga and decided to leave for America to improve the family's financial situation. In 1886, Benjamin sent for the rest of the family and they emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City. The family remained poor in the new world, living in a tenement in a predominately Jewish area of the lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
. In this period Moishe worked various short-term jobs in the New York city textile industry and as a picture frame maker in a factory.
Hillquit's biographer Norma Fain Pratt remarks that Moishe was quickly drawn to the socialist movement in America:
Almost as soon as he settled in New York, Hillquit was drawn into East Side Jewish radical circles. He was then a small (5'4"), slightly built, frail adolescent with dark hair, dark oval-shaped eyes, and a gentle charming manner. He was immediately attracted to other young Jewish immigrants, mostly former students, now shop workers, who considered themselves intellectuals — a new radical intelligentsia.... For the most part their radicalism was rooted in their experiences in the European socialist and anarchist movements. But emigration and economic hardships in the United States also contributed to their further radicalization. As foreigners in America they were situated far enough outside the society to observe its failings. As frustrated but literate people, they were ambitious enough to participate in it. These young intellectuals were interested in finding alternatives to their present circumstances; their solution was to transform them.
On his 18th birthday in August 1887, the future Hillquit joined the Socialist Labor Party of America, brought into the ranks by a fellow garment worker and Russian language socialist newspaper editor, Louis Miller. Moishe became a member of Section New York's Branch 17, a Russian-speaking unit established by Jewish émigrés from tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
ist Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
not long before his joining.
Within a year or so of joining the SLP, biographer Pratt notes, Moishe Hillkowitz became one of the party's leading crusaders against anarchism, publishing a lengthy article "Sotzializm un anarchizm" in the Arbeter zeitung [Workers' News], a Yiddish newspaper that he helped to establish. Hillkowitz contrasted the individualism of anarchism with the communalism of socialism in this piece. During this time the 19 year old HIllkowitz worked as the business manager of the Arbeter zeitung, a paper which was jointly founded with Abraham Cahan
Abraham Cahan
Abraham "Abe" Cahan was a Lithuanian-born American socialist newspaper editor, novelist, and politician.-Early years:...
, Louis Miller, and Morris Winchevsky
Morris Winchevsky
Morris Winchevsky Morris Winchevsky Morris Winchevsky (Leopold Benzion Novokhovitch; Pseudonym: Ben Netz (Hebrew: 'Son of Hawk'; 1856–1932) was a prominent Jewish socialist leader in London and the United States in the late 19th century....
in an effort to speak to the city's Yiddish-speaking immigrant working class about socialism in their own idiom. Hillkowitz, ironically, was not fluent in Yiddish, having been raised with the German and Russian languages.
He helped to found the United Hebrew Trades, a garment workers' union formed in 1888, while writing for the Arbeiter Zeitung, a Yiddish-language newspaper. He later graduated from New York University Law School in 1893. He was admitted to the New York State Bar Association
New York State Bar Association
The New York State Bar Association , with 77,000 members, is the largest voluntary bar association in the United States.-History:The State Bar was founded with a constitution that dates to 1877...
in November of that same year.
Hillquit in the early socialist movement
Daniel De Leon
Daniel DeLeon was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of...
's Socialist Labor Party in 1899 and was a delegate to the group's convention at Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
in 1900. He was a strong supporter of unity with the Chicago-based Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (United States)
The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America , and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.-Forerunners:Following the...
of Victor Berger and Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
. In August 1901 the two groups managed to bury their differences and come together to form the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
(SPA) at a convention in Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
which Hillquit also attended.
Morris Hillquit remained one of the paramount political leaders of the Socialist Party for the rest of his life.
In 1904, Hillquit attended the International Socialist Congress
International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904
The International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 was the Sixth Congress of the Second International It was held from 14 to 18 August 1904.The Congress was held in the Gebow, Amsterdam....
at Amsterdam and was involved in moving the proposed Anti-Immigration Resolution, which opposed any legislation which forbade or hindered the immigration of foreign working men, some of which were forced by misery to migrate. However, following "further consideration of the fact that workingmen of backward races (Chinese, Negroes, etc.) are often imported by capitalists to keep down the native workingmen by means of cheap labour, which constitutes a willing object of exploitation, lives in an ill-concealed state of slavery" as something which should be combatted by Social Democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
"with all its energy."
Hillquit ran for US Congress in the New York 9th Congressional District in 1908, winning 21.23% of the vote in a losing effort against a Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
incumbent. After this campaign, Hillquit turned his attention to inner-party affairs. This brought him into conflict with the SPA's syndicalist
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
Left Wing. His biographer notes at least four serious points of departure between Hillquit and the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
wing of the party: (1) a disbelief in the stability and efficacy of industrial unions; (2) A distaste for the strike-oriented tactics of the IWW as opposed to collective bargaining; (3) A belief in the separation of functions between the political and labor wings of the workers' movement, as opposed to the IWW's desire to make industrial organization primary; and (4) The radical
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...
tone of IWW propaganda, which Hillquit believed served to alienate much of society from the socialist movement and marginalize the left. His biographer declares that
"His leadership fanned the fires of Party disagreement and although [Hillquit] was not alone in causing the break in 1913 with an important segment of its left wing, he certainly made a major contribution towards this unfortunate rupture."
In 1911, IWW leader William "Big Bill" Haywood
Bill Haywood
William Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...
was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, on which Hillquit also served. The syndicalist and the electoral socialist squared off in a lively public debate in New York City's Cooper Union on Jan. 11, 1912. Haywood declared that Hillquit and the socialists ought to try "a little sabotage in the right place at the proper time" and attacked Hillquit for having abandoned the class struggle by helping the New York garment workers negotiate an industrial agreement with their employers. Hillquit replied that he had no new message rather than to reiterate a belief in a two-sided workers movement, with separate and equal political and trade union arms. "A mere change of structural forms would not revolutionize the American labor movement as claimed by our extreme industrialists," he declared.
Hillquit's battle against the syndicalist left of the party continued at the 1912 National Convention, held in May in Indianapolis. Hillquit's biographer notes that
"As chairman of the Committee on Constitution he more than likely authored the amendment to the Party's Article II, Section 6, which provided for the expulsion from the Party of 'any member of the party who opposes political action or advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working class to aid in its emancipation....'" He voiced his justification for this anti-sabotage amendment by reassuring the convention that 'if there is one thing in this country that can now check or disrupt the Socialist movement, it is not the capitalist class; it is not the Catholic Church; it is our own injudicious friends from within.'"
The issue of "syndicalism vs. socialism" was bitterly fought over the next two years, consummated by "Big Bill" Haywood's recall from the SP's NEC and the departure of a broad section of the left wing from the organization. The radical wing never forgave Hillquit for his anti-IWW orientation of these years and made him a major whipping boy in the big split that was to come.
The war years
As a staunch internationalistInternationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
and antimilitarist
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...
, Hillquit represented the ideological center of the Socialist Party during the years of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, which controlled the organization in coalition with the more pragmatist right wing exemplified by such locally-oriented leaders, politicians, and journalists as Victor Berger, Daniel Hoan
Daniel Hoan
Daniel Webster "Dan" Hoan was a United States lawyer and politician. He became the second Socialist mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his tenure is generally considered to be the longest continuous socialist administration in U.S. history...
, John Spargo
John Spargo
John Spargo was a British-born American socialist political activist, orator, and writer who later became a renowned expert in the history and crafts of Vermont...
, and Charles Edward Russell
Charles Edward Russell
Charles Edward Russell was an American journalist, politician, and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
. He was elected to the SP's governing National Executive Committee on multiple occasions and was a frequent speaker at national conventions of the party. Due to his foreign birth, however, Hillquit was not constitutionally eligible to serve as President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
or Vice President
Vice president
A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of the United States and was thus never a candidate of the party for national office.
Hillquit was a principal co-author of the resolution against the United States' entry into World War One which was passed overwhelmingly both by an emergency Socialist Party convention held just after the April 6th, 1917, U.S. declaration of war and by a subsequent membership referendum. Despite official repression, popular patriotic pressure and vigilante action against the SP of A's organization, members and press, Hillquit never wavered on the issue of intervention, staunchly backing Debs, Berger, Kate Richards O'Hare
Kate Richards O'Hare
Kate Richards O'Hare was an American Socialist Party activist, editor, and orator best known for her controversial imprisonment during World War I.-Biography:...
and other socialists charged under the Espionage Act for opposing the war effort.
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
to advocate part of the Socialist Party's peace program, which proposed that "the President of the United States convoke a congress of neutral nations, which shall offer mediation to the belligerents and remain in permanent session until the termination of the war." A resolution to this effect had been offered in the House of Representatives by the SP's lone Congressman, Meyer London
Meyer London
Meyer London was an American politician from New York City. He was one of only two members of the Socialist Party of America elected to the United States Congress.-Early years:...
of New York, and Wilson received Hillquit, London, and socialist trade unionist James H. Maurer
James H. Maurer
James Hudson "Jim" Maurer was a prominent American trade unionist who twice ran for the office of Vice President of the United States on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, along with various other delegations. Hillquit later recalled that Wilson was at first "inclined to give us a short and perfunctory hearing" but as the Socialists made their case to him, the session "developed into a serious and confidential conversation." Wilson told the group that he had already considered a similar plan but chose not to put it into effect because he was not sure of its reception by other neutral nations. "The fact is," Wilson claimed, "that the United States is the only important country that may be said to be neutral and disinterested. Practically all other neutral countries are in one way or another tied up with some belligerent power and dependent on it."
Beginning in June 1917, Hillquit served as chief defense lawyer in a series of high profile cases on behalf of various socialist magazines and newspapers. The Wilson administration, headed in the matter by Postmaster General
United States Postmaster General
The United States Postmaster General is the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Postal Service. The office, in one form or another, is older than both the United States Constitution and the United States Declaration of Independence...
Albert Burleson, began to systematically ban specific issues or entire publications from the mail, or to force publications into financial peril by denying them access to low cost periodical rates. Hillquit argued cases on behalf of a number of important radical publications, including Max Eastman's
Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. For many years, Eastman was a supporter of socialism, a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes...
radical artistic and literary magazine, The Masses
The Masses
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...
; the two socialist dailies — the New York Call
New York Call
The New York Call was a socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The Call was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America to be established, following the Chicago Daily Socialist while preceding the long running...
and the Milwaukee Leader
Milwaukee Leader
The Milwaukee Leader was a socialist daily newspaper established in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in December 1911 by Socialist Party chief Victor L. Berger...
; the SP's official weekly, The American Socialist; the popular monthly Pearson's Magazine
Pearson's Magazine
Pearson's Magazine was an influential publication which first appeared in Britain in 1896. It specialised in speculative literature, political discussion, often of a socialist bent, and the arts. Its contributors included Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, Maxim Gorky and H. G...
; and the Yiddish language Jewish Daily Forward. In each of these cases, Hillquit argued that the socialist press was truly "American" and that a socialist definition of "patriotism" included the freedoms of press and speech and the right to criticize in a democratic society. Hillquit was unsuccessful in winning access to the mails for the papers he represented, but he did manage to keep the proprietors of The Masses out of prison.
In the summer of 1917, with nationalism and pro-war sentiment sweeping the nation, Hillquit ran for Mayor of New York City
New York City mayoral election, 1917
The 1917 Election for Mayor of the City of New York replaced sitting Mayor John P. Mitchel, a reform Democrat running on the Fusion Party ticket, with John F. Hylan, the regular Democrat supported by Tammany Hall and William Randolph Hearst....
. Hillquit's campaign was based on an anti-war platform and commitment to economical public services and drew the diverse support both of committed socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists, and pro-war liberals endorsing his campaign as a protest against the government's "sedition" policy, which effectively served to curb freedoms of speech and press. Hillquit seems to have been largely immune from attack by the Socialist Party's left wing or other radicals during this high-profile campaign, which ended with Hillquit collecting an impressive 22% of the citywide vote. This campaign, combined with the ongoing electoral success of Congressman Meyer London
Meyer London
Meyer London was an American politician from New York City. He was one of only two members of the Socialist Party of America elected to the United States Congress.-Early years:...
(elected as a Socialist in 1914, 1916, and 1920) marked the high point for Socialist Party politics in New York City.
As a member of the SP's National Executive Committee Hillquit worked closely with National Secretary Adolph Germer
Adolph Germer
Adoph Germer was an American socialist political functionary and union organizer. He is best remembered as National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America from 1916 to 1919. It was during this period that the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party emerged as an organized faction...
and James Oneal
James Oneal
James "Jim" Oneal , a founding member of the Socialist Party of America , was a prominent socialist journalist, historian, and party activist who played a decisive role in the bitter party splits of 1919-21 and 1934-36.-Early years:...
to defend the party from what in modern parlance might be described as an "unfriendly takeover" by its revolutionary socialist left wing. However, due to ill health Hillquit did not participate in the pivotal 1919 Emergency National Convention
1919 Emergency National Convention
The 1919 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party of America was held in Chicago from August 30 to September 5, 1919. It was a seminal gathering in the history of American radicalism, marked by the bolting of the party's organized left wing to establish the Communist Labor Party of...
at Chicago which formalized the split of the left wing from the Socialist Party to form the Communist Labor Party
Communist Labor Party
The Communist Labor Party of America was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA. The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America...
and the Communist Party of America. Instead, Hillquit was ensconced in a sanitorium in upstate New York, recovering from another bout of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, and was informed about the events of the convention after the fact.
The 1920s and after
In 1920 Hillquit served as the lead attorney in the unsuccessful defense of the five democratically-elected Socialist assemblymen expelled from the New York State AssemblyNew York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
. Hillquit's efforts to see Assemblymen Orr
Samuel Orr
Samuel Orr was a socialist politician from New York City best remembered for being one of the five elected members of the Socialist Party of America expelled by the New York State Assembly during the Red Scare of 1919-1920.-Early years:...
, Claessens
August Claessens
August "Gus" Claessens was an American socialist politician, best known as one of the five New York Assemblymen expelled from that body during the First Red Scare for their membership in the Socialist Party of America...
, Waldman
Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman was a leading figure in the Socialist Party of America from the late 1910s and through the middle 1930s, a founding member of the Social Democratic Federation, and a prominent New York labor lawyer.-Early years:...
, DeWitt
Sam DeWitt
Samuel Aaron "Sam" DeWitt was a businessman, poet, playwright, and politician. He is best remembered as a New York State Legislator who represented Bronx's 7th district from 1919 until his expulsion from the Assembly in 1920....
, and Solomon
Charles Solomon (politician)
Charles "Charley" Solomon was a socialist politician from New York City, elected to the New York State Assembly in 1919 and expelled with four of his fellows on the first day of the legislative session, one week after the sensational Palmer Raids...
restored to office was ultimately unsuccessful.
From 1922 through the election of 1924, Hillquit was a leading advocate of Socialist Party participation in the Conference for Progressive Political Action
Conference for Progressive Political Action
The Conference for Progressive Political Action was officially established by the convention call of the 16 major railway labor unions in the United States, represented by a committee of six: William H. Johnston of the Machinists' Union, Martin F. Ryan of the Railway Carmen, Warren S. Stone of the...
(CPPA).
As a celebrated leader of American Marxism and acculturated
Jewish assimilation
Jewish assimilation refers to the cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture. Assimilation became legally possible in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.-Background:Judaism forbids the worship of other gods...
Jew, Hillquit never became closely associated with the specifically Jewish left wing
Jewish left
The term "Jewish left" describes Jews who identify with or support left wing, occasionally liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the "Jewish left," however...
, but he played a role in the Jewish trade union movement, being for a time the lawyer of the ILGWU
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
. He also never became a Jewish nationalist of any kind; quite the contrary, he was ideologically disposed against it, but in 1926 he confessed, "Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
makes a strong emotional appeal to me, chiefly as a manifestation of awakening national self respect of the Jewish people." He quickly added however that Zionism, like all other national movements, must guard itself against the dangers of degeneration into jingoism
Jingoism
Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests...
—"If it ever developed in that direction, it will forfeit all claims to Socialist sympathy."
In 1932, shortly before his death from tuberculosis, Hillquit received over one-eighth of the vote in his second campaign for Mayor. This proved to be Hillquit's final electoral run; during his life, he had been twice a candidate for Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
and on five times a nominee for Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
.
Death and legacy
Morris Hillquit died in 1933.Hillquit was first and foremost an orator, delivering a torrent of public talks on socialist themes to various audiences throughout his life. In his memoirs, Hillquit conservatively estimates the total number of such speeches to have been "at least 2,000." He often appeared in public debates taking up the socialist banner. He wrote frequently for popular magazines and the party press but fairly infrequently for publication in leaflet or pamphlet form. Despite the fact that Hillquit was not a prolific pamphleteer, he did author of a number of substantial books, including a serious academic history of socialism, History of Socialism in the United States (1903, revised 1910 — translated into both Russian and German); works of popularization, such as Socialism in Theory and Practice (1909) and Socialism Summed Up (1912); a short theoretical piece, From Marx to Lenin (1921); as well as a posthumously published memoir, Loose Leaves from a Busy Life (1934).
Hillquit's papers are housed at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
and are available on microfilm.
One of the buildings of the East River Housing Corporation, a housing cooperative
Housing cooperative
A housing cooperative is a legal entity—usually a corporation—that owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings. Each shareholder in the legal entity is granted the right to occupy one housing unit, sometimes subject to an occupancy agreement, which is similar to a lease. ...
started by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
in Cooperative Village
Cooperative Village
Cooperative Village is a community of housing cooperatives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The cooperatives are centered around Grand Street in an area south of the entrance ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge and west of FDR Drive...
on the Lower East Side, was named in Hillquit's honor.
Books and pamphlets
- History of Socialism in the United States. [1903] New York: Funk & Wagnalls, Revised and Expanded (5th) edition, 1910.
- Socialism in Theory and Practice. New York: Macmillan, 1909.
- Socialism Summed Up. New York: H.K. Fly, 1912.
- Socialism: Promise or Menace? With John A. RyanJohn A. RyanMonsignor John Augustine Ryan was a leading moral theologian, priest, professor, author, and social justice advocate. Ryan lived during a decisive moment in the development of Catholic social teaching within the United States...
. New York: Macmillan, 1914. —Debate with Father John Ryan, a leading Catholic social justice theorist. - The Double Edge of Labor's Sword, With Samuel GompersSamuel GompersSamuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
and Max S. HayesMax S. HayesMaximillian Sebastian "Max" Hayes was a newspaper editor, trade union activist, and socialist politician. He is best remembered as the long-time editor of the Cleveland Citizen and as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Farmer-Labor Party ticket in 1920.-Early years:Max Hayes was born in...
. Chicago: Socialist Party, National Office, 1914. - The Immediate Issue. New York: The Socialist, 1919.
- Socialism on Trial. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1920.
- From Marx to Lenin. New York: Hanford Press, 1921.
- Loose Leaves from a Busy Life. New York: Macmillan, 1934. —Posthumously-published memoirs.
Articles and leaflets
- "The Soldier of the Revolution," The Comrade (New York), vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1901), pp. 16–18. —Short biography of Wilhelm LiebknechtWilhelm LiebknechtWilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht was a German social democrat and a principal founder of the SPD. His political career was a pioneering project combining Marxist revolutionary theory with practical, legal political activity...
. - "Moderation, Comrades!" The Socialist [Toledo, Ohio], whole no. 241 (May 6, 1905), pg. 5.
- "The Labor Movement Here and Abroad." Chicago: National Office, Socialist Party, 1911.
- "The Civic Federation and Labor." Chicago: National Office, Socialist Party, 1911.
- "Who are the Peacemakers?" With William Harrison Short. Chicago: National Office, Socialist Party, 1911.
- "Government by the Few." Chicago: National Office, Socialist Party, 1911.
- "The 'Collapse' of the International," The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 42, whole no. 130 (May 1, 1915), pg. 3.
- "Keynote Address to the 1917 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party," The World [Oakland, CA], whole no. 578 (April 20, 1917), pg. 6.
- "As to Treason," New York Call, vol. 10, no. 116 (April 26, 1917), pg. 6.
- "Out-Scheidemanning Scheidemann," New York Call, vol. 10, no. 139 (May 19, 1917), pg. 2.
- "The Socialist Task and Outlook," New York Call, vol. 10, no. 141 (May 21, 1919), pg. 8. —So-called "Clear the Decks" article.
- "Socialist Russia Against the Capitalist World," New York Call, vol. 12, no. 312 (Nov. 7, 1919), pg. 8.
- "Radicalism in America," The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 1, no. 4 (Oct. 15, 1920), pp. 18–19.
- "Moscow and London," The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 4, no. 7 (July 1923), pp. 6–7.
- "The Story of the British Labor Party," The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 4, no. 9 (September 1923), pp. 3–4.
- "Ferdinand Lassalle (A May Day Reflection)," The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 6, no. 5 (May 1925), pp. 9–10.
- "A Tribute to Debs," The New Leader [New York], Oct. 23, 1926, pg. 1.
- "Marxism Essentially Evolutionary," Current History, vol. 29, October 1928.
Further reading
- Melech Epstein, Profiles of Eleven: Profiles of Eleven Men Who Guided the Destiny of an Immigrant Society and Stimulated Social Consciousness Among the American People. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965.
- Anthony V. Esposito, The Ideology of the Socialist Party of America, 1901–1917. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.
- Robert Hyfler, Prophets of the Left: American Socialist Thought in the Twentieth Century. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984.
- Irving HoweIrving HoweIrving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
, World of Our Fathers. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. - Ira Kipnis, The American Socialist Movement, 1897–1912. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952
- Norma Fain Pratt, Morris Hillquit: A Political History of an American Jewish Socialist. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979.
- Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1953; 2nd edition (with minor revisions) Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.
- Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982.
- David A. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America: A History. New York: Macmillan, 1950.
- Socialist Party of America, The City for the People! Municipal Platform of the Socialist Party, Mayoralty Election, 1932: For Mayor, Morris Hillquit. New York: Socialist Party, 1932.
- James WeinsteinJames WeinsteinJames "Jimmy" Weinstein was an American historian and journalist best known as the founder and publisher of In These Times...
, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1925 New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967.