Socialist Party of Oregon - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Socialist Party of Oregon (SPO) is the name of three closely related organizations — an Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

state affiliate of the Social Democratic Party of America (later 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...

) established in 1897 and continuing into the 1950s, as well as the Oregon state affiliate of the Socialist Party USA

Socialist Party USA

The Socialist Party USA is a multi-tendency democratic-socialist party in the United States. The party states that it is the rightful continuation and successor to the tradition of the Socialist Party of America, which had lasted from 1901 to 1972.The party is officially committed to left-wing...

from 1992-1999. The current Socialist Party of Oregon is an independent political party that held ballot access from 1995-2008.

Origins

The Socialist Party of Oregon traces its roots to the late 1890s, when local affiliates of the 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...

began to emerge. 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...

and Job Harriman

Job Harriman

Job Harriman was an ordained minister who later became an agnostic and a socialist. In 1900 he ran for Vice President of the United States along with Eugene Debs on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America. He later twice ran for mayor of Los Angeles, drawing considerable attention and support...

gained 1.76% of the presidential vote in Oregon running a joint campaign on behalf of the two independent SDP factions in the November 1900 election.

Following the establishment of the Socialist Party of America

Socialist Party of America

in August 1901, a move was made to organize the state under the name of the new party. Oregon was granted a state charter by National Secretary Leon Greenbaum during the second half of October 1901.

Although originally based in Southern Oregon, the party headquarters were moved to Portland, where it remained throughout the Debsian period, by decision of the March 1904 State Convention.

The Socialist Party's 1904 ticket generated an even stronger showing, with Debs and his running mate, Benjamin Hanford

Benjamin Hanford

Benjamin Hanford was an American politician during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He made two unsuccessful runs for the post of Vice President of the United States, as Eugene Debs' running mate as a candidate of the Social Democratic Party, in 1904 and 1908.-Early life:Benjamin Hanford...

of New York, receiving approximately 8.5% of the vote.

Although (or perhaps because) it was an older state than its less populated neighbor to the north, Washington

Washington State

Washington State may refer to:* Washington , often referred to as "Washington state" to differentiate it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state- See also :...

, Oregon never generated as large or influential a political organization as was the Socialist Party of Washington

Socialist Party of Washington

The Socialist Party of Washington was the Washington state section of the Socialist Party of America , an organization originally established as a federation of semi-autonomous state organizations...

. Nor did Oregon generate any publications with a national readership, as was the case with the Seattle

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

Socialist, 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...

weekly The Industrial Worker, published in Spokane

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

, or even the weekly papers of two of the utopian socialist

Utopian socialism

Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen which inspired Karl Marx and other early socialists and were looked on favorably...

colonies established in Western Washington just prior to the turn of the 20th Century.

Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, the largest urban center in Oregon, was a far more orderly town than was Seattle, the rowdy upstart to the north. As historian Carlos A. Schwantes notes, Portland was "conservative, business oriented, with a tendency towards smugness among its elite" and consequently the Oregon labor movement was correspondingly more cautious than were the shipping and mill workers of Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

The "Red Special" of 1908

The election of 1908 saw the arrival in Oregon of Presidential candidate Eugene Debs aboard the so-called "Red Special," a train chartered by the Socialist Party and taken from station to station around the country for campaign speeches on the fly. The train made several stops in Oregon during the course of its journey, energizing the state's party members.

Radical SPO State Secretary Tom Sladden noted a 3,000 person procession in Portland in support of the Debs campaign on September 14, 1908 and expressed optimism about the party's prospects for an increased vote in November:

"The sentimentalists are quitting us; the revolutionary element that four years ago were scoffing at us are joining us now. The lines are being drawn sharply, hatred is being expressed and a class conflict
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....

is clearly in evidence. We have enthusiastic members and bitter enemies and the man on the fence is getting hell from both sides."

Sladden noted that from 1904 to 1908, the number of Socialist Party Locals in Oregon had grown from 32 to 74, despite a lack of full time party organizers.

The heyday of Oregon Socialism

The years 1910 through 1912 marked a high-water mark of sorts for the Socialist Party of Oregon in terms of its size and influence. The organization conducted an impressive demonstration in the afternoon of May Day

May Day

May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....

1910, in which 1500 members and supporters of the party, decked out in red ribbons and carrying red banners, marched through the streets of Portland. Beginning at 309 Davis Street, the procession of men, women, and children marched with neither police protection nor police interference to a vacant lot recently purchased for a future school. There a crowd estimated by a supporter at 4,000 people heard speeches and sang together "The Red Flag" and "The Marsellaise," before adjourning to Finnish Socialist Hall for singing and dancing until midnight.

In June 1910 Klamath Falls

Klamath Falls, Oregon

Klamath Falls is a city in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. Originally called Linkville when George Nurse founded the town in 1867, after the Link River on whose falls this city sat, although no falls currently exist; the name was changed to Klamath Falls in 1892...

in Southern Oregon became the site of the first "Socialist Encampment" in the Western United States with the establishment of "Camp Progress." In an idea borrowed from the evangelical protestant religious movement and used with particular effectiveness in Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

, a socialist "revival meeting" was held. More than 60 tents were divided into two parallel lines, with very large tents suitable for group meetings raised at either end. Socialists and their friends camped together, attending politically-oriented meetings in the evenings in which they sang, watched plays, listened to speakers and debates, and were entertained by a 12 member "Encampment Band." Members of the local community were invited to attend the evening meetings, which drew between 2,000 and 3,000 attendees during each of the 8 days of the encampment. Speakers included J. Stitt Wilson, journalists Cloudesley and Dorothy Johns, and Tom J. Lewis.

One Oregon Socialist in attendance saw the 1910 Encampment as a large step forward for the party organization:

"As I looked nightly over the immense throng in the Big Tent, noted the striking absence of dissent to the utterances of our speakers, even the most revolutionary, heard the at times uproarious applause, I recall the time four years ago when the handful of members of Local Klamath Falls held their meetings in a lumber yard. Later the meetings were held at private houses and afterward a hall was hired. The local has had a hard fight and has had its seasons of depressions, also its internal dissensions, but today the movement is progressing at a rapid rate. * * *

"What impressed even the most casual observer at the Encampment was the Spirit of Comradeship that was so plainly manifested, the atmosphere of equality and freedom from conventionality that prevailed."

By the summer of 1915, the SPO had English-language Locals and official party contact names in 69 Oregon towns, with an additional Finnish Locals in Astoria and Svenson, as well as Finnish, Latvian, German, and Polish branches of Local Portland.

The Finnish Socialists of Astoria

The early Socialist Party of Oregon was in many ways a federation of two parallel organizations — an English-language organization centered in Portland, the state's largest city, and Finnish-language organization consisting of a cluster of radical émigrés from Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

who made their home in the old coastal town of Astoria

Astoria, Oregon

Astoria is the county seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Situated near the mouth of the Columbia River, the city was named after the American investor John Jacob Astor. His American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria at the site in 1811...

.

The migration of Finns to North America began in the early 1860s, when representatives of Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

mining interests began to actively recruit hardy Finnish workers as a labor source. This purely economic migration was joined by others who chose to escape the political hegemony of Tsarist Russia, of which Finland was only a semi-autonomous part. By the coming 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...

, over 300,000 Finns had left their native land for jobs or freedom.

Comparatively few of the immigrant Finns were activists in the socialist movement of their native land, it does not follow that the socialist cause was obscure to those who were not. In the Finnish election of 1907, the first held under conditions of universal suffrage

Universal suffrage

Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...

, the Social Democratic Party of Finland

Social Democratic Party of Finland

The Social Democratic Party of Finland is one of the three major political parties in Finland, along with the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party. Jutta Urpilainen is the current SDP leader. The party has been in the Finnish government cabinet for long periods and has set many...

garnered an impressive 37% of the popular vote, electing 80 of its members to the 200 seat national parliament and making it the largest political party in the country. Many of the top leaders of the Finnish Socialist movement were ultimately driven into political exile in subsequent years by the Russian Tsarist regime. Finnish socialist politics made itself felt upon the Finnish immigrant population in both ways: socialist ideas were not alien to the community's culture and custom, they were a leading political option back home; and these ideas were advocated by some of the most energetic and outspoken political partisans of the Finnish socialist movement via their newspapers, pamphlets, and public speakers.

Astoria, Oregon, a fishing community of about 10,000 souls on the American frontier, happened to be a magnet for the Finnish immigration. Located at the mouth of the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

on the far northwest tip of the state, Astoria was cut off from population centers by the mountains of the Coast Range

Pacific Coast Ranges

The Pacific Coast Ranges and the Pacific Mountain System are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico...

to the East and the waters of the river to the North, and sat perched upon the hills looking toward the Pacific Ocean in the West. It was a hamlet which developed in isolation, a community where newly arriving Finns could readily find others who spoke their language.

While some worked in the area's not insubstantial timber industry, most of the Finns in Astoria caught steelhead and salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

on the Columbia, working independently as small proprietors on their own boats. The needs of the Finnish fishermen were for cooperation, coordination, and collective social activity and they were generally not pitted against ruthless capitalist enterprise as were their countrymen engaged in mining and timber work in the Upper Midwest

Upper Midwest

The Upper Midwest is a region in the northern portion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. It is largely a sub-region of the midwest. Although there are no uniformly agreed-upon boundaries, the region is most commonly used to refer to the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and...

. Consequently, the political views of Astoria's Finnish Socialists tended to be moderate and electoral rather than built around the notions of class struggle

Class struggle

Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....

and revolution

Revolution

A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

. Some of the more radical Finns sometimes disparaged the Astorians for their "fish-captain's" world-view

World view

A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and...

.

The Astoria Finnish Socialist Club (ASSK) was established in 1904 as a branch of the Finnish Socialist Federation

Finnish Socialist Federation

The Finnish Socialist Federation was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for socialism among their community.-Early Finnish socialist...

(SSJ), an organization which would formally affiliate with the Socialist Party of America

Socialist Party of America

on January 1, 1907. The organization gave Finnish adherents of socialism a venue through which they could meet with like minded others and, at least as importantly, meet with other Finnish speakers — throughout their history the language federations of the American socialist movement had both political and social aspects. Membership in the ASSK was open to all Finns at least 18 years of age who accepted basic socialist doctrine and paid minimal dues.

The ASSK was a very small group in its initial inception, consisting of 27 members at the time of its 1904 formation and growing to 59 by 1909. Thereafter the organization grew rapidly, hitting a membership of 250 in 1911, nearly 18% of the members of the Socialist Party of Oregon. Thereafter a split of the pro-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 of the Finnish Socialist Federation dampened the membership level slightly, with 210 members remaining in the club in 1916. Contrary to national trends within the national Socialist Party, the Astoria Finnish Socialist Club then went on another membership surge, probably driven by enthusiasm for revolutionary events in Russia and Finland, with its ranks peaking in excess of 400 members in the summer of 1918.

Finnish Socialist press

There was no lack of a Finnish-language press for Finnish-American socialists in the early 20th Century. From the summer of 1903 there was issued a four-page weekly called Amerikan Suomalainen Työmies ("American Finnish Worker"), a publication which moved to Hancock, Michigan

Hancock, Michigan

Hancock is a city in Houghton County; the northernmost in the U.S. state of Michigan, located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, or, depending on terminology, Copper Island. The population was 4,634 at the 2010 census...

the following year and shortened its name to Työmies. The enclave of Finns located in New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

had a paper of their own, Raivaaja ("The Pioneer"), launched early in 1905. With the decision of the national SSJ to divide the Finnish Federation into three districts discussions began to accelerate among the Astorians about the possibility of launching a newspaper of their own to serve as the voice of the Federation's Western District.

In June 1907 a referendum of the Finnish Socialist locals of the West decided to establish a paper for the district and a temporary board of directors was established in Astoria. The venture was capitalized in July through the offer of $5,000 worth of stock at $10 a share. When half of this amount was sold by October, the new holding company, the Western Workmen's Co-operative Publishing Company, was cleared to begin operations.

The first issue of the new paper, named Toveri ("The Comrade") appeared on December 7, 1907, under the editorship of Aku Rissanen, formerly on the editorial staff of Raivaaja. Although planned as a bi-weekly, the paper was impacted by an emerging economic crisis and appeared only irregularly during its first year. The paper moved to daily status in 1912.

It was the presence of this newspaper which drew Santeri Nuorteva

Santeri Nuorteva

Santeri Nuorteva was a Finnish-Soviet journalist and one of the first members of the Finnish parliament. Nuorteva served in the Finnish parliament as a member of the Social Democratic Party from 1907–1908 and 1909–1910...

to Astoria in 1911, where he replaced editor Rissanen, who was coming to the end of a second stint as editor of the newspaper, begun the previous year. Nuorteva, a giant of the Finnish-American socialist movement, spent two years in Astoria as the paper's editor-in-chief. He would later become the head of the de facto consulate in America of the Finnish Revolutionary government of 1918 and the number two man in the Russian Soviet Government Bureau, de facto consulate of Soviet Russia

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

in 1919.

In 1911 the Western District convention of the SSJ reversed its previous policy and urged its locals to form special women's committees and, where possible, separate women's branches for their female members, with a view to increasing the size and influence of the socialist movement among women, who were beginning to gain the right to vote throughout the West. In Astoria this took the form of the establishment of a sewing

Sewing

Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...

club, designed for both social and fundraising purposes, and the foundation of a special weekly newspaper for socialist women, Toveritar ("The Woman Comrade"). Toveritar was launched as a weekly in July 1911 and it continued as such until 1930, when the publication was terminated. In addition to news of the socialist movement, Toveritar included household hints, a section dedicated to the youth movement, poetry, and serialized literature (both original work and material in translation).

In short, although the Socialist movement of Oregon did not produce an English-language newspaper of national note, Toveri had a regional impact as the voice of the Western District of the SSJ and Toveritar had a nationwide impact as the sole Finnish-language newspaper for socialist women. The lengthy existence of their two papers and the ongoing role they played in workers' education were believed by the Finnish Socialists of Astoria to be among their greatest achievements.

Electoral activity

As electorally-oriented democratic socialists

Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...

, the Finnish Socialists of Astoria desired to participate in the political process and to win control of the apparatus of local government so as to advance the socialist agenda. It took time for the Finns to build an adequate organization and sufficient confidence to enter the political fray, however. In the election of 1904, the English-speaking Socialists of Clatsop County

Clatsop County, Oregon

Clatsop County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. The county is named for the Clatsop tribe of Native Americans, who lived along the coast of the Pacific Ocean prior to European settlement. As of 2010, the population was 37,039. The county seat is Astoria.-Economy:The principal...

nominated a full slate for the June county elections, although no Finns received places on the ticket.

Indeed, the Finnish Socialists would run no candidates until the election of 1910, when they supplied two of the Socialist Party's candidates for State Representative, as well as the nominees for County Commissioner and County Treasurer. Local Astoria's English-speaking branch supplied the nominees for State Senator

Oregon State Senate

The Oregon State Senate is the upper house of the state-wide legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. Along with the lower chamber Oregon House of Representatives it makes up the Oregon Legislative Assembly. There are 30 members of the State Senate, representing 30 districts across the state,...

, Sheriff, County Clerk, County Assessor, and County Judge. Later that same year, the Finnish and English branches again cooperated in fielding a full ticket in Astoria's city election. None were successful in their bids.

The elections of 1912 and 1914 followed a similar pattern, with full Socialist tickets put forward topped by native English-speakers while the English and Finnish branches each contributed downticket candidates.

By 1916, the English branch seems to have dissolved, leaving the full Socialist ticket to be filled by Finns. Despite this circumstance, Local Astoria still nominated a native American as its candidate for Mayor of Astoria, while Finns occupied 5 of the remaining 6 slots on the ticket, winning one race.

In the election two years hence, the high-water mark for membership in the Astoria Finnish Socialist Club, no ticket was nominated, owing perhaps to war hysteria discouraging the participation of native English-speakers while Finnish-speakers were preoccupied with revolutionary events in the old country and Soviet Russia. Throughout the 1904-1916 period, Socialist candidates generally drew just over 10% of the ballots cast in Astoria, peaking in 1912 with a 15.2% share of votes received.

Other Finnish branches in Oregon

It should be noted that in addition to its very large Astoria branch, the Finnish Socialist Federation had three other branches in Oregon as of 1923: a rural branch in Svensen

Svensen, Oregon

Svensen is an unincorporated community on the Columbia River in Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. According to Oregon Geographic Names, it is named after Peter Svensen, an early settler. There was a post office in Svensen from 1895 to 1944....

in the logging country near Astoria, a branch in the small mill town of Marshfield (now Coos Bay) on the Southern Oregon coast, and an urban branch in Portland.

The end of Finnish participation in the SPO

In 1919 the Socialist Party of America (SPA), amidst much acrimony, split into three parts, with the Regular faction controlling the National Executive Committee and the National Office suspending six large language federations for their endorsement of the Left Wing Manifesto

Left Wing Manifesto

The Left Wing Manifesto is the name rather confusingly bestowed upon two distinct programmatic documents of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party during the factional war in the Socialist Party of America of 1919...

around with the Left Wing Section was organizing its forces. While the Finnish Socialist Federation was not one of those endorsing the Left Wing Manifesto, and thus not the subject of sanctions, many in the organization were sympathetic to the revolutionary socialist pronouncements of the Manifesto and disgusted by the actions of the NEC.

At its national convention held in Waukegan, Illiniois from December 25, 1920 to January 2, 1921, the Finnish Socialist Federation decided to withdraw from the SPA and to instead continue as an independent organization. While it had previously pursued as neutral a line as possible regarding factional scuffles, Toveri under editor Elis Sulkanen came down firmly in favor of an independent existence for the SSJ.

Upon learning of the decision of the Waukegan Convention to separate the Finnish Socialist Federation from the party, Socialist Party Executive Secretary Otto Branstetter immediately set about reorganizing a new Finnish Federation for the Socialist Party. A large percentage of the moderate Eastern District of the now independent SSJ came over the new reorganized Socialist Party-affiliated SSJ, including about 30 branches representing approximately 2,000 members. This group brought with them the daily newspaper of the Eastern District, Raivaaja [The Pioneer].

In this split he Astoria Finns — typical of the entire Western District of the Finnish Federation — stayed loyal to the independent organization. They henceforth remained outside the Socialist Party, as did their newspapers, Toveri and Toveritar. No branches of the SPA's reorganized Finnish Federation were established in Oregon.

The Socialist Party of Oregon in the 1930s

The party continued to field candidates for public office throughout the first three decades of the 20th century.

In 1934, the SPO, under the leadership of Albert Streiff and George Buickerood, lead the state organization out of the Socialist Party of America under the pretext that the SPA was "too radical." This departure proved to be short-lived, however, as Streiff and Buickerood transferred their allegiance to right wing populist William Lemke

William Lemke

William Frederick Lemke was a United States politician.-Life and career:He was born in Albany, Minnesota, and raised in Towner County, North Dakota, the son of Fred Lemke and Julia Anna Klier, pioneer farmers who had accumulated some of land...

in the 1936 Presidential election and the SPO returned to the national Socialist Party of America following the election of Don Sweetland of Portland as State Secretary at the 1936 State Convention and Monroe Sweetland as State Chairman.

The party lost the ability to place candidates on the ballot as "Socialist Party" candidates in the 1940s. Norman Thomas

Norman Thomas

Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...

ran for President variously as an 'independent' or as an 'Independent Socialist Principles' in the 1940s. The party did not field Socialist candidates until nearly a half century later, and effectively ceased to exist as an association of electors mid 20th century.

State Conventions

The 1904 State Convention was held March 3 in Portland at 309 Davis Street, headquarters of Local Portland. The gathering adopted a new constitution for the SPO, subject to referendum of the locals. The gathering endorsed The Real Issue as the official organ of the state party and encouraged party members throughout the state to assist with its subscription list. Portland was chosen as the new state headquarters for the organization and Local Portland made the new State Quorum of the party. SPA National Organizer John W. Brown was in attendance and spoke to large crowds at public meetings in Portland on the evenings of March 2 and 3. The convention named State Organizer C.C. Mikkelsen its candidate for Judge of the Oregon Supreme Court

Oregon Supreme Court

The Oregon Supreme Court is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States. The OSC holds court at the Oregon Supreme Court Building in Salem, Oregon, near the capitol...

, B.F. Ramp its candidate for U.S. Congress in the 1st Congressional District and George R. Cook in the 2nd, and N. Rasmussen its candidate for State Food and Dairy Commissioner. The state platform adopted by the gathering declared that "there is only one weapon with which the working class can successfully oppose the capitalist class — and that is THE BALLOT." The party pledged itself to "conduct all the affairs of the state in such a manner as to promote the interests of the working class."

State Secretaries

W.S. Richards, Albany. (1903-1904)
A.H. Axelson, Portland. (1904-1905)
Claude Robinson, Portland. (1905)
Thomas A. Sladden, Portland. (1905-1908+)

SPO average paid memberships

{| class="wikitable" border="3"

|-
! Year
! Average Paid Membership
! Exempt Members
! National SPA Membership
|-
! align="center" | 1901
| align="center" |
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 4,320
|-
! align="center" | 1902
| align="center" |
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 9,949
|-
! align="center" | 1903
| align="center" |
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 15,975
|-
! align="center" | 1904
| align="center" | 482
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 20,763
|-
! align="center" | 1905
| align="center" | 435
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 23,327
|-
! align="center" | 1906
| align="center" | 516
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 26,784
|-
! align="center" | 1907
| align="center" | 698
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 29,270
|-
! align="center" | 1908
| align="center" | 924
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 41,751
|-
! align="center" | 1909
| align="center" | 855
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 41,470
|-
! align="center" | 1910
| align="center" | 1,212
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 58,011
|-
! align="center" | 1911
| align="center" | 1,429
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 84,716
|-
! align="center" | 1912
| align="center" | 2,205
| align="center" | n/a
| align="center" | 118,045
|-
! align="center" | 1913
| align="center" | 1,600
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 95,957
|-
! align="center" | 1914
| align="center" | 1,281
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 93,579
|-
! align="center" | 1915
| align="center" | 967
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 79,374
|-
! align="center" | 1916
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 83,284
|-
! align="center" | 1917
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 80,379
|-
! align="center" | 1918
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 82,344
|-
! align="center" | 1919
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 104,822
|-
! align="center" | 1920
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 26,766
|-
! align="center" | 1921
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 13,484
|-
! align="center" | 1922
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 11,019
|-
! align="center" | 1923
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 10,662
|-
! align="center" | 1924
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 10,125
|-
! align="center" | 1925
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 8,558
|-
! align="center" | 1926
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 8,392
|-
! align="center" | 1927
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 7,425
|-
! align="center" | 1928
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 7,793
|-
! align="center" | 1929
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 9,560
|-
! align="center" | 1930
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 9,736
|-
! align="center" | 1931
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 10,389
|-
! align="center" | 1932
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 16,863
|-
! align="center" | 1933
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 18,548
|-
! align="center" | 1934
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 20,951
|-
! align="center" | 1935
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 19,121
|-
! align="center" | 1936
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" | 11,922
|-
|}

Sources: Carl D. Thompson, "The Rising Tide of Socialism," The Socialist (Columbus, OH), Aug. 12, 1911, pg. 2; Socialist Party Official Bulletin and successors, Executive Secretary state-by-state membership summaries, January issues;"Socialist Party Official Membership Series,' (1932). Report to 1937 Convention, cited in "Socialist Party of America Annual Membership Figures," Early American Marxism website. "Exempt" members denote those receiving special dispensation from the state office due to unemployment starting 1913.

1992 reorganization

The party was re-organized in 1992 by at-large members of the Socialist Party USA

Socialist Party USA

, including the organization's 2004 Presidential candidate Walt Brown

Walt Brown

Walter Frederick Brown is an American politician and was the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party USA in the 2004 elections. Brown became a socialist in 1948. He served as Democratic member of the Oregon State Senate from 1975 to 1987. Brown also served as a Socialist Party of Oregon...

, Bill Smaldone, James Hadley, Trey Smith, and others with interest in democratic socialism. The Socialist Party of Oregon is recognized as both an activist organization and an electoral vehicle. The Socialist Party of Oregon was a supporter early on of the Health Care for All-Oregon ballot measure, a participant in the successful unionizing effort at Powell's, a continuing presence in the peace movement

Peace movement

A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...

, and Oregon's electoral arm for democratic socialist electoral politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

.

The party regained electoral ballot status through acquisition of ballot lines previously held by others; the No Sales Tax Party was acquired circa 1994 (changing its name to the Socialist Party thereafter) and the Representative Party was acquired in the same year (also changing its name). In 1995, the ballot line of the New Alliance Party

New Alliance Party

The New Alliance Party was an American political party formed in New York City in 1979. Its immediate precursor was an umbrella organization known as the Labor Community Alliance for Change, whose member groups included the coalition of Grass Roots Women and the New York City Unemployed and...

was acquired, giving the Socialist Party of Oregon statewide minor party status. The Socialist Party has run candidates for partisan office regularly since that time although in 1998, the party failed to achieve 1% of the state wide vote under then existing state election law, and lost statewide ballot access.

As of November 2008, the party was recognized by the Oregon State Elections Division

Oregon State Elections Division

The Oregon State Elections Division is the agency of the government of the U.S. state of Oregon which administers the state's election laws in cooperation with the chief election officers of each of its counties...

as a "less than statewide" nominating party, having failed to retain certification outside of Oregon's Third Congressional District.
Party organizers have announced a plan to expand ballot access in other areas of the state by circulating petitions to qualify for nominating privileges in individual state house

Oregon House of Representatives

The Oregon House of Representatives is the lower house of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of 57,000. The House meets at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem....

districts.

Segments of the Party's ballot access line remained active until 2008. That same year, the organization disaffiliated from the national Socialist Party USA and continues now as a small independent political organization.

The Party has achieved a few recent electoral successes (although has not won a partisan elective office since re-organization):

Bill Smaldone, elected to Salem City Council, 1998
Michael C. Marino, Northwest District Association, 1999-2008

Prominent Oregon Socialists

Henry Askeli
C.W. Barzee
Walter Frederick Brown
Tom Burns
Tom Burns
Thomas Everett Burns was an American infielder and manager in Major League Baseball, primarily for the Chicago White Stockings/Colts. He also played for, and managed, the Pittsburgh Pirates for part of one season. Burns was the brother of National League umpire, John Burns...
Louise Bryant
Louise Bryant
Louise Bryant was an American journalist and writer. She was best known for her Marxist and anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including Alexander Berkman's The Blast...

William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
T.E. Latimer
Tom J. Lewis

Santeri Nuorteva
Santeri Nuorteva
Santeri Nuorteva was a Finnish-Soviet journalist and one of the first members of the Finnish parliament. Nuorteva served in the Finnish parliament as a member of the Social Democratic Party from 1907–1908 and 1909–1910...
B.F. Ramp
John Reed
William N. Reivo
Thomas A. Sladden

Bill Smaldone
William Smaldone
William "Bill" Smaldone is a Professor of European history at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. -Education and career:...
Elis Sulkanen
Trey Smith
John Viita
Harry M. Wicks
Harry M. Wicks
Herbert Moore "Harry" Wicks , best known as "Harry M. Wicks," was an American radical journalist and politician who was a founding member of the Communist Party of America...

Oregon Socialist press

Albany

People's Press (1894–1901) —Socialist from 1899; Official organ of SPO in 1901.

Discontent (1913?)

Astoria

Toveri [The Comrade] (1907–1931) —Organ of the Finnish Socialist Federation
Finnish Socialist Federation
The Finnish Socialist Federation was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for socialism among their community.-Early Finnish socialist...

. Master negative film at University of Oregon: 1916-1922.
Toveritar [The Woman Comrade] (1911–1930) —Organ of the Finnish Socialist Federation. Master negative film at University of Oregon: 1915-1930.

Grants Pass

The Real Issue (1904–1905) —Official organ of SPO. Incomplete hardcopy run at University of Oregon.

Medford

Saturday Review (1913)

Milwaukie

The Alliance (1912–1915)

Portland

Pacific Coast Citizen (1901-?)

Vapauttaja (The Liberatior) (1902-1903) —Pioneer Finnish socialist paper edited by Martin Hendrickson. Only 4 issues produced, 1 surviving.

Liberator (1903) —Established by T.E. Latimer.

Worker's Voice (1910)

Oregon Socialist Party Bulletin (1910–1919) —Official organ of SPO. Hardcopy only at University of Oregon.

The Hourglass (1915)

Oregon Herald (1916–1917)

Western Socialist (1919) —Edited by Harry M. Wicks.

Till Kamp (Into Battle) (1919) —Mimeographed bulletin of Branch 118 of the Scandinavian Socialist Federation. No known surviving copies.

Oregon Socialist Party News (1945–1947) —Mimeographed.

Portland Socialist (2003–2007) —Photocopied. (This publication was never a photocopied periodical.)
- Portland Current (2007-date) —Photocopied. (This publication was never a photocopied periodical.)

The Oregon Socialist (1995, 1999, 2005–2008) —Photocopied. (This publication was photocopied in the 1990s; the more recent issues are not photocopied. Although Wikipedia claims it came out from 2005-2008, issues on its web site go back to 1999.)

Salem

Oregon Socialist Searchlight (1950–1952) —Official organ of SPO.
Expansive Democracy (1995) —Official organ of SPO.

Sources: Carlos A. Schwantes, "Labor-Reform Papers in Oregon, 1871-1976: A Checklist," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, October 1983, pp. 154-166; Dirk Hoerder with Christiane Harzig (eds.), The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s-1970s: An Annotated Bibliography. In 3 volumes. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987.

Origins

The "Red Special" of 1908

The heyday of Oregon Socialism

The Finnish Socialists of Astoria

Finnish Socialist press

Electoral activity

Other Finnish branches in Oregon

The end of Finnish participation in the SPO

The Socialist Party of Oregon in the 1930s

State Conventions

State Secretaries

SPO average paid memberships

1992 reorganization

Prominent Oregon Socialists

Oregon Socialist press

Further reading

See also