Three American Radicals

Three American Radicals Three American Radicals John Swinton, Crusading Editor Charles P. Steinmetz, Scientist and Socialist William Dean Howells and the Haymarket Era Sender Gartin Foreword by Howard Zinn First published 1991 by Westview Press Published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1991 by Sender Garlin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garlin, Sender. Three American radicals / Sender Garlin ; foreword by Howard Zinn. p. cm. Reprint of three works originally published by American Institute for Marxist Studies, New York; the first work published in 1976, the second in 1977, and the third in 1979. Originally published in series: Occasional papers-American Institute for Marxist Studies. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: John Swinton : crusading editor - Charles P. Steinmetz : scientist and socialist - William Dean Howells and the Haymarket Era. ISBN 0-8133-1256-6 1. Radicals-United States-Biography. 2. Swinton, John, 1829-1901. 3. Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, 1865-1923. 4. Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920. 5. Radicalism-United States- History-19th century. I. Title HN90.R3G27 1991 303.48'4-dc20 91-8301 CIP ISBN 13: 978-0-367-27397-2 (hbk) For Martha Contents Foreword ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments xxi John Swinton, Crusading Editor 1 Charles P. Steinmetz, Scientist and Socialist 49 William Dean Howells and the Haymarket Era 97 References 165 Bibliography 181 Index 225 vu Neither arts, nor letters, nor science, except as they tend to make the race better, or kinder, are to be regarded as serious interests, and they cannot do this except from and through the truth. William Dean Howells Foreword In the fall of 1989 I traveled to Boulder, Colorado, to give a talk at the University of Colorado. I knew that one of the chief organizers of my talk was a man named Sender Garlin, a longtime radical journalist and pamphleteer. But I was not prepared for the excitement of my encounter with him. We met for lunch at the faculty dining room, and it lasted two hours, but it could have gone on for six, so animated was the conversation, so high the energy, so full of questions was I, so full of the history of this century was Sender Garlin. He kept saying, "It's my turn to question you. Equal time, you know." But I knew that we were not equals in what we had to say, and that I would have a public rostrum that evening from which to express my ideas, so I made the most of those two hours. I am a historian, and Sender, born in the early part of the twentieth century, has lived through some of the most exciting historical moments of our time. He covered the Moscow purge trials of the 1930s for three left-wing newspapers, the only Western correspondent to be present at all of those bizarre proceedings, in which Stalin methodically disposed of his former fellow revolutionaries. In this coun- try, Sender reported on a different kind of lynching, the trial Three American Radicals of the Scottsboro Boys, nine black youths falsely accused of rape in Alabama during the Depression years, and sentenced to death. Sender grew up in a working-class environment in Ver- mont and upstate New York. His father was a self-employed baker who, Sender says, "enlisted the services of my mother and all seven children." Reading the Appeal to Reason and the writings of Upton Sinclair, Sender at thirteen considered himself a Socialist: "In later years, it was Karl Marx who recruited me with his analysis of this cruel, unjust society. No one has refuted his fundamental critique." He studied with Scott Nearing and other blacklisted academics at the Rand School of Social Science, and spent several years in college and law school. He has no degrees, but his education in the world was first-class. (Apparently he found college libraries more enlightening than classroom exercises.) Covering the bitter labor struggles of the twenties and thirties-the textile strike in Gastonia, North Carolina; the maritime and farm-workers' strikes in California (as editor of the Western Worker)-affected him deeply, as the Pater- son silk-workers' strike moved another journalist, John Reed, and as the Kentucky miners' struggles radicalized Theodore Dreiser. Sender could never be the detached professional journalist, above the battle. As a reporter he interviewed Dreiser, and such other diverse figures as Clarence Darrow; Emma Goldman; Lucy Parsons, widow of the Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons; Huey Long; Nadezhda Krupskaya, widow of V. I. Lenin; and Olga Knipper-Chekhova, Moscow Art Theatre star and widow of the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov. In the early thirties, Sender helped found the John Reed Club and was a founding editor of Partisan Review. Foreword He has always directed his writings, with their satirical barbs, against the system: the exploitation, the racism, and the militaristic nationalism that have plagued this century, whether in the extreme form of Fascism or in more disguised forms. The essays in this book reflect his interest in history, his fascination with personalities, and his deep commitment to a new world of peace and justice. All of his three American radicals were, in different ways and to different degrees, in- volved in the struggle for a better society. These essays are not only well written, but the product of impressive research. 1 learned a good deal from reading them. Very few Americans, even professional historians, know of John Swinton. This is a sad commentary on our historical education: it tells us more of presidents and generals than we need to know, and not enough of radical writers, gad- flies, independent journalists. Swinton belongs in all those neglected categories, and Sender Garlin makes an important contribution by bringing him onstage and telling us about his remarkable journey through the swirling events of the second half of the nineteenth century. 1 knew only a little about Swin- ton. 1 vaguely remembered, from reading Marx's letters, that he and Marx had met, but 1 did not know that he had spent so much time with the journalistic establishment (the New York Times, Sun, and Tribune) or that he was such a pioneer on the issue of women's rights. More of us have heard of Charles Steinmetz, but only as a gifted electrical engineer who for many years worked for General Electric. But few know of his involvement in the Socialist Party, an aspect of his life about which GE could not have been overjoyed. (1 particularly like his suggestion of a four-hour day and his proposal for Social Security-in 1915!) Three A merican Radicals William Dean Howells is one of the greatest figures of modern American literature. But most of us know little of his engagement in the political battles of his time, from his anguish over the Haymarket Affair, to his criticism of the Spanish-American War, to his role in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Sender Garlin recalls the drama of Howells's life, in which he crossed paths with an extraordinary collection of individu- als, among them Mark Twain, Clarence Darrow, Eugene V. Debs, Eleanor Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and William Morris. I flew back from Boulder still full of my many encoun- ters there, of which the one with Sender Garlin was surely the most memorable. On the plane I read these essays, and when I got back to Boston I wrote a letter expressing my enthusiasm. Having enjoyed them, and having learned much from them, I am sure that others will feel as I do. Howard Zinn Professor Emeritus of Political Science Boston University Preface These biographical and historical studies, earlier published separately, are now brought together so that I may share with a new audience part of the untold history of radical America. They reveal some of the indigenous roots of this radicalism and refute the notion that radical views come from outside, not from American circumstances. Those who benefit from the status quo, among them the media and academia, disdain to consider any fundamental criticism of the American socio-economic system. However, such criticism continues to well up in response to intolerable social conditions. Although they emerged from disparate backgrounds, the three men discussed in this volume-John Swinton, Charles P. Steinmetz, and William Dean Howells-shared a belief in the possibility of human progress and justice. They each proclaimed in their writings and deeds the philosophy of "the greatest good for the greatest number," popularized by the early American sociologist Lester Ward. All three were affected and guided by the same intellectual and ethical influences: French utopianism, German social democracy, and American populism, nurtured by agrarian movements. xiii xw Three A merican Radicals Swinton, born in Scotland, was a journalist who lived a double life: he held important posts on leading capitalist newspapers but spent his free time and personal financial resources on a labor paper, John Swinton's Paper. His views were never innocuous; they created tension and considerable hostility among staid journalistic colleagues.

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