Wisconsin Magazine of History

(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 66, No. 4 • Summer, 1983 "*»«»» mstm^k EPROCfl .•Sf SVK t '"V" THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN RICHARD A. ERNEY, Director Officers WILLIAM C. KIDD, President WILSON B. THIEDE, Treasurer NEWELL G. MEYER, First Vice-President RICHARD A. ERNEY, Secretary MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Annual membership is $15, or $12.50 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Family membership is $20, or $15 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Contributing membership is $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200—500; patron, $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes, ex officio, the Governor, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the President of the University of Wisconsin, the President ofthe Friends ofthe State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the Chairman of the Administrative Committee ofthe Wisconsin Council for Local History. The other members ofthe Board of Curators are elected by the membership. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the Juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General Administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk 262-3421 General information 262-3271 Maps 262-9558 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Membership 262-9613 Archives reading room 262-3338 Microforms reading room 262-9621 Contribution of manuscript materials 262-3248 Museum tours 262-9567 Editorial offices 262-9603 Newspapers reference 262-9584 Film collections 262-0585 Picture and sound collections 262-9581 Genealogical and general reference inquiries 262-9590 Public information office 262-9606 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Sales desk 262-3271 Historic preservation 262-1339 School services 262-9567 Historic sites 262-3271 Speakers bureau 262-2704 ON THE COVER: Retailers like Harry Rodin, who pumped Deep Rock gasoline at his Milwaukee service station in 1938, catered to an ever-increasing number of motorists while fighting for economic survival with cutthroat pricing and merchandising arrangements. [Wlli (W821) 562] Volume 66, Number 4 / Summer, 1983 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (ISSN 0043-6534) Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, "Dynamite for the Brain": The Growth and Decline Wisconsin 53706. Distributed of Socialism in Central and Lakeshore Wisconsin, to members as part of their 1910-1920 251 dues. (Annual membership, $15, or S12.50 for those over 65 James J. Lorence or members of affiliated societies; family membership, $20, or $ 15 for those over 65 or members of affiliated societies; "For Life, the Resurrection, and the contributing, $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-$500; Life Everlasting": James J. Strang and patron, $500 or more.) Single Strangite Mormon Polygamy, 1849-1856 274 numbers from Volume 57 forward are $2. Microfilmed David Rich Lewis copies available through University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Oil on Trial: A Legal Encounter in Madison 292 Volumes 1 through 20 and most issues of Volumes 21 Marilyn Crant through 56 are available from Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Millwood, New York 10546. White House Sale: Communications should be addressed to the editor. The A Wisconsin Commentary on the Election of 1912 310 Society does not assume Terry L. Shoptaugh responsibility for statements made by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin, and at additional mailing offices. Reading America 313 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine Book Reviews 315 of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Copyright © 1983 by the State fiistorical Society of Book Review Index 323 Wisconsin. Wisconsin History Checklist 324 The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by Accessions 326 the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In Contributors 328 addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History Editor and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American PAULff. HASS Indian, and the Combined Associate Editors Retrospective Index to Journals in History, 1838-1974. WILLIAM C. MARTEN JOHN O. HOLZHUETER MARILYN GRANT Lake Superior Duluth *. Michigan Minnesota MinneapoliS| St. Paul linois Socialist activity flourished in these central and lakeshore communities from 1910 to 1920. "Dynamite for the Brain": The Growth and DecHne of SociaUsm in Central and Lakeshore Wisconsin, 1910-1920 By James J. Lorence ISC^ONSIN socialism has usu State politics. It is equally true that a genuinely W ally been described as an ur class-conscious movement failed to develop in ban, working-class movement. Historians have the hinterlands. Socialist successes proved long stressed Victor Berger's carefully con transitory, as forces outside the state move structed trade union alliance that produced ment combined with internal tensions to pre stunning victories in Milwaukee County. vent the formation of a lasting urban-rural co These electoral successes, which in 1910 sent alition in support of a radical political Berger to Congress and the staunch unionist alternative, fhis essay will explore the Social Emil Seidel to the mayor's office, marked the ist appeal in outstate Wisconsin and attempt to beginning of an extended period of Socialist account for the party's rise and fall in the sec strength and civic accomplishment in Wiscon ond decade of the twentieth century. sin's largest city. Beyond the strength of the Social Demo The Milwaukee drama has so mesmerized crats in America's urban centers in 1910, there historians that they have paid little attention to were definite signs that the radical gospel was the struggle carried on by Berger's allies in ru taking root in some of the nation's most de ral, small town Wisconsin.' Yet a close exami pressed agricultural areas, fhe economic nation of radical political activity and voting hardship ofthe Stjuthwest, for example, pro behavior in central and lakeshctre Wisconsin duced a class-based political movement that reveals an important effort to build a Socialist emerged in its most developed form in Okla movement that, fVjr a brief moment at least, homa.^ Rural Wisconsin also spawned a So raised a challenge to the twt)-party system in cialist movement, although its roots were very different. In both places there was a growing AUTHOR'S NOTE: This research was supported by grants two arms ofthe same body, with neither controlled by the from the American Philosophical Society and the Milwau other." Sally M. Miller, Victor Berger and the Promise of Con kee County Historical Society. structive Socialism, 1910—1920 (Westport, Connecticut, 'David A. Shannon argues that "the secret of the suc 1973), 27. For further evidence of a Milwaukee orienta cess of the Milwaukee Socialists was their close alliance tion among students of Wisconsin politics, see Robert C. with the trade unions." David A. Shannon, The Socialist Nesbit, Wisconsin: A History (Madison, 1973), 424; Fre Party of America (Chicago, 1955), 21. Similarly, Herbert F. derick I. Olson, "The Milwaukee Socialists, 1897-1941" Margulies notes that "a close symbiotic relationship had (doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1952), 400; been established between the Social Democrats and the and Leon Epstein, Politics in Wisconsin (Madison, 1958), trade unionists of Milwaukee." Herbert F. Margulies, The 36,37. Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890—1920 ^For examination of southwestern radicalism, see (Madison, 1968), 153. In her definitive political biography Garin Burbank, When Farmers Voted Red: The Gospel of So of Victor Berger, Sally M. Miller places great stress on cialism m the Oklahoma Countryside, 1910-1924 (Westport, Berger's conviction that trade unions were the key to so Connecticut, 1976) and James Green, Grass Roots Social cial progress. She records his frequent references to "the ism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895—1945 (Baton organized labor movement and the socialist movement as Rouge, Louisiana, 1978). Copyright © 1983 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 251 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved WHi (X3) 28632 The organizing zeal of Milwaukee Socialists extended to their children, who attended

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