A History of Utah Radicalism: Startling, Socialistic, and Decidedly Revolutionary by John S. McCormick and John R. Sillito (review)

McCormick and Sillito compile years of research in this exhaustive study of radicalism in Utah. They argue that Utah has a long radical or Socialist tradition that has been forgotten or hidden in state narratives. That tradition illuminates the diversity and color that were always Utah and that contribute to the larger story of American socialism. The authors define radical movements as those calling for a thorough and ongoing change in the social and economic dynamics of their particular age, those "progressive" voices raised in active opposition to the dominant power structure, those individuals imagining a world of greater opportunity and freedom than their own. Their narrative illuminates a different and more complicated past and a way to reinterpret the state's historiographic traditions in "startling" ways.

McCormick and Sillito begin by tracing the roots of radicalism in Utah. They point to the early communalist doctrines and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), such as their United Order of Enoch. From being radicals themselves, Mormons suppressed other radical groups from within and without as the church consolidated its preponderant political and economic power. In particular, the authors describe the Godbeite movement and the anti-Mormon Liberal Party of the 1870sto1890s, both of which proved their radicalism against Mormon communal orthodoxy by advocating the clear separation of church from state. McCormick and Sillito also cover the rise of the Knights of Labor and the Populist Party in Utah, often at the level of individual biography. This allows them to trace the movement of people from one group to another, creating an evolutionary story that links rather than separates the tradition of radicalism in Utah over a longer period of time.

The majority of this book focuses on the Socialist Labor Party, and then the Socialist Party of America between the 1890s and 1920s. In nine topical chapters, McCormick and Sillito survey the following: the organizational structure of the Socialist Party; the rhetoric of socialism in Utah; Socialist Party membership profiles by race, ethnicity, religion, and occupation; the voice of Christian socialism in Utah churches; the political victories of Socialist candidates in state and local elections; Utah's Socialist culture and press, particularly the Socialist column in Ogden's Morning Examiner; the efforts of Socialists to speak publicly; and the suppression of that speech, particularly in the context of the campaign to crush the Industrial Workers of the World, culminating in the trial and 1915 execution of Wobblie organizer Joe Hill. These are detail-dense chapters and, given the topical organization, there is some repetition. But each represents a deeply researched story that scholars investigating other states or comparing similar topics will find tremendously helpful.

The final two chapters (chapters 12 and 13) return us to a discussion of the Latter-day Saints Church and its efforts to suppress socialism in Utah, even though their nineteenth-century theological and practical observances (like consecration and stewardship and polygamy) were intensely communal. In some ways, readers unfamiliar with Mormonism would be better served by seeing these chapters near the beginning of the book. They spell out (in greater detail than does chapter 1) the communalism that suffused nineteenth-century Mormonism and then explain the church's rapid shift from communalism to intense capitalism in the early twentieth century. It was in the midst of that transformation that the Socialist Party was lighting it up in Utah. Knowing more fully beforehand the religious and cultural shift Utah Socialists were paralleling might put their activities into clearer perspective. But that, of course, is a different authorial organizational choice. A final "Afterword" makes a cursory gallop through Utah's radical movements since the 1920s and is more a starting place for further research than a definitive end.

One of the greatest strengths of this volume is its intense level of detail...