Upton Sinclair and the Socialist Response to World War I

UptonSinclairandthe Socialist Responseto WorldWarI Peter Buitenhuis It was maintained by many historians until quite recently that 1912was the high point in the influence of socialism in the United States. Daniel Bell wrote in 1952:"The War and the defections of many party leaders merely completed. but were not themselves the cause of. the isolation of the socialist movement from American politics. The eclipse of American socialism took place in 1912:the rest of the years were trailing penumbra." 1 Ira Kipnis in his book of the same year. The American Socialist Movement. ended the work in 1912with the claim that the party had then started on its irreversible decline because of opportunism. racism and the lack of party democracy. Another common belief was that Wilsonian democracy pre-empted many of the planks that the Socialist Party had been fighting on. More recent scholarship has shown. however. that. although 1912was the year in which socialists held the greatest number of municipal seats. as mayors. councillors and aldermen. there was no great drop in party memberships and publications until the year 1914.The number of socialist state legislators actually increased from twenty-two in 1912to thirty-one in 1915.The Intercollegiate Socialist Society-the intellectual wing of the party-flourished until the war. and declined after 1917.It was the war itself which pretty much finished the Socialist Party as an effective political force in the United States. As one historian has noted: "The World War struck the American Socialists with the force of a body blow: if the conflict was closer Canadian Reviewof American Studies. Volume 14. Number 2. Summer 1983.121-30 122 Peter Buitenhuis to their European comrades, its ramifications were no less real to them. For one frightening moment all their doubts focused, all their confident beliefs that the tide of history bore them to inevitable success faded. "2 Membership in the party declined by over 20% in the first two years of the war. In part this decline can be chalked up as yet another success for British propaganda in the United States. More and more socialists found their sympathies engaged by the Allies and alienated by the strongly pacifist stand of the Socialist Party. German militarism, especially as painted in the garish colors of British atrocity propaganda, was seen by many as a greater threat to a socialist future than a United States fighting on the side of the Allies. As I have shown elsewhere, British writers like Bennett, Buchan, Wells, Conan Doyle, Kipling, Belloc, Ford and many others, sustained by official reports like the one issued under the seal of Lord Bryce on German atrocities in Belgium, issued a stream of books and pamphlets designed to lay the entire blame for the war and guilt for countless war-crimes on the back of Germany. 3 These publications were assiduously distributed throughout the United States by Wellington House, while effective control of the transatlantic cables and the blockade prevented Germany from presenting her side of the case. The myth of Allied moral purity and integrity in the face of the Hun's ruthless aggression played an enormous part in making the United States the Allies' arsenal and then bringing the country into the war. In spite of these efforts, many socialists remained unrepentant pacifists. Three days after America entered the war, an emergency convention of the Socialistparty meeting in St. Louisoverwhelmingly condemned the declaration of war as "a crime against the people of the United States and against the nations of the world:' The document went on: "In all modern history there has been no war more unjustifiable than the war in which we are about to engage. No greater dishonour has ever been forced upon a people than that which the capitalist class is forcing upon this nation against its will.'' The convention promised continuous and active opposition to the war and conscription. 4 The ability of the socialists to carry out this pledge was severelyhampered, however, by the passing and enforcement of the Espionage Act, under which the Postmaster General could withhold from the mail matter urging treason, insurrection or forcible restraint to any laws of the United States. This act was liberally interpreted...