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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Students of the Socialist Party of America are well-acquainted with the extensive and persistent support it received from poor farmers, many of them tenants, in Oklahoma and Texas. David Shannon and, more recently, James Weinstein have both noted that the Socialist Party of Oklahoma had a more active and widespread membership than any other state branch of the Party. Both writers have also given proper emphasis to the shattering impact of repression upon the widely scattered and vulnerable Socialist locals in the rural areas of the Southwest after the United States entered World War I. Weinstein especially has suggested that the Socialist Party was a broadly-based and effective political organization, not only ‘in’ but ‘of’ the world of American workers and small farmers. Pointing to the vigour of the Socialist Party's support in the North and East after it opposed American participation in the war, Weinstein argues that an American Socialism attuned to American conditions and needs had much potential vitality and could have been a significant political force in the country. For this assertion Weinstein was sharply criticized by a reviewer who argued that he exaggerated the depth of the Party's support after 1912 and that he specifically failed to perceive the German ethnic origin of much of the Party's ‘new’ support for its anti-war position.
1 Shannon, David, The Socialist Party of America (Quadrangle paper edition, 1967), pp. 25–36Google Scholar; Weinstein, James, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1925 (New York, 1967), pp. 16–19Google Scholar; Dubofsky, Melvyn's review of Weinstein's Decline of Socialism in the American Historical Review, 75 (12 1969), 606–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 For a fuller description of the Socialist programme in Oklahoma, see Burbank, Garin, ‘Agrarian Radicals and Their Opponents: Political Conflict in Southern Oklahoma, 1910–1924’, Journal of American History, 58 (06 1971), 5–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Study of six counties in southern and western Oklahoma revealed only two towns, Carter in Beckham County and Oakland in Marshall County, in which Socialists polled a substantial vote. In many country precincts, Socialists drew a majority, sometimes a heavy majority of the ballots. See, for example, the percentages in Marshall County in Burbank, , ‘Agrarian Radicals and Their Opponents…’, Journal of American History, 58 (06 1971), 7–8.Google Scholar
4 I have drawn my voting statistics from Benson, Oliver et al. , Oklahoma Votes, 1907–1962 (Norman, Okla., 1964)Google Scholar and from the Election Board Archives, State Capital Building, Oklahoma City. Where Benson and his colleagues lumped the Socialist vote together with such splinter party votes as the Progressives and the Prohibitionists, I have checked to see whether the percentages for the splinter parties comprised a significant part of the total of Benson's ‘third party’ column. In both 1912 and 1916, the percentages recorded by Benson are basically the Socialist vote. The other parties in the combined third party column received less than 1% of the statewide vote. Thus the 16% recorded for other parties in 1916 (Oklahoma Votes, 1907–1962, p. 63)Google Scholar contained a 15·4% vote for the Socialist and 0·6% for the others. See the Appendix for precinct data on the abrupt decline of the Socialist Party vote in Marshall and Beckham Counties in 1918.
5 Kingston Messenger, 14 July 1916.Google Scholar
6 Marshall County News Democrat, 22 June 1916.Google Scholar
7 Mills, Roger, Sentinel, 12 June 1917.Google Scholar
8 Oklahoma Councils of Defence, Sooners in the War (n.p., n.d.), p. 28Google Scholar. A copy of this report is available in the Library of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
9 Ibid., p. 32.
10 Ibid., p. 37.
11 The editors of the Cheyenne (Roger Mills Co.) Star and the Sayre (Beckham Co.) Standard exchanged friendly jibes over the fact that both counties had elected Socialists as state representatives. Cheyenne Star, 28 November 1914.Google Scholar
12 Williams, Sam to Aydelotte, J. M., 21 May 1918Google Scholar. Sam Williams Papers, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma Library.
13 Breckinridge, J. I. to Williams, Sam, 29 June 1918Google Scholar, Sam Williams Papers.
14 Williams, Sam to Barnes, George W., 30 June 1918, Sam Williams Papers,Google Scholar
15 Ibid.
16 England, G. M. to Williams, Sam, 29 June 1918Google Scholar; Cummings, D. C. and Mayfield, W. A. to Williams, Sam, 28 June 1918Google Scholar; Thirteen men of Hext district to Williams, Sam, 1 July 1918Google Scholar; Davis, H. W. to Williams, Sam, 30 June 1918Google Scholar, Sam Williams Papers.
17 Thirteen men of Hext district to Williams, Sam, 1 July 1918Google Scholar, Sam Williams Papers.
18 England, G. M. to Williams, Sam, 29 June 1918Google Scholar, Sam Williams Papers.
19 Morris, W. M. to Williams, Sam, 18 September 1918Google Scholar, Sam Williams Papers.
20 Williams, Sam to Morris, W. M., 20 September 1918Google Scholar, Sam Williams Papers. He conceded, however, that the loan quotas had been reduced after severe drought ruined the county's crop.
21 The Working Class Union, a secret tenant farmers' organization which mounted the rebellion, issued the following call to rebellion: ‘Now is the time to rebel against this war with Germany boys. Boys, get together and don't go. Rich man's war. Poor man's fight. The war is over with Germany if you don't go and J. P. Morgan and Co. is lost. Their great speculation is the only cause of the war.' Quoted in Harlow'ss Weekly (Oklahoma City), 15 August 1917Google Scholar. The tenants in the area of the Green Corn Rebellion were among the poorest, least educated, and most isolated in Oklahoma. They lived amid endemic social violence. Wartime conscription, suddenly thrust upon them, would take away sons needed to plant and pick cotton. Professor James R. Green has argued that the rhetoric of the Green Corn rebels was ‘secular and modern, formed by Socialism and anarcho-syndicalism’. The evidence upon which his contention rests is inevitably thin, but his argument is acceptable. See Green, James R., ‘Socialism and the Southwestern Class Struggle, 1898–1918: A Study of Radical Movements in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1972, pp. 378–80Google Scholar. Professor Green was kind enough to allow me to study his manuscript during its preparation.
22 Strong City Herald, 23 August 1917.
23 Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City), 15 August 1917.Google Scholar
24 Ada Star-Democrat, 24 April 1917.Google Scholar
25 Ada Star-Democrat, 10 August 1917.Google Scholar
26 Kingston, Messenger, 10 August 1917.Google Scholar
27 Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City), 12 December 1917.Google Scholar
28 Harlow's Weekly, 7 November 1917.Google Scholar
29 Ada Star-Democrat, 4 May 1917.Google Scholar
30 Ada Star-Democrat, 11 May 1917.Google Scholar
31 Madill, Record, 7 March 1918.Google Scholar
32 Otter Valley Socialist, 8 March 1916.Google Scholar
33 Valley, OtterSocialist, 26 April 1917Google Scholar, article by O. E. Enfield. See also 24 May 1917, 2 August 1917, 29 November 1917; see Strong City Herald, 29 March 1917, 26 April 1917, 30 August 1917, 6 September 1917Google Scholar (extensive coverage of Senator LaFollete's proposal to ‘conscript wealth’).
34 Valley, OtterSocialist, 6 December 1917.Google Scholar
35 Strong City Herald, 11 October 1917.Google Scholar
36 Valley, OtterSocialist, 7 June 1917.Google Scholar
37 Valley, OtterSocialist, 29 March 1917, 31 May 1917, 9 August 1917, 15 November 1917, 22 November 1917Google Scholar; Strong City Herald, 5 July 1917, 16 August 1917Google Scholar, 30 August 1917, 20 September 1917, 27 September 1917, 14 March 1918, 18 April 1918 (criticism of local Democratic newspaper for approving the tarring and feathering of a Socialist organizer in an adjoining county).
38 Valley, OtterSocialist, 14 June, 28 June and 23 August 1917.Google Scholar
39 Valley, OtterSocialist, 15 November 1917.Google Scholar
40 Valley, OtterSocialist, 9 May 1918Google Scholar; Oklahoma, Leader, 23 May 1918Google Scholar, for description of the fire.
41 Valley, OtterSocialist, 9 and 16 May 1918Google Scholar; Strong City Herald, 9 and 30 May, 6 and 13 June 1918.Google Scholar
42 Valley, OtterSocialist, 16 May 1918.Google Scholar
43 Strong City Herald, 9 May 1918.Google Scholar
44 Strong City Herald, 30 August 1917Google Scholar; Valley, OtterSocialist, 6 September 1917Google Scholar; Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City), 29 August 1917Google Scholar. Harlow's and most Oklahoma editors were flabbergasted that the state Farmers' Union would support Senator Gore's opposition to President Wilson's agricultural and defence policies.
45 Strong City Herald, 6 September 1917.Google Scholar
46 Strong City Herald, 20 September 1917.Google Scholar
47 Valley, OtterSocialist, 27 September 1917.Google Scholar
48 Valley, OtterSocialist, 8 November 1917.Google Scholar
49 Valley, OtterSocialist, 20 December 1917Google Scholar. The lecturer was H. H. Stallard who had in the past taken opportunistic positions which clashed with party principles. He called for Socialist support of ‘Jim Crow’ legislation in 1911 and was roundly criticized for pandering to prejudice. In the spring of 1918, he was to join those Socialists who called for a repudiation of the St Louis Platform. Strong City Herald, 30 May 1918.Google Scholar
50 Valley, OtterSocialist, 31 January 1918.Google Scholar
51 Oklahoma, Leader, 6 June, 13 June, 20 June, 25 July 1918.Google Scholar
52 Oklahoma, Leader, 11, 18, 25, July 1918.Google Scholar
53 Oklahoma, Leader, 22 August 1918.Google Scholar
54 Ibid.
55 See editor and local Council of Defence leader Williams, Ivan's attacks on Socialists in the Fairview Leader, 4 and 11 October 1917, 4 January 1918 and 15 August 1918.Google Scholar
56 Cleo Springs Chiejtan, 18 October 1918.Google Scholar
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Cleo Springs Chieftan, 20 December 1918.Google Scholar
60 For an excellent analysis of the class structure and class attitudes to be found in the Southwestern small towns and countryside, see the Yale Ph.D. thesis of Green, James R.Google Scholar cited in fn. 21.
61 For other instances of vigilante repression of radicals and opponents of American involve ment, see Peterson, H. C. and Fite, Gilbert C., Opponents of War 1917–1918 (Madison, 1957), pp. 40–1 and 171–6.Google Scholar
62 This paper was presented to the meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Conference in San Antonio, Texas, in March 1972.
63 Voter turn-out percentages were taken from Benson, Oliver et al. , Oklahoma Votes, 1907–1962 (Norman, 1964).Google Scholar
64 Precinct voting data were secured from State Election Board Archives, Capitol Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
