"
In the meantime, the influence of the Socialist labor vote in
particular localities vastly increased. In 1910 Milwaukee elected
a Socialist mayor by a plurality of seven thousand, sent Victor
Berger to Washington as the first Socialist Congressman, and
elected labor-union members as five of the twelve Socialist
councilmen, thus revealing the sympathy of the working class for
the cause. On January 1, 1912, over three hundred towns and
cities had one or more Socialist officers. The estimated
Socialist vote of these localities was 1,500,000. The 1039
Socialist officers included 56 mayors, 205 aldermen and
councilmen, and 148 school officers. This was not a sectional
vote but represented New England and the far West, the oldest
commonwealths and the newest, the North and the South, and cities
filled with foreign workingmen as well as staid towns controlled
by retired farmers and shopkeepers.
When the United States entered the Great War, the Socialist party
became a reservoir for all the unsavory disloyalties loosened by
the shock of the great conflict. Pacifists and pro-Germans found
a common refuge under its red banner. In the New York mayoralty
elections in 1917 these Socialists cast nearly one-fourth of the
votes, and in the Wisconsin senatorial election in 1918 Victor
Bergen, their standard-bearer, swept Milwaukee, carried seven
counties, and polled over one hundred thousand votes. On the
other hand, a large number of American Socialists, under the
leadership of William English Walling and John Spargo, vigorously
espoused the national cause and subordinated their economic and
political theories to their loyalty.
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