Stephen Henderson

UNST123 Prof. Bagley

5/5/14
Chapter 13: The Socialist Challenge
Class Anger
Lower class citizens are easily distracted or enveloped by a nation at war
Lots of money and lives go into the fighting, but nationalistic feelings and patriotism fuel
the fire
After the conflict ends, there is a huge debt to be paid
The lower class are the ones responsible for paying that debt
Spanish-American war left the working class in deep poverty
Famed writers criticized the government and heads of big businesses for duping the
workers into supporting a war that would cripple them in the end
Writers and Muckrakers
Mark Twain delivered a speech at Princeton in 1906, calling out the government for the
massacre at the hands of US Army in Philippines in 1905
Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, which outed the meat packing industry for its
malpractices
o Encouraged Teddy Roosevelt to create the FDA
Theodore Dreiser was an active practitioner of naturalism, which led him to disconnect
himself from human study, and instead focus on philosophical endeavors
Jack London, who wrote many great stories like Call of the Wild, also wrote about the
lives of underclass workers in England, focusing on the plight of the children
Ida Tarbell exposed the Standard Oil Company and its founder, John D Rockefeller for
shady business practices, including the South improvement scheme, an under the table
deal between Rockefeller and railroad companies that destroyed the livelihood of Tarbell
and her town
Unskilled labor and assembly lines
Ford Motors increased its production over 2000% in 5 years with this method, and made
over $300 mil in profits
Each worker had one small and simple task to do, using standardized parts and assembly
lines, Ford Motors capitalized on Taylorism
Frederick Taylor created a scientific system of managing workers that allowed for large
numbers of unskilled workers to be used up and thrown out
Labor Unions
AFL was created in the late 19
th
century to support skilled workers at the time of
industrial revolution
Made up entirely of white, male, skilled laborers
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) arose in the early 20
th
century as support for the
hundreds of millions of unskilled laborers working for pennies
Led by William Big Bill Haywood, a leader of the Western Federation of Miners
Other key players were Eugene Debs, founder of the Socialist Party of America, and
Mary Harris Jones, a great orator and organizer for mine workers. She was once labeled
the most dangerous woman in America
Strikes
IWW members were encouraged to, instead of conducting walk-outs or strikes,
deliberately decrease the bosses profits, while continuing to be paid a wage
Strikes still occurred, and thousands of wobblies were arrested around the country
Sometimes the AFL would use goon-squads to discourage any behavior that was
against their own benefit
Of those arrested, many wobblies were beaten and sometimes killed by goon-squads
The strikes and general protests continued until the US entered WWI in 1917

Discussion Questions
1. Why, if there was such a large population behind it, could socialism not work in the
USA? What prevents our society from adopting Marxist ideals and overthrowing our own
clearly corrupt capitalist government?
2. How can it be explained that socialism is such a heavily avoided/forgotten part of
American history in our school systems? What is the government afraid of, if the
movement is obviously doomed to fail?
Sources:
http://www.democracyandsocialism.com/FameSocialism/Mark_Twain.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/171324/Theodore-Dreiser
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/406427/naturalism
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm
http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/slumfiction/jacklondon.html
A Peoples History of the United States, Chapter 13 Howard Zinn
The People of the Abyss Jack London
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/rockefellers-tarbell/
http://www.nndb.com/people/585/000160105/
http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Mother-Jones-
1837-1930
http://www.iww.org/about/solidarityunionism/directaction