The Unfinished Business of American Socialism

Can American Socialism Survive Its Success? The movement has often seen its ideas flourish as its organizations withered. Will today's resurgence follow the same course? In 1912, more than a thousand socialists held office in the United States. Their ambitions ranged from lowering trolley fares to abolishing the Senate. It was American socialism's best year ever. In 1912, the Socialist Party of America tallied a hundred and twenty thousand members, and newsstands groaned under the weight of some three hundred socialist papers and magazines, including the Kansas-based, which had three-quarters of a million subscribers and was committed to the belief that "socialism is not just a theory--it is a destiny."