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Adolph Germer
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Adoph Germer (Jan. 15, 1881 — 1964) is best remembered as National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America from 1916 to 1919. It was during this period that the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party emerged as an organized faction. Germer was instrumental as one of the leaders of the SPA's "Regular" faction in orchestrating a series of suspensions, expulsions, and "reorganizations" of various Left Wing states, branches, and locals and thereby controlling the pivotal 1919 Emergency National Convention of the SPA, and thus forcing the Left Wing to establish new organizations of their own, the Communist Labor Party and the Communist Party of America.
in Welan, East Prussia, Germany the son of a miner, Adolph Germer emigrated to the United States with his family in December 1888.
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Adoph Germer (Jan. 15, 1881 — 1964) is best remembered as National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America from 1916 to 1919. It was during this period that the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party emerged as an organized faction. Germer was instrumental as one of the leaders of the SPA's "Regular" faction in orchestrating a series of suspensions, expulsions, and "reorganizations" of various Left Wing states, branches, and locals and thereby controlling the pivotal 1919 Emergency National Convention of the SPA, and thus forcing the Left Wing to establish new organizations of their own, the Communist Labor Party and the Communist Party of America.
Biography
Early years
Born in Welan, East Prussia, Germany the son of a miner, Adolph Germer emigrated to the United States with his family in December 1888. He went to work in the mines himself at a very early age, first working as a trapper at a coal mine near Stauton, Illinois, at age 13. He was a member of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) from 1894 and the representative of that organization to the World Miners' Congress in Amsterdam in 1912.
Germer escaped the mines by working as a union official. In 1912 he was a candidate of the Socialist Party for the Illinois legislature. He worked as a UMWA organizer in the bitterly fought 1914 Colorado coal strike. In 1914 he was also elected as Vice President of the Illinois Mine Workers, the state affiliate of the UMWA. He also ran for United States Senate as a Socialist in 1914.
Socialist Party leader
From 1916 through 1919, Germer served as National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America, being twice elected by referendum votes of the party membership. Ironically, his 1916 victory over Carl D. Thompson was made possible by staunch support from the SPA's language federations, many branches of which voted for Germer en bloc, enabling him to defeat the more conservative Thompson.
A staunch antimilitarist and unflinching adherent of the party's anti-World War policies established at its 1917 Emergency National Convention held in St. Louis, Germer was indicted in Chicago by a grand jury under the Espionage Act on Feb. 2, 1918. This secret indictment was made public on March 9 and a trial of Germer and 4 other top members of the Socialist Party began before Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis on Dec. 6, 1918. The trial ended Jan. 4, 1919, and on the 9th day of that same month the jury found Germer and his associates (Victor L. Berger, J. Louis Engdahl, Irwin St. John Tucker, and William F. Kruse) guilty. Landis sentenced each to 20 years in the Federal penitentiary, a sentence which was appealed and later overturned on the basis of judicial bias.
Germer was freed on $25,000 bail pending appeal, a sum ironically put up by a man who was soon to be a political nemesis, the milliionaire Left Wing Socialist William Bross Lloyd.
Germer was instrumental in guiding the National Executive Committee in 1919, a group which invalidated the party elections of that year on charges of electoral fraud, and which suspended a number of language federations and reorganized state organizations for purported violations of the SPA's national constitution. It was Germer who organized a caucus of loyal SPA Regulars prior to the opening of the convention on Aug. 30, 1919, and Germer who gaveled that gathering open.
After the bitter 1919 convention, Germer resigned his post as Executive Secretary of the SPA and was replaced by his friend Otto Branstetter. Germer continued to draw a salary from the SPA, working as a National Organizer for the party from October 1919 through 1920. In that year he left the nearly bankrupt national party to work for the relatively more prosperous Local New York as an Organizer, a position which he retained through 1922. Germer was also Assistant Secretary of Local New York, working under his friend and ally Julius Gerber from August 1921.
In November 1921, Germer stood as a Socialist candidate for the New York State Assembly in the 16th A.D.
In 1922, Germer moved to Massachusetts, where he served as State Secretary. Thereafter, he left the employment of the Socialist Party, obtaining a job as a worker in the oil industry in California in 1923, where he wa a member of the Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers Union.
Germer was active in the 1924 Presidential campaign of Robert M. LaFollette.
Later years
In 1936, Germer became an Organizer for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), continuing in that role until he retired in 1955. He was a key organizer in the 1937 United Auto Workers strike against General Motors.
After retirement, Germer moved back home to Illinois, dying in Rockford, IL in 1964. Germer's papers are held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin located at Madison and are available on microfilm.
Sources
- SPA's Monthly Bulletin and The Party Builder (1904-1914)
- The American Socialist and its successor
- The Eye-Opener (1914-1919)
- Adolph Germer papers, Madison.
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