Hermon F. Titus
Encyclopedia
Hermon Franklin Titus was an American socialist activist and newspaper publisher. Originally a Baptist
minister before becoming a medical doctor, Titus is best remembered as a factional leader of the Washington state
affiliate of the Socialist Party of America
(SPA) during the first decade of the 20th Century and as editor of The Socialist, one of the most-widely circulated radical newspapers of that period. Titus led a party split from the Socialist Party of Washington
in 1909 and helped found a short-lived organization called the Wage Workers Party
. His paper failed with that organization and he died in self-chosen obscurity in New York City, a medical doctor working in a low paying service job.
, the son of Moses Titus and Saphronia Patch Titus. As a boy Hermon worked on a farm, in a butcher shop, and in a paper mill, all the while attending school.
In 1864, in the midst of the American Civil War, the 12-year old Hermon attempted to run away and enlist, but his father successfully tracked him down and returned him home.
Titus studied at Eastman's Business College in 1867, thereafter taking a job as a bookkeeper and clerk in a dry goods store in New York City
, studying at night so that he could attend college.
Titus was an 1873 graduate of Madison University
and of its theological seminary
in 1876. After graduating the seminary, Titus had spent over a decade as a Baptist
preacher in Ithaca, New York
and Newton, Massachusetts
before leaving the church owing to feelings that it did not did not adequately represent the teachings of Jesus.
Thereafter, Titus decided to become a medical doctor, enrolling in Harvard Medical School
, from which he graduated in 1890. Upon graduation, Titus practiced medicine for two years in Newton before taking a job as a company doctor for the Great Northern Railway which brought him to Seattle in 1893, where he continued to work as a medical practitioner for the rest of the decade.
through the Fabian Society of Seattle and began to take an active interest in the ideas of municipal reform. Titus helped to draft a new city charter for Seattle and formed a Citizens' Non-Partisan League in 1900 to attempt to end the monopoly power wielded by the Seattle Electric Company. It was around this time that Titus was exposed to Marxist
ideas for the first time. He became involved in a strike of Seattle telephone operators, attempting to win support for a proposed general strike
from the Western Central Labor Union, but without success.
The candidacy of radical trade union organizer Eugene V. Debs
for President of the United States
in 1900 on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party of America inspired Titus and brought him to the next chapter of his diverse life story. After becoming the State Organizer of the Social Democratic Party of Washington in the summer of 1900, Titus launched Seattle's first explicitly socialist weekly newspaper on August 12 under the simple and direct title The Socialist. A total of 500 tabloid-sized copies were printed at a cost of $13. The first editorial office of the publication was the basement of Social Democratic Party headquarters, located at 220 Union Street in Seattle.
Titus also stood for office himself in the fall of 1900, running on the Social Democratic Party's ticket for U.S. Congressman
.
Although initially conceived as a temporary publication associated with the needs of the Debs campaign, Titus soon came to see his new newspaper as a more permanent vehicle. Titus emerged as an aggressive opponent of the neo-Populist agrarian-oriented socialism touted by J.A. Wayland and his newspaper, The Appeal to Reason and thereby emerged as a leading national voice for a more assertive "proletarian
" orientation. Young enthusiasts gathered around Titus and his newspaper, with Titus continuing to play the role of leader of the SPW's "Red faction" until about 1909.
Hermon Titus's second plunge into electoral politics came in the fall of 1901, when he and his party comrade John T. Oldman, ran for three year terms as directors on the King County Board of Education in Seattle. Together the pair received about 25 percent of the vote in a losing effort.
Titus ran in the December 1901 party election to be the SPW's National Committeeman, delegate to an annual governing convention. He was defeated in a seven person race by just 3 votes by George Boomer
— with an additional 8 votes for Titus from Local Tacoma arriving in the mail just after the deadline for counting.
In the fall election of 1902, Titus stood as the Socialist Party's candidate for Washington State Senate
in the state's 36th Electoral District.
As a leader in the Socialist Party of Washington
, Titus was regarded by some as a "dogmatic, dictatorial" personality, albeit with considerable intelligence and speaking skill. Titus regularly attacked those whom he deemed insufficiently stalwart in their commitment to revolutionary socialism, running on his front page the fire-breathing 1903 platform of Local Seattle next to the civic reform-oriented platform of Local Spokane under the headings "As Much Socialism as Possible" and "As Little Socialism as Possible," respectively and leading the charge to suspend and reorganize the local. Public ridicule of this sort at the expense of erstwhile comrades did little to advance the goal of a united Socialist Party of Washington. To his supporters, on the other hand, Titus's unflinching salvos at the temporizing half-measures of others were red meat for the faithful.
Local Seattle was deeply divided between radical and moderate faction, with some branches, such as Titus's Pike Street Branch, dominated by the left wing, while others, such as the Finnish branch and (after 1903) Central Branch, were firmly on the side of the centrist forces which had steadily come to dominate the national Socialist Party.
Pike Street Branch included radical true-believers such as Alfred Wagenknecht
(future head of the Communist Labor Party), Elmer Allison
(future editor of the Communist Party weekly, The Toiler), and Emil Herman
(a political prisoner during World War I
and Socialist Party organizer after his release). The Branch dedicated itself to attempts at winning over the working class to the socialist cause through soapbox
speaking and public meetings — activities which frequently brought it into conflict with civic authorities. The moderate wing of the party, on the other hand, sought to build an electoral organization of broad popular appeal, in the hopes of winning political power through the ballot box and initiating a series of fundamental political reforms. These differing orientations, combined with Titus's pugnacious use of his newspaper as a tool for factional warfare, kept the Washington Socialist Party in a state of nearly perpetual internecine warfare.
Despite a healthy national circulation of about 7,000, The Socialist consistently ran at a deficit — money made good by Titus and a handful of his closest supporters. Effective with its June 26, 1904 issue, The Socialist abruptly shifted from a heavily illustrated 4-page formate to a sparse 2-page sheet, running a headline on the front entitled "Shall The Socialist Live or Die?" This article noted that while the publication had been basically covering its expenses over a period of several months, for the past two months the publication had suddenly begun running at a deficit of $100 per month, an amount deemed unsustainable by the 35 members of the "Socialist Educational Union" headed by Hermon Titus back of the publication.
After a year of financial struggle, marked by an experimental change of the publication's name to Next and an attempt at making it a newspaper targeted to the broad public rather than limited to active Socialist Party members, the decision was made to revive the old name and to move The Socialist to Toledo, Ohio
, effective in September 1904. This more central geographic location would give the newspaper a better chance for a wide national readership, it was hoped. Titus further expanded the paper's cachet by adding former National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party William Mailly
to the editorial staff. The paper continued to cover the activities of the Socialist Party of Washington in its pages each week, coverage written by correspondents.
In 1905 the moderate faction which dominated Central Branch of Local Seattle launched a referendum vote on new bylaws for the city which would have the effect of eliminating the existing branches in favor of a single organization broken down by electoral districts, with Local Seattle immediately taking possession of all assets belonging to its various branches. This proposal was regarded as a direct assault on the left wing Pike Street Branch and was bitterly fought by Titus and his associates, which actively campaigned for defeat of the proposal. Part of this effort by Titus included an attempt to get members who had already hastily voted in favor of the measure to retract their votes. When the Seattle City Central Committee refused to provide adequate ballots for this purpose to the Pike Street Branch, Titus had small forms printed declaring the intention of the signatory to vote against the proposal. This provoked Titus's enemies in Central Branch of Local Seattle to prefer charges against Titus and the Pike Street Branch for election fraud for this and other smaller technical matters.
When Titus was cleared of these charges at a meeting of the full Seattle City Central Committee, a heated gathering which lasted 7 hours, Central Branch launched a statewide referendum vote against Titus. This vote closed on June 1, 1905, and exonerated Titus by a vote of 4-to-1. Of the 41 votes cast against Titus in the state, fully 35 came from Seattle Central Branch.
A further move of the paper brought it to Caldwell, Idaho
, before finally returning to Seattle later in the decade.
Locked out of the Socialist Party, the left wing dissidents decided against joining the existing Socialist Labor Party of America
, instead seeking to build a new political organization from the ground up — a group called the Wage Workers Party (WWP). Future Communist Party
leader William Z. Foster
played a leading role in this organization and later recalled it in his memoirs.
In connection with this change of status, Titus renamed his weekly The Workingman's Paper. The new organization was virtually stillborn, however, dissipating and dead by 1910. Titus's newspaper died with the new group, many of whom went on to join the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW).
Titus was broken as an effective leader of Washington state's radicals by the loss of his paper.
True to his devotion to the working class, the former Baptist preacher and medical doctor moved to New York City, where he took a job as either a hotel doorman or an elevator operator.
Hermon Titus died in obscurity in New York City in 1931.
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
minister before becoming a medical doctor, Titus is best remembered as a factional leader of the Washington state
Washington State
Washington State may refer to:* Washington , often referred to as "Washington state" to differentiate it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state- See also :...
affiliate of the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
(SPA) during the first decade of the 20th Century and as editor of The Socialist, one of the most-widely circulated radical newspapers of that period. Titus led a party split from the Socialist Party of Washington
Socialist Party of Washington
The Socialist Party of Washington was the Washington state section of the Socialist Party of America , an organization originally established as a federation of semi-autonomous state organizations...
in 1909 and helped found a short-lived organization called the Wage Workers Party
Wage Workers Party
The Wage Workers Party was a short lived split from the Socialist Party of Washington from 1909-1910.Division had been mounting between the regular organization, controlled by Edwin J. Brown, and the left opposition centered around Herman Titus' Seattle Socialist...
. His paper failed with that organization and he died in self-chosen obscurity in New York City, a medical doctor working in a low paying service job.
Early years
Hermon F. Titus was born in January 1852 in Pepperell, MassachusettsPepperell, Massachusetts
Pepperell is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 11,497 at the 2010 census. It includes the village of East Pepperell.-History:...
, the son of Moses Titus and Saphronia Patch Titus. As a boy Hermon worked on a farm, in a butcher shop, and in a paper mill, all the while attending school.
In 1864, in the midst of the American Civil War, the 12-year old Hermon attempted to run away and enlist, but his father successfully tracked him down and returned him home.
Titus studied at Eastman's Business College in 1867, thereafter taking a job as a bookkeeper and clerk in a dry goods store in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, studying at night so that he could attend college.
Titus was an 1873 graduate of Madison University
Colgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
and of its theological seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
in 1876. After graduating the seminary, Titus had spent over a decade as a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
preacher in Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
and Newton, Massachusetts
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:...
before leaving the church owing to feelings that it did not did not adequately represent the teachings of Jesus.
Thereafter, Titus decided to become a medical doctor, enrolling in Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, from which he graduated in 1890. Upon graduation, Titus practiced medicine for two years in Newton before taking a job as a company doctor for the Great Northern Railway which brought him to Seattle in 1893, where he continued to work as a medical practitioner for the rest of the decade.
Political career
Toward the end of the 1890s, Titus was exposed to the ideas of Laurence GronlundLaurence Gronlund
Laurence Gronlund was an American lawyer and socialist.-Biography:Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, he graduated from the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Law in 1865, and moved to the United States in 1867...
through the Fabian Society of Seattle and began to take an active interest in the ideas of municipal reform. Titus helped to draft a new city charter for Seattle and formed a Citizens' Non-Partisan League in 1900 to attempt to end the monopoly power wielded by the Seattle Electric Company. It was around this time that Titus was exposed to Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
ideas for the first time. He became involved in a strike of Seattle telephone operators, attempting to win support for a proposed general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
from the Western Central Labor Union, but without success.
The candidacy of radical trade union organizer Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in 1900 on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party of America inspired Titus and brought him to the next chapter of his diverse life story. After becoming the State Organizer of the Social Democratic Party of Washington in the summer of 1900, Titus launched Seattle's first explicitly socialist weekly newspaper on August 12 under the simple and direct title The Socialist. A total of 500 tabloid-sized copies were printed at a cost of $13. The first editorial office of the publication was the basement of Social Democratic Party headquarters, located at 220 Union Street in Seattle.
Titus also stood for office himself in the fall of 1900, running on the Social Democratic Party's ticket for U.S. Congressman
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
.
Although initially conceived as a temporary publication associated with the needs of the Debs campaign, Titus soon came to see his new newspaper as a more permanent vehicle. Titus emerged as an aggressive opponent of the neo-Populist agrarian-oriented socialism touted by J.A. Wayland and his newspaper, The Appeal to Reason and thereby emerged as a leading national voice for a more assertive "proletarian
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
" orientation. Young enthusiasts gathered around Titus and his newspaper, with Titus continuing to play the role of leader of the SPW's "Red faction" until about 1909.
Hermon Titus's second plunge into electoral politics came in the fall of 1901, when he and his party comrade John T. Oldman, ran for three year terms as directors on the King County Board of Education in Seattle. Together the pair received about 25 percent of the vote in a losing effort.
Titus ran in the December 1901 party election to be the SPW's National Committeeman, delegate to an annual governing convention. He was defeated in a seven person race by just 3 votes by George Boomer
George Boomer
George Ellsworth Boomer was an American socialist journalist, newspaper editor, and political activist. Boomer is best remembered as a key participant in the formation of the Socialist Party of Washington and as its candidate for the Governor of Washington in 1908.-Early years:George Ellsworth...
— with an additional 8 votes for Titus from Local Tacoma arriving in the mail just after the deadline for counting.
In the fall election of 1902, Titus stood as the Socialist Party's candidate for Washington State Senate
Washington State Senate
The Washington State Senate is the upper house of the Washington State Legislature. The body consists of 49 senators, each representing a district with a population of nearly 120,000. The State Senate meets at the Legislative Building in Olympia....
in the state's 36th Electoral District.
As a leader in the Socialist Party of Washington
Socialist Party of Washington
The Socialist Party of Washington was the Washington state section of the Socialist Party of America , an organization originally established as a federation of semi-autonomous state organizations...
, Titus was regarded by some as a "dogmatic, dictatorial" personality, albeit with considerable intelligence and speaking skill. Titus regularly attacked those whom he deemed insufficiently stalwart in their commitment to revolutionary socialism, running on his front page the fire-breathing 1903 platform of Local Seattle next to the civic reform-oriented platform of Local Spokane under the headings "As Much Socialism as Possible" and "As Little Socialism as Possible," respectively and leading the charge to suspend and reorganize the local. Public ridicule of this sort at the expense of erstwhile comrades did little to advance the goal of a united Socialist Party of Washington. To his supporters, on the other hand, Titus's unflinching salvos at the temporizing half-measures of others were red meat for the faithful.
Local Seattle was deeply divided between radical and moderate faction, with some branches, such as Titus's Pike Street Branch, dominated by the left wing, while others, such as the Finnish branch and (after 1903) Central Branch, were firmly on the side of the centrist forces which had steadily come to dominate the national Socialist Party.
Pike Street Branch included radical true-believers such as Alfred Wagenknecht
Alfred Wagenknecht
Alfred Wagenknecht was an American Marxist activist and political functionary. He is best remembered for having played a critical role in the establishment of the American Communist Party in 1919 as a leader of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party...
(future head of the Communist Labor Party), Elmer Allison
Elmer Allison
Elmer T. Allison was an American socialist political activist and newspaper editor. He is best remembered as the longtime editor of The Cleveland Socialist and The Toiler, forerunners of the official organ of the Communist Party, USA, The Daily Worker.-Early years:Elmer T...
(future editor of the Communist Party weekly, The Toiler), and Emil Herman
Emil Herman
Emil M. Herman was a German-American socialist and anti-war activist. A three-time candidate for Congress on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America, Herman is best remembered for his imprisonment by the Wilson administration due to his political activity in the outspokenly anti-war Socialist...
(a political prisoner during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and Socialist Party organizer after his release). The Branch dedicated itself to attempts at winning over the working class to the socialist cause through soapbox
Soapbox
A soapbox is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. The term originates from the days when speakers would elevate themselves by standing on a wooden crate originally used for shipment of soap or other dry goods from a manufacturer to a...
speaking and public meetings — activities which frequently brought it into conflict with civic authorities. The moderate wing of the party, on the other hand, sought to build an electoral organization of broad popular appeal, in the hopes of winning political power through the ballot box and initiating a series of fundamental political reforms. These differing orientations, combined with Titus's pugnacious use of his newspaper as a tool for factional warfare, kept the Washington Socialist Party in a state of nearly perpetual internecine warfare.
Despite a healthy national circulation of about 7,000, The Socialist consistently ran at a deficit — money made good by Titus and a handful of his closest supporters. Effective with its June 26, 1904 issue, The Socialist abruptly shifted from a heavily illustrated 4-page formate to a sparse 2-page sheet, running a headline on the front entitled "Shall The Socialist Live or Die?" This article noted that while the publication had been basically covering its expenses over a period of several months, for the past two months the publication had suddenly begun running at a deficit of $100 per month, an amount deemed unsustainable by the 35 members of the "Socialist Educational Union" headed by Hermon Titus back of the publication.
After a year of financial struggle, marked by an experimental change of the publication's name to Next and an attempt at making it a newspaper targeted to the broad public rather than limited to active Socialist Party members, the decision was made to revive the old name and to move The Socialist to Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
, effective in September 1904. This more central geographic location would give the newspaper a better chance for a wide national readership, it was hoped. Titus further expanded the paper's cachet by adding former National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party William Mailly
William Mailly
William "Will" Mailly was an American socialist political functionary, journalist, and trade union activist. He is best remembered as an early National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America and as the first managing editor of the socialist daily newspaper, the New York Call.-Early...
to the editorial staff. The paper continued to cover the activities of the Socialist Party of Washington in its pages each week, coverage written by correspondents.
In 1905 the moderate faction which dominated Central Branch of Local Seattle launched a referendum vote on new bylaws for the city which would have the effect of eliminating the existing branches in favor of a single organization broken down by electoral districts, with Local Seattle immediately taking possession of all assets belonging to its various branches. This proposal was regarded as a direct assault on the left wing Pike Street Branch and was bitterly fought by Titus and his associates, which actively campaigned for defeat of the proposal. Part of this effort by Titus included an attempt to get members who had already hastily voted in favor of the measure to retract their votes. When the Seattle City Central Committee refused to provide adequate ballots for this purpose to the Pike Street Branch, Titus had small forms printed declaring the intention of the signatory to vote against the proposal. This provoked Titus's enemies in Central Branch of Local Seattle to prefer charges against Titus and the Pike Street Branch for election fraud for this and other smaller technical matters.
When Titus was cleared of these charges at a meeting of the full Seattle City Central Committee, a heated gathering which lasted 7 hours, Central Branch launched a statewide referendum vote against Titus. This vote closed on June 1, 1905, and exonerated Titus by a vote of 4-to-1. Of the 41 votes cast against Titus in the state, fully 35 came from Seattle Central Branch.
A further move of the paper brought it to Caldwell, Idaho
Caldwell, Idaho
Caldwell is a city in and the county seat of Canyon County, Idaho, United States. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population to be 43,281, as of July 2009.Caldwell is the home of the College of Idaho. It is considered part of the Boise metropolitan area....
, before finally returning to Seattle later in the decade.
Later years
In July 1909, outmaneuvered and outnumbered at the State Convention of the Socialist Party of Washington, Hermon Titus led the left wing delegates out of the meeting haul to hold their own parallel convention and to elect their own officers, with a view to holding a referendum of Washington Socialists as to which of the dual State Committees was legitimate. The National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America intervened however, declaring the actions of the dissident radicals unconstitutional and recognizing the moderate-dominated regular convention.Locked out of the Socialist Party, the left wing dissidents decided against joining the existing Socialist Labor Party of America
Socialist Labor Party of America
The Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876 as the Workingmen's Party, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has...
, instead seeking to build a new political organization from the ground up — a group called the Wage Workers Party (WWP). Future Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
leader William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
played a leading role in this organization and later recalled it in his memoirs.
"The WWP was sort of a hybrid between the SLP and the IWW. It put in the center of its program its main demand in the fight within the SP. That is, the WWP sought to solve the question of proletarian versus petty bourgeois control of the party by restricting its membership solely to wage workers. It called itself 'a political union,' and its membership provisions specifically excluded 'capitalists, lawyers, preachers, doctors, dentists, detectives, soldiers, factory owners, policemen, superintendents, foremen, professors, and store-keepers.' It barred 'all with power to hire and fire,' but it evaded reference to farmers.'
"The program placed great stress upon industrial unionism, which in those times meant the IWW. It opposed the formation of a labor party. Its manifest anti-parliamentarianism was but thinly veiled. It outlined no immediate political demands and showed no conception of the role of the party in fighting for such demands...; the program contented itself with saying vaguely that it would support all struggles of the workers. The whole stress of the party work was placed upon industrial union action and revolutionary agitation and propaganda for the abolition of the capitalist system."
In connection with this change of status, Titus renamed his weekly The Workingman's Paper. The new organization was virtually stillborn, however, dissipating and dead by 1910. Titus's newspaper died with the new group, many of whom went on to join the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW).
Titus was broken as an effective leader of Washington state's radicals by the loss of his paper.
True to his devotion to the working class, the former Baptist preacher and medical doctor moved to New York City, where he took a job as either a hotel doorman or an elevator operator.
Death and legacy
Titus produced one more political work before his death, a small and poorly circulated political pamphlet which came off the press in 1922 calling for unity between communists, socialists, and revolutionary industrial unionist. Only a single copy of this document seems to have survived. Neither Hermon nor Hattie Titus are found in the census of 1930.Hermon Titus died in obscurity in New York City in 1931.
Books and pamphlets
- Poison Ivy and Poison Sumac. Newton, MA: Newton Journal Press, 1882.
- The Old Ethics and the New: Two Editorials Reprinted from The Workingman's Paper of Seattle. Seattle: Trustee Publishing Co., n.d. [1910].
- Insurgency; or, the Economic Power of the Middle Class. With William Z. FosterWilliam Z. FosterWilliam Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
. Seattle: Trustee Publishing Co., 1910. —Reprinted from The Workingman's Paper, issue of September 10, 1910. - The Revolution in America: An Appeal to Socialists, Communists, Industrial Unionists, and All Radical Proletarians, to Adopt a Common Program of Action. New York: Hermon C. Titus, 1922.
Notable articles
- "The ABC of Socialism," The Socialist, whole no. 178 (Jan. 3, 1904), pg. 5.
- "An Object Lesson in Referendums," The Socialist, whole no. o. 241 (May 6, 1905), pg. 3.
External links
- The Labor Press Project: Labor and Radical Newspapers in the Pacific Northwest. Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, University of Washington. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
Further reading
- Paul B. Bushue, "Dr. Hermon F. Titus and Socialism in Washington State, 1900-1909. (M.A. Thesis, University of Washington, 1967.