James Oneal
Encyclopedia
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), was a prominent socialist journalist, historian, and party activist who played a decisive role in the bitter party splits of 1919-21 and 1934-36.
Early years
James Oneal was born March 13, 1875 in Indianapolis, IndianaIndianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
, the son of an iron worker. Upon the death of his father, Oneal was forced to leave school to go to work in a steel mill to help support his family. Oneal only attended public school through the 6th grade, relying instead upon self-education.
Oneal was an early convert to social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
politics, joining the 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...
in 1895 before leaving to join the Chicago-based Social Democratic Party of America
Social Democratic Party (United States)
The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America , and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.-Forerunners:Following the...
(SDP) of Victor L. Berger
Victor L. Berger
Victor Luitpold Berger was a founding member of the Socialist Party of America and an important and influential Socialist journalist who helped establish the so-called Sewer Socialist movement. The first Socialist elected to the U.S...
and 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...
shortly after its founding in 1897. Long a resident of Terre Haute, Indiana
Terre Haute, Indiana
Terre Haute is a city and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, near the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a population of 170,943. The city is the county seat of Vigo County and...
, Oneal was a close personal friend of his neighbor Debs.
Oneal was a delegate to the 1900 convention of the SDP and to the 1901 Unity Convention at which 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) was born. Oneal was elected to the governing National Committee of the SPA in 1902 as the representative of the Socialist Party of Indiana.
In 1903, Oneal moved to Omaha and went to work in the party's National Office as an assistant to Executive Secretary 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...
. He continued in that role until 1905, at which time he left to become the Associate Editor of the New York Worker, forerunner of the great Socialist daily, the New York Call
New York Call
The New York Call was a socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The Call was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America to be established, following the Chicago Daily Socialist while preceding the long running...
. After leaving the Worker in 1908, Oneal returned home to Indiana, where he was elected the State Secretary of the SP of Indiana from 1911 to 1913. By 1915, Oneal had relocated again, this time to Massachusetts, where he was elected State Secretary of that party in 1915, continuing in that post until 1917.
Oneal attended virtually every convention of the SPA as a delegate, including the seminal Emergency National Conventions of 1917 (as a delegate from Massachusetts) and 1919
1919 Emergency National Convention
The 1919 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party of America was held in Chicago from August 30 to September 5, 1919. It was a seminal gathering in the history of American radicalism, marked by the bolting of the party's organized left wing to establish the Communist Labor Party of...
(as a delegate from New York.
Oneal's main occupation in these years was that of Socialist journalist. From 1918 until the end of the publication in 1923, Oneal was the editorial writer for the SPA daily, the New York Call. In that role he was extremely influential during the factional party turmoil which erupted in 1919, a power made even more forceful when combined with the voice and vote which Oneal held on the party's governing 15 member National Executive Committee, to which he was elected in 1918. After the demise of the daily Call, Oneal was instrumental in starting its weekly successor, The New Leader, and he served as editor of that long-running publication from its establishment in 1924.
Oneal in the 1919 Left Wing controversy
The inner-party political situation during the war years has long been caricatured as a struggle between an ultra-revolutionary Left Wing and a "conservative" Right Wing. In actuality, the political views within the party's so-called Right Wing were more akin to a rainbow than a dichotomy. Perspectives among Party Regulars ranged from Christian SocialismChristian socialism
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...
and tepid sewer socialism
Sewer Socialism
Sewer Socialism was a term, originally more or less pejorative, for the American socialist movement that centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and existed from around 1892 to 1960...
on the one hand to staunch support for the anti-militarism of the 1917 St. Louis program and an earnest desire to initiate socialist society via the ballot box. James Oneal's own orientation in these years was closer to the latter pole, along with other main political leaders of the party, such as Gene 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...
, Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
, Adolph Germer
Adolph Germer
Adoph Germer was an American socialist political functionary and union organizer. He 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...
, and John Work
John Work
John Work was a chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company and head of one of the original founding families in Victoria, British Columbia. Work joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1814 and served in many capacities until his death in 1861, ultimately becoming a member of the company’s Board of...
. The true "Right Wing" of the party (exemplified by a large section of the publicists associate with the party, including Allan L. Benson
Allan L. Benson
Allan Louis Benson was an American newspaper editor and author who ran for President as the Socialist Party of America candidate in 1916.-Early years:Benson was born in Plainfield, Michigan on November 6, 1871. His father, Adelbert L...
, Charles Edward Russell
Charles Edward Russell
Charles Edward Russell was an American journalist, politician, and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
, John Spargo
John Spargo
John Spargo was a British-born American socialist political activist, orator, and writer who later became a renowned expert in the history and crafts of Vermont...
, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, and Carl D. Thompson peeled away in 1917-18, as American participation in the European conflict became a reality and Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's argument that this was indeed a "war to make the world safe for democracy" made converts.
As the war drew to a close, accentuated with a Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
victory in Russia in November 1917, the revolutionary socialist Left Wing began to organize with a view to transforming the Socialist Party of America into a form better able to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
and a soviet form of government, but by September 1919 they had been expelled and became the Communist Labor Party
Communist Labor Party
The Communist Labor Party of America was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA. The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America...
under the direction of 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...
and L.E. Katterfeld and the Communist Party of America headed by C.E. Ruthenberg
Charles Ruthenberg
Charles Emil Ruthenberg was an American Marxist politician and a founder and long-time head of the Communist Party USA .-Biography:Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born July 9, 1882 in Cleveland, Ohio...
.
Oneal in the 1934-36 Old Guard controversy
In 1934, Oneal played a role as a prominent member of the so-called "Old Guard" factionOld Guard faction
The Old Guard faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to retain the organization's traditional orientation towards electoral politics by fighting generally younger party members who factionally organized to promote greater efforts at direct action...
, which opposed the new Declaration of Principles
1934 Declaration of Principles
The 1934 Declaration of Principles was a political platform of the Socialist Party of America passed at the May 1934 National Convention held in Detroit, Michigan...
passed by the party's Detroit Convention of 1934. Oneal used his positions as editor of The New Leader
The New Leader
The New Leader was a political and cultural magazine begun in 1924 by a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, including Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, and published in New York by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. Its orientation is liberal and...
and official at the Rand School of Social Science
Rand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator...
effectively in bolstering the Old Guard's Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party
Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party
The Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party was a short-lived organized factional grouping in the Socialist Party of America established in 1934 by its New York-based "Old Guard" faction...
, working with Chairman of the Socialist Party of New York Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman was a leading figure in the Socialist Party of America from the late 1910s and through the middle 1930s, a founding member of the Social Democratic Federation, and a prominent New York labor lawyer.-Early years:...
to lock up these party assets in the hands of his faction.
Oneal raised funds to publish a polemical pamphlet, issued under his own name in 1934, which took aim at his factional opponents. Oneal mocked the Thomasites as "'militant' liberals" capable only of winning the temporary allegiance of shallow college students, dismissed the Militant faction as "pseudo-Marxists and phrasemongers, and alleged that the Revolutionary Policy Committee (U.S.)
Revolutionary Policy Committee (U.S.)
The Revolutionary Policy Committee was an offshoot of the so-called "Militant" faction in the Socialist Party of America during the middle-1930s...
were nothing more or less than practitioners of "Lovestone Communism
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
" and were acting as a "dual organization in the party." He furthermore lambasted the League for Industrial Democracy
League for Industrial Democracy
The League for Industrial Democracy , from 1960-1965 known as the Students for a Democratic Society , was founded in 1905 by a group of notable socialists including Harry W. Laidler, Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and J.G. Phelps Stokes...
, a bastion of the Thomas faction, as "a parasite on the Socialist Party and a dangerous dual organization" and specified instances in which the Thomas-dominated National Executive Committee of the SP had violated the party constitution.
Oneal's pamphlet included a coupon which readers could tear out, fill in, and mail to him, pledging the allegiance of the sender "as one with you for constructive party work and progress." The coupons accumulated doubtlessly proved invaluable as the Old Guard faction left the SP to establish itself as the Social Democratic Federation of America.
The parting of ways with The New Leader
Shortly after the SDF was formally established in 1936, the editorial board of the New Leader officially removed its support of the Socialist Party and endorsed the new organization. The relationship between the New Leader staff and the SDF political leadership was never completely cordial, however, owing to differing opinions as to editorial policy. While Editor Oneal was a strong SDF partisan but he clashed personally and philosophically with the publication's business manager, Sol Levitas, a former MenshevikMenshevik
The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
vice mayor of Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
. In December 1937, Levitas persuaded the paper's board of directors to change his title to "Executive Editor," a move which prompted a letter of resignation from the pugnacious Oneal. An uneasy truce continued between the two men, with Oneal working only 3 days a week owing to a slight stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
which he had suffered.
Finally, in the spring of 1940, the differing orientations of Oneal and Levitas came to a head. Oneal charged that the "secrecy, deception and direct sabotage" of Levitas were undermining his editorial authority. Levitas sought to water down the social democratic element of a publication to such an extent that "the reader will have to use very powerful glasses to find it." In April 1940, Oneal quit the publication for good, declaring that the paper had become a tepid liberal publication instead of a social democratic organ which worked to bolster the SDF organization.
Books and pamphlets
- The Workers in American History (expanded 3rd edition, 1912; 4th edition, 1921).
- American Communism: A Critical Analysis of Its Origins, Development and Programs (1927; revised and expanded edition with G.A. Werner, 1947).
- A History of the Amalgamated Ladies' Garment Cutters' Union, Local 10 (1927).
- Militant Socialism (1912).
- Sabotage, or, Socialism vs. Syndicalism. St. Louis, MO: National Rip-Saw, 1913.
- Labor and the Next War (1923).
- The Next Emancipation of Labor (1929).
- Labor's Politics. Chicago: Socialist Party of America, 1930. — leaflet
- Why Unions Go Smash! (1930).
- The Austrian Civil War (1934).
- Some Pages of Party History (1934).
- Socialism versus Bolshevism (1935).
- Farmers! Your Enemy Is Capitalism: Your Friends Are the Working People Everywhere; Unite and Fight for Liberation! (1930s) — leaflet
- An American Labor Party: An Interpretation (1936).
- America's Responsibility (1942).
- Socialism's New Beginning. New York: Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation, 1958.
Articles
- "'Left Wing' Convention is as Secret as Paris Conference," Milwaukee Leader, vol. 8, no. 186 (July 15, 1919), pg. 5.
- "Report to the National Convention of the Socialist Party of America by the Special 1919 Election Investigating Committee: Chicago, IL — Aug. 31, 1919," New York Call, vol. 12, no. 250 (Sept. 7, 1919).
- "What is Our Socialist Duty?" The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 5, no. 9 (September 1924), pp. 9–11.
- "The Communist Record," The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 5, no. 10 (October 1924), pp. 3–4.
- "The Call of May Day," The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 6, no. 5 (May 1925), pp. 7–8.
- "Eugene Debs and Socialist Party Policies," The New Leader [New York], November 13, 1926, pp. 3–4.