The Wage Workers Party was a short-lived split from the

Socialist Party of Washington The Socialist Party of Washington was the Washington state section of the Socialist Party of America (SPA), an organization originally established as a federation of semi-autonomous state organizations. During the 1910s, the Socialist Party of Wa ...

from 1909-1910.

Organizational history

Division had been mounting between the regular organization, controlled by Edwin J. Brown, and the left opposition centered on Hermon F. Titus' ''Seattle Socialist''. The "rights" were more electorally oriented while the "lefts" wanted to make the party a "fighting organization", and tried to give aid to the IWW. The faction fight became more acrimonious as the two groups began expelling each other from local branches. The issue was framed in terms of what social group would control the party: the rights were pictured as "petty-bourgeois" and supported by intellectuals, skilled workers and better off farmers while the left was supposedly more "proletarian" and supported by lumber workers, city laborers and poor farmers. Titus also had supporters in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

, and

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

. The divisions within the group came to a head at the Socialist state convention in Everett in early 1909. The lefts claimed that they had won a majority of delegates but that the rights had manipulated control of the party apparatus to give them a majority at the convention. Titus and his forces led a walk out and held their own convention, declaring themselves the true representatives of the

. When the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party came down in favor of the regular group, the Titus forces were in an anomalous situation. After flirting with the idea of going into the

Socialist Labor Party The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 192 ...

, the Titus- led Socialist Party of Washington became the Wage Workers Party on February 25, 1910.Foster, ''Pages from a Worker's Life,'' pp. 32-33, 36-37. When the party was formed they made a constitutional provision banning petty-bourgeois elements from the organization, including "lawyers, preachers, doctors, dentists, detective, soldiers, factory owners, and shop keepers" from membership. Titus, who had been a doctor, gave up his profession and became an elevator operator. Joseph Biscay was elected secretary.

Harry Ault Erwin Bratton "Harry" Ault (1883–1961) was an American socialist and trade union activist. He is best remembered as the newspaper editor, editor of the ''Seattle Union Record'', the long-running labor weekly (turned daily) published from 1912 to ...

, later to become a leader in the Seattle General Strike of 1919 was a member, as was

William Z. Foster William Z. Foster (born William Edward Foster; February 25, 1881 – September 1, 1961) was a radical American labor organizer and Communist politician, whose career included serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1945 to ...

and his future son-in-law Joseph Manley.Foster, ''Pages from a Worker's Life,'' pp. 37-38. The organization lasted a matter of months. It produced one issue of a newspaper, ''The Wage Worker''. Titus' supporters in Oregon and California were confused about the situation and apparently never rallied to the new group. Most of the group's members drifted into the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...

, while the core around Titus split between factions advocating a four and a three-hour day.

Footnotes

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Organizational history

Footnotes

Further reading