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 America.

The 1919 Emergency Convention was convened in response to pressure from the organized Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party, which originally sought the convention to solidify the SPA's position towards the socialist revolution in Russia. Instead, the gathering wound up being the nexus of the great showdown between the party Regulars, headed by National Executive Secretary Adolph Germer, National Executive Committee member James Oneal, and New York State Secretary Julius Gerber, and the Left Wing Section, headed by Alfred Wagenknecht and L.E. Katterfeld. Although initially slated to be attended by 200 delegates, a list of just 117 credentialed delegates from 22 states was published in the press.

The opening remarks to the convention were made by Executive Secretary Adolph Germer, who declared that disagreement over tactics was only one part of the ongoing factional controversy in the SPA: "I always believed that this factional division leads to healthy methods, provided it is not carried to the extent where the organization is torn into parts and shreds, and leaves us an easy prey to our common enemy."

The second part of the crisis, according to Germer, was the thick blanket of "personal slanders and conspiracies against individuals that have been engaged in for no other reason than to break down the confidence of the membership" in the party's elected leadership. The Left Wing critics of the NEC and the Germer administration offered "no specific statements, but general gossip, rumor, suggestion, innuendo," he declared.

The first order of business at the convention was the election of a chairman of the day, a post handily won by Regular Seymour Stedman over Left Winger Joseph Coldwell of Rhode Island, by a tally of 88-37. Upon his election, Stedman delivered the traditional keynote speech to the convention. Stedman reviewed the history of the previous 5 years of war and controversy and detailed the factional controversy in the party, judging the split of the Socialist Party to have been an accomplished fact from the moment of the opening gavel.

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