Hermon F. Titus

Hermon Franklin Titus (1852–1931) 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.

Hermon F. Titus was born in January 1852 in Pepperell, Massachusetts, 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 adequately represent the teachings of Jesus.

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