J. Stitt Wilson

Jackson Stitt Wilson (March 19, 1868 – August 28, 1942), commonly known as J. Stitt Wilson, was an American politician. He was a Christian Socialist and Suffragist, and held Georgist economic views. A member of the Socialist Party of America, Wilson became the Mayor of Berkeley, California from 1911 to 1913. He ran for Congress on a socialist platform, receiving 40% of the votes cast, but was defeated by the incumbent Republican Congressman.

J. Stitt Wilson was born in Canada on March 19, 1868, the son of devout Methodist parents. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1888, settling in Evanston, Illinois and attending Northwestern University, working after graduation as a schoolmaster and for a law firm. Wilson later decided to enter the Methodist ministry, enrolling at the theological seminary at Northwestern. Following completion of his schooling, Wilson worked for the next four years as a Methodist pastor and social worker in nearby Chicago. He later recalled that the experience of these four years were "to me a school out of which I came — a Socialist."

He later recalled:

"Three forces in my life converged into one....

"First, then, the facts drove me to Socialism. The injustices, misery, and wretchedness, and the unequal struggle of the workers against such frightful odds compelled me to study the underlying causes of this social agony — and I became a Socialist.

"Second, I was a student of economics and sociology, reading, observing, meditating, and this led me to Socialism. Socialism is the social order corresponding to truth in the intellect.

Wilson was deeply inspired by what he called "the social and economic significance of the Teachings of Jesus":

"The Sermon on the Mount I saw was a code of social duties, so to speak, a revelation of the fundamental principles of Social Justice and human fellow ship for this our everyday world. Such a passage as that beginning with the phrase, 'No man can serve two masters,' is nothing short of a brief but comprehensive Social Program. It is almost impossible to find in the whole Sermon on the Mount anything that could give an ecclesiastical or theological colour to these sayings. They are ethical, moral, social.

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