Julius
Wayland was born in Versailles, Indiana, on 26th April, 1854.
Four months after being born a cholera
epidemic took the lives of his father and four of his brothers and
sisters. The surviving members of the family lived in abject poverty
and after two years schooling, Wayland was forced to find work.
Wayland was employed as a printer's apprentice on the Versailles
Gazette. After learning the trade he worked for neighboring
newspapers as a printer and typesetter. By 1872 Wayland had saved
enough money to become a part owner of the Versailles
Gazette. Two years later he became its sole proprietor
and eventually turned it into a highly profitable newspaper.
Wayland became converted to socialism
after reading books such as The Cooperative
Commonwealth (Laurence Gronlund)
and Looking Backward (Edward
Bellamy). When he expressed these views in his newspaper he so
upset the conservatives in the town that a mob put a rope around his
neck and talked about lynching him.
After this incident Wayland decided to move to Pueblo, Colorado. In
April, 1893, Wayland began publishing the radical journal, The
Coming Nation. Within fifteen months the journal had a
circulation of 60,000 and was the most popular socialist newspaper
in America.
With the profits from The Coming Nation,
Wayland helped to fund a utopian colony, the Ruskin Co-operative Association,
on 2,000 acres of land near Tennessee City. Named after one of his
his heroes, John Ruskin, Wayland wrote that
he intended to provide "every convenience that the rich enjoy,
permanent employment at wages higher than ever dreamed of by laborers,
with all the advantages of good schools, free libraries, natatoriums,
gymnasiums, lecture halls and pleasure grounds." He added that
"one practical success showing that man can live and love in
peace and plenty, will do more about bringing the Brotherhood of Man
than a thousand speakers."
Wayland had difficulty making his community work and in July, 1895,
he left Ruskin after handing over his land and The Coming Nation
to the Ruskin Co-operative Association. He settled in Missouri, and
in August, 1895, began publishing the socialist
journal, Appeal to Reason. The
journal was a mixture of articles and extracts from radical books
by people such as Tom Paine, Karl
Marx, Friedrich Engels, John
Ruskin, William Morris, Laurence
Gronlund and Edward Bellamy.
Wayland moved to Girard, Kansas, and in 1900 employed Fred
Warren as his co-editor. Warren was a well-known figure on the
left and managed to persuade some of America's leading progressives
to contribute to the Appeal to Reason.
This included Jack London, Mary
'Mother' Jones, Upton Sinclair, Scott
Nearing, Joe Haaglund Hill, Kate
Richards O'Hare, Ralph Chaplin, Stephen
Crane, Helen Keller and Eugene
Debs. By 1902 its circulation reached 150,000, making it the fourth
highest of any weekly in the United States.
In 1904 Warren commissioned Upton Sinclair
to write a novel about immigrant
workers in the Chicago meat packing houses.
Wayland provided Sinclair with a $500 advance and after seven weeks
research he wrote the novel, The Jungle.
Serialized in 1905, the book helped to increase circulation to 175,000.
When published by Doubleday in 1906, The
Jungle an immediate success. Within the next few year it
was published in seventeen languages and was a best-seller all over
the world.
In 1905 William Hayward (general secretary
of WFM) and Charles Moyer (president of WFM), were both been kidnapped
in Colorado and taken to Idaho to stand trial for the murder of Frank
R. Steunenberg, the former governor of Idaho. This upset Warren
as a few years earlier the authorities had refused to arrest and charge
William S. Taylor, the former governor
of Kentucky, with the murder of the progressive politician, William
Goebel. Taylor fled to Indiana where he became a wealthy insurance
executive.
Fred Warren wrote an article about the
William Goebel case in Appeal
to Reason and advertised a reward of $1,000 for anyone
willing to capture William S. Taylor
and to take him back to Kentucky. As a result of this article Warren
was himself arrested and charged with encouraging others to commit
the crime of kidnap. After a two year delay was found guilty and sentenced
to six months hard labour and a $1,500 fine. Soon afterwards the governor
of Kentucky, Augustus Everett Willson,
pardoned Taylor, Caleb Powers, and four
other people for their part in the murder.
Wayland and Warren were once again in trouble in 1911 when they published
a series of articles in the Appeal to
Reason about corruption and homosexuality in Leavenworth Prison.
Although senior figures running the prison were dismissed, Wayland
and Warren were charged were charged with sending "indecent,
filthy, obscene, lewd and lascivious printed materials" through
the post.
As the popularity of the Appeal to Reason
increased, so did the attacks on Wayland and Warren. The paper's offices
were repeatedly broken into in an effort to find evidence of criminal
activity. Research was carried out about Wayland's ancestors and reports
in the Los Angeles Times claiming
that they had been involved in cases of arson and murder. In 1912
the newspaper reported that Wayland was guilty of seducing an orphaned
girl of fourteen and who had died during an abortion in Missouri.
Julius Wayland, depressed by the recent death of his wife and the
continuing smear campaign against him, committed suicide on 10th November,
1912. He left a suicide note that said: "The struggle under the
competitive system is not worth the effort." After Wayland's
death his children won considerable damages after they sued the newspapers
about these libelous stories.
Last
updated: 28th May, 2002
(1)
Julius Wayland, Appeal to Reason
(18th November, 1899)
A great many people believe that they know what socialism means, but
they do not. They vainly imagine that it refers to bursting bombs,
burning buildings, rapine and plunder. But those folks have never
looked for the definition in Webster's dictionary which says that
socialism is: "A theory of society that advocates a more precise,
orderly and harmonious arrangement of the social relations of mankind
than that which has hitherto prevailed."
Of course that does not sound so very bad. Still for fear that Noah
Webster may have been out of his head when defining socialism, let
us go to some other authority and read carefully the definition in
the Standard dictionary, which says that socialism is: "A theory
of policy that aims to secure the reconstruction of society, increase
of wealth, and a more equal distribution of the products of labor
through the public collective ownership of labor and capital (as distinguished
from property) and the public collective management of all industries."
Maybe things have changed since Noah Webster died. We have it here.
The Century dictionary defines socialism as: "Any theory or system
of local organization which would abolish entirely, or in a greater
part, the individual effort and competition on which modern society
rests, and substitute co-operation; would introduce a more perfect
and equal distribution of the products of labor; and would make land
and capital, as the instruments of production, the joint possessions
of the community."
Then, again, there are our religious friends who have vaguely, but
wrongly, believed that socialism was the enemy of religion. What have
you to say of this statement made by the Encyclopedia Britannica?
"The ethics of socialism are identical with the ethics of Christianity."
(2)
Julius Wayland, Appeal to Reason
(5th January, 1906)
When I look at the ferment of this insane social system; when I see
its corruption, bribery, oppression, suicides, murders, robberies,
prostitution, drunkenness and rapid concentration of wealth; when
I see the masses apparently dead asleep to the meaning of their condition
or to what is tending; when I see the rulers taking to themselves
more power while the millions gradually let slip their influence in
public affairs; when I see the courts more and more becoming only
tools for the rich, while the poor are helpless before the law; when
I see the voters losing what little comprehension they had of the
purpose of the ballot, using it merely as a means to favor some scheming,
cunning, self-seeking friend with a fat place; when I see the great
corporations corralling the lands in great tracts, filling the waterways
with their own ships and exploiting the riches of the mines for their
kingly self-aggrandizement; I say, when I look over this alleged civilization
and see these things, I feel a hopelessness that makes me heart-sick,
and I wonder if it is worth the struggle, and if life is worth its
care and if annihilation were not a joy.
Then, there is another view, I remember how I felt when I received
my first impression of the social system as it is. I woke up as from
a dream, and beheld the horrors about me stripped of their flimsy
covering and nauseating in their nakedness. I had caught a glimpse
of a higher, delightful harmoniousness; and it was so beautiful, so
just, that I felt all would accept it as soon as they were told of
it; that the present hateful thing could all be remodeled in a few
years; that people would flock to the New Civilization as soon as
they would read or hear of it. At that time there were no papers or
magazines to tell the beautiful story; no books to explain it, except
a few academically written volumes on out-of-the-way shelves in public
libraries - books which nobody read.
I threw myself into the work of getting the message to the people
with a wild delirium of enthusiasm; I read, and talked, and wrote,
and printed and circulated the printed page; I stood on the street
corners and handed the passers a leaflet or pamphlet; I mailed copies
to thousands of names without considering the character of the recipients;
I put years of life and energy into a few months. Gradually it began
to dawn on me that the job was greater than I had felt in my first
enthusiasm; I had been too optimistic; it would take years of persistent,
systematic work; a siege must be laid to the inertia and ignorance
of the masses.
(3)
Jon Wayland, later recalled his last conversation with his father
before he committed suicide on 10th November, 1912.
"My boy, I am going to end it all; I cannot longer stand this
persecution, mental oppression and misunderstanding. I have done my
work living and worn myself out, and perhaps my death will further
the interests of the cause." I remonstrated with him, but to
no avail. He said, "It will do no good to argue for I have made
up my mind." Not once during this talk did he exhibit my feeling
of malice or hatred toward even those government officials who are
directly responsible for the death. He felt it was all a part of the
order of life and unavoidable.
(4)
Kate Richards O'Hare, letter to the
Appeal to Reason on the death
of Julius Wayland (23rd November, 1912)
We have no idle, vain, regrets; for who
are we to judge, or say that he has shirked his task or left some
work undone? No eyes can count the seed that he has sown, the thoughts
that he has planted in a million souls now covered deep beneath the
mold of ignorance which will not spring into life until the snows
have heaped upon his grave and the sun of springtime comes to reawake
the sleeping world.
Sleep on, our comrade; rest your weary mind and soul; sleep and deep,
and if in other realms the boon is granted that we may again take
up our work, you will be with us and give us your strength, your patience
and your loyalty to your fellow men. We bring no ostentartious tributes
of our love, we spend not gold for flowers for your tomb, but with
hearts that rejoice at your deliverance offer a comrade's tribute
to lie above your breast - the red flag of human brotherhood.
J. A. Mitchel, Appeal
to Reason
(29th December, 1906)
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