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The ''Appeal to Reason'' was a weekly left-wing political newspaper published in the
American Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
from 1895 until 1922. The paper was known for its politics, lending support over the years to the
Farmers' Alliance The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers that developed and flourished ca. 1875. The movement included several parallel but independent political organizations — the National Farmers' Alliance and ...
and People's Party before becoming a mainstay of the
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
, following that organization's establishment in 1901. Making use of a network of highly motivated volunteers known as the "Appeal Army" to spur subscription sales, paid circulation of the ''Appeal'' climbed to more than a quarter-million copies by 1906 and half a million by 1910, making it the largest-circulation
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
newspaper in American history.


Publication history

The most direct ancestor of the ''Appeal'' was ''The Coming Nation'', a socialist communalist paper established by Julius Augustus Wayland in
Greensburg, Indiana Greensburg is a city in and the county seat of Decatur County, Indiana. The population was 11,492 at the time of the 2010 census. History Greensburg was laid out in 1822. The founder, Thomas Hendricks Sr.'s wife being a native of Greensburg, ...
. It was moved to the
utopian socialist Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
Ruskin Colony The Ruskin Colony (or Ruskin Commonwealth Association) was a utopian socialist colony which existed near Tennessee City in Dickson County, Tennessee from 1894 to 1896. The colony moved to a slightly more permanent second settlement on an old f ...
in
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...
as part of an effort to form a socialist colony there. When Wayland tired of the colony, he left his newspaper behind with the colonists, moving to
Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the List of United States cities by populat ...
, to publish his own independently weekly, ''Appeal to Reason,'' established on August 31, 1895. In 1912 ''The Coming Nation'' listed
Girard, Kansas Girard is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,496. History Girard was founded in the spring of 1868, in opposition to Crawfordsville, and named ...
, on its masthead as its place of publication. Publication of the newspaper was briefly suspended in October 1896 when Wayland left Kansas City, Missouri for the small town of Girard, Kansas, located in the southeastern corner of the state. Girard was the center of
coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
in Kansas and included many radical miners who had recently immigrated from Europe.George D. Brewer
''The Fighting Editor, or, Warren and The Appeal.''
Second edition. Girard, KS: George D. Brewer, 1910; pg. xv.
Although originally just a one-week hiatus was planned, publication was actually suspended for more than three months. Following the collapse of the Ruskin Colony, a second ''Coming Nation'' was published by Wayland at Girard, but folded two years later. The run of the first two incarnations, which followed a continuous whole number scheme, was #1 April 29, 1893, to #512 December 26, 1903.


Growth

By 1910, the newspaper employed about 60 workers and boasted a "three-deck, straight-line Goss machine that prints four hundred twelve-page papers, in colors, folded, per minute, when desired." The ''Appeal'' was based out of a building with the dimensions "...eighty by one hundred feet, two stories and basement." In 1910, it had a weekly circulation of 550,000 and a subscription base of 450,000. The paper's popularity was powered by a folksy style of writing and the participation of many leading literary luminaries of the Socialist movement, including
Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...
,
Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...
, Mary "Mother" Jones,
Eugene Debs Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...
, and Helen Keller.


Decline

After founder Wayland died by suicide in 1912, the ''Appeal'' slowly lost its vitality. Wayland's sons were not temperamentally suited to the newspaper business. After a series of editorials attacking
American militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
and
conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...
policies during the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, the
federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...
rescinded the paper's second-class mailing rights. This, combined with the post–
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...
” and the restrictions of the
Espionage Act The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War ...
(as well as infighting among American socialists), led to a drastic reduction in subscriptions. The paper was sold to Marcet and Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, the latter an editor of the paper. The paper alienated a good part of its antimilitarist socialist readership by endorsing the American war effort. From issue #1151, dated December 22, 1917, to issue #1212 of February 22, 1919, the paper carried the title ''New Appeal'' to denote its new patriotic orientation. Building on the subscriber list of the ''Appeal'', from 1919 on, Haldeman-Julius developed a very successful business selling inexpensive paperback booklets known as the ''
Little Blue Book Little Blue Books are a series of small staple-bound books published from 1919 through 1978 by the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company of Girard, Kansas. They were extremely popular, and achieved a total of 300-500 million booklets sold over the s ...
s''.


Successors and demise

The ''Appeal to Reason'' name was terminated in November 1922, to be replaced by the ''Haldeman-Julius Weekly''. This new incarnation rapidly lost its socialist character and became a "house organ" for Haldeman-Julius's lucrative publishing business. This publication had its name changed again to ''The American Freeman,'' effective with issue #1741 of April 13, 1929. This publication continued until Haldeman-Julius' death in November 1951.


Legacy

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...
's novel ''
The Jungle ''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers we ...
'' was first published as a serial in the ''Appeal to Reason'', between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905. Chapter 30 includes a description of the newspaper, which was read by the novel's protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus.


Circulation


References


Further reading

* Rolf Potts,
The Henry Ford of Literature
" ''The Believer,'' September 2008. * Robert Tuttle, "The ''Appeal to Reason'' and the Failure of the Socialist Party in 1912," ''Mid-American Review of Sociology,'' vol. 8, no. 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 51–81
In JSTOR


External links

* Tim Davenport

''Big Blue Newsletter'' No. 3 (2004). Retrieved November 16, 2009.
Appeal to Reason PDF archive (1900-1905)
Marxists Internet Archive. {{Authority control 1895 establishments in Kansas 1922 disestablishments in the United States Defunct newspapers published in Kansas Defunct newspapers published in Missouri Publications established in 1895 Publications disestablished in 1922 Socialist Party of America publications Socialist newspapers published in the United States