ot until 1892 that a national party
was organized, and not until after the collapse of Populism that it
assumed some political importance.

In August, 1892, a Socialist-Labor convention which was held in New York
City nominated candidates for President and Vice-President and adopted
a platform that contained, besides the familiar economic demands
of socialism, the rather unusual suggestion that the Presidency,
Vice-Presidency, and Senate of the United States be abolished and that
an executive board be established "whose members are to be elected, and
may at any time be recalled, by the House of Representatives, as
the only legislative body, the States and municipalities to adopt
corresponding amendments to their constitutions and statutes." Under the
title of the Socialist-Labor party, this ticket polled 21,532 votes in
1892, and in 1896, 36,373 votes.

In 1897 the inevitable split occurred in the Socialist ranks. Eugene
V. Debs, the radical labor leader, who, as president of the American
Railway Union, had directed the Pullman strike and had become a martyr
to the radical cause through his imprisonment for violating the orders
of a Federal Court, organized the Social Democratic party. In 1900 Debs
was nominated for President, and Job Harriman, representing the
older wing, for Vice-President. The ticket polled 94,864 votes. The
Socialist-Labor party nominated a ticket of their own which received
only 33,432 votes. Eventually this party shrank to a mere remnant, while
the Social Democratic party became generally known as the Socialist
party. Debs became their candidate in three successive elections. In
1904 and 1908 his vote hovered around 400,000. In 1910 congressional and
local elections spurred the Socialists to hope for a million votes in
1912 but they fell somewhat short of this mark. Debs received 901,873
votes, the largest number which a Socialist candidate has ever yet
received. Benson, the presidential candidate in 1916, received 590,579
votes. *

* The Socialist vote is stated differently by McKee, "National
Conventions and Platforms." The above figures, to 1912, are taken from
Stanwood's "History of the Presidency," and for 1912 and 1916 from the
"World Almanac."

In the meantime, the influence of the Socialist labor vote in particular
localities vastly increased. In 1910 Milwaukee elected a Socialist mayor
by a plurality of seven thousand, sent Victor Berger to Washington as
the first Socialist Cong