Lincoln Socialist-Labor

1895 – 1896

Introduction

So-called Lincoln Socialist-Labor, actually published in St. Louis, was a side-project of the powerful St. Louis Socialist Labor Party, represented by its weekly newspaper, Labor. The publication provides additional evidence that there was an alternative Socialist Labor Party "in the provinces," potentially representing a decentralized alternative to the Bolshevik-like New York City monolithic centralism of Daniel DeLeon.

The paper is somewhat distracting for its use of syndicated commercial page layout plates, all of which were prepared independently of editorial control. These contractually included advertisements for baking powder, soap, patent medicine, and such. Don't blame the editors for that, it was part of the deal brokered to receive cheap and more or less decent content to flesh out the size of the paper... (The biographies of early professional baseball players are fascinating. The lame coverage of women's fashion, less so.)

There were four pages under direct editorial control, these being the luxuriously cartooned front page and those typically headed "Our Press," "World of Labor," and "Under our Flag." Lincoln Socialist-Labor was, in reality, a four-page weekly tabloid masquerading as an eight-page weekly, published in a city about 400 miles away and in a different (an distinctly more rural) state than from which it purported to be.

Interpretation of that particular political tactic is above my pay grade. There must have been a theory.

Editor of this paper was Philip Kaufman, of St. Louis. Corresponding address was in that city, and the controlling legal entity behind publication included St. Louis political heavyweight G.A. Hoehn. This run of the publication is exceptional for its completeness as well as the general quality of the master microfilming.

The paper is notable for its consistently fabulous front page cartoon work. Kudos are due to the Nebraska Historical Society for its outstanding work preserving this gem of a holding.