The upheaval in Europe in 1848 forced many of the radicals and Socialists into exile; and the general tide that set in toward the western world bore many of these restless spirits to our shores; and no sooner were they landed before they began to sow the revolutionary seed and organize the propaganda they had been compelled to abandon on the other side.
The German Socialists who came over were the very men needed here at that time. They were trained and disciplined in the “old guard”; they had the rugged bearing and fearlessness of army veterans and they knew no such word as discouragement or failure.
Among these sturdy agitators William Weitling bore a conspicuous part in preparing the way for organization and for action along political lines.
From this time the propaganda became more active and also clearer and more definite in character.
The movement was gradually evolving from the haze of communism that clung to it through all its early years and was beginning to take form as an independent political organization with the central object of conquering the powers of government as a means of emancipating the working class from wage-slavery.
Labor unions, turner bunds and singing societies were organized all through the fifties, all tending in the same direction, and though not all pronounced, having substantially the same end in view.
In this brief sketch we have not the space to record in detail the many attempts that were made to organize a national working class political movement in the United States. This must be the work of the historian and fortunately for the reader and student he has recently appeared. The first authentic volume upon the subject is the “History of Socialism in the United States,” by Morris Hillquit, a book of over three hundred and fifty pages, written in excellent style and treating ably and exhaustively the various stages of the development from its inception to the large and growing movement of our day.
The little volume entitled “A Brief History of Socialism in America,” by Frederic Heath, editor of the _Social Democratic Herald_, a valuable collection of historical data to which has been added much original matter, both interesting and instructive, is also well worthy of perusal.