Seymour Stedman | |
|---|---|
 Stedman in 1920 | |
| Member of the Illinois House of Representatives from the 13th district | |
| In office January 8, 1913 – January 6, 1915 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1871-07-04)July 4, 1871 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | July 9, 1948(1948-07-09) (aged 77) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic(1890–1894) Socialist(1896–1942) Communist(1942–1948) |
| Alma mater | Northwestern University |
Seymour "Stedy" Stedman (July 4, 1871 – July 9, 1948) was an American fromChicago who rose fromshepherd andjanitor to become a prominentcivil liberties lawyer and a leader of theSocialist Party of America. He is best remembered as the1920 vice-presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, when he ran for office on a ticket headed byEugene V. Debs.
Seymour Stedman was born inHartford, Connecticut, on July 4, 1871, the son of ethnic Anglo-Saxon parents with ancestors dating back to the time of theAmerican Revolution.[1] Financial difficulties forced the Stedman family to move west, settling inSolomon, Kansas, where adverse weather conditions forced the family still further towards poverty.[1] Young Seymour was forced to drop out of school in the third grade to take a job tending sheep for $5 a month as a way of helping his family make ends meet.[1]
The Stedman family moved to Chicago in 1881 and Seymour took a job for a manufacturing company, working as a uniformed messenger boy.[1] Stedman later took a job as a janitor for another Chicago firm, an occupation that allowed him ample time for reading. During the course of his reading, he became interested in political ideas for the first time and frequently debated the problems of the world with friends.[1] As a byproduct of his reading and discussions, Stedman became an adherent of theSingle Tax system advocated byHenry George, areform program then in popular vogue.[1]
In 1889 Stedman decided that he wanted to be a lawyer.[1] He approached thedean of theNorthwestern University School of Law and told him of his desires, admitting that he had had only three years of formal education.[1] After grilling the youth for an hour to determine Stedman's level of reading capability and intelligence, the dean relented and admitted Stedman to the university.[1] Stedman continued to work as a janitor during the day and attended university lectures in the evening.[2] He was ultimately admitted to theIllinois State Bar Association in 1891.[2]
In 1890 the precocious Stedman decided that he wanted to become a public orator on behalf of theDemocratic Party.[2] He honed his skill speaking before the public, specializing in matters dealing withtariff legislation.[2] His development as an aspiring Democratic politician came to an end in 1894, however, when the greatstrike of theAmerican Railway Union headed byEugene V. Debs, centered in Chicago and which Stedman supported as an official public speaker of the union, was crushed byjudicial injunction and federal troops sent into Illinois by PresidentGrover Cleveland.[2] Stedman left the ranks of the Democratic Party in protest over this heavy-handed action of the Democratic president.[2]
In the aftermath of the defeated strike, Gene Debs was incarcerated for six months at Woodstock Jail in Chicago, where he was turned to the doctrine ofsocialism by the jailhouse visits of Milwaukee newspaper editorVictor L. Berger. Stedman would not be far behind the union leader, following a brief stint in thePeople's Party as a radical populist.[2] He was an early booster of Debs for President of the United States, helping to establish the "Central E.V. Debs Club" in Chicago on May 20, 1896, and being elected president of the new booster organization by the gathering.[3]
Stedman was elected to the 1896 National Convention of the People's Party, held inSt. Louis, where he attempted to start a movement among the delegates to draft Gene Debs as the nominee of the organization forPresident of the United States.[4] Nearly one-third of the 1300 assembled delegates signed a petition calling for Debs that Stedman circulated.[5] His effort was short-circuited by a trick of the supporters ofWilliam Jennings Bryan, however, when the gas lights were shut out on the convention.[5] The following day a statement by Debs was read to the convention indicating that he had no desire to run for president and the bid was over, leaving Stedman to support Bryan in the 1896 campaign.[5]
In 1897 Victor Berger decided to work at converting theSocial Democracy of America, an organization established with the goal of constructing asocialist colony in some western American state into a full-fledged socialist political party. He gathered together Debs, Stedman, and others for this cause, which came to a climax at the heated June 1898 convention of the organization.[5] The battle over the main question of colonization versus independent political action was won by the colonization faction by a vote of 53 to 37,[6] a result that caused Berger, Debs, Stedman, and their co-thinkers to bolt the convention and establish a new political organization of their own — theSocial Democratic Party of America (SDP).[5]
Stedman was a member of the governing National Executive Committee of the SDP from 1898. When after much acrimonious debate that organization merged with a similarly named Eastern organization headed byHenry Slobodin andMorris Hillquit to form theSocialist Party of America (SPA) in 1901, Stedman became a founding member of that organization as well.[6]
In 1904, he was the Socialist Party of America's nominee forCook County state's attorney.[7] Stedman's name was offered for nomination forVice President of the United States at the SPA's 1908 convention in Chicago, but he trailedBenjamin Hanford in the balloting, losing by a vote of 106 delegates to 46.[6] That year, he again was the parry's nominee for Cook County state's attorney.[7] In 1912, Stedman was elected to theIllinois House of Representatives as one of three representatives from the 13th district alongsideRepublican incumbentBenton Kleeman andProgressive candidateElmer Schnackenberg. He was the Socialist's candidate forSpeaker of the Illinois House of Representatives in the48th General Assembly.[8] In 1914, Stedman lost reelection, finishing fifth of five candidates for three seats.[9]
In1915 Stedman was their candidate formayor ofChicago and in1920 for Vice President of the United States, running on a ticket headed by Eugene V. Debs. During World War I Stedman was a prominent defender of war opponents indicted forsedition, most notablyRose Pastor Stokes.
In 1941, Stedman joined the campaign to freeEarl Browder, the General Secretary of theCommunist Party USA imprisoned on charges of passport fraud.[10] The next year, Stedman joined the party himself, believing that the Socialists had lost the support of the working class.[11]
Seymour Stedman died on July 9, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois. He was honored with an obituary in theDaily Worker.[12]
Media related toSeymour Stedman at Wikimedia Commons
