Daniel De Leon | |
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 De Leon in 1902 | |
| Born | December 14, 1852 |
| Died | May 11, 1914(1914-05-11) (aged 61) |
| Nationality |
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| Other names | Daniel de León |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations |
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| Known for | Marxism–De Leonism |
| Height | 5 ft 5 in (165 cm)[1] |
| Political party | Socialist Labor Party |
| Movement | American Labor Movement |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 9, includingSolon |
Daniel De Leon (/dəˈliːɒn/; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively speltDaniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-Americansocialistnewspaper editor, politician,Marxisttheoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea ofrevolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in theSocialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of his death.[2] De Leon was a co-founder of theIndustrial Workers of the World and much of his ideas and philosophy contributed to the creations of Socialist Labor parties across the world, including:Australia, theUnited Kingdom,Canada, and theSocialist Trade and Labor Alliance.
Daniel De Leon was born December 14, 1852, inCuraçao, the son of Salomon de Leon and Sarah Jesurun De Leon. His father was a surgeon in theRoyal Netherlands Army and a colonial official. Although he was raisedCatholic, his family ancestry wasDutch Jewish of the Spanish and Portuguese community; "De León" is aSpanish surname, oftentimestoponymic, in which case it can possibly indicate a family's geographic origin in the MedievalKingdom of León.
His father lived in the Netherlands before coming to Curaçao when receiving his commission in the military. Salomon De Leon died on January 18, 1865, when Daniel was twelve and was the first to be buried in the new Jewish cemetery.[3]
De Leon left Curaçao on April 15, 1866, and arrived inHamburg on May 22. In Germany he studied at the Gymnasium inHildesheim and in 1870 began attending theUniversity of Leiden in the Netherlands. He studied medicine at Leiden and was a member of the Amsterdam student corps, but did not graduate. While in Europe he had become fluent in German,Dutch, French, English,ancient Greek andLatin, in addition to hisfirst language Spanish.[4][5] Sometime between 1872 and 1874 he emigrated to New York, with his wife and mother. There he found work as an instructor in Latin, Greek and mathematics at Thomas B. Harrington's School inWestchester, New York. In 1876 he entered Columbia College, nowColumbia University, earning aBachelor of Laws (LLB) with honors 1878.[6]
From 1878 to 1882, he lived inBrownsville, Texas, as a practicing attorney, then returned to New York. While he maintained an attorney's office until 1884 he was more interested in pursuing an academic career at his alma mater, Columbia. A prize lectureship had been created in 1882. To be eligible a candidate had to be a graduate of Columbia, a member of theAcademy of Political Science and read at least one paper before the academy. The three year appointment came with a $500 annual salary ($16,000 in 2025 terms) and required the lecturer to give twenty lectures a year, based on original research, to the students of theSchool of Political Science. De Leon devoted his lectures to Latin American diplomacy and the interventions of European powers in South American affairs. He received his first term in 1883 and his second term in 1886. In 1889 he was not kept on. Some allege that the University officials denied him a promised full professorship because of his political activities,[7] while other believe that his subject was too esoteric to be a permanent part of the curriculum.[8]
De Leon published no papers about Latin America during this period, but he did contribute an article to the debut issue of the Academy'sPolitical Science Quarterly on theBerlin West Africa Conference.[9] He also wrote reviews onFranz von Holtzendorff'sHandbuch des Völkerrechts in June 1888 and its French translation in March 1889 for the same publication.
De Leon traveled back to Curaçao to marry the 16-year-old Sarah Lobo fromCaracas, Venezuela. The Lobos were a prominent Jewish family in the area that lived in both the Dutch Antilles and Venezuela. After a traditional Jewish wedding in Caracas the family moved to a Spanish speaking area of Manhattan, at 112 West 14th street where their first son,Solon De Leon would be born on September 2, 1883. By the mid to late 1880s the family was living in theLower East Side. In 1885 or 1886 another child, Grover Cleveland De Leon was born but only lived a year and a half. On April 29, 1887, Sarah Lobo De Leon died in childbirth while delivering stillborn twins; it was the same year that Grover had died. After this the De Leons left the Lower East Side and moved in with their housekeeper Mary Redden Maguire at 1487 Avenue A.[10]
In 1891, while on a speaking tour around the country for the SLP, De Leon found himself in Kansas when he learned that a planned speaking engagement inLawrence had been canceled. He decided to head toIndependence, Kansas, where he had been advised there was some sympathy for the socialist movement. He arrived on April 23 and was hosted by a 26-year-old school teacher, Bertha Canary, who was the head of a localBellamyite group, the Christian Socialist Club. Canary was familiar with De Leon, having read some of his articles in theNationalist Club movement press, and the two apparently became infatuated with each other. She was a member of a Congregational Church[11] and in 1892 they were married inSouth Norwalk, Connecticut.[12] They had five children: Florence, Gertrude, Paul, Donald and Genseric. He named the latter, according to Solon De Leon, after the medieval kingGenseric, aVandal who made the Pope kiss his toes.[13]
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| De Leonism |
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Organizations |
De Leon settled in New York City, studying atColumbia University. He was aGeorgist socialist during the 1886 Mayoral campaign ofHenry George and in 1890 joined theSocialist Labor Party, becoming the editor of its newspaper,The People. He quickly grew in stature inside the party and in 1891, 1902, and 1904 he ran for the governorship of the state of New York, winning more than 15,000 votes in 1902, his best result.
De Leon became aMarxist in the late 1880s, and argued for the revolutionary overthrow ofcapitalism, trying to divert the SLP away from itsLassallian outlook. Some argue that his famous polemic withJames Connolly showed him to have been an advocate ofFerdinand Lassalle'ssubsistence theory of wages.[14] Others question this assertion because by the same logic Marx and Engels could be described as advocates of the Iron Law because language inThe Communist Manifesto andValue, Price and Profit pertaining to the level of wages and temporary effect of union activity on working conditions is similar to the language used by De Leon in his answer to Connolly, and the 'iron law of wages' is a Malthusian theory which De Leon did not indicate any support for.
De Leon was highly critical of the trade union movement in America and described the craft-orientedAmerican Federation of Labor as the "American Separation of Labor". At this early stage in De Leon's development, there was still a considerable remnant of the general unionistKnights of Labor in existence, and the SLP worked within it until being driven out. This resulted in the formation of theSocialist Trade and Labor Alliance (ST&LA) in 1895, which was dominated by the SLP.
By the early 20th Century, the SLP was declining in numbers, with first theSocial Democratic Party and then theSocialist Party of America becoming the leading leftist political force in America (as these splinter groups embraced capitalist reforms). De Leon was an important figure in the US labor movement, and in 1904 he attended theInternational Socialist Congress, held inAmsterdam. Under the influence of theAmerican Labor Union (ALU), he changed his politics around this time to put more focus on industrial unionism, and the ballot as a purely destructive weapon, in contrast to his earlier view of political organization as 'sword' and industrial union as 'shield'. He worked with the ALU in the founding of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905.His participation in this organization was short-lived and acrimonious.
De Leon later accused the IWW of having been taken over by what he called disparagingly 'the bummery'. De Leon was engaged in a policy dispute with the leaders of the IWW. His argument was in support of political action via the Socialist Labor Party while other leaders, including founderBig Bill Haywood, argued instead fordirect action. Haywood's faction prevailed, resulting in a change to the Preamble which precluded "affiliation with any political party." De Leon's followers left the IWW to form a rival Detroit-based IWW, which was renamed theWorkers' International Industrial Union in 1915, and collapsed in 1925.[15]
De Leon was formally expelled from the Chicago IWW after calling proponents of that organization "slum proletarians".[15] His Socialist Labor Party has remained influential, largely by keeping his ideas alive.
De Leon died on May 11, 1914, of septicendocarditis atMount Sinai Hospital inManhattan, New York.[16]
Daniel De Leon proved hugely influential to other socialists, also outside the US. For example, in the UK, aSocialist Labour Party was formed. De Leon's hopes for peaceful and bloodless revolution also influencedAntonio Gramsci's concept ofpassive revolution.[17]George Seldes quotesLenin saying on the fifth anniversary of therevolution, "... What we have done in Russia is accept the De Leon interpretation of Marxism, that is what the Bolsheviki adopted in 1917."[18]
De Leon ran in1891 forgovernor of New York and received 14,651 votes. He ran in1893 forSecretary of State of New York and received 20,034 votes. He ran again in1902 for governor and received 15,886 votes. He ran in1903 for theNew York Court of Appeals. He ran again in1904 for Governor and received 8,976 votes.
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