Fabian Freeway by Rose L Martin (1966) - Part 7 cover art

Fabian Freeway by Rose L Martin (1966) - Part 7

Fabian Freeway by Rose L Martin (1966) - Part 7

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  • Fabian socialism gains durable U.S. roots with the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS), 1905; earlier efforts failed for moving too fast.
  • Early U.S. socialist/Fabian scene = scattered clubs and individuals; Robert Hunter recalls small, obscure reform circles vs. Europe’s parliamentary socialist leaders.
  • Some Americans joined the London Fabian Society for prestige and lack of a U.S. equivalent; British Fabians made socialism “university-trained,” respectable, and for many “a substitute or an adjunct of religion.”
  • A U.S. Socialist Party (Debs/Hillquit) polled well in 1904 but had little path to power; revolutionary and immigrant-labor currents remained strong.
  • Fabian “magic formula”: present socialism as college “education”. ISS (renamed League for Industrial Democracy (LID), 1921) becomes an American affiliate/outpost of London Fabians and the oldest continuing socialist society.
  • Founding meeting (Sept 12, 1905, NYC) included figures like Jack London and Upton Sinclair; continuity traced through earlier nationalist clubs. The author frames a lineage from Sidney Webb back to Karl Marx (with vivid imagery).
  • Early presence of future Communists (e.g., Flynn, Bloor) is cited as evidence of an underlying “unity” of the social-democratic faith; ISS later aided the (then illegal) Communist Party despite later barring known Communists.
  • Official purpose understated: “creating students of socialism, not to produce socialists”; clubs invited occasional anti-socialist speakers as “debate training,” helping campuses tolerate them.
  • Claimed later admission: ISS was founded as a secret American Fabian Society to supply leadership while staying publicly aloof; it aimed to “capture the heads and the hearts” of future leaders.
  • Key tactics: recruit bright students; only convinced socialists become officers; alumni remain attached and rise into education, labor, media, and government.
  • Upton Sinclair’s role: distributed propaganda to campuses; wrote The Jungle; sent Ella Reeve Bloor; maintained ties to later Communists.
  • Student-club touring modeled on British practice; Jack London pioneered a U.S.-style coast-to-coast lecture circuit; later used by visiting British Fabians.
  • Harvard/Columbia clubs seed elite networks (Lippmann, others). Many later “masquerade” as liberals while remaining aligned.
  • Walter Lippmann portrayed as a high-level penetrator: cultivated elites in business/finance/politics; shifted tone by audience; promoted applied psychology for socialism; introduced Keynes; used “one step backward, two steps forward.”
  • Graham Wallas is cast as pivotal: taught politics as social psychology; aim “to control human conduct”; acted as a covert Fabian link, aiding appointments and LSE funding; influence traced to New Deal/New Frontier/Great Society.
  • “Lovable” front personalities used deliberately (“honey vs vinegar”); continuity sustained via families, couples, and quiet networks.
  • A 1955/50th-anniversary collaborator list (Congressional Record) is said to reveal many influential figures (even near the White House) committed to gradual “Cooperative Commonwealth.”
  • Overall depiction: a diffuse, hard-to-pinpoint fraternity emanating from a single center, seeking to supplant U.S. constitutional checks and balances with a collectivist state under socialist-international guidance.
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