Allan Louis Benson

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Allan Benson, around 1915

Allan Louis Benson (born  November 6, 1871 in Plainfield , Kent County, Michigan , †  August 19, 1940 in Yonkers , New York ) was an American journalist and politician . He published the early 20th century, a number of socialist writings and candidate in the presidential elections in 1916 as candidate of the Socialist Party of America for the office of President of the United States .

Life

Allan Benson was born in Plainfield , Michigan , in 1871 and after attending school initially worked as a journalist for newspapers in Chicago , Salt Lake City and San Francisco . From 1897 to 1906 he was the managing editor of two newspapers in Detroit , then he worked for a year in the same capacity at the Washington Times . In the course of his journalistic activities he developed increasing sympathy for socialist ideas and published a number of corresponding writings. From 1907 he lived mainly from selling his publications and from contributions to left-wing and socialist newspapers. His pamphlet The Usurped Power of the Courts , published in 1911, sold more than a million copies and the Growing Grocery Bill , published a year later, sold around 1.7 million copies; his work The Truth about Socialism , published in 1913, was published in a total of nine editions.

In the 1912 presidential election , which was the height of its popularity for the Socialist Party of America , he supported the application of the socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs . After he refused to run again four years later for health reasons, Allan Benson was nominated as a socialist candidate for the 1916 elections by a ballot of the party members by postal ballot. He ran on the basis of a strict antiwar stance and a promise to hold a nationwide referendum before the United States participated in World War I if he were elected president. Since incumbent Woodrow Wilson also backed a peace campaign and was also very popular in the labor movement due to the progressive reforms during his first term, Benson stayed with a result of 3.2 percent, with which he came after Woodrow Wilson and the Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes finished third, still taking the 1912 vote for Debs. He ran again as a candidate for the Socialist Party in the 1920 elections .

After the United States entered the war about six months after the election, the Socialist Party accused both Germany and the Allied powers of being responsible for the outbreak of war. In addition, she rejected the introduction of conscription . Allan Benson, who did not support these positions, withdrew from the party in 1918. In the following years he published writings on various subjects, including a biography of the American politician Daniel Webster , and died in Yonkers in 1940 .

Works (selection)

  • What Help Can Any Workingman Expect from Taft or Bryan? Chicago 1908
  • The Usurped Power of the Courts. New York 1911
  • The Growing Grocery Bill. Chicago 1912
  • The Truth about Socialism. New York 1913
  • Our Dishonest Constitution. New York 1914
  • Inviting War to America. New York 1916
  • The Story of Geology. New York 1927
  • Daniel Webster. New York 1929

literature

  • Benson, AL In: James Ciment, Thaddeus Russell: The Home Front Encyclopedia: United States, Britain, and Canada in World Wars I and II. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2007, ISBN 1-57-607849-3 , Volume 1, P. 22/23
  • Harold W. Currie: Allan L. Benson, Salesman of Socialism, 1902-1916. In: Labor History. 11 (3) / 1970. Routledge, pp. 285-303, ISSN  0023-656X

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Benson, Allan Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Plainfield , Kent County, Michigan
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1940
Place of death Yonkers , New York