{{short description|American politician (1864–1944)}} {{Use American English|date=February 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2026}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = James Maurer | image = J.H. Maurer LCCN2014709441 Trim.jpg | caption = Maurer {{circa}} 1919 | office1 = President of the<br />[[Pennsylvania Federation of Labor]] | term_start1 = March 16, 1912 | term_end1 = May 11, 1928 | predecessor1 = Elmer Ellsworth Greenawalt | successor1 = [[John J. Casey]] | state_house2 = Pennsylvania | district2 = [[Berks County]] | term_start2 = January 5, 1915 | term_end2 = January 7, 1919 | predecessor2 = ''Multi-member district'' | successor2 = ''Multi-member district'' | term_start3 = January 3, 1911 | term_end3 = January 7, 1913 | predecessor3 = ''Multi-member district'' | successor3 = ''Multi-member district'' | office4 = Member of the [[Reading, Pennsylvania|Reading]] City Council | term_start4 = January 3, 1927 | term_end4 = January 4, 1931 | predecessor4 = Fred G. Hodges | successor4 = William J. Smith |birth_name = James Hudson Maurer |birth_date = {{birth date|1864|4|15}} |birth_place = [[Reading, Pennsylvania]], U.S. |death_date = {{death date and age|1944|3|6|1864|4|15}} |death_place = [[Reading, Pennsylvania]], U.S. |party = [[People's Party (United States)|Populist]] {{small|(1891–1899)}}<br />[[Socialist Labor Party of America|Socialist Labor]] {{small|(1899–1901)}}<br />[[Socialist Party of America|Socialist]] {{small|(1901–1944)}} }} '''James Hudson Maurer''' (April 15, 1864 – March 16, 1944) was a prominent American socialist politician and [[trade union]]ist who twice ran for the office of [[vice president of the United States]] on the ticket of the [[Socialist Party of America]].<ref name=obit>{{cite news |title=James H. Maurer, 79, A Socialist Leader. Vice Presidential Candidate Twice. Union Official |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1944/03/17/archives/james-h-maurer-79-a-socialist-leader-vice-presidential-candidate.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 17, 1944 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> He served three non-consecutive terms in the [[Pennsylvania House of Representatives]] between 1911 and 1919, and as President of the [[Pennsylvania Federation of Labor]] from 1912 to 1928.
==Biography== ===Early years=== Maurer was born in [[Reading, Pennsylvania]], on April 15, 1864, and was one of three brothers.<ref name=obit/><ref name=NL>"Maurer Outstanding Leader of Progressive Labor: Socialist Vice Presidential Nominnee Bitter Opponent of State Constabulary 'Cossacks' — A Worker Since Childhood," ''The New Leader and American Appeal,'' vol. 1, no. 21 (April 21, 1928), pg. 3.</ref> His father, James D. Maurer, was a shoemaker who later served as a Police officer in Reading.<ref>{{cite book |author=James Maurer |title=It Can Be Done |location=New York |publisher=Rand School Press |date=1938}}</ref> Maurer first went to work at the age of 6 as a newsboy, becoming an assistant to a [[plumber]] at the age of 10, later becoming a full-fledged plumber. The Maurers were of [[Pennsylvania Dutch]] ethnic extraction and the family had ancestors in America dating back nearly two centuries.<ref name=NL />
===Socialist and labor politics=== [[File:Delegates to the First Official State Convention of the Socialist Party in Pennsylvania, Reading, PA, May 30, 1901.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.3|Maurer (seated, center) amongst delegates to the first official state convention of the [[Socialist Party of Pennsylvania]] in [[Reading, Pennsylvania|Reading]], May 30, 1901.]] {{Socialism US|expanded = politicians}} Maurer joined the [[Knights of Labor]] labor union on his 16th birthday in April 1880.<ref name=NL /> He was also active in the [[Single Tax]] movement associated with [[Henry George]].<ref>{{cite book |author=James Maurer |title=It Can Be Done |pages=87 and ''passim''}}</ref> In the early 1890s, he joined the [[Populist Party (United States)|People's Party]], a [[Populism|populist]] political organization which attempted in particular to advance the cause of the country's farmers. He was introduced to socialist ideas near the end of the decade, taking nearly a year to read [[Karl Marx]]'s ''Capital'' before joining the [[Socialist Labor Party|Socialist Labor Party of America]] (SLP) in 1899. Maurer helped to organize Section Hamburg, Pennsylvania SLP, in February of that year.<ref>James Maurer, ''It Can Be Done,'' pg. 118.</ref>
From 1901, Maurer was a member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union. Throughout his later life, he was strongly supportive of the [[American Federation of Labor]] and he came to strongly disapprove of the SLP's efforts to establish a competing socialist trade union to the AF of L, the [[Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance]], and left the SLP to join the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1901 over this issue.<ref>{{cite book |author=James Maurer |title=It Can Be Done |page=139}}</ref> He ran for governor of Pennsylvania on the Socialist Party ticket in 1906, receiving nearly 26,000 votes.<ref>{{cite book |author=James Maurer |title=It Can Be Done |page=146}}</ref>
In November 1910, Maurer was elected as a Socialist to the [[Pennsylvania House of Representatives]], serving during 1912.<ref>{{cite news |title=Socialists Elected |work=Socialist Party Official Bulletin |volume=7 |number=5 |date=January 1911 |page=2}}</ref> During his term in the legislature, Maurer fought for the passage of a plan for Old Age Pensions and attempted to prevent the establishment of a State Constabulary, which was seen as a mechanism for the armed and organized breaking of strikes.<ref name=NL />
Also in 1912, Maurer was elected as president of the [[Pennsylvania Federation of Labor]], a post which he held until 1930. Defeated in his bid for re-election to the Pennsylvania House in 1913, he came back from the loss to win election to two more terms, in 1915 and 1917. During his second and third terms of office, he was instrumental in working for the passage of child labor and workmen's compensation legislation in the state.
===Anti-militarist activities=== [[Image:Maurer-hillquit-london-1916.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|SPA leaders Jim Maurer, [[Morris Hillquit]], and [[Meyer London]] after a meeting with [[Woodrow Wilson|President Wilson]], January 26, 1916.]] In January 1916, Maurer was part of a three-person delegation to President [[Woodrow Wilson]] to advocate part of the Socialist Party's peace program, proposing that "the President of the United States convoke a congress of neutral nations, which shall offer mediation to the belligerents and remain in permanent session until the termination of the war". A resolution to this effect had been offered in the House of Representatives by the SPA's only congressman, [[Meyer London]] of New York, and Wilson received London, Maurer and the party leader, [[Morris Hillquit]], at the [[White House]], along with various other delegations.
Maurer was the only member of the Pennsylvania legislature to vote against a resolution supporting American severance of diplomatic relations with Germany in the run up to American entry into the war. When he attempted to explain his voting rationale on the floor, Maurer was rudely shouted down by his colleagues and ruled out of order by the chair.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr |url=https://ojs.libraries.psu.edu/index.php/phj/article/view/23409/23178 |title=The Socialists of Reading, Pennsylvanian and World War I: A Question of Loyalty |journal=Pennsylvania History |volume=36 |number=4 |date=October 1969 |page=438 |access-date=2013-10-10 |archive-date=2014-01-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102193215/https://ojs.libraries.psu.edu/index.php/phj/article/view/23409/23178 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Hillquit later recalled that Wilson was at first "inclined to give us a short and perfunctory hearing" but as the Socialists made their case to him, the session "developed into a serious and confidential conversation". Wilson told the group that he had already considered a similar plan but chose not to put it into effect because he was not sure of its reception by other neutral nations. "The fact is," Wilson claimed, "that the United States is the only important country that may be said to be neutral and disinterested. Practically all other neutral countries are in one way or another tied up with some belligerent power and dependent on it."<ref>{{cite book |author=Morris Hillquit |title=Loose Leaves from a Busy Life |location=New York |publisher=Macmillan |date=1934 |page=161}}</ref>
On July 30, 1917, a public Maurer speaking event in [[Seattle]] was the scene of a near riot when his speech on the topic "Is Conscription Constitutional?" was broken up by khaki-clad soldiers. At an "open air mass meeting" held under the auspices of the [[People's Council of America]], Maurer had spoken for about 15 minutes when a group of soldiers began heckling him. Maurer briefly tried to shame the hecklers into silence, but instead the soldiers rushed the speaker's platform and forcibly brought his oration to a close. According to a contemporary news report, only the quick action of a local socialist activist, [[Kate Sadler]], prevented the tense situation from degenerating into a riot, when she leaped to her feet, scolded the young soldiers, and abruptly launched into a short fundraising speech that defused the situation and allowed for an orderly termination of the meeting.<ref>{{cite news |title=5,000 Citizens Insulted: Open Air Mass Meeting Broken Up by Hoodlumism. Right to Free Speech Denied |work=Seattle Daily Call |date=July 31, 1917 |page=}}</ref>
Maurer's outspoken opposition to the war hampered his support among his legislative constituents and he found his re-election efforts further challenged by a ban on public meetings enacted in an effort to slow the spread of deadly [[influenza]]. As a result, Maurer was defeated in his November 1918 bid to win another term in the legislature at [[Reading, Pennsylvania|Reading]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Maurer Defeated |work=The Eye Opener |location=Chicago |number=300 |date=November 1918 |page=3}}</ref>
===Post-war political career=== [[File:During the 1919 Steel Strike.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|Maurer (in box, center), [[Philip Murray]], [[Mother Jones]] and [[William Z. Foster]] surrounded by steel workers and unionists in uniform during the [[1919 General Steel Strike]]]] In his capacity as head of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, Maurer was very active in the [[steel strike of 1919]] in [[Pittsburgh]], helping to organize workers to win the right of [[collective bargaining]] with their employers.<ref name=NL />
Maurer was elected multiple times to the governing National Executive Committee of the SPA. He was also president of the Workers' Education Bureau of America and Brookwood Labor College from 1921. He was on the governing National Committee of the [[Conference for Progressive Political Action]] (CPPA) from 1922. He was strongly supportive of [[Robert M. La Follette, Sr.|Robert LaFollette]]'s [[1924 United States presidential election|1924 presidential campaign]].
In September 1927, Maurer, as its chairman, headed an American workers' delegation and visited the [[Soviet Union]]. He exchanged opinions with its leader, [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Questions & Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview With the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia |author=J V Stalin |work=Pravda |date=September 15, 1927 |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1927/09/15.htm |via=Marxists Internet Archive |access-date=14 June 2019 }}</ref> Maurer was elected to the Reading City Council in November 1927, part of a sweep by the Socialist Party which won the administration of the city.<ref name=NL /> He was re-elected in 1929,<ref>{{cite news |title=Where Socialists control |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/532011523/?match=1&terms=%22james%20maurer%22 |access-date=26 February 2025 |work=[[The Scranton Times-Tribune]] |date=12 November 1929 |location=Scranton}}</ref> but was defeated in 1931 in a landslide [[Electoral fusion in the United States|Fusion]] victory.<ref>{{cite news |title=Reading ousts Socialist rule |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/560690893/?match=1&terms=%22james%20maurer%22 |access-date=26 February 2025 |work=[[LNP (newspaper)|Lancaster New Era]] |date=4 November 1931 |location=Lancaster}}</ref>
[[File:Socialist Candidates 1928.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.3|[[Norman Thomas]] and James H. Maurer as candidates for President and Vice President, 1928.]]
In [[1928 United States presidential election|1928]], Maurer was selected by the party convention to join [[Norman Thomas]] on the Socialist Party's presidential ticket. He ran a second time for governor of Pennsylvania in 1930. In [[1932 United States presidential election|1932]], he was selected once again as Thomas' running mate in the SPA's presidential campaign. In 1934, Maurer made his final electoral run as a candidate for [[US Senate]] from Pennsylvania.
In 1938, the [[Social Democratic Federation of America|Social Democratic Federation]]-affiliated [[Rand School of Social Science|Rand School Press]] published Maurer's autobiography, ''It Can Be Done''.
Maurer retained his faith in [[socialism]] into the [[New Deal]] of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], writing in 1938: {{blockquote|There can be no doubt that if the cards were dealt honestly and the game played on the level without marked cards, the New Deal would be a vast improvement over the Old. But if President Roosevelt believes that those who profited under the old deal and never played the game square in their lives will now play fair with him, he is due for a rude awakening. I believe President Roosevelt is sincere and that he really hopes to lift the suffering masses out of their desperate poverty and yet save capitalism{{nbsp}}...}} {{blockquote|Just how President Roosevelt and his advisers hope to lift the exploited and oppressed out of the mire by increasing profits and raising the cost of living is too deep for me. If they believe employers will increase wages as their profits increase, then they believe the leopard can change his spots. They should know that increased profits only increase the appetite for profits. The desire for the accumulation of great wealth seems like a disease, and disease has never been cured by increasing its virulence. ...[T]he one lasting solution is the end of the profit system.<ref>{{cite book |author=James Maurer |title=It Can Be Done |pages=318–319}}</ref>}}
==Death== Maurer died on March 16, 1944, in Reading, Pennsylvania.<ref name=obit/> The [[eulogy]] at his funeral was delivered by [[Birch Wilson]], a long-time party comrade from Reading.<ref>{{cite news |author=Wayne E. Homan |title=Birch Wilson is Last Socialist Pioneer |work=Reading Eagle |date=October 14, 1970 |page=39, section 3}}</ref> Maurer's family were Lutherans.<ref>{{cite book | title=Book of Biographies | publisher=Biographical Publishing Company | issue=pt. 2 | year=1898 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4EwVAAAAYAAJ&q=Maurer | access-date=2022-10-25 | pages=451–452 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
== Works == * ''Unemployment and the Mechanical Man'' Our strike-breaking governments n.d. * {{cite book |url=http://debs.indstate.edu/m453f3_1912.pdf |title=The Far East |location=Reading, Pa. |publisher=Press of Sentinel Print. Co. |date=1912 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} * {{cite book |title=The Constabulary of Pennsylvania |location=Reading, Pa.}} (with Charles Maurer) * ''The American Cossack'', Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, 1915. * [http://debs.indstate.edu/t4435t5_1917.pdf ''Things We Care About.''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100720092747/http://debs.indstate.edu/t4435t5_1917.pdf |date=2010-07-20 }} (with others) [New York : [[People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace]], 1917. * {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924030079515 |title=Report of the Pennsylvania Commission on Old Age Pensions, March, 1919 |location=Harrisburg, Penn. |publisher=J.L.L. Kuhn, Printer to the Commonwealth |date=1919}} * ''A Heart to Heart Talk with Trade Unionists'' Chicago: Socialist Party National Office, 1920. * ''Report on the Workers' Educational Classes in Pennsylvania during 1920-1921'' Reading, PA: Peoples Printing Company, 1921. * ''The Open Shop?'' Harrisburg, Pa., Pennsylvania Federation of Labor 1921. * ''Report of the Pennsylvania commission on old age pensions. February, 1921'' Harrisburg, Penna., J.L.L. Kuhn, Printer to the commonwealth, 1921. * [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000954897 ''Report of the Pennsylvania Commission on Old Age Pensions, January, 1927. ''] Harrisburg, PA: 1927. * ''Unemployment and the mechanical man'' Chicago: Socialist Party of America, 1930. * ''Socialism vs. capitalism'' Brooklyn: Socialist Party, Kings County, 1932. * {{cite book |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000963011 |title=It Can Be Done: The Autobiography of James Hudson Maurer |location=New York |publisher=Rand School Press |date=1938}}
==See also== {{commons}} * [[Socialist Party of Pennsylvania]] * [[Birch Wilson]]
==Footnotes== {{Reflist|2}}
==Further reading== * {{cite journal |author=Kenneth Hendrickson |url=http://www.berkshistory.org/articles/maurer.html |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111120130934/http://www.berkshistory.org/articles/maurer.html |archivedate=November 20, 2011|title=James H. Maurer: Socialist Labor Leader |journal=Historical Review of Berks County |date=Winter 1969}} * {{cite journal |author=Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27771814 |title=The Socialists of Reading, Pennsylvanian and World War I: A Question of Loyalty |journal=Pennsylvania History |volume=36 |number=4 |date=October 1969 |pages=430–450 |publisher=Penn State University Press |jstor=27771814 |url-access=subscription}} * {{cite journal |author=Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27772061 |title=The Socialist Administration in Reading, Pennsylvania, Part I, 1927-1931 |journal=Pennsylvania History |volume=39 |number=4 |date=October 1972 |pages=417–442 |publisher=Penn State University Press |jstor=27772061 |url-access=subscription}} * {{cite journal |author=Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27772153 |title=Triumph and Disaster: The Reading Socialists in Power and Decline, Part II, 1932-1939 |journal=Pennsylvania History |volume=40 |number=4 |date=October 1973 |pages=380–411 |publisher=Penn State University Press |jstor=27772153 |url-access=subscription}} * {{cite thesis |author=Henry Gruber Stetler |date=1943 |title=The Socialist Movement in Reading, Pennsylvania, 1896-1936: A Study in Social Change. |degree=PhD |publisher= Storrs, CT}} {{s-start}} {{s-ppo}} {{s-bef|before=[[Burton K. Wheeler]]}} {{s-ttl|title=[[Socialist Party of America|Socialist]] nominee for [[Vice President of the United States]]|years=[[1932 United States presidential election|1932]], [[1936 United States presidential election|1936]]}} {{s-aft|after=[[George A. Nelson]]}} {{s-end}}
{{Socialist Party of America |state=collapsed}} {{Historical left-wing third party presidential tickets (U.S.)}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maurer, James H.}} [[Category:1864 births]] [[Category:1944 deaths]] [[Category:American Marxists]] [[Category:Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives]] [[Category:Members of the Socialist Labor Party of America]] [[Category:Socialist Party of America politicians from Pennsylvania]] [[Category:Socialist Party of America vice presidential nominees]] [[Category:1928 United States vice-presidential candidates]] [[Category:1932 United States vice-presidential candidates]] [[Category:20th-century members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly]]