Charles Edward Russell
Encyclopedia
Charles Edward Russell (September 25, 1860 – April 23, 1941) was an American
journalist, politician, and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
. The author of a number of books of biography and social commentary, in 1928 he won a Pulitzer Prize
for The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas.
on September 25, 1860. His father was a newspaper editor at the Davenport Gazette, and a noted abolitionist. He attended St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont
, for his high school education. His first cousin was Frederick Russell Burnham
who became a celebrated scout and the inspiration for the boy scouts
.
He wrote for the Minneapolis Journal, the Detroit Tribune
, the New York World
, William Randolph Hearst
's Cosmopolitan
, and the New York Herald
. Russell was employed as a newspaper writer and editor in New York and Chicago from 1894 to 1902, working successively for the New York World
, the New York American, and the Chicago American.
Russell joined the Socialist Party of America
in 1908, of which he remained a member until his expulsion in 1917 over his support of American intervention in the First World War
.
In his memoirs, Bare Hands and Stone Walls, Russell stated that "transforming the world...to a place where one can know some peace...some joy of living, some sense of the inexhaustible beauties of the universe in which he has been placed", was the purpose that inspired his work and his life. He was one of a group of journalists at the turn of the century who were called muckrakers. They investigated and reported—not with cold detachment—but with feeling and rage about the horrors of capitalism. In Soldier for the Common Good, an unpublished dissertation on Russell's life, author Donald Bragaw writes: "Historian
Louis Filler
has called Russell the leader of the muckrakers for contributing 'important studies in almost every field in which they ventured.' Most of Russell's work was of a 'pioneering nature: beef trusts...railroads...tenements...and the farm problem....[H]is real topic was injustice, wherever it was to be found."
Russell's reports on the corrupt practices and inhuman conditions at Chicago stock yards
were the inspiration for Upton Sinclair
's powerful novel The Jungle
, which caused a national uproar that led to inspection reforms.
, formed in the aftermath of a race riot
at Springfield, Illinois
in August of the previous year.
in 1910 and 1912, and for U.S. Senator from New York in 1914. He also ran for Mayor of New York City
. In 1915 he unexpectedly came out in support President Woodrow Wilson
's war "preparedness campaign". This decision painted Russell into a tight corner politically as the majority of the SP's rank and file remained strongly anti-war
. Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs believed that Russell's decision to support Wilson's move for rearmament probably cost Russell the party's Presidential
nomination in 1916. While Debs disagreed profoundly with Russell on the issue, he applauded him for the courage of his convictions.
Aligning himself with Upton Sinclair, among others on the right-wing of the party, Russell continued to agitate for "responsible...Marxian" positions inside the Socialist Party through 1917.
.
After the February Revolution
, Russell was named by Woodrow Wilson to join a mission led by Elihu Root
intended to keep the Provisional Government
of Alexander Kerensky
in the war. The mission report recommended that George Creel
's Committee on Public Information
conduct pro-war propaganda
efforts in Russia
. Russell personally lobbied Wilson to use the relatively new medium of film to influence the Russian public.
Wilson was receptive and the CPI subsequently developed film and distribution networks in Russia over the next few months.
Russell appears as himself in the 1917 film The Fall of the Romanoffs, directed by Herbert Brenon, which may have been a product of these efforts.
Participation on the Root Mission was effectively a burning of bridges with the Socialist Party, which remained solidly opposed to the European war. Russell left the Socialist Party to join the Social Democratic League of America. He also worked with the AFL
to help found the patriotic American Alliance for Labor and Democracy
, an organization which agitated on behalf of American participation in the war among the country's workers.
Russell subsequently became an editorial writer for social democratic magazine The New Leader
.
He died on April 23, 1941 in Washington, DC.
, a dramatization of the Russian revolution and the influence of Rasputin on the Russian royal family.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist, politician, and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
. The author of a number of books of biography and social commentary, in 1928 he won a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas.
Early life
Charles Edward Russell was born in Davenport, IowaDavenport, Iowa
Davenport is a city located along the Mississippi River in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Davenport is the county seat of and largest city in Scott County. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine LeClaire and was named for his friend, George Davenport, a colonel during the Black Hawk...
on September 25, 1860. His father was a newspaper editor at the Davenport Gazette, and a noted abolitionist. He attended St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, for his high school education. His first cousin was Frederick Russell Burnham
Frederick Russell Burnham
Frederick Russell Burnham, DSO was an American scout and world traveling adventurer known for his service to the British Army in colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell, thus becoming one of the inspirations for the founding of the international Scouting Movement.Burnham...
who became a celebrated scout and the inspiration for the boy scouts
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....
.
He wrote for the Minneapolis Journal, the Detroit Tribune
Detroit Tribune
The Detroit Tribune a newspaper in Detroit, Michigan was started as the Daily Tribune in 1849 and used the name until 1862. In 1862 the Tribune joined with the Daily Advertiser which then subsequently absorbed other papers, becoming the Advertiser and Tribune. It acquired new management, including...
, the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
, William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
's Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
, and the New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
. Russell was employed as a newspaper writer and editor in New York and Chicago from 1894 to 1902, working successively for the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
, the New York American, and the Chicago American.
Russell joined the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
in 1908, of which he remained a member until his expulsion in 1917 over his support of American intervention in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Muckraking journalist
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Louis Filler
Louis Filler
Louis Filler , was an American teacher and a widely published scholar specializing in American studies....
has called Russell the leader of the muckrakers for contributing 'important studies in almost every field in which they ventured.' Most of Russell's work was of a 'pioneering nature: beef trusts...railroads...tenements...and the farm problem....[H]is real topic was injustice, wherever it was to be found."
Russell's reports on the corrupt practices and inhuman conditions at Chicago stock yards
Union Stock Yards
The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meat packing district in Chicago for over a century starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired swampland, and turned it to a centralized processing area...
were the inspiration for Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
's powerful novel The Jungle
The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by journalist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel with the intention of portraying the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion of the book pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking...
, which caused a national uproar that led to inspection reforms.
NAACP founder
In 1909, Russell was one of five founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
, formed in the aftermath of a race riot
Race riot
A race riot or racial riot is an outbreak of violent civil disorder in which race is a key factor. A phenomenon frequently confused with the concept of 'race riot' is sectarian violence, which involves public mass violence or conflict over non-racial factors.-United States:The term had entered the...
at Springfield, Illinois
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
in August of the previous year.
Social democratic politician
Russell was the Socialist candidate for Governor of New YorkGovernor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
in 1910 and 1912, and for U.S. Senator from New York in 1914. He also ran for Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
. In 1915 he unexpectedly came out in support President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's war "preparedness campaign". This decision painted Russell into a tight corner politically as the majority of the SP's rank and file remained strongly anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
. Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs believed that Russell's decision to support Wilson's move for rearmament probably cost Russell the party's Presidential
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
nomination in 1916. While Debs disagreed profoundly with Russell on the issue, he applauded him for the courage of his convictions.
Aligning himself with Upton Sinclair, among others on the right-wing of the party, Russell continued to agitate for "responsible...Marxian" positions inside the Socialist Party through 1917.
.
After the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
, Russell was named by Woodrow Wilson to join a mission led by Elihu Root
Elihu Root
Elihu Root was an American lawyer and statesman and the 1912 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the prototype of the 20th century "wise man", who shuttled between high-level government positions in Washington, D.C...
intended to keep the Provisional Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
of Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
in the war. The mission report recommended that George Creel
George Creel
George Creel was an investigative journalist, a politician, and, most famously, the head of the United States Committee on Public Information, a propaganda organization created by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. He said of himself that "an open mind is not part of my inheritance...
's Committee on Public Information
Committee on Public Information
The Committee on Public Information, also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States created to influence U.S. public opinion regarding American participation in World War I...
conduct pro-war propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
efforts in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Russell personally lobbied Wilson to use the relatively new medium of film to influence the Russian public.
Wilson was receptive and the CPI subsequently developed film and distribution networks in Russia over the next few months.
Russell appears as himself in the 1917 film The Fall of the Romanoffs, directed by Herbert Brenon, which may have been a product of these efforts.
Participation on the Root Mission was effectively a burning of bridges with the Socialist Party, which remained solidly opposed to the European war. Russell left the Socialist Party to join the Social Democratic League of America. He also worked with the AFL
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
to help found the patriotic American Alliance for Labor and Democracy
American Alliance for Labor and Democracy
The American Alliance for Labor and Democracy was an American political organization established in September 1917 through the initiative of the American Federation of Labor and making use of the resources of the United States government's Committee on Public Information...
, an organization which agitated on behalf of American participation in the war among the country's workers.
Russell subsequently became an editorial writer for social democratic magazine The New Leader
The New Leader
The New Leader was a political and cultural magazine begun in 1924 by a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, including Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, and published in New York by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. Its orientation is liberal and...
.
He died on April 23, 1941 in Washington, DC.
Books
- Such Stuff as Dreams (1902, poetry)
- Thomas Chatterton: The Marvelous Boy (1908, biography)
- The Uprising of the Many (1907)
- Lawless Wealth (1908) (expose of the tobacco trust)
- Why I Am a Socialist (1910)
- These Shifting Scenes (1914)
- Unchained Russia (1918, nonfiction)
- After the Whirlwind (1919, nonfiction)
- Bolshevism and the United States (1919, nonfiction)
- The Story of the Non-partisan League (1920, nonfiction)
- The Outlook for the Philippines (1922, nonfiction)
- Julia Marlowe: Her Life and Art (1926, biography)
- The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas (1927, biography)
- A-Rafting on the Mississip(1928, nonfiction)
- Bare Hands and Stone Walls: Some Recollections of a Sideline Reformer (1933, memoir)
- A Pioneer Editor in Early Iowa: A Sketch of the Life of Edward Russell by his son (1941, biography)
Film
Russell played himself in the 1917 film The Fall of the RomanoffsThe Fall of the Romanovs
The Fall of the Romanovs is a silent film directed by Herbert Brenon. It was released only seven months after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. This film is also notable for starring, Rasputin's rival monk Iliodor, as himself. Costars Nance O'Neil and Alfred Hickman were married...
, a dramatization of the Russian revolution and the influence of Rasputin on the Russian royal family.
Sources
External links
- Jose Gutieerrez, "Charles Edward Russell and Insurgent Gournalism." Green Left.org, 1994.