Jackson Stitt Wilson
Encyclopedia
Christian socialism
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...
American politician during the first decades of the 20th Century. He is best remembered as the mayor of the city of Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
from 1911 to 1913.
Background and Ideas
J. Stitt Wilson was born in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on March 19, 1868, the son of devout Methodist parents. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1888, settling in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
and attending Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, working after graduation as a schoolmaster and for a law firm. Wilson later decided to enter the Methodist ministry, enrolling at the theological seminary at Northwestern. Following completion of his schooling, Wilson worked for the next four years as a Methodist pastor and social worker in nearby Chicago. He later recalled that the experience of these four years were "to me a school out of which I came — a Socialist."
He later recalled:
"Three forces in my life converged into one....
"First, then, the facts drove me to Socialism. The injustices, misery, and wretchedness, and the unequal struggle of the workers against such frightful odds compelled me to study the underlying causes of this social agony — and I became a Socialist.
"Second, I was a student of economics and sociology, reading, observing, meditating, and this led me to Socialism. Socialism is the social order corresponding to truth in the intellect.
"And in the third place, I was passing through a series of subjective experences, experiences of the mind and heart, moral and spiritual growing-pains — and again I became a Socialist."
Wilson was deeply inspired by what he called "the social and economic significance of the Teachings of Jesus":
"The Sermon on the Mount I saw was a code of social duties, so to speak, a revelation of the fundamental principles of Social Justice and human fellow ship for this our everyday world. Such a passage as that beginning with the phrase, 'No man can serve two masters,' is nothing short of a brief but comprehensive Social Program. It is almost impossible to find in the whole Sermon on the Mount anything that could give an ecclesiastical or theological colour to these sayings. They are ethical, moral, social.
From 1907, Wilson was a contributing editor to The Christian Socialist [Chicago], a weekly newspaper which unified the Christian socialist wing of 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...
.
Wilson believed that there was an "impending social revolution" in the economic relations of man marked by the principle of "social ownership by the whole people of the basic equipment of land and machinery." Wilson asserted in a 1911 pamphlet that this social revolution was "now on" and declared
If God is ever to wipe away the tears from the face of man this age-long wrong [capitalism] must be overthrown. If the mission of Jesus is ever to get the upperhand in human affairs, the social revolution must come to pass. There is no more good news to the poor unless there is the message and the task to abolish this age-long night of poverty. There is no deliverance for captives unless this social captivity is ended. There is no setting at liberty the people that are bruised unless this age-long bruising machinery is stopped. If we are ever to call the poor and the maimed and the halt to the banquet of creation, the program of the revolution must be inaugurated. The Heavenly Father may know we have need of all these things, and He may have provided for these needs in the limitless resources of nature, but we never can have them for the people except by seeking the kingdom of social justice and human brotherhood — which is the Kingdom of God — which is the social vision of the social revolution.
Political career
Wilson was a delegate from California to the 1904, 1910, and 1912 national conventions of the Socialist Party. At that 1912 gathering Wilson joined with Ernest Untermann, Joshua Wanhope, and Robert Hunter as a majority of the Committee on Immigration in offering a resolution on immigration which was pro-exclusionary, backing the American Federation of LaborAmerican 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...
in its desire to stop manufacturers from importing cheap, non-union labor from the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
.This proposal, primarily written by Untermann and Wanhope, was effectively killed by the convention on a motion by Charles Solomon
Charles Solomon (politician)
Charles "Charley" Solomon was a socialist politician from New York City, elected to the New York State Assembly in 1919 and expelled with four of his fellows on the first day of the legislative session, one week after the sensational Palmer Raids...
of New York not to receive the committee's report, but rather to hold the matter open for investigation and decision by the next convention.
Before he became mayor of Berkeley, Wilson ran for governor of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 1910 on the Socialist ticket and received 12% of the votes cast. Wilson was elected Mayor of Berkeley in 1911 to a two year term but declined to run for re-election. In 1912 he ran for Congress as a Socialist and received 26,234 votes, 40% of the votes cast, but was defeated by the incumbent Republican, Joseph R. Knowland
Joseph R. Knowland
Joseph Russell Knowland was an American politician and newspaper publisher. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from California and was owner, editor and publisher of the Oakland Tribune. He was the father of United States Senator William F...
. He was elected to the governing National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party in 1914.
Wilson was a strong supporter of the "single tax" movement begun by Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
, arguing that land gained its value through the collective activity of humanity, not by the individual owner, and that the City, "the Social Mother in whose household we all live" should support itself by taxing this collectively created value. He gained the support of the League of California Municipalities and lead unsuccessful initiative campaigns in 1912 and 1914 to change the California constitution to allow local governments "home rule" in taxation so that they could choose to tax land separately from buildings and personal property.
Not sharing the organization's staunch anti-militarist perspective, Wilson withdrew from the Socialist Party at the outbreak of World War I
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...
. He was again writing for the party press by 1922, however.
During the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Wilson was appointed to the California State Relief Commission. In 1932, he was the Socialist candidate for the Congressional district which included Berkeley (7th), and in 1936 and 1940, he was a delegate to the Democratic Party convention.
Death and legacy
Wilson was married to Emma Agnew and had four children. His two sons were William Gladstone and Melnotte. His two daughters, Gladys Viola and Violette, both went into show business. Gladys took the stage name "Viola BarryViola Barry
-Biography:She was born Gladys Viola Wilson in Evanston, Illinois the daughter of Jackson Stitt Wilson. She moved with her family to Berkeley, California where her father would become the socialist mayor from 1911-1913....
". Violette married actor and movie director Irving Pichel
Irving Pichel
Irving Pichel was an American actor and film director. He married Violette Wilson, daughter of Jackson Stitt Wilson, a Methodist minister and Socialist mayor of Berkeley, California. Her sister was actress Viola Barry...
.
Wilson died in Berkeley on August 28, 1942.
Works
- The Message of Socialism to the Church: An Address Delivered Before the Bay Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers, Oakland, September 13, 1904. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1904. *
- The Tragic Game of Capitalism: Being an Open Letter to the People of the United States Concerning the Injustice of the Present Social Order. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1906.
- The Message of Jesus to Our Times: An Interpretation. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, n.d. [1907?].
- The Impending Social Revolution, or, The Trust Problem Solved. Berkeley, CA: The Social Crusade, 1911. *
- The Hebrew Prophets and the Social Revolution. HuddersfieldHuddersfieldHuddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
[England]: J. Stitt Wilson, 1909. * - The Messiah Cometh: Riding Upon the Ass of Economics. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, n.d. *
- The Bible Argument for Socialism. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1911." *
- How I Became a Socialist. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1911. *
- How I Became a Socialist, Part Two. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1911. *
- The Kingdom of God and Socialism. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1911. *
- Moses: The Greatest of Labour Leaders. Huddersfield, England, J. Stitt Wilson, 1909. *
- The Harlots and the Pharisees, or, The Barbary Coast in a Barbarous Land ; also, The Story of a Socialist Mayor; Letter Declining Mayoralty Nomination. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1913.
- The Three Great Hypnotisms. Westwood, MA: The Ariel Press, n.d. [191-?].
- Constructive Christian Democracy: An Outline of Fundamentals. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1922.
- The Militant Church and Property; The Militant Church and Public Opinion. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, n.d. [1923?]
- The Christ-Spirit in the Animal World. Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1925.
Pamphlets denoted with (*) included in J. Stitt Wilson, How I Became a Socialist and Other Papers, Berkeley, CA: J. Stitt Wilson, 1912.
Additional reading
- Douglas Firth Anderson, "The Reverend J. Stitt Wilson and Christian Socialism in California", pp. 375-400 in Carl Guarneri, David Alvarez (eds.), Religion and Society in the American West: Historical Essays. University Press of America, NY, 1987.
- ———, "'An Active and Unceasing Campaign of Social Education': J. Stitt Wilson and Herronite Socialist Christianity", pp.41-64 in Jacob H. Dorn (ed.), Socialism and Christianity in Early 20th Century America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
- Stephen Barton, "Berkeley's Socialist Mayor," Exactly Opposite: The Newsletter of the Berkeley Historical Society, vol. 29, no. 2 (Summer 2011), pp. 1, 2-6.
- Ira Brown Cross, "Socialism in California Municipalities", National Municipal Review, Volume 1 (1912) pp. 611-619.
- Michael Hanika, J. Stitt Wilson: California Socialist. MA Thesis. University of California, Hayward, 1972.