It is difficult to read about the Socialist movement in Washington State during the first quarter of the 20th century without running across the name of Emil Herman. Yet today he is known only to a few people who enjoy digging into the obscure corners of the local political past. So far as I can find, no one has ever provided a decent summary of his all-too-brief life. For you academics out there interested in Washington State labor history or in American political prisoners, this guy is waiting for your attention. You scholars can fill in the gaps I am woefully missing in my modest effort to cover his political life. Like some other previous Socialist Party ungovernors, Herman died young as a result of breaking his health in the course of carrying his political message with a religious zeal.

After Emil met his untimely end his widow, Ruby, wrote an essay on his career for the Oct. 19, 1928 Labor Journal (Everett, Wash.), which is the source for her quotes I'll be using.

Emil was born in Germany in 1879. His family came to the U.S. in 1882. Apparently his father, Frederick, had socialist leanings.

Ruby Herman: "He was born in Germany and brought to this country by his parents at the age of three. His childhood was the customary one of struggle with poverty and injustice-- a struggle which was maintained with very little occasional diminishment until the end. His father had some small experience as a socialist in Germany and things he would say started the mind of the boy to consideration of our social-economic problems, with the result that as soon as he had attained an age which would permit such a thing he applied for membership in the Socialist Labor Party and was admitted. When the split took place which caused the formation of the Social-Democratic parties in several states, the organization which has since become national in scope and known as the Socialist Party, he left the Socialist Labor Party and identified himself with the new organization-- in whose ranks he remained afterward."

He basically comes in under the historical radar until 1901, when an Emil Herman emerges as a clerk in the Seattle-based Washington Harness and Saddlery Company. Same guy? Perhaps. I have no record of where he was raised to adulthood. He just suddenly appears.

Ludwig Erwin Alfred Katterfeld ran as the Socialist candidate for Washington State Governor in 1916 on his journey to becoming an international Communist figure and a man who had views so dangerous he became a guest of Uncle Sam's Crowbar Hotel during the first Red Scare. He was in the Evergreen State for only a brief time. But what a time it was.

He was born July 15, 1881 in Strasbourg, when that city was under German rule. His Katterfeld ancestors had served as pastors for several generations, but his father was a high school teacher. His parents, Traugott Heinrich Karl Alfred Katterfeld (1850-1891) and Adelheide Wilhelmina (Karpinsky) Katterfeld (1850-1884) both died at a young age.

According to the 1920 U.S. census, Ludwig came to the United States in 1893, two years following the death of his father. The orphan was small, with dark hair and eyes, and he was very bright. When he graduated from high school in 1898 in Cloud County, Kansas, he was first in his class of 23 students.

By 1912 the Washington State Socialist Labor Party had become a permanent afterthought, even among Socialists. Some could argue that the Party had actually become a cult, centered around the personality of SLP guru Daniel De Leon, who died in 1914. Wanting to remain ideologically pure, the idea of making compromises and engaging in practical politics was repugnant to SLP leaders.

Yet, the Party persevered. You could still find them on the Washington State ballot as a gubernatorial option in my lifetime as voter. I always wondered why the heck I would have two or three Socialist splinter choices in the voting booth. I suppose in new movements what mainstream voters would think of as small details take on huge significance in 3rd parties-- Left, Right, or otherwise.

Anna Agnes Maley was a brief but significant political figure in the history of Washington State elections. Not only was she the first woman to run for governor, she was also the most successful vote-getter of all the Socialist ungovernors. Like ungovernor George Boomer before her, she was a journalist who died at a young age. Unlike Boomer, she was a moderate who saw the electoral process as a legitimate and essential form of social evolution. As the Washington State socialist movement splintered, she was marginalized and sent packing by her own party.

The previous Socialist Party candidates had all come to Washington with the Equality colony as their landing point. But by the time Maley arrived, the experiment was over. The rules had changed. The Socialist Party veterans were no longer dazzled by idealistic concepts or utopian visions. Getting beaten up and attacked by intolerant people while campaigning had a way of making them not so enamored of change through the ballot box. And yet 1912 was the highwater mark for the Socialist Party both in Washington State and nationally.

Anna was born Jan. 6, 1872 in Faxon, Sibley County, Minnesota. John and Katherine, her parents, were immigrants from Ireland. The family made their way to Minneapolis, where Anna worked as a stenographer and teacher. She was introduced to socialist theory while a student at the University of Minnesota.

George Ellsworth Boomer was a Washington State socialist who really deserves a full biography, and my little profile will not do justice to this interesting character who was far ahead of his time. Although his run for Washington State Governor was a century ago, there is much about his story that seems familiar and universal today. In reading about his zeal one is struck by the parallels with religious missionaries, an observation that would have no doubt upset Boomer. Yet even other socialists made note of this.

In IWW jargon a "Boomer" was someone who was a wanderer, who followed boomtowns and good times. George sort of fit that description in terms of seeking a place in the world where he thought opportunity was ripe for his cause.

Boomer was born in Lewiston, Maine Nov. 28, 1862. "Slight and frail," wrote Harvey O'Connor, "he was the son of cotton mill workers .. At the age of 12 he went to work in the mill, at 65 cents for a 12 1/4-hour day. As required by law, he attended school three months a year. He became a newsboy and then a printer in Providence, Rhode Island." His mill worker experience shaped his world view.

Arthur S. Caton was born June 28, 1852 in Ohio. His parents were immigrants from Ireland. He married Dottie Moore Sept. 11, 1873 in Delaware, Ohio.

By 1880 the Catons were living in Jackson, Ohio, where Arthur was in the dry goods business. It would appear that he somehow connected with Prohibitionist Party supporter John R. Chaplin (also born in 1852), and was in on the ground floor of the Olympia Development Company.

Chaplin is a well known figure in the history of Olympia, and the subject of a previous OlyBlog post. He organized the Olympia Development Company in Ohio and part of the profits were earmarked to support his People's University in Olympia.

Arthur S. Caton arrived in Olympia about 1906, around the time the People's University was folding up, and started out as the Manager of the Olympia Development Co. His base of operations was always on the Westside. He did move around the Harrison-4th Ave. W. area for awhile before settling in the 4th Ave./Milroy block about 1915, when the area was still open farmland.

1908 has the unusual distinction of having two gentlemen from the southeast corner of Washington State representing the two major parties in a gubernatorial election. The victor was Samuel Goodlove Cosgrove of Pomeroy, who served a grand total of one day in office before leaving for California, where he died shortly after arrival. Runner-up John Pattison hailed from Colfax. They were the first nominees for Washington governor elected directly by the people through a primary election rather than being selected by a party convention.

John Pattison was born in Albany, NY in Jan. 1859.

Jan. 1859. I am going to jar the continuity here with a side note that seems worthy of mention. I cannot help but notice that about half of the Ungovernors up to this date have birthdates in months that begin with the letter "J." January: Young, Dunlap, Frink, Pattison. June: Semple, Sullivan, Caton. Big deal, right?

John was the son of John and Elizabeth Pattison, both Protestant Irish immigrants. His father had served in the Union Army during the Civil War. John Jr. left home at the age of 14 and headed for Silverton, Colorado "and engaged in mining for six years with varying though reasonable success, he went from there through Arizona and New Mexico, looking for a better mining location, and spending about two years in that country, making money, but at heavy expense." Having had ancestors myself who were his mining contemporaries, in nearby Ouray, Colorado I can guess Pattison became a later convert to the silver cause in 1896.