Burgher Berger

As it must to all men, Death came last week to Victor Louis Berger, famed Milwaukee Socialist. Twenty-two days prior he had eluded an automobile, run afoul of a street car, suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs. His body lay in state in the Milwaukee City Hall. Municipal offices were closed the day of his funeral. He it was who had nursed Wisconsin Socialism from a pink Fauntleroy to a ruddy, vote-mighty brawnyman.

Born in Nieder-Rehback, Austria-Hungary, 69 years ago, Victor Berger attended the Universities of Vienna and Budapest, arrived in the U. S. in 1878 with $75 in his hosen. Metal he polished for $5 a week in New York, thence progressed to Milwaukee as a school teacher. In a debate he upheld the Single Tax against Socialism, won, but, convinced by his opponent's argument, turned Socialist himself. He it was who converted Eugene V. Debs to Socialism, later boomed him quadrennially for U. S. President. In 1898 he helped establish the Socialist Party. In 1900 he became editor of the puny Social Democratic Herald, changed it to the Milwaukee Leader, developed it into a potent Socialist organ.

In 1911 Milwaukee sent him to Congress as the first Socialist representative.* Appalled, Washington gaped at this ''political monster" who was no monster at all but a round German burgher, bald, shuffling, infinitely good-natured. Re-elected in 1918, he was refused his House seat by a vote of 309 to 1 because of his pacifist doctrines. In 1919 he was again elected, again barred. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in February, 1919, passed on him the verdict of "espionage," sentenced him, with a flourish, to 20 years' imprisonment. He never served a day of it. Higher courts reversed the decision. For four years he and his newspaper were refused use of U. S. mails. In 1921 he mused: "A person can mail a letter to the German Kaiser and have it delivered, but none to The Leader or its editors."

Of the War, Victor Berger said, "The chief fruits . . . for us have been Prohibition, the flu and the national debt."

In 1923 Berger returned to the House as Representative of the Fifth Wisconsin District. He was defeated for re-election last November. His chief legislative hobbies: 1) Abolition of the Constitution; 2) Substitution of a nationwide referendum for the Senate; 3) Repeal of the 18th Amendment; 4) An old age pension bill; 5) Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones; 6) Unemployment insurance.

* Later Socialists in Congress, both from New York: Meyer London (1915-'19; 1921-23), Fiorella Henry La Guardia (1917-19; 1923- ). Mr. La Guardia, now Republican designee for Mayor of New York, was temporarily (1925-27) tagged a Socialist when endorsed by that party. He denounced the label as a "dirty Republican trick."