John Spargo

John Spargo (31 January 1876 – 1966) was a British progressivist writer and muckraker whose exposé "The Bitter Cry of Children" explores the living conditions of children in poverty stricken households.

Life

Spargo was born on 31 January 1876 in the small village of Long Downs in the parish of Stithians, Cornwall, England. His parents were Thomas Spargo (1850-1920) and Jane Hocking Spargo (1851-1900), whose maiden name was also Spargo. As a young man he trained as a stonecutter, and became a lay Methodist minister. He was attracted to the socialist doctrines of early English marxist Henry Hyndman and would serve on the executive council of the Social Democratic Federation before immigrating to New York City in 1901, and to Vermont in 1909. He became a leader of the Socialist Party of America and wrote an early English-language biography of Karl Marx. He left the party due to a disagreement with its anti-war policies in 1917 and formed the Social Democratic League of America. He subsequently collaborated withfor U.S. entry into World War I. Spargo sat on the executive committee of the short lived National Party, which attempted to meld pro-war sentiments with progressive politics. The Party dissolved following disappointing returns in the elections of 1918. John Spargo became wealthy off his books. In the 1920s, Spargo turned away from leftist politics, developing his own theories of what he called "socialized individualism",Eventually he would oppose Roosevelt's New Deal.

Spargo would become the Director-Curator of the Bennington, Vermont Historical Museum and write several books on ceramics.

He researched and wrote a booklet on the history of his family name. Spargo is also the name of the locality around Mabe Church in the parish of Mabe. He postulated that evidence supported the place name and Spargo family name being in existence c. 400AD. This pre-dated the arrival by some 400 years of the Christian Church.

Works by John Spargo

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* "Eugene V. Debs, Incarnate Spirit of Revolt" - 1908 [cite book | last = Debs | first = Eugene | authorlink = Eugene Debs | title= Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches | editor= Bruce Rogers | publisher= The Appeal to Reason | loc= Girard, Kansas | year= 1908 | pages= 499-509]
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External links

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** [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16613 Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy] EBook at Project Gutenberg
* Excerpts from The Bitter Cry of Children:
** [http://web.mala.bc.ca/davies/H321GildedAge/Spargo.BitterCryofChildren.1906.htm "Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and dangerous..."] . [cite book | last = Spargo | first = John | title = The Bitter Cry of Children | publisher = Macmillan | year = 1906 | pages = 163-165 | id = ]
** [http://academics.uww.edu/lscore/CC120/industry/rspind7c.htm "According to the census of 1900, there were 25,000 boys under sixteen years of age employed in and around the mines and quarries of the United States..."] [ibid.]
** [http://mohawk.k12.ny.us/progressive/spargo2.html "I could not do that work and live, but there were boys of ten and twelve years of age doing it for fifty and sixty cents a day..."] [ibid.]
* cite news
title = The life of Marx: Karl Marx: His Life and Work, by John Spargo (National Labour Press, Manchester, 8s 6d)
publisher = The Guardian
date = September 21 1911, 1911-09-21
url = http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,6000,1574843,00.html?gusrc=rss
accessdate = 2006-09-30

References

Further reading

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* cite journal
last = Radosh
first = Ronald
authorlink = Ronald Radosh
title = John Spargo and Wilson's Russian Policy, 1920
journal = Journal of American History
volume = 52
number = 3
pages = 548–565
month = December | year = 1965
publisher = Organization of American Historians
doi = 10.2307/1890847