Socialists Take the Pend d’Oreille by Lecture Tour
Two organizers close a river-wide circuit at Newport’s Opera House, leaving new locals in four towns and a promise to return for the presidential campaign.
U. U. Miller and Lee R. Bilderback finished their lecture tour of the Pend d'Oreille river at Newport Saturday evening. Mr. Bilderback addressed an audience in the Opera House upon the principles of international socialism. Good success is reported all along the river. Locals were organized at Newport, Cusick, Blueslide and Metaline. The boys will now lay off till the presidential campaign.
“Good success is reported all along the river. Locals were organized at Newport, Cusick, Blueslide and Metaline.”
In 1908, socialist organizers could fill a Newport Opera House and plant local branches in river towns from Cusick to Metaline. That kind of rural radical politics is a reminder that the Pend d’Oreille country was connected to national debates over wealth and power, not isolated from them. Today, organizing a political movement in small towns still depends on the same grind of meetings, lectures and local hosts.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.