The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1910-07-15
HOW MAYOR SEIDEL, SOCIALIST
is SUCCEEDING IN MIL WAUKEE
THE STORY OF THE GROUND
WORK ON WHICH THIS
CHIEF EXECUTIVE WAS
BUILT-A CONGREGATIONAL
MINISTER THE SOCIALISTS
CITY CLERK.
EDITORS Note.--Following is
Dorothy Dale's second article on
her investigation of socialist rule
IN MISUNDERSTANDING
by DOROTHY DALE.

DI DAthAh1s
MILWAUKEE, July 15.-Cer-
tainIy IL it's the people of one
mind that make strong state the
officials of the city of Milwaukee
ought to make a strong city gov
erning body. Every elective Of
flee is filled by a socialist.
1.-THE difference between the
reformer and the socialist is
that the reformer is coming, while
the socialist has arrived" said
City Clerk Carl d. Thompson.
BY that he meant they have
reached the solution of the trou-
BILE with society that makes every
thinking person stop now and then
to wonder what it's all for and if
it's quite worth while.
They define socialism as the
common ownership of public util-
tiles and natural resources
through the instrumentality of a
democratic state.
Learned in Germany.
Mayor Seidel's route lay in Ger
many. 1t was a time of no sup
pers, and night school every night
in the week. 1t was time when
young eager minds asked and
asked and got only the command
to be silent or leave.
Young Seidel was quiet. Most
of the time when he wasn't work
ing he was leaning with his enar-
sighted eyes close to some book.
No one knew what he thought.
Then came the voice of stu
dents raised against the oppres-
sion of the mighty Bismarck. A
friend of Seidel's, a rasher lad,
was threatened. Seidel helped
spirit him away to safety in a
wardrobe and found out what he
thought himself.
The socialist mayor was born
in this iountry, however, in
Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania.
His parents were Prussian. They
moved to Milwaukee when he was
five years old.
Was Working at f3.
He went to work in a broom
factory when he was 10.
Later he was employed in a
spice and coffee factory.
After leaving the coffee factory
he learned the wod carving trade;
that was the beginning of the pat
Terminating business he now
owns. At 81 he was secretary oil
the wood-carvers' union.
1t was after an illness that he
determined to go to Germany to
study. He hadn't enough money
to be merely a student, so he
worked to pay his way except for
the suppers he went without to
give more time for his books.
After he returned to this coun-
try he kept on studying social
conditions. Sometimes they came
very near home.
Mayor Seidel is a man who i'm
presses neither by stature nor
feature. It's the manner, the
earnestness of the near-sighted
eyes and the gentlenes of manner
and willingness to listen that i'm
press.
Thompson a Minister.
City Clerk Carl d. Thomson is
a Congregational minister in
Milwaukee. 1t was through his
church experience that he became
socialist.
THE members of my congrega-
tion were working people," he
said. Il saw how big the strug-
gle was for just the necessities
and not always enough of that.
"But the thing that set me most
to thinking was the experience OF
boy who sang tenor in my choir.
He lost his position through
illness. Later he was again out OF
work because his shop shut down
We'll, everybody said work was
easy to find If anybody wanted it
So / went out to make good.
searched for him and others in my
congregation. ! wore out shoes
and found nothing.
The boy finally went to worl
In mines in New Mexico. He los
an arm in the machinery, came
home discouraged and committed
suicide. ! began to decide some
thing was wrong and to look fol
the answer"