Jack Reed

**John Silas "Jack" Reed** (22 October, 1887 - 17 December, 1955) was an American revolutionary, politician, investigative journalist, and poet who served as the undisputed leader of the Combined Syndicates of America during the Second American Civil War. Nicknamed **"The Father of the Commonwealth"** by admirers, Reed helped found the Socialist Commonwealth of America after the signing of the Rocky Mountain Armistice. Ideologically a Syndicalist and De Leonist, Reed is considered one of the most influential figures in American history, and is viewed in the Socialist Commonwealth as one of its greatest leaders.

Born to a wealthy upper-class family in Portland, Oregon, in his early years Reed received a private education at various schools. Eventually Reed went on to attend Harvard College, where he would be introduced to socialism. Reed eventually went on to graduate in 1910. Afterward, He established himself as a freelance journalist in New York City, writing featured articles for various mainstream as well as radical outlets. In 1913 he was sent by *Metropolitan Magazine* to cover the Mexican Revolution and spent four months with the Constitutional Army of Pancho Villa. He traveled to Russia with his wife Louise Bryant in 1917 and witnessed the October Revolution, writing about his experience in his book *Ten Days That Shook The World*.

Reed returned to America in 1920 and was instrumental in uniting the disparate factions of the American Left behind the Combined Syndicates of America, an association of trade unions and socialist political parties. After his return from reporting on the newly-created Communard government in France, he became an active participant in the 1923 Seattle Commune. In 1928 he was elected to serve as a United States Senator from New York in a stunning upset victory. He would become General Secretary of the Combined Syndicates, following his predecessor William Haywood's death in 1936.

Reed was the Socialist Party of America nominee for president in the 1936 presidential election. After losing the subsquent 1937 contingent election to Democrat John Nance Garner, Reed resigned from the senate and called for a general strike to protest the results. This strike would boil over, leading to the Second American Civil War. At the beginning of the war, Reed and other promined Combined Syndicates leaders fled to Chicago, Illinois, making the city their base of operations. Following the ceasefire that concluded the war, Reed went on to form the Provisional Revolutionary Government, to which he served as its president and served to help transition the territories conquered by the Combined Syndicates to syndicalist government. He served as the presiding officer of the Second Consitutional Convention. Reed retired from politics following the election of his succesor, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, to the official presidency of the Socialist Commonwealth. Reed would spend the rest of his life in Buffalo, New York with his daughter, and would die in 1955. Following his death, Reed's birthday was made into a national holiday, and a monument was built in his honor in Washington, D.C..

## Early life and Education

John Silas Reed was born on October 22, 1887, in his maternal grandparents' mansion in what is now the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. His grandmother's household had Chinese servants. Reed wrote of paying a nickel to a "Goose Hollowite" (young toughs in a gang in the working-class neighborhood below King's Hill) to keep from being beaten up.
His mother, Margaret (Green) Reed, was the daughter of Portland industrialist Henry Dodge Green, who had made a fortune founding and operating three businesses: the first gas & light company, the first pig iron smelter on the West Coast, and the Portland water works (he was its second owner). SW Green Avenue was named in his honor. John's father, Charles Jerome Reed, was born in the East and came to Portland as the representative of an agricultural machinery manufacturer. With his ready wit, he quickly won acceptance in Portland's business community. The couple had married in 1886, and the family's wealth came from the Green side, not the Reed side.

A sickly child, young Jack grew up surrounded by nurses and servants. His mother carefully selected his upper-class playmates. He had a brother, Harry, who was two years younger. Jack and his brother were sent to the recently established Portland Academy, a private school. Jack was bright enough to pass his courses but could not be bothered to work for top marks, as he found school dry and tedious. In September 1904, he was sent to Morristown, a New Jersey prep school, to prepare for college. His father, who did not attend college, wanted his sons to go to Harvard. At Morristown Jack continued his poor classroom performance, but made the football team and showed some literary promise.
Reed failed his first attempt at Harvard College's admission exam but passed on his second try, and enrolled in the fall of 1906. Tall, handsome, and lighthearted, he threw himself into all manner of student activities. He was a member of the cheerleading team, the swimming team, and the dramatic club, served on the editorial boards of the *Lampoon* and *The Harvard Monthly*, and was president of the Harvard Glee Club. In 1910 he held a position in the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and also wrote music and lyrics for their show *Diana's Debut*. Reed failed to make the football and crew teams, but excelled in swimming and water polo. He was also made "Ivy orator and poet" in his senior year.

Reed attended meetings of the Socialist Club, over which his friend Walter Lippmann presided, but never joined. The group introduced legislation into the state legislature, attacked the university for failing to pay its servants living wages, and petitioned the administration to establish a course on socialism. Reed later recalled:

> All this made no ostensible difference in the look of Harvard society, and probably the club-men and the athletes, who represented us to the world, never even heard of it. But it made me, and many others, realize that there was something going on in the dull outside world more thrilling than college activities, and turned our attention to the writings of men like H.G. Wells and Graham Wallas, wrenching us away from the Oscar Wildian dilettantism which had possessed undergraduate litterateurs for generations.
>
>

Reed graduated from Harvard College in 1910. That summer he set out to see more of the "dull outside world," visiting England, France, and Spain before returning home to America the following spring.

## Journalism and the Mexican Revolution

Reed moved to New York City in March 1911 and earned an entry-level position at *The American Magazine* with the help of Lincoln Steffens, an investigative journalist and muckraker he befriended while at Harvard. He found a home In Greenwich Village and fell in love with New York, relentlessly exploring and writing poems about it. Establishing himself as a freelance journalist, Reed first broke out at *The Saturday Evening Post* before writing several featured articles for *Collier’s*, *The Forum*, and *The Century Magazine*.

While living in New York City, Reed first became interested in social problems by the writings of Steffens and Ida Tarbell, eventually joining the staff of the socialist publication *The Masses* in 1913. The first of his many arrests came that year after he attempted to speak on behalf of striking silk mill workers in Paterson in New Jersey. The violence used to break the strike and the short prison term he served further radicalised Reed, and he allied himself with the socialist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He published an article entitled “War in Paterson'' recounting his experience and organized “The Pageant of the Paterson Strike” in Madison Square Garden to benefit the strikers.

In the autumn of 1913, Reed traveled to Mexico to report on the ongoing civil war for the *Metropolitan Magazine*. He spent four months embedded in Pancho Villa's Constitutional Army and published numerous magazine articles that painted a vivid portrait of Villa, his men, and the women *soldaderas* in his forces. He deeply sympathized with the Mexican peasants and vehemently opposed the American occupation of Veracruz and expedition against Villa. His reports were collected and published in the book *Insurgent Mexico* in 1914, earning him a national reputation as a war correspondent.

On 30 April 1914 he arrived in Colorado just ten days after the Ludlow massacre during the height of the Colorado Coalfield War. He spent a little over a week in the state investigating the events and speaking on behalf of striking workers. His impassioned article on the subject published that July, entitled “The Colorado War”, further advanced his belief in class conflict as a vehicle for social change.

## War Correspondence

Shortly after the outbreak of the Weltkrieg, Reed set sail for neutral Italy on assignment for the *Metropolitan*. He viewed the war as a result of competing imperialist commercial rivalries and showed little sympathy for any of the involved parties. In an anonymous piece in *The Masses* entitled "The Traders' War" he famously declared, "This is not Our War". While in France, he found his journalistic efforts frustrated by wartime censorship and encountered difficulties gaining access to the front lines. In December 1914 he traveled to Berlin and interviewed Karl Liebknecht, one of the few socialists in Germany to vote against war credits. Reed was deeply disappointed by the collapse in working-class solidarity in the Second International and its replacement with militarism and nationalism.

In 1915 Reed spent three months traveling in Central and Eastern Europe with Boardman Robinson, a Canadian and fellow *Masses* contributor. Travelling up from Thessaloniki, they witnessed scenes of profound devastation in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, also passing through Bulgaria and Romania. While in Chełm they were arrested and incarcerated for several weeks, and might have been executed for espionage if not for the intervention of the American ambassador. They moved on to Russia but were rearrested when trying to cross the border back into Romania, ironically due to the American ambassador in Petrograd’s suspicion that they might be spies. This time it was the British ambassador (Robinson being a British subject) who secured permission for them to leave, but not before their papers were seized in Kiev. They proceeded to Bucharest, where they spent time piecing together their recounting of the journey, which would be published as *The War in Eastern Europe* in April 1916.

After he returned to America, Reed traveled to Portland to visit his mother, where he met and fell in love with Louise Bryant. Bryant returned with him to the East Coast and the couple married in Peekskill, New York in November 1916. That same year, Reed underwent an operation to remove a kidney for which he was hospitalized until mid-December.

On 17 August 1917 Reed and Bryant embarked for Europe from New York to report on the sensational developments taking place in the fledgling republic of Russia. Traveling by way of Finland, they arrived in Petrograd shortly after the failed military putsch of Tsarist General Lavr Kornilov. Reed and Bryant were in Petrograd during the events leading up to the October Revolution and were present at the symbolic fall of the Winter Palace.

Reed quickly became an enthusiastic supporter of the new socialist government and began working for the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, translating decrees from the new government into English. He became close to the inner circle of the Bolsheviks, meeting with and interviewing both Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. He attended the opening of the Third Congress of Soviets and gave a short speech promising to bring news of the revolution to America, declaring that he hoped it would "call forth an answer from America's oppressed and exploited masses”.

In January 1918, Trotsky offered Reed the post of Soviet Consul in New York in response to Reed’s concerns about the safety of his substantial archive. However, Ukrainian Businessman Alexander Gumberg met with Lenin and showed him a prospectus in which Reed called for American capital support for Russia and for setting up a newspaper to express the American viewpoint on negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. Lenin found the proposals unsavory and subsequently withdrew Reed's nomination.

While Bryant managed to return to America in January 1918, Reed was not able to reach New York City until 28 April, as he was arrested by Finnish police at the port of Turku and held at Kakola prison for several weeks. Back in America, they passionately defended the Bolsheviks to the American public and were aggressively interrogated before a Senate committee about Bolshevik propaganda activities in the United States on 21-22 February 1919. The pair both wrote and published books about their experiences while in Russia; although Bryant's *Six Red Months in Russia* appeared first, Reed's *Ten Days That Shook the World* garnered far greater public attention.

## Founding the Combined Syndicates

Reed was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America following the 1919 elections, which handed control of the party to its more radical left-wing for the first time. The near simultaneous fall of Bolshevik Russia and rise of Syndicalist France had created a rift between the communist and syndicalist factions of the party which came to a head during the Emergency National Congress of the Socialist Party in April 1920. Reed played an instrumental part in bridging the divide when he gave a speech to the Congress highlighting the collaboration between the CGT and the Socialist Party in France and calling for a similar partnership between the IWW and the Socialist Party of America. Supported by Eugene V. Debs, the Congress voted to rescind the 1911 expulsions as well as amendments condemning direct action and sabotage.

In 1920, Reed once again traveled to Europe to report on political affairs, this time traveling to the newly-created Commune of France. Meeting with and interviewing several prominent government officials and revolutionaries, he became an ardent syndicalist after he found the Communard government to be more efficient and responsive to the needs of the people compared to that of the Bolsheviks. Upon his return to America in 1923, Reed became an active participant in the General Strike Commission, the government of the Seattle Commune from early April to mid-May, elevating him to a leading voice in socialist politics.

On 12 July 1925 at a special “pan-union” congress in Philadelphia, Reed and several leaders of the IWW presented a bold plan to form an umbrella organization to coordinate union activity and policy in order to bring about the revolution in America, tentatively named the “Combined Syndicates of America”. Although the plan was met with general approval, several constituent unions within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) objected to the stated goal of revolution. Reed formulated a compromise whereby the anti-revolution unions would be organized into a specially autonomous branch of the CSA headed by Norman Thomas, finally realizing the IWW’s primary objective of “One Big Union”.

## Senate career

The onset of the Great Depression in 1925 following the British Revolution and collapse of the New York Stock Exchange led to a surge in the popularity of socialism in the United States. To support Thomas’s 1928 campaign for President, Reed ran for senator in New York state and defeated the incumbent Democrat Royal S. Copeland in a surprise upset, becoming the second Socialist senator after Seymour Stedman of Illinois. As labor disputes gradually began to return better results for workers in the early 1930s due to a combination of public sympathy, CSA organizing and direction, and Socialist Party support, Reed slowly opened to the idea of “reform from the top” advocated by the social democratic wing of the SPA.

In the Senate, Reed proved to be an outspoken advocate for trade unionism and racial justice. Reed proposed expanding the scope of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, demanding that it provide guaranteed old-age pensions to prevent elderly poverty. In addition to this, he also proposed introducing a progressive tax on the wealthy in order to offset the effects of the Great Depression. Reed was a prominent critic of President Herbert Hoover, and denounced his administration's policy of mass deportations of Mexican American laborers. Hoover had actually ordered the Bureau of Investigation to place Reed under regular surveillance, fearing he was a radical anti-government agitator. In 1932, Reed voted in favor of the Garner-Wagner Bill.

It was also during his senate career that the political rivalry between Reed and Louisiana Senator Huey Long began. Long enjoyed needling Reed, and delighted in mocking him in speeches on the senate floor. Reed responded in kind, and routinely criticized Long for his approach to dealing with the Great Depression. The press fanned the flames of this rivalry, with a New York Times article referring to the two men as the "Twin Kings of Radicalism." In a letter to Louise, Reed remarked of Long that "Senator Long has no ideology. Rather, he is the ideology, and his followers the ideologues."

## 1936 Presidential Election

On January 6, 1936, Reed's wife would die suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. She was fifty years old at the time of her death. Louise's death would devastate Reed, and he would briefly retreat from public life to mourn her. Ultimately, Reed would return to the senate. In addition to her death, C.S.A. General Secretary and co-founder William "Big Bill" Haywood died of a heart attack on March 28, 1936, leaving a vacuum in the leadership of the Combined Syndicates. Reed was unanimously elected to succeed Haywood as General Secretary. Reed had already been performing most of Haywood's official duties due to his rapidly declining health, so the transition was natural for him.

Reed would declare his candidacy for President of the United States soon after. Being that he was the General Secretary of the Combined Syndicates, and had recently been re-elected to the Senate, Reed faced no serious challenge for the SPA presidential nomination. He selected now New York City Mayor Norman Thomas to be his running mate. By this time, the SPA was expected to electorally eclipse the increasingly unpopular Republican Party, with many seeing the SPA as having a serious chance at capturing the presidency in 1936. Reed and Thomas proved to be a vigorous campaigners, giving fiery speeches on sidewalks, in hotels, and in "Hoovervilles" all across the country. Despite his rivalry with Long, Reed focused on criticizing Democratic nominee John Nance Garner, seeing him as a serious obstacle to victory. Reed received an endorsement from Mexican President Emiliano Zapata, which proved controversial. The press seized on the endorsement, claiming that Reed would abolish private property if elected.

In the end, despite winning the majority of the popular vote, Reed came in second in the electoral college behind Garner. None of the four major candidates received the necessary majority of electoral votes to win the election outright, triggering another contingent election in the House of Representatives. In the 1937 Contingent Election, Reed would again come in second behind Garner, with Huey Long coming in third. At the time of the contingent election, the house was predominantly controlled by the Democratic Party. This, in combination with the fact that Garner was the Speaker of the House, led Reed to publicly denounce the results of the election as rigged. As a form of protest, Reed officially resigned from the senate on January 8, 1937. This was followed by the majority of Socialists in both the house and senate resigning from their seats in solidarity with Reed. Reed began calling for Socialist governors to refuse to appoint replacements to these empty seats, and called for a nationwide general strike. This strike would escalate into SPA controlled states in the Mid-West to secede from the union, sparking the Second American Civil War.

## Second American Civil War

After his resignation, Reed and his daughter left their home in New York and traveled to Chicago, along with several notable socialist leaders. As General Secretary, Reed began coordinating the movements of Syndicalist revolutionaries arond the country. The Chicago Board of Trade Building was transformed into the provisional capital of the Combined Syndicates, with the C.S.A. Central Committee holding regurlarly holding meetings in the building. Reed maintained correspondence with Pennsylvania Governor James H. Maurer during the Battle of Philadelphia. Additionally, Reed began working with the Mayor of Chicago, establishing check points around the city and setting up barricades in the event of federal invasion.

Once Canada became involved in the war, the Royal Canadian Air Force began carpet bombing Chicago. Reed and his inner circle would shelter in a make shift bomb shelter during these bombing runs. He would also write about these experiences in his personal journal. Reed reportedly joked to a subordinate during this time, saying that "A little Canadian rain never hurt anybody." The city was blockaded by the Royal Navy, and so Reed instituted a ration system for food and medicine in the city.

Reed and the C.S.A. Central Committee were in direct correspondence with Smedley Butler during the Battle of Washington, D.C., with Butler often demanding the Committee send more supplies to the front. Following the victory in the battle, Reed began to organize a suffiecient air force for the C.S.A., seeing as the federal government had a clear advantage when it came to air power. While the C.S.A. Air Force wouldn't be active until much later in the war, his early planning proved useful. Reportedly, when Reed was informed that John Nance Garner and Robert F. Wagner had been assassinated by Syndicalist revolutionaries, he had a mixed reaction, looking somewhat disturbed. The soldiers who assassinated Garner and Wagner were never punished.

Upon learning of Butler's sudden death in 1940, Reed was completely crestfallen, believing that the war had turned against the Combined Syndicates. He began showing signs of paranoia, telling others that he feared he would end up like Vladimir Lenin. Once Butler's successor, Field marshal Herbert C. Heitke began pushing the Federalists out of Texas, this paranoia ceased.

Reed is believed to have been partially responsible for the Combined Syndicates defeat in the Battle of Mounment Valley. His inability to fully understand the strength of the Provisional Pacific Coalition's armored vehicles units led to an embarassing defeat for Reed's forces.

## Provisional Government and Post-war Period

Almost immediately after the signing of the Rocky Mountain Armistice, Reed got to work in establishing a provisional syndicalist government. The Provisional Revolutionary Government was created, with Reed appointing himself as president. The Provisional Revolutionary Government was primarily concerned with the proper integration of conquered states into a new syndicalist country. Much of the South remained under martial law, with Texas in particular being under the direct control of Reed himself. Reed intentionally removed himself from matters of economics, leaving such decisions to more skilled subordinates.

Philadelphia was chosen by this provisional government as the meeting place for what would come to be know as the Second Constitutional Convention. During the convention, Reed withdrew from debate, preferring instead to simply preside over discussion. He did, however, publicly advocate for the creation of a bicameral legislature, a move which frustrated many Totalists and Vanguardists who favored a unicameral legislature. He also led the call to nationalize all higher education institutions in C.S.A. controlled territories, making college free for all students. Following the signing of the new consitution, Reed famously proclaimed that "Now we have something to fight for, and we'll fight for it!"

## Final years and Death

Following his retirement from politics, Reed would relocate to Buffalo, New York with his daughter. He would live a somewhat quiet life from there on. Having to lead during a civil war had taken a toll on his health. He frequently complained about pains in his upper back, which had an effect on his posture. Reed also complained about feeling occasional pains in his chest, causing shortness of breath. During his retirement, Reed wrote and published an autobiography about his life in 1951, entitled *The Long Road and Man's Triumph.* In 1953, Reed was gifted with an honorary key to the city by the Mayor of Buffalo.

On December 17, 1955, Reed would die due to undiagnosed pulmonary embolism. He was sixty eight years old at the time of his death.

## Legacy

Reed's legacy endures as one of the most influential in American history. Reed, along with other successful syndicalist leaders like Pierre Monatte and A.J. Cook, became an international symbol for revolution. In 1955, the Worker's Congress proclaimed Reed's Birthday to be a federal holiday. Jack Reed Clubs were established in the late 1940s, primarily in the south, as social clubs that were affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, and meant to entice individuals to join the party. These clubs would later be disbanded in the 1960s. While admired in the Socialist Commonwealth, Reed is reviled in West America and Canada. Anti-Syndicalist Canadian propaganda referenced him repeatedly, warning Canadian citizens to be wary of "Reedism" in the workplace. Some political scientists have described him as an uncompromising authoritarian comparable to Vladimir Lenin, who overthrew democracy and silenced dissent.

During the early years, Reed's image, along with Abraham Lincoln, was used as a symbol for the Unionist faction in the Worker's Congress. They continued to use him as a symbol even after his death. Despite this wide admiration, Reed was still criticized by his contemporaries. Some, such as biographer Robert A. Rosenstone, have called him a romantic, while President Upton Sinclair once derided him as a "playboy of the revolution". Nonetheless, Reed maintains his place among the highest-ranked S.C. Presidents.