Elmer Allison

**Elmer T. Allison** is an American socialist politician and current president of the People’s Union of America. Longtime editor and writer, Allison had been associated with the far-left for decades, since the founding of the Socialist Party of America. Rising to fame during the Second American Civil War, Allison would be catapulted to presidency after the Spring Putsch. While seeing initial success as leader of America, his opposition has been steadily growing, challenged by libertarian Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

## Biography

### Early years & entry into politics

Elmer T. Allison was born December 5, 1883 in Houstonia, Missouri, the son of Nathaniel Allison and Mattie (Johnson) Allison. His education was mostly through self-instruction, having been pulled out of elementary school when he was in the 5th grade so that he could go to work to help support his family.

In 1899 the Allisons moved to Washington state where Elmer found employment as a shingle weaver, a millhand who created cedar roofing shingles by means of an automated saw — a very exhausting and extremely dangerous profession.

Allison joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1901, the year of its formation, and was active in the activities of its state affiliate, the Socialist Party of Washington. He was also a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) No. 500 after that revolutionary union emerged in 1905.

In 1905, Elmer's sister, Hortense Allison, married his friend and party comrade Alfred Wagenknecht, an active leader of the radical Pike Street Branch directed by newspaper publisher Hermon F. Titus. Elmer Allison and Alfred Wagenknecht would remain close political associates for the next two decades, which saw the formation of the American communist movement.

Together with Wagenknecht, Allison was briefly jailed in 1907 during the free speech fight between Seattle's Socialists and the city administration over the right to speak from soapboxes on public sidewalks.

Allison was elected the Secretary of Local Seattle, Socialist Party in 1908. That same year, he married his first wife, the former Anna Theresa Swanson.

Together with the Wagenknechts, Allison moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1917, where he was chosen as editor of *The Cleveland Socialist,* the weekly newspaper published by Local Cuyahoga County.

### Involvement in the civil war

With the outbreak of war in 1920, Ohio was one of the later states to succumb to the People’s Union, but importantly, due to long time connections with the socialist party, many parts of the state, its most urbanized and industrialized centers, fell to socialist rebellions. Allison, much opposed to military rule, was imprisoned shortly after the Washington Coup, and was initially meant to be sent to the capital for trial. But with the independence of the Republic of New York, those plans were stalled. Cleveland overthrew the Federal garrison protecting the city on March 5th, and Allison, with dozens, were freed from prison. Allison wouldn’t involve himself in any high-level politics, but would make a name for himself publishing revolutionary pamphlets and continuing to work in the Cleveland Socialist for the remainder of the war.

### Opposition to the hardliners

With the Cleveland Socialist, among thousands of other newspaper businesses, undergoing nationalization, Allison would continue to work as a writer, and because of his contribution in his writings during the war, Allison became a founding member of the Ministry of Propaganda, a part of the government that would be instrumental in the later Spring Putsch.

Allison, like many, became dissatisfied with the state of the Peoples’ Union. Mismanagement and corruption scandals abounded, and his once bright friendship with Wagenknecht started cracking. While Allison was still a party supporter, he gradually started moving away from the ruling government faction, but officially, he stayed loyal. That was until 1923, when Allison announced his separation from the government, and was removed from his post in the Propaganda Ministry. He, alongside his colleagues, founded the Reformist Bloc of the Socialist Party of America.

### Spring Putsch

In March of 1927, protests broke out in Minneapolis over the increasingly dire economic situation, coupled with the exposed failures of the Five Year Plan and the devaluation of the American dollar. While Allison initially stayed silent during this time of unrest, viewing it as a short-lived anti-government demonstration, riots soon spread to Chicago, Bangor and Boston over the next few days. This development intrigued him, and as they saw certainly no time of stopping, Allison took a bold move and published, within the Cleveland Socialist, the first newspapers denouncing the Hardliners, and calling on them to appease protestors. Allison took a big risk, but in the end it served his popularity, as dozens of other newspapers started to follow in his footsteps, emboldening the opposition movement.

Allison, alongside those who ran the Cleveland Socialist were arrested just like in 1920, but their arrests only fed the flames of discontent. While Allison was imprisoned, he still continued to criticize and attack the government in any way he could. Even while in jail, Allison’s popularity along with the Reformist Bloc skyrocketed. He was only in jail for one month until the failed military incursion in Manhattan and Wagenknecht’s subsequent surrender in April. The provisional government that formed in the absence of the Hardliners pardoned all those who were arrested during the Spring Putsch, including Allison. As snap elections were called shortly after, Allison ran as a Socialist Party candidate and won by a slight landslide against opponent Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

### Reign as president

Allison ran on a platform of liberalization, of bringing back old American nostalgia and reforming the Peoples’ Union in the eyes of the old United States. In his first term, Allison’s reforms successfully moved the Peoples’ Union forward, but it would soon slug after. Under the new president, the Peoples’ Union normalized its recognition across the world, even with countries like Canada and Texas, opposed to the very existence of the Union. This increased trade stabilized the consumer and agricultural markets in ways that hadn’t been possible during the existence of the Hardliners. In 1929, riding on this early success, Allison created the Prosperity Campaign, in hopes of erasing the damage the Hardliners created during their rule. Its achievements, however, was wanting. Because of his inability to fix core issues of the Union, it soon began to rock New York at its core once again, and now, by 1936, many are concerned of the state of the Union. Political radicalism seems rampant, and should Allison be unable steer the Union in a different course, some fear a new civil war may already be imminent.