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Women and the Socialist Party in Utah, 1900-1920
Women and the Socialist Party in Utah, 1900-1920
BY JOHN R. SILLITO
Socialism and socialistic ideas have existed in this country in various forms since the earliest days of the republic. American socialism found expression in the Utopian movements of the 1820s, particularly those with a religious orientation; through the establishment of labor and working-class political parties in the 1830s; and with the influx of European immigrants, especially Germans, who brought with them to this country the Socialist and Marxist ideas permeating Europe in the 1840s. For the most part, however, Socialist groups tended to be geographically isolated and ideologically fragmented in the United States during the nineteenth century. The organization of the Knights of Labor and the Socialist Labor party, coupled with the agrarian revolt of the 1870s and 1890s, first significantly challenged the assumptions of American capitalism and set the stage for the creation of a mass national movement for socialism.
The Socialist party of America was born in 1901. During the next two decades it exerted a measurable influence on American politics. At the peak of its strength, in 1912, the party elected 1,200 individuals to state and local office, boasted two members of Congress, and had the support of 300 newspapers throughout the country. That same year Eugene V. Debs (running in the fourth of his five presidential campaigns) received nearly one million votes — 6 percent of the total. Furthermore, as James Weinstein has noted, during this period the Socialist party "had a large following in the trade union movement, and a profound influence on the reformers and reforms of the day."
The Socialist party was an "umbrella organization'' that appealed to a wide group of constituencies. Within the party were found laborers and middle-class reformers, old-stock Americans and newly arrived immigrants, intellectuals and populist organizers, and clergymen and miners. Another component of this Socialist coalition consisted of women who saw the class struggle as a means of seeking not only economic democracy but also equality regardless of sex.
From the beginning, the Socialist party demonstrated a commitment to women's rights. Because of its primary emphasis on electoral politics, it was probably natural that the early thrust of Socialist advocacy for women centered around the issue of suffrage. Until 1912, when both the Progressive party and the Prohibition party endorsed suffrage, the Socialists were the only national political organization unequivocally supporting full voting rights for women. Similar support was not forthcoming from either the Democrats or Republicans until four years later; even then the Republicans hedged by asserting the need for "states' rights" in interpreting qualifications for voting.
The Socialist party's support of suffrage did not, however, indicate a uniform commitment on the part of all Socialists to the larger issue of women's rights. Many Socialist women, arguing that suffrage alone "could not provide equality," complained that an "understanding of women's oppression was not consistent among Socialists" and that consequently "a gulf existed between different Socialists on this subject." These women believed that there was a need for considerable consciousness-raising within the party.
In assessing this condition historian Bruce Dancis has noted:
Socialist women, themselves, divided into two tactical camps. One group argued that the best course for women was to work through autonomous Socialist-feminist organizations outside, but in contact with, the Socialist party. Such a course was necessary, they argued, because women experience a special type of oppression, compounded by their training to ignore political and economic considerations; thus, women required a special effort of Socialist education. An autonomous position was needed also, this group contended, because despite the platform rhetoric, many Socialist men were either hostile or indifferent to women and their needs and considered them political inferiors.
A second group, which advocated working through the Socialist party structure, reasoned that although there was some hostility, there was also support for women among Socialists and that the party offered real opportunity for leadership experience. Calling separate organizations bourgeoise and unappealing to working-class women, the advocates of working within the party argued that since capitalism "made no distinction between the sexes in its treatment of workers, neither should Socialists."
This tactical argument continued until the impetus for solution came in 1907 when an International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart urged all Socialist parties to make "definite provisions for women in their platforms and to work more explicitly in every way for the support of suffrage." Consequently, the 1908 Socialist party convention (which witnessed an increase from eight to nineteen women delegates) endorsed "unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women and also created a Women's National Committee. Party leaders promised adequate staff and finances for the committee, envisioning it as a way to "make intelligent Socialists and suffragists of women and secure their active membership in the Socialist party." From this point on, the role of women in the Socialist party increased substantially in terms of membership, activity, and importance.
Another important step preceding the action of the 1908 convention was the appearance of the periodical Socialist Woman, later called Progressive Woman. Not only did women now have a Socialist journal exclusively dedicated to women's concerns and education, but through state correspondents who reported activities throughout the country the magazine helped to bind the Socialist woman's movement into a national sisterhood. Although officially separate from the Socialist party, the journal helped to bridge the gap between women of the two tactical philosophies.
While these developments occurred nationally, a Socialist movement evolved in Utah as well. Socialist party locals were organized in a score of cities in the state in 1901. During the next twenty years, the Utah Socialist party actively engaged in political contests, electing some seventy-five individuals to a variety of offices throughout the state. Utah was one of only a handful of states, for example, that elected Socialists to the state legislature. And at one time several Utah cities — including Eureka, Mammoth, Murray, Bingham, and Salt Lake — elected full or partial Socialist municipal tickets. The party also received support from organized labor. Many Socialist leaders and candidates were union officials, and the Utah State Federation of Labor endorsed the party in 1910-13.
Socialist women also played roles in the development of the party in Utah. Two female delegates participated in the 1901 state organizing convention. One was Kate S. Hilliard, whose career will be examined later. The other was Ida Crouch-Hazlett, a newspaper reporter from Colorado, former member of the radical Knights of Labor, and a national organizer for the Woman Suffrage Association.
For some time prior to the state convention and apparently on her own initiative, Crouch-Hazlett traveled through southeastern Utah in support of the Socialist party. Consequently, she arrived at the convention claiming 92 proxy votes. In a convention with less than two score delegates, such strength clearly would give her a commanding role. Delegates from Salt Lake were angered and accused Crouch-Hazlett (and Peter Johnson of Murray, who claimed to have 75 proxy votes) of trying to dominate the new party. Undoubtedly, the Salt Lake delegates were also worried about the prospect of losing control over the state organization of the party, a privilege they felt was theirs. Ultimately, they bolted the convention, and the meeting ended with each rival faction claiming to speak for the party in Utah. After appealing to the national secretary, Leon Greenbaum ruled that the convention was "conducted in violation" of the national constitution of the Socialist party. Finally, the difficulties separating Utah Socialists were settled and a state organization was effected. Throughout the history of Socialist activity in Utah, however, conflicts frequently arose over party offices and resources between Salt Lake Socialists and party members elsewhere in the state.
During this period of initial organization, an important development occurred when Lucy Hoving commenced her activity as a Socialist orator and organizer. The International Socialist Review reported in May 1902 that Hoving was "speaking to crowded houses" in both Utah and Idaho.
Lucy Hoving is one of the most interesting of all the Utah Socialist women. Born in Gronigen, Holland, in 1856, she embraced the Mormon faith and emigrated to Utah in 1888. She settled in Logan and attended the Brigham Young Academy. Subsequently, she became a faculty member of that institution. In 1899 she moved to Ogden where she taught in the public schools and later established both a kindergarten and a private training school for teachers.
Hoving graduated from the International School of Social Economy, a correspondence "school for socialism," with some 1,200 students, organized by the colorful Socialist orator and educator Walter Thomas Mills. Coinciding with her conversion to socialism was her apostasy from the LDS faith, although there is no direct evidence to link these two decisions. Shortly after this, Hoving wrote an anti-Mormon tract entitled The X-Rays Turned on Mormonism in which she indicated that she had joined the Mormon church at a time of personal dissatisfaction with the religious denominations around her but that after coming to America and "being initiated into every secret" of Mormonism she grew disenchanted with her faith. She felt that the church was antiintellectual, that it wrongly opposed the theory of evolution, that there was unwarranted LDS influence in politics, and that the church had misused financial contributions. She perceived a gulf between church teachings and practices, alleging that Mormons were extremely materialistic, seeking after the trappings of "honor, position and credit."
These criticisms of the Mormon church are not unique to Lucy Hoving; of more interest and importance in light of her Socialist commitment are her views on the church and women and her assertion of sexism within the LDS faith. Hoving felt that Mormons had lost sight of the fact that "God made man and woman alike" and that men were given "no privileges . . . above the women." Mormon theology, she believed, taught men that they were superior to women and that any opposition to priesthood authority by church members was blasphemy. Such teaching, Hoving asserted, was one way the rank and file Mormon women were kept in subjection. She vented similar anger on polygamy, calling its practice a "throwback to a long-dead animal stage in human history." Labelling the Woodruff Manifesto a "sham," she charged that plural marriages were performed after its issuance with the approval of the hierarchy as well as the membership at large.
The tone of her attack on "priesthood sexism" seems to suggest that Hoving may have seen the Socialist party as the true champion of women's equality. At a time when some Socialist women were arguing that the Socialist party should not be concerned with sexual or family life-styles, Hoving was critical of Mormon polygamy for what she saw as its oppression of women and children and its disruption of family life.
It is also significant that as Lucy Hoving embraced socialism from an anti-Mormon position, other Utah Mormon women championed the Socialist cause while remaining active within their church. In Utah the Socialist party truly brought Mormons, Gentiles, and nonreligious people, both men and women, together in support of a larger cause.
Lucy Hoving's labors in behalf of the Socialist party were cut short. On August 7, 1902, she was struck by a carriage and instantly killed while crossing a street close to her Ogden home.
The lack of consistency among Socialists on women's rights, previously mentioned on a national scale, was also evident in Utah. Some Utah Socialists shared the view of the state party secretary, O. A. Kennedy, who claimed that the efforts of many of the party's "staunchest comrades . . . and best workers" were thwarted by a "hostile home atmosphere." Kennedy quoted some party members as saying they simply got "no encouragement at home regarding . . . party work." Other Utah Socialists probably agreed with local party member John Strongwil, who wrote in a small book called Your Sister's Keeper that "Socialism ... is the preserver of the family [and] teaches reverence for motherhood." Strongwil also asserted that it "was a mother's love" that inspired the Socialist demand "for the full enfranchisement of woman" and the guarantee of "full and equal rights with men."
The impact of women on the Utah Socialist party varied among party locals. Generally speaking, where the party itself was strong, women played an important role. Unquestionably, much of their effort was utilized for traditional women's activities. In 1903, for example, several Socialist women took part as delegates to the state convention. After the meetings were over, they were given the responsibility of fixing dinner for all the delegates. 18 Also, locals organized separate "ladies auxiliaries" or "women's clubs" within the party structure.
One of the most active of these was the Socialist Ladies Club of Eureka. Organized in 1905, the club functioned for over a decade, though much of its emphasis was purely social. On January 9, 1906, for example, the club met with partners at the home of one of the members. The Eureka Reporter noted that "cards and games occupied the attention of the guests until midnight when a delicious luncheon was served."
At the same time, however, the club was also involved in Socialist organization, education, and electoral politics. The group sponsored a lecture series bringing nationally known Socialist speakers to Eureka. In 1907 Mother Jones spoke about her experiences in unionizing coal miners. On another occasion, Luella Twining, a prominent suffragist and delegate to the Socialist International in 1910, spoke on the subject of capitalism as the root cause of prostitution and white slavery. As a part of their organizing work, Eureka's Socialist women were the dominating force in the women's auxiliary of the miners union. During this period, all but ten members of the organization were Socialists.
An important characteristic of Eureka's Socialist women was their ability to work harmoniously together despite their differing religious faiths. Most of the Socialist women of Eureka were LDS, and many were active Mormons who combined their Socialist and labor activity with responsibilities in the Relief Society and Primary organizations. Other Eureka women were active members of other denominations, and still others supported no religious denomination. Yet, the cause of socialism united these women in a sisterhood that transcended what might have been significant barriers.
Statewide, Utah Socialist women also had an outlet for their views through the Women's Department, a regular feature of the Intermountain Worker, the official paper of the Utah Socialist party from 1912 to 1916. Earlier, Kate S. Hilliard, a former newspaper woman, edited the Socialist department of the Ogden Examiner. Eva Smith served as Utah correspondent for the Socialist Woman and other women were subscribers and promoters. Apparently the newspaper was used in Socialist propaganda contacts. Fannie A. Edgar, for example, reported to the editor of the Socialist Woman in 1908: "I picked up twelve names [of potential subscribers] in about an hour. I loaned my copy to a neighbor and got her, to a teacher and got her, and it is still going the rounds."
Most of the activity of Utah Socialist women centered around the daily routine of political organizations. Women frequently served as secretaries of local party groups and shouldered much of the burden of keeping those organizations intact. In Salt Lake City, Isabelle Adamson was the mainstay of the local for many years. Adamson and her husband, Robert, were active Socialists, having joined the party in Eureka, and they continued their affiliation after coming to Salt Lake in 1918. In the early 1920s Mrs. Adamson's efforts were recognized by state secretary O. A. Kennedy who commented to the national secretary that Mrs. Adamson, "a wonderful woman . . . and mother of nine children," was "largely responsible for re-organizing the [local] in Salt Lake City." In less than six months, Kennedy continued, "she has instituted regular monthly meetings" and helped "build the membership up to eighty." Isabelle Adamson continued her Socialist activity for a decade more, and Kennedy reported to the national office in 1931 that she had given up her efforts only because she was "obliged to concentrate on earning a living because of the failure of her husband's health." Other women performed similar duties elsewhere in the state.
As part of their electoral activities, Socialist women were often given the responsibility for "getting out the vote." In the Eureka city election of 1907 members of the Socialist Ladies Club "made a canvass of the town and left circulars with the ticket and platform" at all residences, actively seeking the votes of women. In Ogden during the 1913 municipal elections, the party made a "strong appeal" for women's votes and canvassed specifically during the day when housewives were at home.
Socialist women were also active in Utah as candidates for office. In every election between 1902 and 1920 Socialist state and county tickets contained women candidates. Socialist women were often candidates for offices generally considered to be the bastion of men, including county commissioner, county treasurer, county assessor, state legislator, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction.
Additional insight concerning the women who were attracted to the Socialist party in Utah comes through examining in closer detail individual lives. From data compiled on seventy-five women who were active Socialists serving as either party officers, candidates, or officials of Socialist organizations, some general observations can be made. Roughly 10 percent of the Socialists in Utah were women; most were American-bom ; most were involved in other community and civic organizations. Additionally, the following profile emerges:
MARITAL STATUS RELIGION OCCUPATION
Married 83% LDS 28% Housewife 56% Single 15% Active LDS 15% Teacher 12% Unknown 2% Non-LDS 57% Clerical ... 6% Domestic 6% Writer 6% Other 14%
Although most Utah Socialist women were married housewives, a sizeable number were employed on a part-time or full-time basis outside of the home. Moreover, a significant percentage were Mormons, even active Mormons. This is particularly interesting in view of the fact that during the years these women were active in Socialist politics and church auxiliaries, the LDS church strongly encouraged its members to work within the two major political parties.
A more complete profile of Utah's Socialist sisterhood emerges by examining other aspects of these women's lives. The overwhelming majority of Utah Socialist women pursued the traditional career of wife and mother; however, many were active in women's clubs and in social and service organizations. Several were writers and poets who took an active interest in literary organizations. Still others pursued professional careers as journalists and editors. These women, then, were active at various levels within the community. They were not misfits or malcontents on the periphery of society but tended to be mainstream.
In his book The Decline of Socialism in America, James Weinstein asserts that although the Socialist party "recruited women of all classes and backgrounds," it found its greatest success among three basic groups: middle-class, Protestant women with a history of participation in nineteenth-century movements for women's rights; working-class or frontier farm women who had some contact with the union movement; and immigrant, working-class women "who came to socialism through the sweatshops of the large Eastern industrial centers."
There is little evidence to suggest that Utah Socialist women came from the third category, but information on local women does tend to confirm Weinstein's assertions concerning the first two categories. Representative of the first group are Olivia H. McHugh and Virginia Snow Stephen.
Olivia McHugh was born and raised in Kentucky. After graduating from Kentucky State University and the Sargeant School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts, McHugh worked as a teacher at Randolph Macon Women's College and the Kentucky Institute for the Blind. She also served as director of the Louisville municipal gymnasium.
McHugh moved to Utah in 1910 and settled with her physician husband, Frank, in Murray where both became active members of the Murray Socialist local. In later years she recalled that she "had not even heard of the Socialist party" until coming to Murray but was attracted to it because the town had an effective Socialist administration. This administration had built "a municipally owned power-plant which was one of the most efficient in the country."
Additionally, the McHughs were attracted to the Socialist banner because they were "young, idealistic, and sympathetic to the plight of the working class." Both McHughs were candidates for office; Frank as the party's nominee for governor in 1912 and Olivia as candidate for superintendent of public instruction in both 1912 and 1914. In reviewing these campaigns, some sixty years later, Olivia McHugh recalled:
Olivia was, in fact, active in a number of civic organizations, including the Ladies Literary Club, the League of Utah Writers, the Salt Lake County Medical Association Auxiliary, and others. She was also a member of the Unitarian church in Salt Lake City.
In 1915 the McHughs' lives were touched by the case of Joe Hill, the legendary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) songwriter and organizer whose execution in Utah became a cause celebre in American labor history. Frank McHugh was the physician who treated Joe Hill for gunshot wounds the same night that Salt Lake City grocer John G. Morrison and his son Arling were murdered. Ultimately, Hill was executed for that crime. In later years Olivia speculated that Hill probably came to her husband for aid because he had seen him at Socialist meetings in Murray (where Hill was living at the time with the Eselius family, who were also patients of McHugh) and felt that since the physician had Socialist sympathies he would not report the incident or charge him for medical services. Actually, it was McHugh who tipped off the Murray police after reading of the Morrison murders the next day in the newspaper.
The same year as the Hill case, Olivia helped organize the Utah branch of the Woman's Peace party. Like her counterparts nationally, she shared the goals of preventing American involvement in the war and supporting the use of neutral mediators to bring about an end to the European conflict. Once America officially entered the war, however, McHugh — like many other women in the WPP — supported the country's efforts in World War I. Similarly, she broke with the Socialist party, as did a number of others, when it continued to oppose American participation after Congress declared war in April 1917. From that time forward Olivia McHugh dropped her affiliation with the Socialist party, although she was attracted to the presidential candidacy of Socialist nominee Norman Thomas a decade later.
Also touched by the Joe Hill case was Virginia Snow Stephen. Born in Brigham City in 1864, Virginia was the daughter of Mormon apostle (and later church president) Lorenzo Snow and one of his polygamous wives, Mary Elizabeth Houtz. Despite her parentage, Virginia evidenced only minimal ties in her adult years to the LDS faith.
After graduating from the University of Deseret with a normal degree, Virginia returned to Brigham City where she taught school. In 1892 she married Jay R. Stephen and moved to Salt Lake City where she again taught school and studied art. At the time of the arrest of Joe Hill, Mrs. Stephen was a member of the Art Department faculty at the University of Utah. By this time she had become a Socialist and a staunch opponent of capital punishment. She believed that even in the case of murder the community had no right to "commit a worse murder" by taking a criminal's life. She argued, "if it is evil to kill in the heat of passion, is it not a double evil to kill by a supine community consent called law?"
At the same time, Stephen became particularly interested in the struggle of the working class to obtain justice under the United States legal system. She scoffed at the idea that poor or working people could obtain equal justice under capitalist law, particularly in cases involving working women. In a letter to a friend, she commented that conditions existing in Salt Lake City at the time convinced her of that unlikelihood.
Her deepening Socialist awareness led Stephen to cooperate with various groups and individuals seeking change in the status quo, though she was apparently a supporter and not a joiner of these organizations. In explaining her political views, she noted that there were many changes needed in society and that she wanted to be affiliated with efforts to secure those changes. Aware that such activity might lead to censure, she commented:
Virginia Snow Stephen's commitment to socialism, opposition to capital punishment, and support of equal justice for working people, received considerable attention after her identification with Joe Hill. Initially she became involved in the case because of her radical sympathies as well as her friendship with Ed Rowan, an IWW member and an activist in the Joe Hill Defense Committee in Salt Lake. Stephen conferred personally with Hill while he was in the Salt Lake County jail. She came away convinced that he was not capable of committing the crime for which he had been charged. Relating these views, she gained a high profile in the local press, which found it "good copy" that a faculty member at the university, as well as a daughter of a prominent Mormon, would even associate with Joe Hill, let alone champion his innocence.
Stephen again appeared in the press when she took an active part in the funeral services of Roy J. Horton, an IWW member shot and killed in an argument in downtown Salt Lake City, by a former police officer named H. P. Myton. An IWW funeral was conducted for Horton at which Stephen sang, played accompaniment for the IWW songs used as funeral hymns, and spoke. In her eulogy she called Horton's death "industrial murder" and a part of the "class struggle of the wage slaves against their masters." Statements such as this, combined with her support for Hill and for radical causes generally, reached the attention of the university's Board of Regents, angering some of the members. At its meeting of October 7, 1915, the board decided that Mrs, Stephen would not be rehired for the 1916-17 school year. The regents intended that this action not be reported until later because they feared reprisals from the IWW and others, particularly since the decision took place during the height of efforts to obtain a stay of Hill's execution which was scheduled for November. However, one regent mentioned the action of the board to a friend; their conversation was overheard by a newspaper reporter and made public.
Stephen called the university's move "unprecedented" and part of an effort to "discredit" her for the remainder of her tenure at the university. She further asserted that the regents were not only upset by her support for Hill but had charged her with attending "an anarchist meeting in New York and assisting in research work regarding the condition of working girls in Utah."
The board's concern about reprisal did not materialize, and eventually Stephen was discharged. After leaving the university she continued to be affiliated with the IWW and was active in promoting the rights of women workers.
In 1916 Stephen married IWW organizer Constantine Filigno, and the couple moved to Walnut Creek, California. Virginia continued to take an active interest in current events, education, and literature, accumulating an extensive library in her home. She often traveled to Los Angeles to visit libraries and educational institutions. She died in Walnut Creek in the early 1950s.
Virginia Snow Stephen and Olivia H. McHugh represent the first category of women identified by James W'einstein. Both were middleclass, college trained, professional women who advocated women's rights. Both were active in artistic, literary, and educational circles. They differed in that although each considered herself to be a Socialist, McHugh was a member of the Socialist party while Stephen seems to have never officially affiliated with that group.
The Socialist women of Eureka, many of whom were wives of miners, and were active in both the Socialist party and the women's auxiliaries of the miners union, represent the second group of women Weinstein identifies. Another Utah woman representative of this category is Kate S. Hilliard. Born in Illinois in 1854, Hilliard moved to Ogden in 1886 with her husband, Reuben, a railroad worker. Shortly after the Hilliards settled in Ogden, Kate became involved with the Utah Woman Suffrage Association and actively promoted suffrage until its was granted by the Utah Constitutional Convention. During the same years, she also edited the Ogden Times, a newspaper supportive of woman suffrage.
In 1895 Hilliard allied with the Populist party, serving as secretary of the state Populist convention and as a member of the party's national committee representing Utah. In 1900 she left the Populists and joined the newly formed Social Democratic party, having concluded that "until socialism triumphs" there would be two classes, "the capitalist class and the working class whose interests constantly clash."
Hilliard's conversion to socialism was well received by the leadership of the Social Democratic party. The editor of the party newspaper, A. B. Edler, commented that Hilliard's shift in allegiance was "a bright example for other Populists to follow." A year later, as previously noted, Hilliard took an active part in the formation of the Socialist party of Utah and was recognized by the press as one of its leaders.
Hilliard also participated in the affairs of the Ogden Socialist local. She served as editor of the "Socialist Department," a regular feature of the Ogden Standard-Examiner in the years prior to World War I. During those years she took part in the routine work of the Ogden local, serving as a member of the education committee and in other capacities.
Though the details of Hilliard's life are sketchy, it appears that she was largely self-educated. She was quite well-read, had a good knowledge of Marxist and Socialist writings, and was a talented and effective speaker. Her socialism was militant and strongly grounded in Marxist thought. She believed that the working class needed to be taught that they were "economic serfs" whose lives were dictated by the capitalist class, "controlled and dominated by corporations, unjust courts, and the paraphernalia of our so-called [political] representatives." Only when the workers united as one, Hilliard maintained, would they gain "the right of their class to the earth . . . and a full and and free life for all."
Hilliard was also active in the affairs of the Utah Federation of Women's Clubs, serving as state organizer in 1902. She believed that Socialist women should "organize a Social Economic Club" and join the federation because it represented the best way to "spread the word" about socialism among Utah women.
In assessing Hilliard's commitment to socialism, it is clear that her attitudes were strongly influenced by her feminist views. In this context, she saw socialism as the force that would ultimately lead to true emancipation for women because, she believed, it was based "on a code of ethics which spells justice without regard to sex."
Hilliard's views were similar to those of Lucy Hoving regarding the relationship of organized religion to women. Hoving specifically criticized Mormon "priesthood sexism," but Hilliard felt that the teachings of religion were generally a major stumbling block in the path of women. In an address given at the First Congregational Church in Ogden in 1908 she summarized her views:
Hilliard also criticized organized religion because it was not "concerned with the problems of this world" and served as a major impediment to the emancipation of the working class." The church had forgotten, she asserted, that Christ was a "revolutionist" who sought to "overthrow the power of the priesthood" in secular and economic affairs. Noting that although there were scattered clerics "here and there" who raised individual voices against the evils of the present-day economic system, she claimed that the church as a whole was "either silent or against the efforts of the working class to free itself from wage slavery." Indeed, without the support of the church, Hilliard believed, the "whole system [of capitalist exploitation] . . . would go down to destruction as it should."
Another important concern for Hilliard was antimilitarism and the prevention of American involvement in World War I. She believed that "economic necessity" was the cause of all wars, but that this fact had purposely been "concealed or obscured" from the working class by "historians, teachers, writers, the church, and the powers that be" because it was not in their best interest "to acknowledge the truth."
Moreover, Hilliard shared the sentiments of many Socialists, both in the United States and in Europe, that the interests of the working class would not be served by workers taking up arms in imperialist wars. Consequently, workers should reject the call by the "capitalist class" to join the armed services on the basis of national patriotism:
After this period of time, Kate Hilliard's activities as a Socialist are somewhat obscure. At one point she left the Socialist party and affiliated with the Socialist Labor party, a group critical of support for such "bourgeoise" organizations as the Utah Federation of Women's Clubs. In 1912 she was the nominee of the Utah Socialist Labor party for secretary of state, polling some 405 votes. Neither she or her husband, Reuben, were listed in either the Salt Lake City or Ogden directory after 1914.
It is evident, then, that Utah women have pursued radical political goals in ways parallel to the Socialist movement nationally. Within the structure of the Socialist party, and outside its perimeters, women sought a fundamentally different social, economic, and political system and a better life for themselves and their children. Most were also committed to freeing women from the oppressive elements in the status quo. Some, such as Lucy Hoving and Kate Hilliard, equated the patriarchal systems of organized religion (specifically the Mormon church) as both a cause and defender of the economic and social repression of women. Other women fought for a Socialist society from within the church itself. Some women, like Virginia Stephen, sought fundamental change while avoiding ties to particular political organizations, but most joined the Socialist party.
Even though the Socialist party and its individual members, both nationally and in Utah, espoused the goal of equality for women, the role of women within the Socialist party was not much different from that of women in the Republican or Democratic party. Roughly 10 percent of Utah Socialists were women. Few women held important party offices; nor were they usually candidates for major political offices. Often Socialist women were delegated the "women's work"— cooking and secretarial duties. Nevertheless, these women worked to bring about a Socialist society which, they believed, would not only emancipate the working class but bring an end to the oppression particular to women.
Meanwhile, most of Utah's Socialist sisterhood pursued traditional activities as wives, teachers, club members, and church workers. Socialism was but one aspect of their lives. Unfortunately, little documentation is available to place that element within its proper context. The role of women in the Socialist party should not be overstated; it was clearly a supportive role modified in many ways by male attitudes and societal convention. In fact, contemporary women are now engaged in similar struggles to gain equity within every political party as well as in the factory, mine, or church. The rhetoric of Utah's Socialist sisterhood is as relevant as today's newspaper. For this reason, among others, the role of women in radical politics in Utah should be noted as a colorful thread in Utah's political fabric, which weaves connections between the past and the present.
The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this State shall enjoy equally all civil, political and religious rights and privileges.
Article IV, Section 1 Utah State Constitution 1896
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