Not social work, but socialist work was the toil of Charles Ruthenberg in his early adulthood. At 26 years of age, he took the pledge at a Socialist Party meeting in January of 1909. That summer, he gave street-corner soap-box speeches on socialist principles, including the need to secure rights for laborers, women, and racial minorities. Somewhat self-conscious and halting as a speaker, he nevertheless demonstrated the knowledge, earnestness, and commitment that qualified him to head the Socialist ticket as a mayoral candidate in 1911 and a gubernatorial candidate in 1912. Ruthenberg used the power of his campaign to publicize the corruption of capitalist politics and to endorse the struggles of striking workers. Although he lost both elections, Ohioans cast more socialist votes in 1912 than any other state, and Ruthenberg’s tally for the governorship was only a little less than the 89,930 for Eugene Debs’ presidential candidacy. As organizer and secretary of Local Cleveland, Ruthenberg focused in 1913 on the induction of new class-conscious party members and mass circulation of leaflets informing the public of socialist platforms. Late in that year, he was arrested for the first time at one of his street-corner speeches; though he was released without charge, this event marked the beginning of his meteoric ascent in the public consciousness – and police vigilance.[21]
Perhaps nothing propelled that ascent more than Ruthenberg’s mobilization of public opinion in favor of worker strikes and in opposition to “imperialist wars.” In 1914 (the same year that Anita Whitney joined the Socialist Party, after having witnessed the vicious treatment of organizers for the International Workers of the World), Ruthenberg initiated a state-wide crusade on behalf of Ohio coal miners. In the very week that World War I broke out in Europe, he mounted a demonstration in Cleveland attended by 3,000 people who roared on his rebuke of war launched by capitalist profiteers. “Capitalism,” he charged, “is fighting to replace democracy in this country with a military machine.”[22] And Ruthenberg was prepared to fight back for the minds and bodies of Americans who might listen to his provocative rhetoric.[23]
