WAS HOUDINI A SOCIALIST?

A politically-themed cigar box from Houdini's era. Socialist? Probably. From the Tony Hyman Cigar History collection.

Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign is tearing up the countryside and his upfront socialism is a red-hot topic. There’s a video running on Facebook, from A&J Media, that claims many prominent Americans were socialists, including our friend Harry Houdini.

(Video link here.)

The Facebook video says Harry was a socialist at 1:40 into the clip.

We’d never heard that one before so we've been investigating. And guess what - it’s plausible! We can't say for sure that Harry was a socialist, but we can say with certainty that he had more than average exposure to left-wing doctrines.

Nine-year old Ehrich Weiss probably had his first brush with socialism as a newsboy in Milwaukee - America’s first socialist city. There was a German language Socialist daily newspaper in Milwaukee, and one of the editors of the Milwaukee Sentinel was himself a socialist leader. 

Click to enlarge.

On May 7, 1886 young Harry hawked the newspapers that reported the Bay View Massacre, in which striking Milwaukee steelworkers were fired upon by a squad of National Guardsmen under orders from the Wisconsin Governor. Seven strikers were killed. Thereafter, Milwaukee elected a long string of socialist mayors until the last one stepped down in 1960!

Milwaukee’s socialist tradition resulted from a wave of emigration after 1848, by German and German-Jewish intellectuals who were hounded out of Austria-Hungary by the Hapsburgs. These included Harry’s father and his two uncles, Herman Schonberger and Simon Newman, who married the sisters of Harry’s mother.

According to New York City voter registration records,  at least one of Harry’s cousins, Harry Newman, son of his Aunt Rose, voted Socialist.

His father, Simon, was combatively litigious, and also engaged in some hardball organized labor tactics. He had gone into the yeast business, where he formed a company called Atlantic Yeast. He was so successful that his rival, Fleischmann’s, tried to buy him out. When he refused, Fleischmann took him to court, trying and failing to sue him for trademark infringement.

From the court documents in Fleischmann v. Newman

Newman then retaliated. The details are somewhat murky, but according to court records Newman, under the banner of the socialist Central Labor Federation, organized yeast delivery drivers to boycott bakeries that used his rivals’ products.

Harry’s other uncle, Herman Schonberger, was a cigar maker. He employed ten cigar rollers at Factory 414 on East 118th Street in Harlem. 

Typical 1880s cigar factory. © Tony Hyman

The cigar business was at the epicenter of American socialist activity. Samuel Gompers, a leader of the New York City cigar makers' union, became first president of the American Federation of Labor, now the AFL/CIO.

Harry's been quoted as saying "Politics is a game where everyone loses." He was also a friend and admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, that socialistically-minded Republican. Would he be voting for Bernie Sanders today? We're pretty sure he would NOT be backing Donald Trump.

                                               




RELATED:

NEW LIGHT ON HOUDINI'S CHILDHOOD

HOUDINI'S FORGOTTEN YEARS

HOUDINI & ROOSEVELT






[Images: Tony Hyman, Cigar History Museum, Google]