Karsner, Traubel, Debs and Trouble

by David Karsner, Eugene V. Debs, Ruth Le Prade, Ronald J. Leach (Introduction)

Overview

This ebook is about the subject of socialism in America and, especially, the American Socialist Party. It includes the work of David Karsner, a leading socialist. It also includes some works of Eugene V. Debs, perhaps the best-known of the nineteenth and early twentieth century socialists today, and a frequent candidate for United States president. It describes a popular movement that had considerable national and international support at a time of considerable financial problems, including panics and bank failures, as well as labor unrest. The ebook also contains considerable information on Horace Traubel, a socialist colleague and friend of both David Karsner and Eugene V. Debs.

This volume contains seven books:
Talks with Debs in Terre Haute (and letters from Lindlahr), by David Karsner
?Debs, his Authorized Life and Letters From Woodstock Prison to Atlanta, by David Karsner
Debs Goes to Prison, by David Karsner
Horace Traubel: His Life and Work, by David Karsner
Labor and Freedom: The Voice and Pen of Eugene V. Debs, by Eugene V. Debs
Debs and the Poets, by Ruth Le Prade
Against Fusion, by Eugene V. Debs

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015824469
Publisher:	AfterMath
Publication date:	12/01/2012
Series:	Baltimore Authors , #13
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	971 KB

About the Author

David Karsner was born on March 13, 1889 in Baltimore, Maryland. Evidently, the family was of some means at the time he was born, since President Benjamin Harrison had appointed his father to the lucrative post of general appraiser of the Port of Baltimore. Unfortunately, due to the untimely death of his parents, he was living in an orphan asylum by the end of 1900.

David Karsner began his newspaper career at the early age of seventeen by covering the stock yards of Chicago. During this period he befriended Sinclair Lewis, who was doing research for his famous book The Jungle, that is also available in AfterMath’s Baltimore Authors series. While in Chicago Karsner made the acquaintance of a number of socialist-leaning intellectuals, including Upton Sinclair, Jack London, and Carl Sandburg. Their discussions led the previously orphaned Karsner to become an advocate of socialism and to join the American Socialist Party.

Karsner later worked on the New York Tribune, The Philadelphia Ledger, the New York Daily News, the New York Post and the socialist paper, the New York Call. He also wrote a column on the demise of American Socialism in the form of an obituary. Karsner joined the editorial board of the New York Call as the editor that publication's weekend magazine section before becoming the managing editor. One of the major stories covered by Karsner during his time at The New York Call was the 1918 mass trial of 166 members of the Industrial Workers of the World.

In April 1923 Karsner resigned from the financially struggling New York Call in protest over the paper's decision to publish a critique of Russia that had been written by a member of the British secret service. Eventually, he became disaffected with what he considered to be the increasingly conservative trend of the Socialist Party, and turned to writing non-fiction, authoring biographies of President Andrew Jackson and the abolitionist, John Brown.

In addition to being a well-known socialist, David Karsner is remembered today as a writer of biographies. His 1932 best seller, Silver Dollar, told the story of Horace Austin Warner Tabor (1830-1899), who made a fortune in silver but was ruined by adventures in the gold market.