Good morning.
Whitewater’s Tuesday brings a slight chance of rain or snow – no accumulation expected – and a high of thirty-nine.
This afternoon, Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:15 PM.
There’s an entry today from the Wisconsin about Victor Louis Berger, born on 2.28.1860:
On this date Victor Louis Berger was born in Nieder-Rehbach, Austria-Hungary. He arrived in the U.S. in 1878 where he became a Socialist, newspaperman, and Congressman. He migrated to Milwaukee in 1881 where he taught German. In the 1880s he became interested in social reform.
In 1889, along with like-minded German socialists, he abandoned the Socialist Labor party in favor of a more flexible approach to reform. In 1893 he became editor of the Wisconsin Vorwaerts, a Milwaukee-based German-language daily. He was also editor of the Social Democratic Herald from 1901-1902. Berger was instrumental in influencing Eugene V. Debs to declare in favor of socialism. He assisted Debs in forming the Social Democracy of America in 1897. Berger was the first Socialist representative to be elected to Congress, serving 1911-1913. He was known as the spiritual leader of Milwaukee socialism.
In January 1919 he was convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Society has published several books by or about Berger that you can learn about on our publications page. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, SHSW 1960, pg. 33]
The Wisconsin Historical Society entry is unintentionally misleading for want of a full explanation – Berger wasn’t convicted for spying for a foreign power under the Espionage Act, but for his anti-war views. The Espionage Act made criminal anti-war speech that would be protected – and should be protected – today. In any event, his conviction was overturned, and he served in Congress in the 1920s. Wikipedia has an entry for Berger that offers more biographical information.
I’ve no support for Berger’s socialism, but he was hardly a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm.
Google’s daily puzzle is one of American constitutional history: “Had the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution been passed prior to the 1801 electoral tie, which candidate would’ve been out of a job?”