That year, Victor Berger also became the first socialist elected to Congress. He and his fellow socialists in city government — including his personal secretary, the poet Carl Sandburg — instituted dozens of measures to improve their constituents’ lives. The most widely admired trait of the sewer socialists was their integrity. But Democrats and Republicans joined forces to run a single candidate against Seidel, and he and most of the city’s elected socialists were defeated in 1912. One Milwaukee socialist who survived, however, was Daniel Hoan, the city attorney, who was not up for re-election that year.

Source: New York Times October 19, 2019 18:22 UTC