1. Biographical material on Bliss may be found in Dressner, Richard B., “Christian Socialism: A Response to Industrial America in the Progressive Era” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1972), pp. 24–131;Google ScholarWebber, Christopher L., “William Dwight Porter Bliss (1856–1926): Priest and Socialist,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 38 (03, 1959): 9–39;Google ScholarGhent, William J., “William Dwight Porter Bliss,” in Dictionary of American Biography, 1, 377–378;Google ScholarDombrowski, James, The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America (New York, 1936);Google ScholarHopkins, Charles Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865–1915 (New Haven, 1940);Google ScholarMay, Henry F., Protestant Churches in Industrial America (New York, 1949);Google ScholarMann, Arthur, Yankee Reformers in the Urban Age: Social Reform in Boston, 1880–1900 (New York, 1956);Google ScholarQuint, Howard H., The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement (Columbia, South Carolina, 1953);Google Scholar and Gabriel, Ralph Henry, The Course of American Democratic Thought (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

2. Henry D. Lloyd to Thomas Morgan, July 11, 1895, quoted in Quint, , Forging of American Socialism, p. 125.Google Scholar

3. Gilman, Nicholas Paine, “Christian Socialism in America,” Unitarian Review 32 (10, 1889): 351.Google Scholar

4. Quint, , Forging of American Socialism, p. 261.Google Scholar

5. Dombrowski, , Early Days of Christian Socialism, p. 29.Google Scholar The most recent indictment of Bliss, precisely for his inability to resolve the dilemma between idealistic ends and practical means, is Frederick, Peter J., Knights of the Golden Rule: The Intellectual as Christian Social Reformer in the 1890s (Lexington, 1976) pp. 81–98.Google Scholar See my review of Frederick's, study in Ohio History 87 (1978).Google Scholar

6. Mann, , Yankee Reformers, p. 90.Google Scholar

7. Among his other activities, Bliss was instrumental in creating one of the first social reform organizations in the Episcopal Church, the Church Association for the Advancement of Labor; he founded and operated a settlement house and inner-city mission in Boston; he established the first Christian Socialist society in America, editing its journal, the Dawn; he was the organizer and travelling secretary of the Christian Social Union; he edited the American Fabian and organized the Boston Fabian Society; he compiled a fourteen hundred page Encyclopedia of Social Reform; and he worked with Josiah Strong preparing studies in Social Christianity. Since his involvement in almost all of these activities reveals a similar reform strategy, the criteria for selection included a desire to present a diversity of activities covering a significant period of time as well as the availability of sources.

8. Dawn 3 (03 26, 1891): 2.Google Scholar

9. “Christian Socialism,” Bliss, ed., The New Ernyclopedia of Social Reform (New York. 1908), p. 198.Google Scholar

10. Dombrowski, in particular, is susceptible to this indictment.

11. See Smith, H. Shelton, Handy, Robert T., and Loetscher, Lefferts A., American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents (New York, 1963),Google Scholar II, Chapter 17, “Christocentric Liberal Tradition,” pp. 255–308; and Brown, C. G., “Christocentric Liberalism in the Episcopal Church,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 38 (03, 1968): 5–38.Google Scholar

12. “Christ and Social Reform,” “Christian Socialism,” and “The Bible and Social Reform,” in Bliss's Encydopedia of Social Reform (New York, 1897), pp. 155–156, 244, and 259.Google Scholar

13. “The Divine International, or; “The Church and the Labor Problem,” American Federationist 1 (08, 1894): 119.Google Scholar

14. “Christian Socialism,” Encyclopcdia, p. 259.Google Scholar

15. Bliss, , ed., A Handbook of Socialism (“A Statement of Socialism in its Various Aspects, and A History of Socialism in All Countries, Together with Statistics, Biographical Notes on Prominent Socialists, Bibliography, Calendar, Chronological Table and Chart”) (London, 1895), p. 1.Google Scholar

16. “What To Do Now,” Dawn 2 (07–08, 1890): 112–113.Google Scholar

17. Dawn 1 (08 15, 1889): 1–2.Google Scholar

18. Quoted in “Comrade Bliss,” Workmen's Advocate 6 (05 3, 1890).Google Scholar The subtitle of the article reporting Bliss's speech on “Profit-sharing a Capitalistic Dodge to Reduce Wages,” is revealing: “Honest Man and Scientific Socialist: The Pharisees, who wouJd not Hear Him, will Now Hear Him—Crowded Audiences Applaud his Courage and Receive his Teachings.”

19. Dawn I (09 15, 1889): 4;Google Scholar“Single Tax, ” Encyclopedia, pp. 1250–1255.Google Scholar

20. “Cooperation,” Encyclopedia, p. 360.Google Scholar

21. Dawn 2 (05, 1890): 36.Google Scholar

22. Dawn 3 (06, 1891): 1.Google Scholar

23. Dawn 3 (12, 1891): 1.Google Scholar

24. Dawn 3 (02 12, 1891): 1.Google Scholar

25. Bliss, , “The Church of the Carpenter and Thirty Years After,” Social Preparationfor the Kingdom of God 9 (01, 1922): 13.Google Scholar

26. Dawn 3 (10, 1891): 2.Google Scholar

27. Dawn 6 (03, 1894): 4.Google Scholar

28. American Fabian 1 (02, 1895): 8.Google Scholar

29. One member of the party who became the target of De Leon's efforts was Herbert Casson, a Methodist clergyman who had founded the labor church at Lynn, Massachusetts. Casson's expulsion followed his objections to the party's emphasis on what he termed the “exploitation of the proletariat,” and his advocacy of a socialist-Populist labor alliance. Quint, , Forging of American Socialism, p. 168.Google Scholar

30. American Fabian 1 (12, 1895): 6.Google Scholar

31. Pease's, letter is in American Fabian, 2 (07, 1896): 7.Google ScholarBliss's, long reply, entitled, “Why Socialists Should Vote for Mr. Bryan,” is in American Fabian 2 (10, 1896): 1–11.Google Scholar

32. American Fabian 3 (03, 1897): 14.Google Scholar The revisionist scholarship of Norman Pollack on midwestern Populism, while not completely convincing, suggests the need for a reexamination of the radical nature of the general reform movement in the 1890's. The anticapitalist programs of the Populists and of the Socialists were strikingly similar, though no lines of communication existed between the two movements. In effect, Pollack posits a radical program indigenous to America revealing patterns similar to the anticapitalist movements in Europe, but developing independently from a parallel economic and social context. Pollack, , The Populist Response to Industrial America (Cambridge, 1962).Google Scholar

33. Bliss, , “The Church of the Carpenter and Thirty Years After,” p. 14.Google Scholar

34. Ibid.

35. Bliss to Lloyd, Alhambra, California, January 10, 1899, Henry Demarest Lloyd Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

36. Dombrowski, Early Days, Ch. 12.

37. The Social Gospel 2 (04, 1899): 14–17.Google Scholar

38. Bliss to Lloyd, Roslindale, Mass., March 18, 1895, Lloyd Papers.

39. Bliss to Lloyd, Roslindale, Mass., April 16, 1895, Lloyd Papers.

40. Lloyd to Bliss, Winnetka, Ill., May 4, 1895, Lloyd Papers.

41. Bliss to Lloyd, Boston, May 28, 1895, Lloyd Papers.

42. Bliss to Lloyd, Roslindale, Mass., July 17, 1895, Lloyd Papers. Italics are Bliss's.

43. Bliss to Lloyd, Roslindale, Mass., July 17, 1895, Lloyd Papers.

44. See Lloyd, Harry, “The National Educational and Economic League,” The American Fabian 1 (11, 1895): 11–12.Google Scholar

45. Quint, Forging of American Socialism; Webber, “William Dwight Porter Bliss”; and Frederick, Peter Jerome, “European Influences on the Awakening of the American Social Conscience, 1886–1904” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1966).Google Scholar

46. Handy, Robert T., “Christianity and Socialism in America, 1900–1920,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 21 (03, 1952): 39–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Christian Socialist 7 (05 1, 1910): 7.Google Scholar

48. Quoted in Hopkins, , The Rise of the Social Gospel, p. 236.Google Scholar For the CSF see also Handy, “Christianity and Socialism in America, 1900–1920”; White, Eliot, “The Christian Socialist Fellowship,” The Arena, 41 (01, 1909): 47–52;Google Scholar“Christian Brotherhood,” The Outlook, 90 (10 10, 1908): 297;Google Scholar and Spargo, John, “Christian Socialism in America,” The American Journal of Sociology 15 (07, 1909): 16–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. Thompson served as Information Secretary of the Party, and Wilson was elected socialist mayor of Berkeley, California.

50. Christian Socialist 3 (07 1, 1906): 41.Google Scholar

51. Ibid. pp. 5, 8.

52. Ibid. 5 (July 1, 1908): 5.

53. Ibid. 6 (April 1, 1909): 5.

54. Bliss could have reminded his audience of the case of Reverend Algernon Sidney Crapsey, a priest of the Episcopal Church whose expulsion, though deriving from his radical views, was attributed to theological heresy. Crapsey, , The Last of the Heretics (New York, 1924).Google Scholar

55. The proposal adopted at Toledo stated: “Recognizing that the social message of Jesus applied in an age of machine production means Socialism, we declare the objects of our Fellowship to be: To proclaim Socialism to churches and other religious organizations; to show the necessity of Socialism to the complete triumph of Christianity; to end the class struggle by establishing industrial and political democracy, and to hasten the reign of justice and brotherhood—the Kingdom of God on earth.” Henceforth, active members would be those who were Christians and Socialists and agreed to the above Statement. Associate members were those who were in sympathy with the statement. Christian Socialist 6 (04 1, 1909),Google Scholar and Ibid. 7 (May 15, 1910).

56. Ibid. 7 (May 1, 1910): land Ibid. 7 (June 1, 1910): 1–3.

57. Bliss, , “The Social Faith of the Holy Catholic Church,” Christian Socialist 8 (11 19, 1911): 9–12.Google Scholar

58. “General Treasurer Bliss's Lecture Trip,” Christian Socialist 8 (06 13, 1911): 3.Google Scholar

59. In his recent study of political religion in America, Professor Cushing Strout accurately notes that his “double concern for theology and practice made it difficult for Bliss to steer a single course, because he could not simply equate socialism with Christianity.” Strout, , The New Heavero and New Earth: Political Religion in America (New York, 1974), p. 238.Google Scholar

60. Handy, Robert, “George D. Herron and the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1850–1901” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1949), pp. 106–107.Google Scholar

61. Quoted in Ibid., p. 101.