LETTER: Typed letter signed, on socialism; with Scudder's book, Socialism and Character.
Comrade Helen Keller
Keller, Helen. Typed letter signed to Vida Scudder, Wrentham, Massachusetts, 1912; one leaf, recto only, signed in pencil.
Together with:
Scudder, Vida. Socialism and Character.
The letter, reflecting the hearty warmth of Keller’s socialist leanings, reads in full:
Dear Miss Scudder: I am indeed pleased to have your book with your cordial greeting. I am proud to be your comrade in the great struggle that shall throw open for all men the gates which lead to freedom, light and joy. I look forward for reading “Socialism and Character” as one of the pleasures of the summer.
Mrs. Macy and I are leaving for the Alleghany mountains where we shall spend two months, and I shall take your book with me. Then, beside the peace and beauty of the mountains, I shall have the inspiration of higher ideals to follow. I shall glow with anticipations of days to come when we shall no more “have reason to lament,” but rather or rejoice in “what man has made of man.” I hope you will have a pleasant, restful summer.
With warm greetings, I am, Sincerely your comrade, Helen Keller.
The year after Keller sent this letter, a columnist in the Socialist Party daily, The Call, wrote in praise of Comrade Keller: “If ever there was a superwoman that woman is Helen Keller. By her indomitable will she wrought a miracle, and when one ponders over her achievements, the brain is dazzled by the possibilities of the human mind. To us Socialist Helen Keller ought to be doubly precious, for she is our Comrade – let us glory in that” (May 4, 1913 ).
Keller joined the Socialist Party in 1909 and,
by 1912, she had become a national voice for socialism and working class solidarity. Her articles and speeches take on a harder edge as the war machine gears up and the reformist tendency in the Socialist Party forced a split with its revolutionary wing. We can see her calling for party unity in 1913, and then breaking publically with reformism and siding wholeheartedly with the IWW in 1916 and taking up the struggle against President Wilson’s hypocritical war machine.
Keller’s socialist activism continued through World War I until 1921. “With the collapse of the Socialist Party's commitment to revolution and the on-going persecution of the IWW, Keller lost her connections to the workers movement and became increasingly isolated among reformers and government bureaucrats who did not share her political perspectives." (The Socialist Legacy of Helen Keller)
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