Early years

Walter Thomas Mills — he was known by his contemporaries by his full name — was born May 11, 1856, in Duane, New York, the son of a Quaker farmer, Charles Mills, and his wife, Mahetabel Ladd Mills.^[1] The family moved to Iowa when Walter was a boy and he worked at a variety of jobs in his youth to save up enough money to put himself through college.^[1]

Mills was a graduate of Oberlin College, a liberal arts school in Oberlin, Ohio, where he earned his bachelor's degree. He went on to earn a master's degree from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, in 1898.^[1]

After finishing his education, Mills became active in the cause of alcoholic prohibition, a cause which forced him to think about social issues in a large context. As a result of reading and introspection about such matters, Mills turned his attention to socialism in the 1880s.^[1] Together with the Rev. A.J. Jutkins in 1886 Mills launched a Chicago magazine called The Statesman: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Problems of Practical Politics, Co-Operative Industry, and Self-Help.^[2] His first book, The Science of Politics, was published by Funk and Wagnalls one year later.^[3]

Driven by his beliefs to public speaking on political themes, Mills soon developed oratorical expertise which was acknowledged by political friends and enemies alike. This reputation as a vigorous platform speaker, combined with Mills' shortness of stature — he stood just 4 feet and 6 inches (1.37 meters) tall^[1] — lead some detractors to mockingly refer to Mills as "The Little Giant," a twisted reference to Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Presidential debate opponent Stephen A. Douglas.

Political career

Mills was initially involved in a series of socialist-themed educational and living schemes of dubious soundness. He organized a so-called People's University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, in the first years of the 20th century, soliciting funds and then exiting the project immediately before its collapse.^[4] He repeated this basic plan in Kansas City, Missouri, renting a cavernous building on adjacent to the city's stockyards, furnishing it at great expense, soliciting annual subscriptions to a publication called The Socialist Teacher, and then quitting the project after just three months.^[4]

Mills was similarly involved in colony schemes in Michigan, Kansas City, and Colorado, all of which drew cash infusions from outside investors before failing in short order.^[4]

Regardless of whether his series of economic catastrophes was by design or bad luck, the skilled orator Mills was anxiously sought as a public speaker on socialist themes throughout the country, usually under the auspices of states controlled by electorally-oriented "constructive socialists." Mills' predilection for appearing on the scene of factional wars and forcefully advocating the moderate line has led him to be characterized by one historian of the period as an oratorial gun for hire consciously employed by moderate factionalists in various states to rally the troops.^[5]

In the summer of 1903, moderate socialists won majority control of Central Branch of Local Seattle of the Socialist Party — the largest of seven branches in the city — and brought Mills to Seattle on behalf of the local. Mills was anathema to radical newspaper publisher Hermon F. Titus, the head of the powerful left wing faction in the Socialist Party of Washington, who saw Mills as a living embodiment of middle class reformism.

After hearing Mills' presentation, a committee of the Local Seattle, Central Branch, headed by William McDevitt, drafted a resolution endorsing Mills as "an uncompromising, class-conscious, and revolutionary Socialist" and upbraiding Hermon Titus's newspaper for participating in a "plan to silence Mills by driving him off the Socialist lecture platform, and by blacklisting him in the eyes of the Socialist Party."^[6]

This proved to be a red flag to the Reds. Titus railed against "the Mills men" using "packed" meetings to gain control of the Central Branch and the Seattle City Central Committee in the absence of other delegates. "They will stop at nothing in the way of injustice," Titus indignantly proclaimed.^[6] Washington state remained bitterly divided along factional lines for the rest of the decade.

Years abroad

In 1910 Mills left the United States to conduct what he called a "World-Round Lecture Tour," heading first for England. Mills chronicled his thoughts and adventures in a regular column in the pages of Victor L. Berger's Milwaukee weekly, the Social-Democratic Herald. The first of these letters from the road appeared in the October 22, 1910, edition of the Herald.^[15]

In 1911, Mills was invited by the Trades and Labour Councils of New Zealand to tour the country, speaking on the cause of labor unity.^[1] Similar in climate to the Pacific Northwest from whence he most recently hailed, Mills was quickly engrossed with the mission of uniting the deeply divided labor and left wing political movements of New Zealand and he wound up putting down roots.

Mills was criticized by radical trade unionists such as Pat Hickey, Paddy Webb and Bob Semple for his emphasis on organizing the staid middle class. During the 1911 election campaign Mills faced Scott Bennett in a series of highly publicized debates which emphasized the ideological issues which split the New Zealand labor movement.^[1]

Mills was instrumental in the founding of the United Labour Party of New Zealand (ULP) on Easter Sunday 1912. The existence of this new moderate organization sharpened the heated conflict even further, with the bitterness in Auckland even periodically erupting into fist fights.^[1] Mills travelled thousands of miles on his organizing mission, speaking to public meetings across both islands of the country.^[1]

While many unions refused to affiliate with the ULP, Mills still played a large role at a 1913 conference to mobilize the New Zealand labor movement against the government of William Massey.^[1] Mills managed to convince the various factions at the conference to merge into two new organizations vaguely following American institutions: the United Federation of Labour and the Social Democratic Party. Many of Mills' old enemies joined him in repudiating an exclusive reliance on industrial militancy in favor of parallel political action.^[1]

Mills left the country with his wife as suddenly as he arrived in 1914, returning to the United States.^[1]

Later years

Upon returning to America in 1914, Mills once again became involved in the activities of the Socialist Party of America. Despite his renown as one of the most moderate voices in the Socialist Party, Mills was a devoted anti-militarist, perhaps owing to his Quaker background. Mills authored a pamphlet against the European war published by the SPA and spoke out publicly on anti-war themes.

Later in the 1910s, Mills was attracted to the newly formed Non-Partisan League (NPL), a cooperatively-oriented radical rural organization founded by former Socialist Arthur C. Townley and particularly strong in the Upper Midwestern states of North Dakota and Minnesota. Mills turned his attention away from the Socialist Party and became fully engaged in the activities of the NPL, having completely left the Socialist Party prior to 1922.^[16]

Death and legacy

Walter Thomas Mills died May 7, 1942, in Los Angeles, California.