Thomas Van Lear

Thomas Van Lear (April 26, 1864 - March 4, 1931) was the Socialist mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving from January 1, 1917 to January 6, 1919. A leader of the local machinists union, he led two unsuccessful campaigns for the mayoralty before he was elected on November 7, 1916, with over 33,000 votes. Van Lear did not win control of the city council, and Sheriff Otto Langum worked closely with the Minneapolis Citizens' Alliance, an anti-labor coalition of wealthy business magnates. Main planks of the Socialist platform included factory safety inspections, municipal control of utilities, and opposition to law enforcement involvement in repressing strike actions. In office Van Lear welcomed the People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace to Minneapolis and refused to approve an instruction that would effectively ban the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The only Socialist mayor in the city's history was defeated for re-election in 1918, amid accusations that he and his supporters secretly desired a German victory in World War I. Van Lear was expelled from the Socialist Party in 1918 and later helped to form a local section of the Non-Partisan League that firmly supported the policies of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson.

Further reading

• William Millikan, A Union against Unions: the Minneapolis Citizens Alliance and Its Fight against Organized Labor, 1903-1947. Saint Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001.
• David Paul Nord, "Minneapolis and the Pragmatic Socialism of Thomas Van Lear," Minnesota History, vol. 45, no. 1 (Spring 1976), pp. 2-10. In JSTOR