De Leon, Daniel (dē lē`ŏn), 1852–1914, American socialist leader. Born on the island of Curaçao of Spanish-American parents, he was educated in Germany and the Netherlands before going (1872) to New York City. There he edited a Spanish newspaper, studied law at Columbia (LL.B., 1876), practiced law for a few years, and then returned to Columbia to lecture (1883–89) on Latin American diplomacy. His interest in labor reform grew, and he joined successively the Knights of Labor Knights of Labor, American labor organization, started by Philadelphia tailors in 1869, led by Uriah S. Stephens. It became a body of national scope and importance in 1878 and grew more rapidly after 1881, when its earlier secrecy was abandoned.
..... Click the link for more information. (1888), Edward Bellamy Bellamy, Edward (bĕl`əmē), 1850–98, American author, b. Chicopee Falls (now part of Chicopee), Mass.
..... Click the link for more information. 's "Nationalist" movement (1889), and the Socialist Labor party Socialist Labor party, in the United States, begun in 1877 by New York City socialists. Its membership came largely from German-American workingmen. During the 1880s a national organization was established and the party concentrated, unsuccessfully, on electoral
..... Click the link for more information. (1890).

De Leon was the Socialist Labor candidate for governor of New York in 1891, and for years he edited the Socialist Labor weekly, The People. He was an inflexible and doctrinaire Marxian revolutionist and consequently fell out with most other liberal leaders. He opposed unionization of labor according to trades and led the group that formed the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, but his leadership was too radical for some of the members (prominent among them Morris Hillquit Hillquit, Morris, 1869–1933, American lawyer and Socialist leader, b. Riga, Latvia (then in Russia). He came to the United States in 1886. He was the leader of the right-wing, or constitutional, Socialists in their revolt against the radical leadership of
..... Click the link for more information. ), who withdrew in 1899 and ultimately formed the Socialist party Socialist party, in U.S. history, political party formed to promote public control of the means of production and distribution. In 1898 the Social Democratic party was formed by a group led by Eugene V. Debs and Victor Berger .
..... Click the link for more information. .

De Leon's prestige subsequently lessened. He helped to found the Industrial Workers of the World Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), revolutionary industrial union organized in Chicago in 1905 by delegates from the Western Federation of Mines, which formed the nucleus of the IWW, and 42 other labor organizations.
..... Click the link for more information. in 1905, but in the quarrel over political action he and his followers were expelled. The rival Workers' International Industrial Union, which he then organized, did not flourish. He wrote a great deal of Socialist polemical literature and translated a work of Karl Marx.

Bibliography

See A. Peterson, Daniel De Leon, Social Architect (2 vol., 1941–53); study by L. G. Raĭskiĭ (1959); C. Reeve, The Life and Times of Daniel DeLeon (1972); bibliography by O. C. Johnson (1966).

De Leon, Daniel

(born Dec. 14, 1852, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles—died May 11, 1914, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Dutch-born U.S. socialist. Arriving in the U.S. in 1874, he joined joined the Socialist Labor Party in 1890 and soon became one of its leaders. Finding the labour-union leadership insufficiently radical, he led a faction that seceded from the Knights of Labor in 1895, later forming the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (STLA). In 1905 he helped found the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which absorbed the STLA. In 1908 he was refused a seat at the IWW convention by extremists who rejected political activity of the sort he advocated and who favoured more violent tactics. He then created the unsuccessful Workers' International Industrial Union.

De Leon, Daniel (1852–1914) socialist advocate; born on the island of Curaçao. He studied in Europe before he emigrated to New York City (1874), becoming a lawyer (1878) and lecturer on Latin-American diplomacy at Columbia University (1883–86). Joining the Socialist Labor Party (1890), he was named its national lecturer (1891) and editor of its organ, The People (1892), and was an unsuccessful candidate for governor and Congress. A lifelong leader of the party, antagonistic to existing trade unions, his intrangiency eventually led to formation of a splinter group, the Socialist Party of America. In 1905 he also assisted in the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which soon splintered; he was ousted from the IWW and formed his own Workers' International Industrial Union. To opponents he was a disruptive fanatic; to supporters a man of incorruptible integrity. Lenin praised his writings as incorporating the germ of the Soviet system.