Seymour Stedman

Seymour "Stedy" Stedman (July 4, 1871 – July 9, 1948) was an American politician. Active in Chicago, he was a civil rights lawyer and a leader of the Socialist Party of America. He served in the Illinois House of Representatives in the 1910s and ran as a vice-presidential candidate, on a ticket headed by Eugene V. Debs, in the 1920 United States presidential election.

Biography

Early years

Seymour Stedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 4, 1871, the son of ethnic Anglo-Saxon parents with ancestors dating back to the time of the American Revolution. Financial difficulties forced the Stedman family to move west, settling in Solomon, Kansas, where adverse weather conditions forced the family still further towards poverty. He was ultimately admitted to the Illinois State Bar Association in 1891.

Stedman was elected to the 1896 National Convention of the People's Party, held in St. Louis, where he attempted to start a movement among the delegates to draft Gene Debs as the nominee of the organization for President of the United States. Nearly one-third of the 1300 assembled delegates signed a petition calling for Debs that Stedman circulated. His effort was short-circuited by a trick of the supporters of William Jennings Bryan, however, when the gas lights were shut out on the convention. a result that caused Berger, Debs, Stedman, and their co-thinkers to bolt the convention and establish a new political organization of their own — the Social Democratic Party of America (SDP). Stedman's name was offered for nomination for Vice President of the United States at the SPA's 1908 convention in Chicago, but he trailed Benjamin Hanford in the balloting, losing by a vote of 106 delegates to 46. In 1914, Stedman lost reelection, finishing fifth of five candidates for three seats.

In 1915, Stedman was their candidate for mayor of Chicago. At their 1920 national convention, they nominated Steadman to serve as its 1920 nominee for vice president of the United States on a ticket headed by Eugene V. Debs. During World War I, Stedman was a prominent defender of war opponents indicted for sedition, most notably Rose Pastor Stokes.

In 1941, Stedman joined the campaign to free Earl Browder, the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA imprisoned on charges of passport fraud. The next year, Stedman joined the party himself, believing that the Socialists had lost the support of the working class.

Death Stedman died on July 9, 1948, aged 77, in Chicago.