Jackson
Stitt Wilson (
1868 - 1942),
commonly known as J. Stitt Wilson, was a leading Christian Socialist American politician during the
first decades of the 20th Century. He is best remembered as the mayor of the
city of Berkeley, California from 1911 to 1913.
J. Stitt Wilson was born in Auburn, Ontario, Canada on March 19, 1868, the son of devout Methodist parents.[ J. Stitt Wilson, How I Became
a Socialist,] He emigrated to the U.S. in 1888, settling in Evanston, Illinois and attending Northwestern University,
working after graduation as a schoolmaster and for a law firm.[ J. Stitt Wilson, How I
Became a Socialist,] Wilson later decided to enter the Methodist ministry,
enrolling at the theological seminary at Northwestern. Following completion of
his schooling, Wilson worked for the next four years as a Methodist pastor and
social worker in nearby Chicago.[ J. Stitt Wilson, How I Became a Socialist,]
He
later recalled that the experience of these four years were "to me a
school out of which I came — a Socialist."[ J. Stitt Wilson, How I Became
a Socialist,]
“I have buried
children who did not have enough rags to cover them in their coffins. I have
slept with men to keep them from committing suicide. I have seen the great
armies of the unemployed live worse than animals, hungry in the streets, when
the masters of business could no longer profit from their labors.”
