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reference search: go! advanced search - go!  The Class Ceiling:
Nearing on Social Mobility  The Appeal to Reason was the most
popular radical publication in American history. The socialist
newspaper, founded in 1895, reached a paid circulation of more
than three-quarters of a million people by 1913. During
political campaigns and crises, it often sold more than four
million individual copies. J. A. Wayland, the paper’s founder
and publisher until his suicide in 1912, had become a socialist
through reading. He built his paper on the conviction that plain
talk would convert others to the socialist cause. From its
Kansas headquarters, the Appeal published an eclectic mix of
news (particularly of strikes and political campaigns), essays,
poetry, fiction, humor, and cartoons. It ceased publication in
November 1922, a victim of editorial instability, the declining
fortunes of the Socialist Party, and U.S. government repression
of radicalism. In the August 12