London, Meyer, 1871-1926

Meyer London (December 29, 1871 – June 6, 1926) was an American lawyer and politician from New York City. A member of the Socialist Party, he represented New York's 12th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1915 to 1919 and from 1921 to 1923. London was one of only two members of the Socialist Party of America elected to the United States Congress.

Born in Kalvarija, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), he attended Cheder, a traditional Jewish primary school in which he learned Hebrew, before entering Russian-language schools to begin his secular education. In 1891, when Meyer was 20, the family decided to follow his father to America so Meyer terminated his studies and departed for New York City, taking up residence in the city's largely Jewish Lower East Side. He earned money as a tutor, taking on pupils at irregular hours and teaching literature and other topics. He later obtained a job as a librarian, a position which allowed him sufficient time to read about history and politics and to study law in his free time. Meyer also frequented radical meetings, gradually developing proficiency as a public speaker and participant in public debates. In 1896, London was accepted to the law school of New York University; completing the program and being admitted to the New York bar in 1898, he became a labor lawyer, taking on cases which fought injunctions or defending the rights of tenants against the transgressions of landlords. London did not handle criminal cases, but rather limited himself to matters of civil law.

In the 1890s, London joined the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), standing as its candidate for New York State Assembly in 1896. He was a delegate to the June 1898 convention of SDA in Chicago and was one of the political action-oriented minority which bolted the June 1898 convention to establish the Social Democratic Party of America (SDP) following a dispute over the strategy of socialist colonization. In 1898, London again ran for New York Assembly in the old 4th Assembly District, this time as the candidate of the SDP. In the summer of 1901, the Chicago-based SDP merged with another group of former adherents of the Socialist Labor Party to form the Socialist Party of America (SPA), and London transferred his political allegiance to the new organization. He ran for a third time for the 4th Assembly District seat in 1904, this time under the banner of the SPA. London was active in the 1910 New York Cloakmakers strike, during which the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) brought out 50,000 in a successful struggle for higher wages and better work conditions against their employers. In his capacity as counsel for the ILGWU, London drew up and published a communique in the name of the strike committee. London's place in the cloakmakers' strike made him one of the best-known public faces of the Socialist Party in New York City and over the course of three runs for Congress he gradually constructed a winning coalition, emerging victorious despite the violence and fraud practiced by the campaign of his Tammany Hall-supported Democratic opponent in the election of 1914.

As a Congressman, Meyer London was one of 50 representatives and six senators to vote against entry into World War I. Once America was at war, however, London felt obliged to support the nation's efforts in the conflict. He strongly opposed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, which made criticism of the president or the war a crime, and in the end cast the only vote in the House against the Sedition Act of 1918. With the Democratic and Republican parties united behind a single "fusion" candidate and his own supporters fragmented, London narrowly lost reelection in 1918, falling to Henry M. Goldfogle by a tally of 7,269 to 6,519. Two years later, in 1920, the Lower East Side sent London back to Congress but he was defeated for reelection in 1922 by Samuel Dickstein.

London died on Sunday, June 6, 1926. As he was crossing Second Avenue at 15th Street, he was caught in the middle of heavy automobile traffic passing in both directions. London became confused and when he halted in the middle of the road he was struck by a car, suffering internal injuries. The driver rushed him to Bellevue Hospital, where London's daughter was an intern. When she saw her father, London's only concern was that the driver not be punished. "It's not his fault", said London "and he is a poor man." London died at 10 o'clock that night at the age of 54, after physicians had labored for 11 hours to save him. London's body was interred at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, New York, in the borough of Queens.