Berger, Victor L. (Victor Luitpold), 1860-1929

Victor Luitpold Berger (February 28, 1860 – August 7, 1929) was an Austrian American socialist politician and journalist who was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America and its successor, the Socialist Party of America. Born in the Austrian Empire, Berger immigrated to the United States as a young man and became an important and influential socialist journalist in Wisconsin. He helped establish the so-called Sewer Socialist movement. Also a politician, in 1910, he was elected as the first Socialist to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing a district in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Born in the Nieder-Rehbach region of the Austrian Empire (now part of Romania), he attended the Gymnasium at Leutschau (today in Slovakia), and the major universities of Budapest and Vienna before immigtating to the United States, first settling near Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1881, Berger settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, joined the Socialist Labor Party (then headed by Daniel de Leon), and became the editor of two newspapers: Vorwärts [Forward] and Die Wahrheit [The Truth]. Berger also taught German in the public school system.

In 1896, Berger was a delegate to the People's Party Convention in St. Louis. He was a founding member of the Social Democracy of America in 1897 and led the split of the "political action" faction of that organization to form the Social Democratic Party of America (SDP) in 1898. In 1901, Berger joined with Eugene Debs and Morris Hillquit to establish the American Socialist Party. In 1904, Berger unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Milwaukee and for the U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 5th congressional district under the Socialist banner. In 1910, Berger successfully ran for the 5th district seat, becoming the first socialist in the United States to be elected to Congress. The following year he proposed a bill to provide old age pensions. Although he did not win re-election in 1912, 1914 or 1916, he remained active in Wisconsin and Socialist Party politics and published and edited the Milwaukee Leader newspaper.

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