texts

The Day Is Coming: 

Life and Work of Charles E. Ruthenberg, 

1882-1927

by

  Oakley C. Johnson

https://archive.org/details/LifeWorkRuthenberg/page/n1/mode/2up

AMERICAN BOY 
The Midwest is that part of the United States usually re- garded as characteristic of the country as a whole, possessing the manufacturing and business skills of the East and the foodproducing powers of the West. The Midwest includes the smokestacks of Chicago, the automobile plants of Detroit, the shipping of the Great Lakes. 
And the heart of this MidAmerica, the geographical center of our industrial empire, is Ohio, the birthplace of Standard Oil and the “Mother of Presidents." 
It is of some interest—perhaps only in a sentimental sense— that Cleveland, the chief city of Ohio, was also the birthplace of the man who was to found and, until his death, lead the Communist Party of the United States. He was C. E. Ruthenberg, the son of a dock-worker who lived in the poorer districts of that city. 
Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 9, 1882, of German parentage. His father, “Worker August Ruthenberg"—as his name was written on his marriage record —had left Germany earlier that year, February 19, taking with him his wife, W rilhelmina, and eight children. They reached the United States on March 9, and went directly to Cleveland. Charles—the ninth child—arrived four months 
later.




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