Emile Vandervelde (25 January 1866 – 27 December 1938) was a Belgian socialist politician. Nicknamed "the boss" (le patron), Vandervelde was a leading figure in the Belgian Labour Party (POB–BWP) and in international socialism. Career Emile Auguste Vandervelde was born into a middle-class family in Ixelles, a suburb of Brussels, in Belgium on 25 January 1866. Initially attracted by Liberal politics, Vandervelde entered the Free University of Brussels as a law student in 1881. However, he soon became interested in emerging socialist ideas and, in 1885, joined the small Workers' League of Ixelles (Ligue Ouvrière d'Ixelles). In 1886, he joined the newly formed Belgian Labour Party (POB–BWP). He worked as an academic at the Free University. Vandervelde was activie in Belgian Freemasonry and was a member of the Lodge Les Amis philanthropes du Grand Orient de Belgique, in Brussels. Following the extension of universal male suffrage in 1893, Vandervelde proposed a manifesto for the POB, known as the Charter of Quaregnon which would form the basis for Belgian socialist politics until the 1970s. In the 1894 elections, Vandervelde was elected to the Chamber of Representatives for the industrial city of Charleroi. He held the seat until 1890, when he transferred to Brussels which he held from 1900 to 1938. He was a staunch opponent of Leopold II and the absolute power he enjoyed in the Congo during the 1890s and wrote numerous articles against capitalist colonialism. From 1900 to 1918, he held the position of president of the Second International. Vandervelde was named Minister of State in 1914 and supported the policy of resistance to the German invasion of Belgium in World War I. As one of the more respected Socialists within Europe, he encouraged other socialists and other parties on the left to support the war against Germany. He wrote a telegram to the socialist party of Russia that called on the socialists to support the war effort. In 1916, he entered the de Broqueville government. He was a delegate for Belgium at the Treaty of Versailles and subsequently involved in the League of Nations. In 1923, he helped to found the Labour and Socialist International of which he held the presidency until 1938. Vandervelde's principle political aims concerned the extension of universal suffrage and social democracy. As a theoretician, he wrote extensively on the role of the state in socialism. In 1913, he was named a corresponding member