Held in the Finnish Socialist Hall in New York City, the eighth Socialist Party Convention met on the thirteenth of April. James Maurer, a former State Representative, President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor and then Councilman for the city of Reading, was widely considered the frontrunner in the months before the convention met. For his boomers however, Maurer stood that his duties as councilman precluded the possibility of any national tour that would be required of his nomination for the presidency, and this was declination was made definitive on April tenth. Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister who had been one of Maurer's boomers and had himself made it known that he was not a candidate for the Socialist nomination rather swiftly became the new frontrunner, and plans were made for a draft effort. Thomas and Maurer were nominated unanimously for president and vice president respectively, with both men accepting their nominations. The only trouble arose on the question of Prohibition, where there remained a split in the party between those who supported the Eighteenth Amendment and those, like Convention Chair Victor Berger, who preferred that it be handled on a state-by-state basis. In the end it was agreed that the party remain silent on the issue of Prohibition.
Held in the Finnish Socialist Hall in New York City, the eighth Socialist Party Convention met on the thirteenth of April James Maurer, a former State Representative, President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor and then Councilman for the city of Reading, was widely considered the frontrunner in the months before the convention met. For his boomers however, Maurer stood that his duties as councilman precluded the possibility of any national tour that would be required of his nomination for the presidency, and this was declination was made definitive on April tenth. Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister who had been one of Maurer's boomers and had himself made it known that he was not a candidate for the Socialist nomination rather swiftly became the new frontrunner, and plans were made for a draft effort. Thomas and Maurer were nominated unanimously for president and vice president respectively, with both men accepting their nominations. The only trouble arose on the question of Prohibition where there remained a split in the party between those who supported the Eighteenth Amendment and those, like Convention Chair Victor Berger, who preferred that it be handled on a state-by-state basis. In the end it was agreed that the party remain silent on the issue of Prohibition.