[7] What the so-called Progressive Party will accomplish, in this direction, remains to be seen.
[8] The Socialist vote in the United States is as follows:
| 1892 | 21,164 | |
| 1896 | 36,274 | |
| 1900 | 87,814 | |
| 1904 | 402,283 | |
| 1908 | 402,464 | |
| 1910 | 607,674 | |
| 1911 | 1,500,000 | (estimated) |
The vast increase shown in 1911 was made in municipal and other local elections. On January 1, 1912, 377 villages, towns, and cities in 36 States had some Socialist officers. Several important cities have been under Socialist rule, notably Milwaukee and Schenectady, where the Socialists captured the entire city machinery. In 1912 the Socialists lost control of Milwaukee, although their vote increased 3,000. Their overthrow was accomplished by the coalescing of the old parties into a Citizens' Party, a line-up between radicalism and conservatism that will probably become the rule in American local politics.
The party is organized along the lines of the German Social Democracy. Its membership has grown as follows:
| 1903 | 15,975 |
| 1904 | 20,764 |
| 1905 | 23,327 |
| 1906 | 26,784 |
| 1907 | 29,270 |
| 1908 | 41,751 |
| 1909 | 41,479 |
| 1910 | 48,011 |
| 1911 | 84,716 |
| 1912 (May) | 142,000 |
[9] In this statement, Professor Brentano re-enforces the opinions of the American economist to whose teachings and writings the "progressive" movement in American economics and politics, and especially the movement for conservation of natural resources, must be traced. For many years Professor Richard T. Ely has been pointing the way to this conservative "socialization" of our natural wealth.