John Spargo (1876–1966), was a journalist and prominent Socialist in the Progressive Era. Spargo moved right and by 1917 became a leading anti-Communist
His The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906) was a classic Muckraking expose of harsh conditions of child labor in Maine. He started as socialist in Britain, but spent most of his life in the United States, After 1910 he moved steadily to the right of the American Socialist movement, advocating a gradualist and anti-revolutionary interpretation of Marxism.
By 1916 Spargo advocated American intervention in the World War, and was an early and penetrating critic of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. Spargo composed the "Colby Note" of 1920 that formalized President Woodrow Wilson's anti-communist doctrine. In 1917-21 he led the Social Democratic League of America (SDL), along with William English Walling.
Spargo was liberal until he was shocked by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and its recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933. He spoke out in support of the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities in the late 1930s as it exposed Communists and Fascists inside the U.S. Spargo energetically supported Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, as well as Barry Goldwater in the 1964 elections.
Ruotsila (2006) sees Spargo's odyssey as a logical and linear progression in which he successfully preserved the core of his Social Gospel even as he became a Republican activist.
- Radosh, Ronald. "John Spargo and Wilson's Russian Policy, 1920," Journal of American History 1965 52(3): 548-565, in JSTOR
- Ruotsila, Markku. John Spargo and American Socialism (2006)