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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—WisconsinVictor Luitpold BERGER
(1860-1929)
BERGER, Victor Luitpold, a
Representative from Wisconsin; born in Nieder Rebbach,
Austria-Hungary, February 28, 1860; attended the Gymnasia at
Leutschau and the universities at Budapest and Vienna; immigrated
to the United States in 1878 with his parents, who settled near
Bridgeport, Conn.; moved to Milwaukee, Wis., in 1880; taught school
1880-1890; editor of the Milwaukee Daily Vorwaerts 1892-1898;
editor of the Wahrheit, the Social Democratic Herald, and the
Milwaukee Leader, being publisher of the last named at the time of
his death; delegate to the People’s Party Convention at St.
Louis in 1896; one of the organizers of the Social Democracy in
1897 and of the Social Democratic Party in 1898, known since 1900
as the Socialist Party; unsuccessful candidate of the Socialist
Party for election in 1904 to the Fifty-ninth Congress; elected a
member of the charter convention of Milwaukee in 1907, and alderman
at large in 1910; elected as a Socialist to the Sixty-second
Congress (March 4, 1911-March 3, 1913); presented credentials as a
Member-elect to the Sixty-sixth Congress, but the House by a
resolution adopted on November 10, 1919, declared him not entitled
to take the oath of office as a Representative or to hold a seat as
such; having been opposed to the entrance of the United States in
the First World War and having written articles expressing his
opinion on that question, he was indicted in various places in the
Federal courts, tried at Chicago, found guilty, and sentenced by
Judge Kenesaw M. Landis in February 1919 to serve twenty years in
the Federal penitentiary; this judgment was reversed by the United
States Supreme Court in 1921, whereupon the Government withdrew all
cases against him in 1922; his election to the Sixty-sixth Congress
was unsuccessfully contested by Joseph P. Carney and the seat was
declared vacant; presented credentials as a Member-elect to fill
the vacancy caused by the action of the House and on January 10,
1920, the House again decided that he was not entitled to a seat in
the Sixty-sixth Congress and declined to permit him to take the
oath or qualify as a Representative; Henry H. Bodenstab
unsuccessfully contested this election, and on February 25, 1921,
the House again declared the seat vacant; elected as a Socialist to
the Sixty-eighth, Sixty-ninth, and Seventieth Congresses (March 4,
1923-March 3, 1929); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1928
to the Seventy-first Congress; resumed his editorial work; died in
Milwaukee, Wis., August 7, 1929; interment in Forest Home
Cemetery.
Bibliography
Miller, Sally M. Victor Berger and the Promise of Constructive
Socialism, 1910-1920. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1973.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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