Anna Agnes Maley was a brief but significant political figure in the history of Washington State elections. Not only was she the first woman to run for governor, she was also the most successful vote-getter of all the Socialist ungovernors. Like ungovernor George Boomer before her, she was a journalist who died at a young age. Unlike Boomer, she was a moderate who saw the electoral process as a legitimate and essential form of social evolution. As the Washington State socialist movement splintered, she was marginalized and sent packing by her own party.

The previous Socialist Party candidates had all come to Washington with the Equality colony as their landing point. But by the time Maley arrived, the experiment was over. The rules had changed. The Socialist Party veterans were no longer dazzled by idealistic concepts or utopian visions. Getting beaten up and attacked by intolerant people while campaigning had a way of making them not so enamored of change through the ballot box. And yet 1912 was the highwater mark for the Socialist Party both in Washington State and nationally.

Anna was born Jan. 6, 1872 in Faxon, Sibley County, Minnesota. John and Katherine, her parents, were immigrants from Ireland. The family made their way to Minneapolis, where Anna worked as a stenographer and teacher. She was introduced to socialist theory while a student at the University of Minnesota.

Journalism appeared to be the occupation where Washington State Socialist ungovernors saw their opportunity to do the most good, to create a political base. Maley began her apprenticeship in 1903 with one of the most prominent socialist newspapers in America, Appeal to Reason, in Girard, Kansas. Boomer had worked for this same paper in 1897.

After a brief stint in Kansas, she moved to New York and continued to make a name for herself as an activist and writer. She worked for the New York Call and the New York Worker. She was also active in the struggle for equal rights for women, and probably found a more receptive support network with the Socialist party than she would have with the two major parties. She hit the lecture circuit, putting that teacher experience to good use.

In an early bit of guerilla theater, she took part in the following, according to the Oct. 25, 1908 New York Times: ""'Women Come and Vote for the President of the United States and the Governor of New York,' the Harlem Equal Rights League says in a black-printed yellow circular which it is issuing. The league will open polls at Wood's School, 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. on Election Day, Nov. 3. All women are invited to come and have the satisfaction of voting, if their votes do not count actually. This is the third year the league has given women an opportunity to vote." Along with Maley, principal organizers included suffrage icon Lillie Devereux Blake and Socialist Maud Malone.

Maley became involved with the Socialist Party on a national level. In 1909 she was appointed Chair of the party's Woman's National Committee. It would appear that no matter what the nature of the social problem, Anna saw socialism as the vehicle for change. She was not about to leave the party and join a suffrage movement.

In Sept. 1911 Anna became the third editor of a 10-month old Everett, Wash. newspaper, The Commonwealth. Her position was a short-lived one, as she resigned in the spring of 1912 to devote all of her time running as a candidate for Governor. An unusual move for someone who had been a resident for less than a year.

1912 was a year where change was in the air. Women in Washington State had won the right to vote in 1910. The voters would approve Prohibition in 1914. During most of the election cycle, it looked the newly formed Progressive Party was in a good position to take over state government. In 1912 Nettie Asberry formed the first chapter of the NAACP west of the Rockies in Tacoma. Mary Carr Moore of Seattle became the first American woman to compose and conduct an opera. As a bit of trivia, on May 31, 1912, in Anna Maley's town of Everett, Henry Martin Jackson was born. He would later become a proto-neoCon poster boy, U.S. Sen. Scoop Jackson, who was also called "The Senator from Boeing" by his critics.

The July 12, 1912 issue of The Commonwealth had an interesting question from a reader to Anna:

"Dear madam, I note in a local paper that you have been nominated on the socialist ticket for governor of Washington.
There are a few things I would like to call your attention to before making a suggestion. One is that socialism opposes the profit system and that the liquor traffic creates more employers than does any other industry in the world? The liquor interests of the country are the bitterest enemies the socialist movement has and I have my first saloon man and rounder to meet who favors political or any other kind of freedom for women.
You will find that all people who oppose the prohibition and socialist movements also favor the white slave traffic and wide open towns in general. This being the case we find the allied criminal element solidly organized against all reform but the reformers disorganized with several little parties in the field of politics which make a clean walkaway for the stronger scientifically organized gangs. I think you would do well to join forces with the prohibitionists and make a strong appeal to women voters that the vice element of the land are fighting. Hoping you will think this over and make your point from a strong moral point of view, I am yours respectfully."

Maley's response:

"Dear sir-- Answering your favor, the socialist program includes a remedy for all social evils. The profits system of industry is the foundation stone of both intemperance and white slavery. Our party will consider no 'joining of forces,' for any reform or petty gain. Socialism is the force in politics today. It says that the wage labor system of industry must go. You are not consistent in making so great a cry against the sale of liquor while consenting to the sale of life. The bodies of men, women and children are on the market under your competitive wage system. Some can not sell at all, others sell for less than will buy their bread. How can you destroy the liquor traffic or even the white slave traffic-- with the necessities of men and women driving them to hell and the cupidity of masters luring them on?
Nevertheless, our party is THE party of temperance as it is the party of purity and peace. Our last national convention passed a resolution calling upon all municipal socialist administrations to close the restricted districts. Socialist Mayor Duncan of Butte, removed all the dance halls and saloons from the restricted district and otherwise so cut down the revenues of the place that two-thirds of the residents therein moved out. He also refused fines from fallen women, with the result that 'Big Business' lost interest in the district as a tax-producing agency. Our party is open. Come in. Fraternally yours, Anna A. Maley."

The 1912 Socialist Party of Washington platform is intriguing to read almost a century later. Some of the issues, considered radical at the time, are now realities we take for granted. Others remain controversial:

"Adopted at state convention, Seattle, March 9, 10, 11, 12, 1912; ratified by state referendum 'A'; amended by state referendum 'O'.
The socialist party of Washington, in convention assembled, reaffirms its unfaltering loyalty to the principles of international socialism, and the socialist party of the United States and presents the following as its platforms:
In the struggle for freedom the interests of all modern workers are identical. The struggle is not only national, but international. It embraces the world, and will be carried to ultimate victory through intelligent class-conscious political anmd industrial action.
Human labor creates machinery and applies it to the land to produce things necessary for human life. Whosoever has control of land and machinery controls human labor, and with it human life and liberty.
The working class owns nothing but its labor power, and sells this for wages to the capitalist class.
This labor power applied to modern means of production and distribution, produces at least four times as much value as the working class receives in wages.
The capitalist class, unable to find a market either in this or foreign countries for the surplus product, are now closing the mines, mills and factories.
This, together with the constant invention of labor-saving machinery, throws men, women and children of the working class out of employment, causing untold misery and distress.
The lack and uncertainty of employment produces extreme poverty, which in its turn produces crime, insanity, prostitution of body and brain, suicides, drunkeness, disease and degradation.
The insecurity of a livlihood and consequent degenerating results are therefore directly due to the private ownership and control by the capitalist class of mine, mill, factory and land.
The remedy lies in the social ownership of these means of production and distribution, thereby giving all an equal opportunity to live and enjoy the product of their labor.
Humanity lives amid constant change. Laws institutions and customs, once useful and popular, becomes oppressive, abusive, intolerable and dangerous to further progress of the race. It is at such a time that the race must find a new method, inaugurate a new system more in harmony with its needs. If any nation or community can not change for the better it is because it is either too ignorant or too terrorized by the ... [stevenl note: this portion of the text is obscured on my source, i.e. the Sept. 27, 1912 issue of The Commonwealth] ...
Our ulitmate demand is the social ownership and democratic management of all the socially used means of production and distribution.
As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight for the realization of its ultimate aim, and increase its power of resistance against capitalist oppression; we advocate and pledge ourselves to the following program:
1. Collective ownership and management of all public utilities, and all industries that have become monopolized.
2. Abolition of private ownership of land, and natural resources when used for exploitation and speculation.
3. Public employment of the unemployed at not less than prevailing union scale of wages and not more than eight hours per day.
4. We demand the enactment of a maximum eight-hour law to apply to both men and women, employed in all capitalized industries.
5. We advocate initiative, referendum and recall to apply to all public officials, the petition not to exceed 10 per cent of the voters at the previous election.
6. Abolition of child labor under the age of 16 years.
7. The elimination of the injunction in labor disputes.
8. Abolition of all residential qualification or other restrictions for voters. The abolition of all filing fees at primaries and other elections and repeal of all non-partisan laws. Abolition of property qualifications for jurors. We favor the election of a public defender as well as prosecutor together with the adoption of other means to insure the free administration of justice.
9. We favor a constitutional amendment abolishing the senate and we also demand that all cities be prohibited from enacting ordinances infringing on the right of free speech and free press.
10. We favor the establishment of a state board of health with full power for the inspection and condemnation of all unsanitary factories, tenements, etc. and the liberal appropriation for the use of the latest scientific methods of eliminating disease.
11. We demand the free use of all public buildings and property for public meetings, including court houses, school houses, parks, etc., without discrimination, and we demand a liberal appropriation for promotion of social centers.
Resolved, That we, the socialist party in convention assembled, do hereby recall to the minds of the working class all the arbitrary, cruel and inhuman methods used by the capitalist class in this class war, including the use of police power to suppress the freedom of speech, press and public assembly, as recently evidenced in several cities of this state, and as this abuse can only continue as long as we, the working class, remain divided, we here and now, urge the members of our class to devote their efforts toward greater solidarity, clearer class consciousness, and the necessity of united political action, and we hereby endorse the principle of revolutionary industrial unionism.
Resolved, That we, the socialist party, hereby endorse all united action of the workers and pledge ourselves to assist them by supplying speakers, money and other necessary support wherever possible, to the end that we may win our economic freedom and overthrow the capitalist system.
To the small farmer we say, we are opposed to the private ownership of land for the purpose of speculation and exploitation.
We are absolutely opposed to the boy scout movement and the teaching of military drill with guns and other means of destruction to human life, to our school children."

Anna placed 4th on election day with 37,155 votes (12.03%). She placed 2nd in Snohomish County, and came in 3rd in Chehalis (now Grays Harbor), Clallam, Ferry, Franklin, Island, Kitsap, Mason, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, and Whatcom counties. She ran behind the national ticket, Eugene Debs gained over 40,000 votes in Washington, but it was a good year for their party. Across Washington in 1912 Socialists were elected to school boards and city councils. Edmonds and Pasco elected Socialist mayors. William Kingery of Mason County was sent to the Legislature and other Socialist Party members came very close to winning legislative seats. Frances C. Axtell (Republican-Whatcom County) and Nena Jolidon Croake (Progressive-King County) became the first two women elected to the Legislature. Helen G. Scott of Tacoma became the first women in the entire United States to be elected to the Electoral College. The first female Superintendent of Public Instruction, Josephine Corliss Preston, was elected and went on to serve until 1929.

Meanwhile the infighting among the Socialists in Washington State went up a few notches after the 1912 election. Anna was basically squeezed out during a 1913 party purge, forcing her to drop her plans of remaining in Washington and running for other offices. By the summer of 1913 she is found in Monograph, West Virginia, where she had been arrested during a free speech campaign.

By 1914 she was back in New York, teaching at the Rand School of Social Science. She wrote two books during this period: Elements of socialism : twelve lessons (New York : Rand School of Social Science, 1914) and Our national kitchen : the substance of a speech on socialism (Minneapolis : People's Press, 1916). The latter work draws a parallel between the status of the housewive with that of an industrial worker.

Anna died Nov. 24, 1918, just two weeks after the end of WWI. Her biographer Margaret Riddle provides some information: "By now over 40 years of age, Anna Maley married for the first time. While traveling through the southern states, her husband contracted malaria and soon died. For the remaining years of her life, Anna was in poor health and was cared for by her family in Minnesota. In November of 1918, Maley died at her sister's home. A large funeral procession of family, friends, and union workers accompanied her body to its final resting place in St. Mary's cemetery, Minneapolis."

In 1924 a quote of Anna's was reprinted widely on cards and distributed by the Women's Peace Society: "Wars will cease when the conditions which cause them are abolished. The last war was no more of an 'accident' than have been the wars of the past."