HUNTER, ROBERT — Poverty

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905 (1st reprint); 8vo (20.5cm), xii+382(2)pp., endnotes ('authorities'), index, brown cloth w. gilt lettering on spine. Incidental markings next to text, otherwise a v. good copy. Rare! ¶ l 'The main objects of this volume are: To define poverty and to estimate its extent at the present time in the United States [...]' (Preface). The career of Robert Hunter is a complicated journey through social work, social activism, research, field studies, politics, golf course design and academia. Over the years he moved from being a prominent Progressive to a dedicated Socialist and then a right wing critic of President Roosevelt and the New Deal. When he declared himself a socialist (1905), he was elected to the first executive board of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Later he was the Socialist candidate for the New York state assembly (1908), and he represented American socialism at the Third International in Stuttgart (1907). After moving to Noroton, Conn., he campaigned to be elected as the Socialist candidate for the governorship of Connecticut (1910). Hunter became disillusioned with socialism and left the party because it had failed to prevent World War I. In 1918 he moved to California where he lectured on economics and English at the University of California, Berkley. In 1926 he wrote ôLinks,ö a book on golf course design. Hunter repudiated the New Deal and became an active member of the National Economic League where he published an anti-Deal pamphlet. In 1940, he published Revolution, in which he rejected Marxism and revolution and strongly asserted that American capitalism had essentially eliminated poverty. (Hansan, J. (2013). 'Hunter, (Wiles) Robert (April 10, 1874 - May 15, 1942), social worker, author and socialist'. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved Dec. 12, 2021, from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/people/hunter-robert/ )