On this day in 1917, members of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in St. Louis, Missouri for an emergency meeting regarding the U.S.'s entry to WWI. Their chosen measures of resistance would soon be declared illegal by the Espionage Act.

The gathering was called by the governing National Executive Committee of the SPA to make clear the Socialist Party's position on American entry into World War I, although it was controversial whether or not the committee had the authority to do this within the party.

Regardless, the emergency convention ratified the "St. Louis Resolution on War and Militarism", a lengthy and radical document, which reaffirmed the SPA's "unalterable opposition to the war just declared by the government of the United States", branding American entry "a crime against the people of the United States and against the nations of the world."

The resolution pledged the Socialist Party to "continuous, active, and public opposition to the war, through demonstrations, mass petitions, and all other means within our power" and promised to conduct "consistent propaganda against military training" and "vigorous resistance" to "all reactionary measures", such as conscription, postal and press censorship, and restrictions upon free speech and freedom of assembly. These measures would soon be made illegal with the 1917 Espionage Act, passed later that year.