As America's first Socialist in Congress, he championed labor rights (labor unions were still regarded as "criminal conspiracies to restrain trade" by the courts at that time) and opposed military intervention abroad (in Mexico's civil war and World War I). In 1912, the Democrats and Republicans successfully fused (united) to defeat Berger for re-election.
In March 1918, federal prosecutors in Chicago indicted Berger for "conspiring to violate the Espionage Act." A month later, he received over 26% of the statewide vote as an anti-war candidate in a special election for the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin. In November 1918, he was again elected to Congress, but the U.S. House of Representatives refused to seat him and instead called a special election for December 1919. Berger won that special election with an outright majority (55%).
Although defeated for re-election in 1920 by a combination Democrat-Republican, Berger regained his seat in Congress in 1922 per the orders of the Supreme Court, and he held the seat until 1926. During that time, he fought for many reforms that would later be enacted as "the New Deal," including Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers' rights to unionize.
Berger also fought to revise the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, fearing they would lay the groundwork for another world war. Berger was defeated for re-election in 1928 and returned to Milwaukee as editor of the Socialist daily newspaper, The Milwaukee Leader. When he died in 1929, more than 75,000 people viewed his body as it laid in state in the Rotunda of Milwaukee's City Hall.
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In tyrannos