Hyacinth Page

    

Hyacinth Page
Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture
In office 3 March 1917 – TBD
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	TBD
Full member of the 9th–12th Central Committees
In office 29 September 1918 – 30 May 1923
Personal details
Born	(1881-12-04)4 December 1881 Magnolia, Arkansas, United Commonwealth
Died	17 August 1947(1947-08-17) (aged 65) TBD
Resting place	TBD
Nationality	Continental
Political party	Continentalist Party
Alma mater	Arkansas Industrial University

George Earnest Page (December 4th, 1881 - August 17th, 1947), known better under the alias Hyacinth Page, was a Continental author, journalist, farmer, teacher, revolutionary, and politician who served as an observer of the 7th and 8th Central Committees of the Continentalist Party and later a full member of the 9th to 12th Central Committees under Aeneas Warren. Page was first invested with the title of Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture in the 7th Central Committee. In the 1920s, he fell into relative obscurity following the purges of Seamus Callahan, who long held disdain for his public character as a libertine and homosexual.

Page was born in the outskirts of Magnolia, Arkansas, to tenant farmers in 1881. At age 9, he left home with his younger sister, eventually finding employment as a farmhand in Alexandria, Louisiana. Earning the sympathy of a wealthy, educated landlady, the Page siblings were taught by night and worked in the fields by day. In 1899, after being caught performing sodomy with the son of his employer, Page and his sister once again became iterant, though this time with more education and money to their names due to the quick intervention of their benefactor. By train, Page and his sister reached Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he used his funds to gain entrance into Arkansas Industrial University.

During his time at AIU, Page became increasingly aware of the economic situation faced by many Southern tenant farmers and fell into an increasingly distributionist position seen as radical to his peers. In 1901, Page was expelled from the university after organizing a sizeable demonstration against land ownership practices in Arkansas. Fearing eventual retribution for his sexuality and political positions, Page returned to Magnolia with his sister, where he reconnected with his now-widowed mother. Using what little funds he had left to purchase them a small farmhouse and several chickens, Page departed Magnolia to become an itinerant teacher to illiterate farmers across Arkansas. According to his well-preserved journal, Page believed that exploitation and poverty could not be overcome by people who could not even read the terms of their own financial enslavement to landowners.

Within only a few years, Page had become a known quantity to authorities in his home commonwealth. Although he never violated any laws by his own account, he was constantly surveilled and harassed by Arkansas' commonwealth police force, with local law enforcement typically notified of his movement into their community and his presence often cut short. On July 19th, 1905, he was arrested for trespassing and sentenced to two years incarceration, during which time he served on-and-off in chain gangs. It was during his prison sentence that Page developed a distinctly revolutionary streak, as he was dismayed by the numerous examples of abject racism and poverty recounted to him by many of his fellow convicts. Page became increasingly dedicated to good behavior so as to shorten his sentence, although this would never come to pass, and he was eventually released several weeks overdue in September 1907, where after he immediately fled Arkansas to Chicago, then a hotbed for emerging socialist and revolutionary activity.

In Chicago, Page joined the United Labor Front, where he became an important member in the organization's outreach to local farm and ranch hands. Continuing his teaching practice in Illinois, it was during this time that Page penned his first novel, Erastus, inspired by the myriad of stories he had encountered throughout his time as a rural educator. The novel's popularity among both literate progressives and socialists in Chicago propelled Page into notoriety. Page's moment of fame allowed him to secure stable, gainful employment with the Chicago Tribune, although his political affiliations often made the terms of his employment there tense. In 1916 he was forced out of his position at the Tribune due to political pressures, thereafter making his way to Cincinnati for the 7th Congress of the Continentalist Party. Well known by his comrades as a skillful orator and impassioned ideologue, Page secured a position in the Central Committee and became a close associate of Aeneas Warren.