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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 15, 1918
Cleveland, Ohio – Eugene Debs Address the Court, Part I
On September 12th, Comrade Debs was convicted under the Espionage law on charges based upon his Anti-War Speech delivered at Canton, Ohio, on June 16th. On Saturday September 14th, Debs appeared at Federal Court in Cleveland, Ohio, in order to receive the sentence of Judge Westenhaver. The motion for a new trial was denied and Debs was asked if he had anything to say before sentence was pronounced. Comrade Debs faced the Judge and spoke:
STATEMENT TO THE COURT, PART I
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
If the law under which I have been convicted is a good law, then there is no reason why sentence should not be pronounced upon me. I listened to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this prosecution, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon the Espionage Law as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the spirit of free institutions.
Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to form of our present Government; that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believed in the change of both—but by perfectly peaceable and orderly means.
Let me call your attention to the fact this morning that in this system five per cent of our people own and control two-thirds of our wealth; sixty-five per cent of the people, embracing the working class who produce all wealth, have but five per cent to show for it.
Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen I went to work in a railroad shop; at sixteen I was firing a freight engine on a railroad. I remember all the hardships and privations of that earlier day, and from that time until now my heart has been with the working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison. The choice has been deliberately made. I could not have done otherwise. I have no regret.
In the struggle, the unceasing struggle, between the toilers and producers and their exploiters, I have tried, as best I might, to serve those among whom I was born, with whom I expect to share my lot until the end of my days.
