Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs, Socialists Candidate for President, Speaks at Arion Hall in Wheeling, West Virginia

26th October 202026th October 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 26, 1900
Wheeling, West Virginia – Eugene V. Debs Speaks at Arion Hall

From The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer of October 25, 1900:

SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINE PROPOUNDED
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By Eugene V. Debs to a Large Crowd
At Arion Hall Last Evening.
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HE EXPLAINS HOW AN UTOPIA
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Can Be Established in This Country. Would Make
Radical Change in Present Conditions.
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Eugene V. Debs, candidate for president on the Social Democracy ticket, addressed a large audience at Arion hall last night. Most of his hearers were of another political persuasion, however, attracted out of mere curiosity. Seated on the stage were the men prominent in socialist circles in this city. Mr Debs’ eloquence is well known and this fact alone was sufficient to attract a large crowd. He advanced nothing new along the line of socialism. Harry Leeds, the local socialist, acted as chairman of the meeting. He said they represented a body of workingmen whom strikes and lockouts had almost taken away their rights as American citizens. He said they were an embryonic party and they needed funds. He asked the audience to contribute to the campaign fund and before introducing Mr. Debs the hat was passed around the audience for contributions. Mr. Leeds introduced Eugene V. Debs, who was applauded as he stepped to the front of the stage.

Mr. Debs began by saying that a mighty social revolution was in progress. The world was gradually becoming co-operative instead of competitive. The social demoralization of the world was passing away. He would not appeal to the prejudice of his auditors. His sole purpose would be to appeal to their reason.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs Interviewed by Norman Hapgood at Atlanta Prison

25th October 202025th October 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 25, 1920
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Norman Hapgood Interviews Eugene Debs

From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1920:

Did you ever enter the strong gates of a prison? Has your mind ever pictured the sinking heart of a man who hears those heavy iron doors clank behind him? Wife and child, perhaps, are shut from him in the outer world. And inside? The lost are there, the despairing, the destroyed. Leave hope behind, ye who enter. And yet it is not as bad as it was, some centuries ago. The harmonious and austere building at Atlanta is infinitely superior, in what happens inside of it, to the prisons of Lincoln’s day. God knows it is bad enough.

Partly, it is bad because we in truth do not know what to do with certain types of dangerous depravity. Give us time, a century or two, and we may learn the alphabet of treating such aberration. Granted we are ignorant about crime — what about prisoner 9653? Why is he in this place?

To see prisoner 9653 we go only so far as a reception room, and Eugene V. Debs, four times nominee of a great party for the Presidency, now No. 9653, steps forth eagerly to meet me. How warm his grasp! How pure and sunny his smile! How his face carries the record of his 40 years of service, of forbearance, of hope of a great belief.

Debs’ Warm Cordiality.

We sit down on opposite sides of a long table. Debs’ lawyer is there and so is the prison attendant. Neve mind; Debs doesn’t mind. He leans across, his face alight, his speaking and delicate hands at play. He will not let me get in my question. His warm cordiality prevents. He knows I am not a Socialist and that I am not going to vote for him. He knows all about it. But what is that to him? I am a human being, which is enough. But there is more. I have recently chosen the unpopular course on a great subject — Russia — and Debs knows all about that also, and pours out an overgenerous appreciation until, afraid of that man at the end of the table, who is responsible for the allotment of time, I see a chance to turn the switch and I suddenly ask the most dangerous question I know.

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Ad for “Diary of a Shirt Waist Striker” by Theresa Malkiel

7th September 202011th August 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 7, 1910
“Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker” by Theresa Serber Malkiel
-“A Story of the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike in New York”

From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Outlook for Socialism” by Eugene Victor Debs, Part II

4th September 202010th August 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 4, 1900
“Outlook for Socialism in the United States” by Eugene V. Debs

From the International Socialist Review of September 1900:

[Part II of II

-by Eugene Debs, Social Democratic Party’s Candidate for President.]

What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest—this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.

As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.

Whether the means of production—that is to say, the land, mines, factories, machinery, etc.—are owned by a few large Republican capitalists, who organize a trust, or whether they be owned by a lot of small Democratic capitalists, who are opposed to the trust, is all the same to the working class. Let the capitalists, large and small, fight this out among themselves.

The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production, that they may have steady employment without consulting a capitalist employer, large or small, and that they may get the wealth their labor produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families the fruits of their industry in comfortable and happy homes, abundant and wholesome food, proper clothing and all other things necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is therefore a question not of “reform,” the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the co-operative industry.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Outlook for Socialism” by Eugene Victor Debs, Part I

3rd September 202010th August 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 3, 1900
“Outlook for Socialism in the United States” by Eugene V. Debs

From the International Socialist Review of September 1900:

[Part I of II

-by Eugene Debs, Social Democratic Party’s Candidate for President.]

The sun of the passing century is setting upon scenes of extraordinary activity in almost every part of our capitalistic old planet. Wars and rumors of wars are of universal prevalence. In the Philippines our soldiers are civilizing and Christianizing the natives in the latest and most approved styles of the art, and at prices ($13 per month) which command the blessing to the prayerful consideration of the lowly and oppressed everywhere.

In South Africa the British legions are overwhelming the Boers with volleys of benedictions inspired by the same beautiful philanthropy in the name of the meek and lowly Nazarene; while in China the heathen hordes, fanned into frenzy by the sordid spirit of modern commercial conquest, are presenting to the world a carnival of crime almost equaling the “refined” exhibitions of the world’s “civilized” nations.

And through all the flame and furore of the fray can be heard the savage snarlings of the Christian “dogs of war” as they fiercely glare about them, and with jealous fury threaten to fly at one another’s throats to settle the question of supremacy and the spoil and plunder of conquest.

The picture, lurid as a chamber of horrors, becomes complete in its gruesome ghastliness when robed ministers of Christ solemnly declare that it is all for the glory of God and the advancement of Christian civilization.

This, then, is the closing scene of the century as the curtain slowly descends upon the blood-stained stage—the central figure, the pious Wilhelm, Germany’s sceptered savage, issuing his imperial “spare none” decree in the snag froid of an Apache chief—a fitting climax to the rapacious regime of the capitalist system.

Cheerless indeed would be the contemplation of such sanguinary scenes were the light of Socialism not breaking upon mankind. The skies of the East are even now aglow with the dawn; its coming is heralded by the dispelling of shadows, of darkness and gloom. From the first tremulous scintillation that guilds the horizon to the sublime march to meridian splendor the light increases till in mighty flood it pours upon the world.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Independent: “The Social Democratic Party” -by Comrade Eugene V. Debs

24th August 20201st August 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 24, 1900
Presidential Candidate Eugene V. Debs on Mission of Social Democratic Party

From The Independent of August 23, 1900:

The Social Democratic Party

By Eugene V. Debs,

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE PARTY.

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In the Presidential election of 1892 the socialist candidate received 21,512 votes; in the election of 1896 the vote was increased to 36,275 votes [Socialist Labor Party]. The following two years witnessed an unprecedented spread of Socialist sentiment and in the Congressional and state elections of 1898 the Socialist candidates received 91,749 votes, an increase of almost 200 percent, in two years. But it must not he assumed that this vote represented the entire political strength of Socialists in the United States. In a number of states the election laws were such that the Socialist ticket could not be placed upon the official ballot, while in many districts the number of socialists was so small and they were so widely scattered that no nominations were made and the socialist vote was not polled.

The figures given are sufficient to indicate that in the United States, as in other countries. International socialism is making tremendous strides and that its seven million supporters, spread over all the belts and zones of the globe, and the most active propagandists ever known, will in the next few years be multiplied into controlling majorities in all lands which have modern industry as the basis of their civilization. Socialism being wholly a question of economic development. This will mean the end of the present capitalist competitive system and the introduction of its economic successor, the cooperative commonwealth.

The movement is international because it is born of and follows the development of the capitalist system, which in its operation is confined to no country, but by the stimulus of modern agencies of production, exchange, communication, and transportation, has overleaped all boundary lines and made the world the theater of its activities. By this process all the nations of the earth must finally be drawn into relations of industrial and commercial cooperation, as the economic basis of human brotherhood.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator, a Poem by Louis Untermeyer: “The Garland for Debs”

9th August 202022nd July 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD Enter Prison Untamed, Ipl Str p11, Apr 14, 1919 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 9, 1920
“The Garland for Debs” -a Poem by Louis Untermeyer

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

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Hellraisers Journal: Debs Accepts Nomination for President , Stands for Class-Conscious Socialism

7th August 202022nd July 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal -Tuesday August 7, 1900
Eugene Debs Will Represent International Class-Conscious Socialism

From The Scranton Republican of August 6, 1900:

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Aug. 5.-Eugene V. Debs, the presidential nominee of the Socialist Democratic party, has sent his letter of acceptance to William Bubscher, national secretary of the party in this city. Mr. Debs writes his letter from Terre Haute, Ind., under date of July 31,

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Butte Daily Bulletin: Deb Asks Supporters to Work for Release of All Class War Prisoners

6th August 202021st July 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD re SP n Working Class, Atlanta Cstn p2, May 30, 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 6, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Working for Release of All Class-War Prisoners

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of August 4, 1920:

DEBS STILL WORKING FOR RELEASE OF FELLOW MEN
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(Special United Press Wire.)

New York, Aug. 4.-Added impetus to the movement to secure the release of all political and class war prisoners from the federal and state prisons has been noted here since the receipt of word from Eugene V. Debs, who requested that efforts of individuals and organizations in his behalf alone be ceased and energies turned to the release of all.

Debs, who is the nominee of the Socialist party for president, is undergoing imprisonment at Atlanta federal penitentiary for his struggles in behalf of the workers.

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SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINE PROPOUNDED ————— By Eugene V. Debs to a Large Crowd At Arion Hall Last Evening. ——-

The Social Democratic Party

By Eugene V. Debs,

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE PARTY.

SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINE PROPOUNDED
—————
By Eugene V. Debs to a Large Crowd
At Arion Hall Last Evening.
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