Category: Eugene Victor Debs

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs Defends I. W. W., Declares Charges “Absurd and Malicious”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote, Revolutionary Solidarity, ISR Feb 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday February 3, 1918
Eugene V. Debs Defends the Industrial Workers of the World

From the International Socialist Review of February 1918:

THE I. W. W. BOGEY

By EUGENE V. DEBS

WWIR, Chg IWW, EVD re Stanley J. Clark, ISR Feb 1918

The morning paper I have just read contains an extended press dispatch from Washington, under screaming headlines, making the startling disclosure that a worldwide conspiracy to overthrow the existing social order has been unearthed by the secret service agents of the government The basis of the conspiracy is reported to have been the discovery of some guns and ammunition in the hold of a Russian freighter just arrived at a Pacific port in charge of a Bolsheviki crew, from which it has been deduced that the guns must have been sent by the Russian revolutionists to the I. W. W. of the United States in pursuance of a conspiracy of the Russian reds, the Sinn Fein leaders of Ireland, and the American I. W. W.s to overthrow all the governments of the civilized world.

This is really too much!

We are not told how the Sinn Feiners happen to get in on this universal conspiracy, but as their name, like that of the Bolsheviki and the I. W. W., has great potency as a bogey to frighten the feeble-minded, the inventors of this wonderful cock-and-bull story may well be allowed this additional license to their perfervid imagination.

Everything that happens nowadays that the ruling classes do not like and everything that does not happen that they do like is laid at the door of the I. W. W. Its name is anathema wherever capitalism wields the lash and drains the veins of its exploited victims.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs for the Appeal to Reason: Calls Goldfield Report “an exceptional document.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people will ultimately see that
socialism is their only hope
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 29, 1908
From the Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs on the Goldfield Report

From the Appeal of January 25, 1908:

DEBS AT THE WHITE HOUSE
—–
Interviews President and Arranges for
Congressional Action on Suppressed
Goldfield Report
-Washington News Service Established.
—–

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
—–

EVD, Roosevelt, Goldfield, AtR, Jan 25, 1908

Washington, Jan. 17.-Arrangements have been completed here for a special news service, and a weekly letter to the Appeal by a correspondent whose reports of the proceedings in congress will be made from the Socialist point of view. The Washington column will therefore contain matter which does not find its way into capitalistic newspapers, and will be a feature of special interest to Appeal readers.

It is generally understood here that there is to be no legislation of any account by the present session of congress. Measures of little or no consequence have been introduced for no other purpose than to consume time between now and the approaching national conventions of the two old parties. Labor legislation is urgently demanded as usual by committees representing trade unions, but all such efforts will as in the past be barren of results.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs in New York City to Boom Haywood for President, Plans to Unite Two Socialists Parties

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people will ultimately see that
socialism is their only hope
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday January 25, 1908
New York, New York – Debs Calls for Nomination of Haywood

From the New York Tribune of January 23, 1908:

DEBS HERE TO BOOM HAYWOOD.
—–
Says President Roosevelt Is Aiding Spread
of Socialism-May Unite Factions.

SPA, SLP, emblems buttons

Eugene V. Debs was in New York yesterday to help along the plan to amalgamate the two warring factions, the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party, the latter representing the De Leon socialists. He said he was for William D. Haywood, secretary of the Western Federation of Miners, as the Socialist candidate for President.

A conference will be held to-day between Debs, the leaders of both parties and Haywood, at which a slate will be informally selected. The leaders on both sides said yesterday that it is practically certain that the amalgamation will take place.

[Debs said last night:

This financial crisis will end in an international crisis such as this world has not seen in our time. Then socialism will have its best chance.

President Roosevelt has done more to further the spread of the socialist propaganda than any man I know of. His policy, or lack of policy, whichever way you take it, along with his currency and tariff views, is paving the way for socialism. The more he says the longer the bread line will grow, and the people will ultimately see that socialism is their only hope. When the international crisis comes socialism will spread all over the world.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Defends Thomas McGrady “to rescue the memory of a faithful and devoted comrade.” Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Thomas McGrady found joy in social service
And his perfect consecration to his social ideals
Was the crowning glory of his life
And the bow of promise at his death.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 13, 1908
Eugene V. Debs Defends the Memory of Thomas McGrady, Part I

From the Appeal to Reason of January 11, 1908:

CALUMNIATING THE DEAD.

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.

[Part I]

HMP, EVD, Eugene OR Guard, May 30, 1907

THE Appeal does not court religious or sectarian controversy. Its columns bear sufficient testimony of this fact. We may go farther and say that the Appeal, for obvious reasons, shrinks from such discussion and avoids it whenever possible. This has been the policy under the most extreme provocation, and when there is an exception to this rule it must be for good and sufficient reason. The Socialist movement is made up of people of all religions, and of no religion at all, the same as any other political party; and no more than any other political party does it interfere with the religious beliefs of its adherents. This is well known to every Socialist.

The charge so frequently made that the Socialist party is an irreligious party and that its aim is to destroy the church and wipe out religion is simply a made-to-order falsehood, one of the many coined in the mint of capitalism, and circulated through its propaganda to injure the Socialist movement.

The facts above stated can be verified by simply reading the platform of the Socialist party, in which its essential principles and purposes are clearly enunciated, and by reading any of the numerous Socialist papers in which these principles and purposes are discussed with the widest freedom. It is true that an occasional article appears in the Socialist press touching the institutional church, and the priesthood or ministry but in such cases it will usually be found that the Socialist press is on the defensive, not on the offensive.

When the Pope issues an encyclical misrepresenting Socialism, the Socialist press cannot without stultifying itself remain silent. When a popular and pampered minister slanders Socialists from a rich and fashionable pulpit, they would be cowardly not to resent the insult. When a priest is engaged to tour the country under the patronage of capitalists to disseminate the falsehood that Socialism will destroy the home, and turn the family into a harem, and love into lust, what would be said of the Socialist press if it sat by in mute and supine submission? When a catholic paper publishes a special edition filled with capitalist advertisements, and with editorial and contributed matter exhorting wage-slaves to be meek and lowly and submit to the will of their masters, and this special edition, ordered and paid for by capitalist exploiters, is delivered in bundles at factories where the slaves are fettered and fleeced, and they ar asked to read this rot-which Christ would have trampled and spat upon-as the law and gospel of their spiritual advisors, is it likely that self-respecting Socialists who seek the freedom and uplifting of the working class could contemplate such an unspeakable outrage in silence without sinking to fathomless depths of self-contempt?

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on Roosevelt’s Quandary: What to do with Troops in Goldfield, Part II

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people are as capable of achieving
their industrial freedom as they were
to secure their political liberty,
and both are necessary to a free nation.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday January 7, 1908
Goldfield, Nevada – What to do with Roosevelt’s Troops, Part II

From the Appeal to Reason of January 4, 1908:

CAUGHT IN THEIR OWN NET
—–
Federal and State Authorities in a Quandary
as to What to Do With the
Soldiers at Goldfield.
—–

Instantaneous and Widespread Effect of the
“Goldfield Extra” Issued by the
Appeal to Reason Protesting
Against Troops.
—–
BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
[Part II]

Goldfield Strike, Scrip, AtR p4, Dec 28, 1907

The history of strikes shows beyond question what soldiers are used for. Honest union men who dare assert their rights are not protected, but scabs who are imported from slums and reek with crime, “gun-men” and professional strike-breakers, and other degenerates hired to undermine labor and defeat its aspirations, are saints and saviors, and must have the soldiers of the republic to see that no harm comes to them in their holy mission, and that nothing occurs to prevent them from consummating the munificent work to which their energies are so unselfishly consecrated.

In the eyes of soldiers in the employ of this capitalistic government of ours, honest workingmen who seek to defend their rights, and stand up for their homes, their wives and babes, are traitors to be shot and rioters to be bayoneted, while scabs are patriots to be protected in the name of law and order.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on Roosevelt’s Quandary: What to do with Troops in Goldfield, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people are as capable of achieving
their industrial freedom as they were
to secure their political liberty,
and both are necessary to a free nation.
-Eugene Victor Debs

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 6, 1908
Goldfield, Nevada – What to do with Roosevelt’s Troops, Part I

From the Appeal to Reason of January 4, 1908:

CAUGHT IN THEIR OWN NET
—–
Federal and State Authorities in a Quandary
as to What to Do With the
Soldiers at Goldfield.
—–

Instantaneous and Widespread Effect of the
“Goldfield Extra” Issued by the
Appeal to Reason Protesting
Against Troops.
—–
BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
[Part I]

Pres T Roosevelt, SF Call p37, Dec 29, 1907

When President Roosevelt issued his order, based upon the requisition of Governor Sparks and the Mine Owners of Nevada, converting the mining town of Goldfield into a military camp, the whole country was more or less surprised. It was the suddenness of the action of the president rather than the action itself which created such intense interest and elicited approval of provoked condemnation, according to the point of view.

The telegraphic dispatch containing this military order struck the APPEAL almost as if it had been a blow in the face.

There was absolutely nothing in the Goldfield situation to warrant such an arbitrary act of interference in a purely local situation. The president knew it, and so did every one else at all familiar with the situation. The act could have but one meaning and one purpose. The APPEAL instinctively understood it. The blow had been struck without warning; it must be returned without delay. The facts of the case must be given to the working class as promptly and as fully as the means and facilities at the command of the APPEAL would allow.

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs on “Panic Philosophy” & “widespread poverty, misery & despair.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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While there is a lower class, I am in it,
While there is a criminal element, I am of it,
And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 30, 1907
#630 of Appeal to Reason Addresses “A Stupendous Crisis”

From the Appeal of December 28, 1907:
The following is the contribution made by Debs to the “Panic Edition”-

Panic Philosophy by EVD, AtR Dec 28, 1907

HMP, EVD, Eugene OR Guard, May 30, 1907

THE average man understands in a vague way that there is a panic, so-called, and he is more or less concerned about it according as it affects his business or his employment. But he has never studied economics and knows nothing about the laws governing social development. The panic distresses him, it is true, but he is not philosophic enough to inquire into its cause; he simply wants to get rid of the plague.

And so the average man falls easy prey to the political quack in the service of the industrial baron who glibly rings the changes on “financial stringency,” “elastic currency,” “lack of confidence,” “tariff revision,” “trust regulation” and like meaningless twaddle.

It is a fact to be deplored that the average man is a mental child; reads little and that mostly vapid nonsense; thinks less, and reasons not at all.

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Hellraisers Journal: Tribute from Eugene Debs for Comrade Father Thomas McGrady, Catholic Socialist

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Thomas McGrady found joy in social service
And his perfect consecration to his social ideals
Was the crowning glory of his life
And the bow of promise at his death.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday December 19, 1907
Eugene Debs Bids Fond Farewell to Father Thomas McGrady

From the Appeal to Reason of December 14, 1907:

McGrady by EVD, AtR Dec 14, 1907

Father Thomas McGrady, Arena, July 1907

It is a strange and pathetic coincidence that almost at the very moment I completed the introduction to the brochure of Thomas McGrady on “The Catholic Church and Socialism,” now in press, the sad news came that he had passed away, and the painful duty now devolves upon me to write the word “finis” at the close of his work and add a few words of obitual eulogy.

It is not customary among Socialists to pronounce conventional and meaningless panegyrics upon departed comrades; nor to pay fulsome tribute to virtues they never possessed. Mere form and ceremony have had their day-and a long and gloomy day it has been-and can have no place among Socialists when a comrade living pays his last reverent regards to a comrade dead.

Thomas McGrady was born at Lexington, Ky., June 6, 1863. In 1887, at 24 years of age, he was ordained as a Catholic priest at the Cathedral of Galveston, Tex. His next pastorate was St. Patrick’s church, Houston, followed by his transfer to St. Patrick’s church, Dallas, Tex. In 1890 he returned to his Kentucky home, beginning his pastoral service there in Lexington, his native city. Later he went to St. Anthony’s church, Bellevue, Ky., and it was here, in 1896, that he began his first serious study of economic, political and social questions. He was first attracted by Henry George’s Single Tax, but abandoned that as inadequate after some Socialist literature fell into his hands, and he became convinced that nothing less than a social revolution, and the abolition of the capitalist competitive system would materially better the existing industrial and social condition of the people.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1907, Found Lauded in the Appeal to Reason

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote re Mother Jones, AtR, Nov 23, 1907


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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 14, 1907
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November:
-Found Covered with Fond Tributes in the Appeal to Reason

From the Appeal to Reason of November 2, 1907

Texas SP Sec Bell, AtR, Nov 2, 1907

The Typewriter Fund.

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

As correspondents will have noticed, the state office is now in possessions of a typewriter as a result of the movement in that direction started by Mother Jones.

The entire fund for that purpose, however, has never been raise.

Seeing the great need for a typewriter, Comrade N. B. Hunt, unsolicited, tendered a loan of $20 for the purpose of getting the much-needed machine without delay.

A machine was purchased from Comrade C. L. Vincent for $35; $2 of the fund has been contributed by Comrade Vincent…

Amount to be raised to cancel loan…$16.25.

Let us have your contribution to this fund and wipe out the debt.

—–

[Photograph & emphasis added.]

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