Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 15, 1922 Eugene Debs Shares Letter from Inmate at Atlanta Penitentiary
From the Buffalo New Age of July 6, 1922
From Atlanta Prison: A Letter from a Prisoner with a Warning by Eugene V. Debs ———-
Eugene Debs Leaving Atlanta Penitentiary Christmas Day 1921
I have received a letter from a prisoner in the United States penitentiary in Atlanta that makes interesting and profitable reading. The name of the writer for the present at least must remain unknown. The letter would never have been permitted to go out of the prison in the regular way. Not a word of criticism of the prison, of anyone connected with its management is allowed to pass the censor. No matter what practices may prevail or what outrages may be perpetrated, no report thereof is permitted to pass the walls. The general public, which supports the prison, is not allowed to know what goes on there except as it may please the officers in charge to let the people known what a fine place it is and what a privilege to be locked up there.
Just at this writing a huge scandal has been uncovered at the United States penitentiary at Atlanta. A “dope ring,” headed by a prison physician and several guards, has been long operating there making dope fiends of young prisoners and supplying all who could pay for it at robber rates with the poisonous drug that would ruin them for life. And this is the benevolent United States government institution where drug addicts are sent to be reformed. And truly it is a fine bourgeois reformation they get at this walled-in inferno.
Underground Kite.
The letter, which follows, was sent out underground or it would never have left the prison. It is from a man who served a term of years in the navy and has been rewarded for his patriotism by a long prison sentence. There are several hundred inmates at Atlanta who were soldiers, marines, and sailors, some of them of many years standing, who for more or less trifling offenses were court-martialed by their “superiors” and sent to the penitentiary to contemplate the beauty of their reward for putting on a uniform and fighting to make their country “safe for democracy.” The writer of this letter is one of those victims and the letter speaks eloquently for itself. Here it is:
Through your many friends and comrades in prison here I have learned of your suffering for the noble cause of the human race. Your martyrdom will blaze the trail to the goal which the working class are destined to reach. With a few more such martyrs the cause will be won. Your undying devotion to your noble principles and your untiring efforts to secure liberty and justice for all, to make this country a fit place to live in, will be crowned with victory at last. From now on my life belongs to your cause.
Having thrown away 11 years in the navy, the lessons of experience have at last been a blessing to me. I have learned what our navy really stands for and that is not for the protection against invasion, but simply a school that teaches the doctrines of the rich.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 29, 1902 Debs Speaks at Butte, Montana: “We Must Gain Possession of the Tools of Trade”
From the Social Democratic Herald of June 28, 1902 -Letter from Eugene V. Debs at Butte, Montana, June 17th:
From the Butte Labor World of June 20, 1902:
Eugene V. Debs was given a rousing reception at the Auditorium Monday evening [June 16th]. It was an enthusiastic audience that heard him speak, and as he stood upon the platform for two solid hours and hurled rugged truths at them he was greeted with applause which at times was in the nature of an ovation.
Few public speakers of today could have filled the spacious Auditorium upon so short notice. Stopping off for a day in Butte, it had not been Mr. Debs’ purpose to speak at that time, but he was prevailed upon by a number of the most earnest workers for the cause of Socialism, and he consented. Hardly three hours was given in which to spread the news, but somehow it went the rounds and the Auditorium was filled from gallery to rostrum. Many who had come late were compelled to stand.
A Keen, Forceful Talker.
Upon the platform, as well as off, Eugene V. Debs is a wonderfully magnetic man. His flashes of humor, his clear, strong way of putting the questions before the minds of his auditors, and his cutting sarcasm directed at things and conditions he believes to be wrong, are such as to hold his audience spellbound.
“We Must Gain Possession of the Tools of Trade,” was the tenor of his remarks. “Human life will then be sacred. The badge of labor will be the badge of nobility.”
Charles Whitely, of the Butte Mill and Smeltermen’s union, was the chairman of the meeting and introduced the distinguished speaker.
Mr. Whitely referred to him as the “ablest labor leader the United States has ever produced,” and the audience cheered loudly. Mr. Debs appeared to be pleased with the cordial and earnest feeling with which he was received. It inspired him to extra effort, and the effect was truly notable.
Debs’ Speech.
It seems but a little while-yet four years have passed and many changes have taken place since I had the pleasure of speaking to you.
Never was there a greater demand for intelligent, thorough, and progressive action on the part of the laboring class than now. That such a large attendance could be secured upon so short notice proves that the workers of Butte are alive and determined to wage a struggle with increasing vigor until the working class is free. Not until the capitalist system of exploitation is overthrown and the wage system is abolished and the workers control the means of production and receive the full product of their toil, not until then will the struggle cease and they will stand as the rulers of the world.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 20, 1912 Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign
[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 – Full Text of Speech, Part II:]
The national convention of the Socialist Party recently held at Indianapolis was in all respects the greatest gathering of representative socialists ever held in the United States. The delegates there assembled demonstrated their capacity to deal efficiently with all the vital problems which confront the party. The convention was permeated in every fiber with the class-conscious, revolutionary spirit and was thoroughly representative of the working class. Every question that came before that body was considered and disposed of in accordance with the principles and program of the international movement and on the basis of its relation to and effect upon the working class.
The platform adopted by the convention is a clear and cogent enunciation of the party’s principles and a frank and forceful statement of the party’s mission. This platform embodies labor’s indictment of the capitalist system and demands the abolition of that system. It proclaims the identity of interests of all workers and appeals to them in clarion tones to unite for their emancipation.It points out the class struggle and emphasizes the need of the economic and political unity of the workers to wage that struggle to a successful issue. It declares relentless war upon the entire capitalist regime in the name of the rising working class and demands in uncompromising terms the overthrow of wage-slavery and the inauguration of industrial democracy.
In this platform of the Socialist Party the historic development of society is clearly stated and the fact made manifest that the time has come for the workers of the world to shake off their oppressors and exploiters, put an end to their age-long servitude, and make themselves the masters of the world.
To this end the Socialist Party has been organized; to this end it is bending all its energies and taxing all its resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers and their sympathizers throughout the nation.
In the name of the workers the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern industry it condemns poverty, idleness, and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilization it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment it condemns ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future it arraigns the past at the bar of the present, and in the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child.
The Socialist Party knows neither color, creed, sex, or race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and downtrodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 19, 1912
Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign
[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 – Full Text of Speech, Part I:]
Friends, Comrades, and Fellow-Workers:— We are today entering upon a national campaign of the profoundest interest to the working class and the country. In this campaign there are but two parties and but one issue. There is no longer even the pretense of difference between the so-called Republican and the so-called Democratic parties. They are substantially one in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office.
To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact. They-or rather it-stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery.
Both of these old capitalist class machines are going to pieces. Having outlived their time they have become corrupt and worse than useless and now present a spectacle of political degeneracy never before witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. The evolution of the forces underlying them is tearing them from their foundations and sweeping them to inevitable destruction.
We have before us in this capital at this hour an exhibition of capitalist machine politics which lays bare the true inwardness of the situation in the capitalist camp. Nothing that any Socialist has ever charged in the way of corruption is to be compared with what Taft and Roosevelt have charged and proved upon one another. They are both good Republicans, just as Harmon and Bryan are both good Democrats-and they are all agreed that socialism would be the ruination of the country.
Taft and Roosevelt in the exploitation of their boasted individualism and their mad fight for official spoils have been forced to expose the whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the American people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for, and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting this nation and enslaving and robbing its toilers.
What difference is there, judged by what they stand for, between Taft, Roosevelt, LaFollette, Harmon, Wilson, Clark, and Bryan?
Do they not all alike stand for the private ownership of industry and the wage slavery of the working class?
What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether the Republican or Democratic political machine of capitalism is in commission?
That these two parties differ in name only and are one in fact is demonstrated beyond cavil whenever and wherever the Socialist Party constitutes a menace to their misrule. Milwaukee is a case in point and there are many others. Confronted by the Socialists these long pretended foes are forced to drop their masks and fly into each other’s arms.
The baseness, hypocrisy, and corruption of these twin political agencies of Wall Street and the ruling class cannot be expressed in words. The imagination is taxed in contemplating their crimes. There is no depth of dishonor to which they have not descended-no depth of depravity they have not sounded.
To the extent that they control elections the franchise is corrupted and the electorate debauched, and when they succeed to power, it is but to execute the will of the Wall Street interests which finance and control them. The police, the militia, the regular army, the courts, and all the powers lodged in class government are all freely at the service of the ruling class, especially in suppressing discontent among the slaves of the factories, mills, and mines, and keeping them safely in subjugation to their masters.
How can any intelligent, self-respecting wage worker give his support to either of these corrupt capitalist parties? The emblem of a capitalist party on a workingman is the badge of his ignorance, his servility and shame.
Marshaled in battle array against these corrupt capitalist parties is the young, virile, revolutionary Socialist Party, the party of the awakening working class, whose red banners, inscribed with the inspiring shibboleth of class-conscious solidarity, proclaim the coming triumph of international socialism and the emancipation of the workers of the world.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 11, 1902
Denver, Colorado – W. F. of M. and A. L. U. Conventions Favor Socialism
From the Lead City Daily Tribune of June 10, 1902:
Moyer Elected President.
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Denver, June 9.-The annual convention of the Western Federation of Miners adjourned last night.Edward Boyce refused to serve as president and Charles Moyer of Lead, S. D., was elected in his stead. The other officers elected follow: Vice president, E. D. Hughes, Butte, Mont.; secretary and treasurer, W. D. Haywood, Silver, City, Ida.
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[Emphasis and photograph added.]
From the Butte Labor World of June 9, 1902 -Convention Number:
FEDERATION OF MINERS FAVORS SOCIALISM ———- Charles Moyer, of Lead, S. D., Is Elected President -Ed Hughes, of Butte, Vice President -Edward Boyce Retires from Office ———-
[Highlights from article.]
President Boyce, after a number of years of successful service as president, has retired. His successor, Charles Moyer of Lead, S. D., is regarded as a strong man, and one who will judiciously administrate the affairs of the organization…..
Paul Corcoran of Idaho, whose pardon as one of the Coeur d’Alene miners was effected through the miners, sent a warm and appreciative letter to the federation thanking it for assisting in rescuing him from prison…..
For favoring the pardon of Paul Corcoran a vote of thanks was extended to Governor Hunt and Secretary of State Basset of Idaho……
While the delegates upstairs at the Western Labor Union convention were discussing socialism and adopting it, those downstairs were debating the question with great vigor. The matter came up on the report of the committee on President Boyce’s report. John M. O’Neill of Cripple Creek was chairman, and recommended that President Boyce’s socialistic program be carried out in its entirety…
[T]he resolution and its political plans was adopted Wednesday morning….
One of the most significant actions of the Western Federation of Miners’ convention was the turning down by a unanimous vote the proposition of the American Federation of Labor for a reaffiliation of the two big bodies…..
A Gentle Refusal.
Secretary-Treasurer W. D. Haywood was instructed to notify the American Federation of Labor that in view of the action of the convention’s new departure in espousing socialism the invitation is respectfully declined…..
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WESTERN LABOR UNION CHANGES ITS NAME
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Will Carry an Aggressive Fight into the Camp of
the American Federation of Labor
-President Dan McDonald is Re-elected
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[Highlights from article.]
The American Labor union has closed its annual convention at Denver…..
The name of the organization has been changed from the Western Labor union to the American Labor union.
The gauntlet has been thrown down to the American Federation, and war will be waged all along the line.
The territory of the Western organization will be enlarged to take in great industrial bodies of the East…..
The union has been irrevocably pledged to socialism and independent political action [see resolution below, the platform of Socialist Party of America was adopted in its entirety]…..
Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 6, 1902 Denver, Colorado – W. L. U. and W. F. of M. Hold Conventions at Odd Fellows Hall
From the Butte Labor World of June 2, 1902, Convention Number:
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The annual convention of the Western Labor Union, and Western Federation of miners and the United Association of Hotel and Restaurant Employes, opened at Denver last week. These gatherings of men who represent the real producers of wealth showed in a measure the strength of the great organizations of labor. Denver received them with outstretched arms. The reception committees were busy looking to the comfort of the visitors and everything possible was done to make their stay in the queen city of the West a pleasant one. The hospitality was warm and well appreciated by the delegates….
There were nearly one hundred in attendance at the Western Labor Union convention and fully one hundred and fifty at the federation of miners.….
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 1, 1912 Socialist Party of America Nominates Eugene Debs and Emil Seidel
From the International Socialist Review of June 1912:
Note: This issue of the Review covers the National Convention of the Socialist Party of America extensively, devoting 25 pages to that coverage and including many drawings and photographs of delegates and visitors. The convention was held at Indianapolis, Indiana, beginning Sunday, May 12th and ending Saturday, May 18th. Debs and Seidel were nominated late in the day on May 17th.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 27, 1902 Eugene Debs Opines on Pennsylvania’s Great Anthracite Coal Strike
From the Social Democratic Herald of May 24, 1902:
EUGENE V. DEBS ON THE MINERS’ STRIKE
The miners’ strike is on in the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania. The operators were defiant and eager for the fray. The miners pulled every wire to prevent the collision and finally voted to go out in the very last extremity. A large minority voted against the strike and President Mitchell, all accounts agree, did his best to prevent it.
Most earnestly do I hope the poor devils will win, but there is no use trying to conceal the fact that they are up against it and that the coal and railroad companies have been preparing for the fight, openly courted it, and are determined to wipe out the union and run their mines to suit themselves.
At this writing everything is quiet as a graveyard in the anthracite region, but nevertheless the Republican governor [William A. Stone], elected largely by the votes of coal miners who don’t believe in going into politics, has already sworn in an army of special coal police, armed with Winchesters, to protect “property” and incidentally to perforate the hides of the striking miners if this becomes necessary to break up their strike, and force them back into their holes through starvation tunnel, to dig for their masters.
That is all they are fit for; at least that is what they themselves seem to think, for that is what they voted for under the direction of some of their district officers, who are simply the political pluggers of the gang of robbers that fleece the poor coal diggers when they work and have them murdered when they strike.
Pennsylvania, where hell is active as Mt. Pelee, and slavery in full blast, has a Republican majority of 300,000, made up quite largely of the poor devils now on strike.
The governor is already making active preparation to return bullet for ballot in accordance with the invariable program of the capitalist class, whom the miners and other workingmen have made the ruling class of the country.
President Mitchell will do the best he can in a trying position. He has issued a request that miners abstain from the use of liquor during the strike, and, acting upon his advice, they thronged the churches on Sunday last and took the oath of total abstinence and the pledge to entirely keep out of saloons till the strike is settled.
As for the Civic Federation, it has already done its worst. It has delayed and dallied six weeks, taken the heart out of many of the strikers and set them by the ears among themselves. Had the miners struck April 1, as they intended, they would have been far stronger than they are today.
My advice to you, striking miners, is to keep away from the capitalistic partnership of priest and politician, to cut loose from the Civic Federation, and to stand together to a man and fight it out yourselves. If you can’t win, no one else can win for you; and if in the end you find that the corporations can beat you at the game of famine, you may, and it is hoped that you will, have your eyes opened to the fact that your vote is your best weapon and that if the 140,000 miners of Pennsylvania will cast a solid vote for socialism, they will soon drive the robbers from the state and take possession of the mines and make themselves the masters of their industry, and the workingmen the rulers of the state.
As for the army of coal police already marshaled and armed by the governor to shoot the strikers upon the assumption that they are criminals, I advise that the miners in convention assembled unanimously resolve that, while they propose to keep within the law, they also propose to exercise all the rights and privileges the law grants them; and, furthermore, that the monstrous crime of Latimer shall not be repeated, and if any striker is shot down without good cause the first shot shall be the signal for war and the miners will shoot back; and if killing must be the program of the coal barons, let it be an operator for a miner instead of miners only, as in the past.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 15, 1912 Girard, Kansas – Eugene Debs on Shipping Special Edition of the Appeal
From The Coming Nation of May 11, 1912 -April 22nd, Shipping the Special Judiciary Edition of April 27th:
A view of part of the great record-breaking edition of the Appeal to Reason, at the railroad station, Girard, Kansas
The photographer’s lens was not wide enough to catch all of the piles of the special Judiciary Edition of the Appeal to Reason which were delivered to one single train. The total edition was over 3,000,000.
From the Appeal to Reason of May 4, 1912:
April 22, 1912, at Girard
BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
SITTING at my desk at the APPEAL office, I hear the whirl and roar of the mammoth press. The Judicial Edition is racing through it-20,000 copies an hour. “Old Chap,” the veteran pressman, is pitted against his own record.
At the rate of a quarter of a million a day it will take twelve days to turn out this marvelous edition the greatest ever issued by any paper, in any nation, since the printing art was born.
“Old Chap” and the boys are standing by the racing, roaring old leviathan to win the wager that “she will not make it” and she does not miss a throb of her swift-beating heart in all the twenty-four hours of the day and night.
All about the APPEAL today the boys and girls are tense with trial-“drinking in the breath of their own swiftness”-making the record that is to stand against the world.
There is no night in Girard this week-there is but one long day-the day of Wayland, Warren and Phifer’s defiance to Pollock, Hook and Bone-the day of the APPEAL triumphant over the criminal courts of capitalist America.
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IT is now ten-thirty in the morning. I am near the depot platform and I gaze upon a mountain raised by human hands and human hearts and human brains-in sweet and sympathetic social alliance-the like of which the eyes of man never saw before.
Piled high enough to hide the depot and extending far enough to tower like a range of mountain peaks, the APPEAL,-a thousand pouches and a million copies-is awaiting transportation. And this is but the first installment of the fabulous edition.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 10, 1902 How Six Months in the Woodstock Jail Made a Socialist of Eugene Debs
From The Comrade of April 1902:
As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade” having any curiosity as to “how I became a Socialist” it may be in order to say that the subject is the editor’s, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming a Socialist.
On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. “Old Josh Leach,” as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said, “My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.” Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said: “I put a tow-headed boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at the head of it.”
Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “Old Josh” and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:
“Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.”
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watch-fires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the “meeting” was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.
At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often when, all oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother’s hand turned off the light, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhere—and they were all the world—were straining:
“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.”
My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an “agitator,” or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.
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The national convention of the Socialist Party recently held at Indianapolis was in all respects the greatest gathering of representative socialists ever held in the United States. The delegates there assembled demonstrated their capacity to deal efficiently with all the vital problems which confront the party. The convention was permeated in every fiber with the class-conscious, revolutionary spirit and was thoroughly representative of the working class. Every question that came before that body was considered and disposed of in accordance with the principles and program of the international movement and on the basis of its relation to and effect upon the working class.
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