Hellraisers Journal: “Crimes of Capitalism in Colorado” by Eugene Victor Debs; Driving Out Mother Jones by C. W. Fryer

Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 10, 1904
“Crimes of Capitalism in Colorado” by Eugene Victor Debs

From The Chicago Socialist of April 9, 1904:

Crimes of Capitalism…in Colorado
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BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
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The arrest and deportation of Mother Jones and the arrest and imprisonment of Charles H. Moyer, the lion-hearted president of the Western Federation of Miners, are among the latest outrages in the daily budget of crime reported from Colorado.

The crimes of the capitalists and their henchmen under the law and order administration of their executive utensil multiply so rapidly that it requires a swift pen to keep the record.

And the record must be kept to the minutest detail, for when the day of final accounting comes, as come it will as surely as the green earth rolls sunward, the capitalist class will settle by the books to the last cry of agony and the last groan of despair wrung from the misery of their crucified and exiled victims.

The midnight assault of the brutal soldiery upon Comrade Floaten-than whom a truer comrade does not live-the beastly insult to his pleading wife, the violent deportation of Guy Miller, president of the Telluride union and his comrades; the lashing of a union man to a telephone pole solely because of his being a union man; the jailing of inoffensive citizens, and the outrages upon defenseless females are all charged up in red letters in the book of remembrance.

Governor Peabody and his accessories will answer to the last line of the last indictment drawn by an awakening Justice at the bar of an aroused working class.

The coming day of judgment is slow, but it is sure.

And the memory of the working class is long-they do not forget.

At times the blood boils with indignation, but we must keep cool, keep calm-cool and calm and resolute.

The talk about armed attack by the unarmed worker is criminal folly-worse still, it is suicide. The time may come for that, but it is not now. That is the program of Peabody and his mercenary hirelings to incite attack that the blood of union men may flow like mountain streams.

Have you forgotten how the working class in Colorado voted but a few months ago?

Well, that is the way they will shoot today.

Should armed collision now ensue in consequence of excited councils the brave and brainy union men would pay the forfeit with their lives and the movement in the state would be crushed and paralyzed.

These are the days to preach the class struggle in Colorado.

Every day makes it clearer; every outrage confirms and emphasizes its commanding truth.

The real danger comes with the cry to “bury Peabody beneath an avalanche of votes.”

The unthinking will rush from the frying pan into the fire.

In their eagerness to bury Peabody, they will forget Peabodyism.

To bury Peabody will be time wasted if capitalism, of which he is but the spawn, is overlooked.

The Democratic Party will freely proffer its services in the burying of Peabody and passionately proclaim its sympathy and friendship.

Trust it no more than you would the Republican Party.

The only difference from the workingman’s point of view is that one is run in the interest of a small number of large exploiters and the other in the interest of a large number of small exploiters.

They are both against the working class.

The Republican Peabody will be duplicated, if the workers so will it, by a Democratic Nobody. The capitalist class will rule as before and bullpens will do business at the old stands.

The Socialist Party is the party to support, the working class party, the deadly and uncompromising foe of capitalism and wage-slavery.

Arouse, ye workingmen!

Open your eyes to the class struggle!

Join and support the only party that stands squarely upon the class struggle as the basis of its revolutionary character.

The Republican, Democratic, and Populist parties are all capitalist parties, all for wage-slavery, all against the working class.

Mother Jones in exile, Charles Moyer, your brave leader, in jail!

Have you red blood in your veins?

Has you manhood rotted into cowardice?

Wake up and take your place in the class struggle!

For the desecration of the flag your leader is in jail.

What flag? The flag of the capitalist class-the flag that floats above the bullpens of Colorado.

The wholesome truths he stamped upon its stripes are your shame and your masters’ crime.

Rally to the red standard of international socialism, the symbol of proletarian revolt, and the workers of Colorado and all the world shall yet be free.

[Emphasis added.]