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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 11, 1912
Belleville, Illinois – Debs Interviewed by Frank A. Wiedinger
From the St. Louis Star of November 4, 1912:
Debs Calls T. R. Chief Thief of
Socialist Party’s Plank
———–SAYS COLONEL IS A POLITICAL
“DR. F. A. COOK”BY FRANK A. WIEDINGER.
Pressure from below has for years been forcing the old parties to steal the planks of the Socialists, but in this campaign, in trying to keep up with the irresistible demand of the masses for remedial legislation, Theodore Roosevelt has become the chief offender.
Roosevelt feels that his existence depends upon keeping himself in the limelight. He knows that he would be a political corpse if he did not continually turn to the spectacular. He is now poaching on the Socialist preserves and going farther than we ourselves have even gone.
In thus assuming the spectacular, Roosevelt has become a political Dr. Cook. He is a monumental faker. He is a four-flusher. He tells the masses that he, and he alone, is standing for their interests, but the masses will no longer stand for him.
In this wise Eugene V. Debs, Socialist nominee for President, paid his caustic respects to the Progressive standard-bearer in a talk with the writer yesterday noon after a great Socialist rally in the Dreamland Theater at Belleville, Ill.
Both in the interview and in the public speech which preceded it, Mr. Debs devoted the major part of his utterances to Colonel Roosevelt. He also scored Taft and Wilson, but only as the “tools of the capitalistic classes.” In talking of Roosevelt his declarations were mainly in a personal vein, though he resorted to ridicule rather than direct attack.
In so doing he left the distinct impression that seems to obtain also in both Republican and Democratic circles, that he believes Roosevelt is the one who will gain the largest popular vote at the polls tomorrow, and that hence he is the one against whom all the foes of the progressives should turn their batteries.
[Continued Mr. Debs:]
Every decent man regrets and denounces the attempt to assassinate Roosevelt at Milwaukee, and none more so than the Socialists, but there is a thought connected with the first announcement of the shooting which shows how the press is ruled by the capitalists.
“Roosevelt Shot Down By a Socialist,” the papers announced in big flaring headlines. As a matter of fact, investigation showed that not only was Schrank not a socialist, but that on the contrary he had been a steady reader of Republican and Democratic literature. No wonder he was a maniac. This false announcement is only one of the many instances in which the capitalistic press, with one voice, seeks to throw all possible onus of crime upon the socialists.
These same papers, day after day, devoted columns and pages to Roosevelt’s condition, but if a downtrodden laborer was killed while at work because his employer had placed him at defective machinery, or if a sick child died of neglect while the mother was scrubbing at night in a big office building in order to get money for medicine and food, you might search these same papers from beginning to end and find not a mention of either case.
Cites Economic Injustice.
Why is this? Is the life of one human, in the final analysis, worth more than the life of another? The general answer to this would be yes, but I say no-a thousand times no. Given equal opportunity that same workingman might have become the great man which Roosevelt admits that he himself is. That dead child was as dear to its mother as are any of his own to this apostle of large families.
Possibly the reason these instances are generally ignored by the papers is that by calling attention to them they must at the same time reveal the economic injustice under which this country is now suffering. Vote the Socialist ticket on Tuesday and you can correct these conditions.
Let me explain what I mean when I say that in stealing from our platforms Roosevelt is the chief offender. In 1906, when we were forcing upon the country the cry of the initiative, referendum, and recall, which is now victoriously sweeping the country from coast to coast, Theodore Roosevelt, then in the White House, in a public declaration singled out the plank of the Socialists and called it anarchistic. Now he is not only demanding the recall of judges, but of judicial decisions as well, going even farther than the “anarchists” of 1906 had gone. This is simply another instance of the spectacular for which his nature seems to crave.
Compensation Plank Stolen.
Another plank which we have jammed down willy-nilly into the jaws of the old parties, and which the copious Rooseveltian maw has swallowed at one gulp, is that declaring for workmen’s compensation laws. Both old parties are in keen rivalry to appropriate this cry for justice, and are telling labor that the only way to get this justice is to vote their own ticket, as the Socialists will never have the power of legislation. Roosevelt has been proclaiming this from the housetops.
It is evident that the capitalist politicians-and by this I mean the followers of all three of the supposedly dominant parties in the present campaign-have seen the handwriting on the wall. They see that the scales are falling from the eyes of the oppressed people, and in their desperate effort to retain their grip upon the government they are offering us a shadow instead of a substance.
There is only one way for the workingmen of this country to obtain economic justice, and that is by voting the Socialist ticket from top to bottom. Labor here, as in every country, is in the vast majority, but such is its position of servitude that it does not know its own power. Once it realizes the power lying in its own hands, justice will descend upon the United States in an irresistible avalanche.
Scratch a Republican and you will find a Democrat. Scratch a Democrat and you will find a Bull Mooser, and so on ad infinitum. They are all stabled in the stalls of plutocracy, and when the Socialists begin to show the true power of independent labor at the polls these stalls will be depopulated by the capitalistic masters and the old party combination against us in Milwaukee [The Fusion Party] will be duplicated throughout the country. The masks will be thrown off and the illicit love of the old parties will be revealed in all its nakedness. And when this triple team of unholy capitalism is harnessed up the Bull Moose will be the wheel horse of plutocracy.
Wants No Favors.
The platform of the Socialists may be stated in two words-economic justice. Labor wants no favors from capital. It simply demands its own. It is an age-long fight, and victory for humanity is rapidly looking up. The cry of the oppressed can no longer be silenced. Labor demands its just share in the profits of its brawn and skill, and this demand has now reached the irresistible stage, as witness the sops, which are continually being thrown out to us by the old parties.
I want to impress one truth upon the minds of the public. It is unnecessary to do so with the socialists, as it is our unyielding creed. The reforms which we demand in the name of humanity must come through peaceful channels. We are and ever will be foes of violence. Our remedy lies in the ballot box. With unity at the polls economic justice is nearly in sight.
Through the medium of The Star I want to appeal for this unity next Tuesday. In the name of its wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and sweethearts; in the name of true and not traitorous manhood I appeal to independent labor to show its strength in such a manner that our inevitable victory will be hastened and humanity finally come into its own through the outstretched hands of common justice.
Whereupon Mr Debs, after a hasty luncheon, hurried to St. Louis for a series of meetings unparalleled in the political history of this city.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote EVD, SPA Campaign Opens, Riverview Park, Chicago, June 16, 1912
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1912/120616-debs-buttwopartiesandbutoneissue.pdf
St. Louis Star
(St Louis, Missouri)
-Nov 4, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/205351812/
See also:
Debs Internet Archive, Nov 3, 1912
-Old Parties Thieves of Ideas, Interview with the St. Louis Star
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1912/121103-debs-interviewwithstlouisstar.pdf
Progressive Party (Bull Moose), 1912
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1912)
Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Cook
Oct 14, 1912, Attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt
by former saloon-keeper John Flammang Schrank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Theodore_Roosevelt
-re “this apostle of large families,” see:
Theory of Race Suicide (scroll down to T. R. Roosevelt re “race suicide”)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_suicide
Milwaukee Fusion Party
https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/fusion-party/
Nov 4, 1912, St Louis Star
-Debs Cheered by 15,000 at Concordia Hall
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/112887663/nov-4-1912-st-louis-star-times-debs/
1912 United States Presidential Election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_United_States_presidential_election
Tag: Debs Campaign 1912
https://weneverforget.org/tag/debs-campaign-1912/
Nov 9, 1912, Appeal to Reason
-re Debs Campaigns in Pittsburgh PA, Milwaukee and Cincinnati
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/112894193/nov-9-1912-appeal-to-reason-re-debs/
-re Emma F. Langdon by Frank A. Wiedinger
Sept 25, 1912, St Louis Star p5
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/43716524/emma-f-langdon/
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The Commonwealth of Toil – Peter Hicks
Lyrics (mostly) by Ralph Chaplin