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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 11, 1904
Indianapolis, Indiana – Debs Opens Campaign with Impassioned Address
From the Appeal to Reason of September 10, 1904:
Published in the Appeal we find the entire text of the speech made by Socialist Presidential Candidate, Eugene Debs, in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday, September 1st. The article begins with a few notable quotes:
TOCSIN OF THE 1904 CAMPAIGN SOUNDED
———-In an Eloquent and Impassioned Address Before A Multitude of
Cheering People, Eugene V. Debs, Candidate for President of
the Socialist Ticket, Opened the Campaign at
Indianapolis, Indiana, Last Thursday.
SOME OF DEBS’ EPIGRAMS.
“Ignorance alone stands in the way of Socialist success.”
———-
“Capitalist parties stand for slavery and night; the Socialist party is the herald of Freedom and Light.”
———-
“The ballot of united labor expresses the people’s will, and the people’s will is the supreme law of a free nation.”
———-
“The divided vote of labor is the abuse at the ballot and the penalty is slavery and death.”
———-
“Labor has always been the mud-sill of the social fabric-is so now, and will be until the class struggle ends in class extinction and free society.”
———-
“These are stirring days for living man. The day of crisis is drawing near and Socialists are exerting all their power to prepare the people for it.”
———-
“The old order of society can survive but little longer. Socialism is next in order. The swelling minority sounds warning of the impending change. Soon that minority will be the majority, and then will come the Co-operative Commonwealth.”
———-
“The Socialist party comprehends the magnitude of its task and has the patience at preliminary defeat and the faith of ultimate victory.”
———-
“With faith and hope and courage we held our heads erect and with dauntless spirit marshal the working class for the search from capitalism to Socialism, from slavery to Freedom, from barbarism to Civilization.”
—————
[Excerpts from Campaign Speech Made by Eugene V. Debs
at Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday September 1st:]Mr. Chairman, Citizens and Comrades:
There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been, and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.
Wage-labor is but a name; wage slavery is the fact.
The twenty-five millions of wage-workers in the United States are twenty-five millions of twentieth century slaves.
This is the plain meaning of what is known as
The Labor Market.
And the labor market follows the capitalist flag.
The most barbarous fact in all Christendom is the labor market. The mere term sufficiently expresses the animalism of commercial civilization.
They who buy and they who sell in the labor market are alike dehumanized by the inhuman traffic in the brains and blood and bones of human beings.
The labor market is the foundation of so-called civilized society. Without these shambles, without this commerce in human life, this sacrifice of manhood and womanhood, this barter of babes, this sale of souls, the capitalist civilizations of all lands and all climes would crumble to ruin and perish from the earth.
Twenty-five millions of wage slaves are bought and sold daily at prevailing prices in the American Labor Market.
* * *
The Class Struggle.
We are entering tonight upon a momentous campaign. The struggle for political supremacy is not between political parties merely, as appears upon the surface, but at bottom it is a life and death struggle between two hostile economic classes, the one the capitalist and the other the working class.
The capitalist class is represented by the republican, democratic, populist and prohibition parties, all of which stand for private ownership of the mans of production and the triumph of any one of which will mean continued wage-slavery to the working class.
As the populist and prohibition sections of the capitalist party represent minority elements which propose to reform the Capitalist system without disturbing wage-slavery, a vain and impossible task, they will be omitted from this discussion with all the credit due the the rank and file for their good intentions.
The republican and democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the republican-democratic party, represents the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
With either of these parties in power one thing is always certain and that is that the capitalist class are in the saddle and the working class under the saddle.
Under the administration of both these parties the means of production are private property, production is carried forward for capitalist profit purely, markets are glutted and industry paralyzed, workingmen become tramps and criminals while injunctions, soldiers and riot guns are brought into action to preserve “law and order” in the chaotic carnival of capitalists anarchy.
Deny it as may the cunning capitalists who are clear sighted enough to perceive it, or ignore it as may the torpid workers who are too blind and unthinking to see it, the struggle in which we are engaged today is a class struggle, and as the toiling millions come to see and understand it and rally to the political standard of their class, they will drive all capitalist parties of whatever name into the same party, and the class struggle will then be so clearly revealed that the hosts of labor will find their true place in the conflict and strike the united and decisive blow that will destroy slavery and achieve their full and and final emancipation.
In this struggle the workingmen and women and children are represented by the Socialist party, and it is my privilege to address you in the name of that revolutionary and uncompromising party of the working class.
* * *
The Republican Party.
Let us briefly consider the republican party from the workers’ stand point. It is capitalist to the core. It has not and can not have the slightest interest in labor except to exploit it.
Why should a workingman support the republican party?
Why should a millionaire support the Socialist party?
For precisely the same reason that all the millionaires are opposed to the Socialist party all the workers should be opposed to the republican party. It is a capitalist party, is loyal to capitalist interests and entitled to the support of capitalist voters on election day.
All it has for workingmen is its “glorious past” and a “glad hand” when it wants their votes.
* * *
The Democratic Party.
In referring to the democratic party in this discussion we may save time by simply saying that since it was born again at the St. Louis convention it is near enough like its republican ally to pass for a twin brother.
The former party of the “common people” is no longer under the boycott of the plutocracy since it has adopted the Wall street label and renounce its middle class heresies.
The radical and progressive element of the former democracy have been evicted and must seek other quarters. They were an unmitigated nuisance in the conservative counsels of the old party. They were for the “common people” and the trusts have no use for such a party.
Where but to the Socialist party can these progressive people turn? They are now without a party and the only genuine democratic party in the field is the Socialist party, and every true democrat should thank Wall street for driving him out of a party that is democratic in name only and into one that is democratic in fact.
* * *
The Socialist Party.
In what has been said of other parties I have tried to show why they should not be supported by the common people, least of all by workingmen, and I think I have shown clearly enough that such workers as do support them are guilty, consciously or unconsciously, of treason to their class. They are voting into power the enemies of labor and are morally responsible for the crimes thus perpetrated upon their fellow workers and sooner or later they will have to suffer the consequences of their miserable acts.
The Socialist party is not, and does not pretend to be, a capitalist party. It does not ask, nor does it expect, the votes of the capitalist class. Such capitalists as do support it do so seeing the approaching doom of the capitalist system and with a full understanding that the Socialist party is not a capitalist party, nor a middle class party, but a revolutionary working class party, whose historic mission it is to conquer capitalism on the political battle field, take control of government and through the public powers take possession of the means of wealth production, abolish wage-slavery and emancipate all workers and all humanity.
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….
In contrast with the republican and democratic conventions, where politicians were the puppets of plutocrats, the convention of the Socialist party consisted of working men and women, fresh from their labors, strong, clean, wholesome, self-reliant, ready to do and dare for the cause of labor, the cause of humanity.
Proud, indeed, am I to have been chosen by such a body of men and women to bear aloft the proletarian standard in this campaign, and heartily do I endorse the clear and cogent platform of the party which appeals with increasing force and eloquence to the whole working class of the country.
To my associate upon the national ticket, I give my hand with all my heart. Ben Hanford typifies the working class and fitly represents the historic mission and revolutionary character of the Socialist party…..
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From The New York Times of September 7, 1904:
DEBS ATTACKS CLEVELAND.
———-
Calls Pullman Strike Article a
“Tissue of Misstatements.”
The Social Democratic Party [of New York, S. P. A.] opened its National campaign in Carnegie Hall last night. Every seat on the floor of the house was filled and each of the four balconies was crowded to overflowing with men and women who wanted to see and hear Eugene V. Debs, the Socialists’ candidate for President of the United States. Hundreds were unable to gain admittance to the hall and were entertained outside by spellbinders who talked from the tailend of a wagon.
Debs, who was the principal speaker of the evening, divided his address into two parts. The first part was a reply to the recently published letter of ex-President Cleveland, wherein Mr. Cleveland attacked the American Railway Union, of which Debs was the leader, for its course during the great Pullman strike in Chicago in 1894. The other part of his address was devoted to a discussion of the present campaign.
One of his statements was:
The article of ex-President Cleveland is made up of a tissue of misstatements and perversions of facts, and every conclusion that he arrives at is in violation of the plain fact of history.
Debs declared that the record of Theodore Roosevelt was one of “implacable hostility to the working man, and, he added, “I challenge contradiction of this statement.”
In closing Debs touched upon the threatened strike of the elevated railroad employes and said:
I hear that some concessions have been made by the Interborough Company. If this is so, the concession has been made merely to tide the men over til after election.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From The Atlanta Constitution of September 7, 1904:
The Atlanta Constitution notes, but does not condemn, the emblem filed by the Democratic Party of Alabama:
All Parties in Alabama File Pictures Required.
———-Montgomery, Ala., September 6.-(Special.)-The emblem of the democratic party has been filed with the secretary of state. It is a rooster with the words “White Supremacy” over him, and “For the Right.” beneath. It was filed by H. S. D. Mallory, chairman of the state committee.
The emblem of the prohibition party was also filed, being hatchets with handles crossed. State Chairman Albritton, of Eunola, who presented it, said it represented that which has proved instructive, and must “Carry a Nation.” The republican emblem, a picture of the statue of Vulcan, now representing Alabama at the world’s fair; the socialist [Socialist Party of America], hands clasped across the world; the populists, a coal pick and hand saw crossed over a plow, have all been filed.
[Emphasis added]
Emblem of White Supremacy vs Emblem of Workers’ Solidarity:
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SOURCES
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Sept 10, 1904, page 2
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/040910-appealtoreason-w458.pdf
The Atlanta Constitution
(Atlanta, Georgia)
-Sept 7, 1904
https://www.newspapers.com/image/26930167
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Sept 7, 1904
https://www.newspapers.com/image/20468371
IMAGES
SPA Ticket Debs and Hanford, 1904
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs
1904 EVD and Hanford, SPA Candidates
http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/spa-conv04delegates.html
1904-1966 Racist Emblem of the Alabama Democratic Party
https://archive.org/details/RacistDemocraticPartyLogo/mode/1up?view=theater
SPA Emblem
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/spa/socialistparty.html
See also:
Opening Speech Delivered as SPA Candidate for President
at Indianapolis, Ind., September 1, 1904
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1904/sp_wkingclss.htm
“Social Democratic Party of New York”
=NY State Chapter of Socialist Party of America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_of_New_York
Emerging from a July 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party of America, the organization existed first as the Social Democratic Party of New York, retaining that name even after the founding of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in the summer of 1901.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 31, 1904
Eugene Debs Replies to Grover Cleveland’s Critique of the Chicago Strike of 1894
Tag: Debs Campaign of 1904
https://weneverforget.org/tag/debs-campaign-of-1904/
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The Commonwealth of Toil – Peter Hicks
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin