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

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, Tuesday January 14, 1908
Eugene V. Debs Defends the Memory of Thomas McGrady, Part II

From the Appeal to Reason of January 11, 1908:

CALUMNIATING THE DEAD.

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.

[Part II]

Now, as to the next lie-and we must be excused for so characterizing these malicious calumnies-the lie that McGrady renounced the doctrines of Socialism. Five months prior to his death, when already stricken with what he knew to be his fatal illness, he wrote his last paper on “The Catholic Church and Socialism,” which appeared in the Arena for July, 1907. Let anyone who dare say that he renounced Socialism read this article, his last published word upon the subject, and find the least possible justification for such an atrocious libel. On the contrary, in this paper McGrady exposes the hypocrisy of the church, and its secret alliance with capitalism and reaffirms his absolute faith in the principles of the Socialist movement. This article, which may be regarded as McGrady’s last authoritative declaration, and which should be read, not only by every Catholic, but by every seeker after truth closes with the following paragraph:

The triumph of monopoly will swell the ranks of Socialism by the accession of the toilers and the middle professional class. Catholics will gradually break their allegiance with Rome, for necessity will compel them to join the army of revolutionists which the church condemns. The political character of the church will be revealed by her open defense of commercial and industrial despotism, for when there are only two classes she will be driven to the necessity of committing herself, and taking the side of the exploiter, the sacred charm of her mysterious influence will fade, religious rebellion will follow, and Rome will ultimately go down in ignominious defeat with her capitalistic allies.

Will the Catholic Register of Denver, the Catholic Register of Kansas City, the Catholic Messenger of Davenport and other Catholic papers which have retailed these falsehoods and reveled in editorial calumny, point out the particular line in the foregoing utterance in which McGrady’s alleged renunciation is to be found? Do they not know that they are slandering the dead, and that if their theology is true their own souls are doomed to eternal damnation?

Here and now, we challenge these supposedly religious organs, these literary scullions, these ghouls, these defamers of the dead, to produce one line, a single word from Thomas McGrady, showing that he renounced the doctrines of Socialism. It is now up to them and they have either to produce the proof or stand branded with the insufferable stigma of having slandered the dead.

But a few weeks before McGrady died the writer of this article, who enjoyed the most intimate and confidential relations with him, received a letter from him saying that his physician had advised him that he had but a short time to live. It was about this time that McGrady, who was the last man in the world to call on any one for aid, was taken to a Catholic hospital. Here every effort was made to shut out Socialists, and to prevent his comrades from seeing him. McGrady, who did not want to burden his comrades, allowed few of them to know of his illness, and scarcely anyone of his actual condition. But a few comrades realizing how gravely ill he was kept in touch with him and managed to see him up to almost the time he closed his eyes, in spite of the angry protest of the hospital authorities.

The priest was dying and they wanted to surround him and be the sole witnesses of what he said and did in his last hour. In a word, they wanted to fix him as the same kind of hypocrites had tried to fix Voltaire and Paine and other enemies of superstition and friends of man. It can therefore be readily imagined that Socialists were unwelcome visitors at the bedside of their dying comrade. But to the very last he received them cordially, and gave them to understand that he was their comrade and that he was in no wise responsible for the brutal treatment to which they were subjected. He was in a dying condition and unable to help himself.

This is the situation in which the priests ministered to one who in his life and vigor would have scorned their offices. We have it upon the word of at least one reputable witness that it was only by appealing to a lawyer that he managed to break down the priestly barriers and reach the bedside of his dying friend, and, if this phase of McGrady’s passing makes it necessary we shall produce documentary evidence to verify what is here said and to not only rebuke the vulgar falsifiers and cowardly slanderers of the dead, but make them wish they had never engaged in so nefarious an undertaking.

We neither know nor care what whispered consultations took place by priests in the death chamber of Thomas McGrady; we neither know nor care what false and vicious meaning they tortured out of the death rattle in the throat of a mortal nearing the gates of eternity. We do know that dead men do not speak, and that they who wait for the dying to repudiate the acts of the living are inherently hypocrites and falsifiers whose highest courage is to defame the dead and whose word is not to be believed though supported by a thousand oaths.

When Thomas McGrady was traveling from state to state, and from coast to coast, speaking for Socialism at every point he visited, he met with the insidious opposition of the priesthood. None fought him more bitterly, nor more covertly than the followers of the meek and lowly Nazarene, who dwell in peace, practice mercy, and love their enemies. The very last time the writer met the dead agitator he told of the mean and contemptible manner by which his meetings were boycotted, his mission misrepresented, and his character vilified by Catholic priests all over the country. Not one of these ever dared to meet him on a public platform although he flung his challenge into their faces (more properly their backs since they fled from him after planting the boycott of his meeting to prevent their benighted followers and supporters from hearing him) all over the United States.

Thomas McGrady, to sum up, was once a priest and resigned to become a Social Revolutionist. He rendered yeoman service to the Socialist movement, and was absolutely true to its principles to the end of his life and any statement or intimation to the contrary is born of chicane, inspired by fraud and is false and slanderous.

We repeat our challenge to the detractors of the dead that they produce a single line from McGrady to show that he renounced Socialism or that the was not true to its principles to his latest rational breath.

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[Photograph added.]