There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday February 10, 1907
Girard, Kansas – Debs Rallies Readers of Appeal to Reason
From The Girard Press of February 7, 1907:
Eugene V. Debs, twice the candidate of the Socialist party for President, has been in Girard during the past week, and is assisting in preparing matter for a special edition of the Appeal to Reason.
“The Kidnaping Edition” of the Appeal to Reason is now one week away from publication, and orders for Number 585 have already surpassed the one million mark. On the front page of this week’s edition, we find Comrade Eugene Debs rallying the troops of the Appeal Army to:
Turn on the Light! Spread the Truth!! Every labor and every Socialist paper is engaged in this righteous and supremely important work.
Now is the time to widen the circulation of these heralds of light and truth.
Let the workers everywhere bestir themselves as never before in this crucial hour, so fraught with possibilities for weal or woe to the American people.
Let every atom of latent energy and determination be aroused and the cloud that now threatens will be dispelled and the cause of Justice triumphantly vindicated.
From the Appeal to Reason of February 9, 1907:
A Personal Word to Appeal Readers.
—–Comrades and Friends:
The approaching trial of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, involving not only the lives of these worthy fellow-workers, but other issues of the gravest concern, is of deep and vital moment to every man, woman and child, and its outcome may determine the destiny of a nation.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this case and the effect of its outcome, and so deeply does it affect me as a comrade of the accused and as a fellow-worker in the ranks of labor-so certain am I that their innocence of crime is as absolute as their loyalty to labor, and that in fact this is their only crime, that the conviction has been forced upon me that it is my duty-a duty I dare not shirk-to go to the aid of my comrades and stand by them unflinchingly, and thus prove may fealty to the cause. To do less than this would be to desert my comrades and prove a wretched recreant to the whole working class.
In pursuance of this line of duty I have canceled all other engagements that I might devote my whole time to this case and give it precedence over all other matters.
Through the kindness and co-operative spirit of Comrades Wayland and Warren, the columns of the APPEAL TO REASON have been placed at my disposal, and I have come to Girard to make the best possible use of its extensive circulation in reaching and awakening the people to a realization of the historic drama being enacted before their eyes.
Knowing well how loyally the supporters of the APPEAL have always responded to its calls, I feel no hesitancy in addressing them upon a subject so vital as the conspiracy which menaces the cause they love and serve so well.
The Socialist and labor press is the most powerful agency of the working class, and in this crisis a duty so great and a responsibility so grave rest upon it that no words can give it adequate expression.
The APPEAL, having by far the leading circulation, is in the forefront and must set an example that will be an inspiration to the rest and swell the volume of protest into an irresistible torrent that shall sweep midnight conspirators into oblivion and bear our comrades in triumph to freedom and their loved ones at home.
Comrades and fellow-workers, the APPEAL must be made to talk to the whole nation. The crisis demands it. Our cause is on trial and the lives of our comrades are at stake. The millions must be reached with the awakening and inspiring message the APPEAL has for them.
In thirty days the trial begins. Everyday, every hour, every minute between now and then must count.
The circulation of the APPEAL must be raised, and at once, to the highest possible point.
Let each of us take hold-each of us-right now.
There is not one of us but can help-not one but can get at least one subscriber.
Let every comrade, every friend, every man, woman and child, unite in one supreme effort to add another hundred thousand to our circulation in the next thirty days.
I see, in fancy, the workers at their task, and I have no fear of disappointment.
EUGENE V. DEBS.
Girard, Kas., Feb 1, 1907.———-
THE MILLION-VOICED PROTEST
—–
Never before has the whole mass of organized labor in the United States been so spontaneously, so completely and so resolutely set in motion as it has been by the disclosures made by the labor press of the iniquitous conspiracy, under the cloak of law, to crush out the spirit of organization and destroy its usefulness by fastening the odious crime of assassination upon its official representatives and trusted leaders.
Whatever other differences may divide the organized workers of America, upon this vital point they are all agreed, that the secret arrest and deportation of Charles Moyer, William Haywood and George Pettibone is not only an infamous outrage upon law-abiding American citizens, but that the sole cause for the brutal persecution of these men is their official connection with a labor union, whose rigid integrity, steadfast devotion and unceasing activity to better the moral and material condition of its members baffled all attempts of the master class to encompass its disruption and destruction.
With one united voice the labor unions of the country, national, state and local-unions large and unions small, without a single exception, embracing upwards of three millions of workers for wages and producers of wealth, have cried out in solemn warning and protest against this monstrous proceeding, and woe to him, whatever his official power or standing, who dares to trifle with or treat with contempt this mighty wave of righteous indignation.
Not only workers organized, but workers unorganized, have joined the swelling throng. In all the vast mass of labor, organized and unorganized, not one single dissenting voice has marred the unanimity of this mighty multitude.
For once the million-headed and million-hearted host of labor has called a halt and issued its command by acclamation.
The faithful servants of the working class now lying in prison pens and marked for slaughter shall not be wantonly sacrificed upon the blood-stained altar of Mammon.
They are honest men in the eyes of all honest men and criminals only in the eyes of criminals or the dupes and accessories of criminals. Not one vestige of creditable testimony has been or can be produced in substantiation of their guilt. AND THIS IS WHY THEY WERE KIDNAPED.
No such rape of the constitution would have been required if there had been even a shred of honest evidence upon which to base a legal prosecution.
The purchased testimony of a self-confessed villain necessitated the desperate expedients of other villains in the robes of authority.
Millions of decent, fair-minded people, other than workingmen, see this clearly and burn with indignation as they contemplate the hideous crime thus perpetrated upon innocent men.
All kinds of people, merchants, lawyers, doctors, ministers, teachers, are crying out in protest. All the people need is light instead of darkness, truth instead of falsehood.
Turn on the Light! Spread the Truth!! Every labor and every Socialist paper is engaged in this righteous and supremely important work.
Now is the time to widen the circulation of these heralds of light and truth.
Let the workers everywhere bestir themselves as never before in this crucial hour, so fraught with possibilities for weal or woe to the American people.
Let every atom of latent energy and determination be aroused and the cloud that now threatens will be dispelled and the cause of Justice triumphantly vindicated.-E. V. Debs.
[Note: this entire article was published with emphasis added which has been almost entirely removed for ease of reading.]
———-
THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR!
—–BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–IF we are to believe the announcement of the court authorities, the trial of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone will begin March 5th, less than thirty days from this date, and, in the light of what has already developed in this extraordinary case, it behooves us to set to work at once, and with all possible energy, preparing for the defense and all proper protection of our accused comrades.
The day set for trial must find us upon the scene, our forces organized and ready for action.
It has been intimated that the trial will again be postponed. This is quite possible, but we must take no chances.
There have already been several postponements, and there may be several more, but for these we are not responsible, since the attorneys for our comrades have, from the very beginning, courted, urged and sought to secure a speedy trial, and the long delay, an entire year, is due wholly to the prosecution and the capitalist combine engineering it.
It must not be supposed that these repeated postponements are without purpose. Quite the contrary, there is motive and method in delay and the cunning hand of the conspirator is plainly evident in it. Governor Gooding and Alias McPartland [McParland] are playing for advantage. It costs them nothing to wait, and the fact of three innocent working men lying in jail a year or two does not disturb their slumbers since they are not afflicted with conscientious scruples.
But if they are resorting to delays as a means of lulling the working-class to sleep, or with the expectation that interest in the case will ebb away with passing days, they will be undeceived the day, however remote, the trial is called, for that day will mark the most portentous awakening of the working class this country has yet know.
* * * * * * * *
A strange case, marvellously strange it is, in which the criminals, a set of self-confessed kidnapers, constitute the prosecution, while their abducted victims are in the dock. Such is the cause celebre for which a remote mountain fastness has been selected as furnishing the most salubrious and contributory environment.
The stage has been set, not for the trial of a case, but for the execution of a crime.
A crime dark, dastardly, damnable!
Who dares to look an honest man in the face and deny it?
The highwayman chooses night to cover his bloody deed and a desolate scene to escape detection, and obedient to the same criminal instinct Gooding and McPartland, joint tools of the mine and smelter syndicate, chose night and isolation for the execution of their murderous conspiracy.
Absolutely no other reason can be given for the secret arrests, under cover of night and solitary cells, the forcible kidnaping and the clandestine deportation of our fellow-workers. The whole affair was pre-arranged and worked out to its minutest details.
Underlying this villainous plot and leading directly up to the kidnaping is the deep-laid conspiracy to destroy the Western Federation of Miners, the back-bone of organized labor in the mountain states.
* * * * * * * *
This being the situation-and it is clear as the sun at noontide-it is apparent at a glance that the trial, so-called, of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone is in fact the trial of organized labor by those who exploit labor and who are bent upon destroying all resistance to their piratic raids upon wealth produced by those who toil.
Let it be clearly understood that the conviction of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone will not mean that these men had even the remotest connection with the crimes with which they have been charged, but that opposition to trusts and combines, on the part of organized workingmen, however peaceable and lawful the means, is crime, punishable by death.
That is what conviction will mean and what it is intended to mean.
* * * * * * * *
The only check this midnight ambuscade received was in the sudden, widespread and utterly unexpected uprising of the working people. But for this fortunate fact, Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone would now be mouldering in their graves.
For did not Gooding, governor, judge, jury, detective, father-confessor and hangman, declare with the vehemence of a South Sea savage: “They shall never leave Idaho alive!”
Since then the governor seems to have abdicated as hangman, having recently given the solemn assurance that “they shall be given a fair trial.”
The change is not due to any change of heart in Governor Gooding.
* * * * * * * *
The fate of our comrades is in the hands of their class.
They will have a fair trial and be acquitted, or they will be released without being tried at all, if the working class, whom they have so loyally served, come promptly to their rescue, defeat chicanery and insist upon justice.
The working class and those in sympathy with them are equal to the task, and no show of the oppressor’s power can prevail against them.
A few men who are not afraid to hang in a righteous cause may be required for service, but it is certain as the Eternal that if the Standard Oil trust and its criminal accessories dare to hang our fellow-workers upon the purchased testimony of degenerates, we will not only hold them and their agents to a strict accountability, but we will start something that will never end until the capitalist system is wiped utterly from the land and buried deep out of sight with all its crimes.
———-
[Photographs added.]
SOURCES
The Girard Press
(Girard, Kansas)
-Feb 7, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/183967897/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Feb 9, 1907
(Also source for image of AtR masthead & news of orders from NJ.)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586807/
IMAGES
Eugene Debs, Wilshire’s Magazine, Nov 1905
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1905/1100-debs-winningaworld.pdf
HMP, Moyer Haywood Pettibone, ab 1906
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/documents/Wilshire_Mag.pdf
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/photo.php?pid=777
Kidnappers Special by BBH, detail, AtR, May 19, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66994051/
See also:
Tag: Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case
https://weneverforget.org/tag/haywood-moyer-pettibone-case/