Ring Out May Ninth, O Bells of Labor;
Ring out O’er all the Nation;
This Day They Heroes Consecrate
to Thy Emancipation.
-Appeal to Reason, May 5, 1907
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 5, 1907
“Undesirable Citizen,” Eugene V. Debs, Takes on President Roosevelt
From page one of the Appeal to Reason of May 4, 1907:
COLLUSION BETWEEN ROOSEVELT
and SUPREME COURT
—–BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–
The one point of the most vital character in the kidnaping cases is the collusion of President Roosevelt and the Supreme court of the United States, clearly indicated in the dispatches from the white house published in the capitalist press. Read carefully the following extract from the Washington Post of April 4th:
It was ascertained at the white house yesterday that when the president wrote to Chairman Sherman (Oct. 8th, 1906), the letter which was made public yesterday, denouncing Harriman, he expected it would be made public at the time. He authorized Sherman to show it to Harriman, and the republican chairman did so. It was immediately afterward that a friend of Harriman came to Washington and assured the president that the railway magnate had not made some of the statements attributed to him by Sherman. For this reason, it is said, the president did not make public the letter then.
HE DID HOWEVER, SHOW IT TO MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, WHO MADE THE ANNUAL CALL UPON HIM THAT DAY WITH THE COMMENT THAT HE BELIEVED SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT HE DENOUNCED TOO FREQUENTLY WEALTHY EVIL-DOERS AND DID NOT CONDEMN OFTEN ENOUGH MEN OF THE HAYWOOD AND MOYER TYPE. HE, THEREFORE, TOOK CONSIDERABLE PLEASURE IN DEALING COLLECTIVELY WITH HARRIMAN AND HAYWOOD AND MOYER, ALL OF WHOM WERE MENTIONED IN THE SAME CATEGORY IN THE SHERMAN LETTER.
Here we have the most startling and extraordinary disclosure, inadvertently made to cover up another Roosevelt exposure, in the political history of the United States. We see the president before the supreme court pronouncing his condemnation upon three citizens on trial for their lives, in a state case which may, and probably will, be appealed to this same supreme court, and whose members are to finally decide whether these three citizens shall live or die.
Now, make note of these facts:
First, The president appoints the members of the United States supreme court (and their relatives and friends) to office.
Second, The members are under a certain unwritten obligation, if not to do his bidding, at least to show the greatest deference to his wishes and to come as nearly as possible to complying with them.
Third, President Roosevelt virtually called upon the United States supreme court to decide against Moyer and Haywood, whose appeal case was pending in that body at that very hour, and to condemn them when their case came up for final hearing.
Fourth, The president has shrewdly enough placed certain members of the supreme court under obligation to him. For example, he has appointed John S. Harlan, son of Justice John M. Harlan, to a berth on the interstate commerce commission at $10,000 per year and expenses. The junior Harlan had done his best to break into office at Chicago, but was turned down emphatically by the people. President Roosevelt graciously handed him a luscious plum which his father doubtless fully appreciated. This is only one instance. There are others, but lack of space excludes them at this time.
Now, what follows? Soon after Roosevelt read his condemnation of Moyer and Haywood to the supreme court, that court “handed down” its case against Moyer and Haywood in the most infamous and outrageous decision that ever disgraced a judicial tribunal in the history of the race. It was this monstrous decision that legalized kidnaping in the United States. Compared to it the Dred Scott decision was a benefaction. This foul decision will load every name and judicial title associated with it with an eternity of excecration [execration?].
Justice McKenna-all honor to this just judge and fearless man-was the only member to rebel, and he scourged his recreant associates with whips of flame that must have seared their consciences unless the sable ermine of that body drapes in mourning its dead soul.
Is there any doubt as to what this court will do in the final hearing of our thrice condemned comrades?
AWAKE, YE PEOPLE OF AMERICA, AND DECLARE IN ONE MIGHTY VOICE THAT WILL SHAKE THE NATION THAT THIS HIDEOUS KIDNAPING CONSPIRACY SHALL NEVER BE CONSUMMATED IN THE JUDICIAL ASSASSINATION OF UPRIGHT CITIZENS, INCORRUPTIBLE LEADERS AND HONEST MEN.
[Clipping added is from page two.]
Also from the first page of this week’s Appeal:
ROOSEVELT vs. ROOSEVELT
—–BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–
WHEN the letter in which President Roosevelt denounced Moyer and Haywood was made public, organized labor entered its protest and demanded an explanation. These communications according to information given out at the white house, the president proposed to treat with silent contempt. But this summary fashion of disposing of labor’s grievance was not satisfactory to the unions and they announced their determination to send their representatives to the white house and insists upon a hearing. That brought the president’s “explanation.” He did not care to receive such callers, nor dare to shut them out of the white house.
The president’s letter contains almost twelve hundred words. It is in the stereotyped form of the regulation essay, slightly condensed. It can be readily adapted to a wide range of popular subjects.
In his facile style of skating around an issue, the president has no equals. For instance, the one thing all the labor unions of the country had condemned was the midnight kidnaping of workingmen by a gang of gun-men acting by authority of two governors. That is the pivotal, central cause of the whole trouble.
This of itself constitutes the commanding issue without reference to the guilt or innocence of the defendants.
Does the president approve the kidnaping of these workingmen?
Or does he condemn it?
There is not a hint in his letter of twelve hundred words upon this vital issue, the very core of the case.
Organized labor has a right to know where the president stands, since he himself has taken the initiative in pronouncing judgment.
Every union in the land should now insist upon an expression from the president on the kidnaping issue. He has told us a thousand times that he is for law and order. Let him prove it by denouncing the kidnaping crime.
President Roosevelt has a great advantage over a Socialist agitator in a public discussion. He can denounce him as an “undesirable citizen” and the Associated capitalistic press spreads the charge over all the nation. He has eighteen thousand newspapers for his mouthpieces. His every word is uttered to eighty millions of people. When the smirched agitator comes to plead to the indictment all the papers are closed against him and have padlocks on them. But, on the other hand, the Socialist has a great advantage over the president. It is to his interest to be found out.
There is but one point in the president’s discursive letter that I wish to notice before disposing of its only claim to serious consideration. There is no time to show that the “debauchers of legislatures” he affects to despise, in Colorado for example, are his own boon political associates and personal friends.
The president charges Moyer, Haywood and the writer with counseling violence and inciting bloodshed. The charge is as baseless as it is malicious. It is born of the hate of a capitalist president for a Socialist workingman, the kind he cannot work his shell game on.
President Roosevelt is challenged to cite a single instance to warrant his sweeping condemnation. When and where did either Moyer, Haywood or Debs incite bloodshed? The charge is utterly false. As to counseling violence, not once has this been done by any of the “undesirables” except as a means of resisting violence.
Does not the president himself justify violence in self-defense? Is he, therefore, an inciter of bloodshed?
Moyer, Haywood and Debs are opposed to violence and bloodshed. They do not consort with prize-fighters, nor advise Sunday-school boys to learn how to kill.
They are opposed to the kidnaping of workingmen.
Can President Roosevelt say as much?
The president is under obligation to substantiate his charge or retract it. Refusing, he stands convicted as a malicious falsifier.
We now come to the vital point in the president’s letter. It is in these words:
“I never expressed, nor indicated any opinion as to whether Messrs. Moyer and Haywood were guilty of the murder of Governor Steunenberg.”
If that is true the writer owes President Roosevelt a profound apology. If it is not true, the president is seeking to shield himself by falsehood.
The deadly parallel follows:
“The wealthy man who exults because there is a failure of Justice in the effort to bring some trust magnate to an account for his misdeeds is as bad as, and no worse than, the so-called labor leader who clamorously strives to excite a foul class feeling on be half of some other labor leader who is implicated in murder.”-From speech of President Roosevelt, April 14, 1906
“I neither expressed nor indicated any opinion as to whether Messrs. Moyer and Haywood were guilty of the murder of Governor Steunenberg.”-From letter of President Roosevelt, April 23, 1907.
The speech containing the above extract was delivered at Washington, April 14th, 1906, soon after the arrest of Moyer and Haywood and created a profound sensation. The president did not say “alleged” complicity, but made the unqualified charge of murder, fixed and pronounced guilt, and his dictum was so treated by the press and understood by the country.
Those who recall the arrest of Moyer and Haywood will remember that I issued an appeal to the working class in their behalf, entitled “Arouse, Ye Slaves” which stung the capitalist press into giving it wide publicity and at the same time condemning it furiously.
It was to counteract this agitation which was being made effective by the Socialist and labor press that President Roosevelt launched his anathema in a speech of “dedication” at the corner-stone laying of the office building of the house of representatives.
When I read this startling speech fastening the crime of murder upon untried men, I at once wrote an open letter to the president, which was never answered. In the meantime the capitalist press was uniformly quoting the president’s words in condemnation of Moyer and Haywood. That was what they were intended for. The Socialist papers without an exception protested with vehemence. That was a year ago. Not a word came from the white house. The speech had done its work. Moyer and Haywood were branded with crime by the president of the nation.
Ah, my friends, that was a smooth and artful performance by a very crafty politician. President Roosevelt did not call Moyer and Haywood by name. Oh, no. Not he. The capitalist press would attend to that while the president retired to the white house. And the capitalist press did attend to it. President Roosevelt pronounced the guilt and the press applied the branding iron to the victims.
The charge of murder made by Roosevelt was against Moyer and Haywood, but he was too adroit and too cowardly to name them. The words he used, however, could not possibly have applied to anyone else.
We challenge President Roosevelt or any of his friends to name any person to whom these words could apply, other than Moyer and Haywood, on April 14th, 1906.
There was but one object in using such language and that was to fasten the crime of murder on Moyer and Haywood. That is what Roosevelt did and when he now claims that he never said anything concerning their guilt he lies in his heart and knows it.
It was an infamy the president committed that defies all language to express and time is near when the name of its author will excite loathing and contempt among all intelligent workingmen.
If the president did not mean Moyer and Haywood, whom did he mean? He meant somebody. Whom?
The president is challenged to answer.
We go a step farther and say that the president does not dare to publicly declare that he did not mean Moyer and Haywood.
To now say that he did not mention them, and, therefore, did not accuse them is the very quintessence of mendacity and proves the president a Machiavellian in the art.
But there is still farther proof and more far than space will allow. When the president’s speech appeared Fred D Warren, editor of the APPEAL, at once wrote to the white house to ask if Roosevelt had been correctly quoted in reference to the murder charge against Moyer and Haywood. I have before me Secretary Loeb’s answer admitting the correctness of the words quoted There was no attempt to deny the language used or the application made of it. Never, in fact, has the president denied his denunciation of Moyer and Haywood as murderers until now, and now only to escape a disgraceful predicament due to a seemingly providential exposure. The spectacle of a president in a newspaper imbroglio with “disreputable citizens” and of “explaining” away the vicious results of an evil tongue has never before been witnessed in this country.
President Roosevelt need not have made the boast that he is profoundly indifferent as to rich and powerful corporations and strong labor organization lining up against him. The roar he made about the pipe-dream-five-million-dollar “conspiracy” is hardly befitting the character of an Ajax defying the lightning. The rich corporations have had Roosevelt do their bidding in detail and they do not object to his mania for grand-stand and vaudeville. The railroad trust made him emasculate the rate bill. He called off the investigation on the Santa Fe which the special attorneys were prosecuting, and he has obeyed the command of corporate capital in all other essential particulars.
The miracles alleged to have been wrought by Roosevelt in the way of reform are the merest moonshine. It is the trust organs themselves that tell of the awful things he has done to the trusts, but they are all doing business at the same old stand and will so continue as long as capitalism lasts.
Roosevelt starts the hounds only to call them in when they strike a scent and start them off on another trail. He cracks the whip and wears a troubled look while the hounds keep up the yelping. the people are pleased and the trusts are laying by something for a rainy day.
Once in a while the president neglects the chase long enough to denounce kidnaped working men as murderers, or dismiss a regiment of negro troops in disgrace without a hearing. The same truculent spirit characterizes all such outrages.
But the god of Truth reigns and Theodore Roosevelt will not escape his righteous judgment.
[Photographs added.]
SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 4, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586859/
IMAGES
HMP, EVD v Roosevelt, AtR, May 4, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586860
HMP, Roosevelt v Henrietta, Walker 2, AtR, Apr 20, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586854/
HMP, EVD, Nutreto Ad, AtR, May 4, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586862
See also:
Big Trouble:
A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off
a Struggle for the Soul of America
J. Anthony Lukas
Simon and Schuster, Jul 17, 2012
https://books.google.com/books?id=d07IME-ezzQC
Summary of pages 393-399: The “undesirable citizen” letter was written on the morning of Oct 8, 1906 and read by President Roosevelt to the visiting members of the United States Supreme Court that afternoon. By then the date, Oct 11th, had already been set for the Court to begin hearing arguments re Pettibone v. Nichols. The Decision was handed down in December of 1906. Justice Harlan wrote the Majority Decision.
Tag: Pettibone v Nichols
https://weneverforget.org/tag/pettibone-v-nichols/
Tag: Undesirable Citizen
https://weneverforget.org/tag/undesirable-citizen/
The New York Literary Digest of May 4, 1907:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ZIE4AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA699
TOPICS OF THE DAY
“UNDESIRABLE CITIZENS”
THE President‘s outright statements in his letter to Honoré Jaxon, chairman of the Cook County Moyer-Haywood Conference of Chicago, seem to have had anything but a soothing effect upon the labor organizations throughout the country. Despite the exhortation of the Pittsburg Labor Tribune, which, zealous to smooth away any misunderstanding, reminds its readers that President Roosevelt “has proved his friendship for those who toil too many times and in too many ways to allow it to be doubted,” and further asserts that“ only the Rockefellers and the Harrimans of the country could profit from any falling-out between labor and the President,” the first crop of dispatches reveal labor in a militant mood. Already the scheme is afoot to set aside a day, probably early in May, for a national demonstration to emphasize the protest of the unions against the President‘s attitude. John C. Harding, organizer of the printers’ union of Chicago, is reported to the effect that Mr. Roosevelt “has made a mistake, and is not big enough to admit it.” [& etc with condemnation offered to the President from many other unions across the nation. Part of the letter to Jaxon is included in the article.]