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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 27, 1920
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Debs Greets Stedman with a Kiss
From the Appeal to Reason of June 26, 1920:
President Should Pardon Debs
William M. Reedy, in Reedy’s Mirror.
President Wilson should order the release from prison of Eugene V. Debs. He will, if he has any place in that heart which so throbs for humanity in the abstract, for the individual man. He will, if he has any admiration for a man whose convictions defy prison and death. He will, if he has any brotherliness for another who obeys those “voices” which Wilson himself hears and obeys as Socrates did his demon. He will not doom Debs to death for his opinions based on a higher law than that of that man-made, Hobbesian God, the State. I understand that Mr. Debs is in a much weakened condition as the result of his confinement, that his physical plight is such as to make his immurement during hot weather extremely dangerous.
Last year it was for a time thought likely that this summer in prison would exhaust Debs’ vitality. It is death’s release, I am told, that Debs expects rather than pardon for what his soul protests to be no crime. Indeed he has prepared for it. Surely there should be some compassion in President Wilson’s heart for the veteran fighter for the people who wears convict garb because of opposition to Wilsonian government. Eugene Debs has been punished enough, on the Wilson theory of law and policy. He has been punished too much, on the theory that he is being punished for adherence to a faith too wide and deep for nationalism.
Debs the Socialist, Debs the candidate for President, Debs the man deserves dismissal from his prison cell. Even more the love of the people for Debs demands recognition in his restoration to freedom and to all civil rights. He should be freed “with or without reservations.” His firmness in refusing capitulation, his fortitude in suffering, his charitableness to those who despitefully use him, his captaincy of his own soul, should commend him to the generosity of justice which must exist in some measure in a man who with whatever of foible for his own inerrancy, cannot but respect a personality, motivated (vile word!) by love rather than hatred.
The case of Eugene Debs is the measure of the heart and soul of Woodrow Wilson. As the President deals with Debs we shall see and know how he fits in the justice and mercy seat once occupied by Abraham Lincoln.
[Emphasis added.]
From the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette of June 6, 1920:
From The Potwin Ledger of Kansas for June 17, 1920:
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote EVD re SP n Working Class, Atlanta Cstn p2, May 30, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/26962901/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/26962903/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-June 26, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587716/
IMAGES
EVD Kisses Stedman at Atlanta Pen
Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette of June 6, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/29320602/
EVD Kisses Stedman at Atlanta Pen,
Potwin KS Ledger p2, June 17, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/484251727
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 1, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Eugene Debs Accepts Nomination for President
Socialists Visit Debs at Atlanta Prison to Notify Him That He Has Been Nominated for President
Tag: Debs Campaign 1920
https://weneverforget.org/tag/debs-campaign-1920/
re The life of Debs by Louis Kopelin:
Sadly, I could not fine Kopelin’s book on Debs online,
but I did find it here, appears it can be ordered here
at Michigan eLibrary:
http://elibrary.mel.org/record=b36122160
The Worker’s Chronicle, “Official Organ of
District No. 14” UMWA, re Debs at Atlanta Federal Pen
-for more on Socialist Party Convention of 1920,
including articles by and about Debs:
The Socialist Review, Volumes 9-11
Intercollegiate Socialist Society, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=u40bkMkMRZQC
Socialist Review of June 1920
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=u40bkMkMRZQC&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PP5
Table of Contents
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=u40bkMkMRZQC&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PP6
Ad for Karsner’s book on Debs
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=u40bkMkMRZQC&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PP7
Ad for Kopelin’s book on Debs
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=u40bkMkMRZQC&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA1-PP2
Note: at some point the Socialist Party of America was renamed: the Socialist Party of United States. Exactly when the new name was adopted, I have not determined. The earliest that I have found this name, used in an official capacity, is here:
Appeal to Reason p4 of June 5, 1920
Complete Text of 1920 National Socialist Platform
Adopted in New York City, May 12 and 13
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Commonwealth of Toil – Pete Seeger
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin