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Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 26, 1900
Wheeling, West Virginia – Eugene V. Debs Speaks at Arion Hall
From The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer of October 25, 1900:
SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINE PROPOUNDED
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By Eugene V. Debs to a Large Crowd
At Arion Hall Last Evening.
——-HE EXPLAINS HOW AN UTOPIA
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Can Be Established in This Country. Would Make
Radical Change in Present Conditions.
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Eugene V. Debs, candidate for president on the Social Democracy ticket, addressed a large audience at Arion hall last night. Most of his hearers were of another political persuasion, however, attracted out of mere curiosity. Seated on the stage were the men prominent in socialist circles in this city. Mr Debs’ eloquence is well known and this fact alone was sufficient to attract a large crowd. He advanced nothing new along the line of socialism. Harry Leeds, the local socialist, acted as chairman of the meeting. He said they represented a body of workingmen whom strikes and lockouts had almost taken away their rights as American citizens. He said they were an embryonic party and they needed funds. He asked the audience to contribute to the campaign fund and before introducing Mr. Debs the hat was passed around the audience for contributions. Mr. Leeds introduced Eugene V. Debs, who was applauded as he stepped to the front of the stage.
Mr. Debs began by saying that a mighty social revolution was in progress. The world was gradually becoming co-operative instead of competitive. The social demoralization of the world was passing away. He would not appeal to the prejudice of his auditors. His sole purpose would be to appeal to their reason.
Becomes a Savage.
Years ago the United States was not bothered with over-production. Man is a tool-using animal. Deprive him of the tools which he works and he becomes a savage, he is helpless. This tool has become a ponderous machine that has cost hundreds of dollars. If men are fit to be political equals they are fit to be economic equals and they are fit to be social equals. This question is understood by the dominant capital class of this country.
No power on earth can arrest the centralization of power. The trust is the modern tool of destruction and it cannot be destroyed. It is not an evil but simply a perverted good. The socialists will convert this question into a blessing by taking it and operating it to the good of the people.
[Said Mr. Debs:]
Both the Democratic and Republican parties are in favor of ownership. The corporation has had full sway and it has controlled every act of this government. The economic master has in every age been the political ruler. That class is not the working class, it is the capitalist class. Have you ever heard of a governor calling out a state militia to shoot capitalists? Have you ever heard of capitalists using an injunction against a workingman to keep him from robbing him?
Self-interest is the main spring of human action. What is true of nations is true of individuals, because the nation is the composite individual. Mr. Debs then stated that both the Democratic and Republican parties were capitalist parties and obscured the real issues. He took the Democratic party to task for its ever changing issues. Political equality was rooted in economic freedom. He said if he was a corporation and a man depended on him for employment that man was a slave.
Capital Versus Labor.
The capitalist class own all the machinery. They didn’t make it but they owned it. Your life depends on the tool of production. Your wife and child upon it. The workingmen have dug all the mines in the country and yet not one of them own a single dollar’s worth of stock in any one of them. The workingmen of this country have built all the railroads and all of them do not own a single spike in any one of them.
Mr. Debs proceeded to pay his respects to this paper and said this paper and himself understood each other.
Continuing, Mr. Debs said the workingmen secured only one-fifth of what they produced. Had not the working men long since organized they would have been reduced to atoms. The parties say, “Don’t appeal to the class.” I didn’t make this class. They have been produced by the present conditions. Are you in the same class with Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller, whose salaries are thousands of dollars per day? Mr. Rockefeller don’t work, does he? He works those who do, don’t he?
I am for the principle that gives the laboring man the full wealth of what his labor produces. The producing power of one man has increased twenty-four in the last fifty years. The workingman of to-day no longer controls the tools with which he works. That tool is controlled by the capitalist for his own profit. Production is limited by consumption. And consumption is limited by wages.
We are told we are prosperous. How many of you have a thousand dollars in the bank? A man who has a thousand dollars in the bank is a poor man and you are not even a poor man.
Mr. Debs said if he were elected he would change the system of private ownership to a system of collective ownership. The four-fifths of a man’s labor was divorced from him. The market is glutted with this and it is called a panic. He predicted that there would be a panic within the next three years whether Bryan or McKinley were elected. He said many of the mills were now closing down. It would only be a short time until we would have over-production based upon under-consumption. When this condition came he said he wanted his hearers to know that was what they voted for.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCE
The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer
(Wheeling, West Virginia)
-Oct 25, 1900
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026844/1900-10-25/ed-1/seq-2/
IMAGE
EVD f Prz, Harriman f VP, SDH p1, Sept 15, 1900
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/social-democratic-herald-us/000915-socdemherald-v03n13w115.pdf
See also:
Tag: SDP Campaign of 1900
https://weneverforget.org/tag/sdp-campaign-of-1900/
Tag: Debs Campaign of 1900
https://weneverforget.org/tag/debs-campaign-of-1900/
Appeal to Reason of October 13, 1900, page 3:
“Competition vs. Cooperation,” EVD Speech at Central Music Hall, Chicago, September 29, 1900.
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/001013-appealtoreason-w254.pdf
Debs Archive
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1900/000929-debs-competitionvscooperation.pdf
Note re: “[Debs] predicted that there would be a panic within the next three years whether Bryan or McKinley were elected.”
-There was the 1902-04 recession, followed by the Panic of 1907 which ushered in prolonged suffering for the American working class.
List of recessions in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
Panic of 1907
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907
Tag: Panic of 1907
https://weneverforget.org/tag/panic-of-1907/
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The Commonwealth of Toil – Joe Glazer
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin