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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 26, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Eugene Debs Speaks to Strikers
From Pennsylvania’s Butler Citizen of August 26, 1909:
Eugene V. Debs Makes Good His Declaration
and Speaks to Men
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PITTSBURG, August 25.-Eugene V. Debs, late candidate for President on the Socialist ticket, today addressed the strikers of the Pressed Steel Car Company on the Indian Mound, McKees Rocks.
Debs and J. W. Slayton, Socialist organizer for Pittsburg, went to McKees Rocks by trolley and were met at the foot of the bridge by a committee of strikers. They were then escorted to Indian Mound, where more than l,000 men had gathered. Only four women were at the meeting.
Mr. Debs’ remarks were terse and to the point. His voice could be heard plainly for quite a distance, and his denunciation of the Pressed Steel Car Company aroused much enthusiasm. He said:
There are 15 nationalities represented here this morning, but you are of one class. You are workmen, united in a single cause. You are wage-slaves in the eyes of the corporation. Though I cannot understand your language I can read your hearts and can make myself understood to you.
I, too, have suffered. I have been on strike and have become involved in riots. I know what it is to face a heartless power.
This desperate fight must be continued. The eyes of the civilized world and the eyes of all the laborers of the world are upon you. It is the greatest labor fight in all history. The laboring men in Pittsburg particularly should stand by their fellow workers in this fight,
I want to warn you of traitors, beware of spies. They circulate among you and talk your language. They pretend to suffer with you when in reality they are employes of the Press Steel Car Company.
They are employed by parasites who are lounging in their summer retreats while you are suffering and starving. You make the money which the degenerate sons of these parasites squander on champagne. They hold that the cheapest thing in the world is human flesh. Your blood means nothing to them. Because you have walked away from your work you are be shot.
This is a time for sober thought, for serious thought. It is not a time for violence. Be true to yourself. You were born in poverty. You have no opportunity. You have been reared in privatization. You have had no opportunity to develop minds with which to cope with the subtle methods which has wrested this enormous wealth from you. Your masters hold you in contempt. They take your productions for their own selfish use. They do not go to your hovels and see how you live.
They compel you to live in shanties which they would not use as kennels for their dogs, yet your children are reared among just such surroundings.
A wage worker who for the sake of employment sacrifices his wife is despicable. What infamy!
Mr. Debs praised the Pittsburg newspapers for telling the truth and concluded his speech with the assertion that the fight must be continued until it is won.
As Debs and Slayton were being escorted to Indian Mound Debs looked out over the panorama spread before him from the elevation and exclaimed:
How beautiful this would all be if it had not been made horrible under the influence of greed!
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCE
The Butler Citizen
(Butler, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 26, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/346605697/
IMAGE
EVD Photo, AtR p3, Nov 21, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587535/
See also:
Tag: McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mckees-rocks-pressed-steel-car-strike-of-1909/
McKees Rocks Strike
https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-events/mckees-rock-strike
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There Is Power in a Union – John McCutcheon
Lyrics by Joe Hill