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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 27, 1898
Message from Eugene Debs to Local Branches of S. D. P. of A.
From the Social Democratic Herald of November 26, 1898:
To Local Branches
[-from Eugene V. Debs]
Marquette, Mich., Nov. 20, 1898
Comrades:—
The recent election had gratifying results for us, but these results are of permanent value to our cause only to the extent that we follow them up with renewed vigor and determination. Each branch should at once prepare for the work of the future. In this work each member should enlist with heart and hand. There is not a moment to be lost. Henceforth we are in the field to press our claims and advocate our principles in municipal, state, and national campaigns until we have swept the country and the cause of socialism in triumphant.
The National Headquarters of our party should have its resources strengthened in order that organizers may be placed in the field and the work of propaganda pressed with all possible vigor. The admission fees of new members and quarterly dues should therefore be promptly remitted, and the returns should be full and complete. Besides this, a thorough canvass should be made for subscribers to the Social Democratic Herald. Each branch should appoint an agent and each member should assist in securing subscribers. Let this work be taken in hand at once and our subscription enlarged, so that in the near future the size of our paper can be increased to meet the growing demands of the organization.
Comrades, action only will determine your interest in our cause. Words, promises, professions will not do. The time to act is now, and you, each of you, is expected to do his duty. Will there be any who fail to respond?
[Drawing of Debs added.]
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SOURCES
Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/
Debs Internet Archive, 1898
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/#1898
Social Democratic Herald
-published by the Social Democratic Party of America
(Belleville, Illinois)
Nov 26, 1898, page 1
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1898/981120-debs-openletter.pdf
IMAGE
EVD re Social Democracy, SLTb p3, Feb 9, 1898
https://www.newspapers.com/image/11123460/
See also:
Tag: Social Democratic Party of America
https://weneverforget.org/tag/social-democratic-party-of-america/
Re Social Democratic Herald
-published by the Social Democratic Party of America
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82014623/
Nov 26, 1898-June 17, 1899, pub’d in Belleville, IL.
https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=sn%2082014623&searchType=1&permalink=y
For more on SDP in 1898 elections:
The American Socialist Movement 1897-1912
-by Ira Kipnis
Haymarket Books, Apr 3, 2005
(search: “eagerly awaited elections” 1898)
https://books.google.com/books?id=ili0huEKAk0C
Announcement:
The Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive in conjunction with Tim Davenport will be publishing a 6 volume collection of Eugene V. Debs writings. Haymarket Books will be the publishers of the 6 volumes. For weekly updates on this valuable historical project, please click here:
https://debsproject.org/
Volume I now available for pre-order:
The Selected Works of Eugene V. Debs, Vol. I:
Building Solidarity on the Tracks, 1877-1892
-ed by Tim Davenport, David Walters
HAYMARKET BOOKS, Jan 11, 2019
https://books.google.com/books?id=zmy0tAEACAAJ
More Debs from November 1898:
From the Manchester (NH) Daily Mirror and American
-of November 1, 1898, page 8:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1898/981101-debs-interviewinmanchester.pdf
Believes in Trusts
[Interview conducted on streetcar on way to West Manchester. Debs was traveling with F. G. R. Gordon, founding member of SDP.]
I come to Manchester this morning on my way from Somersworth [NJ] by a rather circuitous route to Amesbury, Massachusetts, for the sole and express purpose of grasping the hand of my warm friend and co-laborer in the cause of socialism, your townsman, Mr. Gordon. Last evening I spoke for two hours and a half in Somersworth to an audience which included persons of all degrees of life and who appeared to be deeply absorbed in the arguments of the speaker who addressed them. It was my only engagement in your state during the present political campaign, and it was made at the earnest request of the New Hampshire State [SDP] Committee by cancelling a date in Massachusetts, where I was booked for the entire campaign. I have been in the East only since [October] 22nd and so have only a superficial knowledge of the local political situation, which, however, to me, so far as I can discern, trends most favorably towards the Social Democratic Party….
From the Social Democratic Herald of Nov 18, 1898, page 4
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1898/981115c-debs-warandmilitarism.pdf
Eugene V. Debs on Army Question
Now that the [Spanish-American] war has been practically terminated, a multiplicity of new questions are budding on the “thorny stem of time” [*see below]. Among these the central, commanding proposition is, “What shall be done with the army?” and upon the answer depends the character and to a large extent the perpetuity of the Republic.
Stripped of all verbiage designed to confuse the mind and obscure the issue, the question is, “Shall the United Sates of America succumb to the rule of militarism which dominates the old world?”
Back of this interrogatory, in shadowy outline, looms the “man on horseback” awaiting the answer, not of the American people, but of the select few to whom, under our benign representative system, they have surrendered their sovereign prerogatives….
*”The Present Crisis” by James Russell Lowell, 1st verse:
https://www.bartleby.com/102/128.html
WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.
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