Hellraisers Journal: From Butte Daily Bulletin: Review of “Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters” by David Karsner, Part II

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Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 23, 1920
David Karsner, of New York Call, “Paints Debs with Loving Hands” -Part II

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 13, 1920:

[Part II of II.]

Debs was born in Terre Haute, Ind., Nov. 5, 1855. The sixty-five years between that date and the present day which sees him in United States penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., are of startling significance in the social and economic history of this country.

“He was one of 10 children of Jean Daniel Debs and Marguerite Bettrich Debs, both natives of Alsace.”

“Jean Daniel Debs possessed a well-equipped library of French history as well as the works of some of the most noted French writers including Victor Hugo who was one of their favorites. Very early in his life, Eugene became acquainted with the works of Hugo and the master’s characterization of Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables,” made an indelible impression upon his mind.”

Debs in his early youth saw the Civil war, and Karsner wonders “to what extent these scenes and sounds of conflict influenced Eugene Debs to take his stand against war, but it is notable that not once during his long and varied career as a labor leader has he safe-counseled violence as means to the settlement of any dispute.”

Eugene’s school years were cut short by the necessity for earning money. At the age of 14, Debs began work in the shops and later as locomotive fireman for the Terre Haute and Indiana Railroad company. At first he received one dollar a day, but later, as fireman, was paid on a mileage basis. “Eugene’s pay envelope, which he turned over to his mother unopened, was decidedly slim.”

Debs’ first step in the organized labor movement was taken when the local lodge of the brotherhood of locomotive fireman was organized at Terre Haute on the evening of Feb. 27, 1874. He served in various official capacities as organizer. In 1892 he resigned from a position in which he was receiving $4,000 a year so that he might receive from the American Railway union a $75-a-month position.

Debs has made his living for many years by his speeches and writing, although by far the most of his speeches have been delivered without any thought of pay, and the major portion of his writings have been given freely to the small daily and weekly papers whose political and economic doctrines he supports. He is in his sixty-fifth year now and serving his second prison sentence-10 years is the term he must serve. He enjoys fair health.

“He stands a little over six feet, is slender and gaunt like Lincoln. When speaking, both in public and in private, he gesticulates frequently with his large, lean right hand, extending and separating his fingers, with his thumb curved far back. The gestures of that right hand are a vital part of his talk, and in his grip you can feel the sincere, pulsing heart of the man. His baldness, which extends back beyond the crown of his head, accentuates the myriad tiny veins, lines of suffering, and the valleys and crevices in his face.”

He was convicted under the espionage law. He spoke in his own defense at the sensational trial, admitting most of the charges against him. He pleaded guilty to the charge of expressing sympathy for the Bolsheviks of Russia, for having expressed sympathy for Kate Richards O’Hare, for Rose Pastor Stokes and other radicals.

I admit being opposed to the present form of government. I admit being opposed to the present social system. I am doing what little I can, and have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small class and establish in this country an industrial and social democracy.

But he disclaimed utterly that he had ever been an advocate of violence in any form.

Debs’ passage through the early formation of the unions in railway companies-and railway industries have been very largely pioneers in radical movements-his interest in the Pullman strikes, in the augmenting of the socialist party in America, and finally his advocacy of free speech unhampered by war times measures, is in reality a history of the radical advance in America. One can trace his progress as a guidance of the troublous career of radicalism in the past four or five decades.

Through the sales of “Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters,” the publishers will set aside a fund to be administered by political and industrial amnesty organizations.

In choosing David Karsner, who is one of the editors of the New York Call, to write his biography, Debs said to him:

You will write just the kind of a book that time and history will require, and in very line, in every page you will be speaking for me with my authority, given to you without reservations or qualifications.

[Photographs, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]