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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 28, 1910
Eugene V. Debs to the Appeal Army, “It All Depends on You”
From the Appeal to Reason of July 23, 1910:
A Personal Letter to the Appeal Army
—–BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
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Comrades-During the past year or more my work in the field has brought me into personal touch with most of you and I want to express to you this word of appreciation of your personal kindness and your service to the cause. You have made the Appeal the most widely circulated labor and Socialist paper in the world and given it a power which is making capitalist culprits in high places tremble with fear and misgiving. But for this power Warren would long since be in jail and along with him Wayland, myself and the rest of the Appeal staff. The order to this effect was duly issued and the papers prepared but when the time came to move the puppets were paralyzed with fear. They were palsied by the silent power of the Appeal and did not dare to defy its lightning.
This power of the Appeal created by you is the power of the rising people and the degree it registers on the indicator is the degree of their progress toward emancipation.
This power is subject to the laws of growth and decay. Daily hourly, it must advance or it must decline. It cannot remain at a standstill. The very law of its being forbids.
IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU.
You not only created that power, YOU ARE THAT POWER!
The moral power of the Appeal, in the revolutionary movement of the people is the concrete expression of the moral power of the Appeal Army.
To the extent that you add to the moral stature and strength of the Appeal to Reason you hasten the day of deliverance from the tyranny of plutocracy.
Within the next few weeks this power of the Appeal will very probably be subjected to the severest test in all the history of the paper.
First, When Warren goes to jail.
Second, When the Taft-Diaz administration attempts to re-arrest Magon, Villareal, Rivera, Auraujo and other Mexican patriots on trumped-up charges when they are released from our penitentiaries where they are now doing time for opposing the Satanic reign of the cold-blooded assassin who rules over “Barbarous Mexico.”
Third, When the state and national campaigns open and the people are to determine for two years more by their ballots the form of our government and the character of our institutions.
These events and many others will this a year large with the possibilities of substantial achievement. Shall we be equal to the test and shall we so effectively assert our power as to make this year an epoch in the annals of the Social revolution?
The answer is largely with you, Comrades of the Appeal Army!
During the past few months you have made of our Appeal meetings a wonderful success, adding many thousands to its circulation, and keeping it steadily on an ascending scale, but these meetings have now temporarily ceased and I am going to ask you as a personal favor to put in your best efforts to keep the circulation rising until our field work is resumed and our propaganda meetings continued.
During the next few weeks I shall be out of touch with you and I feel that I must be frank enough to tel1 you the reason why. I am obliged to go to a hospital for an operation. This will not be serious, or, at least, it is not expected to be, but it will require a period of release from usual activities. Please do not write me during this time as I shall have no chance to answer. In due course you will be advised of the result. I feel quite confident that there is no cause for apprehension and that my recovery is certain and will be complete. And the reason I feel confident is because I have some work to do and am determined to do it before I move on.
There is but one request I have to make of you, comrades of the Appeal Army, and that is that you keep the circulation rising through the months of July and August. After that it can be safely guaranteed that it will rise steadily until it has reached and passed the half million mark.
I shall watch each issue steadily with an abiding faith in the Army that never fails.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/100319-debs-fighttothelast.pdf
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-July 23, 1910, page 3
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/100723-appealtoreason-w764.pdf
IMAGE
EVD Life Size Photo by Jas Soler, ISR p1044, May 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1044
See also:
-for more on Appeal Army, see:
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/index.htm
-for more on Case of Fred Warren, see:
“Fred Warren Convicted by a Packed Jury”
by Eugene V. Debs
-from AtR of May 15, 1909
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1909/0515-debs-warrentrial.pdf
“The Fred D. Warren Case:
Speech at Orchestra Hall, Chicago, IL, Jan 14, 1910
-by Eugene V. Debs
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/0114-debs-fredwarrencase.pdf
-for more on release of Mexican Revolutionaries, see:
“Refugees Released-Their Persecution.”
-from AtR of Aug 1910, pages 1-2
Note: same issues states: “Debs Recovering”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/100813-appealtoreason-w767.pdf
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We Will Sing One Song – Six Feet In the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill
We will sing one song of the preacher, fat and sleek,
He tells you of homes in the sky.
He says, “Be generous, be lowly, and be meek,
If you don’t you’ll sure get roasted when you die.”
Then we sing one song of the poor and ragged tramp,
He carries his home on his back;
Too old to work, he’s not wanted ’round the camp,
So he wanders without aim along the track.