———-
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 12, 1919
“The machinery of capitalism has completed its work…Debs must go to prison.”
From The Ohio Socialist of March 12, 1919:
DEBS GOES TO PRISON
The machinery of capitalism has completed its work and ground out the decision that Eugene V. Debs must go to prison.
No one who has studied the class character of the governmental institutions of this country expected a different verdict than that which has just been rendered by the United States Supreme Court.
It was inconceivable that the Supreme Curt would declare the Espionage law unconstitutional.
The interpretation of the constitution follows the needs of the ruling class. Only unsophisticated persons with a ludicrously naive belief in the “democracy” of modern capitalist government could imagine such a contingency as the Supreme cCourt declaring a law in the interest of the capitalist class unconstitutional in the hour of capitalism’s greatest need.
But if there was no hope for Debs, even though, as many people believe, the Espionage law violates clearly expressed provisions of the national constitution in regard to the right of free speech and free press, it did seem that the selfish interests of the ruling class of this country might save Debs from prison.
Capitalism in this country is resting upon a slumbering volcano-the volcano of a suppressed, oppressed and exploited working class.
In Russia and Germany the volcano has burst and is flinging the debris of capitalism to the four winds.
In England, France and Italy the rumbling which forecasts a similar activity can be distinctly heard.
Even here the warning signals are not wanting. Unemployment, strikes, discontent, Seattle’s [General Strike] and Lawrence’s [Textile Strike], all suggest a growing bitterness that is the sign of a coming eruption.
Well might the ruling class hesitate before adding another grievance, a grievance that will deepen and make more bitter the hatred of the working class of the system that holds them under its iron heel.
That is what the sending of Eugene V. Debs will mean to the ruling class of this country.
Millions of men and women of the working class of this country know Debs. For thirty years he has fought for better things for the workers. For thirty years his voice has been constantly raised in appeal for the workers. Millions have heard his speeches; millions have read his writings; a million men cast their ballots for him for the high office of president of the United States.
These millions know that there is not a man with a cleaner heart or a greater purpose in the United States than Eugene v. Debs. They know that he has given his all and sacrificed all in order to make this country a better place to live in for those who are now condemned to empty lives of misery, poverty and suffering.
Now the ruling class puts this man in jail. At the age sixty-three there is laid upon him the savage sentence of ten years in prison-the death sentence.
And for what?
For publicly stating the truth as he saw it. For voicing his conscientious beliefs. For this he is condemned to ten years behind iron walls and iron bars; ten years behind the walls of a prison where everything that is cruel and dark and gruesome grows, where humankind is warped out of all recognition as human beings, where foul words fill the air and fouler deeds are committed. This for Debs who desired nothing but to make the world a brighter place to live in for those who toil!
Will the American workers permit this?
There is still time to call a halt. A united protest, a united demand of Debs’ freedom and the powers that be will change their minds before Debs goes to prison. Let the capitalist class hear the rumbling of the volcano and Debs will not go to jail.
Are the minds of the American workers enslaved as well as their bodies? Are they such craven cowards that nothing will arouse their resentment? Is there none of that rebellious spirit which is ridding Europe, not only of czars and kaisers, but of the plutocrats who rob and appress the workers, among the American workers?
Their action to win freedom for Debs will tell.
[Photograph added.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote EVD, Debs Address to the Court, Sept 14, 1918
http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/address_to_the_court.htm
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=D2wfAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA6-PA4
http://debs.indstate.edu/d288d37_1918.pdf
The Ohio Socialist
“Official Organ of the Socialist Parties of Ohio,
Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and New Mexico.)
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Mar 12, 1919
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/059-mar-12-1919.pdf
IMAGE
EVD, Bstn Glb p3, Sept 13, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430811654
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 11, 1919
Washington, D. C. – U. S. Supreme Court Up Holds Conviction of Eugene Debs
Tag: Seattle General Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/seattle-general-strike-of-1919/
Tag: Lawrence Textile Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/lawrence-textile-strike-of-1919/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~