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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 5, 1899
Eugene V. Debs on Current Events: Miners of Girard, Illinois, Appeal for Aid
From the Social Democratic Herald of September 2, 1899:
CURRENT EVENTS PASSED IN REVIEW
—–MINERS’ “VICTORIES” SO-CALLED
—–
Thirteen-Dollars-a-Month Patriotism
-“Bull Pens” and Socialism-Justice in France
in Spite of Hell and the French Army
-Cleveland Boycott
—–By Eugene V. Debs, Terre Haute, Ind.
[Part I of II.]
We have heard a great deal about the “glorious victories” won for miners during the last two yeas. It is a ghastly lie. The only victory I know of is the $3,600.00 job snatched from the enemy by Ratchford [Michael D. Ratchford, former President of the United Mine Workers’ Union], the understudy of [U. S. Senator] Mark Hanna.
Here in Indiana hundreds of them are idle and suffering. In Illinois, according to the official report of [U. M. W. District 12] State Secretary Ryan, they are on strike at 14 different points. At Girard [Illinois] the other day they issued an appeal for charity, declaring that they were homeless and hungry. The “glorious victories” have reduced them to common beggars—and they belong to the union to a man.
Oh, miners, will you not open your eyes and will you not use your brains and see and think for yourselves?
You have won no victories worthy the name. You are slaves, every last one of you, the victims of the wage system, and as long as the mines you work in are privately owned you will be robbed while at work and clubbed and shot like dogs when you quit.
Arouse from your slavery, join the Social Democratic Party and vote with us to take possession of the mines of the country and operate them in the interest of the people, as well as the railroads, factories, and all the means of production and distribution, and then, and only then, will “glorious victories” have been achieved and you and your comrades be free and our families happy.
Patriotism.
The American “patriot” is the biggest humbug on earth. Under pretense of loving his country, he struts and swaggers, prates about the “flag” and the “glories of war,” and makes a spectacle of himself generally. This “patriot” is never so ready to respond to the call of “his country” as when half-famished working slaves are to be shot at—at so much per shot.
The boss “patriots” are the plutocrats. They do their share of the fighting in sumptuous banqueting halls where amidst the roar of champagne corks they glorify the “flag,” while the poor fool “patriots” murder one another, according to the ethics of “civilized warfare,” for $13 a month.
Roosevelt of New York may be held up as the typical American patriot. He has the face of a bulldog and a heart to match. That such a savage is elected Governor of the leading state in the Union is proof enough that we are yet a million miles from civilization. According to the capitalist program this ideal “patriot” is to be made President in 1904, but he will hear something “strenuous” drop by that time and when he takes a second look he will see a socialist President in the seat his “patriotic” pantaloons yearned to warm.
The “patriotic” war in the Philippines blackens the blackest page in the 19th century. It is fiendish without a redeeming feature. All war is murder and I am opposed to the shedding of human blood, but since this war is forced upon the Filipinos, I regret that they lack the power and means to blow up every battleship that lands there. I am with and for the Filipinos, and hope with all my heart that they may yet repel the invaders and achieve their independence.
I am not a “patriot,” as that term is defined by the lexicon of capitalism. “All the world is my country and all mankind are my countrymen.”
Not being a fetish worshiper I see no difference between a flag and any other piece of cotton goods. All flags look alike to me, but since we have not yet outgrown this fetish, mine is the blood-red flag of socialism.
[To be continued.]
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote EVD, SDP Revolutionary, Sc Dem Hld p1, July 1, 1899
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/social-democratic-herald-us/990701-socdemherald-v02n02.pdf
Social Democratic Herald
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 2, 1899
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/social-democratic-herald-us/990902-socdemherald-v02n11w061.pdf
IMAGE
EVD, Houston Daily Post p6, May 22, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86071197/1899-05-22/ed-1/seq-6/
See also:
“Current Events”
-from Social Democratic Herald
of September 2, 1899
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1899/990902-debs-currentevents1.pdf
-from
Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/
1899
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/#1899
Announcement:
https://debsproject.org/blog/
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.
Tag: Michael D Ratchford
https://weneverforget.org/tag/michael-d-ratchford/
Note: re appeal for aid from striking miners of Girard IL-this is somewhat confusing: I found an appeal for aid carried in the Appeal to Reason of Girard, Kansas. However, the appeal for aid was made by the striking miners of Girard, Illinois. See:
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Aug 12, 1899
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66953072/
Appeal for Aid
We, the miners of Girard, Ill., in the historical district of the C. & A. track, appeal to all for aid. Our wages have ben reduced to such a point that it is almost impossible to live. We were compelled to quit work. Continued work under the reduction…meant poor food, ragged clothes, sickness and all other evil which spring from poverty…..
W. O’CONNOR,
Chm’n & Sec. Relief Com.———-
Philippine–American War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War
“My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind.”
-from
The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, Vol. IV
-from disunionism to the brink of war, 1850-1860
-ed by Louis Ruchames
Harvard University Press, 1971
(search: “my country is the world”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=v5aZrAuKt0wC
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Dig The Devil’s Blood: A Coal Miner’s Song