Let the capitalists fight it out,
and you stick by your own class.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Sunday November 26, 1905
From the Appeal to Reason: Debs Celebrates Fiftieth Birthday in Toledo
Comrade Debs reached his fiftieth milestone in life on November 5th, and celebrated the day with the local Socialists of Dayton, Ohio, according to this week’s Appeal:
DEBS’ BIRTHDAY.
—–Yesterday was the fiftieth birthday anniversary of Mr. Debs, and in compliment to him the local Socialist presented him with a finely wrought horseshoe, the workmanship of E. E. Motter, on the conclusion of his address.
The presentation was made by E. J. Miller, who presided over the meeting. So touched was Mr. Debs by the pretty compliment that he refused to allow the local reception committee to send the gift to his home at Terre Haute, but preferred to carry it with him throughout the remainder of his itinerary.-Dayton (O.) Journal.
—–
The Appeal also offered a few quotes from Comrade Debs:
SAID BY DEBS
—–
“You are not interested in the money question, for as long as the capitalist, owns the tools he gets the money.”
—–“And so it is with imperialism, or rate legislation, or other alleged issues. Let the capitalists fight it out, and you stick by your own class.”
—–“You are called horny-handed sons of toil. The phrase is not used aright. You ought to be called horny-headed sons of toil. What you need is intellect.”
—–“You are not intelligent, or you wouldn’t make multi-millionaires and keep nothing for yourselves. The capitalist couldn’t exist a second without you; you would just begin to live with out him.”
—–“No matter which party wins-you lose. You are living in a state of economic insecurity; you have no assurance that you will have a job tomorrow. No matter which party is in power, the injunction operates against you just the same.”
—–“You make all the automobiles and walk. You are foolish enough to imagine that you would have no work if it were not for the capitalist. You employ the capitalist to take from you what you produce and he discharges that duty most faithfully. You make millions and millions of guns and generally manage to get at the wrong end of them.”
—–“The great mass of you producers are coarse and ignorant and brutal. And it is a pathetic thing that a system of economics has made you thus. Frances Willard said in pity once, ‘Oh, if the laboring people were not intemperate they would not be poor.’ Later she got a true view of life and acknowledged that she had been wrong, and said, ‘If they were not so poor they would not be so intemperate.'”
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SOURCES
Debs Foundation
http://debsfoundation.org/index.php/landing/debs-biography/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Nov 25, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/image/66993334
IMAGES
Eugene Debs, Wilshire’s Magazine, Nov 1905
pdf! https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1905/1100-debs-winningaworld.pdf
Unionism and Socialism by Eugene V Debs, Cover, 1904
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=42BMAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PP3
See Also:
Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches: With a Department of Appreciations
– by Stephen Marion Reynolds and Eugene V. Debs
Appeal to Reason, 1908
https://books.google.com/books?id=4qs9AAAAYAAJ