Hellraisers Journal, Monday July 6, 1908
Compassion of Eugene Debs Re-Converts Florence Kelley
From The Socialist Woman of July 1908:
A RE-CONVERT.
—–
Rose Pastor Stokes.
Florence Kelley
Mrs. Florence Kelley is one of the noblest women I know, and has worked for twenty years or more for Socialism among trades unionists and other classes of men and women. She used to belong to the Socialist party, but has not been a party member for many years. Last Sunday Mrs. Kelley was present at the mass meeting of the Christian Socialist Fellowship, when Eugene V. Debs spoke.
She was there when everybody else on the program spoke; but when she heard his wonderful plea for the woman who is not “fallen” but “knocked down;” for his sisters who are forced by a cruel and heartless system to sell their honor for a living, when she heard him declare, in a voice broken with emotion, that he honors these sisters of his and places his arm about them, and takes his stand by their side, Mrs. Kelley could not hear more.
Her face was flushed, and I saw the tears she wouldn’t let come to her eyes, as she exclaimed: “I am ashamed to be out of the party that has a man like that at its head! I’ll take out my membership card for him tomorrow.”
And her word is as good as her bond. Welcome to another new comrade!-The New York Evening Call.
