———-
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 20, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – General Strike Committee Sends for Debs
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 17, 1910:
[Statement of Philadelphia’s General Strike Committee.]
———-
Announcement of the plans of the labor leaders for today was embodied in the following statement issued by the General Strike Committee, from its headquarters at Twelfth and Filbert streets:
In our statement issued last night we announced several mass meetings would be held in different parts of the city, to which organized and unorganized working men and women and the general public are invited. These meetings will be held at Kensington Labor Lyceum. Second and Cambria streets; Mercantile Hall, 849 Franklin street; Academy Hall, 524 South Fourth street, and Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, on Thursday, March 17, at 8 P. M.
These meetings will be addressed by C. O. Pratt, Jeff Pierce, organizer of the American Federation of Labor; John J. Murphy and other prominent speakers…
The committee has also made arrangements for holding a monster mass meeting at Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, at 3 P. M., Saturday, March 19, which meeting will be addressed by Eugene V. Debs and other prominent speakers…
[Photographs added.]
Speech of Eugene Debs at Mass Meeting at Labor Lyceum
-Saturday Afternoon, March 19, 1910:
Debs Speaks in Philadelphia in Support of General Strike
[Part I of II.]
This is a meeting of the working class, and I feel, therefore, very much home. You are waging a class fight, and I am not here today to theorize or philosophize. I am here to fight. There is no reason why this strike should not be won absolutely.
There has been a great deal of talk about arbitration. No workingman should use the word “arbitration” in strikes; he should not use it in this strike. There is nothing to concede and there is nothing to arbitrate. I appeal to you workers to stand absolutely for the whole program. Your demand is such a very modest one that if you concede anything you lose everything.
Why are there any workers at work in Philadelphia at this time? Why are they not out today on strike? You are fighting their fight, and they ought to know it. But they are held in restraint by [the] sanctity of a contract. In a word, a contract with a capitalist is more important than their lives and the lives of their wives and babes. If I had the power I would destroy every such contract in the United States. I have no respect for any contract that is made at the expense of the working class.
Conscienceless Piracy
If there was a time when the working class should be united in one solid phalanx it is right here and now in Philadelphia. For years you have been dominated by as conscienceless a crew of pirates as ever robbed a municipality anywhere.
I am going to speak very deliberately today, and I stand absolutely responsible for every word I utter. I was told, on my way here, that perhaps I might not be allowed to speak at all, but if any steps had been taken to silence me I would not have turned back like a sheep. When the time comes that I can not stand erect like a man and exercise my right to speak for my class I will die right there!
I am not here in the capacity of a leader, nor as an orator, but simply as a workingman. I have earned my right to a place in the working class, and there is where I belong; there is where I am, and when there is a fight of the working class, here or anywhere, I recognized that it is my fight. I discharge my duty as I understand it. I have said, and I repeat, that you can, if you will, win the strike. Not, however, by showing the white feather; not be being cowards and poltroons but by being men; by standing erect and presenting a solid front, making your demand and standing by it. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice, because if you lose you may lose everything; you sacrifice a great deal more in defeat than you do in fighting manfully for your rights.
What are you asking for? Just a pittance of what you are entitled to. You are the Philadelphia Traction Company. Without you there is no such enterprise. You operate it in every essential department, and you are asking for just enough to enable you and your wives and your little ones to live; just enough to provide yourself and them with coarse food, scant clothing, and shelter enough so that you may recuperate sufficiently to enable you to return to your work the next day and perform your dreary round. And so on, day after day, you grind away your life as a wage-slave, until at last, in old age, death comes to the rescue and still the aching heart, lulling the victim of capitalism to sleep.
Demands Too Modest
You are asking for a vey small and modest part of what you are entitled to. Stand up for that and concede nothing. If you can not win on that basis you can not win at all.
In the Philadelphia press this morning [W. D.] Mahon [President of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes of America] is quoted as saying that he is perfectly willing to leave the entire matter of settlement with [Republican Attorney] George H. Earle, Jr., but I do not believe that he made any such statement, because if any leader would make such a statement, why not place the matter in the hands of the traction company? You would say that Earle is the city’s representative, but the traction company is the city. Your City Hall is simply a robber’s roost.
It is time for the people of Philadelphia to arouse themselves from their lethargy, their indifference. They have submitted all too long to the indignities of these pirates, these robbers. All these outrages are being perpetrated in the name of the law. And right here let me say that every great crime committed by these pirates is done within the law. Compare this with what happens to a workingman, who, driven by hunger, enters a railroad yard and steals enough scrap iron to buy himself a ham sandwich. He is arrested, thrown into jail, fined, and then you are told that the majesty of the law has been vindicated! These pirates steal a whole railway system and they are eminently respectable citizens. And then they have the nerve to tell you workingmen that you ought to be perfectly peaceable and lawabiding.
This is your opening, this is your chance, this is your supreme opportunity. I am appealing to you to take advantage of it. Cease to crawl, to beg; stand erect and see how long a shadow you can cast in the sunlight!
Two Kinds of Law
You know that there are just two kinds of rule today. There is a professor at Harvard University who had the moral courage to say so. The economic dependence of the professor in our educational institutions acts as a curb on their tongues; they have to hold onto their jobs. If these professors have courage enough to speak their honest convictions, and these convictions happen to conflict with the interests of the ruling class, the professors profess no longer. They retire to private life. But this professor had the courage to say that there are but two kinds of rule, one being thief rule and the other mob rule. The professor said that of the two he preferred mob rule, and that expresses my sentiments.
There are times when to obey the law is a crime. The revolutionary patriots of the thirteen colonies had no respect for the laws of King George. They were called law-breakers and traitors, and were regarded as undesirables. Yet today you are teaching your children to honor their memory. If it had not been for the courage of these law-breakers in doing this, you and I would still be British subjects instead of American citizens. There is something splendid about the man who has the qualities that enable him to hold his head erect; who faces the world unafraid and alone. It makes no difference what others may say or what others may think, he is is invincible in his own mental and moral resources. He takes his stand upon what he conceives to be right, and there he stands, and if he falls he falls standing there; and in due time humanity comes and stands where he stood and erects there a monument in gratitude to his manhood and nobility of nature.
It does not take an educated man, nor a college-bred man to have that simple quality that will permit you to see whether or not this is a righteous fight. You must say to yourself: “This is my fight; I am not going to play the part of a sneak or a scab; I am going to be true to myself and my conviction of right; I will do my duty no matter what the consequence are.” Then you will hear the siren’s voice, and if you trace it to its source you will find that it comes from City Hall, where the brigands are in conference. When they meet it is a conference; when you meet it is a mob. They are the makers of the laws. You are the lawless. This is because you, in your ignorance, used your votes to place them where they are. I do not want to use any harsh language. Nothing would suit me better than to tell them face to face what I am saying to you now. But if they were treated as they should be treated before the law upon their merits and in accordance with justice, every one of them would be in a felon’s cell today.
Settlement or Paralyzed Industry
I remember the streetcar strikes—there were two of them—in Terre Haute, the city where I live. I happened to be away when the first occurred [during October of 1900]. They telegraphed to me to hasten home. I broke all my engagements and responded to the call. At that time the company was owned by local capitalists. We gave them just so much time in which to settle everything with us and gave them notice that if they didn’t we would paralyze every industry in town. The strike was a success.
A year or so later [January of 1902] there was another strike. Again I happened to be away from the city. They again wired me to return. I found that the men were absolutely right in their demands, which were very modest. I said to them: “Stand where you are, we will issue a call and next Saturday we will have a demonstration of the working class along the entire length of Main Street, and show the respectable citizens what this beast, the working class, is. You are such inferior beings, you live in the hovels and the caves on the outskirts of the city. They do not come in touch with you; they can not suffer themselves to be in the same section or vicinity with you. We will now show them the character of this working class beast.” We issued a call to all the workers in the city. Promptly the newspapers sent reporters to see me and said that if there was any bloodshed it would be on my head. I said that I could stand it. In the meantime the cars were being run by the scabs.
On Saturday morning, the day set for the demonstration, the workers began to pour in from all directions. Among others there were 6,000 miners. They came in their working and fighting clothes. They fell in line, the procession extending from the river to the city limit. The working class was out in full force, and when the working class is out in full force it is the people. They ran the cars into the barns and sent for me. They asked me upon what terms we would settle, and I said we demanded absolute surrender. They called me into the office and said that they were in a “peculiar position,” that they were perfectly willing to do the fair thing, but they wanted to be let down decently. I told them that we had no desire to humiliate the company before the public, and asked them what they would suggest. They said let us arbitrate and we will appoint you the fifth member of the board. The company appointed two men, the strikers appointed two men, then they chose me as the fifth. I okayed the grievances of the men and the strike was settled. We arbitrated that strike by giving the men everything they asked. The only fault I found with the men was that they didn’t ask for one-half of what they were entitled to.
It is so often the case that the men who become successful as labor leaders serve the capitalist class. You don’t hear them glorifying me in these parts, although I have been three times candidate for president on the Socialist ticket. You don’t find my name in the capitalist papers. This is as it should be; my name doesn’t belong there. But I want to serve notice upon you that I’m going to put it there before I’m through.
A Typical Union Man
Now I’m going to tell you about a typical union man who figured in this strike in Terre Haute. He had been born into capitalism poor, never had a chance to get any schooling, but he had the true dignity of a man: quiet, unobtrusive, firm—absolutely to his convictions. He was the chairman of the committee. When the strike broke out I formulated the grievances to be presented to the company, gave them to him, and told him to take them to the office of the management, and told him to be firm. He didn’t say a word, but took the papers and went on his errand.
As I told you, the strike was won completely, but after it was all over the manager of the company said:
Debs, the strike is over and I am very glad that it is. I have no fault to find with the terms of the settlement, but I have a personal grievance that I want to lay before you. The chairman of your strike committee at the beginning of the strike came to me. In my office were present three or four members of the board of directors. Your chairman rushed in without knocking. Keeping his hat upon his head, he thrust out his hand and said: “Repatore, put your Hancock on this document.” I said to him, “Please excuse me for a moment, I am busy.” “Come now, no monkey business—put your hand to that.” Now do you think this was fair treatment?
“I can hardly believe,” I said to the manager, “that he would subject you to such harsh treatment. I’ll send for him and see what he has to say.” I sent for him and said: “Did you say so and so to Repatore?” He said: “Yes, don’t you remember, you told me to be firm?” “What do you understand by being firm?” I asked him. “Why, to give him hell from the word jump!”
There’s a true type of the working class leader. He had no frills, no furbelows, but he had all the true attributes of manhood. He stood pat; he won out, and if we had more of that type there would be no trouble in winning out everywhere.
If you don’t win out here in Philadelphia, it is your own fault. Fight without quitting. And the first thing I would do would be to serve notice upon the rapid transit company that it is a fight to the finish. We have given you all this time, you have spurned us with contempt. We have conceded practically everything. You have granted nothing. In the interest of peace we have all but given our cause away and from this hour forward there is to be a change of deal, there is to be a new program. We withdraw our proposal to arbitrate anything. We serve notice upon you that we are going to fight you along the economic line as well as along the political.
Banking on Your Meekness
I want to tell you men that J. Pierpont Morgan could settle this strike here in Philadelphia in just five seconds. All he would have to do would be to press a button in his office. If you want to settle you have got to fight for it. They are banking entirely upon your meekness, your submissiveness; upon your cowardice. They know that if they wait long enough your case becomes hopeless.
I can read their papers between the lines. I can tell you that in reading one of Earle’s interviews I could see what was written between the lines and I want to tell you that if you allow yourselves to be deceived by all this talk of peace and arbitration you will go down in defeat. And the result will be the blacklist for your bravest men and the destruction of your organization. What in the name of sense are you workingmen of Philadelphia waiting for? If you don’t fight now, when do you expect to? Every loyal workingman in this city ought to throw down his tools on Monday and not do another tap of work until this is settled.
If you allow the streetcar men to be defeated your time will come next. Let these men go down in defeat and let their organization be destroyed, let these men who fought most bravely be placed on the blacklist and hounded out of Philadelphia, from city to city, until some seek escape through the back door of suicide; allow all this to be done through your treachery, your cowardice, and you will suffer the penalties which you can not hope to escape. If I could only, by some magic power, talk in my one voice to all the workers in Philadelphia I would paralyze your plutocratic administration.
No Concession or Compromise
The working people of Philadelphia are being held back by mere threads. They are in a peculiar restraint. They are timid and afraid; they do not know what to do. What they need is to stand erect upon a vigorous and absolutely true policy, and not upon one of concession and compromise. This uncertainty is disastrous. The men don’t know where they stand or what tomorrow will bring forth.
A very important industrial battle is being fought. Why do you allow yourselves to be destroyed in detachments, regiment by regiment? Why do you not present the solid front of the entire industrial army? If the workers of Philadelphia would come out in one general strike it would be won in two hours’ time. Then you would not have to go down on your knees and beg for arbitration that you might gain a few more crumbs of stale bread for your children. You have the power; you only need to exercise it. If you fail it is your own fault and you are responsible for the consequences and you will not escape the penalties.
I appeal to each one of you to go out from here as an emissary of the working class. Go out among the workers, make your appeal to them to be true to the working class in this fight. Suppose you do lose your jobs—it is better than losing your manhood. The man who thinks more of his job than he does of his manhood loses both.
[Photograph added.]
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
-Mar 17, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/167223700
Eugene V. Debs:
Speech Delivered at Philadelphia Labor Lyceum
-Saturday Afternoon, March 19, 1910
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/100319-debs-fighttothelast.pdf
IMAGES
Phl GS, Murphy n Pratt, LW p1, Newark NJ Str p1, Mar 5, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1910-03-05/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91064011/1910-03-05/ed-1/seq-1/
EVD, Spk Chc p15, Nov 22, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/562163846/
See also:
Tag: Philadelphia General Strike of 1910
https://weneverforget.org/tag/philadelphia-general-strike-of-1910/
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Mar 19, 1910
“Police Club and ride Down Quaker City Workers”
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1910-03-19/ed-1/seq-1/
The Workingman’s Paper
(Seattle, Washington)
-Mar 19, 1910
“The Iron Heel in Philadelphia”
-by Arthur Jensen
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thesocialist-seattle/100319-seattlesocialist-v10w463.pdf
Debs Internet Archive
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/
-for Year 1910
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/#1910
“Fight to the Last! Speech at Philadelphia Labor Lyceum”
-scroll down for notes by Tim Davenport
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/100319-debs-fighttothelast.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Workers of the World Awaken
-would love to know who the performers are, does anyone know?
Lyrics by Joe Hill