Hellraisers Journal: “You are waging a class fight!” Eugene Debs Speaks at Philadelphia’s Labor Lyceum, Part II

Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 21, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Eugene Debs Speaks at Mass Meeting

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 20, 1910:

PRATT AND DEBS AT LABOR MEETING
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Sympathetic strikers crowded Labor Lyceum Hall, at Sixth and Brown streets, when their big mass meeting was called to order at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon [Saturday March 19th], and the streets about the building were blockaded with hundreds who were unable to enter the hall.

Many policemen, under command of Lieutenants Nippes and Ehrsman, were stationed about the entrance to the hall and along Sixth and Brown streets to prevent possible rioting, and riot wagons from City Hall were placed in near-by streets.

C. O. Pratt, the executive chairman of the carmen’s organization, arrived at the Labor Lyceum soon after 3 o’clock in an automobile, and was cheered by the crowd as he made his way to the entrance. The doors had been ordered closed by the police, but the lieutenant in charge made way for Pratt and the speakers with him. As soon as Pratt was inside the hall the crowd picked him up and passed him along to the platform.

Pratt in his speech exhorted the labor men to stand firm in their demands. In concluding he asked all who would remain out on strike to say “aye.” The answering chorus of “ayes” was heard in the streets.

Eugene [V]. Debs, a former Presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket, also addressed the meeting.

[He said:]

You are waging a class fight. I am not here to philosophize, but to tell you to fight and fight to the end, and you will win. There is nothing to concede, nothing to arbitrate. If you concede anything you will lose all. Fight the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. J. Pierpont Morgan could end the strike in a minute if he wanted to.

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[Photograph 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.]

Traction Officials and City Officials Are One

I have read some of the interviews of the officials of the traction company in the city of Philadelphia. You needed discriminate between a city official and a traction official. The official is the official of both. Let us say traction official and we have said all. The Philadelphia city authorities are the clerks of the traction company. You must realize that the traction magnates are few compared to you. You are in the overwhelming majority. If you united for one minute you would not need to fight them. The victory would come without the strike, without the fight.

I have seen some of their interviews, and I can see that they hold you in contempt and don’t hesitate to say so. And when I come to think seriously of it I can hardly blame them. They don’t like the socialists, but I can tell you that in their heart of hearts they respect them. You don’t find us around City Hall down on our knees with our hats in our hands begging for crumbs. They know that we represent a revolutionary movement; that we are not begging, but that we are going to take what we want in due time. They tell us that if we are only law-abiding everything will come our way. Just be quiet and meek while you starve and there will be no trouble. Just starve to death like good law-abiding slaves and they will have no fault to find with you. But do they obey their own laws? Bear in mind that they enact all of hem. They don’t consult you any more than if you were sheep or hogs.

Government, so called, is simply a combination of clerks in the service of the capitalists. The government belongs to the capitalists in every department. I know who pulls [Mayor] Reyburn’s strings, and all the rest of them. These officials are all alike; they are all the tools of corporate power, that is why they have been placed where they are. They could not serve you if they would. They have been placed where they are because they are subservient to the ruling economic masters. Don’t you know that the economic master is always the ruler? In feudal society and in modern society it is the masters who make the laws and the workers who have to obey the laws. But those capitalists do not obey their own laws when the laws interfere with their conspiracies to plunder the public.

Sovereigns Seeking Jobs

Let me give you just one concrete illustration. When they demand that you shall obey the law, when they tell you not to touch the man who takes your job, there is one thing that is impressed upon you, and that is that you do not own a job. When a man takes your job it is because it is not your job. You have no right to defend your job because you have none. Do not let the logic of this proposition escape you in this strike. They tell you that you are sovereigns. Ask them how you can be a sovereign when you don’t even own a job. Just think of a sovereign looking for a job!

When you attempt to speak to the man who is about to take your job from you, you violate the law. The courts have so declared. The laws always serve as fetters for the workers, and as instruments in the hands of the ruling class to gain their ends. In this way they have legalized the kidnapping of workingmen. That is what the Supreme Court decided in the case of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone. It is because of this that Pettibone lies today in his grave. If it had not been for the uprising of the working class all over the land Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone would have been hanged.

The traction magnates have all this power, although they are few in number. They have only to press a button and Reyburn comes, like a jumping-jack, and performs with alacrity just like a monkey in a circus. Then they press another button connected with the judicial department; then one connected with the councils and the department of justice. Under capitalism all our judicial nets are so adjusted as to catch the minnies and let the whales slip through. Then they press another button and the Department of Public Safety responds. Did you ever hear of such sarcasm as a Department of Public Safety in the City of Brotherly Love?

Public safety! When innocent children are shot dead in their tracks for being in a thoroughfare. And women, and others, who happen to be in the line of the bullets because, perhaps, they happen to be in sympathy with the striking workingmen.

Socialists Want No Compromise

They talk about the department of justice, about the department of safety. It is this organized crime behind which are entrenched the capitalist pirates that the socialists are organized to destroy. We know them, and they know us; and they know that we are not asking for any kind of a compromise. We, however, know them better than they know us. They think they have defeated us when we are crushed beneath the iron heel of their power. That is where they are mistaken, for every time they crush us we rise with power renewed and increased. When they think they defeat us, they simply screw down the safety valve; they increase the pressure, and when they have screwed down that safety valve far enough, and create a pressure strong enough, there is going to be an explosion.

They keep telling you that you must not do any overt act. All the capitalists and all their pliant tools tell you to observe the peace. Of course this is a battle and in a battle they would have you use nothing stronger than eau de cologne and attar of roses.

Don’t strike a blow. Don’t object to having your job taken away from you. Don’t mind such a small thing as seeing your wife starving or your children hungry and perhaps homeless, about to be evicted because the rent can not be paid. Just remember that you ought to be a law-abiding citizen and allow them to die.

Now let us analyze the solicitude of the capitalist for the observance of the law. Let me show you the hypocrisy of it, which I hope will not offend the tender sensibilities of these traction magnates, who, by the way, are headed by a [State Senator and V. P. of Philadelphia Rapid transit Company]] Wolf, fangs and all. He is very properly named. Now when you sheep fight a wolf don’t use your teeth, they tell you. Just allow him to shear you and be submissive.

Traction Wolves Tenderhearted

You know this wolf and he is only one of a type. I have no quarrel with him or with any individual. If it were not for his official capacity I would probably never have heard of him. Now you know this wolf and the other wolves are heartbroken when they hear of a scab being hit with a brick. But it does not disturb them in the least to know that children are ground up in the mills of mammon into rich man’s gold. They are born into tragedy; they start on the downward road, and if you trace them a little while along that track you will find them behind the red curtains of a house of shame. All this does not disturb the wolves. But if you dare touch a scab then they cry out that you are breaking the law.

Let me show you how they obey the law when it interferes with their purposes. I am going to repeat a bit of history, but first listen to the inspiring battle cry of one of the greatest of our poets, Shelley:

Men of Labor, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story.

Let this inspiring battle cry be your shibboleth during the remainder of this fight, and keep it up until your cause is crowned with victory.

Courts Set Aside People’s Will

Let me show you how they obey the law, and when they talk to you about the law fling this into their teeth. In Colorado in 1899 the miners and smelter men were partly organized, and through their efforts the state legislature enacted an eight-hour law. This was because of the fact that men were dying because they were compelled to inhale the deadly fumes of the ores in the reducing processes. They were working 10, 12, and 14 hours a day, and the people said their workday must be shortened. The legislature responded to the public sentiment and enacted the eight-hour law. Follow this carefully, and when they talk to you about the law tell them this story. Just after this law was placed upon the statute books the [Colorado] supreme court, which consists of judges who are lickspittles and tools of the Guggenheims, and belong body and soul to the Smelter Trust, declared that law unconstitutional.

Now the working class didn’t get excited; they didn’t go out on strike, but simply said that if that law is unconstitutional they would present an amendment to the constitution. And, in 1902, they had that amendment submitted to the people, and by a majority of 47,600 it was adopted. All of the 100 candidates, both Republican and Democratic, for the legislature stood upon a platform which committed them to vote for the eight-hour law. The majority had ordered their servants, the legislature, to reenact that law. They themselves had just made it constitutional. But the legislature was bought, just as Armour buys mutton, and the legislature refused to enact that law. I said then, I say now, and will always say, that the workers of Colorado should have instituted an insurrection, there and then.

They had appealed to the law and they had been turned away. The people had been insulted and outraged. The capitalists do not only not obey their own laws, but they trample upon them with impunity.

At the head of the Western Federation of Miners stood Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone. I don’t believe in anything like hero worship, but it is appropriate that you applaud the names of these men for the way in which they fought the Mine and Smelter Trust. The Smelter Trust did not have money enough to buy Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone. They didn’t have power enough to intimidate them. In spite of all their force and all their threats these men stood true as steel to their class.

The Smelter Trust owned everything in Colorado—the legislature, the courts, newspapers, also the judges and the pulpiteers. At the order of the Smelter Trust, Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone were kidnapped in the dead of night and carried a thousand miles and lodged in jail in Idaho. It was [Pinkerton] McParland who declared that they would never leave Idaho alive. There sits on this platform one of the ablest fighters in that battle for the lives of these three workingmen—Comrade Luella Twining. She was one of those who aroused the workers all over the country, until from coast to coast the slogan “If Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone die, 20 million workers will know the reason why.” It didn’t take them long to let go. The capitalist papers had said that these men were redhanded murderers, and that they would be hanged, and they would have been hanged if it were not for the fact that we had something of a press of our own. It was the working people of this country that saved Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone, and what you did for them you can do for yourselves.

This is an example which shows how the capitalists themselves obey the law. Did the Smelter Trust obey the law in Colorado when, after a majority of the people ordered them to reenact the eight-hour law, they refused to do so?

Merciless as Hawks to Doves

They have no respect for the people. They never have had. They talk about laws and democracy. There never has been any democracy. There has never been a time when the people ruled themselves.

After this country freed itself from England it established itself as a republic, where the people were going to rule. Alexander Hamilton had no respect for the people, he held them in contempt. He tried to have the president elected for a life term. He said, just change the name of King to President and tell the people that they are free and they will believe you. He wanted the president to exercise absolute veto power to enable him to repeal entirely and cancel any law that might be initiated by the people. He tried four times to get this clause put into the Constitution, and every time it was put up it was defeated by an overwhelming majority.

Notwithstanding this fact our Supreme Court, which is composed of corporation judges, is steadily increasing its own power until its power is now supreme and final. And a dove might as well appeal to a hawk for protection as a workingman to this capitalist judiciary despotism. I don’t take off my hat to any judge that ever walked unless he takes off his hat to me. I don’t see any halo around the head of a corporation lawyer after he gets on the bench. After they get on the bench their heads become like chipmunks and their pockets like balloons.

Socialists on the Job

Law-abiding sheep should become law-defying men when that law stands between them and their right. It is the same power you are fighting today, and the socialists are with you to the finish. We are not only preaching the class struggle, but we are with you in your fight. I am with you, I will march with you in the front ranks, and if there are any heads to be clubbed I’ll volunteer mine. If you have any red blood in your veins now is the time to show it. I appeal to every socialist here to fight with the carmen. You are not true to the movement unless you do. It is not sufficient to talk socialism, now is the time to show your colors. Come victory or defeat, come jail or the gallows, come what will, you will show your colors, you will prove yourself true, you will inspire the weak, you will strengthen the rank and the file, will develop the moral and physical fiber of the working class. you will bear the revolutionary banner of victory in the city of Philadelphia.

The hour has struck, this is your time: allow it to pass and you will never cease to regret it. This is your opening, this is your chance, this is your supreme opportunity. I appeal 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. Go out side by side, let your shoulders touch, let your hearts throb to the forward marches of the drum in this great battle. Don’t turn your faces backward, but press forward, step by step, increasing your powers, developing your strength, until the enemy before you quake in their stolen boots. Keep this up day by day and then within the next three or four days there will be a transformation. Weakness and uncertainty spell disaster.

In closing I appeal to you, to each one of you. I look into your faces, I catch your spirit, and I feel myself expanding in your presence; I am simply the tongue of the working class making this appeal from the working class to the working class. I appeal to every man, woman, and child that is present, and right here let me say that I am very glad that the women are here, for they have the true revolutionary spirit. If you want to win your fight take your wife by the hand and bring her to the meeting. Bring your wife, bring your mother, bring your sister. Let them all go into the streets, one hundred thousand of them with you, and then let them stop you if they dare.

Dressed-Up Degeneracy

I spoke here a short while ago, and there was a minister over in New Jersey—I guess you read what he had to say about my address in this hall—he said that I was guilty of high treason; that I ought to be hanged, and that he would be very glad to officiate on the other end of the rope. This comes from a meek and lowly follower of the humble Nazarene, who preached the doctrine that you must love your enemy; that if he smites you on the one cheek turn the other; if you are asked for your coat give your whole suit; if you are asked to walk a furlong walk a mile. No doubt this minister got an increase to his mess of pottage.

The ruling class have always had their retainers, their pulpiteers, their lickspittles. They have them in all our educational institutions. No degeneracy is more repugnant than that which is dressed-up. These servers of the ruling class are simply whited sepulchers. They appear to be men, but they are such in appearance only. They serve the ruling class and feather their own nests; they fawn at the feet of the corporate…

O give me the workingman in his overalls and brogans, who is despised because he has a robust manhood that refuses to be bought. I take off my hat to such a man, he is the hope of the world. Looking into his face I feel myself inspired, I see in him an ally and a comrade. I clasp hands with him; I double my own strength. There are many such in Philadelphia and they are the hope of the situation. Come into the line and the revolutionary spirit will thrill and inspire you; and there will be a solidarity that will be economic, and in due course of time it will be political. Then, for the first time, you will be respected, and you will find that you are moving toward emancipation.

Do your part in this struggle: this is your chance. I can not do it for you—you must do it for yourselves. If you are defeated you will have to bear all the penalties of defeat. Let me tell you that just as certain as you unite your forces; just as certain as you sound the uncompromising slogan, you will win a victory in Philadelphia, the effect of which will inspire the whole working class, and the report of which will sound around the world.

[Photograph and paragraph break added.]