Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!
-Karl Marx, 1848
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 5, 1918
Workers of the World Celebrate Karl Marx Centenary
From The Young Socialists’ Magazine of May 1918:
Marx and the Young People.
by Eugene V. Debs
The day and the year that Karl Marx was born—May 5th, 1818—appear in red letters in the calendar of the social revolution. For on that day the eyes of the revolution’s prophet and pioneer opened upon the world. In fancy we can see the baby Marx engaged in his first struggle, doing his best and worst in baby fashion to give evidence that he was alive and to have his arrival duly noted. We can next see a little toddler nosing about for a suitable opening for his prying activities, little dreaming of the prodigious task awaiting him on the stage of life.
And now appears the boy, the youth upon the scene, and sober facts begin to jostle rosy dreams in his dawning mentality and imagination.
Marx, the boy, was healthy, handsome, and natural, full of the sap and song and sweetness of life. Like all normal boys he loved play and pranks, and for the same reason he was also serious and studious, and quite early he began to realize that life meant struggle and service and that he must in grave earnest prepare himself to act nobly his part in the great drama that spread out before his awakening vision.
The boy, Marx, in the light of his subsequent phenomenal career, and of the social revolution now thundering at the doors of the capitalist world, presents a vivid theme and a fascinating study for the young people of today who are reaping in knowledge and strength, in inspiration and high resolve, where he sowed in poverty and pain, in suffering and exile, to the very end of his days.
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It is peculiarly appropriate that the centenary of the birth of Karl Marx should be celebrated by the Young People’s Socialist League. The program of appreciation would be sadly incomplete without the participation of the young people who have been quickened into new life and have had their eyes opened upon a new world by the magic of his awakening philosophy, and directed toward the shining goal of international freedom and fellowship under his masterly and inspiring leadership.
The heart of every young socialist throbs faster and keener with the zest of life as he contemplates the lofty figure of Karl Marx in perspective and what his coming has meant to the cause of oppressed humanity, especially the enslaved and exploited workers of the world.
