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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 1, 1912
Terre Haute, Indiana – Debs Responds to Indictment by Federal Grand Jury
From the Richmond Evening Item (Indiana) of November 26, 1912:
DEBS DECLARES WORLD WOULD
STAND AGHAST
———-IF WHOLE TRUTH WERE DISCLOSED ABOUT
CONDITIONS AT LEAVENWORTH PRISON.
———-(By the Associated Press.)
Terre Haute, Ind., Nov. 26.-Eugene V. Debs, indicted by the federal grand jury at Girard, Kas., Saturday, appeared at his home Monday, refuting the report that he had started for Ft. Scott, Kas., on hearing of the indictment. In speaking of the case, Debs said:
These indictments are based on an infamous lie. There was never any attempt on the part of the officers of The Appeal to Reason to induce any witness to leave anywhere. I have recently been the candidate of the working classes for the presidency. I suppose I can now be the candidate of the capitalistic class, for the penitentiary. Were the whole truth told about conditions in the Ft. Leavenworth prison, the world would stand agast.
[Emphasis added.]
From The Coming Nation of November 30, 1912:
AN INCREDIBLE STORY
By A. M. Simons
THAT within two weeks after receiving the votes of almost a million citizens for the office of president of the United States, Eugene V. Debs should be indicted by federal grand jury for obstructing the orderly process of the court by alleged tampering with a witness is almost incredible…..
When the Appeal turned the light on Leavenworth penitentiary it pulled a bone away from a pack of hungry office-holding curs who sprang in hydrophobic rage upon the persons who had disturbed their foul feast. When to this was added the exposure of the corruption of the federal courts of the nation and especially of the southwest, another allied pack was started into full cry for vengeance. It was easy for these to get the backing of the great powers of capitalism, and all the branches of class government…..
In their blind baffled rage the conspirators played their last card. A servile grand jury indicted Eugene V. Debs, Fred D. Warren and J. I. Sheppard for attempted tampering with a witness in the case based upon the Leavenworth exposure…..
The object of this assault is to cripple the publications against which it is directed. Throughout this fight the Appeal has helped to carry the COMING NATION. In this desperate crisis no extra weight can be carried. Yet if the news goes out that the first effect of the assault was to compel the abandonment of the COMING NATION that will have all the effect of a victory for the enemy. They will have restricted and choked the voice of revolt by just that much. They will have strangled in youth what promises to be a powerful champion when full grown…..
[Emphasis added.]
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