Tag: Capitalism

Hellraisers Journal: Debs in Omaha, Believes Workingmen Will Soon be Ready for Economic Revolution by United Ballot

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Modern Wage Slave, Terre Haute May 31, 1898, Debs-IA

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Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 23, 1898
Omaha, Nebraska – Eugene Debs Tells Old Story of Wealth and Poverty

On Wednesday December 21st, Eugene Debs was interviewed in Omaha and said, in part:

It is the old, old story—economics—the concentration of industry. The middle class of middlemen are being obliterated; they buy goods in small quantities and pay more than the department stores which buy by the carload. The department store advertises cheap goods, gets the laboring man’s cash, and the little corner grocery has the “credit” business. The small dealer is crushed: labor is pinched and suicides have increased 200 percent in the last ten years…..

I believe the present system, so destructive to the better elements of mankind, is soon to be eradicated, and that by the workingmen. They are beginning to think, and from the products of their minds is developing an economic revolution.

From the Omaha World-Herald of December 22, 1898:

Morally I Mean to Pay Them
[Interview with Eugene Debs]

EVD re Social Democracy, SLTb p3, Feb 9, 1898

No, I did not attend the [A. F. of L.] convention at Kansas City. I am in deep sympathy with the meeting and wanted very much to go, but my lecture engagements prevented. I have been speaking every night for two weeks.

With what success?

At Boone, Iowa, I had a fair audience, but usually through Iowa my audiences were not large. You know, the railroads and other corporations have no love for me, and it is given out cold to the men, and many of them who would attend stay away, fearful of incurring the displeasure of the powers that be. Especially is this true in railroad towns. However I cannot complain: I speak and the papers report and thus I reach the masses.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Socialist Woman: School Children Starving in Chicago & Caroline Lowe Speaks to Teachers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 10, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – 5,000 Children Go to School Hungry

From The Socialist Woman of November 1908:

American School Children Starving

Hunger in America, School Children, Chicago Tb p1, Oct 5, 1908
Chicago Tribune of October 5, 1908

When we are talking of the number of men who are tramping the country looking for work—hungry, broken-spirited, abject creatures, who once thought themselves men, as good as any of their kind—let us not forget the women, and the little children of these men.

Last winter in Chicago after the first flurry of the panic, I had occasion to visit a number of the “homes” of those who had been thrown out of work. In every case the men were out, hunting feverishly for the chance to make even a little money by any kind of hard labor. And in every case my heart ached and my soul grew sick when I thought of the future of the women and children of those families.

“It is awful when the children cry for food, and we cant give it to them,” said one woman who had never before known what it was to be down and out. Another mother, about thirty, and strong and handsome, had to sit by and watch her seven-year-old daughter burning with fever, and without the care of a doctor because she had lost her job in a department store, and there was no money even to buy food. She had applied for work at all the large stores again and again. She had tried everywhere—and was told that they might need her during the holidays. But the holidays were weeks away. Already she had moved into a questionable quarter because rent was cheap. And unless that mother got work within two weeks, there was but one resource left her, if she would save herself and her child from death through starvation. And that was the sale of her body.

It was for a charitable institution I was working—and I knew that those institutions were crowded to their utmost with destitute cases.

Such, indeed, was the condition of the poor in Chicago last winter, that the superintendent of compulsory education, W. Lester Bodine, took up the case of hungry school children, followed his investigations for six months, and finally ascertained that there are 5,000 starving children, and 10,000 that are underfed, in the schools of the city.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs: the Socialist Party Stands for “Emancipation of Labor All Over the World”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote, SP Appeal, NY Independent, Oct 15, 1908~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 29, 1908
Candidate Eugene Debs on Ideals and Purpose of Socialist Party

From the Appeal to Reason of October 24, 1908:

Get This Magazine.
—–

The Independent, published at 130 Fulton st., New York, will, in its issue of October 15, contain an article by Eugene V. Debs, entitled “The Socialist Party’s Appeal!” As a plain statement of what Socialism is and the relation of the Socialist party to the real vital questions of the day, its equal has not appeared.

This article is one of a series contributed to the Independent by each of the seven presidential candidates. The number containing Comrade Debs’ article will be mailed postpaid by the publishers to any address for ten cents.

———-

From the New York Independent of October 15, 1908:

The Socialist Party’s Appeal

BY EUGENE V. DEBS

CANDIDATE OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

EVD, NY Independent p876, Oct 15, 1908

At a public meeting in New York City some months ago the present Presidential candidate of the Republican party was asked this question: [“]What is a man to do who is out of work in a financial panic and is starving?”

This is an intensely human as well as a very practical question. It epitomizes the problem of the unemployed and places it in bold relief. It is not too much to say that the future welfare and progress of our country-aye, the fate of civilization itself-depends upon a correct solution of this problem. In view of the supreme importance of the question it might naturally be expected that the Republican party would offer some practical and well-defined method of dealing with it, and one might suppose that the party’s standard-bearer would be in a position clearly to expound that method in making reply to his interrogator. But how pitifully inadequate was the answer! It is at least creditable to Mr. Taft’s honesty that he frankly replied, “God knows!”

When Mr. Kern, the Vice Presidential candidate of the Democratic party, was asked recently what his party proposed to do for the relief of the unemployed, he is reported to have answered, “Nothing directly, nothing socialistic. We hope that carrying out the general ideas in our platform will so restore confidence that industry will start up again. But that’s about all. In fact, that’s enough.”

These answers are not cited for any partisan purpose, but because they serve admirably to illustrate the really essential difference between the Socialist party and its most formidable political rivals. The Socialist party does not refer this important problem to the Deity for solution. It recognizes the fact that it is of human creation and must be solved by human effort. It proposes to do something “directly,” something “socialistic,” for the relief of the unemployed. The Socialist party recognizes the serious nature of the unemployed problem and aims to solve it in the only way it can be solved, namely, by removing its cause. As means of temporary relief, applicable during the period of transition to a collective system of industry, the party proposes “immediate government relief for the unemployed workers by building schools, by reforesting of cut-over and waste lands, by reclamation of arid tracts and the building of canals, and by extending all other useful public works.” Both from the standpoint of effectiveness and that of practicability this program may be offered without comment in lieu of Mr. Taft’s “God knows!” and Mr. Kern’s “hope” of restored confidence.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Red Flags, Red Language and Red Enthusiasm” Greet Eugene Debs at Faneuil Hall, Boston

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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We’re not here to reform
the capitalist class,
but to wipe it out.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 24, 1908
Boston, Massachusetts – Socialist Greet Debs with Wild Enthusiasm

From the Montana News of October 15, 1908:

BOSTON SOCIALISTS WELCOME LEADER
—–
Thousands Great Debs With the
Greatest Enthusiasm.
—–

EVD Red Special Crew, Cover ISR Oct 1908

—–

Red flags, red language and red enthusiasm swept everything before them at Faneuil hall on the night of October 5 when the socialists of Boston waited patiently until nearly 10 o’clock to welcome their standard bearer, Eugene V. Debs of Illinois [Terre Haute, Indiana], locomotive fireman, grocer, legislator, labor agitator, strike director, convert to socialism and, like Bryan, three times a candidate for president.

The Cradle of Liberty got the wildest rocking both inside and out it has had in many years. As early as 6 o’clock the reds began to gather and by 7:30 o’clock the doors had to be closed, as everything was filled to the limit. Crowds surged to and fro all around the building, waving the red tri-cornered flags and shouting “Hurrah for Debs and Hanford.”

Enthusiasm to Spare.

Talk about enthusiasm. Why, the reds have both the big parties rolled into one and then beaten by fourteen miles. One of the speakers said the republicans or the democrats would have hard work to get out such a crowd. He might just as well have said it would have been impossible. First a wave of applause would surge out of the hall, and it would be met by an answering billow from the mob outside.

Inside the hall the crowd seated was only a small part of the real audience present. They hung off the balcony, up over the portraits of Sam Adams and John Hancock. They filled the space in front of the platform so that the reporters had to fight for their places. They forced their way up on the platform and pressed their way forward to the very chairs occupied by the speakers.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on “Social Democracy” and the Social Democratic Party of America

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, On overthrow of ruling class power, SD Hld, Oct 8, 1898~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 9, 1898
Debs on Capitalism Run Riot and the Battle for Social Democracy

From the Social Democratic Herald of October 8, 1898:

Social Democracy

-by Eugene V. Debs

EVD, New Time Magazine, Feb 1898

In the outset, and to “clear the deck” for action, some attention should be paid to definitions. What is meant by the term, “Social Democracy?” The term “social” as applied to “democracy” means, simply, a society of democrats, the members of which believe in the equal right of all to manage and control it. Reading this definition, men are likely to say, “There is nothing new in that,” and they speak understandingly. The men and women who are engaged in organizing the Social Democratic Party of America are not pluming themselves upon the novelty of their scheme for the improvement of social, industrial, and political conditions. They claim for their movement a common-sense basis, free from the taint of vagary and in all regards preeminently practical.

The wise man is credited with saying, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” [Ecclesiastes 1:9]. Crediting the declaration of Solomon as conclusive, there must have been a time before he lived when something like “social democracy” of which I write existed in the earth, the germ idea of which, though latent for centuries, has aroused men from their lethargy from time to time in the processes of evolution, to find its most potent expression in the present era of “progress and poverty,” civilization and savagery, wealth and war, charity and greed, aroused them to an interest in socialism, which, with the chivalric courage of crusaders and the revolutionizing zeal of iconoclasts, has appeared to do battle for the regeneration of society.

No one hesitates to admit that the task is herculean; no one underestimates the power of opposing forces. Their name is legion, and they are organized forces—close, compact, resourceful, and defiant. They do not propose to surrender, compromise, nor arbitrate. They have the masses in the dust, their claws upon their throats and their hooves upon their prostrate forms. In the face of all the verified facts that startle thinking men, there is no requirement for extravagant speech.

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Hellraisers Journal: Why Workers Walk and Why “Wandering Willies” Tramp While Plutocrats Wallow in Luxury

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You pity yourselves,
but you do not pity your brothers,
or you would stand together
to help one another.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday July 27, 1898
Chicago, Illinois – Workers Walk in Rain as Street Cars Pass By

From the Appeal to Reason of July 16, 1898:

Your Turn May Come to Be a Tramp, AtR, July 16, 1898

WHY DO WE WALK?

E. B. Webster in National Tribune.

As I started home from “down town,” when I reached Madison street I noticed hundreds of people walking, all going west.

I was intending to take a car, but seeing so many people walking, I says to myself: “The cars must have stopped.” But, no, the cars were moving right along, one every half minute.

Then why do the people walk? I determined to walk home with the rest and punish myself for having been dormant and letting the street railway company buy up the street for a few thousand dollars from the aldermen who had the power to give away what they never owned and had cost them nothing.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Party of America: Principles and Platform Adopted by 1908 Chicago Convention

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Hellraisers Journal: Saturday June 20, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Platform and Principles

From the International Socialist Review of June 1908:

Socialist Platform.

PRINCIPLES.

Socialist Party of America Button

Human life depends upon food clothing and shelter. Only with these assured are freedom, culture and higher human development possible. To produce food, clothing or shelter, land and machinery are needed. Land alone does not satisfy human needs. Human labor creates machinery and applies it to the land for the production of raw materials and food. Whoever has control of land and machinery controls human labor, and with it human life and liberty.

To-day the machinery and the land used for industrial purposes are owned by a rapidly decreasing minority. So long as machinery is simple and easily handled by one man, its owner cannot dominate the sources of life of others. But when machinery becomes more complex and expensive and requires for its effective operation the organized effort of many workers its influence reaches over wide circles of life. The owners of such machinery become the dominant class.

In proportion as the number of such machine owners compared to all other classes decreases, their power in the nation and in the world increases. They bring ever larger masses of working people under their control, reducing them to the point, where muscle and, brain are their only productive property. Millions of formerly self-employing workers thus become the helpless wage slaves of the industrial masters.

As the economic power of the ruling class grows it becomes less useful in the life of the nation. All the useful work of the nation falls upon the shoulders of the class whose only property is its manual and mental labor power—the wage worker—or of the class who have but little land and little effective machinery outside of their labor power—the small traders and small farmers. The ruling minority is steadily becoming useless and parasitic.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Some Thoughts On Competition, Co-operation, and Socialism

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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EVD Quote, cry for freedom, Duluth Truth, Feb 15, 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 9, 1898
On Co-operation: “Love rules instead of hate.”

From the Appeal to Reason of May 7, 1898:

On Competition, Co-operation, and Socialism

AD, Co-operative Commonwealth by Laurence Gronlund, AtR p3, May 7, 1898

PUT two men in competition, let them set up in store, shop or factory and sell in the same territory, ans see how they will grow to dislike each other and try to outdo and break each other up. That is the natural effect of such relation and can no more be avoided than the law of gravity. The success of each fully depend on the failure of the other. Now let these two men combine, form a partnership, and see how each will at once begin to work for the success of the firm which means the success of his partner. Neither can do anything for himself without at the same time helping his fellow. Mutual interest takes the place of self interest, love rules instead of hate. Can you give any valid reason why the same will not be true with three men instead of two? or of three hundred or three millions instead of three? That is the principle of socialism-that the industrial relations of men should be mutual instead of competitive, that all industries should be owned and operated by all the people collectively instead of individually, it would mean peace, plenty and pleasure for all.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Despairing Unemployed Trudge the Streets Seeking New Masters

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Panic, ISR, Nov 1907
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 4, 1908
Cities Across the Nation: Despairing Men Search for New Masters

From the Appeal to Reason of May 2, 1908:

Quotes re poverty, AtR p4, May 2, 1908

Slaves Looking for Masters.
—–

In every city of the country there are to be found many sad and despairing men, trudging from place to place, or standing in small groups in earnest conversation. These men are not tramps, hoboes or loafers, but the involuntary idle; men, honest and industrious workingmen, who have lost their jobs and now wander and wonder where and when employment is to be found.

These men are of the wealth producers of the nation, but under the existing competitive system the markets of the world have been overstocked and orders countermanded, and as the employers of labor could no longer employ them with profit, the mill, shop and factory were closed down to await more favorable market conditions, while the unfortunate employes have been set adrift.

But what of those dependent upon the idle workers for food, raiment and shelter? Ah, me, that is not a matter of concern to the employers. When times become extremely severe and threaten revolt, the wife or daughter of the employer, “out of pity for the poor,” will attend a “charity” ball gowned in five thousand dollars worth of silks and diamonds, presenting a ten dollar ticket of admission. Beyond this the employers have little or no interest in their slaves.

When the shop and factory again need labor power, when it can again be employed with profit to the employers-the owners of the machine, the gigantic tool of production-they well know it will be found at the gate knocking and pleading for permission to enter…..

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Hellraisers Journal: “Work for Women in Industrial Unionism” by Sophie Beldner Vasilio for the I. U. B.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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It should be encouraging for workingmen
to see women enter their ranks and,
shoulder to shoulder, fight for economic freedom.
-Sophie Beldner Vasilio

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Hellraisers Journal: Thursday April 30, 1908
Sophie Beldner Vasilio on Women and Industrial Unionism

On Tuesday we republished an article from The Industrial Union Bulletin of April 25th of this year, written by Sophie Beldner Vasilio, on the topic of Women and the I. W. W. Today we republish an earlier work by the same author on the topic of Women and Industrial Unionism.

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of August 3, 1907:

Work for Women in Industrial Unionism

IWW Gen Adm Emblem, IUB, Mar 14, 1908

To give an instance of the solidarity prevailing amongst women I shall have to talk of my own experience.

Working in New York in the garment industry with women mostly, here is what I observed. Twice a year, about the summer and winter season, their discontent was heard. Usually the piece workers were the ones that kicked, the prices being cut in slack time, and the new styles paying so little that it was necessary to organize in order to get even less than they asked for.

Twice a year three or four girls would get together to talk about organizing. Then these girls would start to talk to the rest of them about it. All would promise to attend a meeting for the purpose of organizing. Then they would appeal to the walking delegate of the waist makers’ union to organize them.

The meeting announced, only a few would make their appearance, the rest of them giving all sorts of excuses for not attending it. Still we would be organized, as few of we were. The demand for the prices was sent to the employer through the business agent, usually being compromised. About two or three months after the settlement, dues paying was postponed for a while by most of them, then they would say frankly: “We have no use for the union. We’re going to get married before long it’s no use paying dues to the union.”

Working in San Francisco, the City of Unionism, a Mexican women and myself began to talk about organization. One of the girls gave the definition of unionism thus: “To pay fines when you don’t parade on Labor Day or when you don’t attend the meetings, and besides, to pay dues for nothing.”

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