The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism.
I am for Socialism because I am for humanity.
We have been cursed with
the reign of gold long enough.
-Eugene Victor Debs
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday March 24, 1907
Appeal to Reason: Comrade Debs Exhorts Socialists to Stand Strong
To join the Socialist movement implies a declaration of war. War on the capitalist system and all its profit-fed institutions!
To issue such a declaration requires some measure of moral courage; to make it good requires a vast deal more.
Many a convert joins with enthusiasm to be extinguished a few months later in ignominy.
He lacks the nerve to stand his ground.
Many another joins the movement and grows stronger from the hour the battle begins; the more he is resisted the stauncher he stands; the more he is persecuted the more resolute he becomes, and in the storm of battle all the heroic fibre within him becomes steel and he rises to the stature of a full-grown man who has the strength to stand alone though all the world turn against him.
He has the nerve!
This is the secret of real heroism.
In writing this brief article on the subject of nerve, we have in mind a large number of Socialists and semi-Socialists who are more or less anxious to serve the movement, but who are so easily deflected from their purpose. They happen to hear of an uncomplimentary remark directed against them, and it strikes at the very heart of their allegiance to the cause. They hear of some temporary defeat of the party, or of some friction within the ranks, and they are at once discouraged.
The trouble is with their nerve. It is this that should have their immediate attention. The comrade lacking nerve, or having but a weak support of himself, will be kept in very hot water in the Socialist movement.
As previously stated, the man who joins the Socialist movement declares war against the capitalist system and capitalist society, and war of this kind is not a May festival. Ferdinand Lassalle, the brilliant social revolutionist, once said that the war against capitalism was not a rosewater affair. He was right. It is rather of the storm and tempest order. All kinds of attacks must be expected, and all kinds of wounds will be inflicted. The new comrade of tender sensibilities will soon get used to having his feelings torn and lacerated if he remains in the movement.
Many honest and well-meaning persons have been completely driven out of the movement because they could not stand the metaphorical shot and shell that were crashing about their heads.
Their hearts were right, but they lacked the nerve.
A fatal defect!
No matter what other good qualities a convert to Socialism may have, he must have the nerve to stick, the nerve to stay, if he is to be of any value to the movement. He must make up his mind that all the trials to which mortal man is subject will fall to his lot one after the other, and that if he lacks the nerve the weak spot in him will sooner or later be put to the test and he will go down and out, never to rise again.
But it is this very trial that serves a most beneficent purpose for both the individual and the movement; it eliminates the weak and unfit, and tempers those qualified for the higher service to which they are sure to be called, because they have the nerve and can stand the test.
Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kansas.
