Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 22, 1922 Photograph of Eugene Debs at Lindlahr Sanitarium near Chicago, Illinois
From The West Virginian of July 21, 1922:
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Eugene Debs, Socialist leader, is a patient at a Chicago sanitarium where he is undergoing treatment for insomnia. “I am not ill, but for the first time in my life I feel tired and worn,” he says. Shown with him are Drs. Boerma Daniels an Matthiesen Yunkers.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 23, 1920
David Karsner, of New York Call, “Paints Debs with Loving Hands” -Part II
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 13, 1920:
[Part II of II.]
Debs was born in Terre Haute, Ind., Nov. 5, 1855. The sixty-five years between that date and the present day which sees him in United States penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., are of startling significance in the social and economic history of this country.
“He was one of 10 children of Jean Daniel Debs and Marguerite Bettrich Debs, both natives of Alsace.”
“Jean Daniel Debs possessed a well-equipped library of French history as well as the works of some of the most noted French writers including Victor Hugo who was one of their favorites. Very early in his life, Eugene became acquainted with the works of Hugo and the master’s characterization of Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables,” made an indelible impression upon his mind.”
Debs in his early youth saw the Civil war, and Karsner wonders “to what extent these scenes and sounds of conflict influenced Eugene Debs to take his stand against war, but it is notable that not once during his long and varied career as a labor leader has he safe-counseled violence as means to the settlement of any dispute.”
Eugene’s school years were cut short by the necessity for earning money. At the age of 14, Debs began work in the shops and later as locomotive fireman for the Terre Haute and Indiana Railroad company. At first he received one dollar a day, but later, as fireman, was paid on a mileage basis. “Eugene’s pay envelope, which he turned over to his mother unopened, was decidedly slim.”
Debs’ first step in the organized labor movement was taken when the local lodge of the brotherhood of locomotive fireman was organized at Terre Haute on the evening of Feb. 27, 1874. He served in various official capacities as organizer. In 1892 he resigned from a position in which he was receiving $4,000 a year so that he might receive from the American Railway union a $75-a-month position.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 22, 1920
David Karsner, of New York Call, “Paints Debs with Loving Hands” -Part I
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 13, 1920:
[Part I of II.]
“Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters,” has just gone into its second edition, (Boni and Liveright, New York). Written for socialists, by a socialist, it might well be termed a book for Americans, since socialism is the great issue of the present day. “Debs” is propagandist. And as such it should be a handbook of ready reference for those who agree with its doctrines, and for those whore aim it is to refute those doctrines. But the book primarily presents the emotional color of Debs’ socialism.
David Karsner, the author, paints Debs with loving hands. He is an ardent disciple. He depicts a man who is not a fiery leader, but rather one who is filled with good-will and a desire for peace on earth. Debs was not born a socialist. He was pushed, says the author by the logic of facts as he saw them, into the opinions that have finally caused his incarceration in prison. According to Karsner, his magnetism does not issue from flame, for he is not a “Red.” He is, says Karsner, a mild and greatly loved leader. He is said to have no desire for honors. Yet he was four times a candidate for the presidency of the United States.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 15, 1919
Atlanta, Georgia – Comrade Debs Now an Inmate at Federal Penitentiary
From The West Virginian of June 14, 1919:
DEBS IS MOVED FROM MOUNDSVILLE
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Marshall Ned Smith Took Famous Prisoner
to Federal Prison at Atlanta.
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(By Associated Press.)
WHEELING, W. Va., June 14.-Eugene V. Debs, former Socialist candidate for President, who was placed in the Moundsville penitentiary two months ago on being sentenced to a term of ten years for violation of the Federal Espionage law, this morning is an inmate of the Federal prison at Atlanta, Ga.
Debs, who was taken by surprise by the action, was removed from the penitentiary yesterday morning, it was learned today, by United States Marshal Ned Smith and deputies and brought to Wheeling where he was placed on a train for Atlanta by way of Cincinnati.
Up to early today the reasons for Debs’ removal had not been stated officially but it was reported that the greater safety of the Southern prison had something to do with the move.
While in Wheeling and on the train en route to Cincinnati every effort was made by the officers to keep the identity of their prisoner a secret.
We respect [the IWW] as one of the
social and political movements
in modern times that draws no color line.
-WEB DuBois for The Crisis ———-
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 7, 1919
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher, Prisoner at Leavenworth, Remembered
From The Crisis of June 1919:
I. W. W.
[by W.E.B. Du Bois]
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher
AN editorial in the Easter CRISIS (written during the Editor’s absence) has been misunderstood and was, perhaps, itself partially misleading.
Mr. F. H. M. Murray of Washington, D. C., writes us:
In a recent editorial in your magazine the statement is made that there are no Negroes among the Industrial Workers of the World. While I am certain that the statement is erroneous, I am not at this moment able to lay my hands on anything in print to confirm my denial, except the following from an article in last Sunday’s New York Call magazine, by David Karsner, who reported the trial of the big batch of members of the I. W. W- in Chicago last summer and later the trial of the five Socialists at the same place. He is writing about Judge Kenesaw M. Landis, who presided at both trials and who imposed upon the hundred or so I. W. W., who were convicted, and the five Socialists, sentences aggregating over nine hundred years in prison and fines aggregating over two millions of dollars. Mr. Karsner says:
“There was only one defendant among the I. W. W., to my knowledge, who refused to believe in Judge Landis [during the trial]. He was Ben Fletcher, the sole Negro defendant. One day in the corridor I asked Ben what he thought of Judge Landis. Ben smiled broadly, ‘He’s a fakir. Wait until he gets a chance; then he’ll plaster it on thick.’ Ben was a sure-thing prophet, for the Judge plastered him with ten years, and his counsel said with not enough evidence to invite a reprimand.”
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