Tag: Debs Rebellion of 1894

Hellraisers Journal: Debs on the Capitalists’ Parties: “Differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 11, 1904
Indianapolis, Indiana – Debs Opens Campaign with Impassioned Address

From the Appeal to Reason of September 10, 1904:

Published in the Appeal we find the entire text of the speech made by Socialist Presidential Candidate, Eugene Debs, in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday, September 1st. The article begins with a few notable quotes:

TOCSIN OF THE 1904 CAMPAIGN SOUNDED
———-

In an Eloquent and Impassioned Address Before A Multitude of
Cheering People, Eugene V. Debs, Candidate for President of
the Socialist Ticket, Opened the Campaign at
Indianapolis, Indiana, Last Thursday.

SPA Ticket Debs and Hanford, 1904

SOME OF DEBS’ EPIGRAMS.

     “Ignorance alone stands in the way of Socialist success.”

———-

     “Capitalist parties stand for slavery and night; the Socialist party is the herald of Freedom and Light.”

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     “The ballot of united labor expresses the people’s will, and the people’s will is the supreme law of a free nation.”

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“The divided vote of labor is the abuse at the ballot and the penalty is slavery and death.”

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     “Labor has always been the mud-sill of the social fabric-is so now, and will be until the class struggle ends in class extinction and free society.”

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     “These are stirring days for living man. The day of crisis is drawing near and Socialists are exerting all their power to prepare the people for it.”

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     “The old order of society can survive but little longer. Socialism is next in order. The swelling minority sounds warning of the impending change. Soon that minority will be the majority, and then will come the Co-operative Commonwealth.”

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     “The Socialist party comprehends the magnitude of its task and has the patience at preliminary defeat and the faith of ultimate victory.”

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     “With faith and hope and courage we held our heads erect and with dauntless spirit marshal the working class for the search from capitalism to Socialism, from slavery to Freedom, from barbarism to Civilization.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: How the Woodstock Jail Turned a Union Leader into a Socialist by Eugene Debs

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Brush the Dust, Saginaw Eve Ns p6, Feb 6, 1899—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 10, 1902
How Six Months in the Woodstock Jail Made a Socialist of Eugene Debs

From The Comrade of April 1902:

HdLn Debs Socialist, Comrade p146, Apr 1902

As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade” having any curiosity as to “how I became a Socialist” it may be in order to say that the subject is the editor’s, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming a Socialist.

On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. “Old Josh Leach,” as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said, “My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.” Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said: “I put a tow-headed boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at the head of it.”

Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “Old Josh” and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:

“Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.”

My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watch-fires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the “meeting” was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.

At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often when, all oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother’s hand turned off the light, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhere—and they were all the world—were straining:

“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.”

My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an “agitator,” or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.

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Hellraisers Journal: Terre Haute Toiler: John Peter Altgeld, Liberator of Class-War Prisoners, -by Eugene V. Debs

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Justice Guiding Light, Oratory p49, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 22, 1902
From Terre Haute, Indiana, Eugene Debs Pays Tribute to John Peter Altgeld

From The Toiler of March 21, 1902:

Altgeld, the Liberator

-by Eugene V. Debs

John Peter Altgeld, wiki
John Peter Altgeld

John Peter Altgeld has joined Abraham Lincoln in the realm of the immortals [March 12, 1902]. His career was tempestuous and heroic, and the end tragic and sublime. The gods must have set the stage for the last earthly act of the intrepid warrior and most nobly did he fill the leading role. When the last word of his impassioned plea for liberty died upon his eloquent lips the climax came and the curtain fell upon another martyr in the great drama of humanity.

John Altgeld was born in the throes of revolt [December 30, 1847]. A thousand years of feudal tyranny were culminating. The fateful year of 1848 had a violent temper. It rocked the cradle of the babe that was destined to become the tribune of the people.

The leader, now fallen, never took a backward step, never subordinated principle to policy, never sacrificed conviction to attain his end. He was fearless, he was determined, and he was incorruptible.

John P. Altgeld was in the highest sense a statesman, he was a daring leader and a fiery and intense orator whose eloquent and lofty appeals inspired the multitude.

His noblest and therefore greatest official act was the opening of dungeon doors to liberate innocent victims of corporate tyranny [Chicago’s Eight-Hour Class-War Prisoners]. If the gods have to do with politics they ordained the election of John P. Altgeld for this incomparable service to humanity.

Through the rain of fire he walked with steady step to the hideous bastille’s doors, nor faltered once until the captives walked forth men; his official robes turned to ashes in the ordeal, but lo! the flame of calumny to which our hero bared his head is even now become the aureole of his fame.

The robbers of the people, the stranglers of liberty, the foes of humanity feared and hated him; the fawning sycophants of wealth, the time serving mercenaries of power slandered him; this was the measure of his greatness.

The few honest men who knew John P. Altgeld loved him. He was genuine; he was true; he could look God and man straight in the eye.

In the railroad strikes in 1894 he expanded to his true proportions.There he proved to be the fearless champion of the people. He stood upon the boundary line of Illinois and protested against the military usurpation of the President, and though overwhelmed, he proudly vindicated his high honor, and he, more than any other man, retired Grover Cleveland and his pirate crew from American politics.

Altgeld was too great to become President; he will be remembered long after most Presidents are forgotten.

How glorious the final scene! See him summon all his wasted strength. Note the transfiguration in the last superhuman effort—the light of liberty in his eye, the flush of dawn upon his brow as he defiantly exclaimed:

Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty’s tree,
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.

Workingmen and workingwomen never had a truer friend; he yearned to see them happy, and consecrated all he had to make them free.

He paid the penalty of all the earth’s redeemers. Socrates was poisoned, Christ crucified, John Brown strangled, Lincoln assassinated, and Altgeld stabbed by a million venomous tongues.

The grandchildren of his slayers will seek his works for knowledge and inspiration, and to the coming generations he will speak forever.

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[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Chicago Social Democrat: Eugene V. Debs Opposes Fusion of SDA with Populists

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The Social Democracy is a socialist party
and is pledged to the principles of socialism.
It can not and will not fuse with any capitalist party,
by whatever name it may be called.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 23, 1898
From Spring Valley, Illinois – Debs Address Issue of Fusion

From the Chicago Social Democrat of May 19, 1898:

Against Fusion

[by Eugene V. Debs]

Spring Valley, Ill., May 14, 1898

Notwithstanding our repeated declarations as to the attitude of the Social Democracy in respect to fusion with other political parties, there are still those who persist in misunderstanding our position.

The Social Democracy is a socialist party and is pledged to the principles of socialism. It can not and will not fuse with any capitalist party, by whatever name it may be called. As special allusion to the Populist party is made by our inquirers, let it be said that the Populist party is a capitalist party and the Social Democracy will not fuse with it any more than it will with the Republican or Democratic party.

EVD of Social Democracy, Tpk St Jr KS p6, Feb 4, 1898

It is urged by some that we should encourage alliance with the Populist party because it inclines in our direction. Their advice, if followed, would wreck our party. If socialism is right, Populists should become socialists and join the Social Democracy. If they are not ready to do this they are not socialists, and hence opposed to socialism, and fusion with their party would result in inevitable disaster.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs on Mother Jones: “wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote re Mother Jones, AtR, Nov 23, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 24, 1907
Eugene V. Debs on “The Grand Old Woman of the Revolutionary Movement”

From the Appeal to Reason of November 23, 1907:

“MOTHER” JONES.
—–

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–

Mother Jones, Fort Worth Telegram, Apr 26, 1907

“The ‘Grand Old Woman’ of the revolutionary movement” is the appropriate title given to Mother Jones by Walter Hurt. All who know her—and they are legion—will at once recognize the fitness of the title.

The career of this unique old agitator reads like romance. There is no other that can be compared to it. For fifteen years she has been at the forefront, and never once has she been known to flinch.

From the time of the Pullman strike in 1894, when she first came into prominence, she has been steadily in the public eye. With no desire to wear “distinction’s worthless badge,” utterly forgetful of self and scorning all selfish ambitions, this brave woman has fought the battles of the oppressed with a heroism more exalted than ever sustained a soldier upon the field of carnage.

Mother Jones is not one of the “summer soldiers” or “sunshine patriots.” Her pulses burn with true patriotic fervor, and wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.

For many weary months at a time she has lived amid the most desolate regions of West Virginia, organizing the half-starved miners, making her home in their wretched cabins, sharing her meagre substance with their families, nursing the sick and cheering the disconsolate—a true minister of mercy.

During the great strike in the anthracite coal district she marched at the head of the miners; was first to meet the sheriff and the soldiers, and last to leave the field of battle.

Again and again has this dauntless soul been driven out of some community by corporation hirelings, enjoined by courts, locked up in jail, prodded by the bayonets of soldiers, and threatened with assassination. But never once in all her self-surrendering life has she shown the white feather; never once given a single sign of weakness or discouragement. In the Colorado strikes Mother Jones was feared, as was no other, by the criminal corporations; feared by them as she was loved by the sturdy miners she led again and again in the face of overwhelming odds until, like Henry of Navarre, where her snow-white crown was seen, the despairing slaves took fresh courage and fought again with all their waning strength against the embattled foe.

Deported at the point of bayonets, she bore herself so true a warrior that she won even the admiration of the soldiers, whose order it was to escort her to the boundary lines and guard against her return.

No other soldier in the revolutionary cause has a better right to recognition in this edition than has “Mother” Jones.

Her very name expresses the Spirit of the Revolution.

Her striking personality embodies all its principles.

She has won her way into the hearts of the nation’s toilers, and her name is revealed at the altars of their humble firesides and will be lovingly remembered by their children and their children’s children forever.

[Photograph added.]

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