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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 27, 1919
Terre Haute, Indiana – Eugene V. Debs on Deportations of Working Men
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 21, 1919:
Debs Brands Plot to Deport
Radicals “Crime of Crimes”
—–Recalls Lincoln’s Birthday. Says Rail Splitter Was
Murdered by the Ruling Class, that Same Power That
Today Is Shipping Men Overseas Like Cattle Because
They Are Protesting Against Wage Slavery.
—–By EUGENE V. DEBS.
Terre Haute, Ind., Feb. 12.-This is Lincoln’s birthday. It is a day rich with memory and dark with tragedy. Lincoln was and is the sweetest product of American soil. Like the Nazarene, he loved the poor, sympathized with the lowly, and was hated, vilified and finally murdered by the ruling class of his time.
The birthday of the immortal rail splitter is being celebrated in part by deportation from the land he loved of the men of honest toil, who, like himself, hated the money power and believed in government of and by and for the people. This is one of the beautiful ironies of capitalism. Its vaunted love of freedom is but the velvet cloak which conceals its iron-fisted despotism.
These men are charged by the ruling class and its prostitute press with being enemies of the government. Precisely the same charge that is being brought against these men today under capitalist despotism was brought against Abraham Lincoln by the slave power of his day. Lincoln was murdered by same power that is now tearing our brothers from their families and friends and shipping them over the wide seas like cattle for the crime of protesting against wage slavery and aspiring to walk the earth free men.
