Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal from Eugene V. Debs Urging All to Work for Release of Political Prisoners

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 20, 1922
Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal for Political Prisoners

From the Washington Evening Star of March 9, 1922:

HdLn EVD Urges Amnesty, WDC Eve Str p2, Mar 9, 1922

From the Buffalo Socialist New Age of March 16, 1922:

Terre Haute, Ind.,
March 4, 1922.

To All Labor Unions and Organized Workers.
Dear Brothers and Comrades:

I am making this appeal to you in behalf of the political prisoners. These men are held simply because of their activities in the labor movement and for no other reason. Any other pretense is simply a lie. All other countries have long since released their political prisoners. The United States government, to its lasting shame, is the one exception that keeps men caged as felons for the expression of their opinions. These men, brothers of ours, committed no overt act, no crime of any kind. The court records will prove this. The infamous Espionage Law, under which these men were convicted, has long since been repealed [Note: a section of the Espionage Law, the Sedition Act, was repealed December 13, 1920], and there is not the slightest excuse to longer hold them in prison.

The simple fact is that the treason for which these men were convicted was their loyalty to the working class. Such loyalty, especially in a time of war when the workers are turned into butchers and set to slaughtering one another for the profit and power and glory of their masters, is always treason in the eyes of such masters.

If these men with union principles and union hearts beating in their breasts, had been scabs or gunmen or strikebreakers, they would have been cracked up as 100% American patriots, given hero medals, and assigned to posts of honor carrying high salaries and eminent respectability. But instead they refused to bow to the will of the brutal and impudent profiteers and stood up loyally for their own class and gave expression to the truth that was in their hearts, as it was not only their lawful right but their moral duty to do, and for this and this alone they are marked as dangerous and held and treated as criminals to the shame of the American labor movement and the infamy of the United States government, the most plutocratic government on the face of the earth.

Senator Borah of Idaho, be it said to his credit, introduced a resolution in the United States Senate on January 25th, directing the Attorney General to submit to the Senate all available information relative to the cases of persons convicted under the notorious Espionage Act. This resolution is most timely and the organized workers of the nation must bring all possible power to bear to force its passage. The plutocrats, profiteers, and pirates of Wall Street and their degenerate henchmen in all their servile capacities, who had the monstrous Espionage Law enacted to gag the truth and strangle free speech while they were putting over their criminal war conspiracy, will bring all their power to bear to defeat the Borah resolution.

Well do these knaves in high places know that if this resolution passes the Senate and the Attorney General is forced to reveal the court records of the political prisoners it will show that they are guilty of absolutely no crime whatever save only that of saying during war time, when the nation had been lashed into fury of blind hate, what the 100% Wall Street profiteers and their lackeys in and out of office did not want to hear. The Constitution, of which they had been in the habit of prating on every occasion, was summarily suspended, truth was exiled, and manhood and self-respect put in prison stripes.

Think of these innocent union men, these working class brethren of ours, being suffered to remain buried alive in the steel vaults of American prison hells, and then talk about being “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!” The very thought brings the deep blush of shame to the cheek of every decent American.

These men must be gotten out of prison to the last one of them. As long as one remains we are all in disgrace, and our country stands impeached before the civilized world.

There must be no discrimination among the class war prisoners, for that is what they are and nothing else. All spies and enemy agents, some of whom were convicted of the gravest charges, including the placing of fire bombs in ships and the destruction of life and property, were released years ago. Not one remains in prison. Not one of these belonged to a labor union. They were all readily forgiven as soon as the war was over.

But how different with the men who did belong to labor unions and who did not commit any crime or take any life or destroy any property, but who only stood up like men exercising their constitutional rights and telling the truth about the capitalist slaughter of the working class “to make the world safe for democracy!” It is for their benefit that the atrocious Espionage Law was enacted, and for the benefit of the Wall Street profiteers who coined the blood of the slaughtered workers into billions for themselves, that they are still festering in the hell-holes capitalism charitably provides for its victims.

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Hellraisers Journal: Release of Eugene Debs, Who Will Continue to Wage War on War, Perplexes Harding Administration

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 31, 1921
Comrade Eugene V. Debs Will Continue to Wage War on War

From The Atlanta Tri-Weekly Journal of December 29, 1921:

SCENES AT THE FEDERAL PRISON ON CHRISTMAS DAY

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

——-

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

——-

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

RELEASE OF DEBS IS NOW PERPLEXING TO ADMINISTRATION

Harding and Daugherty Are Not Sure It Was Wise
to Free Unconverted Radical
—————

BY DAVID LAWRENCE
(Leased Wire Service to The Journal._
(Copyright, 1921.)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28.-Eugene V. Debs has left behind him here a trail of mingled emotions. The administration which set him free is somewhat sadder and wiser this morrow morn.

For both President Harding and Attorney General Daugherty, who have tried their gospel of “understanding” in trying to convert Debs to a life of peace instead of agitation are not so sure that they have succeeded. Their disposition is to say no more about the case and hope that Debs will not abuse the liberty that has been given him by becoming a center for more agitation, a rallying device for radicalism and professional exploitation of the working classes.

The Harding administration tried a unique experiment-one that has been clouded somewhat in mystery because of the very delicacy of the undertaking. It is a fact that Debs could have had a pardon long ago if he would have agreed to withdraw the views he expressed against this country’s entrance into the war…..

DEBS SAYS HE WILL WAGE WAR ON WAR

Washington, Dec. 27.-War against war is to occupy a great part of the future activities of Eugene V. Debs, freed from Atlanta penitentiary by executive clemency on Christmas day, according to his own announcement here today. The Socialist leader said he could make no concrete plans for the future until he reached his home in Terre Haute, Ind., for which he will leave Washington at 6:20 o’clock tonight.

Debs announced his determination to obtain if possible a vow from every man, woman and child in this country and every other country which he might visit, that they refuse to take up arms and go to war. But until world relations undergo a reformation, he asserted, wars would continue.

[He said:]

There will be war, in some form, and war growing progressively more and more destructive until a competitive world has been transformed into a co-operative world. Every war for trade sooner or later and inevitably becomes a war of blood.

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Hellraisers Journal: Debs Released from Atlanta Penitentiary, Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer for His Freedom

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 27, 1921
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer His Release

From The Indianapolis Star of December 26, 1921:

Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921
——Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921———

(Special to The Indianapolis Star.)

ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. 26.-Eugene V, Debs left prison today. His going was the occasion of the most unique demonstration in American prison history. 

Twenty-three hundred men, convicted of crimes unnumbered, their faces pressed against the bars of the windows on three floors of the big Federal penitentiary, shouted and cheered him and before them all, in the great foreground, he broke down and cried like a child. 

Recovering himself, he stepped into an automobile and was driven off, the voices of the 2,300 following him for half a mile. As this is written, on a train bound for Washington, with Debs as a passenger in a day coach, the mystery surrounding the celebrated convict deepens. Why is he going to the capital? He refuses to say, but he has admitted he has a mission there. Whether or not the trip is a condition of his release he declines to say, but the fact that he was driven to the station in the automobile of the warden, four of whose deputies are aboard this train, would indicate that while Debt is out of prison he is not yet free. 

“Citizen of the World.” 

So far as he himself is concerned, however, he construes himself a liberated “citizen of the world,” the phrase having to do with President Harding’s refusal to grant a pardon which would have restored the prisoner’s civil rights. 

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs Issues Statement from Prison: Country Leaped From Frying Pan Into the Fire

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 5, 1920
Statement from Convict 9653 E. V. Debs, Socialist Candidate for President

From The Atlanta Constitution of November 4, 1920:

Country Leaped From Frying Pan
To Fire, Says Debs

———-

In Written Statement, Defeated Candidate Declares
Wall Street Is Still in Saddle.
———-

(Wednesday morning Eugene V. Debs, socialist candidate for president, furnished The Constitution the following written statement in regard to the election results.)

EVD 9653 Atlanta Pen, June 14, 1919———-

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.

There was never any doubt about the results of yesterday’s election. The fate of the democratic party was sealed at the Versailles peace conference. One thing was made clear by the election returns. President Wilson, Attorney General Palmer and Postmaster General Burleson now know what the American people think of their despotic administration.

But, unfortunately, the people have not profited by past experience. They need look for no improvement in conditions as the result of the election. Wall street is still in the saddle under Harding as it was under Wilson.

Politically speaking, the American people have the cheerful habit of jumping from the frying pan into the fire and back again. They seem to enjoy the diversion.

Lincoln said “If you want that thing that is the thing you want.”

Harding prays God to help him. The American people will be doing the same thing before they are through with his administration.

For President Harding will take his orders from Wall street, and his administration can be relied upon to see to it that the people get all they voted for-and then some.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs Interviewed by Norman Hapgood at Atlanta Prison

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 25, 1920
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Norman Hapgood Interviews Eugene Debs

From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1920:

EVD Interviewed in Prison by N Hapgood, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920

Did you ever enter the strong gates of a prison? Has your mind ever pictured the sinking heart of a man who hears those heavy iron doors clank behind him? Wife and child, perhaps, are shut from him in the outer world. And inside? The lost are there, the despairing, the destroyed. Leave hope behind, ye who enter. And yet it is not as bad as it was, some centuries ago. The harmonious and austere building at Atlanta is infinitely superior, in what happens inside of it, to the prisons of Lincoln’s day. God knows it is bad enough.

Partly, it is bad because we in truth do not know what to do with certain types of dangerous depravity. Give us time, a century or two, and we may learn the alphabet of treating such aberration. Granted we are ignorant about crime — what about prisoner 9653? Why is he in this place?

To see prisoner 9653 we go only so far as a reception room, and Eugene V. Debs, four times nominee of a great party for the Presidency, now No. 9653, steps forth eagerly to meet me. How warm his grasp! How pure and sunny his smile! How his face carries the record of his 40 years of service, of forbearance, of hope of a great belief.

Debs’ Warm Cordiality.

We sit down on opposite sides of a long table. Debs’ lawyer is there and so is the prison attendant. Neve mind; Debs doesn’t mind. He leans across, his face alight, his speaking and delicate hands at play. He will not let me get in my question. His warm cordiality prevents. He knows I am not a Socialist and that I am not going to vote for him. He knows all about it. But what is that to him? I am a human being, which is enough. But there is more. I have recently chosen the unpopular course on a great subject — Russia — and Debs knows all about that also, and pours out an overgenerous appreciation until, afraid of that man at the end of the table, who is responsible for the allotment of time, I see a chance to turn the switch and I suddenly ask the most dangerous question I know.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs, the Socialist Candidate for President, Greets Running Mate, Seymour Stedman

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Quote EVD re SP n Working Class, Atlanta Cstn p2, May 30, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 27, 1920
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Debs Greets Stedman with a Kiss

From the Appeal to Reason of June 26, 1920:

EVD Kisses Stedman at Atlanta Pen, AtR p2, June 26, 1920

President Should Pardon Debs

William M. Reedy, in Reedy’s Mirror.

President Wilson should order the release from prison of Eugene V. Debs. He will, if he has any place in that heart which so throbs for humanity in the abstract, for the individual man. He will, if he has any admiration for a man whose convictions defy prison and death. He will, if he has any brotherliness for another who obeys those “voices” which Wilson himself hears and obeys as Socrates did his demon. He will not doom Debs to death for his opinions based on a higher law than that of that man-made, Hobbesian God, the State. I understand that Mr. Debs is in a much weakened condition as the result of his confinement, that his physical plight is such as to make his immurement during hot weather extremely dangerous.

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