Tag: Trenton MI

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs and the Children of Girard; Some Thoughts on Childhood, “A Holy Theme”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Childhood, Socialist Woman p12, Sept 1908~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 20, 1908
Eugene V. Debs: “Childhood! What a holy theme!”

The story, published in yesterday’s Hellraisers, about Comrade Debs bringing the Red Special to a halt in order to meet with the school children of Trenton, Michigan, brought to mind the following article from the September 1908 edition of The Socialist Woman:

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CHILDHOOD.
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EUGENE V. DEBS.

What emotion the recollection of childhood inspires, and how priceless its treasured memories in our advancing and declining years!

Laughing eyes and curly hair, little brown hands and bare feet, innocent and carefree, trusting and loving, tender and pure, what an elevating and satisfying influence these little gods have upon our maturer years!

Childhood! What a holy theme! Flowers they are, with souls in them, and if on this earth man has a sacred charge, a solemn obligation, it is to these buds and blossoms of humanity.

Yet how many of them are prematurely plucked, fade and die and are trampled in the mire. Many millions of them have been snatched from the cradle and stolen from their play to be fed to the forces that turn a workingman’s blood into a capitalist’s gold, and many millions of others have been crushed and perverted into filth for the slums and food for the pottersfield.

Childhood is at the parting of the ways which lead to success or failure, honor or disgrace, life or death. Society is, or ought to be, profoundly concerned in the nature of the environment that is to mold the character and determine the career of its children, and any remissness in such duty is rebuked by the most painful of penalties and these are inflicted with increasing severity upon the people of the United States.

Childhood is the most precious charge of the family and the community, but our capitalist civilization sacrifices it ruthlessly to gratify its brutal lust for pelf and power, and the march of its conquest is stained with the blood of infants and paved with the puny bones of children.

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Hellraisers Journal: “The Red Special Goes East” -School Children Come Through the Rain to Meet with Comrade Debs

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD re SPA aims re Child Labor, AtR p4, Oct 10, 1908~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 19, 1908
The Red Special Heads East, Debs Speaks to School Children

From the Appeal to Reason of October 10, 1908:

RED SPECIAL GOES EAST.
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Speech to Young Americans at Trenton, Ohio,
That was Not on the Program,
but Enjoyed by All.
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Special Telegram to Appeal to Reason.

EVD Said by Debs I, AtR p4, Oct 10, 1908EVD Said by Debs II, AtR p4, Oct 10, 1908

Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 2.-The eastern trip of the “Red Special” has begun in dead earnest. As if to mark the change, the weather man has dumped us precipitately from the broiling heat of mid-summer to the freezing cold of mid-winter. This has had its effect upon some of the meetings as it is entirely too cold for outdoor assemblies and this doubtless keeps many people away. But still the crowds are large and the enthusiasm remarkable.

At Dunkirk, where the trust locomotive works are located, a large number of employes took advantage of the noon meeting and heard and applauded the speakers. When Roosevelt was at Dunkirk he was invited to the locomotive works, which were shut down so that the thousands of wage slaves could be impressed with the beauties of capitalism by one of its big chiefs. One enthusiastic worker who had voted the republican ticket all his life, announced yesterday that he had had enough and was now a Socialist, and was cheered by the crowd. A remarkable feature of all the meetings is the loud demonstration that is made when Roosevelt is stripped naked and shown up as a cheap politician, hypocrite and corruptionist.

When the Alton deal is laid bare Roosevelt’s connection with it established and the Appeal’s five thousand dollar offer is added, there is the liveliest kind of cheering as evidence that the people are at last awakening to the fact that instead of a bold and brave man being in the white house, the executive chair is being held down by the lowest type of a demagogue and rat-hole politician.

The New York meeting will shake up Gotham like an earthquake. Fifty thousand people are expected at the east side demonstration.-Theordore Debs.

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