Tag: Wilhelm Liebknecht

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Outlook for Socialism” by Eugene Victor Debs, Part II

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Victor Hugo To Rich n Poor, Firemens Mag p5, Jan 1883———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 4, 1900
“Outlook for Socialism in the United States” by Eugene V. Debs

From the International Socialist Review of September 1900:

OutLook for Socialism by EVD, ISR p129, Sept 1900
[Part II of II

-by Eugene Debs, Social Democratic Party’s Candidate for President.]

EVD crpd Nw Orln Tx Dem p3, Jan 26, 1900What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest—this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.

As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.

Whether the means of production—that is to say, the land, mines, factories, machinery, etc.—are owned by a few large Republican capitalists, who organize a trust, or whether they be owned by a lot of small Democratic capitalists, who are opposed to the trust, is all the same to the working class. Let the capitalists, large and small, fight this out among themselves.

The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production, that they may have steady employment without consulting a capitalist employer, large or small, and that they may get the wealth their labor produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families the fruits of their industry in comfortable and happy homes, abundant and wholesome food, proper clothing and all other things necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is therefore a question not of “reform,” the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the co-operative industry.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Trial of Eugene Debs” by Max Eastman -Cleveland, September 1918

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Duty of Love, Canton June 16, 1918~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 12, 1918
Max Eastman on the Federal Trial of Eugene Debs at Cleveland

From The Liberator of November 1918:

-Note: Comrade Debs was convicted of violating the Espionage Act in Federal Court in Cleveland on September 12, 1918.

The Trial of Eugene Debs

By Max Eastman

EVD Rose Stokes Max Eastman, Cleveland During Trial, Sept 1918

AT a Russian Socialist convention held in Stockholm in 1907 it was estimated that the delegates-140 of them-had spent, collectively, one hundred and thirty-eight years, three months and fifteen days in prison. They had been in exile one hundred and forty-eight years, six months and fifteen days. The length of time the convention as a whole had been active in Socialist propaganda was 942 years.

“It follows,” says Trotsky in a preface to one of his books, “that the time spent in prison and exile is about one-third of the time a Social-Democrat is active.” Reading that preface on my way west to attend the trial of Eugene Debs, I was struck by Trotsky’s unconscious assertion that the time spent in prison is part of the time that a Socialist is “active.” It is often the time that his influence is most active. And though the government may succeed in accelerating the immediate war program by imprisoning Debs, they will also accelerate the effect of his life-long service to the social revolution.

Whatever else he may be, Debs is the spiritual chief and hero of American Socialism, and I find myself in a very real perplexity in trying to report his trial on a charge of obstructing the war program. I believe that the postal authorities will recognize the necessity I am under, as a Socialist editor, of giving this news to the readers of the LIBERATOR. And, of course, I cannot write the news without some special appreciation of his life and character and the elevation of his motives. Yet, on the other hand, I recognize the necessity that the postal authorities are under of keeping out of circulation anything designed to obstruct the war program of the government. Therefore I assure the reader in advance, not only that I shall not quote or refer to anything that Debs said about the war, but that I shall not in any indirect way imply any such quotation or reference; or any discussion of what he said. As a Socialist, bidding a kind of temporary hail and farewell to a companion who is dear to the hearts and minds of millions of Americans-whether pro-war or anti-I write the news of his trial for Socialists.

When I slipped into the court-room at Cleveland a pretty young man in a pressed suit and a bow tie was reading Debs’ speech at Canton to the jury. He was manifestly embarrassed to find so much eloquence in his mouth. Debs was never younger, more spirited, more full of love and irony, than he was in that speech of June 16th.

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Hellraisers Journal: Karl Marx Centenary: Tributes from Eugene V. Debs and from The Ladies’ Garment Worker

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!
-Karl Marx, 1848

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 5, 1918
Workers of the World Celebrate Karl Marx Centenary

From The Young Socialists’ Magazine of May 1918:

Marx and the Young People.
by Eugene V. Debs

SPA, Young Peoples Socialist League Emblem, Mxorg, Bff Nw Age p2, Mar 23, 1918

The day and the year that Karl Marx was born—May 5th, 1818—appear in red letters in the calendar of the social revolution. For on that day the eyes of the revolution’s prophet and pioneer opened upon the world. In fancy we can see the baby Marx engaged in his first struggle, doing his best and worst in baby fashion to give evidence that he was alive and to have his arrival duly noted. We can next see a little toddler nosing about for a suitable opening for his prying activities, little dreaming of the prodigious task awaiting him on the stage of life.

And now appears the boy, the youth upon the scene, and sober facts begin to jostle rosy dreams in his dawning mentality and imagination.

Marx, the boy, was healthy, handsome, and natural, full of the sap and song and sweetness of life. Like all normal boys he loved play and pranks, and for the same reason he was also serious and studious, and quite early he began to realize that life meant struggle and service and that he must in grave earnest prepare himself to act nobly his part in the great drama that spread out before his awakening vision.

The boy, Marx, in the light of his subsequent phenomenal career, and of the social revolution now thundering at the doors of the capitalist world, presents a vivid theme and a fascinating study for the young people of today who are reaping in knowledge and strength, in inspiration and high resolve, where he sowed in poverty and pain, in suffering and exile, to the very end of his days.

* * * * *

It is peculiarly appropriate that the centenary of the birth of Karl Marx should be celebrated by the Young People’s Socialist League. The program of appreciation would be sadly incomplete without the participation of the young people who have been quickened into new life and have had their eyes opened upon a new world by the magic of his awakening philosophy, and directed toward the shining goal of international freedom and fellowship under his masterly and inspiring leadership.

The heart of every young socialist throbs faster and keener with the zest of life as he contemplates the lofty figure of Karl Marx in perspective and what his coming has meant to the cause of oppressed humanity, especially the enslaved and exploited workers of the world.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Social-Democrat: Anniversary of Paris Commune Celebrated by Socialists World-Wide

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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C’est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous et demain
L’Internationale
Sera le genre humain.
-Eugène Pottier – Paris, June 1871

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday March 31, 1898
Paris Commune Celebrated Annually by Socialists

From The Social Democrat of March 1898:

ScDem Mar 1898

Triumph of Order over Paris Commune May 1871, ScDem Mar 1898

THE COMMUNE OF PARIS.

The 18th of March, the anniversary of the Paris Commune, is annually celebrated by Socialists throughout the world. The Commune of Paris is an event unique in history. It was the first working-class government that the world had ever seen. For the first time the working people had seized the reins of government, and taken into their hands the administration of a great city. No wonder the possessing classes were alarmed; no wonder all the forces of “respectability,” of reaction and obscurantism, rallied to the government of the “little man,” Theirs, and his gang of Imperialist mouchards and Royalist ruffians at Versailles. The revolution of the Parisian proletariat was not a mere political movement, it was a menace to all those interests which live and thrive by the enslavement, the exploitation, and the plunder of the workers.

The history of this epoch-marking insurrection is an oft-told tale. Who, among Socialists, does not know of the desertion of Paris by the reactionary Assembly; of the measures for disarming the Parisian National Guards; of the attempted seizure of the guns on the heights of Montmartre in the morning of the 18th of March; how that attempt was frustrated, and how the troops sent to carry it out fraternised with the National Guards, and shot the officer who ordered them to fire upon the people?

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