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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20666-8.txt b/20666-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..99547e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/20666-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1837 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Debs Decision, by Scott Nearing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Debs Decision + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: February 25, 2007 [EBook #20666] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEBS DECISION *** + + + + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Tamise Totterdell, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +THE DEBS DECISION + +_By_ + +SCOTT NEARING + + +Published by + +THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE + +New York City + + + + +Copyright + +RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE + +7 East 15th Street + +New York + +1919 + + + + +THE DEBS DECISION + +_By_ + +SCOTT NEARING + + + + +1. THE SUPREME COURT + + +The Supreme Court of the United States on March 10, 1919, handed down a +decision on the Debs case. That decision is far-reaching in its +immediate significance and still more far-reaching in its ultimate +implications. + +What is the Supreme Court of the United States? + +Article III, Section I of the Constitution provides as follows: + +"The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme +Court.... The judges shall hold their offices during good behavior." + +The judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate +(Article XII, Section II). That is all the constitution provides with +regard to the Supreme Court. + +At the present time, there are nine judges on the Supreme bench. It +might interest you to know some facts about the nine. All of the judges +are men. The chief justice is Edward D. White, who was born in 1845 and +admitted to the bar in 1868. He is seventy-three years of age. His +birth-place was Louisiana. He served in the Confederate Army, in the +State Senate, in the State Supreme Court and in the United States +Senate. He has been a member of the Supreme Court for twenty-five years. +Joseph McKenna is the second member in point of seniority. He was born +in 1843. His birth-place is Philadelphia. He was a county District +Attorney, a member of the State Legislature, a member of the national +House of Representatives, attorney-general of the United States and a +United States Circuit Judge. He has been a member of the Supreme Court +for twenty-two years. Oliver W. Holmes, the Justice who read the Debs +decision, was born in Boston in 1841. He is seventy-seven years of age. +He was admitted to the bar in 1866. Justice Holmes served in the Union +Army; he was a member of the Harvard Law School Faculty. He has been a +member of the Supreme Court for seventeen years. Those are the three +oldest men on the Supreme bench. They are the three men who have been on +the bench longest, but their political background is typical of the +political background of the other members of the Supreme Court, with the +single exception of Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who as far as I know, +held no public office at all before he was appointed a justice of the +Supreme Court three years ago. + +The nine members of the Supreme Court are all old men. Four of them were +born before 1850; eight of them were born before 1860; one of them was +born since 1861, that is, James C. McReynolds, who was born in 1862. +There is not a single member of the Supreme Court bench born since the +Civil War. The oldest man on the bench is Justice Holmes, seventy-seven; +the youngest man on the bench is Justice McReynolds, fifty-seven; the +average age of the justices of the Supreme Court is sixty-six years. +These men all began practising law while we were children, or before we +were born. Three of them began the practice of law before 1870; six of +them began to practice law before 1880; nine of them before 1884. The +last member of the Supreme bench to be admitted to the practice of law, +Justice McReynolds, was admitted in 1884. + +The Supreme Court Justices were educated in the generation preceding the +modern epoch of financial imperialism. They were mature when the +industrial order as we know it today, was established. They are the men +whose word is the word of final authority in all the affairs concerning +the government of the United States. + +The Supreme Court, not because the Constitution grants it the power, but +because successive decisions of the Court have established that +precedent, has the right to veto any piece of legislation passed by +Congress and signed by the President. The Supreme Court is the voice of +final authority in the affairs of the government of the United States. +After it has spoken, there is no further authority under the machinery +of this government. + +The Debs Case came before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has given +its decision. Eugene Debs goes to jail for ten years. Under the existing +order of government, there is no appeal from this decision, except an +appeal to arbitrary executive clemency. + + +2. THE CANTON SPEECH + +The Debs Case arose over a speech made by Debs in Canton, Ohio, June +16th, 1918. The speech was made before the State Socialist Convention, +where Debs was talking to his comrades in the Socialist movement. The +main parts of this speech, as printed in the indictment under which Debs +was convicted, are as follows: + +"I have just returned from a visit from yonder (pointing to workhouse) +were three of our most loyal comrades are paying the penalty for their +devotion to the cause of the working class. They have come to realize, +as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the +constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make +democracy safe for the world. I realize in speaking to you this +afternoon that there are certain limitations placed upon the right of +free speech. I must be extremely careful, prudent, as to what I say, and +even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to +say all I think, but I am not going to say anything I do not think. And +I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than a sycophant +or coward on the streets. They may put those boys in jail and some of +the rest of us in jail, but they cannot put the Socialist movement in +jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their souls +are here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all men +have paid in all of the ages of history for standing erect and seeking +to pave the way for better conditions for mankind. + +"If it had not been for the men and women who, in the past, have had the +moral courage to go to jail, we would still be in the jungles. + +"Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of the greatest +triumph of all the history of the Socialist movement? It is true that +these are anxious, trying days for us all, testing those who are +upholding the banner of the working class in the greatest struggle the +world has ever known against the exploiters of the world; a time in +which the weak, the cowardly, will falter and fail and desert. They lack +the fibre to endure the revolutionary test. They fall away. They +disappear as if they had never been. + +"On the other hand, they who are animated with the unconquerable spirit +of the social revolution, they who have the moral courage to stand +erect, to assert their convictions, to stand by them, to go to jail or +to hell for them--they are writing their names in this crucial hour, +they are writing their names in fadeless letters in the history of +mankind. Those boys over yonder, those comrades of ours--and how I love +them--aye, they are our younger brothers, their names are seared in our +souls. + +"I am proud of them. They are there for us and we are here for them. +Their lips, though temporarily mute, are more eloquent than ever before, +and their voices, though silent, are heard around the world. + +"Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? Why, we have been fighting it +since the day the Socialistic movement was born and we are going to +continue to fight it today and until it is wiped from the face of the +earth. + +"The other day they sent a woman to Wichita Penitentiary for ten years. +Just think of sentencing a woman to the penitentiary for talking. The +United States under the rule of the plutocrats is the only country which +would send a woman to the penitentiary for ten years for exercising the +right to free speech. If this be treason, let them make the most of it. +Let me review another bit of history. I have known this woman for ten +years. Personally I know her as if she were my own younger sister. She +is a woman of absolute integrity. She is a woman of courage. She is a +woman of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist movement. She went out +into Dakota and made her speech, followed by plain-clothes men in the +service of the government, intent upon encompassing her arrest, +prosecuted and convicted. She made a certain speech and that speech was +deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of securing her conviction. +The only testimony was that of a hired witness. And thirty farmers who +went to Bismarck to testify in her favor, the judge refused to allow to +testify. This would seem incredible to me if I had not some experience +of my own with a Federal Court. Who appoints the Federal Courts? The +people? Every solitary one of them holds his position through influence +and power of corporation capital. And when they go to the bench, they go +there not to serve the people, but to serve the interests who sent them. +The other day, by a vote of five to four, they declared the Child Labor +Law unconstitutional; a law secured after twenty years of education and +agitation by all kinds of people, and yet by a majority of one, the +Supreme Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one solitary +exception, wiped it from the Statute books, so that we may still +continue to grind the blood of little children into profit for the +Junkers of Wall Street, and this in a country that is now fighting to +make democracy safe for the world. These are not palatable truths to +them. And they do not want you to hear them and that is why they brand +us as traitors and disloyalists. If we were not traitors to the people, +we would be eminently respectable citizens and ride in limousines. It is +precisely because we are disloyal to the traitors that we are not +disloyal to the people of this country. + +"How short-sighted the ruling is. The exploiter cannot see beyond the +end of his nose. He has just been cunning enough to know what graft is +and where it is, but he has no vision. You know this is a great +throbbing world that speaks out in all directions. Look at Rockefeller. +Every move he makes hastens the coming of his doom. Every time the +capitalist class tries to hinder the cause of Socialism they hurt +themselves. Every time they strangle a Socialist newspaper they add a +thousand voices to those which are aiding Socialism. The Socialist has a +great idea. An expanding philosophy. It is spreading over the face of +the earth. It is as useless to resist it as it is to resist the rising +sun. Can you see it? If you cannot you are lacking in vision, in +understanding. What a privilege it is to serve it. I have regretted a +thousand times I can do so little for the movement that has done so much +for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping to be, is due +wholly to the Socialist movement. It gave me my ideas and my ideals, and +I would not exchange one of them for all the Rockefeller blood-stained +dollars. It taught me how to serve; a lesson to me of priceless value. +It taught the ecstasy of the handclasp of the comrade. It made it +possible for me to get in touch with you, to multiply myself over and +over again; to open the avenue, to spread out the glorious vistas; to +know that I am kin with all that throbs; with all who become class +conscious. Every man who toils, everyone of them, is my comrade. To +serve them is the highest duty of my life. And in the service I can feel +myself expanding. I rise to the stature of a man. Yes, my heart is +attuned to yours. All of our hearts are melted into one great heart +which throbs to the response of the people. + +"Here I hear your heart beats responsive to the Bolsheviki of Russia. +(Applause) Yes, those heroic men and women, those unconquerable +comrades, who have by their sacrifice added fresh lustre to the +international movement. Those Russian comrades who have made greater +sacrifices, who have suffered more, who have shed more heroic blood than +any like number of men and women anywhere else on earth. They have led +the first real convention of any democracy that ever drew breath. The +first act of that memorable revolution was to proclaim a state of peace +with an appeal not to the kings, not to the rulers, but an appeal to the +people of all nations. They are the very breath of democracy; the +quintessence of freedom. They made their appeal to the people of all +nations, the Allies as well as the Central Powers, to send +representatives to lay down terms of a peace that should be lasting. +Here was a fine opportunity to strike a blow to make democracy safe to +the world. Was there any response to that noble appeal? And here let me +say that appeal will be written in letters of gold in the history of the +world. While it has been charged that the leaders made a traitorous +peace with Germany, let us consider this proposition briefly. At the +time of the revolution, Russia had lost 4,000,000 of her soldiers. She +was absolutely bankrupt. Her soldiers were without arms. This was what +was bequeathed to the revolution by the Czar. For this condition, Leon +Trotsky was not responsible nor was the Bolshevik movement, but the Czar +was. + +"When Leon Trotsky came into power, he found the secret treaties made +between the French government and the British government and the Italian +government which was to divide the territory of the Central Powers if +the Allies were victorious, and these secret treaties have not been +repudiated up to this time. Very little has been said about them in the +American newspapers. This shows that the purpose of the Allies is +exactly the purpose of the Central Powers. + +"Wars have been waged for conquests, for plunder, and since the feudal +ages, the feudal lords along the Rhine made war upon each other. They +wanted to enlarge their domains, to increase their power and their +wealth and so they declared war upon each other. But they did not go to +war any more than the Wall Street Junkers go to war. Their predecessors +declared the wars, but their miserable serfs fought the wars. The serfs +believed that it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another, to +wage war upon one another. And that is war in a nut shell. The master +class has always brought a war, and the subject class has fought the +battle. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, and +the subject class has had all to lose and nothing to gain. They have +always taught you that it is your patriotic duty to go to war and +slaughter yourselves at their command. You have never had a voice in the +war. The working class who made the sacrifices, who shed the blood, have +never yet had a voice in declaring war. The ruling class has always made +the war and made the peace. + + "Yours not to question why, + Yours but to do and die. + +"Another bit of history I want to review is that of Rose Pastor Stokes, +another inspiring comrade. She had her millions of dollars. Her devotion +to the cause is without all consideration of a financial or economic +view. She went out to render service to the cause and they sent her to +the penitentiary for ten years. What has she said? Nothing more than I +have said here this afternoon. I want to say that if Rose Pastor Stokes +is guilty, so am I. If she should be sent to the penitentiary for ten +years, so ought I. What did she say? She said that a government could +not serve both the profiteers and the employees of the profiteers. +Roosevelt has said a thousand times more in his paper, the _Kansas City +Star_. He would do everything possible to discredit Wilson's +administration in order to give his party credit. The Republican and +Democratic parties are all patriots this fall and they are going to +combine to prevent the election of any disloyal Socialists. Do you know +of any difference between them? One is in, the other is out. That is all +the difference. + +"Rose Pastor Stokes never said a word she did not have a right to utter, +but her message opened the eyes of the people. That must be suppressed. +That voice must be silenced. Her trial in a capitalist court was very +farcical. What chance had she in a corporation court with a put-up jury +and a corporation tool on the bench? + +"Every Socialist on the face of the earth is animated by the same +principles. Everywhere they have the same noble idea, everywhere they +are calling one another 'comrade,' the noblest word that springs from +the heart and soul of unity. The word 'comrade' is getting us into +closer touch all along the battle line. They are waging the war of the +working class against the ruling class of the world. They conquer +difficulties; they grow stronger through them all. + +"The heart of the international Socialist never beats a retreat. They +are pressing forward here, there, everywhere, in all the zones that +girdle this globe. These workers, these class-conscious workers, these +children of honest toil are wiping out the boundary lines everywhere. +They are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation. +Everywhere they are having their hearts attuned to the sacred cause; +everywhere they are moving toward democracy, moving toward the sunrise, +their faces aglow with the light of coming day. These are the men who +must guide us in the greatest crisis the world has ever known. They are +making history. They are bound upon the emancipation of the human race. + +"Few men have the courage to say a decent word in favor of the I. W. W. +I have. (Here several in the crowd yelled, 'So have I.') + +"After long investigation by five men who are not Socialists: John +Graham Brooks, Harvard University; Mr. Bruere, Government investigator +(other names not noted), a pamphlet has been issued called 'The Truth +About the I. W. W.' + +"These men investigated the I. W. W. They have examined its doings, +beginning at Bisbee, Arizona, where the officers deported five hundred. +It is only necessary to label a man, 'I. W. W.' to lynch him. Just think +of the state of mind for which the capitalist press is responsible. + +"When Wall Street yells war, you may rest assured every pulpit in the +land will yell war. The press and the pulpit have in every age and every +nation been on the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class. +That's why the I. W. W. is infamous. + +"The I. W. W. in its career has never committed as much violence against +the ruling class as the ruling class has committed against the people. +The trial at Chicago is now on and they have not proven violence in a +single solitary case, and yet, one hundred and twelve have been on trial +for months and months without a shade of evidence. And this is all in +its favor. And for this and many other reasons, the I. W. W. is fighting +the fight of the bottom dog. For the very reason that Gompers is +glorified by Wall Street, Bill Haywood is despised by Wall Street. What +you need is greater organization. + +"In the shop is where the industrial union has its beginning. Organize. +Define your capacity. Act together. And when you organize industrially +you will soon learn that you can manage industrially as well as operate +industry. You will find that you do not have to take work from them; you +give them work to do. You can dispense with them. You ought to own your +own tools. Organize industrially. Make the organization complete. Unite +in the Socialist party. Vote as you organize. Stand with your party. See +that that improves the working class, especially this year when the +forces will clash as they have never clashed before. Take your place in +the ranks. Help to inspire the weak and strengthen the faltering. Then, +when we vote together we will develop the supreme power of the one class +that can bring peace in the world. We will transfer the title deeds of +the railroads, of the telegraphs, the mines and the mills. We will +transfer them to the people. We will take possession in the name of the +people. We will have industrial, social and political democracy. This +change will be universal. + +"And now for all of us to do our duty. The call is ringing in your ears. +Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be +concerned about the treason that involves yourself. This year we are +going to sweep into power and in this nation we are going to destroy +capitalistic institutions and recreate them.... The world of capital is +collapsing. We need industrial builders. We Socialists are the builders +of the world that is to be. We are inviting you this afternoon. Join and +it will help you. + +"In due course of time we will proclaim the emancipation of the +brotherhood of all mankind." + + +3. THE DAY BEFORE THE TRIAL + +These were the essential parts of the speech which Debs made at Canton. +He was indicted. On Monday, September 9th, the case went to trial in +Cleveland. + +I happened to be out West at the time, and on Sunday, September 8th, I +had the opportunity of spending the afternoon with Debs and his attorney +and of hearing him review the case. The case was discussed, the +attorneys presenting the various possibilities. Debs made it quite clear +that there was only one thing he could do and that was to repeat his +Canton speech. He said, "I have nothing to take back. All I said I +believe to be true. I have no reason to change my mind. I have no reason +to change my position." His lawyers and he knew on Sunday that the +following week would see him sentenced to the penitentiary. + +He spoke of it in his quiet way as his simple opportunity to serve the +cause. He said that he had always felt like a member of the rank and +file, and now he had his chance to travel along the road the ordinary +man had to follow, under ordinary circumstances--to go right on along +the road and ignore the difficulties that were ahead. He was an old man, +broken in health, facing, without flinching, without budging an eyelid, +a possibility of twenty years in jail. + +I remember leaving the Hotel that afternoon and walking down to the +station and saying to myself: "If that man can behave as he does, there +is surely no excuse for us younger chaps," and I felt then as I have +felt ever since that I never in my life came in contact with so radiant +a spirit as I did that afternoon when Debs was getting ready to take his +place in the Federal Court and receive a penitentiary sentence. + + +4. DEBS ADDRESSES THE JURY + +When the prosecution had finished with its case, the defense rested, and +Debs addressed the jury in his own behalf. In that speech to the jury he +said again the things that he had said at Canton, and then he added +other things that a jury of old men, who had never heard about +Socialism, should know about the purposes of the Socialist movement. +Here are some of the more important passages as taken from the records +of the court stenographer: + +"May it please the Court, and Gentlemen of the Jury: + +"For the first time in my life I appear before a jury in a court of law +to answer to an indictment for crime. I am not a lawyer. I know little +about court procedure, about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I +know only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought against +me, that the Court is to instruct you in the law, and that you are then +to determine by your verdict whether I shall be branded with criminal +guilt and be consigned, perhaps to the end of my life, in a felon's +cell. + +"Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour of accusation, nor do +I shrink from the consequences of my utterances or my acts. Standing +before you, charged as I am with crime, I can look the Court in the +face, I can look you in the face, I can look the world in the face, for +in my conscience, in my soul, there is festering no accusation of guilt. + +"Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June +16th, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant +these charges. I admit having delivered the speech. I admit the accuracy +of the speech in all of its main features as reported in this +proceeding. There were two distinct reports. They vary somewhat, but +they are agreed upon all of the material statements embodied in that +speech. + +"In what I had to say there, my purpose was to educate the people to +understand something about the social system in which we live, and to +prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly +means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy. + +"From what you heard in the address of counsel for the prosecution, you +might naturally infer that I am an advocate of force and violence. It +is not true. I have never advocated violence in any form. I always +believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment, and I have +always made my appeal to the reason and to the conscience of the people. + +"I admit being opposed to the present form of government. I admit being +opposed to the present social system. I am doing what little I can, and +have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away +with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small +class and establish in this country an industrial social democracy. + +"In the course of the speech that resulted in this indictment, I am +charged with having expressed sympathy for Kate Richards O'Hare, for +Rose Pastor Stokes, for Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker. I did express +my perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. I have known them for +many years. I have every reason to believe in their integrity, every +reason to look upon them with respect, with confidence, and with +approval. + +"I have been accused of expressing sympathy for the Bolsheviki of +Russia. I plead guilty to the charge. I have read a great deal about the +Bolsheviki of Russia that is not true. I happen to know of my own +knowledge that they have been grossly misrepresented by the press of +this country. Who are these much-maligned revolutionists of Russia? For +years they had been the victims of a brutal Czar. They and their +antecedents were sent to Siberia, lashed with a knout, if they even +dreamed of freedom. At last the hour struck for a great change. The +revolution came. The Czar was overthrown and his infamous régime ended. +What followed? The common people of Russia came into power, the +peasants, the toilers, the soldiers, and they proceeded as best they +could to establish a government of the people. + +"It may be that the much-despised Bolsheviki may fail at last, but let +me say to you that they have written a chapter of glorious history. It +will stand to their eternal credit. Their leaders are now denounced as +criminals and outlaws. Let me remind you that there was a time when +George Washington, who is now revered as the father of his country, was +denounced as a disloyalist, when Sam Adams, who is known to us as the +father of the American Revolution, was condemned as an incendiary, and +Patrick Henry, who delivered that inspired and inspiring oration that +aroused the colonists, was condemned as a traitor. + +"They were misunderstood at the time. They stood true to themselves, and +they won an immortality of gratitude and glory. + +"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are +involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. In +every age there have been a few heroic souls who have been in advance of +their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, sometimes +put to death. Long after their martyrdom monuments were erected to them +and garlands were woven for their graves. + +"I have been accused of having obstructed the war. I admit it. +Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone. When I +think of a cold, glittering steel bayonet being plunged in the white, +quivering flesh of a human being, I recoil with horror. I have often +wondered if I could take the life of my fellow men, even to save my own. + +"Men talk about holy wars. There are none. Let me remind you that it was +Benjamin Franklin who said, 'There was never a good war or a bad peace.' + +"Napoleon Bonaparte was a high authority upon the subject of war. And +when in his last days he was chained to the rock of St. Helena, when he +felt the skeleton hand of death reaching for him, he cried out in +horror, 'War is the trade of savages and barbarians.' + +"I have read some history. I know that it is ruling classes that make +war upon one another, and not the people. In all of the history of this +world the people have never yet declared a war. Not one. I do not +believe that really civilized nations would murder one another. I would +refuse to kill a human being on my own account. Why should I at the +command of anyone else or at the command of any power on earth? + +"Twenty centuries ago one appeared upon earth whom we know as the Prince +of Peace. He issued a command in which I believe. He said, 'Love one +another.' He did not say, 'Kill one another,' but 'Love one another.' He +espoused the cause of the suffering poor--just as Rose Pastor Stokes +did, just as Kate Richards O'Hare did--and the poor heard him gladly. It +was not long before he aroused the ill-will and the hatred of the +usurers, the money-changers, the profiteers, the high priests, the +lawyers, the judges, the merchants, the bankers--in a word, the ruling +class. They said of him just what the ruling class says of the Socialist +today. 'He is preaching dangerous doctrine. He is inciting the common +rabble. He is a menace to peace and order.' And they had him arraigned, +tried, convicted, condemned, and they had his quivering body spiked to +the gates of Jerusalem. + +"This has been the tragic history of the race. In the ancient world +Socrates sought to teach some new truths to the people, and they made +him drink the fatal hemlock. It has been true all along the track of the +ages. The men and women who have been in advance, who have had new +ideas, new ideals, who have had the courage to attack the established +order of things, have all had to pay the same penalty. + +"A century and a half ago, when the American colonists were still +foreign subjects, and when there were a few men who had faith in the +common people and believed that they could rule themselves without a +king, in that day to speak against the kings was treason. If you read +Bancroft or any other standard historian, you will find that a great +majority of the colonists believed in the king and actually believed +that he had a divine right to rule over them. They had been taught to +believe that to say a word against the king, to question his so-called +divine right, was sinful. There were ministers who opened their bibles +to prove that it was the patriotic duty of the people to loyally serve +and support the king. But there were a few men in that day who said, 'We +don't need a king. We can govern ourselves.' And they began an agitation +that has been immortalized in history. + +"Washington, Adams, Paine--these were the rebels of their day. At first +they were opposed by the people and denounced by the press. You can +remember that it was Franklin who said to his compeers, 'We have now to +hang together or we'll hang separately bye and bye.' And if the +Revolution had failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been +executed as felons. But it did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of +succeeding, when the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers +were opposed to the form of government in their day. They were +denounced, they were condemned. But they had the moral courage to stand +erect and defy all the storms of detraction; and that is why they are in +history, and that is why the great respectable majority of their day +sleep in forgotten graves. The world does not know they ever lived. + +"At a later time there began another mighty agitation in this country. +It was against an institution that was deemed a very respectable one in +its time, the institution of chattel slavery, that became all-powerful, +that controlled the president, both branches of congress, the supreme +court, the press, to a very large extent the pulpit. All of the +organized forces of society, all the powers of government, upheld +chattel slavery in that day. And again a few appeared. One of them was +Elijah Lovejoy. Elijah Lovejoy was as much despised in his day as are +the leaders of the I. W. W. in our day. Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in +cold blood in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, simply because he was opposed to +chattel slavery--just as I am opposed to wage slavery. When you go down +the Mississippi River and look up at Alton, you see a magnificent white +shaft erected there in memory of a man who was true to himself and his +convictions of right and duty unto death. + +"It was my good fortune to personally know Wendell Phillips. I heard the +story of his persecution, in part at least, from his own eloquent lips +just a little while before they were silenced in death. + +"William Lloyd Garrison, Garret Smith, Thaddeus Stevens--these leaders +of the abolition movement, who were regarded as monsters of depravity, +were true to the faith and stood their ground. They are all in history. +You are teaching your children to revere their memories, while all of +their detractors are in oblivion. + +"Chattel slavery disappeared. We are not yet free. We are engaged in +another mighty agitation today. It is as wide as the world. It is the +rise of the toiling and producing masses who are gradually becoming +conscious of their interest, their power, as a class, who are organizing +industrially and politically, who are slowly but surely developing the +economic and political power that is to set them free. They are still in +the minority, but they have learned how to wait, and to bide their +time. + +"It is because I happen to be in this minority that I stand in your +presence today, charged with crime. It is because I believe as the +revolutionary fathers believed in their day, that a change was due in +the interests of the people, that the time had come for a better form of +government, an improved system, a higher social order, a nobler humanity +and a grander civilization. This minority that is so much misunderstood +and so bitterly maligned, is in alliance with the forces of evolution, +and as certain as I stand before you this afternoon, it is but a +question of time until this minority will become the conquering majority +and inaugurate the greatest change in all of the history of the world. +You may hasten the change; you may retard it; you can no more prevent it +than you can prevent the coming of the sunrise on the morrow. + +"My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn't like what I had to say in +my speech about internationalism. What is there objectionable to +internationalism? If we had internationalism there would be no war. I +believe in patriotism. I have never uttered a word against the flag. I +love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I object only when that flag is +prostituted to base purposes, to sordid ends, by those who, in the name +of patriotism, would keep the people in subjection. + +"I believe, however, in a wider patriotism. Thomas Paine said, 'My +country is the world. To do good is my religion.' Garrison said, 'My +country is the world and all mankind are my countrymen.' That is the +essence of internationalism. I believe in it with all my heart. I +believe that nations have been pitted against nations long enough in +hatred, in strife, in warfare. I believe there ought to be a bond of +unity between all of these nations. I believe that the human race +consists of one great family. I love the people of this country, but I +don't hate the people of any country on earth--not even the Germans. I +refuse to hate a human being because he happens to be born in some other +country. Why should I? To me it does not make any difference where he +was born or what the color of his skin may be. Like myself he is the +image of his creator. He is a human being endowed with the same +faculties, he has the same aspirations, he is entitled to the same +rights, and I would infinitely rather serve him and love him than to +hate him and kill him. + +"We hear a great deal about human brotherhood--a beautiful and inspiring +theme. It is preached from a countless number of pulpits. It is vain for +us to preach of human brotherhood while we tolerate this social system +in which we are a mass of warring units, in which millions of workers +have to fight one another for jobs, and millions of business men and +professional men have to fight one another for trade, for practice--in +which we have individual interests and each is striving to care for +himself alone without reference to his fellow men. Human brotherhood is +yet to be realized in this world. It never can be under the +capitalist-competitive system in which we live. + +"Yes; I was opposed to the war. I am perfectly willing, on that count, +to be branded as a disloyalist, and if it is a crime under the American +law punishable by imprisonment for being opposed to human bloodshed, I +am perfectly willing to be clothed in the stripes of a convict and to +end my days in a prison cell. + +"The War of the Revolution was opposed. The Tory press denounced its +leaders as criminals and outlaws. And that is what they were, under the +divine right of a king to rule men. + +"The War of 1812 was opposed and condemned; the Mexican War was +bitterly condemned by Abraham Lincoln, by Charles Sumner, by Daniel +Webster and by Henry Clay. That war took place under the Polk +administration. These men denounced the President; they condemned his +administration; and they said that the war was a crime against humanity. +They were not indicted; they were not tried for crime. They are honored +today by all of their countrymen. The War of the Rebellion was opposed +and condemned. In 1864 the Democratic Party met in convention at Chicago +and passed a resolution condemning the war as a failure. What would you +say if the Socialist Party were to meet in convention today and condemn +the present war as a failure? You charge us with being disloyalists and +traitors. Were the Democrats of 1864 disloyalists and traitors because +they condemned the war as a failure? + +"I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Isn't it strange +that we Socialists stand almost alone today in defending the +Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers who had +been oppressed under king rule understood that free speech and the right +of free assemblage by the people were the fundamental principles of +democratic government. The very first amendment to the Constitution +reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of +religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the +freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably +to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of +grievances." That is perfectly plain English. It can be understood by a +child. I believe that the revolutionary fathers meant just what is here +stated--that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech +or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, +and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. + +"That is the right that I exercised at Canton on the 16th day of last +June; and for the exercise of that right, I now have to answer to this +indictment. I believe in the right of free speech, in war as well as in +peace. I would not, under any circumstances, gag the lips of my +bitterest enemy. I would under no circumstances suppress free speech. It +is far more dangerous to attempt to gag the people than to allow them to +speak freely of what is in their hearts. I do not go as far as Wendell +Phillips did. Wendell Phillips said that the glory of free men is that +they trample unjust laws under their feet. That is how they repeal them. +If a human being submits to having his lips sealed, to be in silence +reduced to vassalage, he may have all else, but he is still lacking in +all that dignifies and glorifies real manhood. + +"Now, notwithstanding this fundamental provision in the national law, +Socialists' meetings have been broken up all over this country. +Socialist speakers have been arrested by hundreds and flung into jail, +where many of them are lying now. In some cases not even a charge was +lodged against them--guilty of no crime except the crime of attempting +to exercise the right guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the +United States. + +"I have told you that I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that I know +enough to know that if Congress enacts any law that conflicts with this +provision in the Constitution, that law is void. If the Espionage law +finally stands, then the Constitution of the United States is dead. If +that law is not the negation of every fundamental principle established +by the Constitution, then certainly I am unable to read or to understand +the English language. + +"War does not come by chance. War is not the result of accident. There +is a definite cause for war, especially a modern war. The war that began +in Europe can readily be accounted for. For the last forty years, under +this international capitalist system, this exploiting system, these +various nations of Europe have been preparing for the inevitable. And +why? In all these nations the great industries are owned by a relatively +small class. They are operated for the profit of that class. And great +abundance is produced by the workers, but their wages will only buy back +a small part of their product. What is the result? They have a vast +surplus on hand; they have got to export it; they have got to find a +foreign market for it. As a result of this, these nations are pitted +against each other. They begin to arm themselves to open, to maintain +the market and quickly dispose of their surplus. There is but the one +market. All these nations are competitors for it, and sooner or later +every war of trade becomes a war of blood. + +"Now, where there is exploitation there must be some form of militarism +to support it. Wherever you find exploitation you find some form of +military force. In a smaller way you find it in this country. It was +there long before war was declared. For instance, when the miners out in +Colorado entered upon a strike about four years ago, the state militia, +that is under the control of the Standard Oil Company, marched upon a +camp, where the miners and their wives and children were in tents. And +by the way, a report of this strike was issued by the United States +Commission on Industrial Relations. When the soldiers approached the +camp at Ludlow, where these miners, with their wives and children, were, +the miners, to prove that they were patriotic, placed flags above their +tents, and when the state militia, that is paid by Rockefeller and +controlled by Rockefeller, swooped down upon that camp, the first thing +they did was to shoot those United States flags into tatters. Not one +of them was indicted or tried because he was a traitor to his country. +Pregnant women were killed, and a number of innocent children slain. +This in the United States of America,--the fruit of exploitation. The +miners wanted a little more of what they had been producing. But the +Standard Oil Company wasn't rich enough. It insisted that all they were +entitled to was just enough to keep them in working order. There is +slavery for you. And when at last they protested, when they were +tormented by hunger, when they saw their children in tatters, they were +shot down as if they had been so many vagabond dogs. + +"And while I am upon this point, let me say just another word. Working +men who organize, and who sometimes commit overt acts, are very often +condemned by those who have no conception of the conditions under which +they live. How many men are there, for instance, who know anything of +their own knowledge about how men work in a lumber camp--a logging camp, +a turpentine camp? In this report of the United States Commission on +Industrial Relations, you will find the statement proved that peonage +existed in the state of Texas. Out of these conditions springs such a +thing as the I. W. W.--when men receive a pittance for their pay, when +they work like galley slaves for a wage that barely suffices to keep +their protesting souls within their tattered bodies. When they can +endure the condition no longer, and they make some sort of a +demonstration, or perhaps commit acts of violence, how quickly are they +condemned by those who do not know anything about the conditions under +which they work. + +"Five gentlemen of distinction, among them Professor John Graham Brooks, +of Harvard University, said that a word that so fills the world as the +I. W. W. must have something in it. It must be investigated. And they +did investigate it, each along their own lines; and I wish it were +possible for every man and woman in this country to read the result of +their investigation. They tell you why and how the I. W. W. was +instituted. They tell you, moreover, that the great corporations, such +as the Standard Oil Company, such as the Coal Trust, and the Lumber +Trust, have, through their agents, committed more crimes against the I. +W. W. than the I. W. W. have ever committed against them. + +"I was asked not long ago if I was in favor of shooting our soldiers in +the back. I said, 'No. I would not shoot them in the back. I wouldn't +shoot them at all. I would not have them shot.' Much has been made of a +statement that I declared that men were fit for something better than +slavery and cannon fodder. I made the statement. I make no attempt to +deny it. I meant exactly what I said. Men are fit for something better +than slavery and cannon fodder; and the time will come, though I shall +not live to see it, when slavery will be wiped from the earth, and when +men will marvel that there ever was a time when men who called +themselves civilized rushed upon each other like wild beasts and +murdered one another, by methods so cruel and barbarous that they defy +the power of language to describe. I can hear the shrieks of the +soldiers of Europe in my dreams. I have imagination enough to see a +battlefield. I can see it strewn with the wrecks of human beings, who +but yesterday were in the flush and glory of their young manhood. I can +see them at eventide, scattered about in remnants, their limbs torn from +their bodies, their eyes gouged out. Yes, I can see them, and I can hear +them. I look above and beyond this frightful scene. I think of the +mothers who are bowed in the shadow of their last great grief--whose +hearts are breaking. And I say to myself: 'I am going to do the little +that lies in my power to wipe from this earth that terrible scourge of +war.' + +"If I believed in war I could not be kept out of the first line +trenches. I would not be patriotic at long range. I would be honest +enough, if I believed in bloodshed, to shed my own. But I do not believe +that the shedding of blood bears any actual testimony to patriotism, to +love of country, to civilization. On the contrary, I believe that +warfare in all of its forms is an impeachment of our social order, and a +rebuke to our vaunted Christian civilization. + +"And now, gentlemen of the jury, I am not going to detain you too long. +I wish to admit everything that has been said respecting me from this +witness chair. I wish to admit everything that has been charged against +me except what is embraced in the indictment from which I have read to +you. I cannot take back a word. I cannot repudiate a sentence. I stand +before you guilty of having made this speech. I stand before you +prepared to accept the consequences of what there is embraced in that +speech. I do not know, I cannot tell, what your verdict may be; nor does +it matter much, so far as I am concerned. + +"Gentlemen, I am the smallest part of this trial. I have lived long +enough to appreciate my own personal insignificance in relation to a +great issue, that involves the welfare of the whole people. What you may +choose to do to me will be of small consequence after all. I am not on +trial here. There is an infinitely greater issue that is being tried +today in this court, though you may not be conscious of it. American +institutions are on trial here before a court of American citizens. The +future will tell." + + +5. DEBS TALKS TO THE JUDGE + +The jury found Eugene Debs guilty and on Saturday morning the judge +pronounced sentence. Before the sentence was given, Debs had another +opportunity to tell someone about Socialism--this time it was the judge. + +Debs never loses a chance. When the clerk asked him whether he had +anything to say he made another Socialist speech. Said he: + +"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, +and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest of +earth. I said then, I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am +in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a +soul in prison, I am not free.... + +"If the law under which I have been convicted is a good law, then there +is no reason why sentence should not be pronounced upon me. I listened +to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this +law, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon it as a despotic +enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the +spirit of free institutions. + +"Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form +of our present Government; that I am opposed to the social system in +which we live; that I believed in the change of both--but by perfectly +peaceable and orderly means. + +"Let me call your attention to the fact this morning that in this system +five per cent. of our people own and control two-thirds of our wealth, +sixty-five per cent. of the people, embracing the working class who +produce all wealth, have but five per cent. to show for it. + +"Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen, I went to +work in the railroad shops; at sixteen, I was firing a freight engine on +a railroad. I remember all the hardships, all the privations, of that +earlier day, and from that time until now, my heart has been with the +working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred +to go to prison. The choice has been deliberately made. I could not have +done otherwise. I have no regret. + +"In the struggle--the unceasing struggle--between the toilers and +producers and their exploiters, I have tried, as best I might, to serve +those among whom I was born, with whom I expect to share my lot until +the end of my days. + +"I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am +thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out +their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of +their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the +remorseless grasp of mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, +there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body +and soul. I can see them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little lives +broken, and their hopes blasted, because in this high noon of our +twentieth century civilization, money is still so much more important +than human life. Gold is god and rules in the affairs of men. The little +girls, and there are a million of them in this country--this, the most +favored land beneath the bending skies, a land in which we have vast +areas of rich and fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible +abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, millions of +eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce an +abundance for every man, woman and child--and if there are still many +millions of our people who are the victims of poverty, whose life is a +ceaseless struggle all the way from youth to age, until at last death +comes to their rescue and stills the aching heart, and lulls the victim +to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty, it can't be +charged to nature; it is due entirely to an outgrown social system that +ought to be abolished, not only in the interest of the working class, +but in a higher interest of all humanity. + +"I think of these little children--the girls that are in the textile +mills of all description in the East, in the cotton factories of the +South--I think of them at work in a vitiated atmosphere. I think of them +at work when they ought to be at play or at school; I think that when +they do grow up, if they live long enough to approach the marriage +state, they are unfit for it. Their nerves are worn out, their tissue is +exhausted, their vitality is spent. They have been fed to industry. +Their lives have been coined into gold. Their offspring are born tired. +That is why there are so many failures in our modern life. + +"Your Honor, the five per cent. of the people that I have made reference +to, constitute that element that absolutely rules our country. They +privately own all our public necessities. They wear no crowns; they +wield no sceptres, they sit upon no thrones; and yet they are our +economic masters and our political rulers. They control this Government +and all of its institutions. They control the courts. + +"The five per cent. of our people who own and control all of the sources +of wealth, all of the nation's industries, all of the means of our +common life--it is they who declare war; it is they who make peace; it +is they who control our industry. And so long as this is true, we can +make no just claim to being a democratic government--a self-governing +people. + +"I believe, your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation +ought to own and control its industries. I believe, as all Socialists +do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly +owned--that industry, the basis of life, instead of being the private +property of the few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the +common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of +all. + +"John D. Rockefeller has today an income of sixty million dollars a +year, five million dollars a month, two hundred thousand dollars a day. +He does not produce a penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller +personally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he were in need, and +it were in my power to serve him, I should serve him as gladly as I +would any other human being, I have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller +personally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply opposing a social +order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing +that is useful, to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, +while millions of men and women who work all of the days of their lives +secure barely enough for existence. + +"This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest +against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but fortunately I +am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, +have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of +civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and +co-operative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic +and political movement that is spread over the face of all the earth. + +"There are today upwards of sixty million Socialists, loyal, devoted, +adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color +or sex. They are all making common cause. They are all spreading the +propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching and +working through all the weary hours of the day and night. They are still +in the minority. They have learned how to be patient and abide their +time. They feel--they know indeed--that the time is coming in spite of +all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will +spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the +triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest +change in history. + +"In that day we will have the universal commonwealth--not the +destruction of the nation, but, on the contrary, the harmonious +co-operation of every nation on earth. In that day war will curse this +earth no more. + +"Your Honor, I ask no mercy. I plead for no immunity. I realize that +finally the right must prevail. I never more clearly comprehended than +now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and +upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. + +"I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are +awakening. In due course of time they will come to their own. + +"When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his +weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning +luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the +southern cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their +places, and with starry fingerpoints the Almighty marks the passage of +time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad +tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing--that relief +and rest are close at hand. + +"Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is +bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.... + +"Your Honor, I thank you, and I thank all of this court for their +courtesy, for their kindness, which I shall remember always. + +"I am prepared to receive your sentence." + +Whereupon the judge sentenced Eugene Debs to ten years in the West +Virginia Penitentiary--the penitentiary at Atlanta being too crowded to +receive him. + + +6. THE APPEAL + +An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States and was +argued on the ground that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional. No act +was charged against Debs, except the Canton speech. In that speech he +had simply stated what he had said a thousand times before, but the +Court held that under the Espionage Act a man who made a speech, the +probable result of which was to create mutiny or to hinder recruiting +and enlistment--was guilty, providing that he did it knowingly and +wilfully. The jury had to decide, first, that he had done something the +probable result of which was to create mutiny or to hinder recruiting +and enlistment, and then if he had done it, that it was done with +intent, knowingly and wilfully. The jury had found Debs guilty under +these circumstances. + +Debs was an American, and as an American he relied upon a certain +guarantee contained in the First Amendment to the Constitution: +"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or +prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of +speech or of the press, or the right of the people peacefully to +assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." +Debs, as an American citizen, relied upon that guarantee, and his +lawyers, in making the appeal, relied upon that guarantee. + +Over and against that guarantee was the Espionage Act passed originally +in 1917--June 15th--and amended June 16, 1918. + +The language of the original act was as follows: + +(Title I, Sec. 3.) "Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall (1) +wilfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to +interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces +of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies, and +whoever, when the United States is at war, (2) shall wilfully cause or +attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of +duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall (3) +wilfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United +States, to the injury of the service or of the United States, shall be +punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more +than twenty years, or both." + +The Amended Act was far more drastic: + +"Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall wilfully make or +convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with +the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United +States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall wilfully make +or convey false reports or false statements, or say or do anything +except by way of bona fide and not disloyal advice to an investor or +investors, with intent to obstruct the sale by the United States of +bonds or other securities of the United States or the making of loans by +or to the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, +shall wilfully cause, or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to +incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the +military or naval forces of the United States, or shall wilfully +obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of +the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall +wilfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, +scurrilous or abusive language about the form of government of the +United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military +or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, +or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States, or any language +intended to bring the form of government of the United States, or the +Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of +the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of +the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, +or disrepute, or shall wilfully utter, print, write or publish any +language intended to incite, provoke or encourage resistance to the +United States or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall wilfully +display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall wilfully, by utterance, +writing, printing, publication or language spoken, urge, incite or +advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any thing or +things, product or products, necessary or essential to the prosecution +of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with intent by +such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the +prosecution of the war, and whoever shall wilfully advocate, teach, +defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this +section enumerated, and whoever shall, by word or act, support or favor +the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by +word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be +punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more +than twenty years, or both." ... + +There you have both pieces of legislation. On the one hand, the +Constitution provides immunity, and on the other hand, the Espionage Act +provides a penalty for the expression of opinion. + +The Supreme Court on the 10th of March handed down its decision. The +decision was read by Justice Holmes and concurred in by the entire +court. + + +7. THE SUPREME COURT DECISION + +The substance of the decision is contained in the following sentences: + +"The main theme of the speech was Socialism, its growth and a prophecy +of its ultimate success. With that we have nothing to do, but if a part +or the manifest intent of the more general utterances was to encourage +those present to obstruct recruiting service, and if in passages such +encouragement was directly given, the immunity of the general theme may +not be enough to protect the speech." + +Justice Holmes concludes, after a review of the case, that the immunity, +under the First Amendment, did not protect the speech. In that argument, +he referred to a decision which had been handed down on the 3rd of March +known as the Schenck Case--another Espionage Act case--in which this +point concerning the immunity under the First Amendment was stated at +length by Justice Holmes in this language: + +"We admit that in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants +would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of +every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.... The +question in every case is whether the words used are used in such +circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present +danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress +has a right to prevent." + +That is the Debs decision. That is the method in which the Supreme Court +handled the popular liberties guaranteed under the First Amendment. The +Court might have thrown the Espionage Act out under the First Amendment +as it threw out the Child Labor Law. The Court might have ruled this act +unconstitutional. The Court did not decide that Congress had no right to +pass the Espionage Act. The Court did decide that since Congress had +passed the Espionage Act, Debs had no right to make his speech. What are +the implications of this position of the Supreme Court? "Congress shall +make no law abridging the freedom of speech," says the Constitution. +Congress passed a law abridging the freedom of speech, and the Supreme +Court holds that the Courts, in interpreting the Constitution, must bear +in mind the law that Congress has passed. We had thought that the +Constitutional guarantee was superior to any law that Congress might +pass, but the Court specifically holds in the Schenck Case that if "the +words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to +create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the +substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent," then the First +Amendment affords no protection. + +Congress is made the arbiter. Congress now decides what may be said and +what may not be said. + +This means that the Constitution does not guarantee personal liberty. +Speech is free, if you keep within the laws passed by Congress, not +otherwise. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech," +declares the Constitution. Speech is free, says the Court, if you obey +the laws passed by Congress. What is the result? If the United States +enters the League of Nations as a constituent part of it, and if the +League of Nations carries on a series of minor wars, this country will +be at war perhaps for fifty years, and during that time free speech will +be banned under this decision of the Supreme Court; during that time +the Espionage Act will operate; there will be no free speech in the +United States. + +Congress--under this decision--might pass a law making it a crime to +advocate the establishment of industrial democracy in the United States, +and from the time that law was passed, any man who advocated industrial +democracy in the United States would have no immunity under the First +Amendment. + +Congress might pass a law making it a crime to demand that the Courts of +the United States be abolished, and from that time no person could +advocate the abolition of the United States Courts without violating the +law. + +Congress might make it a criminal offense to criticize the President and +from that day forward no person could criticize the President without +violating the law. + +This decision makes Congress, not the Constitution, the arbiter of the +limits of freedom of expression; therefore, we must conclude that +neither the Courts of the United States, nor the Constitution of the +United States can be relied upon to guarantee the American people the +right of free speech. Thus freedom of discussion is ended. Democracy in +the United States is dead. The Supreme Court on the 10th of March, in +the Debs' case, wrote its epitaph. + +A little thought will reveal the seriousness of the situation. A little +reflection will show the position in which the American people find +themselves, with regard to personal liberties, since the tenth of March, +1919. + + +8. THE CLASS STRUGGLE AGAIN! + +Classes have come and classes have gone down through the pages of +history. Whenever the position of a ruling class has been threatened, +the ruling class has crucified the truth-tellers. + +Compared with the necessity of protecting ruling class privileges and +prerogatives, the right of a man to express his mind goes for nothing. +That is the lesson of history and that is what we are witnessing today. +Men who have stirred up the people; men who have raised their voices in +protest; men who thought straight; men who have loved their fellow men +too much; men who have had conviction and courage and purpose; men who +were willing to stick by their ideals--such men have suffered in every +age. + +Eugene V. Debs has stirred up the people all his life. Since he was a +boy firing a locomotive engine, he has been an agitator. He has always +stood for justice, for liberty and brotherhood. He has loved his fellow +men; he has been gentle and sincere; he has been devoted to what he +regards as the greatest cause in the world. On this war he has stood +like granite, unwavering and unflinching, voicing the protest of the +masses who had no voice with which to speak. He has uttered what they +believed. + +The preachers who deserted their flocks; the teachers who betrayed their +trust; the editors who took their 30 pieces of silver in these last few +years--they are free; they are honored; they are respected. But this man +who thought straight; who loved his fellows, who spoke his convictions; +who was true to his ideals--this man is permitted to go to jail by the +Supreme Court of the United States. + +I have seen the Supreme Court and I have seen Eugene V. Debs. From the +Supreme Court I got neither love nor inspiration; from Debs I got both. + +In his generation in the United States, there is not a greater man than +Eugene V. Debs--not because of what he has done, but because of what he +is, and when the history of this generation is written, that fact will +be recorded. + +The masters in all ages have put men like Debs in jail because it is the +truth-teller that the masters fear most. They fear the Truth; they fear +the Light; they fear Justice; and the man who turns on the Light and +speaks the Truth and cries out for Justice--is their greatest enemy. So +they have always tried this process of putting ideas into jail. + + +9. PUTTING IDEAS IN JAIL + +Years ago, when the Mexican War was being fought, an American named +Henry D. Thoreau refused to pay his war tax. He did not believe in the +war and he refused to support the Government that prosecuted the war. So +they put Thoreau in jail. Later he wrote about his experience: + +"As I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet +thick, and the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating +which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the +foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh +and blood and bones, to be locked up.... + +"I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax.... + +"I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on +my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, +and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, +they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come +at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. + +"I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone +woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from +its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. + +"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a +just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which +Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is +in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own +act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is +there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and +the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on +that separate but more free and honorable ground, where the State places +those who are not with her but against her--the only house in a slave +State on which a free man can abide with honor. + +"If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices +no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an +enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger +than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat +injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. + +"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State +comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, +from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him +accordingly." + + +10. THE SUPREME COURT COULD NOT SAVE SLAVERY + +Once before the Supreme Court of the United States tried to save a +decaying social institution--the institution of Slavery. There was a +slave named Dred Scott. He was owned by a resident of Missouri. He was +taken into Minnesota and into Illinois. Illinois was a free State by its +own laws. Minnesota was free by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Then +his master took Dred Scott back to Missouri, and there Dred Scott tried +to gain his freedom. The case was finally decided by the Supreme Court +of the United States in 1857. + +The Supreme Court held (two justices dissenting) that Scott could not +sue in the lower courts because he was not a citizen and, therefore, was +not entitled to any standing in the courts; that at the time of the +formation of the Constitution, negroes descended from negro slaves were +not and could not be citizens in any of the States; and that there was +no power in the existing form of Government to make citizens of such +persons. In the course of his decision, Judge Taney used the following +language: + +"It is difficult, at this day, to realize the state of public opinion +which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world +at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the +Constitution was framed and adopted in relation to that unfortunate +race. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a +manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before +been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to +associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; +and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was +bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be +reduced to slavery for his benefit. He has been bought and sold and +treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a +profit could be made by it. The opinion was at that time fixed and +universal in the civilized portion of the white race." + +The Chief Justice went farther than the point at issue warranted, and +stated that the power of Congress to govern territory was subordinate to +its obligation to protect private rights in property and that slaves +were property and as such were protected by the constitutional +guarantees; that Congress had no power to prohibit the citizens of any +State to carry into any territory slaves or any other property, and that +Congress had no power to impair the constitutional protection of such +property while thus held in a territory. + +The Dred Scott decision fastened Slavery forever upon the United States. +Slavery lasted just six years. + + +11. MORE PATCH WORK! + +At the present time, Capitalism is tottering to its downfall. The world +is in chaos and revolution. The Supreme Court has handed down a decision +which ostensibly will assist in preserving established order, but the +United States is a Capitalist nation and, as Mr. Wilson himself has so +admirably put it: + +"The masters of the Government of the United States are the combined +capitalists and manufacturers of the United States." ("New Freedom," +page 57.) + +Capitalism is disappearing from Europe--Russia, Germany, Austria, +Bohemia, Hungary--the list is growing from week to week. When the +President came back on his little visit to America there was one new +thing that he said, and only one new thing: + +"The men who are in conference in Paris realize as keenly as any +Americans can realize that they are not the masters of their people." +(Boston, February 24th, 1919.) + +"When I speak of the nations of the world, I do not speak of the +governments of the world. I speak of the peoples who constitute the +nations of the world. They are in the saddle, and they are going to see +to it that if present governments do not do their will, some other +government shall, and the secret is out and the present governments know +it." (Boston, February 24th.) + +"I want to utter this solemn warning, not in the way of a threat; the +forces of the world do not threaten, they operate. The great tides of +the world do not give notice that they are going to rise and run; they +rise in their majesticity and overwhelming might and they who stand in +the way are overwhelmed. Now the heart of the world is awake and the +heart of the world must be satisfied. Do not let yourselves suppose for +a moment that the uneasiness in the populations of Europe is due +entirely to economic causes and economic motives; something very much +deeper underlies it all than that. They see that their governments have +never been able to defend them against intrigue or aggression, and that +there is no force of foresight or of prudence in any modern cabinet to +stop war." (New York, March 4th, 1919.) + +Then comes Mr. Wm. Allen White on the 11th of March with a similar +statement. On the next day comes Mr. Lansing with the statement that +unless something is done and done quickly, the capitalist system in +Europe will be overthrown. The world is in chaos. The fabric of +civilization is threatened. The health and happiness--the very life of +the world--is threatened. + +And those who speak particularly of those things; those who are seeking +to warn, to prepare the people; those who attempt to preach law and +order; who oppose war; who believe in peace--those who are attempting to +serve the interests of humanity--go to jail for ten years. + +The highest authority in the United States has served notice on the +American people that from it they can hope for nothing in the way of +preservation of their liberties. Their liberties are dead. Well may +those Americans who still have in their souls a spark of the old fire, +turn back 143 years and read these words from the Declaration of +Independence: + +"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created +equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable +rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. +That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, +deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that +whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is +the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new +government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing +its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect +their safety and happiness." + + + * * * * * + + + THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE + + + Local Department Correspondence Dept. + Full-Time Department Research Department + Library and Reading Room + + + ALGERNON LEE, BERTHA H. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Debs Decision + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: February 25, 2007 [EBook #20666] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEBS DECISION *** + + + + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Tamise Totterdell, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>THE DEBS DECISION</h1><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h3><i>By</i><br /> + +SCOTT NEARING</h3> + +<p class="centerpadded">Published by<br /> +THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE<br /> +New York City</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center">Copyright<br /> +RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE<br /> +7 East 15th Street<br /> +New York<br /> +1919</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + +<h2>THE DEBS DECISION</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>By</i></p> + +<h3>SCOTT NEARING</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h3>1. THE SUPREME COURT</h3> + + +<p>The Supreme Court of the United States on March 10, 1919, handed down a +decision on the Debs case. That decision is far-reaching in its +immediate significance and still more far-reaching in its ultimate +implications.</p> + +<p>What is the Supreme Court of the United States?</p> + +<p>Article III, Section I of the Constitution provides as follows:</p> + +<p>"The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme +Court.... The judges shall hold their offices during good behavior."</p> + +<p>The judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate +(Article XII, Section II). That is all the constitution provides with +regard to the Supreme Court.</p> + +<p>At the present time, there are nine judges on the Supreme bench. It +might interest you to know some facts about the nine. All of the judges +are men. The chief justice is Edward D. White, who was born in 1845 and +admitted to the bar in 1868. He is seventy-three years of age. His +birth-place was Louisiana. He served in the Confederate Army, in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>State Senate, in the State Supreme Court and in the United States +Senate. He has been a member of the Supreme Court for twenty-five years. +Joseph McKenna is the second member in point of seniority. He was born +in 1843. His birth-place is Philadelphia. He was a county District +Attorney, a member of the State Legislature, a member of the national +House of Representatives, attorney-general of the United States and a +United States Circuit Judge. He has been a member of the Supreme Court +for twenty-two years. Oliver W. Holmes, the Justice who read the Debs +decision, was born in Boston in 1841. He is seventy-seven years of age. +He was admitted to the bar in 1866. Justice Holmes served in the Union +Army; he was a member of the Harvard Law School Faculty. He has been a +member of the Supreme Court for seventeen years. Those are the three +oldest men on the Supreme bench. They are the three men who have been on +the bench longest, but their political background is typical of the +political background of the other members of the Supreme Court, with the +single exception of Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who as far as I know, +held no public office at all before he was appointed a justice of the +Supreme Court three years ago.</p> + +<p>The nine members of the Supreme Court are all old men. Four of them were +born before 1850; eight of them were born before 1860; one of them was +born since 1861, that is, James C. McReynolds, who was born in 1862. +There is not a single member of the Supreme Court bench born since the +Civil War. The oldest man on the bench is Justice Holmes, seventy-seven; +the youngest man on the bench is Justice McReynolds, fifty-seven; the +average age of the justices of the Supreme Court is sixty-six years. +These men all began practising law while we were children, or before we +were born. Three of them began the practice of law before 1870; six of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>them began to practice law before 1880; nine of them before 1884. The +last member of the Supreme bench to be admitted to the practice of law, +Justice McReynolds, was admitted in 1884.</p> + +<p>The Supreme Court Justices were educated in the generation preceding the +modern epoch of financial imperialism. They were mature when the +industrial order as we know it today, was established. They are the men +whose word is the word of final authority in all the affairs concerning +the government of the United States.</p> + +<p>The Supreme Court, not because the Constitution grants it the power, but +because successive decisions of the Court have established that +precedent, has the right to veto any piece of legislation passed by +Congress and signed by the President. The Supreme Court is the voice of +final authority in the affairs of the government of the United States. +After it has spoken, there is no further authority under the machinery +of this government.</p> + +<p>The Debs Case came before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has given +its decision. Eugene Debs goes to jail for ten years. Under the existing +order of government, there is no appeal from this decision, except an +appeal to arbitrary executive clemency.</p> + + +<h3>2. THE CANTON SPEECH</h3> + +<p>The Debs Case arose over a speech made by Debs in Canton, Ohio, June +16th, 1918. The speech was made before the State Socialist Convention, +where Debs was talking to his comrades in the Socialist movement. The +main parts of this speech, as printed in the indictment under which Debs +was convicted, are as follows:</p> + +<p>"I have just returned from a visit from yonder (pointing to workhouse) +were three of our most loyal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> comrades are paying the penalty for their +devotion to the cause of the working class. They have come to realize, +as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the +constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make +democracy safe for the world. I realize in speaking to you this +afternoon that there are certain limitations placed upon the right of +free speech. I must be extremely careful, prudent, as to what I say, and +even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to +say all I think, but I am not going to say anything I do not think. And +I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than a sycophant +or coward on the streets. They may put those boys in jail and some of +the rest of us in jail, but they cannot put the Socialist movement in +jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their souls +are here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all men +have paid in all of the ages of history for standing erect and seeking +to pave the way for better conditions for mankind.</p> + +<p>"If it had not been for the men and women who, in the past, have had the +moral courage to go to jail, we would still be in the jungles.</p> + +<p>"Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of the greatest +triumph of all the history of the Socialist movement? It is true that +these are anxious, trying days for us all, testing those who are +upholding the banner of the working class in the greatest struggle the +world has ever known against the exploiters of the world; a time in +which the weak, the cowardly, will falter and fail and desert. They lack +the fibre to endure the revolutionary test. They fall away. They +disappear as if they had never been.</p> + +<p>"On the other hand, they who are animated with the unconquerable spirit +of the social revolution, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> who have the moral courage to stand +erect, to assert their convictions, to stand by them, to go to jail or +to hell for them—they are writing their names in this crucial hour, +they are writing their names in fadeless letters in the history of +mankind. Those boys over yonder, those comrades of ours—and how I love +them—aye, they are our younger brothers, their names are seared in our +souls.</p> + +<p>"I am proud of them. They are there for us and we are here for them. +Their lips, though temporarily mute, are more eloquent than ever before, +and their voices, though silent, are heard around the world.</p> + +<p>"Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? Why, we have been fighting it +since the day the Socialistic movement was born and we are going to +continue to fight it today and until it is wiped from the face of the +earth.</p> + +<p>"The other day they sent a woman to Wichita Penitentiary for ten years. +Just think of sentencing a woman to the penitentiary for talking. The +United States under the rule of the plutocrats is the only country which +would send a woman to the penitentiary for ten years for exercising the +right to free speech. If this be treason, let them make the most of it. +Let me review another bit of history. I have known this woman for ten +years. Personally I know her as if she were my own younger sister. She +is a woman of absolute integrity. She is a woman of courage. She is a +woman of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist movement. She went out +into Dakota and made her speech, followed by plain-clothes men in the +service of the government, intent upon encompassing her arrest, +prosecuted and convicted. She made a certain speech and that speech was +deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of securing her conviction. +The only testimony was that of a hired witness. And thirty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> farmers who +went to Bismarck to testify in her favor, the judge refused to allow to +testify. This would seem incredible to me if I had not some experience +of my own with a Federal Court. Who appoints the Federal Courts? The +people? Every solitary one of them holds his position through influence +and power of corporation capital. And when they go to the bench, they go +there not to serve the people, but to serve the interests who sent them. +The other day, by a vote of five to four, they declared the Child Labor +Law unconstitutional; a law secured after twenty years of education and +agitation by all kinds of people, and yet by a majority of one, the +Supreme Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one solitary +exception, wiped it from the Statute books, so that we may still +continue to grind the blood of little children into profit for the +Junkers of Wall Street, and this in a country that is now fighting to +make democracy safe for the world. These are not palatable truths to +them. And they do not want you to hear them and that is why they brand +us as traitors and disloyalists. If we were not traitors to the people, +we would be eminently respectable citizens and ride in limousines. It is +precisely because we are disloyal to the traitors that we are not +disloyal to the people of this country.</p> + +<p>"How short-sighted the ruling is. The exploiter cannot see beyond the +end of his nose. He has just been cunning enough to know what graft is +and where it is, but he has no vision. You know this is a great +throbbing world that speaks out in all directions. Look at Rockefeller. +Every move he makes hastens the coming of his doom. Every time the +capitalist class tries to hinder the cause of Socialism they hurt +themselves. Every time they strangle a Socialist newspaper they add a +thousand voices to those which are aiding Socialism. The Socialist has a +great idea. An expanding philosophy. It is spreading over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> face of +the earth. It is as useless to resist it as it is to resist the rising +sun. Can you see it? If you cannot you are lacking in vision, in +understanding. What a privilege it is to serve it. I have regretted a +thousand times I can do so little for the movement that has done so much +for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping to be, is due +wholly to the Socialist movement. It gave me my ideas and my ideals, and +I would not exchange one of them for all the Rockefeller blood-stained +dollars. It taught me how to serve; a lesson to me of priceless value. +It taught the ecstasy of the handclasp of the comrade. It made it +possible for me to get in touch with you, to multiply myself over and +over again; to open the avenue, to spread out the glorious vistas; to +know that I am kin with all that throbs; with all who become class +conscious. Every man who toils, everyone of them, is my comrade. To +serve them is the highest duty of my life. And in the service I can feel +myself expanding. I rise to the stature of a man. Yes, my heart is +attuned to yours. All of our hearts are melted into one great heart +which throbs to the response of the people.</p> + +<p>"Here I hear your heart beats responsive to the Bolsheviki of Russia. +(Applause) Yes, those heroic men and women, those unconquerable +comrades, who have by their sacrifice added fresh lustre to the +international movement. Those Russian comrades who have made greater +sacrifices, who have suffered more, who have shed more heroic blood than +any like number of men and women anywhere else on earth. They have led +the first real convention of any democracy that ever drew breath. The +first act of that memorable revolution was to proclaim a state of peace +with an appeal not to the kings, not to the rulers, but an appeal to the +people of all nations. They are the very breath of democracy; the +quintessence of freedom. They made their appeal to the people of all +nations,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> the Allies as well as the Central Powers, to send +representatives to lay down terms of a peace that should be lasting. +Here was a fine opportunity to strike a blow to make democracy safe to +the world. Was there any response to that noble appeal? And here let me +say that appeal will be written in letters of gold in the history of the +world. While it has been charged that the leaders made a traitorous +peace with Germany, let us consider this proposition briefly. At the +time of the revolution, Russia had lost 4,000,000 of her soldiers. She +was absolutely bankrupt. Her soldiers were without arms. This was what +was bequeathed to the revolution by the Czar. For this condition, Leon +Trotsky was not responsible nor was the Bolshevik movement, but the Czar +was.</p> + +<p>"When Leon Trotsky came into power, he found the secret treaties made +between the French government and the British government and the Italian +government which was to divide the territory of the Central Powers if +the Allies were victorious, and these secret treaties have not been +repudiated up to this time. Very little has been said about them in the +American newspapers. This shows that the purpose of the Allies is +exactly the purpose of the Central Powers.</p> + +<p>"Wars have been waged for conquests, for plunder, and since the feudal +ages, the feudal lords along the Rhine made war upon each other. They +wanted to enlarge their domains, to increase their power and their +wealth and so they declared war upon each other. But they did not go to +war any more than the Wall Street Junkers go to war. Their predecessors +declared the wars, but their miserable serfs fought the wars. The serfs +believed that it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another, to +wage war upon one another. And that is war in a nut shell. The master +class has always brought a war, and the subject class has fought the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +battle. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, and +the subject class has had all to lose and nothing to gain. They have +always taught you that it is your patriotic duty to go to war and +slaughter yourselves at their command. You have never had a voice in the +war. The working class who made the sacrifices, who shed the blood, have +never yet had a voice in declaring war. The ruling class has always made +the war and made the peace.</p> + +<p class="padded"> +<span class="quote">"Yours not to question why,</span><br /> +<span class="quote"> Yours but to do and die.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Another bit of history I want to review is that of Rose Pastor Stokes, +another inspiring comrade. She had her millions of dollars. Her devotion +to the cause is without all consideration of a financial or economic +view. She went out to render service to the cause and they sent her to +the penitentiary for ten years. What has she said? Nothing more than I +have said here this afternoon. I want to say that if Rose Pastor Stokes +is guilty, so am I. If she should be sent to the penitentiary for ten +years, so ought I. What did she say? She said that a government could +not serve both the profiteers and the employees of the profiteers. +Roosevelt has said a thousand times more in his paper, the <i>Kansas City +Star</i>. He would do everything possible to discredit Wilson's +administration in order to give his party credit. The Republican and +Democratic parties are all patriots this fall and they are going to +combine to prevent the election of any disloyal Socialists. Do you know +of any difference between them? One is in, the other is out. That is all +the difference.</p> + +<p>"Rose Pastor Stokes never said a word she did not have a right to utter, +but her message opened the eyes of the people. That must be suppressed. +That voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> must be silenced. Her trial in a capitalist court was very +farcical. What chance had she in a corporation court with a put-up jury +and a corporation tool on the bench?</p> + +<p>"Every Socialist on the face of the earth is animated by the same +principles. Everywhere they have the same noble idea, everywhere they +are calling one another 'comrade,' the noblest word that springs from +the heart and soul of unity. The word 'comrade' is getting us into +closer touch all along the battle line. They are waging the war of the +working class against the ruling class of the world. They conquer +difficulties; they grow stronger through them all.</p> + +<p>"The heart of the international Socialist never beats a retreat. They +are pressing forward here, there, everywhere, in all the zones that +girdle this globe. These workers, these class-conscious workers, these +children of honest toil are wiping out the boundary lines everywhere. +They are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation. +Everywhere they are having their hearts attuned to the sacred cause; +everywhere they are moving toward democracy, moving toward the sunrise, +their faces aglow with the light of coming day. These are the men who +must guide us in the greatest crisis the world has ever known. They are +making history. They are bound upon the emancipation of the human race.</p> + +<p>"Few men have the courage to say a decent word in favor of the I. W. W. +I have. (Here several in the crowd yelled, 'So have I.')</p> + +<p>"After long investigation by five men who are not Socialists: John +Graham Brooks, Harvard University; Mr. Bruere, Government investigator +(other names not noted), a pamphlet has been issued called 'The Truth +About the I. W. W.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"These men investigated the I. W. W. They have examined its doings, +beginning at Bisbee, Arizona, where the officers deported five hundred. +It is only necessary to label a man, 'I. W. W.' to lynch him. Just think +of the state of mind for which the capitalist press is responsible.</p> + +<p>"When Wall Street yells war, you may rest assured every pulpit in the +land will yell war. The press and the pulpit have in every age and every +nation been on the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class. +That's why the I. W. W. is infamous.</p> + +<p>"The I. W. W. in its career has never committed as much violence against +the ruling class as the ruling class has committed against the people. +The trial at Chicago is now on and they have not proven violence in a +single solitary case, and yet, one hundred and twelve have been on trial +for months and months without a shade of evidence. And this is all in +its favor. And for this and many other reasons, the I. W. W. is fighting +the fight of the bottom dog. For the very reason that Gompers is +glorified by Wall Street, Bill Haywood is despised by Wall Street. What +you need is greater organization.</p> + +<p>"In the shop is where the industrial union has its beginning. Organize. +Define your capacity. Act together. And when you organize industrially +you will soon learn that you can manage industrially as well as operate +industry. You will find that you do not have to take work from them; you +give them work to do. You can dispense with them. You ought to own your +own tools. Organize industrially. Make the organization complete. Unite +in the Socialist party. Vote as you organize. Stand with your party. See +that that improves the working class, especially this year when the +forces will clash as they have never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> clashed before. Take your place in +the ranks. Help to inspire the weak and strengthen the faltering. Then, +when we vote together we will develop the supreme power of the one class +that can bring peace in the world. We will transfer the title deeds of +the railroads, of the telegraphs, the mines and the mills. We will +transfer them to the people. We will take possession in the name of the +people. We will have industrial, social and political democracy. This +change will be universal.</p> + +<p>"And now for all of us to do our duty. The call is ringing in your ears. +Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be +concerned about the treason that involves yourself. This year we are +going to sweep into power and in this nation we are going to destroy +capitalistic institutions and recreate them.... The world of capital is +collapsing. We need industrial builders. We Socialists are the builders +of the world that is to be. We are inviting you this afternoon. Join and +it will help you.</p> + +<p>"In due course of time we will proclaim the emancipation of the +brotherhood of all mankind."</p> + + +<h3>3. THE DAY BEFORE THE TRIAL</h3> + +<p>These were the essential parts of the speech which Debs made at Canton. +He was indicted. On Monday, September 9th, the case went to trial in +Cleveland.</p> + +<p>I happened to be out West at the time, and on Sunday, September 8th, I +had the opportunity of spending the afternoon with Debs and his attorney +and of hearing him review the case. The case was discussed, the +attorneys presenting the various possibilities. Debs made it quite clear +that there was only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> one thing he could do and that was to repeat his +Canton speech. He said, "I have nothing to take back. All I said I +believe to be true. I have no reason to change my mind. I have no reason +to change my position." His lawyers and he knew on Sunday that the +following week would see him sentenced to the penitentiary.</p> + +<p>He spoke of it in his quiet way as his simple opportunity to serve the +cause. He said that he had always felt like a member of the rank and +file, and now he had his chance to travel along the road the ordinary +man had to follow, under ordinary circumstances—to go right on along +the road and ignore the difficulties that were ahead. He was an old man, +broken in health, facing, without flinching, without budging an eyelid, +a possibility of twenty years in jail.</p> + +<p>I remember leaving the Hotel that afternoon and walking down to the +station and saying to myself: "If that man can behave as he does, there +is surely no excuse for us younger chaps," and I felt then as I have +felt ever since that I never in my life came in contact with so radiant +a spirit as I did that afternoon when Debs was getting ready to take his +place in the Federal Court and receive a penitentiary sentence.</p> + + +<h3>4. DEBS ADDRESSES THE JURY</h3> + +<p>When the prosecution had finished with its case, the defense rested, and +Debs addressed the jury in his own behalf. In that speech to the jury he +said again the things that he had said at Canton, and then he added +other things that a jury of old men, who had never heard about +Socialism, should know about the purposes of the Socialist movement. +Here are some of the more important passages as taken from the records +of the court stenographer:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"May it please the Court, and Gentlemen of the Jury:</p> + +<p>"For the first time in my life I appear before a jury in a court of law +to answer to an indictment for crime. I am not a lawyer. I know little +about court procedure, about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I +know only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought against +me, that the Court is to instruct you in the law, and that you are then +to determine by your verdict whether I shall be branded with criminal +guilt and be consigned, perhaps to the end of my life, in a felon's +cell.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour of accusation, nor do +I shrink from the consequences of my utterances or my acts. Standing +before you, charged as I am with crime, I can look the Court in the +face, I can look you in the face, I can look the world in the face, for +in my conscience, in my soul, there is festering no accusation of guilt.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June +16th, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant +these charges. I admit having delivered the speech. I admit the accuracy +of the speech in all of its main features as reported in this +proceeding. There were two distinct reports. They vary somewhat, but +they are agreed upon all of the material statements embodied in that +speech.</p> + +<p>"In what I had to say there, my purpose was to educate the people to +understand something about the social system in which we live, and to +prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly +means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy.</p> + +<p>"From what you heard in the address of counsel for the prosecution, you +might naturally infer that I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> an advocate of force and violence. It +is not true. I have never advocated violence in any form. I always +believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment, and I have +always made my appeal to the reason and to the conscience of the people.</p> + +<p>"I admit being opposed to the present form of government. I admit being +opposed to the present social system. I am doing what little I can, and +have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away +with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small +class and establish in this country an industrial social democracy.</p> + +<p>"In the course of the speech that resulted in this indictment, I am +charged with having expressed sympathy for Kate Richards O'Hare, for +Rose Pastor Stokes, for Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker. I did express +my perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. I have known them for +many years. I have every reason to believe in their integrity, every +reason to look upon them with respect, with confidence, and with +approval.</p> + +<p>"I have been accused of expressing sympathy for the Bolsheviki of +Russia. I plead guilty to the charge. I have read a great deal about the +Bolsheviki of Russia that is not true. I happen to know of my own +knowledge that they have been grossly misrepresented by the press of +this country. Who are these much-maligned revolutionists of Russia? For +years they had been the victims of a brutal Czar. They and their +antecedents were sent to Siberia, lashed with a knout, if they even +dreamed of freedom. At last the hour struck for a great change. The +revolution came. The Czar was overthrown and his infamous régime ended. +What followed? The common people of Russia came into power, the +peasants, the toilers, the soldiers, and they proceeded as best they +could to establish a government of the people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It may be that the much-despised Bolsheviki may fail at last, but let +me say to you that they have written a chapter of glorious history. It +will stand to their eternal credit. Their leaders are now denounced as +criminals and outlaws. Let me remind you that there was a time when +George Washington, who is now revered as the father of his country, was +denounced as a disloyalist, when Sam Adams, who is known to us as the +father of the American Revolution, was condemned as an incendiary, and +Patrick Henry, who delivered that inspired and inspiring oration that +aroused the colonists, was condemned as a traitor.</p> + +<p>"They were misunderstood at the time. They stood true to themselves, and +they won an immortality of gratitude and glory.</p> + +<p>"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are +involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. In +every age there have been a few heroic souls who have been in advance of +their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, sometimes +put to death. Long after their martyrdom monuments were erected to them +and garlands were woven for their graves.</p> + +<p>"I have been accused of having obstructed the war. I admit it. +Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone. When I +think of a cold, glittering steel bayonet being plunged in the white, +quivering flesh of a human being, I recoil with horror. I have often +wondered if I could take the life of my fellow men, even to save my own.</p> + +<p>"Men talk about holy wars. There are none. Let me remind you that it was +Benjamin Franklin who said, 'There was never a good war or a bad peace.'</p> + +<p>"Napoleon Bonaparte was a high authority upon the subject of war. And +when in his last days he was chained to the rock of St. Helena, when he +felt the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> skeleton hand of death reaching for him, he cried out in +horror, 'War is the trade of savages and barbarians.'</p> + +<p>"I have read some history. I know that it is ruling classes that make +war upon one another, and not the people. In all of the history of this +world the people have never yet declared a war. Not one. I do not +believe that really civilized nations would murder one another. I would +refuse to kill a human being on my own account. Why should I at the +command of anyone else or at the command of any power on earth?</p> + +<p>"Twenty centuries ago one appeared upon earth whom we know as the Prince +of Peace. He issued a command in which I believe. He said, 'Love one +another.' He did not say, 'Kill one another,' but 'Love one another.' He +espoused the cause of the suffering poor—just as Rose Pastor Stokes +did, just as Kate Richards O'Hare did—and the poor heard him gladly. It +was not long before he aroused the ill-will and the hatred of the +usurers, the money-changers, the profiteers, the high priests, the +lawyers, the judges, the merchants, the bankers—in a word, the ruling +class. They said of him just what the ruling class says of the Socialist +today. 'He is preaching dangerous doctrine. He is inciting the common +rabble. He is a menace to peace and order.' And they had him arraigned, +tried, convicted, condemned, and they had his quivering body spiked to +the gates of Jerusalem.</p> + +<p>"This has been the tragic history of the race. In the ancient world +Socrates sought to teach some new truths to the people, and they made +him drink the fatal hemlock. It has been true all along the track of the +ages. The men and women who have been in advance, who have had new +ideas, new ideals, who have had the courage to attack the established +order of things, have all had to pay the same penalty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A century and a half ago, when the American colonists were still +foreign subjects, and when there were a few men who had faith in the +common people and believed that they could rule themselves without a +king, in that day to speak against the kings was treason. If you read +Bancroft or any other standard historian, you will find that a great +majority of the colonists believed in the king and actually believed +that he had a divine right to rule over them. They had been taught to +believe that to say a word against the king, to question his so-called +divine right, was sinful. There were ministers who opened their bibles +to prove that it was the patriotic duty of the people to loyally serve +and support the king. But there were a few men in that day who said, 'We +don't need a king. We can govern ourselves.' And they began an agitation +that has been immortalized in history.</p> + +<p>"Washington, Adams, Paine—these were the rebels of their day. At first +they were opposed by the people and denounced by the press. You can +remember that it was Franklin who said to his compeers, 'We have now to +hang together or we'll hang separately bye and bye.' And if the +Revolution had failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been +executed as felons. But it did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of +succeeding, when the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers +were opposed to the form of government in their day. They were +denounced, they were condemned. But they had the moral courage to stand +erect and defy all the storms of detraction; and that is why they are in +history, and that is why the great respectable majority of their day +sleep in forgotten graves. The world does not know they ever lived.</p> + +<p>"At a later time there began another mighty agitation in this country. +It was against an institution that was deemed a very respectable one in +its time, the in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>stitution of chattel slavery, that became all-powerful, +that controlled the president, both branches of congress, the supreme +court, the press, to a very large extent the pulpit. All of the +organized forces of society, all the powers of government, upheld +chattel slavery in that day. And again a few appeared. One of them was +Elijah Lovejoy. Elijah Lovejoy was as much despised in his day as are +the leaders of the I. W. W. in our day. Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in +cold blood in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, simply because he was opposed to +chattel slavery—just as I am opposed to wage slavery. When you go down +the Mississippi River and look up at Alton, you see a magnificent white +shaft erected there in memory of a man who was true to himself and his +convictions of right and duty unto death.</p> + +<p>"It was my good fortune to personally know Wendell Phillips. I heard the +story of his persecution, in part at least, from his own eloquent lips +just a little while before they were silenced in death.</p> + +<p>"William Lloyd Garrison, Garret Smith, Thaddeus Stevens—these leaders +of the abolition movement, who were regarded as monsters of depravity, +were true to the faith and stood their ground. They are all in history. +You are teaching your children to revere their memories, while all of +their detractors are in oblivion.</p> + +<p>"Chattel slavery disappeared. We are not yet free. We are engaged in +another mighty agitation today. It is as wide as the world. It is the +rise of the toiling and producing masses who are gradually becoming +conscious of their interest, their power, as a class, who are organizing +industrially and politically, who are slowly but surely developing the +economic and political power that is to set them free. They are still in +the minority, but they have learned how to wait, and to bide their +time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is because I happen to be in this minority that I stand in your +presence today, charged with crime. It is because I believe as the +revolutionary fathers believed in their day, that a change was due in +the interests of the people, that the time had come for a better form of +government, an improved system, a higher social order, a nobler humanity +and a grander civilization. This minority that is so much misunderstood +and so bitterly maligned, is in alliance with the forces of evolution, +and as certain as I stand before you this afternoon, it is but a +question of time until this minority will become the conquering majority +and inaugurate the greatest change in all of the history of the world. +You may hasten the change; you may retard it; you can no more prevent it +than you can prevent the coming of the sunrise on the morrow.</p> + +<p>"My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn't like what I had to say in +my speech about internationalism. What is there objectionable to +internationalism? If we had internationalism there would be no war. I +believe in patriotism. I have never uttered a word against the flag. I +love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I object only when that flag is +prostituted to base purposes, to sordid ends, by those who, in the name +of patriotism, would keep the people in subjection.</p> + +<p>"I believe, however, in a wider patriotism. Thomas Paine said, 'My +country is the world. To do good is my religion.' Garrison said, 'My +country is the world and all mankind are my countrymen.' That is the +essence of internationalism. I believe in it with all my heart. I +believe that nations have been pitted against nations long enough in +hatred, in strife, in warfare. I believe there ought to be a bond of +unity between all of these nations. I believe that the human race +consists of one great family. I love the people of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> this country, but I +don't hate the people of any country on earth—not even the Germans. I +refuse to hate a human being because he happens to be born in some other +country. Why should I? To me it does not make any difference where he +was born or what the color of his skin may be. Like myself he is the +image of his creator. He is a human being endowed with the same +faculties, he has the same aspirations, he is entitled to the same +rights, and I would infinitely rather serve him and love him than to +hate him and kill him.</p> + +<p>"We hear a great deal about human brotherhood—a beautiful and inspiring +theme. It is preached from a countless number of pulpits. It is vain for +us to preach of human brotherhood while we tolerate this social system +in which we are a mass of warring units, in which millions of workers +have to fight one another for jobs, and millions of business men and +professional men have to fight one another for trade, for practice—in +which we have individual interests and each is striving to care for +himself alone without reference to his fellow men. Human brotherhood is +yet to be realized in this world. It never can be under the +capitalist-competitive system in which we live.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I was opposed to the war. I am perfectly willing, on that count, +to be branded as a disloyalist, and if it is a crime under the American +law punishable by imprisonment for being opposed to human bloodshed, I +am perfectly willing to be clothed in the stripes of a convict and to +end my days in a prison cell.</p> + +<p>"The War of the Revolution was opposed. The Tory press denounced its +leaders as criminals and outlaws. And that is what they were, under the +divine right of a king to rule men.</p> + +<p>"The War of 1812 was opposed and condemned;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> the Mexican War was +bitterly condemned by Abraham Lincoln, by Charles Sumner, by Daniel +Webster and by Henry Clay. That war took place under the Polk +administration. These men denounced the President; they condemned his +administration; and they said that the war was a crime against humanity. +They were not indicted; they were not tried for crime. They are honored +today by all of their countrymen. The War of the Rebellion was opposed +and condemned. In 1864 the Democratic Party met in convention at Chicago +and passed a resolution condemning the war as a failure. What would you +say if the Socialist Party were to meet in convention today and condemn +the present war as a failure? You charge us with being disloyalists and +traitors. Were the Democrats of 1864 disloyalists and traitors because +they condemned the war as a failure?</p> + +<p>"I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Isn't it strange +that we Socialists stand almost alone today in defending the +Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers who had +been oppressed under king rule understood that free speech and the right +of free assemblage by the people were the fundamental principles of +democratic government. The very first amendment to the Constitution +reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of +religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the +freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably +to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of +grievances." That is perfectly plain English. It can be understood by a +child. I believe that the revolutionary fathers meant just what is here +stated—that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech +or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, +and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That is the right that I exercised at Canton on the 16th day of last +June; and for the exercise of that right, I now have to answer to this +indictment. I believe in the right of free speech, in war as well as in +peace. I would not, under any circumstances, gag the lips of my +bitterest enemy. I would under no circumstances suppress free speech. It +is far more dangerous to attempt to gag the people than to allow them to +speak freely of what is in their hearts. I do not go as far as Wendell +Phillips did. Wendell Phillips said that the glory of free men is that +they trample unjust laws under their feet. That is how they repeal them. +If a human being submits to having his lips sealed, to be in silence +reduced to vassalage, he may have all else, but he is still lacking in +all that dignifies and glorifies real manhood.</p> + +<p>"Now, notwithstanding this fundamental provision in the national law, +Socialists' meetings have been broken up all over this country. +Socialist speakers have been arrested by hundreds and flung into jail, +where many of them are lying now. In some cases not even a charge was +lodged against them—guilty of no crime except the crime of attempting +to exercise the right guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the +United States.</p> + +<p>"I have told you that I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that I know +enough to know that if Congress enacts any law that conflicts with this +provision in the Constitution, that law is void. If the Espionage law +finally stands, then the Constitution of the United States is dead. If +that law is not the negation of every fundamental principle established +by the Constitution, then certainly I am unable to read or to understand +the English language.</p> + +<p>"War does not come by chance. War is not the result of accident. There +is a definite cause for war, especially a modern war. The war that began +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> Europe can readily be accounted for. For the last forty years, under +this international capitalist system, this exploiting system, these +various nations of Europe have been preparing for the inevitable. And +why? In all these nations the great industries are owned by a relatively +small class. They are operated for the profit of that class. And great +abundance is produced by the workers, but their wages will only buy back +a small part of their product. What is the result? They have a vast +surplus on hand; they have got to export it; they have got to find a +foreign market for it. As a result of this, these nations are pitted +against each other. They begin to arm themselves to open, to maintain +the market and quickly dispose of their surplus. There is but the one +market. All these nations are competitors for it, and sooner or later +every war of trade becomes a war of blood.</p> + +<p>"Now, where there is exploitation there must be some form of militarism +to support it. Wherever you find exploitation you find some form of +military force. In a smaller way you find it in this country. It was +there long before war was declared. For instance, when the miners out in +Colorado entered upon a strike about four years ago, the state militia, +that is under the control of the Standard Oil Company, marched upon a +camp, where the miners and their wives and children were in tents. And +by the way, a report of this strike was issued by the United States +Commission on Industrial Relations. When the soldiers approached the +camp at Ludlow, where these miners, with their wives and children, were, +the miners, to prove that they were patriotic, placed flags above their +tents, and when the state militia, that is paid by Rockefeller and +controlled by Rockefeller, swooped down upon that camp, the first thing +they did was to shoot those United States flags into tatters. Not one +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> them was indicted or tried because he was a traitor to his country. +Pregnant women were killed, and a number of innocent children slain. +This in the United States of America,—the fruit of exploitation. The +miners wanted a little more of what they had been producing. But the +Standard Oil Company wasn't rich enough. It insisted that all they were +entitled to was just enough to keep them in working order. There is +slavery for you. And when at last they protested, when they were +tormented by hunger, when they saw their children in tatters, they were +shot down as if they had been so many vagabond dogs.</p> + +<p>"And while I am upon this point, let me say just another word. Working +men who organize, and who sometimes commit overt acts, are very often +condemned by those who have no conception of the conditions under which +they live. How many men are there, for instance, who know anything of +their own knowledge about how men work in a lumber camp—a logging camp, +a turpentine camp? In this report of the United States Commission on +Industrial Relations, you will find the statement proved that peonage +existed in the state of Texas. Out of these conditions springs such a +thing as the I. W. W.—when men receive a pittance for their pay, when +they work like galley slaves for a wage that barely suffices to keep +their protesting souls within their tattered bodies. When they can +endure the condition no longer, and they make some sort of a +demonstration, or perhaps commit acts of violence, how quickly are they +condemned by those who do not know anything about the conditions under +which they work.</p> + +<p>"Five gentlemen of distinction, among them Professor John Graham Brooks, +of Harvard University, said that a word that so fills the world as the +I. W. W. must have something in it. It must be investigated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> And they +did investigate it, each along their own lines; and I wish it were +possible for every man and woman in this country to read the result of +their investigation. They tell you why and how the I. W. W. was +instituted. They tell you, moreover, that the great corporations, such +as the Standard Oil Company, such as the Coal Trust, and the Lumber +Trust, have, through their agents, committed more crimes against the I. +W. W. than the I. W. W. have ever committed against them.</p> + +<p>"I was asked not long ago if I was in favor of shooting our soldiers in +the back. I said, 'No. I would not shoot them in the back. I wouldn't +shoot them at all. I would not have them shot.' Much has been made of a +statement that I declared that men were fit for something better than +slavery and cannon fodder. I made the statement. I make no attempt to +deny it. I meant exactly what I said. Men are fit for something better +than slavery and cannon fodder; and the time will come, though I shall +not live to see it, when slavery will be wiped from the earth, and when +men will marvel that there ever was a time when men who called +themselves civilized rushed upon each other like wild beasts and +murdered one another, by methods so cruel and barbarous that they defy +the power of language to describe. I can hear the shrieks of the +soldiers of Europe in my dreams. I have imagination enough to see a +battlefield. I can see it strewn with the wrecks of human beings, who +but yesterday were in the flush and glory of their young manhood. I can +see them at eventide, scattered about in remnants, their limbs torn from +their bodies, their eyes gouged out. Yes, I can see them, and I can hear +them. I look above and beyond this frightful scene. I think of the +mothers who are bowed in the shadow of their last great grief—whose +hearts are breaking. And I say to myself:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> 'I am going to do the little +that lies in my power to wipe from this earth that terrible scourge of +war.'</p> + +<p>"If I believed in war I could not be kept out of the first line +trenches. I would not be patriotic at long range. I would be honest +enough, if I believed in bloodshed, to shed my own. But I do not believe +that the shedding of blood bears any actual testimony to patriotism, to +love of country, to civilization. On the contrary, I believe that +warfare in all of its forms is an impeachment of our social order, and a +rebuke to our vaunted Christian civilization.</p> + +<p>"And now, gentlemen of the jury, I am not going to detain you too long. +I wish to admit everything that has been said respecting me from this +witness chair. I wish to admit everything that has been charged against +me except what is embraced in the indictment from which I have read to +you. I cannot take back a word. I cannot repudiate a sentence. I stand +before you guilty of having made this speech. I stand before you +prepared to accept the consequences of what there is embraced in that +speech. I do not know, I cannot tell, what your verdict may be; nor does +it matter much, so far as I am concerned.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, I am the smallest part of this trial. I have lived long +enough to appreciate my own personal insignificance in relation to a +great issue, that involves the welfare of the whole people. What you may +choose to do to me will be of small consequence after all. I am not on +trial here. There is an infinitely greater issue that is being tried +today in this court, though you may not be conscious of it. American +institutions are on trial here before a court of American citizens. The +future will tell."</p> + + +<h3>5. DEBS TALKS TO THE JUDGE</h3> + +<p>The jury found Eugene Debs guilty and on Saturday morning the judge +pronounced sentence. Before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> the sentence was given, Debs had another +opportunity to tell someone about Socialism—this time it was the judge.</p> + +<p>Debs never loses a chance. When the clerk asked him whether he had +anything to say he made another Socialist speech. Said he:</p> + +<p>"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, +and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest of +earth. I said then, I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am +in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a +soul in prison, I am not free....</p> + +<p>"If the law under which I have been convicted is a good law, then there +is no reason why sentence should not be pronounced upon me. I listened +to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this +law, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon it as a despotic +enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the +spirit of free institutions.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form +of our present Government; that I am opposed to the social system in +which we live; that I believed in the change of both—but by perfectly +peaceable and orderly means.</p> + +<p>"Let me call your attention to the fact this morning that in this system +five per cent. of our people own and control two-thirds of our wealth, +sixty-five per cent. of the people, embracing the working class who +produce all wealth, have but five per cent. to show for it.</p> + +<p>"Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen, I went to +work in the railroad shops; at sixteen, I was firing a freight engine on +a railroad. I remember all the hardships, all the privations, of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +earlier day, and from that time until now, my heart has been with the +working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred +to go to prison. The choice has been deliberately made. I could not have +done otherwise. I have no regret.</p> + +<p>"In the struggle—the unceasing struggle—between the toilers and +producers and their exploiters, I have tried, as best I might, to serve +those among whom I was born, with whom I expect to share my lot until +the end of my days.</p> + +<p>"I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am +thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out +their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of +their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the +remorseless grasp of mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, +there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body +and soul. I can see them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little lives +broken, and their hopes blasted, because in this high noon of our +twentieth century civilization, money is still so much more important +than human life. Gold is god and rules in the affairs of men. The little +girls, and there are a million of them in this country—this, the most +favored land beneath the bending skies, a land in which we have vast +areas of rich and fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible +abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, millions of +eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce an +abundance for every man, woman and child—and if there are still many +millions of our people who are the victims of poverty, whose life is a +ceaseless struggle all the way from youth to age, until at last death +comes to their rescue and stills the aching heart, and lulls the victim +to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty, it can't be +charged to nature; it is due<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> entirely to an outgrown social system that +ought to be abolished, not only in the interest of the working class, +but in a higher interest of all humanity.</p> + +<p>"I think of these little children—the girls that are in the textile +mills of all description in the East, in the cotton factories of the +South—I think of them at work in a vitiated atmosphere. I think of them +at work when they ought to be at play or at school; I think that when +they do grow up, if they live long enough to approach the marriage +state, they are unfit for it. Their nerves are worn out, their tissue is +exhausted, their vitality is spent. They have been fed to industry. +Their lives have been coined into gold. Their offspring are born tired. +That is why there are so many failures in our modern life.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor, the five per cent. of the people that I have made reference +to, constitute that element that absolutely rules our country. They +privately own all our public necessities. They wear no crowns; they +wield no sceptres, they sit upon no thrones; and yet they are our +economic masters and our political rulers. They control this Government +and all of its institutions. They control the courts.</p> + +<p>"The five per cent. of our people who own and control all of the sources +of wealth, all of the nation's industries, all of the means of our +common life—it is they who declare war; it is they who make peace; it +is they who control our industry. And so long as this is true, we can +make no just claim to being a democratic government—a self-governing +people.</p> + +<p>"I believe, your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation +ought to own and control its industries. I believe, as all Socialists +do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly +owned—that industry, the basis of life, instead of being the private +property of the few and operated for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> their enrichment, ought to be the +common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of +all.</p> + +<p>"John D. Rockefeller has today an income of sixty million dollars a +year, five million dollars a month, two hundred thousand dollars a day. +He does not produce a penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller +personally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he were in need, and +it were in my power to serve him, I should serve him as gladly as I +would any other human being, I have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller +personally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply opposing a social +order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing +that is useful, to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, +while millions of men and women who work all of the days of their lives +secure barely enough for existence.</p> + +<p>"This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest +against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but fortunately I +am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, +have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of +civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and +co-operative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic +and political movement that is spread over the face of all the earth.</p> + +<p>"There are today upwards of sixty million Socialists, loyal, devoted, +adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color +or sex. They are all making common cause. They are all spreading the +propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching and +working through all the weary hours of the day and night. They are still +in the minority.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> They have learned how to be patient and abide their +time. They feel—they know indeed—that the time is coming in spite of +all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will +spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the +triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest +change in history.</p> + +<p>"In that day we will have the universal commonwealth—not the +destruction of the nation, but, on the contrary, the harmonious +co-operation of every nation on earth. In that day war will curse this +earth no more.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor, I ask no mercy. I plead for no immunity. I realize that +finally the right must prevail. I never more clearly comprehended than +now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and +upon the other the rising hosts of freedom.</p> + +<p>"I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are +awakening. In due course of time they will come to their own.</p> + +<p>"When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his +weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning +luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the +southern cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their +places, and with starry fingerpoints the Almighty marks the passage of +time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad +tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing—that relief +and rest are close at hand.</p> + +<p>"Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is +bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning....</p> + +<p>"Your Honor, I thank you, and I thank all of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> court for their +courtesy, for their kindness, which I shall remember always.</p> + +<p>"I am prepared to receive your sentence."</p> + +<p>Whereupon the judge sentenced Eugene Debs to ten years in the West +Virginia Penitentiary—the penitentiary at Atlanta being too crowded to +receive him.</p> + + +<h3>6. THE APPEAL</h3> + +<p>An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States and was +argued on the ground that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional. No act +was charged against Debs, except the Canton speech. In that speech he +had simply stated what he had said a thousand times before, but the +Court held that under the Espionage Act a man who made a speech, the +probable result of which was to create mutiny or to hinder recruiting +and enlistment—was guilty, providing that he did it knowingly and +wilfully. The jury had to decide, first, that he had done something the +probable result of which was to create mutiny or to hinder recruiting +and enlistment, and then if he had done it, that it was done with +intent, knowingly and wilfully. The jury had found Debs guilty under +these circumstances.</p> + +<p>Debs was an American, and as an American he relied upon a certain +guarantee contained in the First Amendment to the Constitution: +"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or +prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of +speech or of the press, or the right of the people peacefully to +assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." +Debs, as an American citizen, relied upon that guarantee, and his +lawyers, in making the appeal, relied upon that guarantee.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> + +<p>Over and against that guarantee was the Espionage Act passed originally +in 1917—June 15th—and amended June 16, 1918.</p> + +<p>The language of the original act was as follows:</p> + +<p>(Title I, Sec. 3.) "Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall (1) +wilfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to +interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces +of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies, and +whoever, when the United States is at war, (2) shall wilfully cause or +attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of +duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall (3) +wilfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United +States, to the injury of the service or of the United States, shall be +punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more +than twenty years, or both."</p> + +<p>The Amended Act was far more drastic:</p> + +<p>"Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall wilfully make or +convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with +the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United +States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall wilfully make +or convey false reports or false statements, or say or do anything +except by way of bona fide and not disloyal advice to an investor or +investors, with intent to obstruct the sale by the United States of +bonds or other securities of the United States or the making of loans by +or to the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, +shall wilfully cause, or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to +incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the +military or naval forces of the United States, or shall wilfully +obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of +the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall +wilfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, +scurrilous or abusive language about the form of government of the +United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the +military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United +States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States, or any +language intended to bring the form of government of the United States, +or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval +forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the +uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, +contumely, or disrepute, or shall wilfully utter, print, write or +publish any language intended to incite, provoke or encourage resistance +to the United States or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall +wilfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall wilfully, by +utterance, writing, printing, publication or language spoken, urge, +incite or advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any +thing or things, product or products, necessary or essential to the +prosecution of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with +intent by such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the +prosecution of the war, and whoever shall wilfully advocate, teach, +defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this +section enumerated, and whoever shall, by word or act, support or favor +the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by +word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be +punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more +than twenty years, or both." ...</p> + +<p>There you have both pieces of legislation. On the one hand, the +Constitution provides immunity, and on the other hand, the Espionage Act +provides a penalty for the expression of opinion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Supreme Court on the 10th of March handed down its decision. The +decision was read by Justice Holmes and concurred in by the entire +court.</p> + + +<h3>7. THE SUPREME COURT DECISION</h3> + +<p>The substance of the decision is contained in the following sentences:</p> + +<p>"The main theme of the speech was Socialism, its growth and a prophecy +of its ultimate success. With that we have nothing to do, but if a part +or the manifest intent of the more general utterances was to encourage +those present to obstruct recruiting service, and if in passages such +encouragement was directly given, the immunity of the general theme may +not be enough to protect the speech."</p> + +<p>Justice Holmes concludes, after a review of the case, that the immunity, +under the First Amendment, did not protect the speech. In that argument, +he referred to a decision which had been handed down on the 3rd of March +known as the Schenck Case—another Espionage Act case—in which this +point concerning the immunity under the First Amendment was stated at +length by Justice Holmes in this language:</p> + +<p>"We admit that in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants +would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of +every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.... The +question in every case is whether the words used are used in such +circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present +danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress +has a right to prevent."</p> + +<p>That is the Debs decision. That is the method in which the Supreme Court +handled the popular liberties guaranteed under the First Amendment. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +Court might have thrown the Espionage Act out under the First Amendment +as it threw out the Child Labor Law. The Court might have ruled this act +unconstitutional. The Court did not decide that Congress had no right to +pass the Espionage Act. The Court did decide that since Congress had +passed the Espionage Act, Debs had no right to make his speech. What are +the implications of this position of the Supreme Court? "Congress shall +make no law abridging the freedom of speech," says the Constitution. +Congress passed a law abridging the freedom of speech, and the Supreme +Court holds that the Courts, in interpreting the Constitution, must bear +in mind the law that Congress has passed. We had thought that the +Constitutional guarantee was superior to any law that Congress might +pass, but the Court specifically holds in the Schenck Case that if "the +words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to +create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the +substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent," then the First +Amendment affords no protection.</p> + +<p>Congress is made the arbiter. Congress now decides what may be said and +what may not be said.</p> + +<p>This means that the Constitution does not guarantee personal liberty. +Speech is free, if you keep within the laws passed by Congress, not +otherwise. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech," +declares the Constitution. Speech is free, says the Court, if you obey +the laws passed by Congress. What is the result? If the United States +enters the League of Nations as a constituent part of it, and if the +League of Nations carries on a series of minor wars, this country will +be at war perhaps for fifty years, and during that time free speech will +be banned under this decision of the Supreme Court; during that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> time +the Espionage Act will operate; there will be no free speech in the +United States.</p> + +<p>Congress—under this decision—might pass a law making it a crime to +advocate the establishment of industrial democracy in the United States, +and from the time that law was passed, any man who advocated industrial +democracy in the United States would have no immunity under the First +Amendment.</p> + +<p>Congress might pass a law making it a crime to demand that the Courts of +the United States be abolished, and from that time no person could +advocate the abolition of the United States Courts without violating the +law.</p> + +<p>Congress might make it a criminal offense to criticize the President and +from that day forward no person could criticize the President without +violating the law.</p> + +<p>This decision makes Congress, not the Constitution, the arbiter of the +limits of freedom of expression; therefore, we must conclude that +neither the Courts of the United States, nor the Constitution of the +United States can be relied upon to guarantee the American people the +right of free speech. Thus freedom of discussion is ended. Democracy in +the United States is dead. The Supreme Court on the 10th of March, in +the Debs' case, wrote its epitaph.</p> + +<p>A little thought will reveal the seriousness of the situation. A little +reflection will show the position in which the American people find +themselves, with regard to personal liberties, since the tenth of March, +1919.</p> + + +<h3>8. THE CLASS STRUGGLE AGAIN!</h3> + +<p>Classes have come and classes have gone down through the pages of +history. Whenever the position<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> of a ruling class has been threatened, +the ruling class has crucified the truth-tellers.</p> + +<p>Compared with the necessity of protecting ruling class privileges and +prerogatives, the right of a man to express his mind goes for nothing. +That is the lesson of history and that is what we are witnessing today. +Men who have stirred up the people; men who have raised their voices in +protest; men who thought straight; men who have loved their fellow men +too much; men who have had conviction and courage and purpose; men who +were willing to stick by their ideals—such men have suffered in every +age.</p> + +<p>Eugene V. Debs has stirred up the people all his life. Since he was a +boy firing a locomotive engine, he has been an agitator. He has always +stood for justice, for liberty and brotherhood. He has loved his fellow +men; he has been gentle and sincere; he has been devoted to what he +regards as the greatest cause in the world. On this war he has stood +like granite, unwavering and unflinching, voicing the protest of the +masses who had no voice with which to speak. He has uttered what they +believed.</p> + +<p>The preachers who deserted their flocks; the teachers who betrayed their +trust; the editors who took their 30 pieces of silver in these last few +years—they are free; they are honored; they are respected. But this man +who thought straight; who loved his fellows, who spoke his convictions; +who was true to his ideals—this man is permitted to go to jail by the +Supreme Court of the United States.</p> + +<p>I have seen the Supreme Court and I have seen Eugene V. Debs. From the +Supreme Court I got neither love nor inspiration; from Debs I got both.</p> + +<p>In his generation in the United States, there is not a greater man than +Eugene V. Debs—not because of what he has done, but because of what he +is, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> the history of this generation is written, that fact will +be recorded.</p> + +<p>The masters in all ages have put men like Debs in jail because it is the +truth-teller that the masters fear most. They fear the Truth; they fear +the Light; they fear Justice; and the man who turns on the Light and +speaks the Truth and cries out for Justice—is their greatest enemy. So +they have always tried this process of putting ideas into jail.</p> + + +<h3>9. PUTTING IDEAS IN JAIL</h3> + +<p>Years ago, when the Mexican War was being fought, an American named +Henry D. Thoreau refused to pay his war tax. He did not believe in the +war and he refused to support the Government that prosecuted the war. So +they put Thoreau in jail. Later he wrote about his experience:</p> + +<p>"As I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet +thick, and the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating +which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the +foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh +and blood and bones, to be locked up....</p> + +<p>"I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax....</p> + +<p>"I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on +my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, +and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, +they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come +at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog.</p> + +<p>"I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> timid as a lone +woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from +its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.</p> + +<p>"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a +just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which +Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is +in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own +act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is +there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and +the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on +that separate but more free and honorable ground, where the State places +those who are not with her but against her—the only house in a slave +State on which a free man can abide with honor.</p> + +<p>"If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices +no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an +enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger +than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat +injustice who has experienced a little in his own person.</p> + +<p>"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State +comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, +from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him +accordingly."</p> + + +<h3>10. THE SUPREME COURT COULD NOT SAVE SLAVERY</h3> + +<p>Once before the Supreme Court of the United States tried to save a +decaying social institution—the institution of Slavery. There was a +slave named Dred Scott.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> He was owned by a resident of Missouri. He was +taken into Minnesota and into Illinois. Illinois was a free State by its +own laws. Minnesota was free by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Then +his master took Dred Scott back to Missouri, and there Dred Scott tried +to gain his freedom. The case was finally decided by the Supreme Court +of the United States in 1857.</p> + +<p>The Supreme Court held (two justices dissenting) that Scott could not +sue in the lower courts because he was not a citizen and, therefore, was +not entitled to any standing in the courts; that at the time of the +formation of the Constitution, negroes descended from negro slaves were +not and could not be citizens in any of the States; and that there was +no power in the existing form of Government to make citizens of such +persons. In the course of his decision, Judge Taney used the following +language:</p> + +<p>"It is difficult, at this day, to realize the state of public opinion +which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world +at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the +Constitution was framed and adopted in relation to that unfortunate +race. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a +manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before +been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to +associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; +and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was +bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be +reduced to slavery for his benefit. He has been bought and sold and +treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a +profit could be made by it. The opinion was at that time fixed and +universal in the civilized portion of the white race."</p> + +<p>The Chief Justice went farther than the point at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> issue warranted, and +stated that the power of Congress to govern territory was subordinate to +its obligation to protect private rights in property and that slaves +were property and as such were protected by the constitutional +guarantees; that Congress had no power to prohibit the citizens of any +State to carry into any territory slaves or any other property, and that +Congress had no power to impair the constitutional protection of such +property while thus held in a territory.</p> + +<p>The Dred Scott decision fastened Slavery forever upon the United States. +Slavery lasted just six years.</p> + + +<h3>11. MORE PATCH WORK!</h3> + +<p>At the present time, Capitalism is tottering to its downfall. The world +is in chaos and revolution. The Supreme Court has handed down a decision +which ostensibly will assist in preserving established order, but the +United States is a Capitalist nation and, as Mr. Wilson himself has so +admirably put it:</p> + +<p>"The masters of the Government of the United States are the combined +capitalists and manufacturers of the United States." ("New Freedom," +page 57.)</p> + +<p>Capitalism is disappearing from Europe—Russia, Germany, Austria, +Bohemia, Hungary—the list is growing from week to week. When the +President came back on his little visit to America there was one new +thing that he said, and only one new thing:</p> + +<p>"The men who are in conference in Paris realize as keenly as any +Americans can realize that they are not the masters of their people." +(Boston, February 24th, 1919.)</p> + +<p>"When I speak of the nations of the world, I do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> not speak of the +governments of the world. I speak of the peoples who constitute the +nations of the world. They are in the saddle, and they are going to see +to it that if present governments do not do their will, some other +government shall, and the secret is out and the present governments know +it." (Boston, February 24th.)</p> + +<p>"I want to utter this solemn warning, not in the way of a threat; the +forces of the world do not threaten, they operate. The great tides of +the world do not give notice that they are going to rise and run; they +rise in their majesticity and overwhelming might and they who stand in +the way are overwhelmed. Now the heart of the world is awake and the +heart of the world must be satisfied. Do not let yourselves suppose for +a moment that the uneasiness in the populations of Europe is due +entirely to economic causes and economic motives; something very much +deeper underlies it all than that. They see that their governments have +never been able to defend them against intrigue or aggression, and that +there is no force of foresight or of prudence in any modern cabinet to +stop war." (New York, March 4th, 1919.)</p> + +<p>Then comes Mr. Wm. Allen White on the 11th of March with a similar +statement. On the next day comes Mr. Lansing with the statement that +unless something is done and done quickly, the capitalist system in +Europe will be overthrown. The world is in chaos. The fabric of +civilization is threatened. The health and happiness—the very life of +the world—is threatened.</p> + +<p>And those who speak particularly of those things; those who are seeking +to warn, to prepare the people; those who attempt to preach law and +order; who oppose war; who believe in peace—those who are attempting to +serve the interests of humanity—go to jail for ten years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<p>The highest authority in the United States has served notice on the +American people that from it they can hope for nothing in the way of +preservation of their liberties. Their liberties are dead. Well may +those Americans who still have in their souls a spark of the old fire, +turn back 143 years and read these words from the Declaration of +Independence:</p> + +<p>"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created +equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable +rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. +That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, +deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that +whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is +the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new +government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing +its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect +their safety and happiness."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="ad"> + +<h3 class="ad">THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE</h3> + +<p class="center"> + Local Department <span class="ad1">Correspondence Dept.</span><br /> +Full-Time Department <span class="ad2">Research Department</span><br /> +Library and Reading Room</p> + +<p class="center"> +ALGERNON LEE, <span class="ad2">BERTHA H. 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Enclosure of<br /> +stamps for reply will be greatly appreciated.</p> + +<p class="center">Address: 7 East 15th Street, New York.</p> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Debs Decision, by Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEBS DECISION *** + +***** This file should be named 20666-h.htm or 20666-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/6/20666/ + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Tamise Totterdell, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Debs Decision + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: February 25, 2007 [EBook #20666] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEBS DECISION *** + + + + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Tamise Totterdell, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +THE DEBS DECISION + +_By_ + +SCOTT NEARING + + +Published by + +THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE + +New York City + + + + +Copyright + +RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE + +7 East 15th Street + +New York + +1919 + + + + +THE DEBS DECISION + +_By_ + +SCOTT NEARING + + + + +1. THE SUPREME COURT + + +The Supreme Court of the United States on March 10, 1919, handed down a +decision on the Debs case. That decision is far-reaching in its +immediate significance and still more far-reaching in its ultimate +implications. + +What is the Supreme Court of the United States? + +Article III, Section I of the Constitution provides as follows: + +"The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme +Court.... The judges shall hold their offices during good behavior." + +The judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate +(Article XII, Section II). That is all the constitution provides with +regard to the Supreme Court. + +At the present time, there are nine judges on the Supreme bench. It +might interest you to know some facts about the nine. All of the judges +are men. The chief justice is Edward D. White, who was born in 1845 and +admitted to the bar in 1868. He is seventy-three years of age. His +birth-place was Louisiana. He served in the Confederate Army, in the +State Senate, in the State Supreme Court and in the United States +Senate. He has been a member of the Supreme Court for twenty-five years. +Joseph McKenna is the second member in point of seniority. He was born +in 1843. His birth-place is Philadelphia. He was a county District +Attorney, a member of the State Legislature, a member of the national +House of Representatives, attorney-general of the United States and a +United States Circuit Judge. He has been a member of the Supreme Court +for twenty-two years. Oliver W. Holmes, the Justice who read the Debs +decision, was born in Boston in 1841. He is seventy-seven years of age. +He was admitted to the bar in 1866. Justice Holmes served in the Union +Army; he was a member of the Harvard Law School Faculty. He has been a +member of the Supreme Court for seventeen years. Those are the three +oldest men on the Supreme bench. They are the three men who have been on +the bench longest, but their political background is typical of the +political background of the other members of the Supreme Court, with the +single exception of Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who as far as I know, +held no public office at all before he was appointed a justice of the +Supreme Court three years ago. + +The nine members of the Supreme Court are all old men. Four of them were +born before 1850; eight of them were born before 1860; one of them was +born since 1861, that is, James C. McReynolds, who was born in 1862. +There is not a single member of the Supreme Court bench born since the +Civil War. The oldest man on the bench is Justice Holmes, seventy-seven; +the youngest man on the bench is Justice McReynolds, fifty-seven; the +average age of the justices of the Supreme Court is sixty-six years. +These men all began practising law while we were children, or before we +were born. Three of them began the practice of law before 1870; six of +them began to practice law before 1880; nine of them before 1884. The +last member of the Supreme bench to be admitted to the practice of law, +Justice McReynolds, was admitted in 1884. + +The Supreme Court Justices were educated in the generation preceding the +modern epoch of financial imperialism. They were mature when the +industrial order as we know it today, was established. They are the men +whose word is the word of final authority in all the affairs concerning +the government of the United States. + +The Supreme Court, not because the Constitution grants it the power, but +because successive decisions of the Court have established that +precedent, has the right to veto any piece of legislation passed by +Congress and signed by the President. The Supreme Court is the voice of +final authority in the affairs of the government of the United States. +After it has spoken, there is no further authority under the machinery +of this government. + +The Debs Case came before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has given +its decision. Eugene Debs goes to jail for ten years. Under the existing +order of government, there is no appeal from this decision, except an +appeal to arbitrary executive clemency. + + +2. THE CANTON SPEECH + +The Debs Case arose over a speech made by Debs in Canton, Ohio, June +16th, 1918. The speech was made before the State Socialist Convention, +where Debs was talking to his comrades in the Socialist movement. The +main parts of this speech, as printed in the indictment under which Debs +was convicted, are as follows: + +"I have just returned from a visit from yonder (pointing to workhouse) +were three of our most loyal comrades are paying the penalty for their +devotion to the cause of the working class. They have come to realize, +as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the +constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make +democracy safe for the world. I realize in speaking to you this +afternoon that there are certain limitations placed upon the right of +free speech. I must be extremely careful, prudent, as to what I say, and +even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to +say all I think, but I am not going to say anything I do not think. And +I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than a sycophant +or coward on the streets. They may put those boys in jail and some of +the rest of us in jail, but they cannot put the Socialist movement in +jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their souls +are here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all men +have paid in all of the ages of history for standing erect and seeking +to pave the way for better conditions for mankind. + +"If it had not been for the men and women who, in the past, have had the +moral courage to go to jail, we would still be in the jungles. + +"Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of the greatest +triumph of all the history of the Socialist movement? It is true that +these are anxious, trying days for us all, testing those who are +upholding the banner of the working class in the greatest struggle the +world has ever known against the exploiters of the world; a time in +which the weak, the cowardly, will falter and fail and desert. They lack +the fibre to endure the revolutionary test. They fall away. They +disappear as if they had never been. + +"On the other hand, they who are animated with the unconquerable spirit +of the social revolution, they who have the moral courage to stand +erect, to assert their convictions, to stand by them, to go to jail or +to hell for them--they are writing their names in this crucial hour, +they are writing their names in fadeless letters in the history of +mankind. Those boys over yonder, those comrades of ours--and how I love +them--aye, they are our younger brothers, their names are seared in our +souls. + +"I am proud of them. They are there for us and we are here for them. +Their lips, though temporarily mute, are more eloquent than ever before, +and their voices, though silent, are heard around the world. + +"Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? Why, we have been fighting it +since the day the Socialistic movement was born and we are going to +continue to fight it today and until it is wiped from the face of the +earth. + +"The other day they sent a woman to Wichita Penitentiary for ten years. +Just think of sentencing a woman to the penitentiary for talking. The +United States under the rule of the plutocrats is the only country which +would send a woman to the penitentiary for ten years for exercising the +right to free speech. If this be treason, let them make the most of it. +Let me review another bit of history. I have known this woman for ten +years. Personally I know her as if she were my own younger sister. She +is a woman of absolute integrity. She is a woman of courage. She is a +woman of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist movement. She went out +into Dakota and made her speech, followed by plain-clothes men in the +service of the government, intent upon encompassing her arrest, +prosecuted and convicted. She made a certain speech and that speech was +deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of securing her conviction. +The only testimony was that of a hired witness. And thirty farmers who +went to Bismarck to testify in her favor, the judge refused to allow to +testify. This would seem incredible to me if I had not some experience +of my own with a Federal Court. Who appoints the Federal Courts? The +people? Every solitary one of them holds his position through influence +and power of corporation capital. And when they go to the bench, they go +there not to serve the people, but to serve the interests who sent them. +The other day, by a vote of five to four, they declared the Child Labor +Law unconstitutional; a law secured after twenty years of education and +agitation by all kinds of people, and yet by a majority of one, the +Supreme Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one solitary +exception, wiped it from the Statute books, so that we may still +continue to grind the blood of little children into profit for the +Junkers of Wall Street, and this in a country that is now fighting to +make democracy safe for the world. These are not palatable truths to +them. And they do not want you to hear them and that is why they brand +us as traitors and disloyalists. If we were not traitors to the people, +we would be eminently respectable citizens and ride in limousines. It is +precisely because we are disloyal to the traitors that we are not +disloyal to the people of this country. + +"How short-sighted the ruling is. The exploiter cannot see beyond the +end of his nose. He has just been cunning enough to know what graft is +and where it is, but he has no vision. You know this is a great +throbbing world that speaks out in all directions. Look at Rockefeller. +Every move he makes hastens the coming of his doom. Every time the +capitalist class tries to hinder the cause of Socialism they hurt +themselves. Every time they strangle a Socialist newspaper they add a +thousand voices to those which are aiding Socialism. The Socialist has a +great idea. An expanding philosophy. It is spreading over the face of +the earth. It is as useless to resist it as it is to resist the rising +sun. Can you see it? If you cannot you are lacking in vision, in +understanding. What a privilege it is to serve it. I have regretted a +thousand times I can do so little for the movement that has done so much +for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping to be, is due +wholly to the Socialist movement. It gave me my ideas and my ideals, and +I would not exchange one of them for all the Rockefeller blood-stained +dollars. It taught me how to serve; a lesson to me of priceless value. +It taught the ecstasy of the handclasp of the comrade. It made it +possible for me to get in touch with you, to multiply myself over and +over again; to open the avenue, to spread out the glorious vistas; to +know that I am kin with all that throbs; with all who become class +conscious. Every man who toils, everyone of them, is my comrade. To +serve them is the highest duty of my life. And in the service I can feel +myself expanding. I rise to the stature of a man. Yes, my heart is +attuned to yours. All of our hearts are melted into one great heart +which throbs to the response of the people. + +"Here I hear your heart beats responsive to the Bolsheviki of Russia. +(Applause) Yes, those heroic men and women, those unconquerable +comrades, who have by their sacrifice added fresh lustre to the +international movement. Those Russian comrades who have made greater +sacrifices, who have suffered more, who have shed more heroic blood than +any like number of men and women anywhere else on earth. They have led +the first real convention of any democracy that ever drew breath. The +first act of that memorable revolution was to proclaim a state of peace +with an appeal not to the kings, not to the rulers, but an appeal to the +people of all nations. They are the very breath of democracy; the +quintessence of freedom. They made their appeal to the people of all +nations, the Allies as well as the Central Powers, to send +representatives to lay down terms of a peace that should be lasting. +Here was a fine opportunity to strike a blow to make democracy safe to +the world. Was there any response to that noble appeal? And here let me +say that appeal will be written in letters of gold in the history of the +world. While it has been charged that the leaders made a traitorous +peace with Germany, let us consider this proposition briefly. At the +time of the revolution, Russia had lost 4,000,000 of her soldiers. She +was absolutely bankrupt. Her soldiers were without arms. This was what +was bequeathed to the revolution by the Czar. For this condition, Leon +Trotsky was not responsible nor was the Bolshevik movement, but the Czar +was. + +"When Leon Trotsky came into power, he found the secret treaties made +between the French government and the British government and the Italian +government which was to divide the territory of the Central Powers if +the Allies were victorious, and these secret treaties have not been +repudiated up to this time. Very little has been said about them in the +American newspapers. This shows that the purpose of the Allies is +exactly the purpose of the Central Powers. + +"Wars have been waged for conquests, for plunder, and since the feudal +ages, the feudal lords along the Rhine made war upon each other. They +wanted to enlarge their domains, to increase their power and their +wealth and so they declared war upon each other. But they did not go to +war any more than the Wall Street Junkers go to war. Their predecessors +declared the wars, but their miserable serfs fought the wars. The serfs +believed that it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another, to +wage war upon one another. And that is war in a nut shell. The master +class has always brought a war, and the subject class has fought the +battle. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, and +the subject class has had all to lose and nothing to gain. They have +always taught you that it is your patriotic duty to go to war and +slaughter yourselves at their command. You have never had a voice in the +war. The working class who made the sacrifices, who shed the blood, have +never yet had a voice in declaring war. The ruling class has always made +the war and made the peace. + + "Yours not to question why, + Yours but to do and die. + +"Another bit of history I want to review is that of Rose Pastor Stokes, +another inspiring comrade. She had her millions of dollars. Her devotion +to the cause is without all consideration of a financial or economic +view. She went out to render service to the cause and they sent her to +the penitentiary for ten years. What has she said? Nothing more than I +have said here this afternoon. I want to say that if Rose Pastor Stokes +is guilty, so am I. If she should be sent to the penitentiary for ten +years, so ought I. What did she say? She said that a government could +not serve both the profiteers and the employees of the profiteers. +Roosevelt has said a thousand times more in his paper, the _Kansas City +Star_. He would do everything possible to discredit Wilson's +administration in order to give his party credit. The Republican and +Democratic parties are all patriots this fall and they are going to +combine to prevent the election of any disloyal Socialists. Do you know +of any difference between them? One is in, the other is out. That is all +the difference. + +"Rose Pastor Stokes never said a word she did not have a right to utter, +but her message opened the eyes of the people. That must be suppressed. +That voice must be silenced. Her trial in a capitalist court was very +farcical. What chance had she in a corporation court with a put-up jury +and a corporation tool on the bench? + +"Every Socialist on the face of the earth is animated by the same +principles. Everywhere they have the same noble idea, everywhere they +are calling one another 'comrade,' the noblest word that springs from +the heart and soul of unity. The word 'comrade' is getting us into +closer touch all along the battle line. They are waging the war of the +working class against the ruling class of the world. They conquer +difficulties; they grow stronger through them all. + +"The heart of the international Socialist never beats a retreat. They +are pressing forward here, there, everywhere, in all the zones that +girdle this globe. These workers, these class-conscious workers, these +children of honest toil are wiping out the boundary lines everywhere. +They are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation. +Everywhere they are having their hearts attuned to the sacred cause; +everywhere they are moving toward democracy, moving toward the sunrise, +their faces aglow with the light of coming day. These are the men who +must guide us in the greatest crisis the world has ever known. They are +making history. They are bound upon the emancipation of the human race. + +"Few men have the courage to say a decent word in favor of the I. W. W. +I have. (Here several in the crowd yelled, 'So have I.') + +"After long investigation by five men who are not Socialists: John +Graham Brooks, Harvard University; Mr. Bruere, Government investigator +(other names not noted), a pamphlet has been issued called 'The Truth +About the I. W. W.' + +"These men investigated the I. W. W. They have examined its doings, +beginning at Bisbee, Arizona, where the officers deported five hundred. +It is only necessary to label a man, 'I. W. W.' to lynch him. Just think +of the state of mind for which the capitalist press is responsible. + +"When Wall Street yells war, you may rest assured every pulpit in the +land will yell war. The press and the pulpit have in every age and every +nation been on the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class. +That's why the I. W. W. is infamous. + +"The I. W. W. in its career has never committed as much violence against +the ruling class as the ruling class has committed against the people. +The trial at Chicago is now on and they have not proven violence in a +single solitary case, and yet, one hundred and twelve have been on trial +for months and months without a shade of evidence. And this is all in +its favor. And for this and many other reasons, the I. W. W. is fighting +the fight of the bottom dog. For the very reason that Gompers is +glorified by Wall Street, Bill Haywood is despised by Wall Street. What +you need is greater organization. + +"In the shop is where the industrial union has its beginning. Organize. +Define your capacity. Act together. And when you organize industrially +you will soon learn that you can manage industrially as well as operate +industry. You will find that you do not have to take work from them; you +give them work to do. You can dispense with them. You ought to own your +own tools. Organize industrially. Make the organization complete. Unite +in the Socialist party. Vote as you organize. Stand with your party. See +that that improves the working class, especially this year when the +forces will clash as they have never clashed before. Take your place in +the ranks. Help to inspire the weak and strengthen the faltering. Then, +when we vote together we will develop the supreme power of the one class +that can bring peace in the world. We will transfer the title deeds of +the railroads, of the telegraphs, the mines and the mills. We will +transfer them to the people. We will take possession in the name of the +people. We will have industrial, social and political democracy. This +change will be universal. + +"And now for all of us to do our duty. The call is ringing in your ears. +Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be +concerned about the treason that involves yourself. This year we are +going to sweep into power and in this nation we are going to destroy +capitalistic institutions and recreate them.... The world of capital is +collapsing. We need industrial builders. We Socialists are the builders +of the world that is to be. We are inviting you this afternoon. Join and +it will help you. + +"In due course of time we will proclaim the emancipation of the +brotherhood of all mankind." + + +3. THE DAY BEFORE THE TRIAL + +These were the essential parts of the speech which Debs made at Canton. +He was indicted. On Monday, September 9th, the case went to trial in +Cleveland. + +I happened to be out West at the time, and on Sunday, September 8th, I +had the opportunity of spending the afternoon with Debs and his attorney +and of hearing him review the case. The case was discussed, the +attorneys presenting the various possibilities. Debs made it quite clear +that there was only one thing he could do and that was to repeat his +Canton speech. He said, "I have nothing to take back. All I said I +believe to be true. I have no reason to change my mind. I have no reason +to change my position." His lawyers and he knew on Sunday that the +following week would see him sentenced to the penitentiary. + +He spoke of it in his quiet way as his simple opportunity to serve the +cause. He said that he had always felt like a member of the rank and +file, and now he had his chance to travel along the road the ordinary +man had to follow, under ordinary circumstances--to go right on along +the road and ignore the difficulties that were ahead. He was an old man, +broken in health, facing, without flinching, without budging an eyelid, +a possibility of twenty years in jail. + +I remember leaving the Hotel that afternoon and walking down to the +station and saying to myself: "If that man can behave as he does, there +is surely no excuse for us younger chaps," and I felt then as I have +felt ever since that I never in my life came in contact with so radiant +a spirit as I did that afternoon when Debs was getting ready to take his +place in the Federal Court and receive a penitentiary sentence. + + +4. DEBS ADDRESSES THE JURY + +When the prosecution had finished with its case, the defense rested, and +Debs addressed the jury in his own behalf. In that speech to the jury he +said again the things that he had said at Canton, and then he added +other things that a jury of old men, who had never heard about +Socialism, should know about the purposes of the Socialist movement. +Here are some of the more important passages as taken from the records +of the court stenographer: + +"May it please the Court, and Gentlemen of the Jury: + +"For the first time in my life I appear before a jury in a court of law +to answer to an indictment for crime. I am not a lawyer. I know little +about court procedure, about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I +know only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought against +me, that the Court is to instruct you in the law, and that you are then +to determine by your verdict whether I shall be branded with criminal +guilt and be consigned, perhaps to the end of my life, in a felon's +cell. + +"Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour of accusation, nor do +I shrink from the consequences of my utterances or my acts. Standing +before you, charged as I am with crime, I can look the Court in the +face, I can look you in the face, I can look the world in the face, for +in my conscience, in my soul, there is festering no accusation of guilt. + +"Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June +16th, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant +these charges. I admit having delivered the speech. I admit the accuracy +of the speech in all of its main features as reported in this +proceeding. There were two distinct reports. They vary somewhat, but +they are agreed upon all of the material statements embodied in that +speech. + +"In what I had to say there, my purpose was to educate the people to +understand something about the social system in which we live, and to +prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly +means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy. + +"From what you heard in the address of counsel for the prosecution, you +might naturally infer that I am an advocate of force and violence. It +is not true. I have never advocated violence in any form. I always +believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment, and I have +always made my appeal to the reason and to the conscience of the people. + +"I admit being opposed to the present form of government. I admit being +opposed to the present social system. I am doing what little I can, and +have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away +with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small +class and establish in this country an industrial social democracy. + +"In the course of the speech that resulted in this indictment, I am +charged with having expressed sympathy for Kate Richards O'Hare, for +Rose Pastor Stokes, for Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker. I did express +my perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. I have known them for +many years. I have every reason to believe in their integrity, every +reason to look upon them with respect, with confidence, and with +approval. + +"I have been accused of expressing sympathy for the Bolsheviki of +Russia. I plead guilty to the charge. I have read a great deal about the +Bolsheviki of Russia that is not true. I happen to know of my own +knowledge that they have been grossly misrepresented by the press of +this country. Who are these much-maligned revolutionists of Russia? For +years they had been the victims of a brutal Czar. They and their +antecedents were sent to Siberia, lashed with a knout, if they even +dreamed of freedom. At last the hour struck for a great change. The +revolution came. The Czar was overthrown and his infamous regime ended. +What followed? The common people of Russia came into power, the +peasants, the toilers, the soldiers, and they proceeded as best they +could to establish a government of the people. + +"It may be that the much-despised Bolsheviki may fail at last, but let +me say to you that they have written a chapter of glorious history. It +will stand to their eternal credit. Their leaders are now denounced as +criminals and outlaws. Let me remind you that there was a time when +George Washington, who is now revered as the father of his country, was +denounced as a disloyalist, when Sam Adams, who is known to us as the +father of the American Revolution, was condemned as an incendiary, and +Patrick Henry, who delivered that inspired and inspiring oration that +aroused the colonists, was condemned as a traitor. + +"They were misunderstood at the time. They stood true to themselves, and +they won an immortality of gratitude and glory. + +"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are +involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. In +every age there have been a few heroic souls who have been in advance of +their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, sometimes +put to death. Long after their martyrdom monuments were erected to them +and garlands were woven for their graves. + +"I have been accused of having obstructed the war. I admit it. +Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone. When I +think of a cold, glittering steel bayonet being plunged in the white, +quivering flesh of a human being, I recoil with horror. I have often +wondered if I could take the life of my fellow men, even to save my own. + +"Men talk about holy wars. There are none. Let me remind you that it was +Benjamin Franklin who said, 'There was never a good war or a bad peace.' + +"Napoleon Bonaparte was a high authority upon the subject of war. And +when in his last days he was chained to the rock of St. Helena, when he +felt the skeleton hand of death reaching for him, he cried out in +horror, 'War is the trade of savages and barbarians.' + +"I have read some history. I know that it is ruling classes that make +war upon one another, and not the people. In all of the history of this +world the people have never yet declared a war. Not one. I do not +believe that really civilized nations would murder one another. I would +refuse to kill a human being on my own account. Why should I at the +command of anyone else or at the command of any power on earth? + +"Twenty centuries ago one appeared upon earth whom we know as the Prince +of Peace. He issued a command in which I believe. He said, 'Love one +another.' He did not say, 'Kill one another,' but 'Love one another.' He +espoused the cause of the suffering poor--just as Rose Pastor Stokes +did, just as Kate Richards O'Hare did--and the poor heard him gladly. It +was not long before he aroused the ill-will and the hatred of the +usurers, the money-changers, the profiteers, the high priests, the +lawyers, the judges, the merchants, the bankers--in a word, the ruling +class. They said of him just what the ruling class says of the Socialist +today. 'He is preaching dangerous doctrine. He is inciting the common +rabble. He is a menace to peace and order.' And they had him arraigned, +tried, convicted, condemned, and they had his quivering body spiked to +the gates of Jerusalem. + +"This has been the tragic history of the race. In the ancient world +Socrates sought to teach some new truths to the people, and they made +him drink the fatal hemlock. It has been true all along the track of the +ages. The men and women who have been in advance, who have had new +ideas, new ideals, who have had the courage to attack the established +order of things, have all had to pay the same penalty. + +"A century and a half ago, when the American colonists were still +foreign subjects, and when there were a few men who had faith in the +common people and believed that they could rule themselves without a +king, in that day to speak against the kings was treason. If you read +Bancroft or any other standard historian, you will find that a great +majority of the colonists believed in the king and actually believed +that he had a divine right to rule over them. They had been taught to +believe that to say a word against the king, to question his so-called +divine right, was sinful. There were ministers who opened their bibles +to prove that it was the patriotic duty of the people to loyally serve +and support the king. But there were a few men in that day who said, 'We +don't need a king. We can govern ourselves.' And they began an agitation +that has been immortalized in history. + +"Washington, Adams, Paine--these were the rebels of their day. At first +they were opposed by the people and denounced by the press. You can +remember that it was Franklin who said to his compeers, 'We have now to +hang together or we'll hang separately bye and bye.' And if the +Revolution had failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been +executed as felons. But it did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of +succeeding, when the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers +were opposed to the form of government in their day. They were +denounced, they were condemned. But they had the moral courage to stand +erect and defy all the storms of detraction; and that is why they are in +history, and that is why the great respectable majority of their day +sleep in forgotten graves. The world does not know they ever lived. + +"At a later time there began another mighty agitation in this country. +It was against an institution that was deemed a very respectable one in +its time, the institution of chattel slavery, that became all-powerful, +that controlled the president, both branches of congress, the supreme +court, the press, to a very large extent the pulpit. All of the +organized forces of society, all the powers of government, upheld +chattel slavery in that day. And again a few appeared. One of them was +Elijah Lovejoy. Elijah Lovejoy was as much despised in his day as are +the leaders of the I. W. W. in our day. Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in +cold blood in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, simply because he was opposed to +chattel slavery--just as I am opposed to wage slavery. When you go down +the Mississippi River and look up at Alton, you see a magnificent white +shaft erected there in memory of a man who was true to himself and his +convictions of right and duty unto death. + +"It was my good fortune to personally know Wendell Phillips. I heard the +story of his persecution, in part at least, from his own eloquent lips +just a little while before they were silenced in death. + +"William Lloyd Garrison, Garret Smith, Thaddeus Stevens--these leaders +of the abolition movement, who were regarded as monsters of depravity, +were true to the faith and stood their ground. They are all in history. +You are teaching your children to revere their memories, while all of +their detractors are in oblivion. + +"Chattel slavery disappeared. We are not yet free. We are engaged in +another mighty agitation today. It is as wide as the world. It is the +rise of the toiling and producing masses who are gradually becoming +conscious of their interest, their power, as a class, who are organizing +industrially and politically, who are slowly but surely developing the +economic and political power that is to set them free. They are still in +the minority, but they have learned how to wait, and to bide their +time. + +"It is because I happen to be in this minority that I stand in your +presence today, charged with crime. It is because I believe as the +revolutionary fathers believed in their day, that a change was due in +the interests of the people, that the time had come for a better form of +government, an improved system, a higher social order, a nobler humanity +and a grander civilization. This minority that is so much misunderstood +and so bitterly maligned, is in alliance with the forces of evolution, +and as certain as I stand before you this afternoon, it is but a +question of time until this minority will become the conquering majority +and inaugurate the greatest change in all of the history of the world. +You may hasten the change; you may retard it; you can no more prevent it +than you can prevent the coming of the sunrise on the morrow. + +"My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn't like what I had to say in +my speech about internationalism. What is there objectionable to +internationalism? If we had internationalism there would be no war. I +believe in patriotism. I have never uttered a word against the flag. I +love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I object only when that flag is +prostituted to base purposes, to sordid ends, by those who, in the name +of patriotism, would keep the people in subjection. + +"I believe, however, in a wider patriotism. Thomas Paine said, 'My +country is the world. To do good is my religion.' Garrison said, 'My +country is the world and all mankind are my countrymen.' That is the +essence of internationalism. I believe in it with all my heart. I +believe that nations have been pitted against nations long enough in +hatred, in strife, in warfare. I believe there ought to be a bond of +unity between all of these nations. I believe that the human race +consists of one great family. I love the people of this country, but I +don't hate the people of any country on earth--not even the Germans. I +refuse to hate a human being because he happens to be born in some other +country. Why should I? To me it does not make any difference where he +was born or what the color of his skin may be. Like myself he is the +image of his creator. He is a human being endowed with the same +faculties, he has the same aspirations, he is entitled to the same +rights, and I would infinitely rather serve him and love him than to +hate him and kill him. + +"We hear a great deal about human brotherhood--a beautiful and inspiring +theme. It is preached from a countless number of pulpits. It is vain for +us to preach of human brotherhood while we tolerate this social system +in which we are a mass of warring units, in which millions of workers +have to fight one another for jobs, and millions of business men and +professional men have to fight one another for trade, for practice--in +which we have individual interests and each is striving to care for +himself alone without reference to his fellow men. Human brotherhood is +yet to be realized in this world. It never can be under the +capitalist-competitive system in which we live. + +"Yes; I was opposed to the war. I am perfectly willing, on that count, +to be branded as a disloyalist, and if it is a crime under the American +law punishable by imprisonment for being opposed to human bloodshed, I +am perfectly willing to be clothed in the stripes of a convict and to +end my days in a prison cell. + +"The War of the Revolution was opposed. The Tory press denounced its +leaders as criminals and outlaws. And that is what they were, under the +divine right of a king to rule men. + +"The War of 1812 was opposed and condemned; the Mexican War was +bitterly condemned by Abraham Lincoln, by Charles Sumner, by Daniel +Webster and by Henry Clay. That war took place under the Polk +administration. These men denounced the President; they condemned his +administration; and they said that the war was a crime against humanity. +They were not indicted; they were not tried for crime. They are honored +today by all of their countrymen. The War of the Rebellion was opposed +and condemned. In 1864 the Democratic Party met in convention at Chicago +and passed a resolution condemning the war as a failure. What would you +say if the Socialist Party were to meet in convention today and condemn +the present war as a failure? You charge us with being disloyalists and +traitors. Were the Democrats of 1864 disloyalists and traitors because +they condemned the war as a failure? + +"I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Isn't it strange +that we Socialists stand almost alone today in defending the +Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers who had +been oppressed under king rule understood that free speech and the right +of free assemblage by the people were the fundamental principles of +democratic government. The very first amendment to the Constitution +reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of +religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the +freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably +to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of +grievances." That is perfectly plain English. It can be understood by a +child. I believe that the revolutionary fathers meant just what is here +stated--that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech +or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, +and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. + +"That is the right that I exercised at Canton on the 16th day of last +June; and for the exercise of that right, I now have to answer to this +indictment. I believe in the right of free speech, in war as well as in +peace. I would not, under any circumstances, gag the lips of my +bitterest enemy. I would under no circumstances suppress free speech. It +is far more dangerous to attempt to gag the people than to allow them to +speak freely of what is in their hearts. I do not go as far as Wendell +Phillips did. Wendell Phillips said that the glory of free men is that +they trample unjust laws under their feet. That is how they repeal them. +If a human being submits to having his lips sealed, to be in silence +reduced to vassalage, he may have all else, but he is still lacking in +all that dignifies and glorifies real manhood. + +"Now, notwithstanding this fundamental provision in the national law, +Socialists' meetings have been broken up all over this country. +Socialist speakers have been arrested by hundreds and flung into jail, +where many of them are lying now. In some cases not even a charge was +lodged against them--guilty of no crime except the crime of attempting +to exercise the right guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the +United States. + +"I have told you that I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that I know +enough to know that if Congress enacts any law that conflicts with this +provision in the Constitution, that law is void. If the Espionage law +finally stands, then the Constitution of the United States is dead. If +that law is not the negation of every fundamental principle established +by the Constitution, then certainly I am unable to read or to understand +the English language. + +"War does not come by chance. War is not the result of accident. There +is a definite cause for war, especially a modern war. The war that began +in Europe can readily be accounted for. For the last forty years, under +this international capitalist system, this exploiting system, these +various nations of Europe have been preparing for the inevitable. And +why? In all these nations the great industries are owned by a relatively +small class. They are operated for the profit of that class. And great +abundance is produced by the workers, but their wages will only buy back +a small part of their product. What is the result? They have a vast +surplus on hand; they have got to export it; they have got to find a +foreign market for it. As a result of this, these nations are pitted +against each other. They begin to arm themselves to open, to maintain +the market and quickly dispose of their surplus. There is but the one +market. All these nations are competitors for it, and sooner or later +every war of trade becomes a war of blood. + +"Now, where there is exploitation there must be some form of militarism +to support it. Wherever you find exploitation you find some form of +military force. In a smaller way you find it in this country. It was +there long before war was declared. For instance, when the miners out in +Colorado entered upon a strike about four years ago, the state militia, +that is under the control of the Standard Oil Company, marched upon a +camp, where the miners and their wives and children were in tents. And +by the way, a report of this strike was issued by the United States +Commission on Industrial Relations. When the soldiers approached the +camp at Ludlow, where these miners, with their wives and children, were, +the miners, to prove that they were patriotic, placed flags above their +tents, and when the state militia, that is paid by Rockefeller and +controlled by Rockefeller, swooped down upon that camp, the first thing +they did was to shoot those United States flags into tatters. Not one +of them was indicted or tried because he was a traitor to his country. +Pregnant women were killed, and a number of innocent children slain. +This in the United States of America,--the fruit of exploitation. The +miners wanted a little more of what they had been producing. But the +Standard Oil Company wasn't rich enough. It insisted that all they were +entitled to was just enough to keep them in working order. There is +slavery for you. And when at last they protested, when they were +tormented by hunger, when they saw their children in tatters, they were +shot down as if they had been so many vagabond dogs. + +"And while I am upon this point, let me say just another word. Working +men who organize, and who sometimes commit overt acts, are very often +condemned by those who have no conception of the conditions under which +they live. How many men are there, for instance, who know anything of +their own knowledge about how men work in a lumber camp--a logging camp, +a turpentine camp? In this report of the United States Commission on +Industrial Relations, you will find the statement proved that peonage +existed in the state of Texas. Out of these conditions springs such a +thing as the I. W. W.--when men receive a pittance for their pay, when +they work like galley slaves for a wage that barely suffices to keep +their protesting souls within their tattered bodies. When they can +endure the condition no longer, and they make some sort of a +demonstration, or perhaps commit acts of violence, how quickly are they +condemned by those who do not know anything about the conditions under +which they work. + +"Five gentlemen of distinction, among them Professor John Graham Brooks, +of Harvard University, said that a word that so fills the world as the +I. W. W. must have something in it. It must be investigated. And they +did investigate it, each along their own lines; and I wish it were +possible for every man and woman in this country to read the result of +their investigation. They tell you why and how the I. W. W. was +instituted. They tell you, moreover, that the great corporations, such +as the Standard Oil Company, such as the Coal Trust, and the Lumber +Trust, have, through their agents, committed more crimes against the I. +W. W. than the I. W. W. have ever committed against them. + +"I was asked not long ago if I was in favor of shooting our soldiers in +the back. I said, 'No. I would not shoot them in the back. I wouldn't +shoot them at all. I would not have them shot.' Much has been made of a +statement that I declared that men were fit for something better than +slavery and cannon fodder. I made the statement. I make no attempt to +deny it. I meant exactly what I said. Men are fit for something better +than slavery and cannon fodder; and the time will come, though I shall +not live to see it, when slavery will be wiped from the earth, and when +men will marvel that there ever was a time when men who called +themselves civilized rushed upon each other like wild beasts and +murdered one another, by methods so cruel and barbarous that they defy +the power of language to describe. I can hear the shrieks of the +soldiers of Europe in my dreams. I have imagination enough to see a +battlefield. I can see it strewn with the wrecks of human beings, who +but yesterday were in the flush and glory of their young manhood. I can +see them at eventide, scattered about in remnants, their limbs torn from +their bodies, their eyes gouged out. Yes, I can see them, and I can hear +them. I look above and beyond this frightful scene. I think of the +mothers who are bowed in the shadow of their last great grief--whose +hearts are breaking. And I say to myself: 'I am going to do the little +that lies in my power to wipe from this earth that terrible scourge of +war.' + +"If I believed in war I could not be kept out of the first line +trenches. I would not be patriotic at long range. I would be honest +enough, if I believed in bloodshed, to shed my own. But I do not believe +that the shedding of blood bears any actual testimony to patriotism, to +love of country, to civilization. On the contrary, I believe that +warfare in all of its forms is an impeachment of our social order, and a +rebuke to our vaunted Christian civilization. + +"And now, gentlemen of the jury, I am not going to detain you too long. +I wish to admit everything that has been said respecting me from this +witness chair. I wish to admit everything that has been charged against +me except what is embraced in the indictment from which I have read to +you. I cannot take back a word. I cannot repudiate a sentence. I stand +before you guilty of having made this speech. I stand before you +prepared to accept the consequences of what there is embraced in that +speech. I do not know, I cannot tell, what your verdict may be; nor does +it matter much, so far as I am concerned. + +"Gentlemen, I am the smallest part of this trial. I have lived long +enough to appreciate my own personal insignificance in relation to a +great issue, that involves the welfare of the whole people. What you may +choose to do to me will be of small consequence after all. I am not on +trial here. There is an infinitely greater issue that is being tried +today in this court, though you may not be conscious of it. American +institutions are on trial here before a court of American citizens. The +future will tell." + + +5. DEBS TALKS TO THE JUDGE + +The jury found Eugene Debs guilty and on Saturday morning the judge +pronounced sentence. Before the sentence was given, Debs had another +opportunity to tell someone about Socialism--this time it was the judge. + +Debs never loses a chance. When the clerk asked him whether he had +anything to say he made another Socialist speech. Said he: + +"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, +and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest of +earth. I said then, I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am +in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a +soul in prison, I am not free.... + +"If the law under which I have been convicted is a good law, then there +is no reason why sentence should not be pronounced upon me. I listened +to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this +law, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon it as a despotic +enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the +spirit of free institutions. + +"Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form +of our present Government; that I am opposed to the social system in +which we live; that I believed in the change of both--but by perfectly +peaceable and orderly means. + +"Let me call your attention to the fact this morning that in this system +five per cent. of our people own and control two-thirds of our wealth, +sixty-five per cent. of the people, embracing the working class who +produce all wealth, have but five per cent. to show for it. + +"Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen, I went to +work in the railroad shops; at sixteen, I was firing a freight engine on +a railroad. I remember all the hardships, all the privations, of that +earlier day, and from that time until now, my heart has been with the +working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred +to go to prison. The choice has been deliberately made. I could not have +done otherwise. I have no regret. + +"In the struggle--the unceasing struggle--between the toilers and +producers and their exploiters, I have tried, as best I might, to serve +those among whom I was born, with whom I expect to share my lot until +the end of my days. + +"I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am +thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out +their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of +their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the +remorseless grasp of mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, +there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body +and soul. I can see them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little lives +broken, and their hopes blasted, because in this high noon of our +twentieth century civilization, money is still so much more important +than human life. Gold is god and rules in the affairs of men. The little +girls, and there are a million of them in this country--this, the most +favored land beneath the bending skies, a land in which we have vast +areas of rich and fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible +abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, millions of +eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce an +abundance for every man, woman and child--and if there are still many +millions of our people who are the victims of poverty, whose life is a +ceaseless struggle all the way from youth to age, until at last death +comes to their rescue and stills the aching heart, and lulls the victim +to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty, it can't be +charged to nature; it is due entirely to an outgrown social system that +ought to be abolished, not only in the interest of the working class, +but in a higher interest of all humanity. + +"I think of these little children--the girls that are in the textile +mills of all description in the East, in the cotton factories of the +South--I think of them at work in a vitiated atmosphere. I think of them +at work when they ought to be at play or at school; I think that when +they do grow up, if they live long enough to approach the marriage +state, they are unfit for it. Their nerves are worn out, their tissue is +exhausted, their vitality is spent. They have been fed to industry. +Their lives have been coined into gold. Their offspring are born tired. +That is why there are so many failures in our modern life. + +"Your Honor, the five per cent. of the people that I have made reference +to, constitute that element that absolutely rules our country. They +privately own all our public necessities. They wear no crowns; they +wield no sceptres, they sit upon no thrones; and yet they are our +economic masters and our political rulers. They control this Government +and all of its institutions. They control the courts. + +"The five per cent. of our people who own and control all of the sources +of wealth, all of the nation's industries, all of the means of our +common life--it is they who declare war; it is they who make peace; it +is they who control our industry. And so long as this is true, we can +make no just claim to being a democratic government--a self-governing +people. + +"I believe, your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation +ought to own and control its industries. I believe, as all Socialists +do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly +owned--that industry, the basis of life, instead of being the private +property of the few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the +common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of +all. + +"John D. Rockefeller has today an income of sixty million dollars a +year, five million dollars a month, two hundred thousand dollars a day. +He does not produce a penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller +personally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he were in need, and +it were in my power to serve him, I should serve him as gladly as I +would any other human being, I have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller +personally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply opposing a social +order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing +that is useful, to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, +while millions of men and women who work all of the days of their lives +secure barely enough for existence. + +"This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest +against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but fortunately I +am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, +have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of +civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and +co-operative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic +and political movement that is spread over the face of all the earth. + +"There are today upwards of sixty million Socialists, loyal, devoted, +adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color +or sex. They are all making common cause. They are all spreading the +propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching and +working through all the weary hours of the day and night. They are still +in the minority. They have learned how to be patient and abide their +time. They feel--they know indeed--that the time is coming in spite of +all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will +spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the +triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest +change in history. + +"In that day we will have the universal commonwealth--not the +destruction of the nation, but, on the contrary, the harmonious +co-operation of every nation on earth. In that day war will curse this +earth no more. + +"Your Honor, I ask no mercy. I plead for no immunity. I realize that +finally the right must prevail. I never more clearly comprehended than +now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and +upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. + +"I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are +awakening. In due course of time they will come to their own. + +"When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his +weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning +luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the +southern cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their +places, and with starry fingerpoints the Almighty marks the passage of +time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad +tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing--that relief +and rest are close at hand. + +"Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is +bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.... + +"Your Honor, I thank you, and I thank all of this court for their +courtesy, for their kindness, which I shall remember always. + +"I am prepared to receive your sentence." + +Whereupon the judge sentenced Eugene Debs to ten years in the West +Virginia Penitentiary--the penitentiary at Atlanta being too crowded to +receive him. + + +6. THE APPEAL + +An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States and was +argued on the ground that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional. No act +was charged against Debs, except the Canton speech. In that speech he +had simply stated what he had said a thousand times before, but the +Court held that under the Espionage Act a man who made a speech, the +probable result of which was to create mutiny or to hinder recruiting +and enlistment--was guilty, providing that he did it knowingly and +wilfully. The jury had to decide, first, that he had done something the +probable result of which was to create mutiny or to hinder recruiting +and enlistment, and then if he had done it, that it was done with +intent, knowingly and wilfully. The jury had found Debs guilty under +these circumstances. + +Debs was an American, and as an American he relied upon a certain +guarantee contained in the First Amendment to the Constitution: +"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or +prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of +speech or of the press, or the right of the people peacefully to +assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." +Debs, as an American citizen, relied upon that guarantee, and his +lawyers, in making the appeal, relied upon that guarantee. + +Over and against that guarantee was the Espionage Act passed originally +in 1917--June 15th--and amended June 16, 1918. + +The language of the original act was as follows: + +(Title I, Sec. 3.) "Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall (1) +wilfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to +interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces +of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies, and +whoever, when the United States is at war, (2) shall wilfully cause or +attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of +duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall (3) +wilfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United +States, to the injury of the service or of the United States, shall be +punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more +than twenty years, or both." + +The Amended Act was far more drastic: + +"Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall wilfully make or +convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with +the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United +States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall wilfully make +or convey false reports or false statements, or say or do anything +except by way of bona fide and not disloyal advice to an investor or +investors, with intent to obstruct the sale by the United States of +bonds or other securities of the United States or the making of loans by +or to the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, +shall wilfully cause, or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to +incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the +military or naval forces of the United States, or shall wilfully +obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of +the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall +wilfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, +scurrilous or abusive language about the form of government of the +United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military +or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, +or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States, or any language +intended to bring the form of government of the United States, or the +Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of +the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of +the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, +or disrepute, or shall wilfully utter, print, write or publish any +language intended to incite, provoke or encourage resistance to the +United States or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall wilfully +display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall wilfully, by utterance, +writing, printing, publication or language spoken, urge, incite or +advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any thing or +things, product or products, necessary or essential to the prosecution +of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with intent by +such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the +prosecution of the war, and whoever shall wilfully advocate, teach, +defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this +section enumerated, and whoever shall, by word or act, support or favor +the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by +word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be +punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more +than twenty years, or both." ... + +There you have both pieces of legislation. On the one hand, the +Constitution provides immunity, and on the other hand, the Espionage Act +provides a penalty for the expression of opinion. + +The Supreme Court on the 10th of March handed down its decision. The +decision was read by Justice Holmes and concurred in by the entire +court. + + +7. THE SUPREME COURT DECISION + +The substance of the decision is contained in the following sentences: + +"The main theme of the speech was Socialism, its growth and a prophecy +of its ultimate success. With that we have nothing to do, but if a part +or the manifest intent of the more general utterances was to encourage +those present to obstruct recruiting service, and if in passages such +encouragement was directly given, the immunity of the general theme may +not be enough to protect the speech." + +Justice Holmes concludes, after a review of the case, that the immunity, +under the First Amendment, did not protect the speech. In that argument, +he referred to a decision which had been handed down on the 3rd of March +known as the Schenck Case--another Espionage Act case--in which this +point concerning the immunity under the First Amendment was stated at +length by Justice Holmes in this language: + +"We admit that in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants +would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of +every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.... The +question in every case is whether the words used are used in such +circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present +danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress +has a right to prevent." + +That is the Debs decision. That is the method in which the Supreme Court +handled the popular liberties guaranteed under the First Amendment. The +Court might have thrown the Espionage Act out under the First Amendment +as it threw out the Child Labor Law. The Court might have ruled this act +unconstitutional. The Court did not decide that Congress had no right to +pass the Espionage Act. The Court did decide that since Congress had +passed the Espionage Act, Debs had no right to make his speech. What are +the implications of this position of the Supreme Court? "Congress shall +make no law abridging the freedom of speech," says the Constitution. +Congress passed a law abridging the freedom of speech, and the Supreme +Court holds that the Courts, in interpreting the Constitution, must bear +in mind the law that Congress has passed. We had thought that the +Constitutional guarantee was superior to any law that Congress might +pass, but the Court specifically holds in the Schenck Case that if "the +words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to +create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the +substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent," then the First +Amendment affords no protection. + +Congress is made the arbiter. Congress now decides what may be said and +what may not be said. + +This means that the Constitution does not guarantee personal liberty. +Speech is free, if you keep within the laws passed by Congress, not +otherwise. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech," +declares the Constitution. Speech is free, says the Court, if you obey +the laws passed by Congress. What is the result? If the United States +enters the League of Nations as a constituent part of it, and if the +League of Nations carries on a series of minor wars, this country will +be at war perhaps for fifty years, and during that time free speech will +be banned under this decision of the Supreme Court; during that time +the Espionage Act will operate; there will be no free speech in the +United States. + +Congress--under this decision--might pass a law making it a crime to +advocate the establishment of industrial democracy in the United States, +and from the time that law was passed, any man who advocated industrial +democracy in the United States would have no immunity under the First +Amendment. + +Congress might pass a law making it a crime to demand that the Courts of +the United States be abolished, and from that time no person could +advocate the abolition of the United States Courts without violating the +law. + +Congress might make it a criminal offense to criticize the President and +from that day forward no person could criticize the President without +violating the law. + +This decision makes Congress, not the Constitution, the arbiter of the +limits of freedom of expression; therefore, we must conclude that +neither the Courts of the United States, nor the Constitution of the +United States can be relied upon to guarantee the American people the +right of free speech. Thus freedom of discussion is ended. Democracy in +the United States is dead. The Supreme Court on the 10th of March, in +the Debs' case, wrote its epitaph. + +A little thought will reveal the seriousness of the situation. A little +reflection will show the position in which the American people find +themselves, with regard to personal liberties, since the tenth of March, +1919. + + +8. THE CLASS STRUGGLE AGAIN! + +Classes have come and classes have gone down through the pages of +history. Whenever the position of a ruling class has been threatened, +the ruling class has crucified the truth-tellers. + +Compared with the necessity of protecting ruling class privileges and +prerogatives, the right of a man to express his mind goes for nothing. +That is the lesson of history and that is what we are witnessing today. +Men who have stirred up the people; men who have raised their voices in +protest; men who thought straight; men who have loved their fellow men +too much; men who have had conviction and courage and purpose; men who +were willing to stick by their ideals--such men have suffered in every +age. + +Eugene V. Debs has stirred up the people all his life. Since he was a +boy firing a locomotive engine, he has been an agitator. He has always +stood for justice, for liberty and brotherhood. He has loved his fellow +men; he has been gentle and sincere; he has been devoted to what he +regards as the greatest cause in the world. On this war he has stood +like granite, unwavering and unflinching, voicing the protest of the +masses who had no voice with which to speak. He has uttered what they +believed. + +The preachers who deserted their flocks; the teachers who betrayed their +trust; the editors who took their 30 pieces of silver in these last few +years--they are free; they are honored; they are respected. But this man +who thought straight; who loved his fellows, who spoke his convictions; +who was true to his ideals--this man is permitted to go to jail by the +Supreme Court of the United States. + +I have seen the Supreme Court and I have seen Eugene V. Debs. From the +Supreme Court I got neither love nor inspiration; from Debs I got both. + +In his generation in the United States, there is not a greater man than +Eugene V. Debs--not because of what he has done, but because of what he +is, and when the history of this generation is written, that fact will +be recorded. + +The masters in all ages have put men like Debs in jail because it is the +truth-teller that the masters fear most. They fear the Truth; they fear +the Light; they fear Justice; and the man who turns on the Light and +speaks the Truth and cries out for Justice--is their greatest enemy. So +they have always tried this process of putting ideas into jail. + + +9. PUTTING IDEAS IN JAIL + +Years ago, when the Mexican War was being fought, an American named +Henry D. Thoreau refused to pay his war tax. He did not believe in the +war and he refused to support the Government that prosecuted the war. So +they put Thoreau in jail. Later he wrote about his experience: + +"As I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet +thick, and the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating +which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the +foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh +and blood and bones, to be locked up.... + +"I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax.... + +"I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on +my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, +and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, +they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come +at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. + +"I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone +woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from +its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. + +"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a +just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which +Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is +in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own +act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is +there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and +the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on +that separate but more free and honorable ground, where the State places +those who are not with her but against her--the only house in a slave +State on which a free man can abide with honor. + +"If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices +no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an +enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger +than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat +injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. + +"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State +comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, +from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him +accordingly." + + +10. THE SUPREME COURT COULD NOT SAVE SLAVERY + +Once before the Supreme Court of the United States tried to save a +decaying social institution--the institution of Slavery. There was a +slave named Dred Scott. He was owned by a resident of Missouri. He was +taken into Minnesota and into Illinois. Illinois was a free State by its +own laws. Minnesota was free by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Then +his master took Dred Scott back to Missouri, and there Dred Scott tried +to gain his freedom. The case was finally decided by the Supreme Court +of the United States in 1857. + +The Supreme Court held (two justices dissenting) that Scott could not +sue in the lower courts because he was not a citizen and, therefore, was +not entitled to any standing in the courts; that at the time of the +formation of the Constitution, negroes descended from negro slaves were +not and could not be citizens in any of the States; and that there was +no power in the existing form of Government to make citizens of such +persons. In the course of his decision, Judge Taney used the following +language: + +"It is difficult, at this day, to realize the state of public opinion +which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world +at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the +Constitution was framed and adopted in relation to that unfortunate +race. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a +manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before +been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to +associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; +and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was +bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be +reduced to slavery for his benefit. He has been bought and sold and +treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a +profit could be made by it. The opinion was at that time fixed and +universal in the civilized portion of the white race." + +The Chief Justice went farther than the point at issue warranted, and +stated that the power of Congress to govern territory was subordinate to +its obligation to protect private rights in property and that slaves +were property and as such were protected by the constitutional +guarantees; that Congress had no power to prohibit the citizens of any +State to carry into any territory slaves or any other property, and that +Congress had no power to impair the constitutional protection of such +property while thus held in a territory. + +The Dred Scott decision fastened Slavery forever upon the United States. +Slavery lasted just six years. + + +11. MORE PATCH WORK! + +At the present time, Capitalism is tottering to its downfall. The world +is in chaos and revolution. The Supreme Court has handed down a decision +which ostensibly will assist in preserving established order, but the +United States is a Capitalist nation and, as Mr. Wilson himself has so +admirably put it: + +"The masters of the Government of the United States are the combined +capitalists and manufacturers of the United States." ("New Freedom," +page 57.) + +Capitalism is disappearing from Europe--Russia, Germany, Austria, +Bohemia, Hungary--the list is growing from week to week. When the +President came back on his little visit to America there was one new +thing that he said, and only one new thing: + +"The men who are in conference in Paris realize as keenly as any +Americans can realize that they are not the masters of their people." +(Boston, February 24th, 1919.) + +"When I speak of the nations of the world, I do not speak of the +governments of the world. I speak of the peoples who constitute the +nations of the world. They are in the saddle, and they are going to see +to it that if present governments do not do their will, some other +government shall, and the secret is out and the present governments know +it." (Boston, February 24th.) + +"I want to utter this solemn warning, not in the way of a threat; the +forces of the world do not threaten, they operate. The great tides of +the world do not give notice that they are going to rise and run; they +rise in their majesticity and overwhelming might and they who stand in +the way are overwhelmed. Now the heart of the world is awake and the +heart of the world must be satisfied. Do not let yourselves suppose for +a moment that the uneasiness in the populations of Europe is due +entirely to economic causes and economic motives; something very much +deeper underlies it all than that. They see that their governments have +never been able to defend them against intrigue or aggression, and that +there is no force of foresight or of prudence in any modern cabinet to +stop war." (New York, March 4th, 1919.) + +Then comes Mr. Wm. Allen White on the 11th of March with a similar +statement. On the next day comes Mr. Lansing with the statement that +unless something is done and done quickly, the capitalist system in +Europe will be overthrown. The world is in chaos. The fabric of +civilization is threatened. The health and happiness--the very life of +the world--is threatened. + +And those who speak particularly of those things; those who are seeking +to warn, to prepare the people; those who attempt to preach law and +order; who oppose war; who believe in peace--those who are attempting to +serve the interests of humanity--go to jail for ten years. + +The highest authority in the United States has served notice on the +American people that from it they can hope for nothing in the way of +preservation of their liberties. Their liberties are dead. Well may +those Americans who still have in their souls a spark of the old fire, +turn back 143 years and read these words from the Declaration of +Independence: + +"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created +equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable +rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. +That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, +deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that +whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is +the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new +government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing +its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect +their safety and happiness." + + + * * * * * + + + THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE + + + Local Department Correspondence Dept. + Full-Time Department Research Department + Library and Reading Room + + + ALGERNON LEE, BERTHA H. 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