fr oh nla Rela one enya tat al ta teenage S Leveste= Sete z fof. 573m MODES: Trinity College ray aus, N. 6. a he Cp So ~ =) SE SULIT ICIL TUTTLE IL CLD TTT TU OTT CTE TP Te WNL tn) ea TTT et at en) | Photograph by Allen Drew Cook EUGENE VICTOR DEBS DEBS His Authorized Life and Letters BY DAVID KARSNER BONI AND LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS New YorxE { whit i i Ah eh y 29% Fo-t-2! Hi. 29 ow 1. Kae CONTENTS | CHAPTER InTRODUCTORY—DeEBs’s AUTHORIZATION AND IN- DORSEMENT . I. “As Frem as GRANITE” ‘un. TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL Ill. Tur JourNEy To PRISON ylV. Two Montus at Mounnsvitte Prison . VY. TRANSFERRED To ATLANTA Y VI. Earty Days anp Backcrounps VII.. Lasor UNIonist AND Woopstock VIII. Four PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS IX. LIBertTarraAn anD LOVER X. His Impress oN THE FUTURE .. . JAPA T ED. UNG Ata aU Sa MA San a 101 110 130 179 209 224 229 INTRODUCTION DEBS’S AUTHORIZATION AND INDORSEMENT UGENE VICTOR DEBS, a federal convict in the United States Prison at Atlanta, Ga., was pro- hibited, under the prison rule, from doing any sort of writing except the one letter a week to his family. He could not, therefore, write an introduction to this volume. Consequently, I visited him at the Atlanta Prison on July 17, 1919, and in the presence of Warden Fred G. Zerbst, Debs authorized and authenticated this record of his life in these words: “‘T am exceedingly glad that you were commissioned to write this book which, I am sure, will come to be recognized as an important and an imperishable con- tribution to American labor history. Although the rules of the prison do not permit me to write an. introduction to your book, or to do any writing of any kind aside from my one letter a week to my family, in this spoken word I authorize you to write the story. “‘T give to you as the author, and to Boni and Liveright as the publishers, not merely my word of ap- proval and hearty indorsement of your book, but my warm appreciation of this manifest interest in the cause in which I have been privileged to serve all of my life. You will write just the kind of a book that Time and History will require, and in every line, on every page you will be speaking for me with my authority, given to you without reservations or qualifications. ‘“More than any other person you have been pe- vil ‘viii INTRODUCTION culiarly identified with the whole story since it be- gan with the trial in September, 1918. Your daily reports of the trial in Cleveland, your several accounts of the trip we took from Terre Haute to Moundsville Penitentiary last April, and your several interviews with me at Moundsville, all printed in The New York Cail, were rare specimens of newspaper accuracy and jour- nalistic skill. I say this not as flattery, but as the per- sonal conviction which I have expressed to you in writing before. “*Honestly, I do not know of a man in America who is placed in so advantageous a position, from so many angles, to write this book, as yourself. I suppose that. other books along similar lines and covering the same subject will be bound to follow, but already you are fortified with a thorough knowledge of the case and have an understanding and an appreciation of its his- toric significance to be able, more than any other, to write authoritatively. As you have so far been the newspaper historian of my trial, conviction and im-. prisonment, you will now become the historian of the whole story in a much larger and more permanent sense. ‘And I indorse and shall stand by your book as being the real and true history of such facts, incidents and data that you may deem necessary to write about, com- ment upon or interpret, and you therefore understand without further word from me that I place abundant faith in your moral and intellectual integrity. If I did not feel absolutely sure that you would discuss your subject frankly, fearlessly, justly and accurately, and in the same intellectually honest spirit that I would write of it, I should of course be compelled to withhold my imprimatur from your book. ‘‘During this past year, crowded with these mo- mentous months when we have been together under the most trying circumstances, you have measured beyond every test of loyalty and devotion as a friend and com- INTRODUCTION 1x rade, and have given me cause to regard you always as my younger spiritual brother. ““T wish your book every success; which I am sure it will have; and you have my authority to sign my name to what I have told you in this interview, inasmuch as the rules of the United States Prison here do not per- mit me to give you my written word.’’ Still in the presence of the warden, ’Gene Debs sealed these words with an affectionate embrace. Then he slowly backed off to the door, smiling and serene, walked rapidly down the silent marble corridor with light and agile tread, and the heavy iron door slammed and locked as he slipped beyond, and became again a common con- vict, U. S. No. 9653. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS CHAPTER I “AS FIRM AS GRANITE” O far as I am concerned these stone walls and steel bars do not exist; I do not see them. My spirit soars beyond this institution and mingles with the spirits - of my comrades, loyal and devoted all, throughout the country and the world. For my own self I am serene and dauntless, and for my comrades I am confident that the cause in which and for which they are working all their waking hours will soon triumph, and in that blessed day the workers of the world will inaugurate the great- est liberty and democracy that the world has ever known. Tell my comrades that I am all right and that there is nothing to worry about; and now is there anything else that you wanted to see me about?”’ Eugene Victor Debs, a Federal prisoner serving a sen- tence of ten years for violating the Espionage Act by making a speech at Canton, Ohio, on June 16th, 1918, which the government construed as being inimical to the success of the war in which it was engaged with the Allied Powers against Germany, had been speaking to me for half an hour in the private office of the warden at the Atlanta Federal Prison. I told him that there were a thousand things about which I should like to speak to him, but he instantly assured me that it was unnecessary; that while he had not received a single paper or periodical since he came to Atlanta, June 14th, 1 2 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 1919, from Moundsville Penitentiary, West Virginia, where he began to serve his term exactly two months before, still he knew, felt, all the important happenings and did not need to be enlightened. ‘*T can feel the vibrations of the warm, firm and tender hearts beating in unison for freedom and_democracy all over the world. The swelling note of their song reverberates through these corridors, and I know they are active. At night, in my prison cell I can feel the warm and tender fingers of little children upon my face, and all these things give me strength and courage to face the future, whatever it may hold, with serenity and com- posure.’’ Debs was now standing, clad in the prison blue, his lean hands placed firmly upon each of my shoulders, his six foot figure, gaunt and slender, slightly stoop- ing, his smooth, lean and mobile face wreathed in a smile, and his spectacled gray-blue eyes moist and ra- diant. A few feet from us Warden Fred G. Zerbst was standing at his yellow roll-top desk, wearing an expres- sion on his face which to me seemed to betoken a mixture of astonishment, sadness and sympathetic amusement. In a moment Debs was backing off to the door and as he turned his head before he stepped down the white marble corridor he bowed and waved his hand to the warden in a courteous manner, as an expression of his thanks to his keeper for permitting the interview. Debs Was wearing cheap canvas ‘‘sneakers’’ over rough cot- ton socks. Before the echo of the slamming iron door behind him had died out in the sepulchral corridor, Warden Zerbst and I, both still standing, were looking very foolishly at each other. “‘Did the government build this prison for such men?’’ IT asked. ‘‘The government built this prison for men who vio- late Federal laws,’’ replied the warden judiciously. Be- fore his answer came I imagined there was a negative “AS FIRM AS GRANITE”’ 3 reply to my inquiry in his mind. But if there was he gave it no voice. During this talk with Debs he mentioned having seen a newspaper article purporting to be a statement of A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United States, to the effect that if Debs would repent things might be made easier for him. A liberal interpretation of this statement might be made to imply that Debs could have a pardon if he would but ask for it and say he was sorry for what he had done. In speaking of the newspaper article he had read Debs’s eyes narrowed almost to slits, and his great jaw tightened, and the flesh on his long and narrow chin was drawn as his mouth contracted with the gritting of his teeth. *‘Repent! Repent!’’ he snapped. ‘‘Repent for stand- ing like aman! For having a conviction about a public question, and standing by it and for the Cause! Why, before I would don the sackcloth and get down into the ashes before the Attorney General or any man on earth for having a principle I would gladly walk to the gallows or the stake. If I should do such a thing as that the barbaric tortures of the Inquisition would be too good for me. *‘No! Not in a thousand years shall I repent for a single principle that I possess. They are dearer to me than liberty, than life itself.’’ Pointing his finger in his most characteristic manner in the direction of the iron gray gate at the entrance, he continued: ““The flies will carry me through that keyhole piece by piece before I shall ever confess sorrow or penitence for standing like a man, and by my constitutional rights as an American citizen.’’ Debs was on fire. His great frame was hot in the molten passion of his spirit. He was now manifesting the grand bitterness of his ua- ture, which, from another side is cooled from a tower of fire and force, to a stooping figure of infinite tender- 4 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ness, mercy, compassion and love. ‘‘No,’’ said he, ‘‘I am as firm as granite!’’ ‘ It can be said without exaggeration that Eugene v. Debs is one of the most celebrated prisoners ever placed behind steel bars in America. Before his inearceration he had enjoyed national, even international, fame for twenty years, having first been a candidate for Presi- dent of the United States on the Social-Democratic Party’s ticket in 1900. In the three successive presi- dential campaigns he again led the Socialist Party. He resolutely declined to accept the nomination for the fifth time in 1916 when his party again looked to him to be their leader. In that presidential year, still eager to earry on the propaganda of Socialism, he permitted his state (Indiana) organization to run him for Congress in the Fifth District, which embraces Terre Haute, the town in which he was born and has lived all his life. Of Debs’s four presidential campaigns we shall deal later. They have been mentioned here merely by way of suggesting the national character and import of this man, many of whose thousands of political opponents are among his personal friends, and whose breadth of intellect, spirit and vision transcends any single ereed, dogma or political party. Although the Socialists claim him particularly, and he glories in their claim, he steps, in fact, far beyond the Socialist creed, a man whose spiritual figure will loom larger on the social horizon with the passing of time. It may be that Debs will be remembered and revered in history long after his im- mediate political attachment has been eclipsed by other creeds and formulas looking toward the perfect day and the noble spirit. Debs stepped into a felon’s cell as philosophically as if he were stepping into a train to go to some meeting place to address a large audience. He donned the prison gray at Moundsville and the prison blue at Atlanta with the same equanimity with which he would put on civilian “AS FIRM AS GRANITR”’ 5 clothing at home. In both prison experiences he has exhibited the same irrefragable determination of spirit and mental serenity that he has manifested on unnum- bered occasions in industrial and political contests. There was no boast in the statement which he gave to me just before he entered Moundsville Prison April 13th, 1919: *‘T enter the prison doors a flaming revolutionist— my head erect, my spirit untamed and my soul uncon- querable.’’ I saw Debs first at the Atlanta Prison on June 18th. He had arrived there from Moundsville Prison the previ- ous Saturday afternoon, June 14th. I was permitted by Warden Zerbst to see Debs only because I presented a letter to him written by Warden Joseph Z. Terrell of Moundsville Prison, which introduced me ‘‘as a writer of The New York Call, a close personal friend of Debs,’’ and stated that I had been permitted to see Debs sev- eral times and that ‘‘not once did he deviate from my instructions as to what he might say to Debs, or the length of his visit.’’ The Atlanta warden was insistent that I write ‘‘no sensational interview’’ in ease he should let me see Debs. The government did not permit news- paper people to interview prisoners, he said. Sitting on the veranda of the warden’s dwelling, we held quite a lengthy talk about Debs and his ease. The first five days of Debs’s stay at Atlanta he was locked in a cell, having been numbered 9653. In a letter from Warden Terrell, Zerbst was familiarized with the humane treatment and consideration accorded Debs at Moundsyille, and Zerbst was requested to be as kind to Debs as the prison rules of Atlanta would permit. Zerbst told me, on my first visit, that he intended to place Debs in the hospital, in a clerical position similar to that which he held at Moundsville for the two months that he was there. In my presence, Zerbst so informed Debs.of his intentions. 6 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ‘*Well, warden, that is very kind of you, but I think I should like to have a little manual labor, too. I am very familiar with overalls. At home in Terre Haute I am scarcely out of bluejeans. I am the official swabber of my back alley. I give it a bath every day. One day at home while I was sweeping the alley, an old neighbor of mine, a very poor man, came along and said, ‘Look yere, Mr. Debs, you’re keepin’ a good man out of a job by sweepin’ that alley yourself.’ ‘< “Well, neighbor, how much a day would you get for doing this work?’ I asked him. ‘<*Two dollars, Mr. Debs.’ “*So I gave him the two dollars and I kept the job, and ~ we were both happy and contented.’’ I left the prison in June with the impression that *Gene would be treated almost as well as he had been at Moundsville. His friends were astonished upon learn- ing in July that he had been assigned to work in the clothing department, and slept in a cell with five other prisoners; that to all outward intents and purposes this would be his routine life for the coming ten years. In July, Zerbst voluntarily explained that Debs had requested his present employment in the clothing ware- house instead of the hospital assignment. But I learned| from Debs’s own lips the reason. He had been proffered the hospital assignment, which would have allowed him to sleep in a dormitory instead of a cell, and a bed in- stead of a bunk. When he went to the hospital one of the attaches, remarking to another, said, “‘He will cheat the government out of his sentence; he’ll never live ten years.’? Debs heard the slur, and refused to go to work in the hospital, but he did not explain to Zerbst the reason, and that official never knew, believ- ing that ‘‘Debs prefers the other work.’’ At Atlanta the rigorous prison rules were applied in all their severity to Debs just as they apply to the 1700 other prisoners. Debs expressed himself to me as being glad that this “AS FIRM AS GRANITE” 7 was so. He refused to place himself in the position of being the recipient of special favors that were not ac- corded his fellow convicts. What was good enough, or, rather, what was bad enough for them, was equally good or bad enough for him, and he would not have it otherwise. As to the treatment accorded Debs at Atlanta, and his reactions to it, we might just as well let the great humanist speak for himself in his letter to his brother, Theodore, at Terre Haute: THEODORE DEBs, U. S. Penitentiary, 121814 Wabash avenue, Atlanta, Ga. Terre Haute, Indiana. July 3d, 1919. My prEAREST OLD Parp: A thousand loving greetings to you and Gertrude and Marguerite and ‘‘Babe’’! You know why, under my limited writing privileges, you have not heard from me before. And you know, too, that you have been in my heart every moment since we embraced in love and farewell that never-to-be-forgotten night. You are the sweetest, faithfullest, darling of a brother a mortal ever had. Kate* has been telling me all about how good and sweet and attentive you and Gertrude and Marguerite have been to her, and that has been of inexpressible solace to me—We all may write a special letter on the Fourth of July and it is this letter that I’m now writing to you. Please drop a line to Marguerite and tell her why I can’t write and that I send my love and tenderest devotion to them all. The ride down here was hot and tiresome but I stood it well. Had but an hour’s notice before leaving and everything was kept profoundly se- eret. The first five days here I was locked in my cell day and night. I’m now assigned to clerical work in Clothing Room, very light, and in charge of Mr. Boyle and Mr. Barry(?), two very fine men. We work from * Mrs. Katherine M. Debs, Terre Haute, Indiana, wife of Eugene V. Debs. 8 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 8 till near 4—then twenty minutes in yard, then sup- per. We are in our cells from 5 P. M. to 7 A. Mi—Satur- day and Sunday P. M. we have out in the grounds from about 1 to 4. There are six of us in one cell—my five companions are the finest kind of fellows and I love them all. One is a German, one a Jew, one an Irishman and two Americans. They are all fine, bright fellows and they vie with each other in being kind to me. Don’t let any one send me anything as it cannot come to me under the rules. I have not received a package of any kind, nor a Socialist paper or magazine since I’ve been here. Cigars, fruit, candy, eatables cannot come to me, so please notify Germer* and the papers not to send me anything as it will not reach me. Tell the comrades I cannot write to them. I can write but one letter a week and that to my family. A special letter requires appli- cation in writing, special permission, and must be con- fined to the one subject for which it is written, which must be specified. The application must be approved by the guard before it can be passed on—it may or may not be granted and when written it may or may not be sent. I am treated exactly the same as the common run of prisoners and have no complaint on that score. The prisoner here to whom we sent a little money for to- bacco about two years ago has been very kind to me and returned it many fold. Bread cast upon the waters, etc. I’m in perfect health. My spirits could not be more serene and dauntless. I calmly await the future. All’s well. My love and kisses to you all and forever, GENE. Eugene V. Debs, No. 9653. Debs himself had related to me on my visit in July the substantial facts concerning his treatment and estate * Adolph Germer, National Secretary, Socialist Party, Chicago. “AS FIRM AS GRANITR”’ 9 at Atlanta Prison. After he had mentioned the different nationalities of his five cell mates he said: ‘And I am an internationalist, so we all get along splendidly together.’’ He said he was not being persecuted at the prison because of his social ideas. But I could easily under- stand without a word from him, by the flash of his eyes and the stiffness of his jaws, with what hatred he re- garded all prisons, and with what sympathetic under- standing he entered into the dull, drab lives of his fel- low prisoners. ““You remember,’’ he said to me on one of my visits to his cell, ‘“you remember what Lincoln said when at New Orleans he saw a young negress being sold on the block? He said: ‘If I ever get a chance I’ll hit at the very foundations of chattel slavery, and Ill hit it hard.’ Well, if I ever get out of here alive I’ll strike at the prison system harder than Lincoln ever hit at chattel slavery.”’ At Atlanta Debs and his five cell mates alternated in teams of two each week sweeping, swabbing and washing the cell, which was neither a difficult job nor a long one for six healthy and normal human beings, consider- ing the fact that the cell was only ten by eight feet. In the sextette cells there are three steel bunks in tiers on each side of the walls. A thin straw mattress is thrown over the springless steel frame of each. A rough sheet and a blanket make up the clothing. “*Last week,’’ said Debs, ‘‘came the turn of my Jewish comrade and me to sweep and wash the floor and walls. A line in the cement floor running down the middle of the cell furnished the division of our labor. I had my back turned to the fellow, as I was washing the wall between the bunks, and when I turned around I saw that the rascal had hunched over on my side of the line and had washed almost the entire floor. I naturally gave him a good talking to, and told him that since the govern- 10 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ment had given me a job I wanted to fill it, and that he should ‘shinny over on his own side.’ ”’ Debs has not often been in accord with the ideas of priests and preachers, and when he was visited in his cell at Atlanta by them the occasion presented an opportun- ity to deliver himself on the subject, as he _put it, of churchianity versus Christianity. ““T have already had two visitors,’’ said Debs, with a merry twinkle in his eye, ‘‘yes, one a priest and the other a preacher. They came at different times, but on the same mission, to save my soul. They both wanted to know what religion I professed. I told them that their churches and their theologies were not for me—I have no use for them. Their tendencies are not to serve but to enslave. To conceal rather than reveal the true and vital significance of the Sermon on the Mount.’’ So, Debs said he told the two clergymen that he be- longed to no church, and bowed to no image. He said he believed firmly in immortality, and saw the spiritual likeness of God in the face of every breathing being. “*‘T told my friends of the cloth that I did not be- lieve Christ was meek and lowly, but a real, living, vital agitator who went into the Temple with a lash and a knout and whipped the oppressors of the poor, routed them out of doors and spilled their blood-got silver on the fioor. He told the robbed and misruled and exploited and driven people to disobey their plunderers! he de- nounced the profiteers, and it was for this that they nailed his quivering body to the cross and spiked it to the gates of Jerusalem, not because he told men to love one another. That was a harmless doctrine. But when he touched their profits and denounced them before their people he was then marked for crucifixion. I did the same thing in a different way,’’ continued Debs on this occasion, speaking in a most impersonal matter-of-fact manner, with not the slightest suggestion of self-praise, but rather in a vein of deep humility. ‘‘I did the same “AS FIRM AS GRANITE”’ 11 thing, but I fared better than Christ. They nailed him to the cross and they threw me in here. We have pro- gressed quite some in two thousand years. If Christ could go to the cross for his principles, surely I can go to prison for mine, and I want nothing more than the strength to be able to serve in this slight way those who have done so much for me. To be here for the reason that I am here is a high privilege, and, in a sense, a vindication of many things, all of which will come out all right in God’s good time. All of us but need the strength to face the future together.’’ Debs is a most religious man. He accepts literally what he conceives to be the principles for which Christ was crucified. He is a Christian to whom the church offers nothing but an apology for Christ. He was a personal friend of Robert G. Ingersoll, and he admired the speeches and writings of the great agnostic, and understood their significance as few men in that period did. Debs is preéminently an agitator, a crusader. He has lived close to the pulsing heart of the human race. He accepts the Socialist philosophy because he is sure it can be made to serve the poor and make them rich in the good things of life. In his heart and soul there is no trace of hatred for a living soul, and he has said time and again that he would serve those who oppose him just as much as those who are with him. Few men in America have possessed the gift of oratory that belongs to Eugene V. Debs. What he once said of Ingersoll, that ‘‘flowers blossom upon his lips, and you can hear the ripple of silver springs in the music of his voice,’’ is likewise said of him. In his forty years of agitation in behalf of the workers and the organized labor movement of America Debs has addressed millions of people. Once when he came to New York to make an address at Madison Square Garden the hall was crowded to the last inch. Lincoln Steffens, the journalist, had a seat offered him on the platform which he declined, saying he would rather go 12 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS) down under the stage so that he might be able ‘‘to feel ’Gene’s vibrations.’’ Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, November 5, 1855. In his sixty-fifth year he enjoys fair health, despite the results of a severe nervous breakdown a few years ago which left him prostrated for some while. He stands a little over six feet, is slender and gaunt like Lincoln. When speaking, both in public and in private, he gesticulates frequently with his large, lean right hand, extending and separating his fingers, with his thumb curved far back. The gestures of that right hand are a vital part of his talk, and in his grip you can feel the sincere, pulsing heart of the man. His baldness, which extends back beyond the crown of his head, ac- centuates the myriad tiny veins, lines of suffering, and the valleys and crevices in his face. Debs has made his living for many years by his speeches and writings, although by far the most of his speeches have been delivered without any thought of pay, and the major portion of his writings have been given freely to the small daily and weekly papers whose political and economic doctrines he supports. Scores of weeklies and radical publications claim him as their ‘‘contributing editor,’’ although most of them are finan- cially unable to contribute toward his material well- being. For many years an article in any one of these publications signed by his name has been considered a “‘star feature,’’ and is reprinted again and again until it has run its printorial course from coast to coast, from the Gulf to the regions farthest north. He has had compensatory attachments with The Appeal io Reason of Girard, Kansas, when that free-lance Socialist weekly was conducted under a former management, and later he wrote a weekly editorial for The Rip Saw, another free-lance Socialist weekly, published at St. Louis, and which later became known as The Social Revolution just before it went into eclipse. He has written for a num- ““AS FIRM AS GRANITE’’ 13 ber of the more widely known publications, too, and always in the style and manner of an agitator, a eru- sader. Several scores of his most significant articles have been reprinted in leaflet and pamphlet form, and have had tremendous sales in which Debs has almost never shared, the profits going into the coffers of the particular enterprising Socialist Party branch to en- able it to increase its propaganda for Socialism in its community. Times uncounted he has traveled long dis- tances to address meetings, paying every expense, even railroad fare, out of his own pocket. He is reckless with money—gives it away. Many stories have been told about him concerning the number of overcoats he has given to poor derelicts whom he chanced to meet in his travels about the country. Once he came to Philadelphia to address a large rally of his party. He was met at the railroad depot by friends and an escorting committee. He saw in the group an old and staunch friend, Horace Traubel, poet and editor, a man of his own beliefs. *‘Horace, have you got any money?’’ Debs asked, when the greetings were over. Traubel had in his pocket twenty dollars which he gave over to Debs without fur- ther word. “*‘T haven’t got a cent,’’ explained Debs. ‘‘On my train coming east there was an old woman with several children, and the poor soul had lost her ticket. The con- ductor was going to put her off. I gave her every cent I had so she could go on her way.’’ And Traubel was reimbursed by Debs as soon as the latter arrived home at Terre Haute. The simplicity and sincerity of his kindnesses have been the simplicity and sincerity of his powerful attacks against whatever he considered to be injustice. Keenly, persistently, he has sought his goal. Bitter criticism, pun- ishment, could not affect the vision in his soul. Sixty- four years of age—a ten-year term of imprisonment— simply,serenely, he took that vision with him into his cell. CHAPTER I TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL HE Debs case was the result of a speech made by Debs in Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918, before the Ohio State Socialist Convention.* He had made a num- ber of other speeches to his comrades in the Socialist movement at various times during the year from April 6, 1917, the date on which Congress declared that a state of war existed between the United States and the Ger- man Imperial Government, up to the Canton address. On June 20, 1918, a Federal grand jury empaneled at Cleveland, in the Eastern Division of the Northern Dis- ' trict of Ohio, returned an indictment, consisting of ten counts, against Debs under Section Three of the Act of June 15, 1917, as amended by Act of May 16, 1918, and known as the Espionage Law. On September 9, 1918, Debs went to trial at Cleveland before Judge D. C. Westenhaver. He was represented by Seymour Sted- man, of Chicago; William A. Cunnea, of Chicago; Joseph W. Sharts, of Dayton, Ohio, and Morris Wolf, of Cleve- land. The government was represented by United States District Attorney E. S. Wertz, assisted by F. B. Kav- anaugh, and one or two other assistants. On the previ- ous day, Sunday afternoon, Debs, at his home in Terre Haute, calmly discussed his case with his counsel, feeling almost certain that the following week would find him convicted. With the knowledge of the fates of several hundred other Socialists, Industrial Workers of the: World, Bible students and political and religious free- * Salient extracts from the Canton speech may be found in the Appendix. 14 TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 15 thinkers, convicts under the Espionage Act, still fresh in his mind, Debs could not well be sanguine concerning his own fate. He took the position from the beginning of his predica- ment that the Federal Constitution protected, or was intended to so protect, his rights as an American citizen, born in the United States. He stood squarely upon the First Amendment: *“Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- ment 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 peti- tion the Government for a redress of their grievances.’’ Over and against that guarantee was the Espionage Act, passed originally June 15, 1917, and amended May 16, 1918. The original act was as follows: (Title I, Section 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 insubordina- tion, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the mili- tary 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 ten thousand dollars or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.’’ Of far more drastic nature was the amended act: *“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 16 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS or do anything except by way of bona fide and not dis- loyal 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 at- tempt 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 Consti- tution 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 ene- mies, 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 essen- tial 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 TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 17 or act, support or favor the catise of any country with which the United States is at war, or by word or act op- pose the cause of the United States therein, shall be pun- ished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.”’ Several hours before Judge Westenhaver’s court con- vened that morning Debs was busy every moment, both at the Holland Hotel and the Gillsy House, around the corner, holding impromptu receptions with his friends and counsel, seeming to be wholly oblivious of the ordeal through which he must pass in the coming week. He was calm and composed, and to one anxious friend, who expressed deep concern over the outcome of the trial, Debs said: ‘‘This is but another milepost along the pathway of progress. We shall not tarry here very long.’’ As he entered the courtroom, clad in fresh sum- mer gray, he was instantly surrounded by a large group of his fellow Socialists who had been standing in line outside the judicial doors for several hours in the hope of getting a seat to witness the trial of their chief. Debs, walking with one of his counsel, took his seat at a table, folded his hands in his lap, and appeared eager for the eurtain to rise on what was to be the climax of his career. He followed closely the examination of the veniremen, appearing to be not so much concerned as a defendant, as interested as a spectator. After four hours of ex- amination and cross-examination of a score or more of prospective talesmen, twelve men were chosen to try the case. A jury of farmers had been selected. They all evinced their thorough nationalism by the answers they gave to pertinent and leading questions of Debs’s counsel. All believed in the form of government of the United States, its Constitution, including the First Amendment, which several of them had heard read and explained for the first time in their lives, and disclaimed any prejudice against Debs or the party he represented. 18 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS Assistant District Attorney Kavanaugh presented the government’s case to the jury. He was a prepossessing young man, and accepted the duty that lay before him with ardor and vehemence. ‘“‘This man is the palpitating pulse of the sedition crusade,’’ he exclaimed, adding later, “‘by_his words shall he be judged, and by his words shall he be con- demned.’’ His address lasted the better part of an hour, and, when it was finished, Debs leaned across the counsel table and complimented his adversary upon his efforts. Stedman, speaking for Debs, justified, by the Consti- tution of the United States, everything his client had said in his Canton speech, and when he said to the jury: **You would not indict Woodrow Wilson because he wrote in his book, ‘The New Freedom,’ that wars are brought by the rulers and not by the people,’’ there was applause in the rear of the courtroom. The court quickly smoth- ered this demonstration, and the participants, including Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes, a New York worker in the So- cialist cause, who at that time was herself convicted of violating the Espionage Act, were fined. Mrs. Stokes, who sat by Debs during his trial, was enjoying her free- dom under bail pending the disposition of appeal of her case. Stedman paid tribute to Debs and his life work, concluding with the words: ““We ask you to judge Eugene V. Debs by his life, his deeds and his works. If you will do that we shall abide ~ by your verdict.’’ Clyde R. Miller, a newspaper reporter of Cleveland, was the chief witness for the government. He testified that he was sent by his paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to report the proceedings of the Socialist con- vention at Canton on June 16th, and that he had inter- viewed Debs at the Courtland Hotel in Canton just before he delivered his address. Miller testified that he had particularly asked Debs whether the newspapers TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 19 had correctly reported him when they stated that he had repudiated the St. Louis Majority Report of the So- cialist Party.* Denying the statements that he had re- pudiated the anti-war proclamation of his party, Miller testified that Debs said in that interview: **T approved of the adoption of the platform in form and substance at the time it was created, but in the light of the Russian situation I think we should have put forth a restatement of the aims of the Socialist Party.’’ Miller also quoted Debs as saying to him: **In a land where they are fighting for democracy one must be very careful what one says if one would keep out of jail.’’ “*‘He told me it was his opinion that the Bolsheviki of Russia were the inspiration of the world, and that he hoped their ideas would come to prevail in America,”’ Miller swore. ‘‘He told me, further, that the Socialist movement in America was growing numerically and morally as a direct result of the arrest and conviction of radicals under the Espionage Law.’’ There was nothing venomous in the character or quality of the young reporter’s testimony. He appeared rather to be personally sympathetic toward Debs, and to be laboring under some discomfiture in having to testify against the old agitator. — The most astonishing revelation of the trial came with the testimony of Virgil Steiner, a youth of twenty years, when he said that he had been pressed into serv- ice by the Department of Justice to take a stenographic report of Debs’s address at Canton, despite his admis- sion on the witness stand that his knowledge of short- hand was so meager that he had practiced it but little even in common office dictation. The young man ad- mitted\ that he was hopelessly at a loss in following * Proclamation of the Socialist Party expressing opposition to the war. Adopted in national convention at St. Louis, Mo., April 5, 1917, and known as the St. Louis Majority Report, other reports having been offered. 20 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS Debs’s speech, and that very early in the address he abandoned all attempt to follow Debs verbatim. He admitted to the court that he would rest between long sentences and exclamations, and then would “‘jump in’’ to follow the thread of the discourse, This is all the, more significant when we consider the fact that it was Steiner’s version upon which the indictment against Debs was drawn, coupled with the testimony of Miller before the grand jury. At the time the Department of Justice agents at Canton pressed Steiner into service as a government stenographer to take a speech of a man who would probably be sent to the penitentiary the lad was employed by a motor car concern at Canton. The Steiner version was read to the jury and only forty minutes were required for the reading, whereas Debs talked for about two hours on that occasion. Con- trasted with the Steiner version, Edward B. Sterling, 32 years old, a lawyer of Canton, was employed by the Ohio State Socialist Convention to take in shorthand and transcribe the entire Canton speech. Sterling told the court that he had twelve years’ experience as a shorthand reporter, and had ‘‘taken down’’ many speeches of representatives and senators in Congress. Both shorthand reporters were made to read to the jury their respective versions. Sterling read with great ef- fect, and he seemed to emphasize of his own accord the high lights, oratorical flights and dramatic climaxes contained in the bulky printed manuscript he held in his hand. There were many moist eyes in the court room while Sterling read the speech, and the jury gave it strict attention. Only the prosecutors seemed to effect infinite weariness. With minor and slight reserva- tions Debs stated that the Sterling version was correct. During a ten-minute recess that day Debs walked to the back of the court room where young Steimer was sitting, and, putting his hands on the shoulders of the boy, assured him that he had done the best he could Se KORO La Td ke ST TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 21 under the circumstances, and told him not to feel hu- miliated in the least, that his abilities in that line had been unfairly taxed. The youth was nearly in tears as ’Gene gently patted his face and told him not to worry. On another similar occasion, when Miller had concluded his testimony and took his seat at the press table, "Gene left his chair and leaning over the shoulders of news- paper men said very softly to Miller: ““Mr. Miller, all that you said about me is true. You quoted me straight and accurate. I don’t want you ever to feel that you have done me an injury by testifying against me; You had to do it, and you did it like a gentleman. We all do what we cannot possibly help doing, and no blame or stigma attaches to any of us for doing that.’’ On Wednesday, September 11, shortly before 11 o’clock counsel for the government informed the court that the prosecution had presented its case. The heads of Debs’s four lawyers bent together in a conference that lasted exactly one minute; then Stedman informed the court that the defense also rested its case. Debs had been fully cognizant of this move beforehand. I am told that it was originally his desire to caution his attorneys against making even an opening statement in his behalf. If such had been his intention, it was doubt- lessly prompted by his feeling of certainty that, under the circumstances, it would be useless to make a defense when he held, in the first instance, that the Espionage Act was a flagrant violation of the Federal Constitu- tion, and that the constitutionality of the act itself had never been determined by the Supreme Court. Debs and his counsel retired to an ante-room and when they returned Stedman briefly announced to the court: ‘‘Mr. Debs will plead his case before the jury.’’ Debs had been working during the night on the address that he was now to make. I remember seeing him in his room at the Gillsy House from my own room, just 22 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS across an areaway, Sitting at his window, clad in pa- jamas, calmly smoking a long black cigar, with a paper pad resting on his knee and jotting down notes for the speech that will, it has been said, take its place as a classic of oratory and as a libertarian exposition. Cer- tainly, it is one of the most remarkable speeches deliv- ered by a defendant before a jury. _ Assistant District Attorney Breitenstein opened final arguments for the government. He paid a glowing trib- ute to Debs as a man, but condemned his word. ‘‘God only knows the harm he has done the United States by his fiery eloquence,’’ said the prosecutor. Debs had a kind word and warm smile for the prosecutor when he had concluded, and they exchanged handclasps across the table. At that moment that table seemed wider than the seven seas, so far apart were the intellectual and social leanings of these two men, now smiling into each other’s face in comradely manner. The luncheon recess was announced by the court. In the corridor Debs was instantly surrounded by an ever-growing group of friends and followers. With diffi- culty he made his way to the elevator, and walked straight to his hotel. He partook of no luncheon, pre- ferring to go to his room to be alone with his thoughts. Long before the court was opened for afternoon session the federal building was jammed with struggling hu- manity, trying to edge its way toward the courtroom. The doors were flung open and there ensued a veritable stampede for seats on the painfully straight benches. Spectators perched themselves on window ledges, and crowded every aisle. When the last available inch had been occupied the doors were locked, shutting out ten times as many people as were in the room. The mo- ment was tense with dramatic interest and expectancy. Judge Westenhaver warned the spectators that any at- tempt to applaud or otherwise show approval or disap- proval would be sharply and sternly dealt with. The TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 23 twelve men in the jury box shifted to attention in their seats. Reporters had sharpened the points of a dozen pencils in order not to miss a word of Debs’s plea for his rights as an American citizen. He arose from his seat beside his counsel, and slowly walked over to the jury. With right hand extended, the arm crooked at the elbow, the left hand placed firmly at his side, he commenced. ““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 eell. “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 yet 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. “‘Permit me to say in the first place that I am en- tirely satisfied with the Court’s ruling. I have no fault to find with the district attorney or with the counsel for the prosecution. **T wish to admit the trutn of all that has been testi- fied to in this proceeding. I have no disposition to deny anything that is true. I would not, if I could, escape the results of an adverse verdict. I would not retract * Because of its importance, Debs’s speech has been included in its entirety. 24. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS a word that I have uttered that I believe to be true to save myself from going to the penitentiary for the rest of my days. ‘‘T am charged in the indictment, first, that I did willfully cause and attempt to cause or incite, insubordi- nation, mutiny, disloyalty and refusal of duty within the military forces of the United States; that E-did ob- struct and attempt to obstruct the recruiting and enlist- ment service of the United States. I am charged also with uttering words intended to bring into contempt and disrepute the form of government of the United States, the Constitution of the United States, the military forces of the United States, the flag of the United States, and the uniform of the army and navy.’’ Tue Court: ‘‘Mr. Debs, permit me to say that the last charge which you have read to the jury has been withdrawn from their consideration by the Court.”’ Dezss: ‘‘Pardon me. I was not aware of that.’’ Tue Court: ‘‘I have directed a verdict of ‘not guilty’ as to that charge.”’ Dess: ‘‘I am accused further of uttering words in- tended to procure and incite resistance to the United States and to promote the cause of the Imperial German Government. “Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June 16, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant these charges. J ad- mit 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 the ma- terial statements embodied in that speech. “In what I had to say there my purpose was to edu- cate 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 TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 25 means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real de- mocracy. **F'rom 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. “‘T admit being opposed to the present form of gov- ernment. 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 and social democracy. ““Tn the course of the speech that resulted in this in- dictment, I am charged with having expressed sympathy for Kate Richards O’Hare,* for Rose Pastor Stokes, for Ruthenberg,t Wagenknecht + and Baker.t I did ex- press my perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. I have known them for many years. I have every rea- son to believe in their integrity, every reason to look upon them with respect, with confidence and with ap- proval. ““Kate Richards O’Hare never uttered the words im- puted to her in the report. The words are perfectly brutal. She is not capable of using such language. I know that through all of the years of her life she has been working in the interests of the suffering, struggling poor, that she has consecrated all of her energies, all of her abilities, to their betterment. The same is true * Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare, Socialist worker of St. Louis, Mo., convicted and serving a sentence of five years at Jefferson City, Mo., prison for making a speech alleged to be in violation of the Espionage Law. 7 C. E. Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenknecht and Charles Baker, Cleveland Socialists, sentenced to serve one year each at the Stark . County workhouse for infractions of the military iaws in 1917. 26° DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS of Rose Pastor Stokes. Through all her life she has been on the side of the oppressed and downtrodden. If she were so inclined she might occupy a place of ease. She might enjoy all of the comforts and leisures of life. Instead of this, she has renounced them all. She has taken her place among the poor, and’ there she has worked with all of her ability, all of her energy, to make it possible for them to enjoy a little more of the com- forts of life. ‘*T said that if these women whom I have known all of these years—that if they were criminals, if they ought to go to the penitentiary, then I, too, am a ecrim- inal, and I ought to be sent to prison. I have not a word to retract—not one. I uttered the truth. I made no statement in that speech that I am not prepared to prove. If there is a single falsehood in it, it has not been exposed. If there is a single statement in it that will not bear the light of truth, I will retract it. I will make all of the reparation in my power. But if what I said is true, and I believe it is, then whatever fate or fortune may have in store for me I shall pre- serve inviolate the integrity of my soul and stand by it to the end. ‘When I said what I did about the three comrades of mine who are in the workhouse at Canton, I had in mind what they had been ever since I have known them in the service of the working class. I had in mind the fact that these three working men had just a little while before had their hands cuffed and were strung up in that prison house for eight hours at a time until they fell to the floor fainting from exhaustion. And this because they had refused to do some menial, filthy services that were an insult to their dignity and their manhood. ‘*T 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 knowl- 4 TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 27 edge 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 fol- lowed? The common people of Russia came into power —the peasants, the toilers, the soldiers—and they pro- ceeded as best they could to establish a government of the people.’’ District ATTORNEY Wertz: ‘‘If the Court please, I would like to ask the Court to instruct the defendant that his arguments are to be confined to the evidence in the ease. There isn’t any evidence in this case about the Bolsheviki at all or the Russian revolution.’’ Tue Court: ‘‘I think I will permit the defendant to proceed in his own way. Of course, you are not a lawyer, Mr. Debs. The usual rule is that the remarks of counsel should be confined to the testimony in the ease, but it does not forbid counsel from making refer- ences to facts or matters of general public history or notoriety by way of illustrating your arguments and comments upon the testimony in the case. So I will permit you to proceed in your own way.”’ Dess: ‘‘Thank you. 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. The 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 28 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 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, perse- cuted, sometimes put to death. Long after their mar- tyrdom monuments were erected to them and garlands were woven for their graves. ‘‘T 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 man, 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 never was 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 at St. Helena, when he felt the skele- ton hand of death reaching for him, he eried out in horror, ‘ War is the trade of savages and barbarians.’ “‘T 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 be- lieve 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 any one else, or at the command of any power on earth? ‘‘Twenty centuries ago there was one appeared upon earth we know as the Prince of Peace. He issued a TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 29 command in which I believe. He said, ‘Love one an- other.’ 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 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 to-day, “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, con- ’ demned, 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 hem- lock. 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 cour- age to attack the established order of things, have all had to pay the same penalty. **A century and a half ago, when the American col- onists 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 king 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 min- isters who opened their Bibles to prove that it was the patriotic duty of the people to loyally serve and sup- port the king. But there were a few men in that day 30 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS who said, ‘We don’t need a king. We can govern our- selves.’ 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 by and by.’ 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 opposed to the social system of their time. 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 his- tory, 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 agita- tion in this country. It was against an institution that was deemed a very respectable one in its time, the in- stitution of chattel slavery, that became all-powerful, that controlled the President, both branches of Con- gress, the Supreme Court, the press, to a very large ex- tent the pulpit. All of the organized forces of society, all the powers of government, upheld chattle slavery in that day. And again there were a few lovers of liberty who 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 : F § : \ TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 31 man who was true to himself and his convictions of right and duty unto death. **Tt 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 his- tory. 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 to-day. 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 organ- izing 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. “Tt is because I happen to be in this minority that I stand in your presence to-day, charged with crime. It is because I believe, as the revolutionary fathers be- lieved in their day, that a change was due in the inter- ests of the people, that the time had come for a better form of government, an improved system, a higher so- cial order, a nobler humanity and a grander civilization. This minority that is so much misunderstood and so bit- terly maligned is in alliance with the forces of evolu- tion, and as certain as I stand before you this after- noon, 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. 32 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ‘‘My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn’t lke 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 be- lieve in patriotism, I have never uttered a word against the flag. I love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I ob- ject 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. “*T 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 es- sence of internationalism. I believe in it with all of my heart. I believe that nations have been pitted against na- tions long enough in hatred, in strife, in warfare. I be- lieve 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 aspira- tions, he is entitled to the same rights, and I would in- finitely 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— TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 33 in which we have individual interests and each is striv- ing to care for himself alone without reference to his fellow men. Human brotherhood is yet to be realized in this world. It can never be under the capitalist- competitive system in which we live. “Yes, I was opposed to the war. I am perfectly will- ing, 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. “Tf my friends, the attorneys, had known me a little better they might have saved themselves some trouble in procuring evidence to prove certain things against me which I have not the slightest mclination to deny, but rather, upon the other hand, I have a very consid- erable pride in. *“You have heard a great deal about the St. Louis platform. I wasn’t at the convention when that plat- form was adopted, but I don’t ask to be excused from my responsibility on that account. I voted for its adop- tion. I believe in its essential principles. There was some of its phrasing that I would have otherwise. I afterwards advocated a restatement. The testimony to the effect that I had refused to repudiate it was true. *“At the time that platform was adopted the nation had just entered upon the war and there were millions of people who were not Socialists who were opposed to the United States being precipitated into that war. Time passed; conditions changed. There were certain new developments and I believed there should be a restatement. I have been asked why I did not favor a repudiation of what was said a year before. For the rea- son that I believed then, as I believe now, that the state- ment correctly defined the attitude of the Socialist Party toward war. That statement, bear in mind, did not apply to the people of this country alone, but to the 34 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS people of the world. It said, in effect, to the people; especially to the workers, of all countries, ‘Quit going to war. Stop murdering one another for the profit and glory of the ruling classes. Cultivate the arts of peace. Humanize humanity. Civilize civilization.’ That is the essential spirit and the appeal of the much-hated, condemned St. Louis platform. ™ “Now, the Republican and Democratic parties hold their conventions from time to time. They revise their platforms and their declarations. They do not repudi- ate previous platforms. Nor is it necessary. With the change of conditions these platforms are outgrown and others take their places. I was not in the convention, but I believed in that platform. I do today. But from the beginning of the war to this day, I have never, by word or act, been guilty of the charges that are em- braced in this indictment. If I have eriticized, if I ever condemned, it is because I have believed myself justified in doing so under the laws of the land. I have had precedents for my attitude. This country has been engaged in a number of wars, and every one of them has been opposed, every one of them has been condemned by some of the most eminent men in the country. The war of the Revolution was opposed. The Tory press denounced its leaders as criminals and out- laws. And that was when 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 Lin- coln, by Charles Sumner, by Daniel Webster and by Henry Clay. That war took place under the Polk ad- ministration. These men denounced the President; they condemned his administration; and they said that the war was a crime against humanity. They were not in- dicted; they were not tried for crime. They are hon- ored to-day by all of their countrymen. The War of the Rebellion was opposed and condemned. In 1864 TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 35 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 to-day 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? “‘T believe in the Constitution of the United States. Isn’t it strange that we Socialists stand almost alone to-day in defending the Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers who had been op- pressed under king rule understood that free speech and free press and the right of free assemblage by the people were the fundamental principles of democratic government. The very first amendment to the Consti- tution reads: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free ex- ereise 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 revolu- tionary 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 biggest enemy. I would under no circumstances sup- press 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 Wen- dell Phillips did. Wendell Phillips said that the glory 36 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS of free men is that they trample unjust laws under their feet. That is how they repealed 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 man- hood. WA “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 absolutely no crime except the crime of attempting to exercise the right guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States. **T 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 funda- mental principle established by the Constitution, then certainly I am unable to read or to understand the Eng- lish language. To THE Court: ‘‘Your Honor, I don’t know whether I would be in order to quote from a book I hold in my hand, called ‘The New Freedom,’ by Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States.”’ THE Court: ‘‘I will grant you that permission.’’ Dess: ‘‘I want to show the gentlemen of the jury, if I can, that every statement I made in my Canton speech is borne out in this book by Woodrow Wilson, called ‘The New Freedom.’ It consists of his cam- | paign speeches while a candidate for the presidency. Of course, he uses different language than I did, for he is a college professor. He is an educated gentleman. I never had a chance to get an education. I had to go TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 37 to work in my childhood. I want to show you that the statement made by Rose Pastor Stokes, for which she has been convicted, and the approval of which has brought condemnation upon me, is substantially the © same statement made by Mr. Wilson when he was a candidate for the presidency of the United States: ““*Today, when our government has so far passed into the hands of special interests; to-day, when the doctrine is implicitly avowed that only select classes have the equipment necessary for carrying on govern- ment; to-day, when so many conscientious citizens, smit- ten with the scene of social wrong and suffering, have fallen victims to the fallacy that benevolent government can be meted out to the people by kind-hearted trustees of prosperity and guardians of the welfare of dutiful employees—to-day, supremely does it behoove this na- tion to remember that a people shall be saved by the power that sleeps in its own deep bosom, or by none; shall be renewed in hope, in conscience, in strength, by waters welling up from its own sweet, perennial springs.’ “‘So this government has passed into the hands of special interests. Rose Pastor Stokes’ language is some- what different. Instead of ‘special interests’ she said ‘profiteers.’ She said that a government that was for the profiteers could not be for the people, and that as long as the government was for the profiteers, she was for the people. That is the statement that I indorsed, approved and believed in with all my heart. The Presi- dent of the United States tells us that our government has passed into the control of special interests, When we Socialists make the same contention, we are branded as disloyalists, and we are indicted as criminals. But that is not all, nor nearly all: *““There are, of course, Americans who have not yet heard that anything is going on. The circus might come to town, have the big parade and go, without their catching a sight of the camels or a note of the calliope. 38 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — There are people, even Americans, who never move themselves or know that anything else is moving.’ ‘‘Just one other quotation: ‘For a long time this country of ours has lacked one of the institutions which free men have always and everywhere held fundamental. For a long time there has been no sufficient opportunity of counsel among the people; no place and method of talk, of exchange of opinion, of parley. Communities have outgrown the folk-moot and the town meeting. Congress, in accordance with the genius of the land, which asks for action and is impatient of words—Con- gress has become an institution which does its work in the privacy of committee rooms and not on the floor of the Chamber; a body that makes laws, a legislature; not a body that debates, not a parliament. Party con- ventions afford little or no opportunity for discussion ; platforms are privately manufactured and adopted with a whoop. It is partly because citizens have foregone the taking of counsel together that the unholy alliances of bosses and Big Business have been able to assume to govern for us. ‘* “T conceive it to be one of the needs of the hour ~ to restore the processes of common counsel, and to sub- stitute them for the processes of private arrangement which now determine the policies of cities, states and nation. We must learn, we freemen, to meet, as our © fathers did, somehow, somewhere, for consultation. There must be discussion and debate, in which all freely participate.’ ”’ ‘‘Well, there has been something said in connection - with this about profiteering—in connection with this indictment. / To tHE Court: ‘‘Would it be in order for me to read a brief statement, showing to what extent profiteer- ‘ ing has been carried on during the last three years?’’ © Tue Court: ‘‘No. There would be no concensus of opinion or agreement upon that statement. It is a mat-— % ay TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 39 ter that is not really in the case, and when you go to com- pile a statement, you are then undertaking to assume something without producing evidence to substantiate it.’’ Depss: ‘*Now, in the course of this proceeding you, gentlemen, have perhaps drawn the inference that I am pro-German, in the sense that I have any sym- pathy with the Imperial Government of Germany. My father and mother were born in Alsace. They loved France with a passion that is holy. They understood the meaning of Prussianism, and they hated it with all their hearts. I did not need to be taught to hate Prussian militarism. I knew from them what a hateful, what an oppressive, what a brutalizing thing it was and is. I cannot imagine how any one could suspect that for one moment I could have the slightest sympathy with such a monstrous thing. I have been speaking and writing against it practically all of my life. I know that the Kaiser incarnates all there is of brute force and of murder. And yet I would not, if I had the power, kill the Kaiser. I would do to him what Thomas Paine wanted to do to the king of England. He said, ‘Destroy the king, but save the man.’ ‘‘The thing that the Kaiser incarnates and embodies, called militarism, I would, if I could, wipe from the face of the earth,—not only the militarism of Germany, but the militarism of the whole world. I am quite well aware of the fact that the war now deluging the world with blood was precipitated there. Not by the German people, but by the class that rules, oppresses, robs and degrades the German people. President Wilson has repeatedly said that we were not making war on the German people, and yet in war it is the people who are slain, and not the rulers who are respon- sible for the war. ‘‘With every drop in my veins I despise kaiserism, and all that kaiserism expresses and implies. I have Sympathy with the suffering, struggling people every- 40 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS where. It does not make any difference under what flag they were born, or where they live, I have sympathy — with them all. I would, if I could, establish a social system that would embrace them all. It is precisely at this point that we come to realize that there is a reason why the peoples of the various nations are pitted against each other in brutal warfare instead of being united in one all-embracing brotherhood. ‘“War does not come by chance. War is not the re- sult of accident. There is a definite cause for war, especially a modern war. The war that began in Eu- rope 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 rela- tively 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 are industrial rivals—competitors. 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 in- stance, 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, TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 41 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 Commis- sion on Industrial Relations. When the soldiers ap- proached 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 these United States flags into tatters. Not one of them was indicted or tried because he was a traitor to his country. Preg- nant women were killed, and a number of innocent chil- dren 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. i *“And while I am upon this point let me say just another word. Workingmen who organize, and who sometimes commit overt acts, are very often times con- demned by those who have no conception of the con- ditions under which they live. How many men are there, for instance, who know anything of their own knowledge about how men work in a Jumber 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 pit- tance for their pay, when they work like galley slaves for a wage that barely suffices to keep their protesting 42 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS souls within their tattered bodies. When they can en- dure the conditions 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 his own lines, and I wish it were possible for every man and woman in this coun- try 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. “‘T was asked not long ago if I was in favor of shoot- ing 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 some- thing 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 ealled themselves civilized rushed upon each other like wild beasts and murdered one another, by methods so cruel and bar- barous that they defy the power of man to describe. I can hear the shrieks of the soldiers of HKurope in my dreams. I have imagination enough to see a battle- field. I can see it strewn with the legs of human beings, TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 43: 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 have looked above and beyond this fright- ful 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.’ *‘Tf 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 blood- shed, to shed my own. But I do not believe that the shedding of blood bears any actual testimony to patri- otism, to lead a country to civilization. On the con- trary, I believe that warfare, in all of its forms, is an impeachment of our social order, and a rebuke to our much 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 which I have read to you. I cannot take back a word. I can’t repudiate a sentence. I stand before you guilty of hav- ing 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. Iam not on trial here. There is an infinitely greater issue 44. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS that is being tried 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. at ‘‘And now, Your Honor, permit me to return my hearty thanks for your patient consideration. And to you, Gentlemen of the Jury, for the kindness with which you have listened to me. ‘‘My fate is in your hands. I am prepared for the verdict.’ Debs had ispoken for the better part of two hours. If there had resided any doubt in the minds of his friends and followers in the courtroom as to his fate, after hearing his speech to the jury it vanished. His jury speech had been a restatement of his Canton ad- dress and an amplification of it. If his Canton speech warranted an indictment for crime what would his speech to his jury bring upon him? Debs made just the kind of a speech to the jury that the government counsel wanted him to make. He had admitted having obstructed the war. He would oppose it if he stood alone. He had approved of the I.W.W., 101 of whose national officers, organizers, editors and speakers, in- eluding William D. Haywood, general secretary- treasurer, had been convicted and sentenced to prison for terms ranging from one to twenty years, only a few weeks before his own trial began. The I.W.W. had been convicted of conspiracy to obstruct the gov- ernment in prosecuting the war. Debs had not availed himself of a single legal loop through which he might -escape a prison sentence. His manner of speech was not defiant, but calm, composed and candid. He said all that he believed to be true on a number of public questions. Even in that courtroom, on that late sum- mer’s afternoon, in a moment when the whole nation Was aroused by war, when American soldiers were at the throat of a fast-weakening and retreating foe across TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 45 the seas, Debs still pleaded with twelve average Ameri- can citizens to give a thought to the Constitution of the land which guaranteed to a minority citizenry a free and public expression of political opinions. It was an astonishing request, so simple, naive and child-like. It was like asking men whose homes had just been up- rooted by a hurricane or tidal wave to remember the soft and odorous nights of June whose breezes were so gentle as not to stir a maple leaf. Debs resumed his seat amid the silent plaudits of his followers. For he had set one more example for the libertarians of the world to follow if they would be true to their convic- tions. An agent of the Department of Justice who had been more or less active in assisting the prosecution said to one of the journalists at the press table: ‘‘You’ve got to hand it to the old man, he came through clean.”’ District Attorney Wertz spoke for the remainder of the day in final argument for the government. The prosecutor roundly denounced Debs and the Socialists, as was his duty, and said that all rights of free speech were adjourned. He stated that it was possible that the reason Abraham Lincoln was not arrested and con- victed for criticizing President Polk in 1846 for waging war against Mexico was because there was no Espionage Law at that time to apply. The prosecutor even said that Debs would be apt to carry his right to free speech to the extent of yelling ‘‘fire’’ in a crowded theater if it pleased him to do so. At the conclusion of that court day Debs was greeted outside the doors by a throng of Socialists and ad- mirers who had been unable to gain admittance. A young girl who had been standing. in the crowd out- side the doors all day long pushed her way by sheer force through the crowd to Debs’s side. In her arms she carried a huge bouquet of red roses caught at the stems with a wide splash of red satin ribbon. She thrust the flowers into ’Gene’s arms, and then swooned, 46 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS Debs catching her and holding her in his long, lean arms. He carried her into an ante-room, kissing her brow and saying: ‘‘I would rather have lived to witness this token of love and generosity of my unknown com- rade than to have my freedom. These are the incidents that make life so full and fine.’’ That night he remained in his room writing letters and smoking. I visited him for a few moments and expressed my admiration for the address he had made. ‘“Well,’’ he said quietly, ‘‘this time to-morrow we shall know how much American citizens care for liberty and their Constitution.’’ He said that for him everything was all right, that he had not the least concern over what the verdict might be. ‘‘‘I have made my bed and am prepared to lie in it.’ ”’ The following day, September 12th, Judge Westen- haver delivered his instructions to the jury. In effect, the court told the jury that it was not a crime for a person to disapprove of the war, or even to criticize the Administration and the conduct of the war, so long ‘as such criticism and disapproval was not made with criminal intent. The jury was instructed that the Hs- pionage Law, even in its amended form, was not in- tended to stifle the opinions of freemen which may be at variance with those of the majority of the people and the government, and that if the jury found that Debs, in his Canton speech, had no criminal intent to thwart the energies of the government in the prosecu- tion of war with Germany it was clearly their duty to return a verdict of ‘‘not guilty.’’ It was not necessary, ruled the court, for the government to prove that the Canton speech had actually caused insubordination, in- cited mutiny and promoted the cause of Germany. It was sufficient if the jury believed that it was the specific intention of Debs to do these things. The jury was instructed to disregard the testimony of witnesses who appeared against Debs, the court stat- TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 47 ing that such evidence was admitted only by way of indicating to the jury ‘‘the state of mind of the de- fendant.’’ With the constitutional right of free speech the court dealt at length, maintaining that the right should be denied and must be denied any person who willfully sought to obstruct the government in time of war, or tried to delay the production of materials neces- sary for its prosecution, or who interfered with the enlistment and recruiting service. The talesmen were told, finally, to disregard Debs’s statement that the Es- pionage Law was invalid because it abridged the Con- stitution, stating that that point was for the courts to determine. Shortly before eleven o’clock the jury retired to their room with a copy of the indictment and Debs’s Canton speech. The indictment had been stripped to three counts from its original ten, conviction on each count to carry a maximum sentence of twenty years imprison- ment and a fine of ten thousand dollars for each offense. While the jury debated, Debs sat at the counsel table and wrote letters and told stories and anecdotes to interested friends. He was in high spirits. Telegrams of congratulations from all parts of the country poured into his hands from followers who had read newspaper accounts of his address on the previous day. By six o’clock in the afternoon the jury reached its verdict of *‘Guilty as charged in the indictment.’’ The court fixed Saturday morning, September 14th, as the time for sentence. Debs spent the intervening day at Akron, Ohio, the home of Mrs. Marguerite Prevy, a personal friend, who was also a Socialist worker, and one of two of Debs’s bondsmen. While at Akron, Debs was visited by his lawyers, all of whom were Socialists, and who prevailed upon him to take advantage of the oppor- tunity that would be given him the following day to address the court before sentence should be imposed. I am told that Debs was at first disinclined to do this, -F 48 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS feeling rather weary of the whole proceeding, but on second thought he was convinced that he should make the most of the situation by speaking fer the future. The proceeding on Saturday morning, September 14th, was as follows: District ATTORNEY Wertz: ‘‘If the Court please, I move for the imposition of sentence.’”—__ JUDGE WESTENHAVER: (To the clerk) ‘‘You may inquire if the defendant has anything to say.’’ Tue CuerK: ‘‘Eugene V. Debs, have you anything further to say in your behalf before the Court passes sentence upon you?”’ Dress: ‘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. 4 ‘Tf 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 insti- tutions. ‘v “‘T have no fault to find with this court or with the trial. Everything in connection with this case has been conducted upon a dignified plane, and in a respect- ful and decent spirit—with just one exception. Your Honor, my sainted mother inspired me with a reverence for womanhood that amounts to worship. I ean think with disrespect of no woman, and I can think with re- spect of no man who can. I resent the manner in which the names of two noble women were bandied with in this court. The levity and the wantonness in this in- stance were absolutely inexcusable. When I think of TRIAL, CONVICTION AND “APPEAL 49 what was said in this connection, I feel that when I pass a woman, even though it be a sister of the street, I should take off my hat and apologize to her for being a man. ‘ "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 peace- able 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. \““‘T 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. ican see them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little lives broken, and their hopes blasted, because in this 50 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS high noon of cur 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 stilk 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.” ‘““When 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—when I think of them at work in a vitiated atmosphere, when I think of them at work when they ought to be at play or at school, when 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 scepters; they sit upon no thrones; and yet TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 51 they are our economic masters and our political rulers. They control this government and all of its institutions. They control the courts. “‘And, Your Honor, if you will permit me, I wish to make just one correction. It was stated here that I had eharged that all federal judges were crooks. The charge is absolutely untrue. I did say that all federal judges are appointed through the influence and power of the eapitalist class and not the working class. If that statement is not true, I am more than willing to re- tract it. “The five per cent of our people who own and control all the sources of wealth, all of the nation’s in- dustries, 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 destiny. And so long as this is true, we can make no just claim to being a democratic gov- ernment—a self-governing people. \“‘T 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 pri- vate property of the few and operated for their enrich- ment, ought to be the common property of all, demo- eratically administered in the interest of all.” *‘John D. Rockefeller has to-day 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 person- ally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply oppos- / ing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a 52) DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while mil- lions of men and women who work all of the days of their lives secure barely enough for an existence. ‘“This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest against it. I recognize the feeble- ness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, tike my- self, have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative 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 to-day upwards of sixty million Socialists, loyal, devoted, adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color or sex. They are all mak- ing common cause, They are all spreading the propa- ganda 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 trium- phant majority, and sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest change in history. ‘‘In that day we will have the universal common- wealth—not the destruction of the nation, but, on the contrary, the harmonious cooperation of every nation with every other nation on earth. Im that day war will curse this earth no more. ‘“T have been accused, Your Honor, of being an enemy of the soldier. I hope I am laying no flattering unction to my soul when I say that I don’t believe the soldier has a more sympathetic friend than I am. If I had my way there would be no soldiers. But I realize the sacrifices they are making, Your Honor. I ean think TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 53 of them. I can feel for them. I can sympathize with them. That is one of the reasons why I have been doing what little has been in my power to bring about a condition of affairs in this country worthy of the sacrifices they have made and that they are now making in its behalf. “‘Your Honor, in a local paper yesterday there was some editorial exultation about my prospective ‘im- prisonment. I do not resent it in the least. I can under- stand it perfectly. In the same paper there appears an editorial this morning that has in it a hint of the wrong to which I have been trying to call attention.’’ Reading: ‘‘ ‘A senator of the United States receives a salary of $7500—$45,000 for the six years for which he is elected. One of the candidates for senator from a state adjoining Ohio is reported to have spent through his committee $150,000 to secure the nomination. For advertising he spent $35,000; for printing $30,000; for traveling expenses $10,000 and the rest in ways known to political managers. “““The theory is that public office is as open to a poor man as to a rich man. One may easily imagine, however, how slight a chance one of ordinary resources _ would have in a contest against this man who was will- ing to spend more than three times his six years’ salary merely to secure a nomination. Were these conditions to hold in every state, the senate would soon become again what it was once held to be—a rich men’s club. _ “**Campaign expenditures have been the subject of much restrictive legislation in recent years, but it has not always reached the mark. The authors of primary reform have accomplished some of the things they set ° out to do, but they have not yet taken the bank roll out of politics.’ “They never. will teke it out of politics, they never can take it out of politics in this system. “Your Honor, I wish to make acknowledgment of 54 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS my thanks to the counsel for the defense. They have not only defended me with exceptional legal ability, but with a personal attachment and devotion of which I am deeply sensible, and which I can never forget. ‘*Your Honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no im- munity. 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 ean see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own. ‘‘When the mariner, sailing over tropie 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 finger-points 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. ‘* «He is true to God who is true to man, Wherever wrong is done To the humblest and the weakest "Neath the all-beholding sun, That wrong is also done to us, And they are slaves most base Whose love of right is for themselves And not for all the race.’ “‘Your Honor, I thank you, and I thank all of this court for their courtesy, for their kindness, which I shall remember always. ‘ - “T am prepared to receive your sentence,’’ TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 55 The Court overruled the motion of Debs’s counsel for a new trial on the ground of a faulty indictment and immaterial and improper evidence introduced by the prosecution. Judge Westenhaver made a lengthy state- ment from the bench, reviewing the evidence. He said that men of the power and influence of Debs were re- sponsible in a large measure for ‘‘other ignorant and unthinking foreigners’’ getting into similar difficulty. The Court held he yielded to none in his sympathy and tenderness toward the poor and the struggling, and ex- pressed his amazement at ‘‘the remarkable self-delusion and self-deception of Mr. Debs who assumes that he is serving humanity and the downtrodden.”’ *‘T am a conserver of the peace and a defender of the Constitution of the United States,’’ avowed the Court, looking squarely into the face of Debs whose eyes met squarely those of his judge. The Court admitted his admiration of Debs’s sincerity and courage, and added that the principles which Debs had espoused be- fore the jury and the Court were ‘‘anarchy pure and simple,’’ and not in conformity with any works on Socialism that he had read. The Court denounced as enemies those persons “‘within our borders who would strike the sword from the hand of this nation while she is engaged in defending herself against a foreign and brutal power.’’ The Court then sentenced Debs to serve ten years in the West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville on each of the three counts upon which he was found guilty, the sentence to run concurrently. Debs’s bail of $10,000 was continued, and he was released, but only on condition that he would remain at his home in Terre Haute or within the jurisdiction of the Court pending the disposition of his appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Socialist Party had decided that Debs should make a nation-wide speaking tour in behalf of other political and industrial prisoners con- 56 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS victed under the same statute, but the ruling of the Court limited his activities in this direction to the northern judicial district of Ohio and his home town. Debs held scores of meetings in the cities and towns embraced by this area while his appeal was being pre- pared. He did not miss a single opportunity to ad- dress his followers, and each address was substantially a reiteration of the principles enunciated in his Canton and jury speeches. On March 10th, 1919, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the conviction and sentence of Debs.* Debs was at home when the news reached him that his appeal had been denied. He gave the following broadside to the press associations: “‘The decision is perfectly consistent with the char- acter of the Supreme Court as a ruling class tribunal. It could not have been otherwise. So far as I am per- sonally concerned, the decision is of small consequence. But there is an issue at stake of vital interest to the American people. It involves the fundamental right of free speech. With this, our boasted freedom is a de- lusion and a farce. : ‘‘The Supreme Court has dodged the issue. It has held the Espionage Law valid without affirming its constitutionality. The real issue before the court was the constitutionality of the act. This issue the Supreme Court did not dare to decide. What the Supreme Court — did decide is that the Constitution is another “scrap of — - paper.’ “‘Great issues are not decided by courts, but by the - people. I have no concern in what the coterie of be-— gowned corporation lawyers in Washington may decide — in my case. The court of final resort is the people, and ~ that court will be heard from in due time. * Full text of decision of Supreme Court in the Debs case may ‘be found in the Appendix. | ¥ TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 57 ‘ ; I note all you say and your sweet message touches 3 me deeply. How very fortunate I am to have the con- fidence and love of such fine comrades! All is well with — me here and in good time everything will eome out right. Thanking you again, my dear little comrade, and with much love to you and all your household and other comrades, I am ever, PAD Yours devotedly, KB. V. Dress. Referring to his mail, Debs said letters had been pour- ing in upon him by the thousands. On Easter Sunday he-received a dozen boxes of flowers. ‘‘T want to say that if I had to come to prison, Il am glad I came here. I have not heard an unkind word since I arrived, and every official, from the warden down, has been kind to me and solicitous about my ~ health,’’ said Debs. The matter of the warden’s treat- ment to him is further attested by him in the following letter to me: Moundsville, W. Va., April 22, 1919. My pear ComrApe Davin: A thousand thanks! You can never know how very much I appreciate all your kindness. Your coming here with me was so good of you, and the many fine things you have said and written in your splendid ar- ticles will abide with me for all time. I wish you could have been here long enough to know the warden, Mr. Terrell, as I have learned to know him. He occupies a very trying and diffieult position and my being here under the circumstances does not make things easier for him. He has certainly treated me as well as he possibly can under the rules of the prison which, as you know, he is expected to enforce impartially, and there are not a few who would be glad to see him subject me to the severest discipline and set. me at the hardest tasks. Mr. Terrell has had all regard for my health, and he has in every other way treated TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 85 me not only humanely but kindly, and I am sure he has the welfare of all the prisoners at heart and does the very best he can by them all, But after all, it’s a prison, and I am sure there are many things he would do differently if he were free to carry out his own indi- vidual wishes. Hundreds of letters, telegrams, ete., are coming here. I could not begin to answer them all even if it were not for the prison rules. I appreciate each loving word—each touch of comradely kindness. Believe me always, always, Yours in loving comradeship, GENE. P.S.—Tell the comrades they must not worry about me in the least. I am all right. There is nothing to regret, nothing to fear—there is everything to hope for, and to live and work for. On Haster Sunday he went to the chapel services. “*T sat in the middle of all the prisoners,’’ said ’Gene. *“It was a wonderful sight. In the very midst of all their sorrows and their miseries there was a wonderful spirit that shone in the faces of all the prisoners. I would not have missed this experience for anything in the world. It means so much to me. It has enriched my life. Why, I have callers every day. These men, scores of them, come to my room and ask me to write letters for them, letters to their families and applica- tions for pardons. They all seem to have discovered me. They tell me their stories and their hopes for the future.’’ ! Debs spoke of Archdeacon Spurr of the Reynolds Memorial Hospital, near Moundsville, who had paid him frequent visits. “The deacon brought me this tie that I am wearing, and asked me if I needed any money for my family! What do you think of that? If there was as much kindness and good feeling on the outside world as I have seen within these walls all would be well with the 86 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS world,’’ he said. Debs’s tie was dark blue, of the flow- ing variety. ‘‘The deacon is not a bit ‘churchy,’ just a fine human being with a great heart,’’ Debs volun- teered. At the end of this visit, April 28, I mentioned that I might have time to stop at Altoona, Pennsylvania, to see William F. Gable, whom I knew to be a man of generous heart, and for many years a warm admirer of Debs; that I would go west and try to see Mrs. O’Hare at Jefferson City, Missouri, prison, and to Leavenworth, Kansas, prison to see William D. Hay- wood. Debs’s face lit up at once at the mention of these names. “‘Be sure you give Gable my love,’’ he said. ‘‘His is one of the sweetest natures I ever knew—an exceed- ingly good and generous man. When you get to Leay- enworth take my love to Bill Haywood and the other boys. We are all in prison for the same thing—at- tempting to be true to ourselves and those whom we serve. In the final sum we all stand together—I. W. W. and all—the world’s workers. ‘‘Tf you are allowed to see Kate, tell her I am keep- ing the light burning in West Virginia as I know she is doing in Missouri. Her case was harder than mine. She left four beautiful children behind when they took her off to prison. I had no little children of my own to leave—I just left all the children behind.’’ There was a strain of infinite tenderness and sadness in his voice as he spoke the last, and his whole frame was vibrant with the love that flooded his heart and moist- ened his pale blue eyes. On my second visit, June 7, Debs talked of prisoners, the prison problem and John Brown, the martyred abolitionist of Civil War days. ‘‘T have been in many jails and prisons, and have seen numberless criminals, old and young, male and female, and of every hue and shade, and my heart is with them all. I cannot pity them without con- TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 87 demning myself. But I can love them, and I do. I love them for what they are, foul and repulsive as they may appear to those whose cry of ‘unclean’ but mocks the dead sense of their own guilt and shame. **Many an innocent soul,’’ he went on, raising his voice, ‘‘branded with crime, is vainly beating its tired wings against the steel bars of a prison cage. But the guilty! Who shall dare to judge them? What sinless, spotless saint among us may pronounce them wicked and sentence them to prison? The very lowest and most degenerate of criminals is not a whit worse than I. The difference between us is against me, not him. All of my life I have been the favored one, the creature of fortune. We both did the best we could, and the worst we knew how, and I am the beneficiary of society of which he is the victim.’’ The last remark caused me to remind Debs that he was not now ‘“‘the favored ereature’’ of society, but rather its banished benefactor. ““No, that is not exactly correct,’’ he replied at once. *‘T am so much more fortunate than those who are now sharing my lot with me. My thoughts are not in this place; I do not see these gray walls, nor am I conscious of these steel bars. Only my clay is here, and that might just as well be here as anywhere else. I can live here with my soul at peace; I can live on the increment of the love of my comrades and friends in the world outside these walls. But these men—and I know many of them by their first names now—were once workmen. For the most part they have been used and exploited. When they had nothing more to give, had given their all—soul and body—and strove at last to make the best of a bad bargain and erred, society then put them out of sight. They were no good any longer. They could not be used any longer. Put them away! They are unclean! *‘Think of the monstrous crime of punishing the brother we have deformed for the wrong he has suf- 88 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS. fered at our hands! Think of torturing his body and > deforming his soul for having had the awful misfortune — to be the dehumanized victim of our own inhumanity. Is it any wonder that in a perverted, wicked system the basest passions are aroused, hate and lust fill the © world, and fire and slaughter ravage the race?’’ Rarely before had his eyes betokened firmer conviction than when he said now: | ‘“‘T belong in prison. I belong where men are made to suffer for the wrongs committed against them by a brutalizing system. I have talked about this thing and these social conditions all of my life, and now the fates have given to me the opportunity to practice what I have preached. “‘T belong to this stratum of society,’’ he repeated with signal emphasis. ‘‘The roots of the social system are here. They are nowhere else. **‘T would not harm a hair in the head of any human being on earth,’’ he went on, with rising fire and re- newed force, ‘‘but before I pass beyond I would like to have all the plutocrats, the profiteers, the exploiters of labor and their mistresses in their satins and their jewels—all those who believe this is a just social system and who support it—to sit in a great grandstand, and I would then parade before their seeing eyes this pageant of misery—the criminals, the sick, the halt and the blind. I think that any man or woman who could wit- ness such a spectacle without feeling his and her just share of social responsibility for it all must surely have © hearts of granite, and have become as gross and as dehumanized as they make out these poor souls to be.’’ Debs’s eyes wandered toward the window whose curtains were gently blowing in the June breeze, and he saw precisely the very same creatures about whom he had just been speaking so vehemently. At this moment the prison band struck up ‘‘Maryland, My Maryland.’’ Long ago the Socialists had parodized the words and TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 89 entitled them ‘‘We’ll Keep the Red Flag Waving.’’ Debs noted the significance of the music. There was flare and fire in the swelling notes that flew high over the prison walls just like the hopes of some of the men who dotted the green sward here and there within the inclosure. “Of course, it is fine and thrilling to ke in the outside world mingling with noble spirits and kindly souls who illuminate the earth with the light of their generous love, but some must be in places like this, else how could we differentiate between light and darkness? And I am as pleased to be here as any.’’: Maybe a few among those who know Debs have some- times thought that the stone walls, the steel bars and the locks would harden his heart, tame the currents that sweep his mind and weaken his spirit. Men have been broken in chains and in other forms of restraint. They have become sullen and dead to all save the physical life under the pressure of prison. But Debs says that many of these were of broken or wavering spirit before they were fettered and striped, and when the last straw in the form of a cell was weighted upon them they were left stranded, suspended between the spiritual and phys- ical equations, with little or no conception of the re- storative power of the former, and with but a sickening, haunting memory of the latter. More than once Debs has said he could go to the stake without batting an eye and with song in his heart, if he knew he was right. That is actually the manner in which he entered prison three times in his life—Woodstock, Moundsville and Atlanta. His spirit is adamant. It has and will sustain him to the end of his days. While Debs talked rapidly and earnestly of the prison problem, I remembered having read his speech on that very subject, delivered before the Nineteenth Cen- tury Club, at Delmonico’s, New York, March 21, 1899. 90 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS I shall quote certain pregnant passages from that speech : “‘From the earliest ages there has been a prison prob- lem. The ancients had their bastiles and their dungeons. Most of the pioneers of progress, the haters of oppres- sion, the lovers of liberty, whose names now glorify the pantheon of the world, made such imstitutions a necessity in their day. But civilization advances, how- ever slowly, and there has been some progress, It re- quired five hundred years to travel from the inquisition to the injunction. “In the earlier days punishment was the sole purpose of imprisonment. Offenders against the ruling class must pay the penalty in prison eell, which, not infre- quently, was equippéd with instruments of torture. With the civilizing process came the idea of the reforma- tion of the culprit, and this idea prompts every investi- gation made of the latter-day problem. The inmates must be set to work for their own good, no less than for the good of the state. “‘Tt was at this point that the convict labor problem began and it has steadily expanded from that time to this and while there has been some temporary modi- fications of the evil, it is still an unmitigated curse from which there can be no escape while an economic system endures in which labor, that is to say, the laborer, man, woman and child, is sold to the lowest bidder in the markets of the world.... ‘Fortunately the system of leasmg and contracting ~ prison labor for private exploitation is being exposed and its frightful iniquities laid bare. Thanks to or- — ganized labor and the spirit of prison reform, this hor- rifying phase of the evil is doomed to ° AS any before an enlightened public sentiment. | ** All useful labor is honest ee even if performed in © a prison. Only the labor of exploiters, such as specula-_ tors, stock gamblers, beef-embalmers and their mercen- «=. TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 91 ary politicians, lawyers and other parisites—only such is dishonest labor. A thief making shoes in a peniten- tiary. is engaged in more useful and therefore more honest labor than a ‘‘free’’ stone mason at work on a palace whose foundations are laid in the skulls and bones and cemented in the sweat and blood of ten thousand victims of capitalistic exploitation. In both eases the labor is compulsory. The stone mason would not work for the trust magnate were he not compelled RE ssl ““To the student of social science the haggard fact stands forth that under the competitive system of pro- duction and distribution the prison problem will never be solved—and its effect upon trade and industry will never be greatly modified. The fact will remain that whatever labor is performed by prison labor could and should be performed by free labor, and when in the march of economic progress the capitalist system of industry for private profit succumbs to the Socialist system of industry for human happiness, when the fac- tory, which is now a penitentiary crowded with life convicts, among whom children often constitute the ma- jority—when this factory is transformed into a temple of science, and the machine, myriad armed and tireless, is the only slave, there will be no prison labor and the problem will cease to vex the world, and to this it is coming in obedience to the economic law, as unerring in its operation as the law of gravitation. “That prison labor is demoralizing in its effect on trade and industry whenever and wherever brought into competition with it, especially under the various forms of the contract system, is of course conceded, but that it has been, or is at present, a great factor in such de- moralization is not admitted. There is a tendency to exaggerate the blighting effect of prison labor for the purpose of obscuring the one overshadowing cause of demoralized trade and impoverished industry. 92 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS | ‘*Prison labor did not reduce the miner to a walking hunger pang, his wife to a tear-stained rag, and his home to a lair. Prison labor is not responsible for the squares — of squalor and miles of misery in New York City, Chi- cago and all other centers of population. Prison labor is not chargeable with the sweating dens in which the victims of capitalistic competition crouch in-dread and — fear until death comes to their rescue. Prison labor had © no hand in Ceeur d’Alene, Tennessee, Homestead, Hazle- ton, Virdin, Pana, that suburb of hell called Pullman, © and other insanguine industrial battlefields where thou- sands of workingmen after being oppressed and robbed — were imprisoned life-felons, and shot down like vaga- | bond dogs; where venal judges issued infamous injunc- tions and despotic orders at the behest of their masters, © enforcing them with deputy marshals armed with pis- tols and clubs and supported by troops with gleaming ~ bayonets and shotted guns to drain the veins of work- ingmen of blood, but for whose labor this continent © would still be a wilderness. Only the tortures of hun- ger and nakedness provoked protest, and this was Si- lenced by the bayonet and bullet; by the club and the blood that followed the blow. “‘Prison labor is not accountable for the appalling increase in insanity, in suicide, in murder, in prostitu- tion and a thousand other forms of vice and crime which pollute every fountain and contaminate every stream designed to bless the world. **Prison labor did not create our army of unem- ployed, but has been recruited from its ranks, and both owe their existence to the same social and economic system. ‘Nor are the evil effects confined exclusively to the poor working class. There is an aspect of the case in which the rich are as unfortunate as the poor. The destiny of the capitalist class is irrevocably linked with — the working class. Fichte, the great German philoso- TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 93 pher, said: ‘Wickedness increases in proportion to the elevation of rank.’ “*Prison labor is but one of the manifestations of our economic development and indicates its trend. The same cause that demoralized industry has crowded our prisons. Industry has not been impoverished by prison labor, but prison labor is the result of impoverished industry. ... *‘The prison laborer produces by machinery in abun- dance but does not consume. The child likewise produees, but owing to its small wages, does not consume. So with the vast army of workers whose wage grows smaller as the productive capacity of labor increases, and then society is afflicted with over-production, the result of under-consumption. What follows? The panic. Fac- tories close down, wage workers are idle and suffer, middle class business men are forced into bankruptcy, the army of tramps is increased, vice and crime are ram- pant, and prisons and workhouses are filled to overflow- ing as are sewers when the streets of cities are deluged with floods. “*Prison labor, like all cheap labor, is at first a source of profit to the capitalist, but finally it turns into a two-edged sword that cuts into and destroys the system that produced it.... ‘‘There is proverb which the Latin race sent ringing down the centuries which reads, ‘Oma Vincit Amor,’ or ‘Love conquers all things.” Love and labor in al- liance, working together, have transforming, redeeming and emancipating power. Under their benign sway the world can be made better and brighter. ‘‘Tsaiah saw in prophetic vision a time when nations should war no more—when swords should be trans- formed into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. The fulfillment of the prophecy only awaits an era when Love and Labor, in holy alliance, shall solve the economic problem. ... 94 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — ‘‘The army of begging "azarae with the dogs lick- ing their sores at the gates of palaces where the rich are _ clothed in purple and fine linen, with their tables groan- ing beneath the luxuries of all climes, make the palaces © on the highland where fashion holds sway and music © lends its charms, a picture in the landscape which, in illustrating disparity, brings into bolder rehef the hut and the hovel in the hollow where want, gaunt and hag- gard, sits at the door and where light and plenty, cheer- fulness and hope are forever exiled by the despotie de- | wy eree of conditions as cruel as when the Ozar of Russia — ordered to his penal mines in Siberia the hapless sub- jects who dared whisper the sacred word of liberty—as cruel aS when this boasted land of freedom commands that a far away, innocent people shall be shot down in jungle and lagoon, in their bamboo huts, because they dream of freedom and independence.’’ Sixty years ago—in 1859—John Brown, of Kansas, was hung by the neck at Charlestown, Virginia, that portion of the state which is now West Virginia, be- cause he carried the black man’s burden in his heart. He was executed for having attempted to free the chattel slaves from bondage by his raid on Harper’s Ferry, but the slaves either did not wish to be free, or else were entirely ignorant of the measure of freedom that would have been theirs had John Brown and the other abolitionists of that period accomplished their purpose, which was ultimately tried and vindicated a few years later in the War of the Rebellion. Of course, it was merely a coincident that Eugene Victor Debs was originally sentenced to serve his term of ten years in prison in West Virginia, the same state in which Brown paid the full pound of flesh for his devotion to a prin- ciple. In prison, in the year 1919, in the moment of the most widespread propaganda and preachments for world-wide liberty and democracy, I spoke with Debs TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 95 about John Brown, whose martyred memory is dear to him, and which he passionately reveres. “Many years ago,’’ Debs said, ‘‘I went over every foot of ground trod by John Brown and his men—at Harper’s Ferry, across the bridge, and the nine-mile stretch to Charlestown. I went through the jail where Brown lay for days preceding his execution. *‘T have the candle,’’ he went on, ‘‘which Brown used to light up his cell at Charlestown. But John Brown did not need the light of a candle to light up his eell; the white light of his soul was quite sufficient.’’ Debs also treasures a button from Brown’s coat which, he says, has been properly authenticated. In some respects Debs and Brown are similiar in their principles, and the impassioned manner in which both sought to bring them into effect. The dissimilarity of the two men appears, however, in their methods of procedure, their tactics. It has been said that were Brown alive in our time he would have enlisted his energies in the cause of the Industrial Workers of the World—his mind seeming to have taken the turn of “‘direct action,’’ as proved by his fearless, yet fool- hardy raid upon Harper’s Ferry with a beggardly handful of followers pitted against the entire South. On the other hand, Debs is no less zealous, nor less fearless, but his appeal has been made not to unthinking mobs, who could be swayed by their emotions, but to the in- telligent and thinking working class; his appeal is made to their reason, not to their emotions, despite the fact that Debs himself is highly emotional, and his speeches do assume the character and tone of an agitator, a cru- sader. © That both men believed their cause was just and pur- sued it unflinchingly in the face of extreme adversity is further attested by passages from their speeches to the court before sentence was pronounced upon them. Brown said : 96 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ‘‘In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted—the design on my part to free the slaves. I certainly intended to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country _ and, finally, left them in Canada. I designed _to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended.’’ Debs said: s ‘“Yes, I was opposed to war. I would have been op- posed to war if I stood alone. I am perfectly willing, on that count, to be branded as a disloyalist, and if it is a crime under the American laws, punishable by im- prisonment, for being opposed to human bloodshed, I am perfectly willing to be clothed im the stripes of a felon and to end my days in a prison eell.”’ While John Brown was riding to his execution in a large furniture wagon drawn by two white horses, and which also contained his coffin, he remarked: ‘‘What a beautiful country this is. I have never been down this way before.’’ On his ride in a trolley car down the Ohio Valley from Cleveland to Moundsville, Debs said: ‘‘What a beautiful day it is. I have been all over this part of the country and have talked to thousands of these miners.”’ At one point in the John Brown talk Debs remarked that while Brown was lying in his cell at Charlestown an old Negro slave pleaded on his bended knees to his master for the privilege of taking an ax and going into Brown’s cell and braining him. ““That was his way of attesting his loyalty to his master who held him in bondage, body and soul. That was his way of Ee his slavishness and abject ser- vility. ‘‘There are to-day workmen with minds that run in TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 97 the same groove as their master’s, and doubtless, some of them would attest their slavishness and devotion to their industrial masters by doing the same thing to other John Browns.’’ Once during his trip to Moundsville, Debs remarked: ““Were I to engage in satire, I would say how ironical it seems that I, who have been forty years in the service of organized labor am now being taken to prison by union men.’’ Just before this remark was passed a eonductor had come through the car to collect fares and on the lapel of his coat was his union button. Not only was Debs taken to prison without any or- ganized opposition from the American labor movement, but the American Federation of Labor, at its 1919 con- vention at Atlantic City, did nothing to obtain his re- lease; neither did it ask for the release by amnesty of any political and industrial prisoners convicted and sentenced under a war-time statute—the Espionage Law. Despite this gross neglect of Debs, there were a number of bodies within that organization in several parts of the country who espoused his cause and petitioned for his release. The Chicago Federation of Labor, embracing a quar- ter of a million organized workers, for instance, adopted the following resolution after the major body of the American Federation of Labor had adjourned: ““Whereas, Eugene V. Debs has devoted the larger part of his life to the working class in its struggle for better conditions; and “‘Whereas, he was convicted and sentenced to ten years imprisonment as a result of war-time passion, the war now being ended, the Chicago Federation of Labor insisting upon restoring pre-war liberties, urge the im- mediate release of Hugene V. Debs and urge that reso- lutions to this effect be adopted by all labor bodies and upon adoption that a copy be sent to the President of the United States, the Senators of the state where 98 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS adopted and the congressmen of the district wherein the resolution is adopted.’’ It cannot be said that there has existed friendliness between Debs and the executive and administrative offi- cials of the American Federation of Labor. On the con- trary, he has attacked them unsparingly in the Socialist press, for what he has construed as being their reaction- ary tendencies not only in the affairs of their own organization, but in their policies and attitude toward matters of public import.) In a word, Debs is revolu- tionary, while the American Federation of Labor, offi- cially, he claims, has not yet reached even the rebel Stage. Debs’s, affections as a labor leader are more attached to the Industrial Workers of the World, in the crea- tion of which organization he played no little part. When our conversation had departed from the subject of John Brown, Debs inquired about the welfare and whereabouts of several persons with whom his name and his affections have been connected for many years. Es- pecially mentioned among these was Horace Traubel, who had been extremely ill, and who died September 8th, 1919. Follows one of Debs’s letters written in prison to Traubel: Moundsville, W. Va., April 25, 1919. My BELOVED Horace: Your beautiful messages, with you and your wonderful love in each word, are with me and my heart sings in love and gratitude. You have been with me every hour and every moment since I’ve been here, and I’ve pressed you so close to my heart that I’ve forgotten all about prison walls. Dear Dave Karsner, who so loves us both and who is equally dear to me, told me all about you. 1’m so sorry you’re not well. You simply must come back to yourself — and to me for we need you now, dear brother, as never TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 99 before. I wish you knew how immortally great you are, what an incomparable contribution you have made to humanity, and how very necessary you are now to the world. I have a truly wonderful letter from our dear Mildred Bain—a prose-poem—of love and devotion in all its beauty and perfection. What a rare courageous, lofty soul she is, and how rich you are in her noble appre- ciation, and how indebted to you I am for sharing in her precious confidence and regard. I remember the happy hour we had with her splendid husband, Frank, and some good day I hope to have the joy of meeting these loving souls. My writing is limited under the prison rules. You understand that my messages go to you daily without the written page and that my heart is and always will be with you. I am well cared for here in every way, so give yourself no concern about me. I have everything I need and a perfectly humane Warden who is as good to me as the rules will allow—I’m here for a purpose and I know how to be patient. The lessons I am learning here are of inestimable value to me and I am not sorry that my lot is cast for a time among ‘‘Les Misérables.’’ With my heart’s enduring love to you and dear Mrs. Traubel and Gertrude and her husband, I am Yours until the stars go out, GENE. As we shook hands in parting, I realized that Debs was not conscious of me as an individual; and as he looked into my eyes I knew that his vision, as always, vaulted all walls and mountains, and bridged all rivers and horizons; he was looking, as always, far beyond the immediate person, and was clasping the hand of the miner, the trench digger, the locomotive fireman, the carpenter, the bricklayer, the mason, the mechanic—the artisan everywhere; his love was smiling upon the half- 100 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS starved and stunted shop worker, the little children bent in arduous toil at the looms in the southland ; the breaker boys in the mines, the teachers, the organizers, and the Jimmie and Jane Higginses—he was bestowing his bene- diction upon the people who toil everywhere. Myself, each person he spoke to, was only the 2 dig aih) of all men and women to iat a rit CHAPTER V TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA T was a day of mourning among the prisoners at Moundsville when Debs was transferred to Atlanta. On the morning of June 13, 1919, after Debs had had his breakfast, Warden Terrell came to his room in the prison hospital and told him that he was to pack his things at once and take the trip to Atlanta prison. He Was given one hour to get ready. The warden stated afterward that when he first told Debs the latter had appeared startled, and then slightly depressed, but he had made no scene nor visible sign of his feelings, and quietly replied that he would ‘‘be ready in a jiffy.’’ The blue serge suit that he had worn to prison was brought to him, and in a few minutes he was dressed. He began at once to pack his large leather suit-case. It was soon apparent to Debs that he could not take with him to Atlanta all of his prison property. There had accumulated many gifts, enough to fill two ample pack- ing boxes, since he had been at Moundsville, so ‘‘Old Nigger Bill,’’ Debs’s side-partner and self-appointed valet, was instantly mustered into active service by Debs to help him pack. When ‘‘Old Nigger Bill’’ was called into the room and his eyes fell upon Debs clothed in street attire they danced to the tune of the song that was in his heart for he thought that Debs had been pardoned. But when he was made to understand the full import of this sud- den change he could not be comforted. “What am dey doin’ dis foh, Mistah Debs?’’ he in- quired with husky voice; ‘‘ain’t we all happy heah to- 101 102 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS © gethu? Ain’t we gettin’ along all right?’’ Debs took the two fat cheeks of the old Negro ‘‘lifer’’ between his palms and patted them gently, saying as he did so, “Tt is all right, Old Bill, everything will come out all right; we’ll not forget each other, will we?’’ The two men set to work at packing. te ‘‘Old Bill’’ started to weep softly. Every little while he would sing with violent emphasis a verse from some Methodist hymn, in vain and futile attempt to smother his sobs. ““Now stop that crying, Bill, and wrap up this bundle for me,’’ Debs would command in kindly tones. ‘‘One would suppose that you were losing your wife, the way you are carrying on, you old rascal.’’ “‘Old Bill’? dropped on the floor the bundle he was tieing and looked straight into Debs’s eyes. ‘‘T’m losin’ the best friend I evah had, Mistah Debs,’’ sobbed the darky, breaking afresh into a flood of tears. “It wouldn’t be so bad if you was goin’ home, but to help you to go to another prison—it’s too much, Mistah Debs, it’s too much.’’ Finally the packing was accom- plished. Debs addressed each parcel, indicating where it should be sent. This was done at the suggestion of the warden who assured Debs that all of his property would be well cared for, even that which he might chose to leave behind for some future time. Debs then went the rounds of the hospital, bidding ~ each man good-by and extending his hand to all alike. Some of the prisoners were abed, while others were in wheel chairs on the porch. To each man Debs gave cigars, fruit and candy which had been sent to him by his friends. Tears ran in rivulets down the hollow cheeks of three tubercular patients over whom Debs had watched with tender care. There was unutterable sad-— ness and misery among these men. They were not So- cialists. They did not comprehend the social ideals to” which Debs adhered. They had come to know him only TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 103 as a man—a loving, gentle, thoughtful, tender compan- jon who understood them; one who did not pity them, but who championed them. They understood this only from the look in his eyes, and from the smile that wreathed his wrinkled face when he was near them. And now he had bid them good-by. One of them called after him: “Tf ever you run again for President, Mr. Debs, and I’m out of here, put me down for one vote.”’ **And if ever you are in sorrow or trouble,’’ replied Debs, ‘‘put me down as one friend.’’ When Debs finally left the prison ‘‘Old Nigger Bill’’ was sitting on the stone steps of the hospital, a broom between his knees, his kinky head lying heavily in his folded arms. He had cried all he could. The tears would not come any more. But Time would, and with it would come balm for his poor, distracted soul. It is doubtful if the movements of a President of the United States have ever been guarded with more care and caution in critical moments than were those of Debs from the time he left Moundsville until he reached Atlanta. He motored to Wheeling, a ten-mile run, with Warden Terrell, the latter’s son, just home from college, and a prison guard, At the Baltimore and Ohio railroad station the party was joined by United States Marshal Ned Smith, of Fairmont, West Virginia, and Deputy Joyce of Parkersburg. Debs chatted pleasantly with the warden and his son. When Debs entrained there were more than one hundred persons in the train shed, and not a single person, aside from the members of his party, knew that he was there. Fearful lest some hitch might occur at the last mo- ment to balk their plans to spirit Debs away into the south, the United States Marshal had instructed the managers of the Western Union and the Postal Telegraph companies in Wheeling to accept no newspaper ‘‘copy”’ from any reporter dealing with the Debs case. This 104 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS censorship of the nation’s wires concerning Debs was © kept for twenty-four hours, being lifted at seven o’clock — the next morning, June 14, when Debs was then but a few hours away from Atlanta Prison. . Debs left Wheeling on the 10:40 train for Cincinnati, | where he changed for the Louisville and Nashville rail-_ road to Atlanta. He and his party arrived in the South- ern city early Saturday afternoon. The entire trip was’ made in a private compartment on both railroads. Debs — told me later when I visited him at Atlanta that both his guards had been genial and courteous to him and > tried to make the trip as comfortable as possible, but Debs spoke of the incident as ‘‘kidnaping.’”’ At Cin- cinnati he gave the following statement to the press: ‘‘The first I knew I was to be transferred was this morning when I was told to get ready. It is all the same to me. I would have made no legal effort to pre- vent my transfer had J known of the plans. I care nothing about technicalities. During my trial I cau- tioned my lawyers to make no technical exceptions, and I admitted the truth when it was presented by the gov- ernment. ‘In Moundsville I was treated with fairness and kind- ness and so were the other prisoners as far as I could observe. I was there two months and Warden Terrell showed himself to be a good administrator and at the same time a humane and considerate man.’’ Solicitous about Debs’s welfare up to the last, War- © den Terrell wrote a personal letter to Warden Fred G. Zerbst of Atlanta Federal Prison, which Marshal Smith took with him, explaining the manner and method of his treatment of Debs at Moundsville and expressing the hope that Warden Zerbst would himself be able to treat Debs in the same kindly manner. ‘‘T am just as much concerned about Debs as a man as any of his followers,’’ Terrell said to me when I vis- TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 105 ited him a few days after Debs had left his prison. ‘‘I told him that if any time I could serve him he should call upon me, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.’ Of course there was not the slightest political affinity between Debs and his former keeper. Terrell is a Democrat and a member of his party in West Vir- ginia, He is the political appointee of a Democratic governor. Terrell does not believe in Debs’s social ideas. He regards them as visionary and impractical, but as a man Debs rises to heroic figure in the warden’s esteem. This was brought about during the two months that Debs was Terrell’s ward. The men had never met be- fore, although Terrell did know, as every one else does, of Debs by his reputation and public career. **T never in my life met a kinder man,’’ were Terrell’s words. ‘‘He is forever thinking of others, trying to serve them, and never thinking of himself.’’ For six weeks after Debs was shifted to Atlanta the reasons for his transfer were as mysterious as the se- erecy which had shrouded his actual movement to the Southern prison. Cryptic and laconic statements made by several officials of the Department of Justice at Washington in answer to inquiries of his friends and at- torneys only served to heighten the suspicion in the minds of Debs’s thousands of followers throughout the land that he had been ordered transferred to another prison because of the kindnesses and considerations given to him by his keeper at Moundsville. The of- ficials at Washington had the facts and could have allayed the mental unrest of Socialists and liberals in- terested in Debs and his welfare by giving them to the public. They chose not so to do. Joseph W. Sharts, an attorney at law, of Dayton, Ohio, who was associated in the defense of Debs at his trial in Cleveland, inquired of the Department of Jus- tice the reasons of Debs’s removal. In reply he received the following: 106 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS Sir: The Department of Justice has your letter of the 18th instant, in which you ask to be informed as to the. grounds upon which Federal Prisoner, Eugene V. Debs, was transferred from West Virginia penitentiary to the Atlanta Federal prison. | ‘Debs was ordered transferred upon a demand made by the State Board of Control for his removal. Respectfully, for the Attorney General, | CLAUDE R. PorTER, Assistant Attorney General. June 21, 1919. ) On June 26, Mr. Sharts dispatched a second letter to the Department of Justice, inquiring upon what legal — grounds Attorney General Palmer had removed Debs. Sharts quoted the law to the Attorney General upon which a federal prisoner may be removed. This statute, it appears, gives three grounds upon which such re- © moval can be made: First, the health of the prisoner, at his request; second, brutal treatment at the first place, — at his request for removal; third, the insecurity of the © place of confinement. | Under date of July.1, 1919, Sharts received the fol- lowing reply: SIR: In reply to your letter of the 26th ultimo, you are informed that the West Virginia State Board of Control — demanded the removal of Federal Prisoner Eugene V. Debs from the West Virginia Penitentiary, and the © transfer thereupon was directed by the Attorney General in accordance with the power vested in him by law to transfer federal prisoners under certain conditions. ~ Respectfully, for the Attorney General, Wituiam L. Finson, ra Assistant Attorney General. When the nation-wide interest in Debs’s removal, coupled with the fact that his treatment at Atlanta © TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 107 was on the same dead level with that accorded the com- _monest prisoner, which is not conducive to perfect health nor happy spirits, was brought to the attention of John J. Cornwell, Governor of West Virginia, through a news- paper article in a Chicago Socialist paper, Governor Cornwell at once sent to me personally copies of the official correspondence between the West Virginia State Board of Control and F. H. Duehay, Superin- tendent of Prisons, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. The State Board of Control sect forth in their letter, dated June 2, 1919, the fact that it had entered into an agreement -with the Federal Government to receive and eare for federal prisoners at the Moundsville Peniten- tiary for the sum of forty cents per day. Since that agreement was made, the Board complained, few federal prisoners had been received at Moundsville, and there was a likelihood that they would not receive any more. The Board’s letter further stated: “We have Eugene V. Debs . . . confined in the West Virginia Penitentiary, and since his admittance we have had to put on extra guard force, which has in- ereased our expenses $500.00 per month, but we felt it necessary to do this for his safety as well as that of the other prisoners. If we cannot get some federal prison- ers to help bear this extra expense in connection with his care we shall have to ask to have him cared for in some other institution.’’ The Board’s letter concluded with the request: “*Will you kindly let us know if you cannot arrange to let us have 100 or 150 prisoners.’’ In response to this letter Mr. Duehay, under date of June 5, 1919, replied that the government had found it necessary to use several state penitentiaries for the eare of regular federal prisoners, as well as a number of federal prisoners charged with violation of the Espion- age Law, since the two federal prisons, Atlanta and 108 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — Leavenworth, had become overcrowded during the war with a large number of military prisoners. Since the 7 signing of the armistice, however, many of the military © prisoners had been released, and this had made room for ~ regular federal prisoners. ' Then Mr. Duehay stated in his letter: _ 4 ‘In accordance with your request, I will have orders prepared immediately for the transfer of Federal Pris- ~ oner Eugene V. Debs from the Moundsville institu- ~ tion.”’ The orders were prepared and Debs, as we have seen, was removed to Atlanta Prison on June 13. f _ There does not appear to be anything mysterious, on F the face of these two documents at least, in the removal — of Debs. The matter might easily have been cleared up by giving this official information to the public, straight- ~ ly and directly. On the other hand, the officials in Mr. © Palmer’s department succeeded in arousing bitterness, — if not hatred in some quarters, against an important arm — of the government which, many persons imagined, had been raised to strike Debs down; to shorten his life by © forcing him to spend fourteen hours of every day in © a cell with five other prisoners; to deny him any and all considerations as a political prisoner, which he is in fact; and to cut him off from the world and its interests by withholding from him all newspapers, magazines and ~ books—leaving him absolutely alone. Warden Terrell did not know that Debs was to be — removed until a few hours before it happened. He was as surprised as any, he told me, when Marshal Smith demanded that he surrender Debs. The warden was not only shocked but regretful that Debs was going © from him. Terrell stated that when Debs first came to — Moundsville he did order one extra are light installed © at the corner of the hospital building near the room which Debs occupied. If I remember correctly, the warden: also stated that he did order a patrol of two TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 109 extra guards in the vicinity of the hospital. He ex- plained that he took this extra precaution not on Debs’s account, but because he did not know the character of some of Debs’s friends who called to see him, and rather than bar them all out he had installed the extra guards. These he discontinued, however, after the first week or two that Debs was there, explaining later that he felt certain that Debs would encourage the visit of none whom he suspected as being untrustworthy. If we assume the correctness of Warden Terrell’s ver- sion of the expense entailed by his keeping Debs, it would appear that the State Board of Control might have overstated the total liability incurred by his pres- ence there in order to convince the government of the necessity of their receiving more federal prisoners at the rate of forty cents per day per man, and thus assure the self-sustaining qualities of Moundsville Prison. On the other hand, the whole incident might easily have arisen through misunderstanding; but whatever the motives or the lack of them, Debs was unquestionably the victim. CHAPTER VI EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS UGENE VICTOR DEBS was born November 5, | 1855, in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was one of ten children of Jean Daniel Debs and Marguerite Bettrich Debs, both natives of Alsace. The father was born at Colmar, Alsace, France, December 4, 1820. He left Colmar on a sailing ship bound for America on No- vember 10, 1848, and arrived at New York City Janu- ary 20, 1849. Marguerite Marie Bettrich followed Mr. Debs to America shortly afterward, leaving Colmar on August 7, 1849, and arriving at New York September 11, 1849. They were married in New York City two days later. The early movements of the parents are accounted for as follows: Left New York for Cincin- nati, Ohio, September 30, 1850; left Cincinnati for Terre Haute, May 20, 1851; left Terre Haute March 24, 1854, returning to New York and locating in Williamsburg, Long Island, now Brooklyn; left Brooklyn September 25 of the same year, returning to Terre Haute where they permanently located. Of the ten children, six lived to adult age, four sisters, and one brother, Theodore. They made a happy family group. Both parents were passionately fond of their native country, France, the father having many stories to tell the children, gathered — about their humble fireside, of France’s shadows and sunshine. Jean Daniel Debs possessed a well equipped , library of French history, as well as the works of some ~ of the most noted French writers, including Victor — Hugo, who was one of their favorites. Very early in his life, Eugene became acquainted with the works of — 110 EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 111 Hugo, and the master’s characterization of Jean Val Jean in ‘‘Les Misérables’? made an indelible impression upon his mind. Despite the happy and loving family in which Eugene was fortunate to have been born, his childhood was somewhat shadowed by the gathering clouds of war which were soon to deluge the nation with the blood of its sons and fathers in fratricidal strife over the issue of chattel slavery. He saw Indiana’s manhood march away to the battlefields, strong and sure in the justice of their cause, and he saw them return to their homes and huts, maimed, diseased and afflicted with all _the nameless ailments to which a warrior is heir. He heard the shrill sounds of strife and pain, the tramp, tramp, tramp of marching men going to victory and to death, and he saw some of them return beaten and sick in soul and body. One could not say to what extent these scenes and sounds of conflict influenced Eugene Debs to take his stand against war, but it is notable that not once in his long and varied career as a labor leader has he ever counseled violence as a means to the settle- ment of any dispute. On the other hand, he has never compromised with a principle that he held to be right and just, but he has said again and again that if those principles were right and were just they would be ac- cepted through the enlightened reason of mankind. To force them upon people not ready or willing to accept them would be to defeat the principle itself. That has been his stand on every public question, and not once has he deviated from it. Eugene was devoted to his father and mother, as were all the children who affectionately called them *“Dandy’’ and ‘‘Daisy.’’ There were no jealousies or eross currents of petty feelings in the family circle. Love, one for another, was not only felt, but expressed in acts of service and of sacrifice. Mrs. Debs died April mt 112 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 29, 1906, and the elder Debs followed her soon after- wards—November 27, 1906. On the occasion of the golden wedding anniversary of his parents at Terre Haute, September 13, 1899, Eugene Debs, surrounded by his brothers and sisters, and their husbands, wives and children paid a tribute to his mother and father in word pictures that-mark him forever a poet and artist, a man with a woman’s heart, a son with a grateful soul. This was the picture he painted: ‘*The celebraticn of a Golden Wedding is a rare oc- currence in the history of families; only to the favored few is such a blessing vouchsafed. It is an occasion when — nuptial vows pledged at Hymen’s altar take on inex- pressible sacredness. A far distant day is recalled when ‘two souls with but a single thought’ and two loving hearts that ‘beat as one’ courageously and confidently entered upon the voyage of matrimony. ‘*. . . In faney’s eve we see their beautiful and vine- clad France; we see them in the bloom and strength of youth, standing at the altar and pledging to each other unchanging fidelity in storm and shine, ready to meet the future as the days unfolded their duties, their opportunities, their tasks and trials, sustamed by a faith and hope which cheered them on their pilgrimage through all their married days. **. . . Love has been their guiding star; no cloud ever obscured it; and the darker the day of adversity the brighter shone their love which bathed their home - in its mellow, cheering light. *“In celebrating this Golden Wedding Anniversary, all the haleyon days of our lives are ineluded and there come to us messages from the past, under the sea and over the land, burdened with the aroma of violets and roses, caught from the flower gardens of memory, planted in youth and blooming in perennial beauty of old age. ; : EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 113 “