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343.1
0354
EUGENE VICTOR DEBS
THE DEBS CASE; A COMPLETE HISTORY.


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THE DEBS CASE
A COMPLETE HISTORY
BTS-101
EUGENE V. DEBS
Price 35 cents
THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST OFFICE
803 West Madison Street ::: Chicago, Illinois

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No. Clark St. -
ILLINOIS
EXPLANATION.
:
For those not familiar with legal procedure it should
be said that it is necessary in presenting a case for re-
view in the Supreme Court to file a printed record, which
contains all the material evidence and all the many
pages of formal statements which constitutes the ritual-
ism of courts. With this it is necessary to file a brief
containing the material points relied upon, with de-
cisions of the courts bearing upon the contentions made.
The brief in this case contains the evidence more fully
than is the usual practice and in this copy for circulation
the added address of Mr. Debs to the jury and his state-
ment to the court: "Why sentence should not be passed
upon him," and the statement of the court in passing
sentence.
It will be noticed in this brief that we are not contend-
ing that the Espionage Law is unconstitutional, but that
the mehod of applying it constitutes a violation of the
constitution. It is the contention of the government
attorneys that any language which would cause a man
to DISAPPROVE a law or policy may incline him to disobey
it, and this constitutes an offense. This construction de-
stroys all right of argument, speech, writing, sign or
symbol, pointing out the iniquities, the vice, and injustice
of proposed laws, or existing laws, or proposed and ex-
isting policies, or the efficiency and value of public "serv-
vice" departments.
Jak

You
If a ju
a court can spe
address criticizing a governme
or law and punish the writer or speaker because it may
affect and convince the mind of men who are in the serv-
ice or about to enter it, then no matter how specious the
plea or plausible the opinion of the courts to justify it,
civil liberty is dead.
I
The courts whose power was feared so much by Thomas
Jefferson, have, by their construction of this act, torn
from the Federal Constitution the first amendment to
the Bill of Rights. That lawyers and laymen may see the
merit of our contention and the danger threatening we
have issued this special edition for general distribution.
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By the tim
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
OCTOBER TERM, A. D. 1918.
No. 714.
EUGENE V. DEBS,
VS.
Plaintiff in Error.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant in Error.
In Error to District Court of the United States
for the Northern District of Ohio.
BRIEF FOR PLAINTIFF IN ERROR.
STATEMENT OF CASE.
(Citations to Transcript Are to Printed Record.)
On June 29, 1918, in the United States District Court,
Eastern Division, of the Northern District of Ohio, the
grand jury presented an indictment against Eugene V.
Debs, consisting of 10 counts (1-138). All were under
Section 3, Title I, of an Act of Congress of June 15, 1917,
as amended by Act of May 16, 1918, known as the
Espionage Act. A motion to quash was entered as to
the indictment and each count thereof (139-140); also
a demurrer (141-150). Both motions were denied (150-
151). Before the trial 4 of the counts were withdrawn
(Nos. 1, 2, 5 and 9 of the indictment (151). A verdict
of not guilty was instructed as counts 6 and 8 (153), leav-
ing only four counts for the consideration of the jury.
The defendant was found not guilty upon the 10th
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count, and guilty upon counts 3, 4 and 7 (154). Motions
for a new trial (155) and in arrest of judgment (156)
were overruled (157). Judgment was rendered accord-
ingly, and Mr. Debs was sentenced to serve 10 years in
the state penitentiary of West Virginia, upon each of
these three counts, the terms to run concurrently (157).
As to count 3 (29-42), the charge is that on June 16,
1918, at Canton, Ohio, while the United States was at
war with the Imperial German Government, defendant
did unlawfully, wilfully and feloniously cause and at-
tempt to cause and incite and attempt to incite, insub-
ordination, disloyalty, mutiny and refusal of duty, in
the military and naval forces of the United States; that
is to say, defendant made a public speech to an as-
sembly of people, among whom were citizens between
the ages of 21 and 30 (two of whom are named), with
intent to cause and attempt to cause insubordination,
etc. The speech referred to is set out in full.
Upon the introduction of testimony as to the making
of the speech at Canton, it appeared that the actual
speech was considerably longer than appears in the in-
dictment, and different at many points. We make no
contention upon this variance, since Mr. Debs chooses
to stand upon the speech as actually made, and we
shall make our references in this brief to the more com-
plete report, as introduced by the government. We
set out at this point, therefore, the fuller text of the
speech, in lieu of the text used in the indictment (194-
215).
SPEECH AS REPORTED BY E. R. STERLING.
Delivered by Eugene V. Debs, at Nimisilla Park, Canton,
Ohio, Sunday Afternoon, June 16, 1918.
Mr. Debs: Comrades, friends and fellow-workers,
for this very cordial greeting, this very hearty recep-
tion, I thank you all with the fullest appreciation of
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your interest in, your devotion to, the cause for which
I am to speak to you this afternoon. (Applause.)
To speak for labor; to plead the cause of the men and
women and children who toil; to serve the working
class, has always been to me a high privilege (ap-
plause).
I have just returned from a visit over yonder (point-
ing to the workhouse) (laughter), where three of our
most loyal comrades (applause) are paying the penalty
for their devotion to the cause of the working class.
(Applause.) They have come to realize, as many of us
have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the con-
stitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to
make Democracy safe in the world. (Applause.)
I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, that
there are certain limitations placed upon the right of
free speech. I must be exceedingly careful, prudent,
as to what I say, and even more careful and more pru-
dent as to how I say it. (Laughter.) I may not be
able to say all I think (laughter and applause); but I
am not going to say anything that I do not think (ap-
plause). But, I would rather a thousand times be a
free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward on
the streets (applause and shouts). They may put those
boys in jail-and some of the rest of us in jail-but
they can not put the Socialist movement in jail (ap-
plause and shouts). Those prison bars separate their
bodies from ours, but their souls are here this after-
noon (applause and cheers). They are simply paying
the penalty that all men have paid in all of the ages of
history for standing erect, and for seeking to pave the
way to better conditions for mankind (applause).
If it had not been for the men and women, who, in the
past have had the moral courage to go to jail, we would
still be in the jungles (applause).
This assemblage is exceedingly good to look upon. I
wish it were possible to give you what you are giving
me this afternoon (laughter). What I say here amounts
to but little; what I see here is exceedingly important
(applause). You workers here in Ohio, enlisted in the
greatest cause ever organized in the interest of your
class, are making history today in the face of threat-
ening trouble of all kinds-history that is going to be
read with profound interest by coming generations (ap-
plause).
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There is but one thing that you have to be concerned
about, and that is that you keep four-square with the
principles of the international Socialist movement (ap-
plause). It is only when you begin to compromise that
trouble begins (applause). So far as I am concerned,
it does not matter what others may say, or think, or do,
as long as I am sure that I am right with myself and
the cause (applause). There are so many who seek
refuge in the popular side of a great question. On
account of that, I hope, as a Socialist, I have long since
learned how to stand alone (applause).
For the last month I have been traveling over the
Hoosier State; and, let me say to you, that, in all my
connection with the Socialist movement, I have never
seen such meetings, such enthusiasm, such unity of
purpose; never have I seen such a promising outlook as
there is today, notwithstanding the statement they have
published repeatedly that our leaders had deserted us
(laughter). Well, for myself, I never had much faith
in leaders, anyway (applause and laughter). I am
willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than
to be charged with being a leader. I am suspicious of
leaders, myself, and especially of the intellectual variety
(applause). Give me the rank and file every day in the
week. If you go to the City of Washington, and you
examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you
will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and
cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrep-
resentatives of the masses-you will find that almost all
of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen
from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I
am so glad that I can not make that claim for myself
(laughter). I would be ashamed to admit that I had
risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the
ranks, and not from the ranks (applause).
When I came away from Indiana, the comrades said:
'When you cross the line and get over into the Buckeye
State, tell the comrades over there that we are on duty
and doing duty. Give them for us, a hearty greeting,
and tell them that we are going to make a record this
fall that will be read all around the world" applause).
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The Socialists of Ohio, it appears, are very much alive
this year. The party has been killed recently (laughter)
which, no doubt, accounts for its extraordinary activity
(laughter). There is nothing that helps the Socialist
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party so much as receiving an occasional death blow
(laughter and cheers). The oftener it is killed the more
boundless, the more active, the more energetic, the more
powerful it becomes.
They who have been reading the capitalist newspapers
realize what a capacity they have for lying. We have
been reading them lately. They know all about the So-
cialist party-the Socialist party movement, except what
is true (laughter). Only the other day they took an
article that I had written-and most of you have read
it-most of you members of the party, at least-and
they made it appear that I had undergone a marvelous
transformation (laughter). I had suddenly become
changed-suddenly come to my senses; I had ceased to
be a wicked Socialist, and had become a respectable So-
cialist (laughter), a patriotic Socialist—as if I had ever
been anything else (Ĩaughter).
What was the purpose of this deliberate misrepresen-
tation? It is so self-evident that it suggests itself. The
purpose was to sow the seed of dissension in our ranks;
to have it appear that we were divided among ourselves;
that we were pitted against each other, to our mutual
undoing. But Socialists were not born yesterday (ap-
plause). They know how to read capitalist newspapers
(laughter and applause); and to believe exactly oppo-
site what they read (applause and laughter).
Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of
the greatest triumph in all the history of the Socialist
movement (applause)? It is true that these are anxious,
trying days for us all-testing days for the women and
men who are upholding the banner of the working class
in the struggle of the working class of all the world
against the exploiters of all the world (applause); a
time in which the weak and cowardly will falter and fail
and desert. They lack the fiber to endure the revolu-
tionary test; they fall away; they disappear as if they
had never been. On the other hand, they who are ani-
mated with the unconquerable spirit of the Social revo-
lution, they who have the moral courage to stand erect
and assert their convictions; stand by them; fight for
them; go to jail or to hell for them, if need be (applause
and shouts)-they are writing their names, in this cru-
cial hour-they are writing their names in fadeless let-
ters in the history of mankind (applause).
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Those boys over yonder-those comrades of ours-
and how I love them-aye, they are my younger brothers
(laughter and applause); their very names throb in my
heart, and thrill in my veins, and surge in my soul (ap-
plause). I am proud of them; they are there for us (ap-
plause); and we are here for them (applause, shouts
and cheers). Their lips, though temporarily mute, are
more eloquent than ever before; and their voice, though
silent, is heard around the world (great applause).
Are we opposed to Prussian militarism (laughter)?
(Shouts from the crowd of "Yes, Yes"). Why, we have
been fighting it since the day the Socialist movement
was born (applause); and we are going to continue to
fight it, day and night, until it is wiped froth the face of
the earth (thunderous applause and cheers). Between
us there is no truce-no compromise.
But, before I proceed along this line, let me recall a
little history, in which, I think, we are all interested.
In 1869 that grand old warrior of the Socialist revo-
lution, the elder Liebknecht, was arrested and sentenced
to prison for three months, because of his war, as a
Socialist, on the Kaiser and on the Junkers that rule
Germany. In the meantime the Franco-Prussian war
broke out. Liebknecht and Bebel were the Socialist
members in the Reichstag. They were the only two who
had the courage to protest against taking Alsace-Lor-
raine from France and annexing it to Germany. And
for this they were sent two years to a prison fortress
charged with high treason; because, even in that early
day, almost fifty years ago, the leaders, these forerun-
ners of the international Socialist movement, were fight-
ing the Kaiser and fighting the junkers of Germany
(great applause and cheers). They have continued to
fight them from that day to this (applause). Multiplied
thousands of them have languished in the jails of Ger-
many because of their heroic warfare upon the ruling
class of that country (applause).
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Let us come down the line a little further. You remem-
ber that, at the close of Theodore Roosevelt's second
term as President, he went over to Africa (laughter) to
make war on some of his ancestors (laughter) (continued
shouts, cheers, laughter and applause). You remember
that, at the close of his expedition, he visited all of the
capitals of Europe; and he was wined and dined, dignified
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"Birds of a feather flock together" (laughter).
When the newspapers reported that Kaiser William
and ex-President Theodore recognized each other at
sight, were perfectly intimate with each other at the first
touch, they made the admission that is fatal to the claims
of Theodore Roosevelt that he is a great friend of the
people and the champion of Democracy; they admitted
that they were kith and kin; that they were very much
alike; that their ideas and ideals were about the same.
If Theodore Roosevelt is now the great champion of
Democracy (laughter), the arch-the arch foe of autoc-
racy (laughter), what business had he as the guest of
honor of the Kaiser? And when he met the Kaiser, and
did honor to the Kaiser, under the terms imputed to him,
wasn't it pretty strong proof that he, himself, was a
kaiser at heart? (applause). Now, after being the guest
of Emperor William, the Beast of Berlin, he came back
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and glorified by all of the Kaisers and Czars and Em-
perors of the old world (applause). He visited Potsdam
while the Kaiser was there; and, according to the ac-
counts published in the American newspapers, he and the
Kaiser were soon on the most familiar terms (laughter).
They were hilariously intimate with each other, and
slapped each other on the back (laughter). After Roose-
velt had reviewed the Kaiser's troops, and, according
to the same accounts, he became enthusiastic over the
Kaiser's troops, and said: "If I had that kind of an
army, I would conquer the world" (laughter). He knew
the Kaiser then just as well as he knows him now (laugh-
ter). He knew that he was the Kaiser, the Beast of
Berlin. And yet, he permitted himself to be entertained
by the Beast of Berlin (applause); had his feet under
the mahogany of the Beast of Berlin; was cheek by jowl.
with that Beast of Berlin (applause). And while Roose-
velt was being entertained royally by the German Kaiser,
that same Kaiser was putting the leaders of the Socialist
party in jail for fighting the Kaiser and the junkers of
Germany (applause). Roosevelt was the guest of honor
in the whitehouse of the Kaiser, while the Socialists were
in the jails of the Kaiser for fighting the Kaiser (ap-
plause). Who was fighting for Democracy? Roosevelt?
(Shouts of "no.") Roosevelt, who was honored by the
Kaiser, or the Socialists who were in jail by the order
of the Kaiser? (applause).
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to this country, and he wants you to send ten million
men over there to kill the Kaiser (applause and laugh-
ter); to murder his former friend and pal (laughter).
Rather queer, isn't it? And yet, he is the patriot, and
we are the traitors (applause). And I challenge you to
find a Socialist anywhere on the face of the earth who
was ever the guest of the Beast of Berlin (applause),
except as an inmate of his prison-the elder Liebknecht
and the younger Liebknecht, the heroic son of his im-
mortal sire.
A little more history along the same line. In 1902
Prince Henry paid a visit to this country. Do you re-
member him (laughter)? I do, exceedingly well. Prince
Henry is the brother of King William.' Prince Henry
is another Beast of Berlin, an autocrat, an aristocrat,
a junker of junkers-very much despised, very much
despised by our American patriots. He came over here
in 1902 as the representative of Kaiser Wilhelm; he was
received by Congress, by several state legislatures-
among others, by the state legislature of Massachusetts,
then in session. He was invited there by the capitalist
captains of that so-called commonwealth. And when
Prince Henry came there, there was one member of that
body who kept his self-respect, put on his hat, and, as
Henry, the Prince, walked in, that member of the body
walked out. And that was James F. Carey, the Social-
ist member of that body (applause). All of the rest-
all of the rest of the representatives in the Massachu-
setts legislature-all, all of them-joined in doing honor,
in the most servile spirit, to the high representative of
the autocracy of Europe. And the only man who left
that body was a Socialist. And yet (applause), and yet
they have the hardihood to claim that they are fighting
autocracy and we are in the service of the German gov-
ernment (applause).
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A little more history along the same line. I have a dis-
tinct recollection of it. It occurred just fifteen years ago
when Prince Henry came here. All of our plutocracy,
all of the wealthy representatives living along Fifth ave-
nue—all, all of them-threw their palace doors wide open
and received Prince Henry with open arms. They were
not satisfied with this; they got down on their stomachs;
they groveled in the dust at his feet; and our plutocracy
-women and men alike-vied with each other to get
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down and lick the boots of the Prince Henry, the repre-
sentative of the Beast of Berlin (applause). And still
our plutocracy, our junkers-don't think for a moment
that the junkers are confined to Germany (applause).
It is precisely because we refuse to believe this they
brand us as disloyalists. They want our eyes focused
on the junkers in Berlin, so that we will not see those
within our own borders.
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I hate, I loathe, I despise junkerdom. I have no
earthly use for the junkers of Germany, and not one par-
ticle more use for the junkers in the United States (thun-
derous applause and cheers).
They tell us we live in a great Republic; our institu-
tions are Democratic; we are a free people (laughter).
This is too much, even as a joke (laughter). It is not a
subject for levity; it is an exceedingly serious matter.
To whom do the Wall street junkers in our country-
to whom do they marry their daughters? After they
have wrung the countless hundreds of millions from your
sweat, your agony, your life-blood, in a time of war as
well as in a time of peace, they invest these billions
and millions in the purchase of titles of broken-down
aristocrats, and to buy counts of no-account (laughter).
Are they satisfied to wed their daughters to honest work-
ing men? (Shouts from the crowd: "No.") to real
democrats? Oh, no. They scour the markets of Europe
for fellows who have titles and nothing else (laughter).
And they swap their millions for the titles; so that matri-
mony, with them, becomes entirely a matter of money
(laughter), literally so.
These very gentry, who are today wrapped up in the
American flag, who make the claim that they are only
patriots, who have their magnifying glasses in hand,
who are scanning the country for some evidence of dis-
loyalty, so eager, so ready to apply the brand to the men
who dare to even whisper opposition to junker rule in
the United States. No wonder Johnson said that "Pa-
triotism is the last refuge of scoundrels." He had the
Wall street gentry in mind, or their prototypes, at least;
for in every age it has been the tyrant who has wrapped
himself in the cloak of pratiotism, or religion, or both
(shouts of "good, good," from the crowd) (applause).
They would have you believe that the Socialist party
consists, in the main, of disloyalists, and traitors. It is
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true, in a certain sense. We are disloyalists and traitors
to the real traitors of this nation (applause); to the gang
that, on the Pacific coast, are trying to hang Tom
Mooney, in spite of the protest of the whole civilized
world (applause, shouts and cheers).
I know Tom Mooney intimately, as if he were my own
brother. He is an absolutely honest, innocent man (ap-
plause). He had no more to do with the crime with
which he is charged than I have (applause). And, if he
ought to go to the gallows, so ought I. If he is guilty,
every man who belongs to a labor organization or to the
Socialist party is, likewise, guilty.
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What is he guilty of? I'll tell you. I am familiar with
his record. For years he has been fighting the battles of
the working class out on the Pacific coast. He refused to
be bribed or to be browbeaten. He continued loyally in
the service of the working class, and for this he was
marked. They said: "He can't be bought; he refuses
to be bribed, and he cannot be intimidated. Therefore,
he must be murdered" (applause).
Let us review another bit of history. Do you remem-
ber that Francis J. Heney, the special investigator of
the National Administration, was shot down in the court
room in San Francisco? You remember it, don't you?
The United Railways, consisting of a lot of plutocrats,
hide binders, organized in the Chamber of Commerce,
absolutely own and control the City of San Francisco.
It is their private reservation. Their will is the supreme
law. Take your stand against them, you are doomed.
They do not hesitate to plot murder to perpetuate their
murderous regime. Tom Mooney was the only repre-
sentative of the working class they could not control (ap-
plause). They owned the railways; they controlled the
great industries; they were the industrial masters; they
were the political rulers; from their decision there was
no appeal-the real autocrats of the Pacific coast-as
infamous as any that ever ruled in Germany or any other
country (applause). And when their rule became so cor-
rupt that, at last, a grand jury was found that indicted
them, and they were placed on trial, and Francis J.
Heney, who has just incriminated the packers and found
another gang-the packers of Chicago-Francis J.
Heney, who had been selected by the national adminis-
tration to assist in the prosecution, this same gang, rep-
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resented by the Chamber of Commerce; this gang of plu-
tocrats, autocrats and hide binders, hired a murderer to
shoot Francis J. Heney down in the court room, and he
did. Francis J. Heney happened to live through it. But
that wasn't their fault. The identically same gang that
hired the murderer to kill Heney, that very same gang
are also for the execution of Tom Mooney (applause).
Every solitary-every one of them claims to be an arch-
patriot; every one insists through his newspapers that
he is fighting to make Democracy safe in the world.
What humbug! What rot! What false pretense!
These autocrats, these tyrants, these red-handed robbers
and murderers, the patriots, while the men who have the
courage to stand up face to face with them and fight them
in the interest of their exploited victims-they are the
disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want to take
my place side by side with the traitors in this fight (ap-
plause).
Why the other day they sent Kate Richard O'Hare to
the penitentiary for ten years. Oh, just think of sen-
tencing a woman to the penitentiary for talking (laugh-
ter). The United States, under the rule of the plu-
tocracy, is the only country that would send a woman to
the penitentiary for ten years for exercising her consti-
tutional right of free speech (applause). If this be
treason let them make the most of it (applause).
Let me review another bit of history in connection with
this case.
I have known Kate Richard O'Hare inti-
mately for twenty years. I know her record by heart.
Personally, I know her as if she were my own younger
sister. All who know her know she is a woman of abso-
lute integrity (applause). And they know that she is a
woman of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist move-
ment (applause). When she went out into Dakota and
made her speech, followed by plain clothes men in the
service of the Government intent upon encompassing her
arrest and her prosecution and her conviction-when
she was out there, it was with the knowledge that sooner
or later they would accomplish their purpose. She made
a certain speech, and that speech was deliberately mis-
represented for the purpose of securing her conviction.
The only testimony against her was that of a hired wit-
ness. And when thirty farmers, men and women, who
were in the audience she addressed-heard the speech,
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when they went to Bismarck to testify in her favor, to
swear that she had never used the language she was
charged with having used, the judge refused to allow
them to go upon the stand. This would seem incredible
to me, if I had not had some experience of my own with
a Federal court (applause).
Who appoints the Federal judges? The people? In
all of the history of the country, the working class have
never named a Federal judge. There are 121, and every
solitary one of them holds his position, his tenure,
through the influence and power of corporate capital.
The corporations and trusts dictate their appointment.
And when they go to the bench, they go, not to serve
the people, but to serve the interests that placed them
where they are (applause).
Why, the other day, by a vote of five to four-a kind
of craps game-(laughter) come seven, come eleven-
(laughter) they declared the child labor law unconstitu-
tional (laughter), a law secured after twenty years of
education and agitation on the part of all kinds of peo-
ple. And yet, by a majority of one, the Supreme Court,
a body of corporation lawyers-with just one solitary
exception-wiped it from the statute books, and this in
a Democracy, so that we may still continue to grind the
flesh and blood and bones of puny little children into
profits for the junkers of Wall street (applause). And
this in a country that is fighting to make Democracy
safe in the world (laughter). The history of this coun-
try is being written in the blood of the childhood they
have murdered.
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These are not very palatable truths to them. They do
not like to hear them; and, they do not want you to hear
them. And that is why they brand us as undesirable
citizens (laughter and applause), and as disloyalists, and
as traitors. If we were traitors-if we were traitors to
the people, we would be eminently respectable citizens
of the republic; we could hold high office, and we could
ride in limousines; and could be pointed out as people
who had succeeded in life, in honorable pursuits. It is
precisely because we are disloyal to the traitors that we
are loyal to the people of this country (applause).
Scott Nearing. You have heard of Scott Nearing (ap-
plause). He is the greatest teacher in the United States
(applause). He was in the University of Pennsylvania
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until the Board of Trustees, consisting of great capi-
talists, found that he was teaching true economics to
the students of the university. Then they said-just
as the same usurers, the same money changers, the
same Pharisees, the same hypocrites said of the Judean
carpenter twenty centuries ago - of Jesus Christ,
who was a working man, and an agitator,
and
an undesirable, they said: "He is preaching a false re-
ligion." And they crucified him. And his lineal des-
cendants said: "He is preaching false economics. We
cannot crucify him, as we did his elder brother, so we
will starve him to death (applause). We will discharge
him and blacklist him, and make it impossible for him to
get a job. He is a dangerous man; he is teaching the
truth."
And the truth, Oh, the truth has always been
unpalatable to the class who live out of the sweat of the
working class (applause).
True, Max Eastman (applause) was indicted and his
paper suppressed, just as papers with which I have been
connected are all suppressed. What a wonderful com-
pliment they paid us (laughter and applause). They
are afraid that we might contaminate you. You are
their wards; they are your guardians (laughter). They
must see to it that our vicious doctrines don't reach
your ears. And so, in our Democracy, under our free
institutions, they flatter our press, and they imagine
that they have silenced revolutionary propaganda. What
a mistake they made. We ought to pass a resolution of
thanks and gratitude to them. Thousands of people,
who have never heard of our paper before, are now in-
quiring for it, wanting to see it. They have started in-
quiry and curiosity in our propaganda. And woe to the
man who reads our Socialist literature from curiosity.
He is a goner (applause). I have known of a thousand
experiments, but I have never known of a single man
or woman to escape it.
<<
John M. Work. You know John, now, don't you, who
is now on the Milwaukee Leader? When I first knew
John he was a lawyer out in Wisconsin. The corpora-
tion capitalists became alarmed because of the rapid ad-
vancement of the Socialist movement. So they said:
"We have to engage some bright fellow to fight this."
They said: "Well, John, you are a bright young law-
yer; and you have a great career before you. We want
14
to engage you to find out all you can about Socialism,
and then proceed to counteract its baneful effect."
John got some Socialist literature, and began to study
it; and after he had read the second volume he was a
full-fledged Socialist, and he has been fighting for So-
cialism ever since.
How short-sighted the ruling class is. Cupidity is
stone blind. The exploiter cannot see beyond the end of
his nose. He can see a chance for an opening; he is just
cunning enough to know what graft is and where it is,
and how it can be secured, but he has no vision-not
the slightest. He knows nothing of the great throbbing
world that spreads out in all directions. That is the
penalty that the exploiter pays. Rockefeller is blind.
Every move he makes hastens the coming of his doom.
Every time he and his class strike a blow at the Social-
ist movement it reacts upon them. Every time they
strike us, they hit themselves. It never fails (applause).
Every time they strangle a Socialist newspaper, they
add a thousand voices proclaiming the eternal truth of
the principles and doctrines of Socialism. They help
us in spite of themselves.
Socialism is a growing idea, an expanding philosophy.
It is spreading over the face of the earth. It is as use-
less to resist it as it would be to try to arrest the sun-
rise on the morrow. It is coming, coming, coming, all
along the line. Can't you see it? If you can't, consult
an oculist; there is something the matter; you are lack-
ing in vision, in common understanding. The greatest
movement in history. What a privilege it is to serve it.
I have regretted a thousand times that I can do so lit-
tle for the movement that has done so much for me (ap-
plause). The little that I am, the little that I am hop-
ing to be, is due wholly to the Socialist movement (ap-
plause). It gave me my ideas and my ideals; and I
wouldn't exchange all of them for all of Rockefeller's
blood-stained dollars (cheers). It taught me how to
serve-a lesson to me of priceless value. It taught me
the ecstacy of the hand-clasp or a comrade. It taught
me to hold high communion with you; it made possible
for me to get in touch with you; to take my place side
by side with you; to multiply myself over and over again;
to make me thrill with a fresh-born manhood; to make
life worth while; to open the avenues; to spread out the
15
glorious vistas; to know that I am akin with all that
throbs; to become class conscious; to realize that, re-
gardless of nationality, race, creed, color or sex, every
man, every woman who toils, every member of the work-
ing class-every one of them are my comrades, my
brothers, my sisters-to serve them is the highest duty
of my life. (Great applause.) And, in their service,
I can feel myself expand; I rise to the stature of a man;
I feel that I have a right to a place on earth-a place
where I can stand and help to uphold the banner of in-
dustrial freedom and of social righteousness. Yes, yes;
my heart is attuned with yours. Aye, all of our hearts
are melted into one great heart that throbs responsive
to the Social revolution.
F
Here, in this assemblage (applause) I hear our heart
beat responsive to the Bolsheviki of Russia. (Deafening
and prolonged applause.) Yes, those heroic men and
women, those unconquerable comrades, who have, by their
sacrifice, added fresh luster to the international move-
ment. Those Russian comrades, who have made greater
sacrifices, who have suffered more, who have shed more
heroic blood than any like men or number of men and
women anywhere else on earth, they have laid the founda-
tion of the first real Democracy that ever drew (great
applause) the first real Democracy that ever drew
the breath of life on God's footstool (applause). And
the very first act of that immortal revolution was to pro-
claim a state of peace with all the world, coupled with
an appeal, not to the kings, not to the emperors, not to
the rulers, not to the diplomats, but an appeal to the
people of all nations (applause). There is the very
birth of Democracy, the quintessence of freedom. They
made their appeal to the people of all nations, the Al-
lies as well as the Central powers, to send representa-
tives to a conference to lay down terms of peace that
should be Democratic and lasting. Here was a fine-
here was a fine opportunity to strike a blow to make
Democracy safe in the world (applause). Was there
any response to that noble appeal? And here let me
say that that appeal will be written in letters of gold
in the history of the world (applause). Was there any
response to that appeal! (From the crowd "No.") Not
the slightest.
16
Why, it has been charged that Leon Trotsky and the
leaders of the revolution were treacherous, that they
made a traitorous peace with Germany. Let us consider
that proposition, briefly. At the time of the Revolution
Russia had been three years in the war. Under the Czar
she had lost more than four millions of her soldiers, slain
or mutilated on the field of battle. She was absolutely
bankrupt. Her soldiers were mainly without arms. This
was what the Revolution-what was bequeathed to the
Revolution by the Czar and his regime; and, for this con-
dition Leon Trotsky was not responsibe, nor the Bolshe-
viki. For this frightful condition, the Czar was respon-
sible. When Trotsky came into power and went through
the archives, they found the secret treaties-the treaties
that were made betwen the Czar and the French govern-
ment and the British government and the Italian govern-
ment, proposing, after the victory was achieved, to dis-
member and disperse and destroy the Central Powers.
These treaties have never been repudiated. Very little
has been said about them in the American press. I have
a copy of these treaties showing that the purpose of the
Allies is exactly the purpose of the Central Powers (ap-
plause). And that is the purpose that has always been
the purpose of war.
Wars have been waged for conquest, for plun-
der. In the middle ages the feudal lords, who
inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen
along the Rhine-whenever one of these feudal lords
wished to enrich himself, then he made war on the other.
Why? They wanted to enlarge their domains. They
wanted to increase their power, their wealth, and so they
declared war upon each other. But they did not go to
war any more than the Wall street junkers go to war
(applause). The feudal lords, the barons, the economic
predecessors of the modern capitalist, they declared all
the wars. Who fought the battles? Their miserable
serfs. And the serfs had been taught to believe that
when their masters declared and waged war upon one
another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one an-
other, and to cut one another's throats, to murder one
another for the profit and the glory of the plutocrats,
the barons, the lords who held them in contempt. And
that is war in a nut-shell. The master class has always
declared the war; the subject class has always fought
17
the battles; the master class has had all to gain, nothing
to lose, and the subject class has had nothing to gain and
all to lose including their lives (applause). They have
always taught you that it is your patriotic duty to go to
war and to have yourselves slaughtered at a command.
But in all of the history of the world you, the people,
never had a voice in declaring war. You have never yet
had! And here let me state a fact-and it cannot be re-
peated too often: the working class who fight the battles,
the working class who make the sacrifices, the working
class who shed the blood, the working class who furnish
the corpses, the working class have never yet had a voice
in declaring war. The working class have never yet had
a voice in making peace. It is the ruling class that does
both. They declare war; they make peace.
"Yours not to ask the question why;
Yours but to do and die.
That is their motto, and we object on the part of the
awakened workers.
If war is right, let it be declared by the people—you,
who have your lives to lose; you certainly ought to have
the right to declare war, if you consider a war necessary
(applause).
Rose Pastor Stokes. And when I mention her name
(applause), I take off my hat-mentally at least. (He
spoke without a hat on his head.) Here is another heroic
and inspiring comrade. She had her millions of dollars.
Did it restrain her an instant? Her devotion to the cause
had arrested all consideration of a financial or an eco-
nomic nature. She went out to render her service to the
cause in this day of crises, and they sent her to the peni- `
tentiary for ten years. Think of it! Ten years! What
had she said? Not any more than I have said here this
afternoon (laughter). I want to admit-I want to ad-
mit, without argument, that if Rose Pastor Stokes is
guilty, so am I. If she is guilty, I wouldn't be cowardly
enough to plead my innocence. And if she ought to be
sent to the penitentiary for ten years, so ought I.
What did she say? Why, she said that a Government
-a Government could not serve both the profiteers and
the victims of the profiteers. Isn't that true? Certainly.
Roosevelt said a thousand times more in the same
paper, The Kansas City Star. Roosevelt said, the other
day, that he would be heard if he went to jail. He knows
18
}
C
very well that he will not go to jail. He is laying his
wires for the Republican nomination in 1920. And he
would do everything possible to discredit Wilson in his
administration. He would do that in order to give him-
self and his party all of the credit. That is your won-
derful rivalry between the two patriotic parties-the Re-
publican party and the Democratic party, the twins. They
are not going to have any agitation between them this
fall. They are all patriots this time, and they are going
to combine to prevent the election of any disloyal Social-
ists. I haven't heard anybody anywhere tell me of any
difference between them. Do you know of any? Not the
slightest. One is in, the other is out. That is all the
difference there is between them (laughter).
•
Rose Pastor Stokes never uttered a word she did not
have a legal, constitutional right to utter. But her mes-
sage for the people, the message that opened the eyes
of the people that must be suppressed; her voice must
be silenced. And so she was confronted with a mock
trial, and sent to the penitentiary for ten years. Her
sentence was a foregone conclusion. A trial in a capi-
talist court usually ends farcical-very farcical. What
ghost of a chance had she in a court with a packed jury
and a corporation tool on the bench? Not the least in
the world. So she goes to the penitentiary for ten years,
if they carry out the program. I do not think they will.
In fact, I am sure they will not. If the war was over
tomorrow, all of the prison doors would open.
They just want to silence this voice during the war.
The cases will be appealed, and they will remain pend-
ing in court many(a month, perhaps years. What a com-
pliment it is to the Socialist movement for telling the
truth. The truth will make the people free (applause).
And the truth must not be permitted to reach the people.
The truth has always been dangerous to the rule of the
rogue, the exploiter, the robber. So the truth must be
suppressed. That is why they are trying to drive out the
Socialist movement; and every time they make the at-
tempt, they add ten thousand voices proclaiming that
Socialism has come to stay (applause).
(Here Mr. Debs is handed a drink of water.)
H
How good the touch of the hand of a comrade is, and
a sip of water furnished by a comrade; as refreshing as
if it were out on the desert of life. And how good it is
19
T
to look into your faces this afternoon (applause). You
are really good looking (laughter), to me, I assure you.
And, I am glad there are so many of you. Your tribe
has increased wonderfully since I first came here
(laughter). You used to be so few and far between.
And when you struck a place, the first thing you had to
do was to see if you could locate a Socialist; and you
were pretty lucky if you struck his trail before you left
town. If he happened to be the only one in town, and
he is still living, he is now regarded as practical, and
he holds the place of honor, and he has lodgment in the
heart of all those who come after him. Now here you
can't throw a stone in the dark without hitting a Social-
ist (laughter). They are everywhere in increasing num-
bers; and what marvelous changes are taking place.
I went to Warren some years ago. It happened to be
at the time that President McKinley was assassinated.
In common with all others, I deplored that tragic event.
There is not a Socialist, who would have been guilty of
that crime. We do not attack individuals. We don't
wreak our vengeance upon any individual opposed to our
faith. We have no fight with individuals. We are capa-
ble of teaching those who hate us (applause). We do
not hate them; we know better; we would hand them a
cup of water, if they needed it (applause). There is
not any room in our heart for hate, except for a sys-
tem-a system in which it is possible for one man to
achieve a tremendous fortune doing nothing, while mil-
lions upon millions suffer and struggle and agonize and
die for the bare necessities of life (applause).
McKinley had been assassinated. I was booked to
speak at Portsmouth. All of the ministers of Ports-
mouth met in a special session, and they passed a reso-
lution that Debs, more than any other person, was re-
sponsible for the assassination of our beloved President
(laughter). And it is due to what he was preaching
that was he responsible for this crime. And so all of
these pious gentry, the followers of the meek and lowly,
as they believed, met and said I must not be permitted to
enter the city. And they had the mayor to issue an order
not permitting me to speak. I was all tired out. And
they wanted me to call the meeting off. I went there
soon after, however. Soon after I was booked to speak
at Warren, where President McKinley's double cousin
was postmaster. I went there and registered. I was
20
4
only registered when I was ordered to leave the hotel. I
was exceedingly undesirable that day. I was served with
notice that the hall would not be open, and that I would
not be permitted to speak. I sent back word to the mayor,
by the only Socialist who was permitted to remain in
town-and he only remained because they did not know
he was there I sent word to the mayor that I would
speak in Warren that night, according to the schedule,
or I would leave Warren in a box (applause).
I went to the hall, and the Grand Army of the Re-
public had a special meeting, and in full uniform they
all went to the hall and occupied the front seats, in order
to pounce upon me and take good care of me if my
speech did not suit them. I went to the hall and made
my speech. I told them who was responsible for the as-
sassination. I said: "As long as there is misery caused
by robbery at the bottom, there will be assassination at
the top" (applause). I showed them that it was their
capitalist system that was responsible; that impov-
erished and brutalized the ancestors of the poor, witless
boy who murdered the President. Yes, I made the
speech that night. When I left there I was still very
undesirable.
C
I returned some years thereafter. It seems that the
whole population of Warren was out. I was received
with open arms (applause). I was no longer a dema-
I was no longer a fanatic; I was no longer an un-
gogue;
desirable. I had become exceedingly honorable simply
because the Socialists had increased in numbers and in
power. Consequently, I had become something respect-
able-what a change, from poor respectability! If ever
I become anything more respectable, I will be quite sure
that I have outlived myself (laughter).
Oh, it is the minorities who have made the histories
of this world! They who have had the courage to take
their places at the front; they who have been true
enough to themselves to speak the truth that is in them;
they who have opposed the established order of things;
who have espoused the cause of the suffering, struggling
poor; who have upheld, without regard to personal con-
sequences-who have upheld the cause of righteousness;
they have made the history; they have paved the way to
civilization. Oh, there are so many who remain upon
the popular side. They lack the courage to join a de-
spised minority; they lack the fiber that endures. They
21
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ร่
are to be pitied, and not treated with contempt; they
cannot help it. But, thank God, in every age and every
nation there have been that few, and they have been suffi-
cient; and they have lived; they have endured; and we,
who are on earth today, are under obligation to them,
because they suffered, they sacrificed, they went to jail;
they had their bones broken upon the wheel; they were
burned at the stake, and had their ashes scattered to the
four winds by the hands of hate. We are under obli-
gation to them, because of what they suffered for us;
and the only way we can cancel that obligation is by
doing or seeking to do in the interest of those who are
to come after us (applause).
And this is the high purpose of every Socialist on the
face of the earth. Everywhere they are animated by the
same lofty principle; everywhere they have the same noble
ideal; everywhere they are clasping hands across the
boundary lines; everywhere they are calling one another
comrades, the blessed word that springs from the heart
and soul of unity; that bursts into blossom upon the lips;
aye, the word "comrade"-getting in closer touch all
along the battle line; and they are waging the war-the
war of the working class of the world against the ruling
class, the exploiting class of the world. They make mis-
takes; they profit with them all; we encounter defeats;
they grow-they grow stronger through them all. They
never take a backward step; the heart of the international
Socialist never beats retreat; they are pushing forward
(applause). They are pressing forward, here, there,
everywhere, in all of the zones that girdle this globe;
everywhere these awakening workers, these class-con-
scious proletarians, these horny-fisted children of honest
toil, everywhere wiping out the boundary lines; every-
where facing the larger and nobler patriotism; every-
where proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming eman-
cipation; everywhere having their hearts attuned to the
most sacred cause that ever challenged men and women
to action in all the history of the world. Everywhere
moving toward Democracy; everywhere marching to-
ward the sunrise, their faces all aglow with the light
of the coming day. These are the Socialists; these are
the most zealous, the most enthusiastic crusaders the
world has ever known (applause). They are making
history that will light the horizon in the coming genera-
tions; they are bound upon emancipating the human
ܝ.
}
22
race. They have been reviled; they have been perse-
cuted; but they have been sufficient to themselves, press-
ing forward toward the height-aye, their triumph is
now already begun.
Do you wish to hasten it? Join the Socialist party.
Don't wait for the morrow. Come now (applause). En-
roll your name; take your place where you belong. You
cannot do your duty by proxy. You have got to do
something yourself, and do it squarely, and look yourself
in the face while you are doing it; and you will have no
occasion to blush; you will know what it is to be a man
or woman. You will lose nothing; you gain everything
(applause). Not only do you not lose anything, but
you are very apt to find something, and that something
will be yourself. And you need to find yourself (ap-
plause). You need to know that you are fit for some-
thing better than slavery and cannon fodder (applause).
You need to know that you were not created to work
and to produce to impoverish yourself and to enrich
an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have
a soul to develop, a manhood to sustain. You need to
know that it is your duty to rise above the animal plane.
You need to know that it is for you to know something
about literature, and about science, and about art. You
need to know that you are on the edge of a great new
world. You need to get in touch with your comrades;
you need to become conscious of your interest and your
power as a class. You need to know that you belong to
the great majority. You need to know as long as you are
ignorant, as long as you are indifferent, as long as you
are content, as long as you are unorganized, you will
remain exactly where you are (applause). You will be
exploited; you will have to beg for a job; you will get
just enough to keep you in working order; and you will
be looked down upon with contempt by the very parasite
that lives out of your sweat and unpaid labor. If you
would be respected, you have got to begin by respect-
ing yourself (applause). Stand up, and look yourself
in the face, and see a man for the first time. See how
he looks, please.
Do not be in the predicament of that poor fellow that
after he had heard a Socialist speak, he concluded that
he ought to be a Socialist. The argument was un-
answerable. He said: "Yes.
He said: "Yes. All he said is true. I
ought to join the party." But, after while he concluded
-
23
+
·
that he might possibly anger the will of his old boss, and
lose his job. He said: "I guess I can't afford to take
the chance." That night he slept alone. He was in con-
flict with his conscience, as he went to bed; and he
dreamed a very terrible dream. Men always do when
they are untrue to themselves. Socialists always go to
bed with a clear conscience. He goes to sleep with his
manhood, and he wakes and goes forth in the morning
with his self-respect; and he looks the whole face in the
world (applause and laughter), without a tremor, with-
out a flicker. But this poor fellow, who lacked the cour-
age to do what his reason and his conscience commanded
he should do this poor fellow had a terrible dream. He
awoke, and at midnight he bounded from his bed in a
state of terror, for he said: "My God, there is nobody
in this room. ""
(Laughter.) And he was absolutely
right (laughter and applause). No one! He was terror-
stricken. How would you like to sleep in a room with
nobody in it? (Laughter.) It is an awful thing to be
nobody. That is a state of mind to get out of the
sooner the better.
C
There is a great deal of hope for Baker, Ruthenberg
and Wagenknecht, but for the fellow that is nobody,
there is no pardoning power. He is "in" for life. Any-
body can be nobody, but it takes a man to be somebody.
To turn your back on that corrupt Republican party,
and that still more corrupt Democratic party-the gold-
dust boys of the ruling class (laughter), yes, it counts
for something. To step out of those great, popular, sub-
sidized capitalist parties, and get into a minority party
that stands for a principle, and fights for a cause (ap-
plause). Make that change; it will be the most impor-
tant change you have ever made in your life; and you
will thank me to your dying day-or living day--a So-
cialist never dies-you will thank me for having made
the suggestion. It was a day of days for me.
I re-
member it so well. I passed from darkness to light. It
came like a flash, just as great, seething, throbbing Rus-
sia, in a flash, was transformed from the land of su-
preme darkness to a land of living light. There is some-
thing splendid in the prompting of the heart to be true
to yourself, especially so in a crisis.
You are in the crucible today, Mr. Socialist. You are
going to be tried, to what extent no one knows. If you
are weak-fibred, that weakness will be sought out, and
24
1
located. And if, through that weakness, you are con-
quered, you may be driven out of the Socialist move-
ment. We will have to bid good-bye to you. You are
not the stuff of which Revolutionists are made. We are -
sorry for you (applause), unless you happen to be an
intellectual. The intellectuals, a good many of them,
are already gone. No-no loss on our side, nor any gain
on theirs.
But, when discussing the intellectual phase of this
question, I am always amused by it. It is the same old
standard under which the rank and file are judged. I
fail to depend upon leaders of men-of others, because
they haven't got a thing of their own. What would be-
come of the men that are sheep unless they had shep-
herds to lead them out of the wilderness into the land
flowing with milk and honey? Oh, yes, "Ye are my
sheep. In other words, "Ye are my mutton." (Laugh-
ter.) And, if you had no intellectuals you could have
no movement. They rule through their intellectuals in
the capitalistic party. They have their so-called leaders.
In the Republican and Democratic party you are not
called upon to think. That is wholly unnecessary. The
leaders do the thinking. You simply do the voting. They
ride in the carriages, and you tramp in the mud, bring-
ing up the rear, showing themselves cowards. They
tend to the rest of the intellectuals in the capitalist party.
The capitalist system affects to have great regard for
intellect. They give themselves credit for having su-
perior brains. We used to tell them sometime ago that
the time would come when the working class would rule.
They said: "Never in the world will they rule. It re-
quires brains to rule." Implying that the workers have
none.
We used to say that the people ought to own the rail-
roads and operate them for the benefit of the people.
We advocated that twenty years ago. They said: "You
have got to have brains to run the trains." And the
other day McAdoo fired all the brains (laughter). So,
haven't all the trains been coming and going exactly on
time? Have you noticed any change since the brains,
are gone? It is a brainless system now. It is operated
by hand (laughter). But a good deal more efficiently
than it was operated by brains before (laughter). And
this determines infallibly the quality of capitalist brains.
It is the kind of brains you can get at a very reason-
99
25
able figure at the market houses. There is not very
much question about it. They have always given them-
selves credit for having superior brains. Aye, they have
the brains of the fox; they have the brains of the wolf;
they have had the shrewdness, the cunning of the coyote;
but as for brains-brains, as representing intelligence
and intellectual capacity, they are the most woefully
ignorant people on the face of the earth. Give me a hun-
dred capitalists, just as you find them here in Ohio-
give me my pick of this plutocracy, and let me ask them
a dozen simple questions about the history of their coun-
try, and I will show you that they are as ignorant as
unlettered schoolboys (applause). They know nothing
of history; they are ignorant of sociology; they are
strangers to science; but they know how to gouge; how
to rob, and do it legally. And they always do it legally,
for the reason that the class which has the power to
rob, upon a large scale, has the power to control the
government and legalize their robbery. I haven't time
to discuss this great question as extensively as I would
like.
•
They are talking about your patriotic duty. Among
other things, they are advising you to cultivate war
gardens-cultivate a war garden. While they are doing
this, a Government war report shows that practically
fifty-two per cent. of the arable tillable soil is held out
of use by the profiteers, by the land manipulators-held
out of use. They, themselves, do not cultivate it. They
could not if they would. They don't allow others to cul-
tivate it; they keep it idle to enrich themselves; to pocket
· the hundreds of dollars of unearned increment. Who is
it that makes their land valuable while it is fenced in
and kept out of use? It is the people. Who pockets this
tremendous value? The landlords. The landlords. Who
is the patriot? And while we are upon the subject, I
want you to think upon the term "land-lord." Land-
lord. Lord of the land? This lord of the land is a great
patriot. This lord, who professionally owns the earth,
tells you that he is fighting to make the world safe for
Democracy-he, who shuts all humanity out---and he
who profiteers at the expense of the people who have
been slain by multiplied thousands, under the pretense
of being the great patriot he is-he, who is your arch-
enemy; he it is that you need to wipe from power (ap-
plause). It is he, it is he that is a menace to your
Ca
26
loyalty and your liberty far more than the Prussian
junker on the other side of the Atlantic ocean (ap-
plause). Fifty-two per cent., according to their own
figures. They tell you that there is a shortage of flour,
and that you need to produce. We have got to save
wheat that we can export more wheat for the soldiers
who fight on the other side, while half of your tillable
soil is held out of use by the profiteers. What do you
think of that?
Again, they tell you there is a coal famine now, in the
State of Ohio. The State of Indiana, where I live, is
largely underlaid with coal. There is an inexhaustible
supply of it. The coal is beneath our feet. It is within
touch-all that we can possibly use. And here are the
miners; they are ready to enter the mines. There is the
machinery ready to be put into operation to increase
the output to any desired capacity. And yet, only three
weeks ago a national officer of the United Mine Workers
issued and published an appeal to the Labor Department
of the United States Government to the effect that of
the six hundred thousand coal miners in the United
States at this time, when they tell us of a coal famine
-the six hundred thousand coal miners in this country
are not permitted to work more than half time. I have
been around over Indiana. I have been in the coal fields;
I have seen the miners idle. In the meantime, scarcity
of coal. They tell you that you ought to buy your coal
right away. You may freeze to death next winter if you
do not; and they charge you three prices for coal. Oh,
yes, I think you ought to do this if you vote the Republi-
can or Democratic ticket (applause). Now we have pri-
vate ownership of the coal mines. And this is the result
of private ownership of this great social utility. The
coal mines are privately owned, and the operators want
a scarcity of coal. Why? So they can boost the prices
indefinitely. If there was an abundance of coal, there
would be too much coal. They make more money out
of the scarcity of coal. So there is collusion between the
operators and the railroads. The operators say there
are no cars, and the railroad men say no coal. And
between them they simply humbug, delude, defraud the
people.
There is the coal. Here are the miners. The
coal has accumulated; the miners are idle and hungry.
}
27
We Socialists say: Take possession of the mines in
the name of the people (applause). Set the miners
at work; give every miner that works all the coal he pro-
duces. In this system the miner goes down in a pit three
hundred feet. He goes to work and mines a ton of coal.
He doesn't own one solitary bit of it. That ton of coal
belongs to some plutocrat who lives in New York, Vienna
or Paris. There is where the owners are before the war
is declared. Then when they get together on their book
accounts, he gets a share as if he did the work. The
owner who lives in Europe, New York or Patagonia
it doesn't make any difference where he is. He doesn't
have to keep at the work. He owns the tools, and he
might as well own the miner.. That is what you do for
them as long as you vote the Republican ticket or the
Democratic ticket. You vote to have these miners with-
out a job-corporation vassals and also paupers. But
I'll tell you we Socialists say: Take possession of the
mines; call the miners to the coal mines. Let the miners
mine the coal-every ounce. He himself is entitled to
the full value of his toil. Then he can build himself a
comfortable home; live in it; enjoy it; he can provide
himself and his wife and children with clothes-good
clothes-not shoddy; wholesome food in abundance, and
the people will get coal at just what it costs to mine it.
Oh, that is Socialism as far as it goes. But you are not
in favor of that program. It is too visionary. So con-
tinue to pay three prices for coal, and get your coal when
winter comes, because you prefer to vote the capitalist
ticket. You are still in the capitalist state of mind. It
is a good deal like the Executive Lincoln said: "If you
want that thing, that is what you will get to your heart's
content." You will waken up; you will be raised up. A
change is needed. Yes, yes. Not of party, but change
of system; a change from despotism to Democracy, wide
as the world (applause). A change from slavery to free-
dom! A change from brutehood to brotherhood; and to
accomplish this you have got to organize; and you have
got to organize industrially. Not along the zig-zag,
craft lines laid down by Sam Gompers, who, through
all of his career, has been on the side of the master class.
You never hear the capitalist press speak of him except
in praise and adulation. He has become a great patriot.
Oh, yes. Gompers, who was never on the unpopular side
A
28
of any question or of any proposition; always conserva-
tive, satisfied to leave the labor problem to be settled at
the banquet board with Elihu Root, Andy Carnegie and
the rest of the plutocrats. When they drank wine to-
gether and smoked scab cigars, then the labor question
was settled (laughter).
Oh, yes, while they are praising Gompers, there is
the I. W. W. You find very few men who have the cour-
age to say a word in behalf of the I. W. W. (applause).
I have (applause). Let me say here that I have very
great respect for the I. W. W. More than I have for
their infamous detractors (applause).
JORN
Listen. There is a pamphlet just been issued called
"The Truth About the I, W. W." It has been issued,
after long investigation by five men, all of whom are
known to the Socialists; all of whom are men of unques-
tioned standing in the capitalist world. At the head of
this is Prof. John Graham Brooks of Harvard Univer-
sity; John Fitch of the Survey, of Pittsburgh, and Mr.
Bruere, the Government investigator. Five of them
conducted an impartial examination of the I. W.
W. To use their own words, they have followed
its trail; they have examined into its doings, be-
ginning at Bisbee, where the patriots, the rotten
business men, the arch-criminals, deported twelve
hundred men, working men, charging them with being
I. W. W., when they were nothing of the kind. It is only
necessary to label a man "I. W. W." to have him
lynched, just as they lynched Praeger, an absolutely in-
nocent man-innocent as we are. Just simply started the
rumor because he bore a German name. He was a So-
cialist, but he had never uttered one disloyal world;
only the rumor was started he was disloyal, which was
made up. Just think of the crime for which the poor
capitalist party is responsible. But, when the war press
says war, you may rest assured that every pulpit in the
land will say war. And when Wall street says peace,.
they will all say peace, because they are simply the in-
struments of Wall street. The pulpits in every age have
been on the side of every ruling, exploiting class-of
the ruling class, and not on the side of the people. That
is why the I. W. W. is infamous.
Look into this pamphlet. Don't take the word of the
Wall street press for that. Get this pamphlet of truth
29
O
1
about the I. W. W. by five men who are incorruptible,
uncontaminated-five men who dared to want to know
the truth and tell the truth to the American people, with
the truth in this pamplet. They say that the I. W. W. in
all of its career never committed as much violence
against the ruling class as the ruling class has committed
against the I. W. W. (applause).
You are not reading any reports about the trial at
Chicago, are you? They used to publish extensive re-
ports when the trials first began, and they told the people
about what they proposed to prove about that gigantic
conspiracy against the Government. And the trial has
gone on now until they have exhausted all their testi-
mony, and they have not proven violence in a single,
solitary instance. Not one. They are utterly lacking
in testimony; and yet, one hundred and twelve meǹ are
now on trial, after lying in jail for months and months,
without the shadow of a crime on them-simply charged
with belonging to the I. W. W. This is enough to take a
man and send his soul to hell for. Just speak about the
I. W. W. That is all; with no reason for it, they object
to the I. W. W. The I. W. W. are fighting the fight of
the bottom dog (applause). And for the reason that
Gompers is loved and glorified by Wall street, Bill Hay-
wood is despised and denounced by the same gang.
What you need is to organize, not along craft lines,
but along revolutionary industrial lines (applause). You
will never vote in the Socialist republic. You are needed
to organize it; and you have got to organize it in the
industries-unite in the industries. The industrial union
is the forerunner of industrial Democracy. In the shop
is where the industrial Democracy has its beginning.
Organize according to the industries, and minimize all
the Gompers. Get together. United, very often your
power becomes invincible. Organize to get up to your
fullest capacity. Organize. Act together. And when
you organize industrially, you will soon learn that you
can manage industry as well as operate industry. You
can soon find that you don't need the idle for your
masters. They are simply parasites. They don't give
you work. You give them jobs taking what you pro-
duce, and that is all. Their function is to take what you
produce. You can dispose of them. You don't need
them to depend upon for your jobs. You ought to own
JOAN
30
your own tools; you ought to control your own jobs; you
ought to be industrial free men instead of industrial
slaves. Organize industrially. Make the organization
complete. Then unite in the Socialist party. Make your
organization economically complete. Vote as you strive;
get into the party; stand with the party all of the days
in the year. See that your party embraces the working
class. It is the only working class party, the party that
expresses the interest, the hope, the aspirations of the
toilers of the world. Get into the party. Get your fel-
low workers into the 'party, too. Yes, especially this
year-this historic year; this year in which the forces
will clash as they never clashed before. This is the year
that calls for men and women who have the fiber; who
have the courage, the manhood and the womanhood. Get
into the party. Take your place in the ranks. Help to
inspire the weak and to strengthen the faltering; and do
your share to speed the coming of that brighter and
better day for us all (applause). Then, when we vote
together and act together on the industrial plane, we
will develop the supreme power of the one class that can
bring permanent peace to the world. We will have the
courage. Industry will be organized. We will conquer
the public power. We will transfer the title deeds of
the railroads, the telegraph lines, the mills, the great
industries—we will transfer them to the people; we will
take possession in the name of the people. We will have
industrial Democracy. We will have Socialist Democ-
racy; we will have political Democracy. We will be the
first free nation whose government belongs to the people.
Oh, this change will be universal; it will be permanent;
it looks towards the light; it paves the way to emanci-
pation.
And now for all of us to do our duty. The call is ring-
ing in our ears. It is your duty to respond; and you
cannot falter without being convicted of treason to your-
selves. Do not worry, please; don't worry over the
charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned
about the treason that involves yourselves (applause).
Be true to yourself, and you cannot be a traitor tó any
good cause on earth.
Yes, we are going to sweep into power in this nation,
and in every other nation on earth. We are going to
destroy the capitalist institutions; we are going to re-
31
create them as legally free institutions. Before our very
eyes the world is being destroyed. The world of capital-
ism is collapsing; the world of Socialism is rising.
It is your duty to help to build. We need builders of
industry. Builders are necessary. We Socialists are the
builders of the world that is to be. We are all agreed to
do our part. We are inviting-aye, challenging you this
afternoon, in the name of your own manhood, to join us.
Help do your part. In due course of time the hour
will strike, and this great cause-the greatest in his-
tory-will proclaim the emancipation of the working
class and the brotherhood of all mankind. (Thunderous
and prolonged applause.)
|
W
2. Count 4 (42-55) charges that defendant did obstruct
and attempt to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment
service of the United States. The making of the speech,
and other averments are the same as before, except that
the ages of hearers particularized is 18 to 45.
3. Count 7 (82-95), reciting the same facts, and again
alleging hearers between 21 and 30, charges that the de-
fendant did "unlawfully, wilfully and feloniously utter
and publish certain language intended to incite, pro-
voke and encourage resistance to the United States, and
to promote the cause of its enemy, to wit: The Imperial
German Government."
Aside from the introduction of the Canton speech,
most of the time of the trial was consumed in reading
into the record the war proclamation issued by the So-
cialist Party in April, 1917, usually designated as the
St. Louis Platform (218, Exhibit II); also the records
of criminal prosecutions against Wagenknecht, Baker,
Ruthenberg (226, Exhibits 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13), Rose
Pastor Stokes (227, Exhibit 14), and Kate Richards
O'Hare (228, Exhibit 15), and a speech made by Mr.
Debs in Chicago on August 11, 1918 (220-223).
32
No witnesses were called for the defense. Mr. Debs
made the only argument in his own behalf (236-248).
Counsel for Mr. Debs, proceeding upon this simple
record, are conscious of an obligation to present the ap-
peal to this court in entire harmony with the spirit and
purpose of the defense in the trial court. The defend-
ant comes before this court like any other person
charged with crime, and his attorneys are under duty to
this court to call attention to such manifest errors upon
the trial as have thwarted the established requirements
of a criminal proceeding. Yet in urging upon this court
the several matters which we consider as highly preju-
dicial error against Mr. Debs in his trial, we hope in no
way to give the least impression of altering his firm
stand upon his public expressions as within his right of
free speech under the Constitution.
SPECIFICATION OF ERRORS.
We shall urge errors committed by the trial court to
the prejudice of the defendant, as follows:
1. Overruling the demurrer to the indictment. The
indictment fails to state an offense for the several rea-
sons that:
(a) It states only conclusions of law in the language
of the statute and makes no connection between these
averments and the speech of the defendant, leaving this
connection entirely to conjecture and argumentative in-
ference;
(b) It proceeds upon the erroneous assumption, in
counts 3 and 7, that all citizens between the ages of 21
and 30 are part of the military forces of the United
States; and, in count 4, that all citizens between the
ages of 18 and 45 are part of the recruiting service;
33
}
(c) It states no charge and sets forth no language,
no matter how aided by inference or deduction, which
could bring the speech of defendant within the purview
of Congressional penal legislation under the powers
granted to Congress in the Constitution.
2. The trial court erred in admitting as testimony a
partial court record of criminal proceedings against
Wagenknecht, Baker and Ruthenberg (226).
3. The trial court erred in admitting court records
in the criminal prosecution against Rose Pastor Stokes.
4. The court erred, likewise, in admitting the records
in the case against Kate Richards O'Hare.
5. Admission of portions out of two interviews, be-
tween witness Clyde Miller and the defendant, referring
to the St. Louis Platform (166-175; 218-220).
6. Admission of the St. Louis Platform as testimony,
erroneous because in no way connected with the making
of the speech upon which the charges are founded, and
immaterial and improper upon the issue of the criminal
intent involved in the making of the Canton speech,
which does not directly or inferentially adopt or refer
to this document, or in any way bring its text to the con-
sciousness of the hearers.
7. The court erred in admitting as evidence part of a
speech said to have been made in Chicago, August 11,
1918, irrelevant and improper to prove the intent in-
volved in the making of the speech at Canton on June
16th.
8. Error in refusing to direct a verdict of acquittal
on each and every count of the indictment, because there
was no evidence of any solicitation or urging of unlaw-
ful conduct on the part of others by the defendant, and
because on no other basis could defendant's utterances
34
た
​come within the constitutional power of Congress to pro-
hibit or punish expressions of opinions and sentiments.
9. Error in the instructions of the trial judge as to
those persons who make up the military and naval forces
and the recruiting service of the United States (268,
270).
10. Error in the instructions as to the range of public
discussion immune from Congressional interference un-
der the First Amendment of the Constitution (278-279).
11. Error in the instructions (278) in declaring con-
stitutional the clause of the Espionage Act upon which
count 7 is based, namely, "whoever, when the United
States is at war * * *
shall wilfully utter, print,
write, or publish any language intended to incite, pro-
voke or encourage resistance to the United States, or
to promote the cause of its enemies
shall be
punished, etc." Which said clause is obnoxious to the
First Amendment, prohibiting legislation abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; obnoxious to section
3 of article III, limiting the definition of treason against
the United States; obnoxious also to the provision in the
Sixth Amendment (relating to the due process of law
guaranteed to one charged with crime by the Fifth
Amendment) which requires that accused shall be in-
formed of the nature and cause of the accusation, and
which requirement cannot be fulfilled in application to a
penal provision of such extreme indefiniteness as the one
in question.
*
I
35
#
;
POINTS.
The argument on the errors above set forth will be
made under five headings, as follows:
I. The indictment fails to charge a crime.
II. Admission of court records in other criminal pro-
ceedings.
III. Admission of St. Louis Platform.
1
IV. Definition of military forces and recruiting ser
vice.
V. The acts charged against defendant are protected
under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
I.
THE INDICTMENT FAILS TO CHARGE A CRIME.
The primary argument under this heading is carried
over to the general discussion of the right of free speech
under a subsequent heading of the brief. At this point
we desire merely to call attention to the fictitious char-
acter of the pleading as pleading.
We have already summarized the three counts of the
indictment with which we are here concerned. In each
case there is the array of averments in the language of
the statute and reference to the speech in its entirety.
There is only a statement of crime by mere formulas of
words, not a definition by facts. Whatever connection
may exist between the formal averments and the speech
is matter of inference or speculation. There are no con-
clusions of fact, based upon the speech or other mat-
ter. There is absolutely nothing in the indictment upon
which a rule of the case could be founded, short of the
proposition that the general array of words set forth,
1
36
1
1
addressed to a stated audience at a stated time and place,
constitutes a violation of the Espionage Act. The time
is specified as a time when the United States was at war,
and the audience as containing young men of certain
ages. The relation of the speech to these items, or to
the general (statutory) averments, is ignored. This
pleading we challenge under the general rule, as stated
by Justice Story in United States v. Davis, 5 Mason 356,
that "in criminal cases courts of law are not at liberty
to make intendments and inferences to support indict-
ments, in the same manner as they may do to support
civil actions."
'The case of United States v. Bopp et al., 230 Fed. 723,
is decisive of this point. The Bopp case, disposed of on
demurrer, was a charge of conspiracy to organize a
military enterprise against a foreign nation, and. the de-
cision was that acts were not set forth which made spe-
cific the crime alleged. Even though a charge was made
in the precise words of the statute itself, this was not a
sufficient description of a charge to organize a "military
enterprise." The definition of such an enterprise, in
concrete terms, must appear as the effect of the indict-
ment, not as its conclusions of law, nor yet as its bare
repetition of the statutory definition of the crime. It is
only when the language of the statute itself contains the
definition in terms of acts that it is alone sufficient. Add-
ing the speech made at Canton to the abstract aver-
ments in the three counts here in question does not de-
fine the crime, unless it be further alleged in what re-
spect the speech and other items combine toward a
criminal end.
The crime must be fully described, not by intendment
or implication, not inferentially or by way of recital,
but directly and completely, so that the criminal purpose
is plainly revealed. It is not a general intent which will
1
37
suffice, but the specific intent to achieve the crime set
out. There must be a direct connection made clear be-
tween the intent to violate the statute and acts consum-
mated or in process, not by legal conclusions of the
pleader, but by the logical resultant of the sum total of
the material of the indictment. The charge must rest in
the facts and circumstances pleaded directly and posi-
tively, and cannot be made to depend upon inference and
argument, as in the indictment which we challenge. Pet-
tibone v. United States, 148 U. S. 197; United States v.
Hess, 124 U. S. 483; Bishop's New Crim. Prac., Vol. I,
Sec. 325; also, Vol. II, Sec. 779.
To state this another way, and taking the indictment
in its original form for the sake of illustration, are
there really ten different applications of the speech, or
merely the lining up of charges in ten phases of the stat-
ute alongside the speech? Now this would seem to be
proper pleading of the speech as an offense per se, of the
language as the criminal act when accompanying an alle-
gation of publication. But the theory of the speech as
relating itself to acts of others is not revealed by setting
out the text of the speech together with conclusions in
statutory language of the kind here in question.
The rule of strict application of penal statutes is ap-
plicable to the situation here presented. Especially is
this pertinent to a new offense (Field v. United States,
137 Fed. 6), and to a statute involving a change in “our
traditional policy in relation to public discussions.
Masses Pub. Co. v. Patten, 244 Fed. 535.
We cite further the ruling and opinion of Judge Ami-
don in United States v. Schutte, 252 Fed. 213, wherein
also appears the language of the Supreme Court of Min-
nesota in State v. Spartz, 167 N. W. 547. We go further
than Judge Amidon, however, since the language of his
W
繡
​38
opinion would seem to make it sufficient if the pleader
sets out the words so that the court can pass upon them.
Presumably that is the process by which the trial judge
eliminated several of the counts of the indictment here
I
in question. Suppose then we proceed on this basis.
The proposition is that the trial judge sustains the other
counts upon the theory that by reasonable inference the
language uttered by the defendant might be held appro-
priate to the wilful purpose alleged. On the other hand,
what we contend is that the connection between the lan-
guage and the purpose ought to form part of the indict-
ment, so that the defendant may be enlightened, and not
alone that the judge may have the materials for his rul-
ing upon the indictment.
*
J
In short, there is in this pleading a speculative ele-
ment, an invitation for inferences to go along with the
abstract averments. We are asked to search the speech
ten different times for possible applications to ten dif-
ferent offenses, the pleader standing aside in favor of
conclusions of fact to be made by the court, and the
court, and then the jury, proceeding to these conclusions
in privacy of consciousness never revealed to the defend-
ant, except in form of ruling and verdict. The elemen-
tary principles of pleading in defamation, where words.
carry the offense, would be violated by giving the words
without a theory of their injury. Assuredly the require-
ments of pleading a felony cannot be satisfied by leav-
ing a gap for guesswork, wherein the trial judge and the
jury may arrive at the same point by processes of rea-
soning extremely divergent, and the rule of the case, as
tested by the indictment, may go to nothing except a
speech as an entity—when it is not the speech as lan-
guage, but as motivation to action, which constitutes the
charge.
-
39
傻
​1
II.
·
ADMISSION OF COURT RECORDS IN OTHER CRIMINAL
PROCEEDINGS.
In the speech upon which the several charges pro-
ceed, Mr. Debs referred to Wagenknecht, Ruthenberg
and Baker, who were confined in the workhouse at Can-
ton. We repeat the references to these men made by
Mr. Debs:
Mag
*
"I have just returned from a visit over yonder
(pointing to workhouse) where three of our most
loyal comrades are paying the penalty for devotion
to the cause of the working class. They have come
to realize as many of us have, that it is extremely
dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of
free speech in a country fighting to make democ-
racy safe in the world.
And they may
put those boys in jail and some of the rest of us in
jail, but they cannot put the Socialist movement in
jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from
ours, but their souls are here this afternoon. They
are simply paying the penalty that all men have paid
in all of the ages of history for standing erect, and
for seeking to pave the way to better conditions for
mankind. If it had not been for the men and women,
who, in the past, have had the moral courage to go
to jail, we would still be in the jungles.
* * *
Those boys over yonder-those comrades of ours
-and how I love them-aye, they are my younger
brothers; their very names throb in my heart, and
thrill in my veins, and surge in my soul. I am proud
of them. They are there for us, and we are here
for them. Their lips, though temporarily mute, are
more eloquent than ever before; and their voice,
though silent, is heard around the world.
There is a great deal of hope for Baker, Ruthen-
berg and Wagenknecht, but for the fellow that is
nobody, there is no pardoning power. He is 'in' for
life. Anybody can be nobody, but it takes a man to
be somebody.
*99
{
t
40
On the basis of this reference by Mr. Debs to these
three persons, a partial record of criminal proceedings
against them (in this same court) was introduced over
objection. The clerk of the court identified the records,
and the prosecuting attorney read them to the jury. The
indictment against these persons was for a violation of
an Act of Congress approved May 18, 1917, requiring
registration for military service of persons designated
as subject to draft, in that they aided and abetted some-
one in his refusal to register.
There is not a word in the speech of Mr. Debs which
suggests approval, or even knowledge on his own part,
of the criminal offense for which these three men were
convicted. There is not a word by which he brings such
knowledge to his hearers, or in any way holds up the
acts charged against these men as an example or stand-
ard of conduct for others.
The defendant spoke also of Rose Pastor Stokes. He
said:
"Another brief history I want to review is that of
Rose Pastor Stokes, another inspiring comrade. She
had her millions of dollars. Her devotion to the
cause is without all consideration of a financial or
economic view. She went out to render service to
the cause and they sent her to the penitentiary for
ten years. What has she said? Nothing more than
I have said here this afternoon. I want to say that
if Rose Pastor Stokes is guilty, so am I. If she
should be sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years,
so ought I. What did she say? She said that a
Government could not serve both the profiteers and
the employes of the profiteers. Roosevelt has said
a thousand times more in his paper, the Kansas City
Star.
*
Rose Pastor Stokes never said a word she did not
have a right to utter, but her message opened the
eyes of the people. That must be suppressed. That
voice must be silenced. Her trial in a capitalist
1
41
court was very farcical. What chance had she in a
corporation court with a put-up jury and corpora-
tion tool on the bench?"
The trial judge, over objection, permitted the Govern-
ment to introduce the indictment, verdict and sentence
against Rose Pastor Stokes, who was tried May, 1918, in
the District Court for the Western District of Missouri,
on charges under the Espionage Act. Since the printed
record does not set out this indictment, we refer here to
the quotation from this indictment as used by the Dis-
trict Attorney in his argument (261):
"Here is what Rose Pastor Stokes said-you
heard the record-for which she got ten years: 'A
headline in this evening's issue of the Star reads:
"Mrs. Stokes for Government and Against War at
Same Time." I am not for the Government.' She
says that she is not for the United States. Eugene
V. Debs says to you, 'I am with Mrs. Stokes.' That
means 'I am not for the United States.' Doesn't it?
Gentlemen, there is a great war on. This man
is charged with the crime of violating the Espionage
Act. It is competent to show what he intended to
do, what he had in mind, what his purpose was,
when he made his speech down there. 'I am not for
the Government. I am reported as having said "I
believe the Government of the United States should
have the unqualified support of every citizen in its
war aims."
You and I believe that, don't we? A
citizen of this country that don't believe in that
ought to be driven out of it, or not be permitted to
run around loose. I made no such statement, and
I believe no such thing. No government which is
for the profiteers can also be for the people, and I
am for the people, while the government is for the
profiteers.'"
And of Kate Richards O'Hare he said:
"Why, the other day they sent Kate Richards
O'Hare to the penitentiary for ten years. Just
think of sentencing a woman to the penitentiary for
talking. The United States, under the rule of plu-
$
42!
2
tocracy, is the only country that would send a
woman to the penitentiary for exercising her con-
stitutional right of free speech. If this be treason,
let them make the most of it. Let me review for all
the history in connection with this case. I have
known Kate Richards O'Hare intimately for 20
years. I know her record by heart. Personally, I
know her as if she were my own sister. All who
know her know she is a woman of absolute integ-
rity. And they know that she is a woman of unim-
peachable loyalty to the socialist movement. When
she went out into Dakota and made her speeches,
followed by plain-clothes men in the service of the
Government, intent upon encompassing her arrest
and her prosecution and her conviction-when she
was out there, it was with the knowledge that sooner
or later they would accomplish their purpose. She
made a certain speech, and that speech was delib-
erately misrepresented for the purpose of securing
her conviction. The only testimony against her was
that of a hired witness. And when 30 farmers, men
and women, who were in the audience she addressed
-made the speech to, when they went to Bismarck
to testify in her favor, to swear that she had never
used the language she was charged with having
used, the judge refused to allow them to go on the
stand."
Similarly, over objection, the trial court permitted the
Government to introduce the indictment against Kate
Richards O'Hare, the verdict of guilty returned by the
jury and the judgment and sentence of the court thereon.
Mrs. O'Hare was tried under the Espionage Act, De-
cember, 1917, in the District Court for the District of
North Dakota. For the substance of this indictment we
refer again to the argument of the District Attorney
(262):
"Kate Richard O'Hare, in a public meeting, said
that 'any person who enlisted in the army of the
United States for service in France would be used
for fertilizer, and that is all that he was good for,
and that the women of the United States were noth-
43
}
ing more nor less than brood sows to raise children
to get into the army and be made into fertilizer.'
The record shows that she was found guilty by 12
men, and is under sentence for that offense; so we
must assume that it is true. And Debs wants to
take his place alongside of her. How much favor
ought a man of that kind have in a court of justice,
or in any court? If it was any other country in the
would he would be facing a firing squad, after a
trial on the head of a drum, and not after days of
pain and effort to give him a fair, just and equitable
trial. "
It will be observed from the foregoing that nothing
in the address of Mr. Debs, or in any other matter dis-
closed in the evidence, indicated that he or anyone who
heard him speak on June 16th, had knowledge of the
charges contained in these several pleadings against
Wagenknecht, Ruthenberg, Baker, Kate Richards
O'Hare, or Rose Pastor Stokes. That is, there was no
showing of knowledge as to these charges, except as
carried in the words of the Canton speech standing by
itself. There was no basis whatever for an inference
that the speaker intended to approve or indorse the of-
fenses with which these persons were charged; nor that
he was holding up these offenses as a standard of con-
duct for others (as was discussed in Masses Publishing
Co. v. Patten, 244 Fed. 535; 246 Fed. 24). In fact, the
defendant, by his own statement of the facts, as he
understood them, shows conclusively that he had no
knowledge of the specific criminal offenses of which
these persons were found guilty.
The prejudicial character of this evidence is manifest
when it is considered that there was no possibility of
meeting it except by evidence relating to these charges
against other persons. The introduction of these rec-
ords raised a collateral issue which there was no way
of meeting, and the effect was to impress the jury that
&
!
44
P
I
農
​the defendant was admitting against himself the things
charged in these indictments. There was no warrant or
possibility in this trial to review these other cases, and
there was no warrant or relevancy in permitting the
jury to pass upon these records for the purpose of
determining the intent of Mr. Debs in presenting these
names to his hearers at Canton.
But
Á striking tangent as to two of these records was that
the cases were pending on appeal, namely, the cases of
Kate Richards O'Hare and Rose Pastor Stokes. It is
true the writ of error only suspends judgment.
the reversal of either of these cases, assuming now even
that Mr. Debs referred to the charges as such, not to
the individuals on the basis of long-cherished personal
regard the reversal might establish the correctness of
a legal inference of innocence, while this action of the
reviewing court would be unavailing to the defendant,
who had made such inference contrary to the indictment
and conviction.
In an indirect way, there was an attempt here to show
by other proceedings other offenses of the defendant
than that with which he was charged. There was the
effect of making him a party to the charges and guilt
established against five other persons, and of placing
him in Fargo, Kansas City and Cleveland under the
onus of proved criminality.
To make more emphatic the vice of admitting this
testimony on the issue of intent, we call attention to the
rules as to the admissibility of evidence of other crime
committed by the same defendant. The general rule
against the admissibility of such evidence is elaborately
set forth in an annotation in 62 L. R. A. 193, to the lead-
ing case of People v. Molineaux, 168 N. Y. 264. From the
abundance of authorities under this heading we cite par-
T
45
ticularly State v. O'Donnell, 36 Or. 222; Davis v. State,
54 Neb. 177; People v. White, 14 Wend. 112; People v.
Flanigan, 59 N. Y. Supp. 101. The case of Lightfoot v.
People, 16 Mich. 507, is specially appropriate; a wit-
ness testified that the defendant said he was the man
who had broken into the house bn a previous occasion,
and the witness was then permitted to go on to state the
fact of the former breaking. This was held reversible
error. The court said:
"What defendant said at the time of the burglary
for which he was being tried, in reference to the
former breaking, was admissible, but evidence of
the fact of that breaking was not."
One of the recognized exceptions to the general rule
of exclusion of evidence of other crimes is where the
evidence is necessary to prove intent, or guilty knowl-
edge. There are two views as to this exception, one that
it is a rule of necessity, creating an exception only where
the testimony as to the immediate transaction carries
no proof of intent, the other view, that proof of intent
by other crimes may be used cumulatively. But it is
very clear from the character of the cases in which this
exception is given application, and from the rationality
of the general rule itself as applied to the circumstances
with which we are dealing, that the rule of exception
to prove intent can have no application here. It is in
cases of fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, embezzlement,
or receiving stolen property that this use of evidence
of other crimes is applied, because it is in such cases
particularly that the same act may be guilty or innocent
depending only on the design of the doer. But when we
deal with a charge of crime founded upon the use of
words to influence the conduct of others, the intent must
relate itself definitely to these words as instruments
of action, not with the secret purposes locked within
46
the breast of the defendant and to be divulged only by
exhibiting his prior conduct; or the sequence of his con-
duct, as by repetition which refutes mistake or accident.
Either the words used at Canton measure up to the
charges based upon them, or they do not. Other indict-
ments cannot elucidate an intent in the use of these
words which the words themselves do not carry.
'It would seem obvious that the rule of exclusion
against evidence of other crimes by a defendant would
much more strictly apply to a use of indictments and
sentences against third persons, to whom defendant has
no relation other than the mention of their names in
his speech, with such commendation as he gave them on
the basis of their devotion to Socialism, as he knew it.
S
For a statement of the reason of this rule of ex-
clusion which we here invoke, we cite the following
language from the decision of this court in Boyd v.
United States, 142 U. S. 450, 458:
(As to other robberies preceding a murder)—
"They were collateral to the issue to be tried. No
notice was given by the indictment of the purpose
of the government to introduce proof of them. They
afforded no legal presumption or inference as to
thể particular crime charged. Those robberies may
have been committed by the defendants in March,
and yet they may have been innocent of the murder
of Dansby in April. Proof of them only tended to
prejudice the defendant with the jurors, to draw
their minds away from the real issue, and to pro-
duce the impression that they were wretches whose
lives were of no value to the community, and who
were not entitled to the full benefit of the rules pre-
scribed by law for the trial of human beings charged
with crime involving the punishment of death. * * *
However depraved in character, and however full
of crime their past lives may have been, the defend-
ants were entitled to be tried upon competent evi-
dence, and only for the offense charged."
47
We cite further the case of Miller v. State (Oklą.) 163
Pac. 131, in which the court adopts this language from
Underhill on Criminal Evidence (Sec. 88):.
"Some connection between the crimes must be
shown to have existed in fact, and in the mind of
the actor, uniting them for the accomplishment of
a common purpose, before such evidence can be
received. This connection must clearly appear from
the evidence. Whether any connection exists is
a judicial question. If the court does not clearly
perceive it, the accused should be given the benefit
of the doubt, and the evidence rejected. The mind
of the jurors must not be poisoned and prejudiced
by receiving evidence of this irrelevant and danger-
ous description.”
In Commonwealth v. Harmon, 2 Gray (68 Mass.)
289 the court deals with evidence of other publications
in a criminal prosecution for libelous publications:
"But in relation to this species of evidence, the
prosecutor must be confined according to the recog-
nized practice and course of judicial decisions in
this commonwealth, to the proof of libelous and
defamatory publications and statements of the same
kind as those of which the defendant is accused in
the particular proceeding then pending against
him."
We call attention also to the rule of construction of
language in defamation cases which is specially appro-
priate here, that "where the charge is conditional in
its form, the actionable quality of the imputation de-
pends upon the fact assumed in the conditional clause"
(25 Cyc. 361). The praise which Mr. Debs rendered to
others convicted of crime was conditioned by his own
statement of what he knew and felt about these per-
sons, as has been herein quoted, not upon the averments
of an indictment in no way brought to the consciousness
of other minds by Mr. Debs, and plainly enough not
even known to himself. Many of the noblest persons
•
}
1
48
who ever lived were convicted of the most serious felo-
nies, yet praise of their nobility of character and pur-
poses, or of their steadfastness to the truth as they saw
it, would not be read as endorsement of the criminality
charged against them. The judicial mind might recoil
at the suggestion of high praise of murderers, yet the
popular mind accepts as noble heroism the slaying of
tyrants, an ever-recurring episode of progress toward
liberty and this without a changed conception of the
crime of murder in its unheroic aspects of normal ex-
perience.
III.
$
We add finally, as to the argument under this heading,
that the argument under the next heading is largely
applicable here as well.
ADMISSION OF ST. LOUIS PLATFORM.
K
We urge as prejudicial error the admission as testi-
mony of a document (Exhibit 2) purporting to be a
members' referendum ballot of the Socialist Party. This
was said to contain the "majority report" and "minority
report" of a National Convention of that party held at
St. Louis, April, 1917. As in the trial, this document
will be referred to as the St. Louis Platform.
#
The argument under this heading applies also to the
testimony of Joseph Trindel, who recited from memory
two or three sentences purporting to be a verbatim rec-
ord of what Mr. Debs said in a speech at Chicago, Au-
gust 11, 1918, nearly two months after the Canton meet-
ing (221). This Chicago speech, the complete record of
which was not produced at the trial, was delivered at a
National Conference of State Secretaries of the Socialist
}
49
Party, the witness stating that not over 20 were present
(221). From the sentences quoted by the witness it ap-
pears that Mr. Debs characterized this war as a capi-
talist war, and that he hoped "there is no one present
today who will want to change the party's former atti-
tude toward the war." The witness, on cross-examina-
tion, added that Mr. Debs did not say what was the
party's "former attitude" toward the war (222).
The St. Louis Platform was not mentioned in the Can-
ton speech. There was no reference in that speech-
the entire basis of all the charges in the indictment-
which by any implication might be understood as a com-
ment on that document, or on any part of its text. The
testimony of Clyde Miller, a news writer for the Cleve-
land Plain-Dealer, was that he interviewed Mr. Debs
an hour before the time of the meeting at Canton. The
interview was brief, and was recollected as lasting be-
tween five and eight minutes (175). The witness asked
Mr. Debs if the reports that he had repudiated the St.
Louis Platform were true. Mr. Debs answered that he
approved of that platform from the time of its adoption
in spirit and substance; that he accepted its main ideas;
but that "in the light of recent events" he favored a re-
statement (170). The witness pressed his inquiries as
to what changes in that platform Mr. Debs would favor,
and the answer was that a restatement at this time would
take into account particularly the Russian develop-
ments (170).
There was no document used as the medium of this
interview (172). There was simply the assumption that
the interviewer and Mr. Debs understood each other in
regard to what was the St. Louis Platform. In fact, in
spite of a persistent attempt, the Government found it
impossible to identify any writing as the St. Louis Plat-
50
form, in order to qualify it for an offer of testimony, by
use of the witness Clyde Miller. This was done, finally,
by calling Mr. C. E. Ruthenberg to the stand (216). He
stated that he was a member of the Convention at St.
Louis, and that from a cursory examination of Exhibit 2
he recognized the writing as the majority and minority
reports of that Convention.
At this stage of the trial, the District Attorney read
into the record the majority report of the St. Louis Con-
vention as it appears in Exhibit 2 (218). It is to be noted
that the writing which went to the jury contained also
a minority report, not referred to in the testimony.
After the acceptance of the St. Louis Platform as evi-
dence to show defendant's intent in making the Canton
speech, witness Clyde Miller was recalled by the gov-
ernment (218) and related another interview with Mr.
Debs in Cleveland on the day of his arrest (June 30th).
In this interview it appears that the witness was pri-
marily interested in the general career of Mr. Debs and
there was only an incidental reference to the St. Louis
Platform, whereupon Mr. Debs said again that he did
not repudiate that platform "and if necessary, I will die
for its principles" (218).
On the question of the admissibility of this document
to prove defendant's "state of mind" in making his Can-
ton speech, there was no testimony of affirmance of any
version of the document by Mr. Debs in its entirety.
There was no testimony of approval of its text in part,
but there was testimony that Mr. Debs favored a re-
statement, without indication of how a restatement would
affect the document as introduced. Yet what was per-
mitted to go to the jury was the complete text of a docu-
ment given publication about sixteen months before the
time of the interview upon which its admissibility was
predicated. No witness was produced who heard the
}
}
51
Canton speech and in any way connected it with the St.
Louis Platform. This was done entirely as matter of
argument by the District Attorney and his assistant,
and in fact constituted the main theme of their addresses
to the jury (Wertz argument, particularly 255-260).
Two of the charges upon which a verdict of guilty was
returned were based upon the Espionage Act as it went
into effect June 15, 1917; the third charge upon an
amendment of Many 16, 1918. Or, more exactly, the
charges against Mr. Debs were all under the amended
form of the Espionage Act. The St. Louis Platform is
a writing of April, 1917. It is a writing emanating from
a convention of which Mr. Debs was not a member (216).
He told the witness that he approved the principles of
that writing. He repeated this in his address to the
jury, adding that he voted for the "majority report" as
a member of the Socialist Party (242).
It might be contended that Mr. Debs could have taken
the stand and gone ahead with his interview with Clyde
Miller; that he could have explained what he meant by
his adherence to the St. Louis Platform; that he might
have made complete and explained his Chicago speech as
reported by Joseph Trindel. Right here is the test of
the impropriety and unfairness of the admission of this
St. Louis document, because it invites the alternative of
a line by line exposition and commentary on an elaborate
writing in which defendant had no part, and with which
the testimony had connected him only to the extent of
a broad statement that he approved its principles. A
writing, to repeat, which had in no way been connected
by testimony with the understanding of the Canton audi-
ence of the speech of June 16th.
The anomaly of this entire trial situation, considering
now the array of the St. Louis Platform, the August
52
4
""
1
speech at Chicago, the court records of convictions of the
defendants in three unrelated prosecutions, is that while
the audience at Canton, the effect upon whose minds of
one speech is the gravamen of all the charges, could only
be influenced by the sentiments inherent in the expres-
sions of Mr. Debs used in that speech, the jury was given
the one speech in the detailed setting of all this other
evidence without the least offer of proof that there was
understanding of any of these matters upon the part of
the Canton audience other than the plain meaning of the
words of that speech standing by itself. The trial be-
came distorted from the issue of the effect of defendant's
words on other minds to a laboratory analysis of the
state of defendant's own mind on June 16th, 1918. Since
•the three charges in this review do not concern them-
selves with criminality of language per se, there is a
tolerable approximation of the standard ŝuggested by
one of the Senators (Cong. Rec., May 3, 1918, p. 6469) of
punishing persons "under general principles'
"whose hearts are wrong.
**
The caution by the trial judge as to the limitation of
this testimony to proof of criminal intent, repeated in
the instructions, was of no benefit to the defendant, and
was really prejudicial in its nature. In so far as de-
fendant's "state of mind" was in issue, it could only
have application to the specific criminal intent involved
in making the Canton speech, the intent without which
that speech, no matter what its character, could not be
made the basis of a charge of crime. Here was a reiter-
ated suggestion that this intent could be read into that
speech by the jury, from all these other sources, and then
read out again as if coming from the language of the
Canton speech itself. This was a method not of deriving
criminal intent out of that speech and its circumstances,
53
but or reading criminal intent into it, regardless of the
potential effects of the Canton speech as a speech.
It would seem sufficient to state it as a self-evident
proposition that the one fair way of dealing with the
offers of evidence in this case was to give the jury what
the audience at Canton got-a hearing of the one speech,
with any description of the attendant circumstances, or
gestures, or intonations, which would be helpful in mak-
ing vivid what defendant did to influence his hearers.
Or, if the language of the speech conceals its criminality,
and this is to be elucidated by innuendoes, that this eluci-
dation be definitely fixed in the understanding of the
hearers subject to its invidious effects.
To illustrate, let us assume that there was some cabal-
istic word of phrase by which the speaker made known
to his hearers the fact of the St. Louis Platform and his
affirmance of that platform. (We ignore, of course, the
character of that document, and the nature and perti-
nence of its affirmance in June, 1918.) Suppose that
identification was made by testimony of hearers. What
then? Is this sufficient to merge that document and the
speech into one, as was done in this trial? As well say
that the Constitution of the United States, or the Dec-
laration of Independence, or the Bible, or all of these
together, under a general affirmance by the speaker, in
an interview or otherwise, should go to characterize his
intent in making the speech of June 16th. As well open
the doors to a reading into the record of the thousands
of speeches made by Mr. Debs, four times candidate for
the office of president of the United States, world re-
nowned and active lecturer during a generation, every
one of which undoubtedly reflected itself in the speeches
which went before and after.
*
54
If the answer is that the test of relevancy is the effect.
of other utterances as carried to the hearers in question
by the language declared upon, then we arrive at a defi-
nite-rule of exclusion applicable against both the prose-
cution and the defense alike, and this is the rule which
we invoke. The only "state of mind" which comes
within the issues of this case is the specific criminal in-
tent to use a particular means, the speech at Canton, to
effect the criminal results charged. People v. Molineux,
168 N. Y., 297. Other utterances which do not incorpo-
rate themselves in the "particular means"-as affecting
the Canton audience-can have no application to the
issue of intent in this case. Undoubtedly the trial judge,
in his references to "state of mind," failed to make an
exact differentiation between motive and intent, a differ-
entiation which becomes easily confused in a criminal
prosecution based on a man's public declarations of his
own sentiments. Nevertheless, it is precisely in this dif-
ferentiation that we find any rational basis for a rule of
evidence as to the scope of inquiry in relation to other
utterances.
G
This point was squarely raised in the recent case of
United States v. Krafft, 249 Fed. 919 (Circuit Court of
Appeals, Third Circuit). The charges in that case were
based on the Espionage Act before amendment, when it
was fairly open to contention that an actual injury to
the military service, at least a frustrated inception of
some interference, was the minimum requirement for any
charge under this law. But the court held that a willful
purpose to cause insubordination was sufficient, going
with the making of a speech. There were two issues: 1,
what defendant said in his speech; 2, whether the lan-
guage was used with willful purpose to cause insubordi-
nation, etc. On the issue of intent, or purpose in making
the speech charged, evidence was offered in behalf of
55
the defendant of other utterances showing that he was
in favor of the war with Germany. This evidence was
held immaterial, and the reviewing court said (at p. 928):
"What he said or did at other times and places.
was not material to the issues on trial."
Bearing in mind that the intention of the defendant in
making his Canton speech cannot be arrived at except in
the understanding of that speech itself, we cite further
the accepted rule of Post Publishing Co. v. Hallam, 59
Fed. 530, that "words are to be construed according to
their common understanding and not according to de-
fendant's secret intention." The rules of construction
of language in civil suits for slander and libel would, of
course, be given even more strict application in dealing
with words as the medium of committing felonies. If
there is a hidden or covert meaning it must be known to
those addressed (25 Cyc. 357). And in 25 Cyc. 355,
the general rule of construction is stated as follows:
"The rule is that words are to be taken in their
plain and natural meaning and to be understood by
courts and juries as other people would understand
them, and according to the sense in which they ap-
pear to have been used and the ideas they are
adapted to convey to those who heard or read them."
Or, as stated in Reid v. Providence Journal Co., 20
R. I. 120:
"Language is not to be forced or tortured in libel
cases in order to make it actionable. It is to be
taken in its plain and ordinary sense.'
""
The rule as to spoken words is one of even greater
liberality; Cooley on Torts, 2nd ed., p. 239, where the
author says:
"Vocal utterance does not imply the same degree
of deliberation (as writing or printing); it is more
56
{
likely to be the expression of momentary passion or
excitement, and it is not so open to the implication
of settled malice. Therefore, if one shall say of
his neighbor, 'He is a rascal,' there is no very
strong probability that the expression will be
received by bystanders as anything more than
mere vituperative epithet, indicative of the
feelings of the utterer, rather than of his
convictions. Therefore to such oral expressions
little importance is generally attached. On the other
hand, the same words deliberately written or printed
and afterward placed before the public, usually jus-
tify an inference that they are the expression of
settled conviction, and they affect the public mind
accordingly.
a
"An oral charge is merely heard, and the agency of
the wrongdoer in inflicting injury is at an end when
the utterance has died upon the ear. But the written
or printed charge may pass from hand to hand in-
definitely and for many years.'
Sal
""
Quoting again from Reid v. Providence Journal Co.,
20 R. I., at 122:
"The fact that supersensitive persons, with mor-
bid imaginations, may be able by reading between
the lines of an article to discover some defamatory
meaning therein is not sufficient to make it libelous."
The ordinary mind is the standard, and the ordinary
instant impression of spoken words is the thing to be
tested. Consider, then, the incongruity of putting be-
fore these jurors, as a basis for judgment upon the Can-
ton speech, the actual text of the St. Louis Platform.
And this, merely on the basis of the one question and
answer in the interview of momentary character between
Clyde Miller and Mr. Debs, and not by any connection
with the Canton speech and its hearers.
We refer here to the preceding argument on the ad-
mission of the indictments and records of conviction in
other cases, on the basis of warm praise of these other
57
persons by Mr. Debs in his Canton speech. All that is
there said about proving intent by external evidence, as
of prior convictions of same defendant, is also applicable
here. The St. Louis Platform, if proclaimed by Mr.
Debs in a public address or writing, by quotation of its
text in full or part, on June 16, 1918, as of immediate
pertinence, might very well, according to the understand-
ing of the Espionage Act by the Government's attorneys,
subject Mr. Debs to one or more criminal prosecutions.
So of the Chicago speech of August 11th. There is noth-
ing to be imagined about the confusion of issues in this
proceeding, nothing left for surmise, when from the open-
ing statement to the close of the argument the record
leaves one in doubt whether the trial is proceeding upon
the Canton speech or on the St. Louis Platform, so closely
are the two held together before the jury.
There is no other angle from which the admission of
this testimony can find support. To consider the proc-
lamation of the Convention of April, 1917, as the initia-
tion of a plan furthered by Mr. Debs on June 16, 1918,
as indeed was the precise argument of the Government's
attorneys, was to try him for conspiracy upon an indict-
ment as sole defendant based on a single speech.
As to the possibility of invoking a doctrine of res
gestae, of words accompanying other words as part of
the same transaction, and constituting the criminal act,
assuredly there is no shadow of affirmative argument.
We call attention to the statement by Professor Wig-
more, in his work on Evidence, Sec. 1774 (2):
"The utterance serves merely to assist in complet-
ing and giving legal significance to conduct. Hence
it is not needed when the conduct is already com-
plete and definite in itself. The conduct must be
equivocal or incomplete as a legal act before the ut-
terances can be admissible.'
""
ONS
58
2
Again, in Sec. 1775 (3):
1775
"It follows, also, as necessary deduction, that the
utterances must be such as serve the assumed pur-
pose, namely, giving definite significance to the equiv-
ocal or indefinite conduct, by adding a missing part.
They must be such as do merely this, and not more.
""
The primary test, of course, is that the words must be
"contemporaneous with the conduct." It is too appar-
ent for argument that words spoken to a reporter, or to
a Chicago audience, cannot form any part of the speech
at Canton.
✰
Of the Chicago speech, August 11th, it might be said
that it can more easily be seen how it might exhibit Mr.
Debs to the jury as an unrepentant sinner than how
it attains pertinence to his achievements by words spoken
June 16th. There is no question of motive; no question
as to the likelihood or unlikelihood of Mr. Debs saying
what he was charged with saying at Canton; no need for
corroboration by bringing a witness from Chicago as
to a speech in August. In the defamation cases, it is only
in relation to malice that subsequent publications are ad-
mitted. How anything said by Mr. Debs to Clyde Miller
on the day of his arrest, or at Chicago nearly two months
later, could be resolved into the consciousness of his
Canton hearers, or add to his intent on that occasion, is
a good deal of a mystery.
We cite, finally, as to the admission of this testimony,
the case of United States v. Crandall, 4 Cranch C. C. 683
(Fed. Cas. No. 14, 885). This was a prosecution for
libels tending to excite sedition among slaves and free
colored persons in the District of Columbia. Part of
the charge was based on pictures, and the prosecution
offered these pictures into evidence attached to the pam-
phlets which explained them (to show the evil intent with
[
59
}
which the pictures were published). Quoting from the
report (25 Fed. Cas. 689):
"The court said, that if the matter now proposed
to be read is not charged in the indictment, and
would be, of itself, a substantive libel, and therefore
indictable, it cannot be given in evidence.'
""
*
**
IV.
MILITARY FORCES.
*
The indictment, as to counts 3 and 7, proceeds on the
assumption that all citizens between the ages of 21 and
30 constitute the military and naval forces of the United
States. Count 4 assumes that all citizens between the
ages of 18 and 45 are part of the recruiting and enlist-
ment service. The instructions (268, 270) of the trial
judge not only developed these assumptions, but even
extended the definitions by including all persons in any
way related to or intimate with citizens of these ages
(270-271).
It is our contention that these terms, military and naval
forces, and recruiting and enlistment service, have the
definite meaning which is apparent in the plain reading
of the statute, not the meaning by implication which has
here been used. There has been a good deal of confu-
sion about these terms in the decisions arising under
this act, but probably no case brings before this court
a more extreme broadening of the statute by implication
than is presented here by the instructions of the trial
judge, taking in "the attitude of friends, companions and
relatives" as affecting the disposition of those within en-
listment age.
On the general proposition of exact and strict con-
struction of penal statutes it is not necessary for us to
•
60
cite further authorities. On the definition of military
forces, we adopt the language of Judge Bourquin, in
United States v. Hall, 248 Fed. 150, as follows:
"Military and naval forces in the espionage act
means the same as in the declarations of war, viz.,
those organized and in service, not those merely reg-
istered and subject to future organization and serv-
ice."
The recruiting and enlistment service obviously de-
notes a definitely organized body or department of the
military. These terms would be extremely inappropri-
ate to a statute having reference to citizens of the United
States generally; with such intent Congress would have
,avoided these technical names in favor of some phrase
like "persons who might under the laws of the United
States be subject to military service by compulsory or
voluntary induction," or, in the recruiting clause, “citi-
zens qualified to enlist."
The amendments of May 16, 1918, have not changed the
clauses upon which counts 3 and 4 are founded, except
to add the attempt feature to the recruiting clause, and
to strike out "to the injury of the military service," pre-
sumably with the idea of discounting the suggestion of
actual disturbance in the military forces.
The effect of this loose interpretation of these military
designations in this case was, obviously, to direct at-
tention entirely to general willingness to engage in the
military service, aside from any question of legal obli-
gation so to serve. The question was whether there
might be an adverse effect on war enthusiasm and ardor,
not whether anyone might be induced to forego his legal
duty. In other words, these instructions and the indict-
ment presented an issue of sedition, purely, and not an
issue related to the organized military and enlistment
services.
61
The terms "insubordination," "disloyalty," "mu-
tiny" and "refusal of duty" bear definite understanding
only in relation to an organized and established military
body. Likewise, "to obstruct the enlistment service"
obviously is not a description pertinent to the effect of
utterances on the sentiments toward enlistment of peo-
ple in general.
V.
THE ACTS CHARGED AGAINST DEFENDANT
UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.
S
The vital issue of this case is the right of free speech.
From several aspects, namely, the sufficiency of the in-
dictment as a charge of crime, the ruling of the trial
judge against the motion for a directed verdict for the
defendant on all the counts of the indictment, and the
instructions of the trial judge (274, 278) as to the range
of public discussion free from Congressional limitation,
this question is here presented on the review.
ARE PROTECTED
At the outset we avow our purpose to deal with this
crucial issue of American liberty in a realistic sense.
Counsel for Mr. Debs, as the record shows on its face,
sought to intrude as little as possible between the pres-
entation of the case for the Government and the defense
of legitimate exercise by Mr. Debs of his right of free
speech under the Constitution. In due deference to Mr.
Debs, whose place in American history called for such
expression of his understanding of his position as one
charged with crime as he alone could give, counsel
yielded to him the full time allowed for argument before
the jury, and did not seek to develop his statement by
way of examination on the witness stand.
The millions in many countries who respond to the
idealism of Eugene V. Debs, from one angle or another,
}
62
•
will bluntly speak of the Debs case as a free speech fight.
And their minds will not respond to a test of the right of
free speech which concerns itself with the English com-
mon law arising out of the inspiration of the Star Cham-
ber of Henry VII, which first applied the dormant Stat-
ute of Scandalum Magnatum (Statute 2 Richard 11 and
12 Richard 11). What they ask, we ask: What degree
of tolerance of minority sentiments is to be read out of
or into the American Bill of Rights in the year 1919 by
the court of last resort? By this test has political free-
dom been gauged throughout the centuries. American
tradition has so far made it unnecessary for this court
to give a conclusive reading to the First Amendment in
relation to a sedition enactment by Congress. With a
profound sense of the significance of this present de-
termination of the meaning of the First Amendment, for
a century and a quarter the palladium of American free-
dom, we present the language of that amendment to the
court as living words pertinent to the world as we know
it-not as a harking back to legalistic shadings of re-
straints put upon opinion under the despotism from
which the Revolution freed us.
*
*
*
*
The present President has long held eminence as an
authority on American political institutions and princi-
ples. In an address made October 13, 1899, at the annual
meeting of the New England Association of Colleges and
Preparatory Schools, Professor Wilson stated the per-
fect text for this brief. Especially significant is the re-
lation of his statement to Spanish War criticism. He
said:
"We have seen a good many singular things hap-
pen recently. We have been told that it is unpatri-
otic to criticize public action. Well, if it is, then
there is a deep disgrace resting uopn the origins of
this nation. This nation originated in the sharpest
63
*****
sort of criticism of public policy. We originated,
to put it in the vernacular, in a kick, and if it be un-
patriotic to kick, why, then the grown man is unlike
the child. We have forgotten the very principles of
our origin if we have fogotten how to object, how to
resist, how to agitate, how to pull down and build
up, even to the extent of revolutionary practices if it
is necessary, to readjust matters. I have forgotten my
history if that be not true history.
* *
"Self-government is the opportunity of laymen to
speak their minds about affairs and get heard upon
a public forum. That is the chief and essential fea-
ture of it. Just so long as European governments
choke off discussion and put men in prison because
of their opinions about personages in high places,
they may have never so perfect a system of repre-
sentation and never so modern a constitution, and
be without self-government. Self-government is the
free expression of lay, non-official opinion, and I
know of no other essential characteristic about it."
*
*
It is impossible to reconcile the published decisions in
cases arising under the Espionage Act, on account of
criticism of the government's war policies, with any rule
as to the right of free speech. The First Amendment
has been given some direct or inferential mention in
practically all of these cases, but apparently the trial
and Circuit appellate judges have easily swept it aside.
In but one of these cases has there been discussion and
definition leading to anything in the nature of a rule as
to when the Espionage Act, applied to speech and press,
might pass the bounds of constitutional validity. We
refer to the discussion in Masses Publishing Co. v. Pat-
ten, 244 Fed. 535; 246 Fed. 24. While the decision in
that case only goes to the question of the nature of the
discretion lodged in the Postmaster-General under the
Espionage Act, the discussion is somewhat helpful in
presenting the gradation from a charge of crime based
64
i
on the use of words to incite specific action to a charge
based on the objectionable temper of the words them-
selves.
Our contention here is that the pleadings, rulings on
evidence and instructions have led to a sedition convic-
tion under a thin disguise of a charge of actual military
obstruction by means of words spoken to the Canton au-
dience, and that this conviction cannot be sustained un-
der any unequivocal application of the First Amend-
ment.
The indictment, under the several counts, presents no
theory of the pleader as to the pertinence of defendant's
words to move others to action. That is left entirely to
argumentative inference. The record of testimony shows
not one single question propounded on the basis of ap-
propriateness of defendant's speech to affect one result
or another through the minds and agency of his hearers.
In fact there is the caricature of a conviction based
nominally on military exigencies in which every witness
who heard the speech, and who was within the military
age, had not for one moment hesitated to fulfil his mili-
tary obligations. That an "attempt" is charged only
qualifies the degree of achievement; it does not carry the
determination into the realm of metaphysical specula-
tion based on hypothetical persons. The conclusion is
irresistible that in spite of the cloak of military appro-
priateness given by a free use of the phraseology of the
Espionage Act, the conviction of Mr. Debs rests squarely
upon his "seditious temper"-and nothing else.
In the Masses case there was presented a series of
articles and cartoons attacking bitterly the policy of con-
scription, holding up to admiration conscientious ob-
jectors, praising Emma Goldman and Alexander Berk-
man, who had been convicted of urging non-compliance
*
65
with the Conscription Act, and reflecting on the war dec-
laration as the meek compliance of Congress with the
orders of financial masters. The test of non-mailability
under section 3 of the Espionage Act was made on the
same basis as testing the sufficiency of this literature
for charging a criminal violation of the provisions of
this section, but in this respect the upper court relaxed
the test in yielding to the determination of the Post-
master-General. District Judge Learned Hand granted
an injunction against the New York Postmaster, holding
that there was no basis for refusing delivery through
the mails of the issue of the Masses in controversy. We
quote from his opinion to indicate his method of dealing
with public discussion in conjunction with the Espionage
Act:
"That such utterances may have the effect so as-
cribed to them is unhappily true; publications of
this kind enervate public feeling at home, which
is their chief purpose, and encourage the success of
the enemies of the United States abroad, to which
they are generally indifferent. Dissension in a coun-
try is a high source of comfort and assistance to its
enemies; the least intimation of it they seize upon
with jubilation. There cannot be the slightest ques-
tion of the mischievous effects of such agitation
upon the success of the national project, or of the
correctness of the defendant's position.
"All this, however, is beside the question whether
such an attack is a wilfully false statement. That
phrase properly includes only a statement of fact
which the utterer knows to be false, and it cannot be
maintained that any of these statements are of fact,
or that the plaintiff believed them to be false. They
are all within the range of opinion and criticism;
they are all certainly believed to be true by the ut-
terer. As such they fall within the scope of that
right to criticize either by temperate reasoning, or
by immoderate and indecent invective, which is nor-
mally the privilege of the individual in countries de-
pendent upon the free expression of opinion as the
Ap
66
}
+
ultimate source of authority. The argument may be
trivial in substance, and violant and perverse in man-
ner, but so long as it is confined to abuse of existing
policies or laws, it is impossible to class it as a false
statement of facts of the kind here in question. To
modify this provision, so clearly intended to prevent
the spreading of false rumors which may embarrass
the military, into the prohibition of any kind of
propaganda, honest or vicious, is to disregard the
meaning of the language, established by legal con-
struction and common use, and to raise it into a
means of suppressing intemperate and inflammatory
public discussion, which was surely not its pur-
pose."
The same construction would apply to the provisions
of the insubordination and enlistment clauses of Section
3 constituting counts 3 and 4 of our indictment. Surely
an offense under these clauses must bear directly perti-
nent relation to the military and enlistment services, and
cannot be founded upon discussion of public policies af-
fecting public opinion and sentiment one way or another.
It is the special embarrassment of the military which
is protected by these two clauses as in the clause above
analyzed by Judge Hand. As to the special character
of the clause of Section 3 as now amended which is the
basis of count 7, this will be considered later.
Judge Hand proceeds upon "the normal assumption
of democratic government that the suppression of hostile
criticism does not turn upon the justice of its substance
or the decency and propriety of its temper." He avoids
the direct question of Congressional power in this re-
spect unless the statute clearly expresses the legislative
intent to proceed on this basis. At page 540, he says:
"Assuming that the power to repress such opin-
ion may rest in Congress in the throes of a struggle
for the very existence of the state, its exercise is
so contrary to the use and wont of our people that
only the clearest expression of such a power justifies
the conclusion that it was intended."
67
1
We challenge the assumption that such power may
rest on Congress at any time under any circumstances,
and with this we deal later, but on the basis of the Es-
pionage Act in its relations to the military program as
such, undoubtedly Judge Hand has here indicated the
correct rule of statutory interpretation. The next ques-
tion is the rule by which spoken or written language may
be measured as offenses against the Espionage Act (ex-
cluding now any effect of the amendments of May, 1918,
to make utterances criminal per se). Such a rule is
stated by Judge Hand, as follows:
"Political agitation, by the passions it arouses,
or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimu-
late men to the violation of law. Detestation of ex-
isting policies is easily transformed into forcible
resistance of the authority which puts them into exe
cution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal
relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agita-
tion, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to
violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of
all methods of political agitation which in normal
times is a safeguard of free government. The dis-
tinction is not a scholastic subterfuge, but a hard-
bought acquisition in the fight for freedom, and the
purpose to disregard it must be evident when the
power exists. If one stops short of urging upon
others that it is their duty or their interest to re-
sist the law, it seems to me one should not be held to
have attempted to cause its violation. If that be
not the test, I can see no escape from the conclusion
that under this section every political agitation
which can be shown to be apt to create a seditious
temper is illegal. I am confident that by such lan-
guage Congress had no such revolutionary purpose
in view.
"The defendant's action was based, as I under-
stand it, not so much on the narrow question whether
these four passages actually advocated resistance,
though that point was distinctly raised, as upon the
doctrine that the general tenor and animus of the
paper as a whole were subversive of authority and
68
seditious in effect. I cannot accept this test under
the law as it stands at present. The tradition of
English-speaking freedom has depended in no small
part upon the merely procedural requirement that
the state point with exactness to just that conduct
which violates the law. It is difficult and often im-
possible to meet the charge that one's general ethos
is treasonable; such a latitude for construction im-
plies a personal latitude in administration which
contradicts the normal assumption that law shall be
embodied in general propositions capable of some
measure of definition. The whole crux of this case
turns indeed upon this thesis."
The point of challenge in the upper court opinion
against the ruling of Judge Hand was as to the neces-
sary degree of directness in urging conduct upon others,
especially in respect of advocacy of conduct by holding
up to admiration those who have violated the law in the
precise connection of the military malfeasance attempted
to be checked by this legislation. Since this point is of
interest to us, not alone in defining the necessary con-
nection between advocacy and action under this statute,
but also in the analogy to the praise bestowed upon
Wagenknecht and others by Mr. Debs in his Canton
speech, we quote again the language of Judge Hand
(p. 542):
"One may admire and approve the course of a hero
without feeling any duty to follow him. There is not
the least implied intimation in these words (praise
of conscientious objectors) that others are under
a duty to follow. The most that can be said is, that,
if others do follow, they will get the same admira-
tion and the same approval. Now, there is surely
an appreciable distance between esteem and emula-
tion; and unless there is here some advocacy of such
emulation, I cannot see how the passages can be
said to fall within the law. If they do, it would fol-
low that, while one might express admiration and
approval for the Quakers or any established sect
which is excused from the draft, one could not le-
69
gally express the same admiration and approval for
others who entertain the same conviction, but do
not happen to belong to the society of Friends. It
cannot be that the law means to curtail such expres-
sions merely because the convictions of the class
within the draft are stronger than their sense of
obedience to the law. There is ample evidence in
history that the Quaker is as recalcitrant to legal
compulsion as any man; his obstinacy has been re-
garded in the act, but his disposition is as disobedi-
ent as that of any other conscientious objector.
Surely, if the draft had not excepted Quakers, it
would be too strong a doctrine to say that any who
openly admire their fortitude or even approved their
conduct were wilfully obstructing the draft."
The point of divergence from this opinion taken by
the court of review is that the incitation to commit crime
may stop short of a literal urging of the illegal perform-
ance. Account is taken as well of "the natural and rea-
sonable effect of what is said to encourage resistance
to a law." Counseling to crime may be indirect, but it
is to be noticed that the citations of authorities relate
to accomplished crimes, traceable to such incitation, not
to the counseling or inducement standing by itself. The
argument was that "the natural and reasonable" effect
of this publication might be construed as an obstruction
to recruiting, therefore that it was intended to obstruct
recruiting. "And even though we were not convinced
that any such intent existed, and were in doubt concern-
ing it, the case would be governed by the principle that
the head of a department of the government in a doubt-
ful case will not be overruled by the courts in a matter
which involves his judgment and discretion and which
is within his jurisdiction."
The separate concurring opinion of Judge Ward, in
the upper court, is very interesting as showing a hesi-
tancy to go too far with the proposition of the effect
1
70..
of language to produce a given result as the founda-
tion for a statute limiting the use of the mails, not to
mention its serious criminal penalties. Judge Ward
says:
1
*
"Advice to resist the law may be indirect as well
as direct and the conclusion of the Postmaster-Gen-
eral in matters of fact, whether we agree with him
or not, is final."
This is undoubtedly an overstatement of the weight
given by the courts to findings made by administrative
officers in the exercise of discretion subject to court
review, and suggests at once that Judge Ward is anx-
ious to limit the effect of this decision to the precise
point of accepting the ruling of the Postmaster-General.
He goes on:
"I think it important, however, to say that not
every writing the indirect effect of which is to dis-
courage recruiting or enlistment is within the stat-
ute. In addition to the natural effect of the lan-
guage on the reader, the intention to discourage is
essential. Arguments in favor of immediate peace
or in favor of repealing the Conscription Act do
this indirectly. It is, notwithstanding, the consti-
tutional right of every citizen to express such opin-
ion, both orally and in writing, and Congress can-
not be presumed to have intended by the Espionage
Act to authorize the Postmaster-General to exclude
such articles written honestly and without the in-
tention of advising resistance to law."
The net result of the Masses case establishes this rule:
that a violation of Section 3 of the Espionage Act (orig-
inal clauses) consists of a purposeful urging, by direct
or indirect means, of insubordination or refusal of duty
in the military service, or purposeful obstruction, by
like means, of the recruiting service. Unsatisfactory as
is this decision, compounded of three distinct viewpoints,
it still represents the only published decision which
}
I
71
makes any serious attempt to reduce to a rule the crim-
inality of public statements under those clauses of the
Espionage Act which relate to interferences with the
military or enlistment services. It is our contention that
the rule as stated by Judge Hand is the correct rule,
and that the test of criminal responsibility for expres-
sions leading up to insubordination, etc., is the common
law liability as an accessory, created by urging viola-
tion of law upon others. Beyond purposeful incitement
to specific unlawfulness on the part of others, there is
no power in Congress to make public utterances criminal
-under any exigency, or as an incident of any express
power granted to Congress under the Constitution.
*
*
*
Before reverting to the indictment and instructions
under consideration, we state shortly our understanding
of the power of Congress to regulate public discussion
by criminal enactments. Practically all of the cases
since the adoption of the Espionage Act, in dealing with
the right of free speech, while giving some measure of
verbal recognition to that right, have abruptly swept
aside any consideration of such a right in conflict with the
general war purposes of the government. The inference
of these decisions, and the obvious theory of the amend-
ments to Section 3 of the Espionage Act added in May,
1918, is that public discussion can be constitutionally
controlled as an incident of the war power. We
earnestly submit that such interpretation of the right
of free speech is a careless sweeping aside of the most
vital principle of American freedom, not only without
affirmative constitutional warrant, but in the face of
the direct prohibition of the First Amendment.
When the Constitution was submitted to the States
for ratification one of the chief points of opposition
was the failure to include a Bill of Rights. The answer
given, in the Convention by Roger Sherman (5 Elliott's
72
ર
Debates, p. 545), and in the Federalist (No. 84) by Ham-
ilton, was that as far as freedom of the press was con-
cerned it was unnecessary to declare that a thing shall
not be done which there is no power to do. In a letter
to Jefferson, dated October 17, 1788 (Watson on the
Constitution, p. 1359), Madison explained why he con-
sidered a Bill of Rights unnecessary, as tending to par-
ticularize in a domain where Congress had no power
anyhow; and he then went on to explain why he was not
opposed to adding a Bill of Rights, since power would
assert itself against parchment guarantees of any kind
and it was desirable to have the Bill of Rights as a
basis of protest.
The First Amendment was not a limitation of the
power of Congress to control free speech and the press
but a simple denial of any such power. The common
law and sovereignty control of speech and the press
passed to the States, upon the Revolution, and remained
there under the reserved powers, of which the Tenth
Amendment is declaratory. We are not here concerned
with State limitation of discussion, yet the definition of
freedom of the press under the police power is pertinent
to its clear demarcation from solicitation of crime. It
is interesting, therefore, to note the statement of an
eminent authority on police powers, Professor Freund,
as to the extreme case of anarchist propaganda in rela-
tion to free speech. We quote from Freund's text on
Police Powers, Sec. 475:
"A proposition to forbid and punish the teach-
ing or the propagation of the doctrine of anarch-
ism, i. e., the doctrine or belief that all established
government is wrongful and pernicious and should
be destroyed, is inconsistent with the freedom of
speech and press, unless carefully confined to cases
of solicitation of crime, which will be discussed pres-
ently. As the freedom of religion would have no
meaning without the liberty of attacking all re-
I
73
ligion, so the freedom of political discussion is
merely a phrase if it must stop short of questioning
the fundamental ideas of politics, law and govern-
ment. Otherwise every government is justified in
drawing the line of free discussion at those prin-
ciples or institutions which it deems essential to
its perpetuation, a view to which the Russian gov-
ernment (1904) would subscribe. It is of the essence
of political liberty that it may create disaffection or
other inconveniences to the existing government,
otherwise there would be no merit in tolerating it.
This toleration, however, like all toleration, is based
not upon generosity, but on sound policy, on the
consideration, namely, that ideas are not suppressed
by suppressing their free and public discussion, and
that such discussion alone can render them harm-
less and remove the excuse for illegality 'by giving
hope of their realization by lawful means.
Quoting further from the same author (Sec. 478, p.
513):
"In accordance with the principles above set forth
the constitutional guaranty of freedom of speech
and press and assembly demands the right to oppose
all government and to argue that the overthrow of
government cannot be accomplished otherwise than
by force; and the statutes referred to, in so far
as they deny these rights, should consequently be
considered as unconstitutional.
"It is probably true to say that to the extent that
anarchist agitation exceeds the bounds of free
speech it is punishable under the principles of the
common law, and that it is impossible to strike at
anarchism as a doctrine without jeopardizing valu-
able constitutional rights.'
""
It will be noted that the reasoning here is in exact ac-
cord with that of Judge Hand, as above quoted, with
reference to anti-war agitation, except that Judge Hand
makes the reservation that power to repress such opin-
ion "may rest in Congress in the throes of a struggle
for the very existence of the state." That this reserva-
tion is without substance is obvious when we ask at what
74
time is the life of the state, or its liberties, endangered?
If this question is to be resolved by the declarations
to that effect of one or many officials, such a danger will
always exist as against the agitation desired to be sup-
pressed. But if this question of danger to the state
rests in the conscience of the people, how then can it ever
become the foundation of legislation which gives it of-
ficial fixity?
In Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 163, this court
gave its approval to the Virginia Resolution drawn by
Thomas Jefferson. That resolution defines the limits.
of toleration as follows:
"To suffer the civil magistrate to, intrude his
power into the field of opinion, or to restrain the
profession or propagation of principles, on supposi-
tion of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy
which at once destroys all liberty because he, being
of course judge of that tendency, will make his opin-
ions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn
the sentiments of others only as they shall square
with or differ from his own. It is time enough for
the rightful purpose of civil government for its of-
ficials to interfere when principles break out into
overt acts against peace and good order."
The Sedition Act of 1797 and its fate has heretofore
been accepted as so decisive a settlement of the consti-
tutionality of such legislation that our text-writers have
dealt with the crime of seditious libel as obsolete.
(Freund, Police Powers, Sec. 474.) Judge Cooley, in
his book on "Constitutional Limitations," p. 526, says:
"The Sedition Law was passed during the ad-
ministration of the elder Adams, when the fabric
of government was still new and untried, when
many men seemed to think that the breath of heated
party discussions might tumble it about their heads.
Its constitutionality was always disputed by a large
party, and its impolicy was beyond question. It
1
75
had a direct tendency to produce the very state of
things it sought to repress. The prosecutions under
it were instrumental, among other things, in the
final overthrow and destruction of the party by
which it was adopted, and it is impossible to con-
ceive at the present time of any such a state of things
as would be likely to bring about its re-enactment
or the passage of any similar repressive statute."
"
Alongside the frequent judicial expressions which have
lately found their way into the cases in which free speech
has been an issue, that public discussion is protected if
it is temperate, or honest, or fair, or loyal, or not sub-
versive of the national purposes, we set up the calmer
wisdom of Judge Cooley (idem. p. 527):
"It is very easy to lay down a rule for the dis-
cussion of constitutional questions; that they are
privileged if conducted with calmness and temper-
ance, and that they are not indictable unless they
go beyond the bounds of fair discussion. But what
is calmness and temperance, and what is fair in the
discussion of supposed evils in the government?
And if something is to be allowed 'for a little feel-
ing in men's minds,' how great shall be the allow-
ance? The heat of the discussion will generally be
in proportion to the magnitude of the evil as it ap-
pears to the party discussing it. Repression of full
and free discussion is dangerous in any government
resting upon the will of the people. The people
cannot fail to believe that they are deprived of
rights, and will be certain to become discontented,
when their discussion of public measures is sought
to be circumscribed by the judgment of others upon
their temperance or fairness. They must be left at
liberty to speak with the freedom which the magni-
tude of the supposed wrongs appears in their minds
to demand; and if they exceed all the proper bounds
of moderation, the consolation must be that the evil
likely to spring from the violent discussion will
probably be less and its correction by public senti-
ment more speedy than if the terrors of the law
were brought to bear to prevent discussion."
76
It is our contention that Congress is without power to
pass any act in the nature of a sedition act, therefore
we enter into no detailed comparison of the present
Espionage Act with the Sedition Law of 1797. Yet, since
the same principle is involved, it is interesting to note
the grounds upon which the eminent, lawyers of that
time contested the constitutional validity of that enact-
ment. Although war with France was in preparation at
that time, it was never argued that the power to control
discussion existed as an incident of the war power.
Mainly, in favor of the law, it was argued that the com-
mon law was part of the law of the United States, a con-
tention long since disposed of. The most careful state-
ment of the relation of the Sedition Law to the implied
powers of Congress is that of James Madison, in his
famous report of the Virginia Legislature (Elliott's De-
bates, IV; also, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions,
same volume).
In the Milligan case, 71 U. S. 2, this court made clear
the unchanged status of the Bill of Rights during time
of war. Quoting the eloquent language of Mr. Justice
Davis:
"Time has proven the discernment of our ances-
tors; for even these provisions, expressed in such
plain English words that it would seem the ingenuity
of man could not evade them, are now, after the
lapse of more than seventy years, sought to be
avoided. Those great and good men foresaw that
troublous times would arrive, when rulers and peo-
ple would become restive under restraint, and seek
by sharp and decisive measures to accomplish ends
deemed just and proper, and that the principles of
constitutional liberty would be in peril, unless es-
tablish by irrepealable law. The history of the
world had taught them that what was done in the
past might be attempted in the future. The Consti-
tution of the United States is a law for rulers and
people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with
1
*
1
77
Ga
the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all
times and under all circumstances. No doctrine, in-
volving more pernicious consequences, was ever in-
vented by the wit of man, than that any of its
provisions can be suspended during any of the great
exigencies of Government. Such a doctrine leads di-
rectly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of
necessity on which it is based is false; for the gov-
ernment, within the Constitution, has all the powers
granted to it which are necessary to preserve its
existence, as has been happily proved by the result
of the great effort to throw off its just authority.
* But it is insisted that the safety of the coun-
try in time of war demands that this broad claim for
martial law shall be sustained. If this were true it
could be well said that a country, preserved at the
sacrifice of all the cardinal principles of liberty, is
not worth the cost of preservation. Happily it is
not so."
*
Mr. Debs made his speech at Canton to such a group
of persons as he had addressed, as a noted and active
publicist during three decades, thousands of times. The
indictment charges that there were present in the audi-
ence young men of military and enlistment age. There
was no dispute about this, and in fact it was reduced
to irrelevance by the instruction of the trial judge that
if Mr. Debs influenced anybody in a point of view in-
imical toward the war project, which these hearers might
again transmit to friends of enlistment age, that was
sufficient.
As has already been insisted, the charge of criminalitý
does not relate itself to the speech-does not, we might
more exactly say, integrate itself with anything that de-
fendant said. The two, the formal averments and the
speech, are set up in parallel columns. The indictment
contains ten counts, but in no one of the counts is the
pleading of the speech any different. The collision be-
tween the abstract averments and the speech is left for
conjecture of judge and jury.
78
We call the attention of the court to the striking test
of the character of this pleading, in that, in order to test
the charges according to the canons of freedom of
speech, under the Federal Constitution, we must search
through this speech ten times-and ten times seek out
for ourselves an affirmative theory of commission of the
offense charged, or as many theories as any mind might
produce out of this material in each of the ten instances,
in order effectually to negative the charges as within
defendant's right of free speech. The pleader having
evaded the task of making a cogent charge, and the trial
judge having again presented to the jury a series of legal
abstractions alongside the mass of evidence, and the jury
having added no clarification to the charges by the ver-
dict, of what has defendant been informed except that,
somehow, his speech, taken one way and another, is the
basis of his conviction? Let another person seek guidance
as to his rights of free speech and publication on the
rule of this case, and what shall he find?
Inevitably, as we turn to this speech to see if there is
anything in its character or text which leaves the do-
main of political discussion to enter upon solicitation of
violations of law, we assume the viewpoint of the prose-
cuting attorney in argument, because the pleading leaves
us no theory of unlawful speaking to take hold of. We
must create such theories in order to answer them, and
this court would have to reconstruct, by its own infer-
ences, the logic of the jury, in order to put into the record,
for the first time, the three ways in which, by appropri-
ate words to that end, the defendant induced or at-
tempted to induce the several injuries to the United
States to be fulfilled in the deeds of others.
From our own viewpoint we would naturally see
neither legal sense nor common sense, nor true honesty
of criminal process, in straining to supply the series of
!
79
inferences, or rather guesses, invited by the pleader..
We see no relation between the several formal recitals
of the nature of certain crimes and the speech which they
accompany, other than that they are printed in the same
indictment and that the abstract averments state the
time and place at which the speech was made. We would
say, as Mr. Debs himself said (237):
"I admit having delivered the speech
In
what I had to say there my purpose was to educate the
people to understand something about the social system
in which we live and to prepare them to change this sys-
tem by perfectly peaceable and orderly means into what I,
as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy
*
"If I have criticised, if I have condemned, it is be-
cause I have believed myself justified in doing so under
the laws of the land" (242).
*
*
But we go further. Search this speech through from
first to last, and what is there in it that may be read as
an incitement or encouragement toward dereliction of
military or civic duty in relation to the war? Mr. Debs
talks of the progress of the socialist movement and of
the efforts to thwart it by misrepresentations; of Prus-
sian militarism and the opposition of Bebel and the elder
Liebknecht toward it as contrasted with the cordiality
of Mr. Roosevelt toward the Kaiser and his enthusiasm
for the German military system; of the reception of
Prince Henry by the American plutocracy, with only
James F. Carey, Socialist member of the Massachusetts
Legislature, publicly protesting this obsequiousness to
Kaiserism; of the universality of junkerdom, and its
hypocritical pretensions of patriotism; of the assaults.
against Tom Mooney and Francis J. Heney; of the prose-
cutions against Kate Richards O'Hare, Scott Nearing,
Max Eastman, Rose Pastor Stokes and the I. W. W.; of
the Federal courts and the child labor decision; of the
inspiration of Socialism; of the Bolsheviki of Russia; of
ľ
ኒ
80
wars and their purposes; of landlordism; of exploita-
tion of the miners and the Socialist plan of common own-
ership; of the history of the I. W. W. and the attacks
against it; of the need of the workers for organization,
industrial and political.
Out of all this what rule would obtain by affirmance
of defendant's conviction? That this court supports the
Espionage Law as a means of suppressing during war
time an exposition and exhortation toward Socialism,
national and international. Anti-war politics would be
confined to times of peace, when the issue has not the
vitality of national immediacy. Certainly the literal
reader of the Espionage Act would find this a dubiously
subtle method of arriving at such a rule of criminal con-
duct, with its extremely severe penalties.
One might assume, perhaps, that it is in what Mr. Debs
had to say about war that he subjected himself to the
charges in the indictment, and, presumably, passed the
bounds of political discussion to enter upon solicitation
or encouragement of conduct such as is described in the
Espionage Act. What, then, did he say about war?
Turning from the subject of events in Russia, Mr. Debs
recalled the publication by the Russian Revolutionists
of the secret treaties, "the treaties that were made be-
tween the Czar and the French government and the Brit-
ish government and the Italian government, proposing,
after the victory was achieved, to dismember and dis-
perse and destroy the Central Powers." Sterling re-
port of Canton speech (204):
"These treaties have never been repudiated. Very
little has been said about them in the American press.
I have a copy of these treaties showing that the purpose
of the Allies is exactly the purpose of the Central Pow-
ers. And that is the purpose that has always been the
purpose of war.
Wars have been waged for conquest, for plunder. In
the Middle Ages the feudal lords, who inhabited the cas-
!
1
3
81
Ch
tles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine-
whenever one of these feudal lords wished to enrich
himself, then he made war on the other. Why? They
wanted to enlarge their domains. They wanted to in-
crease their power, their wealth, and so they declared
war upon each other. But they did not go to war any
more than the Wall Street junkers go to war. The feudal
lords, the barons, the economic predecessors of the mod-
ern capitalist, they declared all the wars. Who fought
the battles? Their miserable serfs. And the serfs had
been taught to believe that when their masters declared
and waged war upon one another, it was their patriotic
duty to fall upon one another, and cut one another's
throats, to murder one another for the profit and the
glory of the plutocrats, the barons, the lords who held
them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell.
The master class has always declared the war; the
subject class has always fought the battles; the master
class has had all to gain, nothing to lose, and the sub-
ject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose, in-
cluding their lives. They have always taught you that it
is your patriotic duty to go to war and have yourselves
slaughtered at a command. But in all of the history
of the world you, the people, never had a voice in de-
claring war. You have never yet had. And here let me
state a fact—and it cannot be repeated too often: the
working class who fight the battles, the working class
who make the sacrifices, the working class who shed the
blood, the working class who furnish the corpses, the
working class have never yet had a voice in declaring
war. The working class have never yet had a voice in
making peace. It is the ruling class that does both. They
declare war; they make peace.
Yours not to question why,
Yours but to do and die.'
That is their motto, and we object on the part of the
awakened workers.
If war is right, let it be declared by the people—you,
who have your lives to lose; you certainly ought to have
the right to declare war, if you consider a war neces-
sary.'
82
-
At another point in the Canton speech, comes this lan-
guage (208):
*
"And this is the high purpose of every Socialist on
the face of the earth. They are pressing forward, here,
there, everywhere, in all of the zones that girdle this
globe; everywhere these awakened workers, these class-
conscious proletarians, these horny-fisted children of
honest toil, everywhere wiping out the boundary lines;
everywhere facing the larger and nobler patriotism;
everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming
emancipation; everywhere having their hearts attuned
to the most sacred cause that ever challenged men and
women to action in all the history of the world. Every-
where moving toward democracy; everywhere marching
toward the sunrise, their faces all aglow with the light
of the coming day. These are the Socialists; these are
the most zealous, the most enthusiastic crusaders the
world has ever known. They are making history that
will light the horizon in the coming generations; they
are bound upon emancipating the human race. They
have been reviled; they have been persecuted; but they
have been sufficient to themselves, pressing forward to-
ward the height—aye, their triumph is now already
begun!
Do you wish to hasten it? Join the Socialist Party.
Don't wait for the morrow. Come now. Enroll your
name; take your place where you belong. You cannot
do your duty by proxy. You have got to do something
yourself, and do it squarely, and look yourself in the
face while you are doing it. And you will have no oc-
casion to blush. You will know what it is to be a man or
woman. You will lose nothing; you gain everything. Not
only do you lose nothing but you are very apt to find
something, and that something will be yourself. And you
need to find yourself to know yourself. You need to
know that you are fit for something better than slavery
and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were
not created to work and to produce to impoverish your-
self and to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know
that you have a soul to develop, a manhood to sustain.
You need to know that it is your duty to rise above the
animal plane. You need to know that it is for you to
know something about literature, and about science, and
about art. You need to know that you are on the edge
of a great new world.'
9-
*
!
83
We quote, finally, the closing sentences (214):
"And now for all of us to do our duty. The call is
ringing in our ears. It is your duty to respond; and you
cannot falter without being convicted of treason to your-
selves. Do not worry, please don't worry over the
charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned
about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to
yourself, and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause
on earth.
Yes, we are going to sweep into power in this nation,
and in every other nation on earth. We are going to
destroy the capitalist institutions; we are going to re-
create them as legally free institutions. Before our very
eyes the world is being destroyed. The world of capi-
talism is collapsing; the world of socialism is rising.
It is your duty to help to build. We need builders of
industry. We Socialists are the builders of the world
that is to be. We are all agreed to do our part. We are
inviting-aye, challenging you this afternoon, in the
name of your own manhood, to join us. Help do your
part. In due course of time the hour will strike, and this
great cause the greatest in history-will proclaim the
emancipation of the working class and the brotherhood
of all mankind.”
There is little need for comment as to the nature of
the appeal, or inducement to action, made in this speech.
It is repeated again and again—organization of the work-
ers along definite political and industrial lines in their
own interest. War-its inherent nature throughout his-
tory, as defendant conceives it, is used as one argument
toward this end. As to war itself, what is the exhorta-
tion? "Let it be declared by the people"-no other ap-
peal, no other suggestion, except that wars are inher-
ently associated with some system of exploitation.
Maga
War is a matter of political policy. The war declared
April 6, 1917, was debated bitterly in Congress and
throughout the country. There were 50 votes against
the declaration in the House of Representatives, 6 in the
Senate. The sentiment of the American people on this
•
•
84
}
date will always be a matter of wide variance of conjec-
ture. The continuation of war is a most vital matter
of public policy. Is it intended by the Espionage Act
to be made the exclusive concern of one or a few offi-
cials? The alternative to free discussion of war as a
matter of public, or political policy, during wartime, is
a preposterous perversion of the established precedents
of our own history, and a caricature of freedom of press
and speech. It would be to say that an inhibition upon
free discussion arises in degree of vital interests at stake
in such discussion.
It will probably be contended that it is the indirect
effect of these statements, the appeal inherent in the
statements themselves, regardless of the affirmative ap-
peal made by the speaker to his hearers, upon which the
charges of the indictment are predicated. It becomes
obvious at once, when the problem of the prosecution is
realized, why the Government had to seek so far afield ·
1 to establish an "intent" to violate the Espionage Act-
an "intent" derivable in law, no matter how bolstered
up extraneously, only from the materials of this Canton
speech.
From "the reasonable and natural conse-
quences" of this speech, the specific criminal intent
three ways to prevail upon others in avoidance of mili-
tary duties! Indeed it is not surprising that the pleader,
facing the original ten counts, made no attempt to state
a special and definite theory of the offense in even one
of them.
Every way we approach this indictment, and the in-
structions of the court, we arrive at the contradiction of
statement of an offense, upon the basis of the effect of
defendant's words to incite action or inaction upon the
part of others and the actuality of a charge and trial pro-
ceeding upon the basis of defendant's words as the mir-
ror of his own mind in relation to war.
85
There is not one syllable of this speech, or of any other
statement of Mr. Debs, which does not come well within
the range of freedom of speech. There is no statement
attributable to him, and upon which the charge of the
trial judge could proceed, which could be given criminal
character by any act of Congress in conformity with the
Constitution.
*
*
***
/
Now as to the 7th count, which is one of the three counts
upon which the conviction rests. The charge is that the
defendant “did then and there unlawfully, wilfully and
feloniously utter and publish certain language intended
to incite, provoke and encourage resistance to the United
States, and to promote the cause of its enemy, to wit, The
Imperial German Government, etc."
A
There are three possible theories of this clause of the
Espionage Act. The first is: to commit treason by in-
stigation to treason. While the language might very
well bear this construction it is an impossible basis upon
which to sustain the clause, by the elementary principles
applicable to the crime of treason. Congress has no
power to amend or enlarge the definition of treason writ-
ten into the Constitution.
The second alternative as to this clause is to give it
the understanding of sedition, in the broad sense of irri-
tating the general consciousness against the fact and
program of war. This alternative is not only untenable
under the First Amendment; it would have so glaring a
vice of indefiniteness and generality in a criminal stat-
ute that it could not be entertained as the basis for an
indictment.
The final alternative, the one apparently accepted by
the pleader and the court in this case, is to deal with
this clause as repetition and summary of the clauses
1
86
A
1
dealing with interferences with, and disobedience within,
the military and enlistment services. This clause, in
any reading, is of doubtful propriety in a criminal stat-
ute, but if its definition is of such character that it is
properly joined with the other two clauses upon which
the foregoing argument proceeds, we need press our ob-
jections to its constitutional validity no further.
*
*
>
A case could not be imagined which brings more clearly
and simply before this court the question whether or
not ours is in truth "a government of opinion." It is
only under the trying conditions of war, or other great
national stress, that such a question could arise in a
vital way. If the government is ever entitled to com-
mand a good opinion of itself and its policies on the
part of its "subjects," the criterion enunciated by Lord
Holt and many who entertain the same contempt of the
people in our own day, then the event of war cannot re-
main the limit of power to silence "sedition." Either
the First Amendment means all that it says-in the lit-
eral reading of Mr. Debs-or it means absolutely noth-
ing. This latter alternative might seem an over-state-
ment alongside the phraseology of "freedom from prior
restraint.' This is the favorite expression of some
writers, but no matter that "freedom from prior re-
straint" may have meant much to the writers of a cen-
tury and a half ago against the imprimatur by which
all printing was subjected to despotic authority; it need
only be said that the dependence of all present-day cir-
culation of writings on the government postoffice, with
power acknowledged in Congress to control broadly what
shall go through the mails, leaves this distinction mean-
ingless.
99
G
#
87
Freedom of speech, as enunciated by the First Amend-
ment, must be declared in the broad terms of its uni-
versal understanding as the primary condition of human
progress. No precision of judicial logic will give crẻ-
dence to any other reading of the First Amendment.
Respectfully submitted,
The
SEYMOUR STEDMAN.
WILLIAM A. CUNNEA,
JOSEPH W. SHARTS,
MORRIS H. WOLF,
Attorneys for Plaintiff in Error.
ISAAC EDWARD FERGUSON,
Of Counsel.
88
ARGUMENT OF EUGENE V. DEBS.
MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY:
For the first time in my life I appear before a jury in
a court of law to answer to an indictment for crime. I
am not a lawyer. I know little about court procedure,
about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I know
only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought
against me, that the court is to instruct you in the law,
and that you are then to determine by your verdict
whether I shall be branded with criminal guilt and be
consigned, perhaps, to the end of my life in a felon's
cell.
Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour of
accusation, nor do I shrink from the consequences of
my utterances or my acts. Standing before you, charged
as I am with crime, I can 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 entirely
satisfied with the court's ruling. I have no fault to find
with the district attorney or with the counsel for the
prosecution.
I wish to admit the truth of all that has been testified
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 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.
*
}
89
I am charged in the indictment, first, that I did wil'
fully cause and attempt to cause or incite insubordina-
tion, mutiny, disloyalty and refusal of duty within the
military forces of the United States; that I did obstruct
and attempt to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment
service of the United States. I am charged also with ut-
tering words intended to bring into contempt and dis-
repute 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.
The Court: Mr. Debs, permit me to say that the last
charge which you have read to the jury has been with-
drawn from their consideration by the court.
Mr. Debs: Pardon me. I was not aware of that.
The Court: I directed a verdict of "not guilty" as
to that charge.
Mr. Debs: I am accused further of uttering words
intended 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 16th, and I submit that there is not
a word in that speech to warrant the charges set out in
the indictment. I admit having delivered the speech. I
admit the accuracy of the speech in all of its main fea-
tures as reported in this proceeding. There were two
distinct reports. They vary somewhat but they are
agreed upon all of the material statements embodied in
that speech.
In what I had to say there my purpose was to educate
the people to understand something about the social sys-
tem in which we live and to prepare them to change this
system by perfectly peaceable and orderly means into
what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy.
90
From what you heard in the address of counsel for
the prosecution, you might naturally infer that I am an
advocate of force and violence. It is not true. I have
never advocated violence in any form. I always believed
in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment, and I
have always made my appeal to the reason and to the
conscience of the people.
I
I admit being opposed to the present form of govern-
ment. I admit being opposed to the present social sys-
tem. 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 rela-
tively small class and establish in this country an indus-
trial social democracy.
}
In the course of the speech that resulted in this indict-
ment, I am charged with having expressed sympathy for
Kate Richards O'Hare, for Rose Pastor Stokes, for
Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker. I did express my
perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. I have
known them for many years. I have every reason to be-
lieve in their integrity, every reason to look upon them
with respect, with confidence and with approval.
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
worked 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 of
Rose Pastor Stokes. Through all of 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.
91
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 pos-
sible for them to enjoy a little more of the comfort of
life.
**
I 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 criminal, and
I too ought to be sent to prison. I have not a word to
retract not one. I uttered the truth. I made no state-
ment 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 preserve 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 workingmen 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.
I have been accused of expressing sympathy for the
Bolsheviki of Russia. I plead guilty to the charge. I
have read a great deal about the Bolsheviki of Russia
that is not true. I happen to know of my own knowledge
that they have been grossly misrepresented by the press
of this country. Who are these much-maligned revolu-
子
​سے
1
92
tionists of Russia? For years they had been the victims
of a brutal Czar. They and their antecedents were sent
to Siberia, lashed with a knout, if they even dreamed of
freedom. At last the hour struck for a great change.
The revolution came. The Czar was overthrown and
his infamous regime ended. What followed? The com-
mon people of Russia came into power, the peasants,
the toilers, the soldiers, and they proceeded as 'best they
could to establish a government of the people.
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 case.
There isn't any evidence in this case about the Bolshe-
viki at all or the Russian revolution.
The Court: I think I will permit the defendant to
proceed in his own way. Of course, you are not a law-
yer, Mr. Debs. The usual rule is that the remarks of
counsel should be confined to the testimony in the case,
but it does not forbid counsel from making references
to facts or matters of general public history or noto-
riety by way of illustrating your arguments and com-
ments upon the testimony in the case. So I will permit
you to proceed in your own way.
Mr. Debs: 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 his-
tory. 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 Wash-
ington, 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 Revolu-
tion, was condemned as an incendiary, and Patrick
Henry, who delivered that inspired and inspiring ora-
1
93
1
tion, that aroused the colonists, was condemned as a
traitor.
They were misunderstood at the time. They stood
true to themselves, and they won an immortality of grat-
itude and glory.
*
When great changes occur in history, when great prin-
ciples 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 martyr-
dom monuments were erected to them and garlands were
woven for their graves.
I have been accused of having obstructed war. I ad-
mit 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 skeleton hand
of death reaching for him, he cried out in horror, "War
is the trade of savages and barbarians."
I have read some history. I know that it is ruling
classes that make war upon one another, and not the
people. In all of the history of this world the people
have never yet declared a war. Not one. I do not be-
lieve that really civilized nations would murder one an-
other. I would refuse to kill a human being on my own
•
94
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 com-
mand in which I believe. He said, "Love one another.'
He did not say, "Kill one another," but "Love one an-
other." He espoused the cause of the suffering poor-
just as Rose Pastor Stokes did, just as Kate Richards
O'Hare did—and the poor heard him gladly. It was
not long before he aroused the ill-will and the hatred of
the usurers, the money changers, the profiteers, the high
priests, the lawyers, the judges, the merchants, the bank-
ers-in a word, the ruling class. They said of him just
what the ruling class says of the Socialist today, "He is
preaching dangerous doctrine. He is inciting the com-
mon rabble. He is a menace to peace and order." And
they had him arraigned, tried, convicted, condemned, and
they had his quivering body spiked to the gates of Jeru-
salem.
BOND
199
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 courage to
attack the established order of things, have all had to
pay the same penalty.
A century and a half ago, when the American colon-
ists were still foreign subjects, and when there were a
few men who had faith in the common people and be-
lieved 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
95
in the king and actually believed that he had a divine
right to rule over them. They had been taught to be-
lieve that to say a word against the king, to question his
so-called divine right, was sinful. There were ministers
opened their Bibles to prove that it was the, patriotic
duty of the people to loyally serve and support the king.
But there were a few men in that day who said, "We
don't need a king. We can govern ourselves." And they
began an agitation that has been immortalized in his-
tory.
**
Washington, Adams, Paine-these were the rebels of
their day. At first they were opposed by the peo-
ple and denounced by the press. You can remember
that it was Franklin who said to his compeers, "We
have now to hang together or we'll hang separately bye
and bye.” And if the Revolution had failed, the revo-
lutionary fathers would have been executed as felons.
But it did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of suc-
ceeding, when the time comes for them. The revolu-
tionary forefathers were opposed to the form of gov-
ernment 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 history, and that is why the great re-
spectable majority of their day sleep in forgotten graves.
The world does not know they ever lived.
At a later time there began another mighty agitation
in this country. It was against an institution that was
deemed a very respectable one in its time, the institu-
tion of chattel slavery. It became all-powerful. It con-
trolled the president, both branches of Congress, the Su-
preme Court, the press and, to a very large extent the pul-
pit. All of the organized forces of society, all the pow
96
ers of government, upheld chattel slavery in that day.
And again a few rebels 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 chat-
tel 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 mem-
ory of a man who was true to himself and his convic-
tions of right and duty unto death.
It was my good fortune to personally know Wendell
Phillips: I heard the story of his persecution in part,
at least, from his own eloquent lips just a little while
before they were silenced in death.
William Lloyd Garrison, Garrett Smith, Thaddeus Ste-
vens-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 today. It
is as wide as the world. It is the rise of the toiling and
producing masses who are gradually becoming conscious
of their interest, their power, as a class, who are or-
ganizing industrially and politically, who are slowly but
surely developing the economic and political power that
is to set them free. They are still in the minority, but
they have learned how to wait, and to bide their time.
It is because I happen to be in this minority that I
stand in your presence today, charged with crime. It is
because I believe as the revolutionary fathers believed
in their day, that a change was due in the interests of the
ฐ
97
S
people, that the time had come for a better form of gov-
ernment, an improved system, a higher social order, a
nobler humanity and a grander civilization. This mi-
nority that is so much misunderstood and so bitterly
maligned, is in alliance with the forces of evolution, and
as certain as I stand before you this afternoon, it, is but
a question of time until this minority will become the
conquering majority and inaugurate the greatest change
in all of the history of the world. You may hasten thẻ
change; you may retard it; you can no more prevent it
than you can prevent the coming of the sunrise on the
* *
morrow.
My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn't like
what I had to say in my speech about internationalism.
What is there objectionable to internationalism? If we
had internationalism there would be no war. I believe
in patriotism. I have never uttered a word against
the flag. I love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I,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.
Thomas
I believe, however, in a wider patriotism.
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
nations long enough in hatred, in strife, in warfare. I
believe there ought to be a bond of unity between all of
these nations. I believe that the human race consists
of one great family. I love the people of this country,
but I don't hate the people of any country on earth-
not even the Germans. I refuse to hate a human being
because he happens to be born in some other country.
Kala
98
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 hu-
man being endowed with the same faculties, he has the
same aspirations, he is entitled to the same rights, and
I would infinitely rather serve him and love him than to
hate him and kill him.
#
We hear a great deal about human brotherhood,-a
beautiful and inspiring theme. It is preached from a
countless number of pulpits. It is vain for us to preach
of human brotherhood while we tolerate this social sys-
tem in which we are a mass of warring units, in which
millions of workers have to fight one another for jobs,
and millions of business men and professional men have
to fight one another for trade, for practice-in which we
have individual interests and each is striving to care
for himself alone without reference to his fellow men.
Human brotherhood is yet to be realized in this world.
It never can be under the capitalist-competitive system
in which we live.
Yes; I was opposed to the war. I am perfectly will-
ing, on that count, to be branded as a disloyalist, and if
it is a crime under the American law punishable by im-
prisonment 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.
If 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 inclination to deny, but
rather, upon the other hand, I have a very considerable
pride in.
You have heard a great deal about the St. Louis plat-
form. I wasn't at the convention when that platform
99
was adopted, but I don't ask to be excused from my re
sponsibility on that account. I voted for its adoption.
I believe in its essential principles. There was some of
its phrasing that I would have otherwise. I afterwards
advocated a re-statement. 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 re-state-
ment. I have been asked why I did not favor a repudi-
ation of what was said a year before. For the reason
that I believed then, as I believe now, that the statement
correctly defined the attitude of the Socialist party to-
ward war. That statement, bear in mind, did not apply
to the people of this country alone, but to the 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
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 re-
pudiate 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 conven-
tion, 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-
-
}
100
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+
& de
*+ &
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1
raced in this indictment. If I have criticised, if I have
ever condemned, it is because I have believed my-
self 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 con-
demned 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 outlaws.
And that is what they were under the divine right of a
king to rule men.
The War of 1812 was opposed and condemned; the
Mexican War was bitterly condemned by Abraham 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 today by all of their countrymen. The war of the
Rebellion was opposed and condemned. In 1864 the Dem-
ocratic 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 con-
vention today and condemn the present war as a fail-
ure? You charge us with being disloyalists and traitors.
Were the Democrats of 1864 disloyalists and traitors be-
cause they condemned the war as a failure?
J
I 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 oppressed un-
der king rule understood that free speech and the free
press and the right of free assemblage by the people
}
1
101
were the fundamental principles of democratic govern-
ment. The very first amendment to the Constitution
reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an es-
tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a redress of griev-
ances." That is perfectly plain English. It can be un-
derstood by a child. I believe that the revolutionary
fathers meant just what is here stated that Congress
shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of
the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably as-
semble, 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 big-
gest enemy. I would under no circumstances suppress
free speech. It is far more dangerous to attempt to gag
the people than to allow them to speak freely of what
is in their hearts. I do not go as far as Wendell Phil-
lips did. Wendell Phillips said that the glory of free
men is that they trampled unjust laws under their feet.
That is how they repealed them. If a human being sub-
mits to having his lips sealed, to be in silence reduced
to vassalage, he may have all else, but he is still lack-
ing in all that dignifies and glorifies real manhood.
-
Now, notwithstanding this fundamental provision in
the national law, Socialists' meetings have been broken
up all over this country. Socialist speakers have been
arrested by hundreds and flung into jail, where many of
them are lying now. In some cases not even a charge
î
***
1
102
}
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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.
I have told you that I am no lawyer, but it seems to
me that I know enough to know that if Congress enacts
any law that conflicts with this provision in the Consti-
tution, 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 Wil-
son, president of the United States.
-
The Court: I will grant you that permission.
Mr. Debs: 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 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 as made by Mr. Wilson when he was a candi-
date for the presidency of the United States.
(Reading): "Today, when our government has so far
passed into the hands of special interests; today, when
P
103
the doctrine is implicitly avowed that only select classes
have the equipment necessary for carrying on govern-
ment; today, 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
employes,—today, 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
somewhat 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 en-
dorsed, approved and believed in with all my heart. The
president of the United States tells us that our govern-
ment 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 crimi-
nals. But that is not all, nor nearly all.
(Reading): "There are, of course, Americans who
have not yet heard that anything is going on. The cir-
cus might come to town, have the big parade and go,
without their catching a sight of the camels or a note of
the calliope. There are people, even Americans, who
never move themselves or know that anything else is
moving."
104
Just one other quotation. (Reading): "For a long
time this country of ours has lacked one of the institu-
tions which freemen have always and everywhere held
' fundamental. For a long time there has been no suffi-
cient 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,-
Congress 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 legisla-
ture; not a body that debates,-not a parliament.
Party conventions afford little or no opportunity for dis-
cussion; 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.
"I conceive it to be one of the needs of the hour to
restore the processes of common counsel, and to substi-
tute 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 fa-
thers did, somehow, somewhere, for consultation. There
must be discussion and debate, in which all freely par-
ticipate.'
Well, there has been something said in connection with
this about profiteering-in connection with this indict-
ment.
(To the Court): Would it be in order for me to read
a brief statement, showing to what extent profiteering
has been carried on during the last three years?
105.
1
The Court: No. There would be no consensus of
opinion or agreement upon that statement. It is a mat-
ter that is not really in the case, and when you go to
compile a statement, you are then undertaking to assume
something without producing evidence to substanti-
ate it.
Mr. Debs: 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 sympathy 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 imag-
ine 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 prac-
tically 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 embodies and incarnates,
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 peo-
ple, but by the class that rules, oppresses, robs and de-
grades the German people. President Wilson has re-
peatedly said that we were not making war on the Ger-
106
man people, and yet in war it is the people who are
slain, and not the rulers who are responsible 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-
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 sys-
tem 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 result
of accident. There is a definite cause for war, especially
a modern war. The war that began in Europe can read-
ily be accounted for. For the last forty years, under
this international capitalist system, this exploiting sys-
tem, these various nations of Europe have been prepar-
ing for the inevitable. And why? In all these nations
the great industries are owned by a relatively small
class. They are operated for the profit of that class.
And great abundance is produced by the workers; but
their wages will only buy back a small part of their
product. What is the result? They have a vast surplus
on hand; they have got to export it; they have got to
find a foreign market for it. As a result of this these
nations are pitted against each other. They are indus-
trial 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.
}
107
Now, where there is exploitation there must be some
form of militarism to support it. Wherever you find ex-
ploitation you find some form of military force. In a
smaller way you find it in this country. It was there
long before war was declared. For instance, when the
miners out in Colorado entered upon a strike about four
years ago, the state militia, that is under the control of
the Standard Oil Company, marched upon a camp, where
the miners and their wives and children were in tents,-
and, by the way, a report of this strike was issued by
the United States Committee on Industrial Relations.
When the soldiers approached the camp at Ludlow,
where these miners, with their wives and children, were,
the miners, to prove that they were patriotic, placed
flags above their tents, and when the state militia, that
is paid by Rockefeller and controlled by Rockefeller,
swooped down upon that camp, the first thing they did.
was to shoot those United States flags into tatters. Not
one of them was indicted or tried because he was a
traitor to his country. Pregnant women were killed,
and a number of innocent children slain. This in the
United States of America, the fruit of exploitation.
The miners wanted a little more of what they had been
producing. But the Standard Oil Company wasn't rich
enough. It insisted that all they were entitled to was
just enough to keep them in working order. There is
slavery for you. And when at last they protested, when
they were tormented by hunger, when they saw their
children in tatters, they were shot down as if they had
been so many vagabond dogs.
p
And while I am upon this point let me say just an-
other word. Workingmen who organize, and who some-
times commit overt acts, are very oftentimes condemned
by those who have no conception of the conditions under
which they live. How many men are there, for instance,
#
108
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1
who know anything of their own knowledge about how
men work in a lumber camp-a logging camp, a turpen-
tine camp? In this report of the United States Com-
mission on Industrial Relations you will find the state-
ment proved that peonage existed in the State of Texas.
Out of these conditions springs such a thing as the I.
W. W.-when men receive a pittance for their pay, when
they work like galley slaves for a wage that barely suf-
fices to keep their protesting souls within their tattered
bodies. When they can endure 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
La
word that so fills the world as the I. W. W. must have
something in it. It must be investigated. And they did
investigate it, each along their own lines, and I wish it
were possible for every man and woman in this country
to read the result of their investigation. They tell you
why and how the I. W. W. was instituted. They tell
you, moreover, that the great corporations, such as the
Standard Oil Company, such as the Coal Trust, and the
Lumber Trust, have, through their agents, committed
more crimes against the I. W. W. than the I. W. W. have
ever committed against them.
* * *
I was asked not long ago if I was in favor of
shooting our soldiers in the back. I said, "No, I would
not shoot them in the back. I wouldn't shoot them at all.
I would not have them shot." Much has been made of a
statement that I declared that men were fit for some-
thing better than slavery and cannon fodder. I made
the statement. I make no attempt to deny it. I meant
109
}
exactly what I said. Men are fit for something better
than slavery and cannon fodder; and the time will come,
though I shall not live to see it, when slavery will be
wiped from the earth, and when men will marvel that
there ever was a time when men who called themselves
civilized rushed upon each other like wild beasts and
murdered one another, by methods so cruel and barbar-
ous that they defy the power of man to describe. I can
hear the shrieks of the soldiers of Europe in my dreams.
I have imagination enough to see a battlefield. I can
see it strewn with the legs of human beings, who but
yesterday were in the flush and glory of their young
manhood. I can see them at even-tide, 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 frightful
scene. I think of the mothers who are bowed in the
shadow of their last great grief-whose hearts are
breaking. And I say to myself, "I am going to do the
little that lies in my power to wipe from this earth that
terrible scourge of war."
-
If I believed in war I could not be kept out of the first
line trenches. I would not be patriotic at long range.
I would be honest enough, if I believed in bloodshed, to
shed my own. But I do not believe that the shedding
of blood bears any actual testimony to patriotism, or
leads a country to civilization. On the contrary, I believe
that warfare, in all of its forms, is an impeachment of our
social order, and a rebuke to our much vaunted Chris-
,tian civilization.
And now, gentlemen of the jury, I am not going to de-
tain 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
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2
except what is embraced in the indictment which I have
read to you. I cannot take back a word. I can't re-
pudiate a sentence. I stand before you guilty of having
made this speech. I stand before you prepared to accept
the consequences of what there is embraced in that
speech. I do not know, I cannot tell, what your verdict
may be; nor does it matter much, so far as I am con-
cerned.
}
*
Gentlemen, I am the smallest part of this trial. I have
lived long enough to appreciate my own personal insig-
nificance in relation to a great issue, that involves the
welfare of the whole people. What you may choose to do
to me will be of small consequence after all. I am not on
trial here. There is an infinitely greater issue that is be-
ing tried today in this court, though you may not be
conscious of it. American institutions are on trial here.
before a court of American citizens. The future will tell.
**
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 ver-
dict.
*
*
After four hours' "deliberation" the jury returned a
verdict of guilty.
f
;
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111
MR. DEBS' STATEMENT TO THE COURT.
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with
all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not
one bit better than the meanest of earth. I said then, I
say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it;
while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there
is a soul in prison, I am not free.
If the law under which I have been convicted is a good
law, then there is no reason why sentence should not be
pronounced upon me. I listened to all that was said in
this court in support and justification of this law, but
my mind remains unchanged. I look upon it as a despotic
enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles
and with the spirit of free institutions.
I have no fault to find with this court or with the trial.
Everything in connection with this case has been con-
ducted upon a dignified plane, and in a respectful and
decent spirit-with just one exception. Your Honor, my
sainted mother inspired me with a reverence for woman-
hood that amounts to worship. I can think with disre-
spect of no woman; and I can think with respect 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 instance were ab-
solutely inexcusable. When I think of 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 op-
posed to the form of our present government; that I am
opposed to the social system in which we live; that I be-
lieved in the change of both-but by perfectly peaceable
and orderly means.
{
'
t
112
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 peo-
ple, 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 six-
teen, I was firing a freight engine on a railroad. I re-
member 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 Con-
gress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison. The
choice has been deliberately made. I could not have
done otherwise. I have no regret.
In the struggle-the unceasing struggle-between the
toilers and producers and their exploiters, I have tried,
as best I might, to serve those among whom I was born,
with whom I expect to share my lot until the end of my
days.
I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and
factories; I am thinking of the women who, for a paltry
wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of the little
children who, in this system, are robbed of their child-
hood, and in their early tender years, are seized in the
remorseless grasp of mammon, and forced into the in-
dustrial dungeons, there to feed the machines while they
themselves are being starved body and soul. I can see
them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little lives broken,
and their hopes blasted, because in this high noon of our
twentieth century civilization money is still so much more
important than human life. Gold is god and rules in the
affairs of men. The little girls, and there are a million
of them in this country-this the most favored land be-
neath the bending skies, a land in which we have vast
A
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113
areas of rich and fertile soil, material resources in inex-
haustible abundance, the most marvelous productive ma-
chinery on earth, millions of eager workers ready to
apply their labor to that machinery to produce an abun-
dance for every man, woman and child—and if there are
still many millions of our people who are the victims of
poverty, whose life is a ceaseless struggle all the way
from youth to age, until at last death comes to their
rescue and stills the aching heart, and lulls the victim to
dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty, it
can't be charged to nature; it is due entirely to an out-
grown social system that ought to be abolished not only
in the interest of the working class, but in a higher in-
terest of all humanity.
I
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 sceptres;
they sit upon no thrones; and yet they are our economic
masters and our political rulers. They control this gov-
ernment and all of its institutions. They control the
courts.
114
And your Honor, if you will permit me, I wish to make
just one correction. It was stated here that I had
charged that all federal judges are crooks. The charge
is absolutely untrue. I did say that all federal judges
are appointed through the influence and power of the
capitalistic class and not the working class. If that state-
ment is not true, I am more than willing to retract it.
If the five per cent of our people who own and control
all of the sources of wealth, all of the nation's industries,
all of the means of our common life, it is they who de-
clare war; it is they who make peace; it is they who con-
trol our destiny. And so long as this is true, we can make
no just claim to being a democratic government-a self-
governing people.
I believe, your Honor, in common with all Socialists,
that this nation ought to own and control its industries.
I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are
jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned-that
industry, the basis of life, instead of being the private
property of the few and operated for their enrichment,
ought to be the common property of all, democratically
administered in the interest of all.
John D. Rockefeller has today an income of sixty mil-
lion dollars a year, five million dollars a month, two hun-
dred thousand dollars a day. He does not produce a
penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller-per-
sonally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he were in
need and it were in my power to serve him, I should
serve him as gladly as I would any other human being. I
have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller personally, nor
with any other capitalist. I am simply opposing a social
order in which it is possible for one man who does abso-
lutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hun-
dreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and
1
}
115
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, like myself, have
come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the bless-
ings of civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a
mutual and co-operative basis; and to this end we have
organized a great economic and political movement that
spread over the face of all the earth.
1
There are today upwards of sixty million Socialists,
loyal, devoted, adherents to this cause, regardless of
nationality, race, creed, color or sex. They are all mak
ing common cause. They are all spreading the propa-
ganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watch-
ing and working through all the weary hours of the day
and night. They are still in the minority. They have
learned how to be patient and abide their time. They
feel they know, indeed-that the time is coming, in
spite of all opposition, all persecution, when this
emancipating gospel will spread among all the peoples,
and when this minority will become the triumphant ma-
jority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest
change in history.
In that day we will have the universal commonweath—
not the destruction of the nation, but, on the contrary,
the harmonious co-operation of every nation with every
other nation on earth. In that day war will curse this
earth no more.
I 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
Į
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116
{
there would be no soldier. But I realize the sacrifices
they are making, your Honor. I can think 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 imprison-
ment. I do not resent it in the least. I can understand 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 sena-
tor of the United States receives a salary of $7,500-
$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 willing 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." I
"Campaign expenditures have been the subject of much
restrictive legislation in recent years, but it has not al-
ways 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 take it out of politics, they never can
take it out of politics, in this system.
""
117
1
Your Honor, I wish to make acknowledgment of 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.
1
Your Honor, I ask no mercy. I plead for no immunity.
I realize that, finally the right must prevail. I never more
clearly comprehended than now the great struggle be-
tween the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the
other the rising hosts of freedom.
I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The
people are awakening. In due course of time they will
come to their own.
1
When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for
relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward
the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-
vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern
cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their
places, and with starry 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 lookout
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's true to God who's 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 their race."
Your Honor, I thank you, and I thank all of this court
for their courtesy, for their kindness, which I shall re-
member always.
I am prepared to receive your sentence.
118
United States of America
vs.
Eugene V. Debs.
WESTHAVER, J.: The defendant in this case has had a
trial, so far as I am able to judge, in entire conformity
to all of the rules of the American and English law pro-
vided for the protection and safety of the lowest as well
´as the highest individual. It has been a part of my pur-
pose, so far as I could, to see that he had that kind of a
trial. It is needless to say that he has had the advantage
of counsel, able and devoted counsel, in the preparation.
of his defense and in the presentation of his case to the
jury. They have performed their duty in a manner
worthy of the best traditions of the American and Eng-
lish bars. The Court wishes to thank them for the man-
ner in which they performed that duty, both to the de-
fendant and to the Court.
The result of that trial, conducted in a way that has
been found adequate throughout the ages to preserve the
liberty of all English and American people, is the finding
of the defendant guilty.
I appreciate what has been said both by the defendant
and by counsel as to the part which the Court has taken
in the conduct of the trial. I presided not long ago at
another trial in which somewhat of the same arguments
and reasons were urged as reasons why the jury should
not convict the defendant, notwithstanding the evidence
pointed to a plain commission of acts, overt acts, made
criminal by the law of the land. Counsel then said that
the trial had been fair and that the Court had conducted
the proceedings in strict conformity to the law. Yet I
cannot but remember that upon the rostrum and in the
official organs and pamphlets of the adherents of the
defendants who thus spoke in the court rooms, language
/
119
}
was used about the trial and the jury and the Court and
the participants in the trial somewhat analogous to the
language used by the defendant here in his speech at
Canton. I trust that this will not be the future history
of this case and of this trial, in the light of what has
been said by defendants and counsel here in Court.
Personally, I claim for myself as tender a heart and
as warm a sympathy for the down-trodden and oppressed
as the defendant does.
Personally, I have punished no man out of a desire
for vindictiveness, or a feeling of revenge.
My conception of the law and of the theory why pun-
ishment is inflicted and exacted is, not in order to avenge
upon an individual defendant some offense which he has
committed against society, but punishment is imposed,
according to my conception, in order that the community
may be protected against a repetition of similar offenses.
G
If there was nothing to be considered here in this case
except the merits or the demerits of the individual de-
fendant, the duty of the Court would be plain, and it
would be discharged in a way somewhat different from
that which my conception of my duty requires and im-
pels me to discharge it in this instance.
AR
I have sat upon this bench since the outbreak of this
war, and have participated in the administration of the
law.
I have been called upon to impose sentence after sen-
tence upon persons who have been brought to the bar of
this Court since the outbreak of this war who have of-
fended, and who persist in offending, because of the
activities of Mr. Debs and other persons who construe
their duty towards society and towards their fellowman
as he construes his duty. I sympathize with those people,
Ka
120
and they are people that the defendant does not see, and
apparently with which he appears to have, as it seems
to me, not the proper amount of sympathy.
I must admit that at times I have felt it difficult to
refrain from a strong feeling that I should like to place
before the bar of this Court the real offenders in place
of those poor, misguided, ignorant, mostly foreign-born
persons now resident in the United States, who have been
led into their criminal attitude against society, and who
have had themselves branded upon the records of the
Court as criminals, and who have served terms in the
workhouse, because they listened to the leadership and
the guidance of persons expressing sentiments such as
have been expressed here in this court room this morn-
ing.
I see those persons.
The Jury has passed upon the language and words and
public utterances of the defendant. The Jury has found
the intent with which they were uttered. The Jury found,
under the instructions of the Court, that the only nat-
ural, and reasonably probable tendency and effect of
that language was to cause the hearers and listeners
thereof to disregard their duty so far as they were mem-
bers of the military forces of the United States, to ob-
struct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United
States, and to stir up, encourage and provoke resistance
to the United States and to promote the cause of its ene-
mies.
It is, I must say, without intending to reflect upon the
intelligence or character of the defendant, a remarkable
self-delusion which leads him to believe that when, in a
speech as incendiary in character, as violent and vituper-
ative in language, as that upon which he has been in-
dicted and upon which he was found guilty, he is serving
Sta
}
121
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1
the cause of the down-trodden and the oppressed, or
that he is endeavoring to usher in a better day for hu-
manity.
That, however, is in a way aside from that which I
am called upon to do in the performance of my duty.
I am a conservator of peace. I hold a commission un-
der the Government of the United States. I do not know
whether the defendant in the course of his life has taken
an oath to support the Constitution of the United States
and to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domes-
tic. I was called upon to take that oath a great many
times, and it is an oath that I take seriously, and I trust
that some of the foreign born who have been present at
this trial take seriously that obligation and the oath to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies foreign and domestic.
The United States is a nation. It has a right to defend
itself. It has a right to defend its national existence
against all enemies foreign and domestic, and in defend-
ing itself, it has the right to the allegiance of all of those
who, by birth or by naturalization, owe that allegiance
to the United States as a nation, and who are burdened
with the obligation to defend it against all enemies for-
eign and domestic.
In a time of war, when that nation is defending its life
against foreign enemies, the domestic enemy would un-
dertake to strike from the hand of its defender the sword
with which the life of the nation is being defended; and
that is the practical, actual condition which confronts
the country, and which was confronting the country on
the 16th day of June, 1918, when the defendant here made
his speech in the City of Canton in the State of Ohio.
To me it is a marvel that the defendant has no con-
ception of that condition or of that state of facts when
122
}
}
he stood here and addressed the Jury and as he stands
here and addresses the Court. His mind is so consti-
tuted that it passes through all those facts as some scien-
tists say the fourth dimension passes through the walls
of this court room without taking any note of the exist-
ence of those walls.
I can't assume that attitude, and I can't neglect to do
my whole duty in the light of that state of facts. The
defendant's position before the Court here this morning,
as announced to me, while I may appreciate his sin-
cerity, I may admire his courage, but I cannot help but
wish that his mind took better note of the facts as they
are in this age and in this life; but notwithstanding that,
his position here before the Court this morning is: "If
this law is a just law or a righteous law, then there is
no reason why I should not be punished." That means:
"I am guilty of having violated this law; I am guilty of
having intentionally violated this law; but I claim for
myself, because it is not a righteous and a just law, a
power of dispensation whereby I dispense myself and
all my followers and all the persons whom my words can
reach and influence from any obligation to observe that
law at this time."
}
→
Call it by whatever name you choose, that is anarchy
pure and simple, and it is not, according to all my read-
ing and understanding, socialism. But I pass that with
these comments.
1
I regret that I have been called upon to say as much
as I have said. I have always felt averse to taking ad-
vantage of the position which I occupy, when anybody
is called before me for sentence, to indulge in any re-
marks at all. I have perceived it to be my duty to not
add either to the humiliation or to the mortification of
any one upon whom I must pass sentence. Least of all
123
do I regard that as an occasion when I should indulge in
the expression or dissemination of any personal views of
my own. I am moved to do this, however, on this occa-
sion by the invitation, as it were, of the defendant him-
self. I do not regard the idealism of the defendant as
expressed by himself as any higher, purer, or nobler,
than the ideals and idealism of the thousands upon thou-
sands of young men that I have seen marching down the
streets of Cleveland to defend the Constitution and the
laws of their country, and its flag, and I can't under-
stand the state of mind of any one who claims any right
to dispense anybody from observing any of the laws of
the land made for the protection of the public peace in
safety while those young men are defending the national
life against the common enemy. Any one who strikes
the sword from the hand of those young men, either by
causing any other young man to refuse to do his duty,
that is, to go readily and freely when called to serve by
their side, or any one who causes obstruction to the re-
cruiting service by enticing or preventing any other
young man from going when duty calls to take his place
by their side, such a one does just as much injury and
just as much wrong to our country and to each one of
those young man as if he were a soldier in the ranks of
the German army and would shoot down one of those
young men at the front.
Now, in this case, the judgment of this Court will be
that under the third count of the indictment the defend-
ant be confined in the penitentiary at Moundsville, West
Virginia, for a term of ten years; that under the fourth
count of the indictment he be confined to the penitentiary
at Moundsville for a term of ten years; that under the
seventh count of this indictment he be confined to the
penitentiary at Moundsville for a term of ten years; the
.....
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124
sentences upon these three counts to run concurrently
and not cumulatively.
The defendant will be remanded into the custody of
the Marshal.
*
Mr. Stedman: If your Honor please, in regard to bail?
The Court: Let us have your petition for error.
The Court: All right. I will dispose of it all at once.
On the question of bail, I made an announcement at the
end of the hearing or trial that if the motion for a new
trial was overruled, I would grant a writ of error, and
that I would exercise my discretion favorably to admit-
ting the defendant to bail pending the proceedings on
the writ of error. I intimated that because of the atti-
tude of the defendant both before and after and during
the trial, I felt that the bail ought to be conditional, and
there ought to be the usual conditions that go in the bail
bonds.
Mr. Stedman: I might say that we discussed that
proposition the other evening and, so far as that is con-
cerned, we have no doubt whatever that what my client
agrees to, he will do. That is one thing I am ready to
vouch for. And we rather assume that eliminating every
reference to the war would probably meet that condition,
and, with that in mind, I would like to have it specified,
of course, but I assume in speaking on the industrial con-
ditions would not be what your Honor has in mind?
NA
The Court: Well, I would not undertake to censor any
speeches or declaration that defendant makes, nor under-
take to intimate in advance what he should or should not
speak, or what would or would not be within or without
the law. It is quite apparent, Mr. Stedman, to the Court
that punishment is not a restraining influence so far as
the defendant is concerned.
Mr. Stedman: No; but his word is.
125
{
The Court: I will accept your statement that that is
true, and I have no reason to think otherwise. I am in-
clined to think that if the property of his friends was put
in jeopardy it might have an influence which would re-
strain him to endeavor at least to comply with the law.
*
*
The Court: There is another condition that is usually
in the bail bond, Mr. Stedman, that I want you to re-
member in this connection. Every bail bond requires the
defendant to remain within the jurisdiction of the Court.
Mr. Stedman: Yes.
The Court: And not to depart without it without
leave of Court. The jurisdiction of this Court is the
Northern District of Ohio. I would consent to leave for
him to depart without the northern district of Ohio to go
to and remain at home, wherever that may be, and where
his ordinary business occupation is, but I would not give
him leave to depart without the jurisdiction of the Court
to conduct a speaking tour of the country. Now, I will
fix the bail bond at $10,000.00, to be given conditioned as
required by law. I will give permission to leave the
northern district of Ohio only to go to and remain at
the home of the defendant.
Mr. Stedman: Well, if he keep within the under-
standing which we have in reference to the character of
the speech, do you feel that that could not be permitted?
I mean where he does not discuss the war at all and sim-
ply makes the lecture eliminating that completely.
The Court: Do you realize, Mr. Stedman, and does the
defendant realize, that he has been convicted of a griev-
ous crime against the laws of this country, that he is un-
der sentence, that he has no Constitutional right to be
out on bail pending error proceedings to reverse that sen-
>
}
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126
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I
*
tence, and that it is an exercise of the discretion of the
Court in his favor?
Mr. Stedman: Yes.
Mr. Stedman: I think the same sureties are here who
were on before.
The Court: The Clerk found them sufficient, I believe,
and that is for the clerk to determine. That may be taken
care of in the Clerk's office.
You may adjourn court.
ST VA
127
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
DECISION.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.
3
No. 714.-OCTOBER TERM, 1918.
Eugene V. Debs, Plaintiff in Error,] In Error to the District
Court of the United
States for the North-
ern District of Ohio.
vs.
The United States of America.
[March 10, 1919.]
Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an indictment under the Espionage Act of June
15, 1917, c. 30, § 3, as amended by the Act of May 16, 1918,
c. 75, § 1, 40 Stat.. It has been cut down to two counts,
originally the third and fourth. The former of these
alleges that on or about June 16, 1918, at Canton, Ohio,
the defendant caused and incited and attempted to cause
and incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny and refusal
of duty in the military and naval forces of the United
States and with intent so to do delivered, to an assembly
of people, a public speech, set forth. The fourth count
alleges that he obstructed and attempted to obstruct the
recruiting and enlistment service of the United States
and to that end and with that intent delivered the same
speech, again set forth. There was a demurrer to the in-
dictment on the ground that the status is unconstitutional
as interfering with free speech, contrary to the First
Amendment, and to the several counts as insufficiently
stating the supposed offence. This was overruled, subject
to exception. There were other exceptions to the admis-
sion of evidence with which we shall deal. The defendant
was found guilty and was sentenced to ten years' impris-
箫
​T
#
128
!
X
→
onment on each of the two counts, the punishment to run
concurrently on both.
The main theme of the speech was socialism, its growth,
and a prophecy of its ultimate success. With that we
have nothing to do, but if a part or the manifest intent
of the more general utterances was to encourage those
present to obstruct the recruiting service and if in pass-
ages such encouragement was directly given, the immu-
nity of the general theme may not be enough to protect
the speech. The speaker began by saying that he had
just returned from a visit to the workhouse in the neigh-
borhood where three of their most loyal comrades were
paying the penalty for their devotion to the working class
-these being Wagenknecht, Baker and Ruthenberg, who
had been convicted of aiding and abetting another in fail-
ing to register for the draft. Ruthenberg v. United
States, 245 U. S. 480. He said that he had to be prudent
and might not be able to say all that he thought, thus
intimating to his hearers that they might infer that he
meant more, but he did say that those persons were
paying the penalty for standing erect and for seeking to
pave the way to better conditions for all mankind. Later
he added further eulogies and said that he was proud of
them. He then expressed opposition to Prussian mili-
tarism in a way that naturally might have been thought to
be intended to include the mode of proceeding in the
United States.
W
After considerable discourse that it is unnecessary to
follow, he took up the case of Kate Richards O'Hare, con-
victed of obstructing the enlistment service, praised her
for her loyalty to socialism and otherwise, and said that
she was convicted on false testimony, under a ruling that
would seem incredible to him if he had not had some expe-
rience with a Federal Court. We mention this passage
{
129
1
5
simply for its connection with evidence put in at the
trial. The defendant spoke of other cases, and then, after
dealing with Russia, said that the master class has always
declared the war and the subject class has always fought
the battles-that the subject class has had nothing to gain
and all to lose, including their lives; that the working
class, who furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice
in declaring war and have never yet had a voice in de-
claring peace. 'You have your lives to lose; you cer-
tainly ought to have the right to declare war if you con-
sider a war necessary.' The defendant next mentioned
Rose Pastor Stokes, convicted of attempting to cause in-
subordination and refusal of duty in the military forces
of the United States and obstructing the recruiting ser-
vice. He said that she went out to render her service to
the cause in this day of crises, and they sent her to the
penitentiary for ten years; that she had said no more
than the speaker had said that afternoon; that if she was
guilty so was he, and that he would not be cowardly
enough to plead his innocence; but that her message that
opened the eyes of the people must be suppressed, and
so after a mock trial before a packed jury and a corpora-
tion tool on the bench, she was sent to the penitentiary
for ten years.
There followed personal experiences and illustrations
of the growth of socialism, a glorification of minorities,
and a prophecy of the success of the international so-
cialist crusade, with the interjection that "you need to
know that you are fit for something better than slavery
and cannon fodder." The rest of the discourse had only
the indirect though not necessarily ineffective bearing on
the offences alleged that is to be found in the usual con-
trasts between capitalists and laboring men, sneers at the
advice to cultivate war gardens, attribution to plutocrats
of the high price of coal, &c., with the implication running
}
3
130
1
1
through it all that the working men are not concerned in
the war, and a final exhortation "Don't worry about the
charge of treason to your masters; but be concerned about
the treason that involves yourselves." The defendant
addressed the jury himself, and while contending that his
speech did not warrant the charges said "I have been
accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen,
I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone."
The statement was not necessary to warrant the jury in
finding that one purpose of the speech, whether inci-
dental or not does not matter, was to oppose not only
war in general but this war, and that the opposition was
so expressed that its natural and intended effect would
be to obstruct recruiting. If that was intended and if,
in all the circumstances, that would be its probable effect,
it would not be protected by reason of its being part of
a general program and expressions of a general and con-
scientious belief.
The chief defenses upon which the defendant seemed
willinf to rely were the denial that we have dealt with and
that based upon the First Amendment to the Constitu-
tion, disposed of in Schenck v. United States, ante. His
counsel questioned the sufficiency of the indictment. It
is sufficient in form. Frohwerk v. United States, ante.
The most important question that remains is raised by
the admission in evidence of the record of the convic-
tion 'of Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker, Rose Pas-
tor Stokes, and Kate Richards O'Hare. The defendant
purported to understand the grounds on which these per-
sons were imprisoned and it was proper to show what
those grounds were in order to show what he was talk-
ing about, to explain the true import of his expression
of sympathy and to throw light on the intent of the ad-
dress, so far as the present matter is concerned.
}
1
-
I
I
**+
131
1
i
There was introduced also an 'Anti-war Proclamation
and Program' adopted at St. Louis in April, 1917,
coupled with testimony that about an hour before his
speech the defendant had stated that he approved of that
platform in spirit and in substance. The defendant re-
ferred to it in his address to the jury, seemingly with
satisfaction and willingness that it should be considered
in evidence. But his counsel objected and has argued
against its admissibility, at some length. This document
contained the usual suggestion that capitalism was the
cause of the war and that our entrance into it 'was in-
stigated by the predatory capitalists in the United
States.' It alleged that the war of the United States
against Germany could not "be justified even on the plea
that it is a war in defense of American rights or Ameri-
can 'honor'." It said "We brand the declaration of war
by our Government as a crime against the people of the
United States and against the nations of the world. In
all modern history there has been no war more unjusti-
fiable than the war in which we are about to engage." Its
first recommendation was, "continuous, active, and pub-
lic opposition to the war, through demonstrations, mass
petitions, and all other means within our power.
"Evi-
dence that the defendant accepted this view and this dec-
laration of his duties at the time that he made his speech
is evidence that if in that speech he used words tending
to obstruct the recruiting service he meant that they
should have that effect. The principle is too well estab-
lished and too manifestly good sense to need citation of
the books. We should add that the jury were most care-
fully instructed that they could not find the defendant
guilty for advocacy of any of his opinions unless the
words used had as their natural tendency and reasonably
probable effect to obstruct the recruiting service, &c.,
132
*
4
and unless the defendant had the specific intent to do so
in his mind.
Without going into further particulars we are of the
opinion that the verdict on the fourth count, for obstruct-
ing and attempting to obstruct the recruiting service of
the United States, must be sustained. Therefore it is
less important to consider whether that upon the third
count, for causing and attempting to cause insubordina-
tion, &c., in the military and naval forces, is equally im-
pregnable. The jury were instructed that for the pur-
poses of the statute the persons designated by the Act of
May 18, 1917, registered and enrolled under it, and thus
subject to be called into the active service, were a part
of the military forces of the United States. The Gov-
ernment presents a strong argument from the history of
the statutes that the instruction was correct and in ac-
cordance with established legislative usage. We see no
sufficient reason for differing from the conclusion but
think it unnecessary to discuss the question in detail.
Judgment affirmed.
}
•
A true copy.
Test:
Clerk Supreme Court, U. S.
I
#
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