Ghosts of Christmas past: Eugene Debs

[marmar]

from peoplesworld.org:




[font size="1"]Photo: Eugene V. Debs leaving the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, on Christmas Day 1921.[/font]


With the holiday season upon us, it's worthwhile to remember Christmas 1921, the day that arguably the most successful socialist in American history, Eugene Debs, was released from prison. Let's hope the rising generation of working-class leaders can surpass his achievements without diluting his egalitarian vision.

In 1918, Debs made a speech in Ohio opposing World War I. "Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder," he told the crowd. "And that is war, in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles." For this, he was charged with sedition.

At his trial later that year, Debs freely admitted he opposed World War I and called no witnesses. In boundlessly empathic words that would be his most widely-quoted, Debs told the court, "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 on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Debs was sentenced to 10 years of incarceration.

Debs had been imprisoned decades before, in 1895 for his leadership of the Pullman Strike. According to historian Howard Zinn, strikers at the time "tied up the railroad system, burned hundreds of railway cars, and were met with the full force of the capitalist state: Attorney General Richard Olney, a former railroad lawyer, got a court injunction to prohibit blocking trains. President (Grover) Cleveland called out the army, which used bayonets and rifle fire on a crowd of 5,000 strike sympathizers in Chicago. Seven hundred were arrested. Thirteen were shot to death." ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://peoplesworld.org/eugene-debs-dreaming-of-a-red-christmas/

[xchrom]

1. ...

[octoberlib]

2. K&R

[hfojvt]

3. met by a crowd of 50,000 people in Terre Haute

Terre Haute is only 60,000 people today.

If true, people must have come from miles around.

What labor leader today can draw that kind of a crowd?

[Brigid]

4. Now here is true patriot.

You can still visit his unpretentious home in Terre Haute near the ISU campus.