The following review of Eugene V. Debs Speaks appeared in the May 31 issue of The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, under the title "Builder of the beautiful world that is to be." The book, recently reprinted by Pathfinder Press, contains 30 speeches and articles by the socialist and labor leader. They cover everything from the Pullman strike organized by the American Railway Union, founded by Debs in 1893, to the socialist leader's speech to the jury that convicted him of violating the Espionage Act by speaking out against the imperialist slaughter of World War I. Debs Speaks includes an introduction by James P. Cannon, a founding leader of the communist movement in the United States. BY JOHN NICHOLS

Within the lifetimes of our senior citizens, more than 80,000 Wisconsinites cast their presidential ballots for a convict - a man labeled by prosecutors as a "traitor," condemned by senators as an "anarchist," and portrayed by the newspapers of his day as the most dangerous figure in America.

Voters in one Madison ward, the 6th, actually gave more votes to this tribune of radicalism than to the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. And in at least four wards of the city of Milwaukee, he actually won - as he did in sections of Wausau, Manitowoc, Two Rivers and a host of other Wisconsin communities.

The year was 1920, and the candidate was Eugene Victor Debs, who was running his fifth and final campaign as the nominee of the Socialist Party. Debs was a genuine American radical - a pioneering rail union organizer, a founder of the Socialist Party and Industrial Workers of the World and, with Wisconsin's Bob La Follette, a bold foe of American involvement in World War I.

It was that opposition to war that led to Debs' conviction for violation of the nation's Espionage Act, and ultimately his jailing in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary at age 64.

Debs did not commit espionage. His crime was believing that free speech meant something in America. His mistake involved addressing a crowd of thousands in Canton, Ohio, telling them:

"The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. . . . That is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - especially their lives."

Debs' critique of war was not particularly new, yet he delivered it with such flair that he was seen by the war profiteers and their political serfs as a genuine threat to their plans. Indeed, Debs' words were a threat to what he referred to as "the master class."

Like William Jennings Bryan, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and a handful of others in that pre-broadcast era, Debs knew how to turn the mood of a crowd. His words turned millions to the Socialist Party, which in the early years of this century was the nation's most powerful force for social and economic justice. That, is why - 70 years after his death - his speeches, collected in a handsome new edition of "Eugene V. Debs Speaks" are so deserving of attention.

"Debs Speaks" is not a perfect book. The aged introductory essay by James P. Cannon gets lost in an attempt to locate Debs on the sectarian landscape of the 1950s. The publishers of this edition really owed it to readers to offer a new introduction, which could have explained Debs' socialist vision in the context of the post-Cold War world.

Despite that flaw, however, "Debs Speaks" is a treasure. A high school dropout from Terre Haute, Ind., Debs was one of the most brilliant and effective advocates of his or any time.

More preacher than politician, he wove together the elements of people's lives in arguments that made dispossessed textile workers and lumberjacks, assembly line hands and migrant laborers believe they could change the world.

"Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come, he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again," Debs said at a 1910 rally in New York City.

Debs did not limit himself to mere economic advocacy. He was one of the first major politicians in America to speak out forcefully for racial justice, declaring in 1903, "The history of the Negro in the United States is a history of crime without parallel," and saying, "The whole world is under obligation to the Negro, and that the white heel is still upon the black neck is simply proof that the world is not yet civilized."

Debs believed that socialism was the road to civilization. It was his faith, expressed in the Canton speech for which he was jailed:

"The sun of capitalism is setting, the sun of socialism is rising. It is our duty to build the new nation and the free republic.... We, the socialists are the builders of the beautiful world that is to be."

John Nichols is an editorial writer for The Capital Times.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home