Pathfinder has recently reprinted Eugene V. Debs Speaks, a collection of 30 speeches and articles by the pioneer socialist agitator and tireless fighter for the rights of working men and women. The new printing incorporates, for the first time, an index to the major individuals and themes Debs discusses.

The speech excerpted below was delivered in Canton, Ohio, June 6, 1918, during the final months of World War I. In it, Debs salutes the Russian revolution and calls on class-conscious workers in the United States to follow the example of the Bolshevik-led workers and farmers in Russia and oppose the imperialist war aims of their own government.

Born in 1855 and a railroad worker from the age of 14, Debs played a central role in the labor and socialist movement in the United States in the period prior to the Russian Revolution. He was a founding leader of the American Railway Union, formed in 1893 to unite all railroad workers in a single industrial union. Jailed the following year when the federal government sent troops to crush the union and the strike it was leading against the Pullman company in Illinois, Debs used his prison time to study the ideas of socialism.

He and other cadres of the ARU helped found the organization that became the Socialist Party, a broad formation open to all who considered themselves socialists. Debs, who identified with the proletarian left wing of the party but held back from political battle with its middle-class misleaders, served as the party's presidential candidate five times from 1900 to 1920. He remained a member of the Socialist Party until his death in 1926.

The text of his Canton speech, taken down in shorthand by police spies, became the central evidence at Debs's "treason" trial three months later. Convicted under provisions of the war- time Espionage Act, Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served nearly three years.

James P. Cannon, a founding leader of the communist movement in the United States, hailed Debs's Canton address as "the greatest speech in his life . . . . a courageous and revolutionary defiance of the warmongers and of the Judases in the ranks of labor." Cannon's article "E.V. Debs: The Socialist Movement of His Time - Its Meaning for Today" is included as the introduction to Eugene V. Debs Speaks.

The excerpts below are copyright 1970 by Pathfinder Press, and are reprinted with permission.

BY EUGENE V. DEBS

Comrades, friends and fellow workers . . . . I have just returned from a visit over yonder [pointing 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.1 [Applause.] They have come to realize, as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world. [Applause.]

I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, 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 prudent 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. [Applause.] I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets. [Applause and shouts.] 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. . . .

Here, in this alert and inspiring assemblage [applause] our hearts are with the Bolsheviki in Russia. [Deafening and prolonged applause.] . . . . Those Russian comrades of ours have made greater sacrifices, have suffered more, and have shed more heroic blood than any like number of men and women anywhere on earth; they have laid the foundation of the first real democracy that ever drew the breath of life in this world. [Applause.]

And the very first act of the triumphant Russian revolution was to proclaim a state of peace with all mankind, coupled with a fervent moral appeal, not to kings, not to emperors, rulers or diplomats but to the people of all nations. [Applause.] . . . .

In a humane and fraternal spirit new Russia, emancipated at last from the curse of the centuries, called upon all nations engaged in the frightful war, the Central Powers as well as the Allies, to send representatives to a conference to lay down terms of peace that should be just and lasting. Here was the supreme opportunity to strike the blow to make the world safe for democracy. [Applause.]

Was there any response to that noble appeal that in some day to come will be written in letters of gold in the history of the world? [Applause.] Was there any response whatever to that appeal for universal peace? [From the crowd, "No!"] No, not the slightest attention was paid to it by the Christian nations engaged in the terrible slaughter....

When the Bolsheviki came into power and went through the archives they found and exposed the secret treaties - the treaties that were made between the Czar and the French government, the British government and the Italian government, proposing, after the victory was achieved, to dismember the German Empire and destroy the Central Powers.

These treaties have never been denied nor 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, and that is the conquest and spoliation of the weaker nations that has always been the purpose of war.

Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. [Applause.]

The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell.

The master class has always declared the 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. [Applause.]

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact - and it cannot be repeated too often - that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.

Yours not to reason why;

yours but to do and die.

That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation.

If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace. [Applause.]

Yes, in good time we are going to sweep into power in this nation and throughout the word. We are going to destroy all enslaving and degrading capitalist institutions and re-create them as free and humanizing institutions. The world is daily changing before our eyes. 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 need industrial and social builders. We Socialists are the builders of the beautiful world that is to be. We are all pledged to do our part. We are inviting - aye challenging you this afternoon in the name of your own manhood and womanhood to join us and do your part.

In due time the hour will strike and this great cause triumphant - the greatest in history - will proclaim the emancipation of the working class and the brotherhood of all mankind. [Thunderous and prolonged applause.]

1. Debs had visited Charles Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenknecht, and Charles Baker, three leaders of the Socialist Party in Ohio who had been jailed on charges of obstructing registration for the draft.  
 
 
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