Walter Hurt in Appeal to Reason, November 23, 1907
Walter Hurt in Appeal to Reason, November 23, 1907
Walter Hurt in Appeal to Reason, November 23, 1907
Capitalism made its first great mistake when it put Eugene V. Debs in jail. It made its second great mistake when it put William D. Haywood in jail. And it adds to its mistakes every time it wrongfully imprisons any member of the working class.
Woodstock was plutocracy’s Waterloo and Boise was its Bull Run.
Debs entered jail a labor agitator and emerged therefrom a Social Revolutionist.
Haywood went to prison defeated and left it victorious.
In each case it was a transformation and a triumph.
It should be understood that the word “defeat” is here used merely as a term of convenience. No man is truly defeated unless he is conquered, and Debs and Haywood are unconquerable.
Moreover, whatever its reverses, there can be no defeat fora righteous cause, for in the eternal equipoise of social conservation—
“Ever will right come uppermostAnd ever will justice be done.”
“Ever will right come uppermostAnd ever will justice be done.”
“Ever will right come uppermostAnd ever will justice be done.”
“Ever will right come uppermost
And ever will justice be done.”
And these celebrated cases are not exceptional, for history proves that, despite the purpose for which they were designed, prisons have always been the instruments of progress—unfailing agencies of human advancement.
The path of progress extends undeviating from Woodstock to Boise. The experience of a Debs was necessary to the evolvement of a Haywood.
In their effort to destroy Debs the money-masters overreached themselves. They crushed the American Railway Union—crushed it into the cohesion of the Social Democracy.
It is interesting to observe this operation—to watch the metamorphosis of Debs and trace the evolution of the industrial movement from the date of his imprisonment; in this process we find the philosophy of progress, the development of the social purpose.
Both Debs and his persecutors were involuntary instruments of sovereign economic forces; the latter an unconscious agency, responding blindly to conservatory impulsion, the former obedient to an intelligent enthusiasm logically directed toward a definite and an attainable object.
Under the pressure of prison walls Debs’ dynamic being developed until its expanding forces found expression in the Socialist idea, of which his own potent personality was the informing influence.
From the corporate wreck of the A. R. U. the Social Democracy was organized. Debs reformed this disintegration, he was the atom of attraction; his irresistible individuality was the core to which the others cohered—the compelling factor that drew to an integrative coalescence the shattered, scattered remnants of a vast industrial organism as surely as a magnet draws the metal.
The Pullman strike was not lost. It was won decisively and completely. A movement for industrial liberation as magnificent in its scope as any campaign of the immortal Corsican, had succeeded. For the first time in history Plutocracy wasparalyzed in the clutch of Toil, directed by a man of intelligence and integrity.
But victory was plucked from the grasp of the strikers by the strong hand of federal power. They were robbed of the sweet fruits of their bitter struggle by the wealth-won favor of presidential authority.
This result puzzled Debs. He couldn’t understand how such a tremendous triumph could be turned into defeat.
He had to go to jail to find the solution of the problem.
In jail he studied Socialism. And straightway a great illumination burst upon his intelligence.
He turned from craft-consciousness to class-consciousness.
It was revealed to him that the entire theory of industrial organization as it existed was fundamentally false. He realized that any social benefit to be large and lasting must be also universal.
Moreover, he came to know the reason for the failure of the Pullman strike after it had been fairly and fully won; and he understood then that revolution was the only remedy for economic ills and that the only hope for government protection of proletarian interests lay in the capture of governmental power.
From the narrow confines of his cell and the not less narrow confines of craft interest he simultaneously stepped into physical freedom and into the world-wide sweep of the Social Revolution.
Debs had been so dangerous that the masters deemed it advisable to send him to jail. He left that prison a thousand times more dangerous than when he entered it.
For Debsisdangerous. This is the one truth plutocracy tells about him. He’s as dangerous as dynamite—to capitalistic interests.
Capitalism thought it had destroyed Debs. It merely had made him.
His cell was a chrysalis, from which his soul came forth with unfurled wings.
Defeat cannot come to such a man as Debs. His triumphal return to Chicago after his release from Woodstock jail is neither paralleled nor approximated in all history except byNapoleon’s victorious march upon Paris after his escape from Elba.
The kindest thing ever done to Debs was the act of his enemies. The greatest blessing mankind has received was bestowed by those who sought to enslave it.
When it sentenced Debs to jail, Capitalism signed its own death warrant.
Debs’ career from November 22, 1895, to July 28, 1907, spanning the years from Woodstock to Boise, forms the seven-hued bow of proletarian promise.