Reply to John Mitchell

It is of vital importance to the trades-union that its members be class-conscious, that they understand the class struggle and their duty as union men on the political field, so that in every move that is made they will have the goal in view, and while taking advantage of every opportunity to secure concessions and enlarge their economic advantage, they will at the same time unite at the ballot box, not only to back up the economic struggle of the trades-union, but to finally wrest the government from capitalist control and establish the working class republic.

SOCIALISM.

There are those who sneeringly class Socialism among the “ism” that appear and disappear as passing fads, and pretend to dismiss it with an impatient wave of the hand. There is just enough in this great world movement to them to excite their ridicule and provoke their contempt. At least they would have us think so and if we take them at their word their ignorance does not rise to the level of our contempt, but entitles them to our pity.

To the workingman in particular it is important to know what Socialism is and what it means.

Let us endeavor to make it so clear to him that he will readily grasp it and the moment he does he becomes a Socialist.

It is our conviction that no workingman can clearly understand what Socialism means without becoming and remaining a Socialist. It is simply impossible for him to be anything else and the only reason that all workingmen are not Socialists is that they do not know what it means.

They have heard of Socialism—and they have heard of anarchy and of other things all mixed together—and without going to any trouble about it they conclude that it is all the same thing and a good thing to let alone.

Why? Because the capitalist editor has said so; the politician has sworn to it and the preacher has said amen to it, and surely that ought to settle it.

But it doesn’t. It settles but one thing and that is that the capitalist is opposed to Socialism and that the editor and politician and preacher are but the voices of the capitalist. There are some exceptions, but not enough to affect the rule.

Socialism is first of all a political movement of the working class, clearly defined and uncompromising, which aims at the overthrow of the prevailing capitalist system by securing control of the national government and by the exercise of the public powers, supplanting the existing capitalist class government with Socialist administration—that is to say, changing a republic in name into a republic in fact.

Socialism also means a coming phase of civilization, next in order to the present one, in which the collective people willown and operate the sources and means of wealth production, in which all will have equal right to work and all will cooperate together in producing wealth and all will enjoy all the fruit of their collective labor.

In the present system of society, called the capitalist system, since it is controlled by and supported in the interest of the capitalist class, we have two general classes of people; first, capitalists, and second, workers. The capitalists are few, the workers are many; the capitalists are called capitalists because they own the productive capital of the country, the lands, mines, quarries, oil and gas wells, mills, factories, shops, stores, warehouses, refineries, tanneries, elevators, docks, wharves, railroads, street cars, steamships, smelters, blast furnaces, brick and stone yards, stock pens, packing houses, telegraph wires and poles, pipe lines, and all other sources, means and tools of production, distribution and exchange. The capitalist class who own and control these things also own and control, of course, the millions of jobs that are attached to and inseparable from them.

It goes without saying that the owner of the job is the master of the fellow who depends upon the job.

Now why does the workingman depend upon the capitalist for a job? Simply because the capitalist owns the tools with which work is done, and without these the workingman is almost as helpless as if he had no arms.

Before the tool became a machine, the worker who used it also owned it; if one was lost or destroyed he got another. The tool was small; it was for individual use and what the workingman produced with it was his own. He did not have to beg some one else to allow him to use his tools—he had his own.

But a century has passed since then, and in the order of progress that simple tool has become a mammoth machine.

The old hand tool was used by a single worker—and owned by him who used it.

The machine requires a thousand or ten thousand workers to operate it, but they do not own it, and what they produce with it does not go to them, but to the capitalist who does own it.

The workers who use the machine are the slaves of the capitalist who owns it.

They can only work by his permission.

The capitalist is a capitalist solely for profit—without profit he would not be in business an instant. That is his first and only consideration.

In the capitalist system profit is prior to and more important than the life or liberty of the workingman.

The capitalist’s profit first, last and always. He owns the tools and only allows the worker to use them on condition that he can extract a satisfactory profit from his labor. If he cannot do this the tools are not allowed to be used—he locks them up and waits.

The capitalist does no work himself; that is, no useful or necessary work. He spends his time watching other parasites in the capitalist game of “dog eat dog,” or in idleness or dissipation. The workers who use his tools give him all the wealth they produce and he allows them a sufficient wage to keep them in working order.

The wage is to the worker what oil is to the machine.

The machine cannot run without lubricant and the worker cannot work and reproduce himself without being fed, clothed and housed; this is his lubricant and the amount he requires to keep him in running order regulates his wage.

Karl Marx, in his “Wage, Labor and Capital,” makes these points clear in his own terse and masterly style. We quote as follows:

“The free laborer sells himself, and that by fractions. From day to day he sells by auction, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his life to the highest bidder—to the owner of the raw material, the instruments of work and the means of life; that is, to the employer. The laborer himself belongs neither to an owner nor to the soil; but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to the man who buys them. The laborer leaves the employer to whom he has hired himself whenever he pleases; and the employer discharges him whenever he thinks fit; either as soon as he ceases to make a profit out of him or fails to get as high a profit as he requires. But the laborer whose only source of earning is thesale of his labor power cannot leavethe whole class of its purchasers, that is the capitalist class, without renouncing his own existence. He does not belong to this or that particular employer, but he does belong to thecapitalist class; and more than that: it is his business to find an employer; that is, among this capitalist class it is his business to discoverhis own particular purchaser.”

Coming to the matter of wages and how they are determined, Marx continues:

“Wages are the price of a certain commodity, labor-power. Wages are thus determined by the same law which regulates the price of any other commodity.

“Thereupon the question arises, how is the price of a commodity determined?

“By means of competition between buyers and sellers and the relations between supply and demand—offer and desire.

“* * * Now the same general laws which universally regulate the price of commodities, regulate, of course,wages, the price of labor.

“Wages will rise and fall in accordance with the proportion between demand and supply; that is, in accordance with the conditions of the competition between capitalists as buyers and laborers as sellers of labor. The fluctuations of wages correspond in general with the fluctuation in the price of commodities.Within these fluctuations the price of labor is regulated by its cost of production; that is, by the duration of labor which is required in order to produce this commodity, labor power.

“Now what is the cost of production of labor power?

“It is the cost required for the production of a laborer and for his maintenance as a laborer.

“* * * The price of his labor is therefore determined by the price of the bare necessaries of his existence.”

This is the capitalist system in its effect upon the working class. They have no tools, but must work to live. They throng the labor market, especially when times are hard and work is scarce, and eagerly, anxiously look for some one willing to use their labor power and bid them in at the market price.

To speak of liberty in such a system is a mockery; to surrender is a crime.

The workers of the nation and the world must be aroused.

In the capitalist system “night has drawn her sable curtain down and pinned it with a star,” and the great majority grope in darkness. The pin must be removed from the curtain, even though it be a star.

But the darkness, after all, is but imaginary. The sun is marching to meridian glory and the world is flooded with light.

Charlotte Perkins Stetson, the inspired evangel of the coming civilization, says:

“We close our eyes and call it night,And grope and fall in seas of light,Would we but understand!”

“We close our eyes and call it night,

And grope and fall in seas of light,

Would we but understand!”

Not for a moment do we despair of the future. The greatest educational propaganda ever known is spreading over the earth.

The working class will both see and understand. They have the inherent power of self-development. They are but just beginning to come into consciousness of their power, and with the first glimmerings of this consciousness the capitalist system is doomed. It may hold on for a time, for even a long time, but its doom is sealed.

Even now the coming consciousness of this world-wide working class power is shaking the foundations of all governments and all civilizations.

The capitalist system has had its day and, like other systems that have gone before, it must pass away when it has fulfilled its mission and made room for another system more in harmony with the forces of progress and with the onward march of civilization.

The centralization of capital, the concentration of industry and the co-operation of workingmen mark the beginning of the end. Competition is no longer “the life of trade.” Only they are clamoring for “competition” who have been worsted in the struggle and would like to have another deal.

The small class who won out in the game of competition and own the trusts want no more of it. They know what itis, and have had enough. Mr. John D. Rockefeller needs no competition to give life to his trade, and his pious son does not expatiate upon the beauties of competition in his class at Sunday school.

No successful capitalist wants competition—for himself—he only wants it for the working class, so that he can buy his labor power at the lowest competitive price in the labor market.

The simple truth is, that competition in industrial life belongs to the past, and is practically outgrown. The time is approaching when it will be no longer possible.

The improvement and enlargement of machinery, and the ever-increasing scale of production compel the concentration of capital and this makes inevitable the concentration and co-operation of the workers.

The capitalists—the successful ones, of course,—co-operate on the one side; the workers—who are lucky enough to get the jobs—on the other side.

One side gets the profit, grow rich, live in palaces, ride in yachts, gamble at Monte Carlo, drink champagne, choose judges, buy editors, hire preachers, corrupt politics, build universities, endow libraries, patronize churches, get the gout, preach morals and bequeath the earth to their lineal descendants.

The other side do the work, early and late, in heat and cold; they sweat and groan and bleed and die—the steel billets they make are their corpses. They build the mills and all the machinery; they man the plant and the thing of stone and steel begins to throb. They live far away in the outskirts, in cottages, just this side of the hovels, where gaunt famine walks with despair and “Les Miserables” leer and mock at civilization. When the mills shut down, they are out of work and out of food and out of home; and when old age begins to steal away their vigor and the step is no longer agile, nor the sinew strong, nor the hand cunning; when the frame begins to bend and quiver and the eye to grow dim, and they are no longer fit as labor power to make profit for their masters, they are pushed aside into the human drift that empties into the gulf of despair and death.

The system, once adapted to human needs, has outlived its usefulness and is now an unmitigated curse. It stands in the way of progress and checks the advance of civilization.

If by its fruit we know the tree, so by the same token do we know our social system. Its corrupt fruit betrays its foul and unclean nature and condemns it to death.

The swarms of vagrants, tramps, outcasts, paupers, thieves, gamblers, pickpockets, suicides, confidence men, fallen women, consumptives, idiots, dwarfed children; the disease, poverty, insanity and crime rampant in every land under the sway of capitalism rise up and cry out against it, and hush to silence all the pleas of itsmercenariesand strike the knell of its doom.

The ancient and middle-age civilizations had their rise, they ruled and fell, and that of our own day must follow them.

Evolution is the order of nature, and society, like the units that compose it, is subject to its inexorable law.

The day of individual effort, of small tools, free competition, hand labor, long hours and meagre results is gone never to return. The civilization reared upon this old foundation is crumbling.

The economic basis of society is being transformed.

The working class are being knit together in the bonds of co-operation, they are becoming conscious of their interests as a class, and marshalling the workers for the class struggle and collective ownership.

With the triumph of the workers the mode of production and distribution will be completely revolutionized.

Private ownership and production for profit will be supplanted by social ownership and production for use.

The economic interests of the workers will be mutual. They will work together in harmony instead of being arrayed against each other in competitive warfare.

The collective workers will own the machinery of production, and there will be work for all and all will receive their socially due share of the product of their co-operative labor.

It is for this great work that the workers and their sympathizers must organize and educate and agitate.

The Socialist movement is of the working class itself; it is from the injustice perpetrated upon, and the misery sufferedby this class that the movement sprang, and it is to this class it makes its appeal. It is the voice of awakened labor arousing itself to action.

As we look abroad and see things as they are, the capitalists intrenched and fortified and the workers impoverished, ignorant and in bondage, we are apt to be overawed by the magnitude of the task that lies before the Socialist movement, but as we become grounded in the Socialist philosophy, as we understand the process of economic determinism and grasp the principles of industrial and social evolution the magnitude of the undertaking, far from daunting the Socialist spirit, appeals to each comrade to enlist in the struggle because of the very greatness of the conflict and the immeasurable good that lies beyond it, and as he girds himself and touches elbows with his comrades his own latent resources are developed and his blood thrills with new life as he feels himself rising to the majesty of a man.

Now he has found his true place, and though he be reviled against and ostracized, traduced and denounced, though he be reduced to rags, and tormented with hunger pangs, he will bear it all and more, for he is battling for a principle, he has been consecrated to a cause and he cannot turn back.

To reach the workers that are still in darkness and to open their eyes, that is the task, and to this we must give ourselves with all the strength we have, with patience that never fails and an abiding faith in the ultimate victory.

The moment a worker sees himself in his true light he severs his relations with the capitalist parties, for he realizes at once that he no more belongs there than Rockefeller belongs in the Socialist party.

What is the actual status of the workingman in the capitalist society of today?

Is he in any true sense a citizen?

Has he any basis for the claim that he is a free man?

First of all, he cannot work unless some capitalist finds it to his interest to employ him.

Why not? Because he has no tools and man cannot work without them.

Why has he no tools? Because tools in these days are, as a rule, great machines and very costly, and in the capitalist system are the private property of the capitalists.

This being true, the workingman, before he can do a tap of work, before he can earn a dime to feed himself, his wife or his child, must first consult the tool-owning capitalist; or, rather, his labor-buying superintendent. Very meekly, therefore, and not without fear in his heart and trembling in his knees, he enters the office and offers his labor power in exchange for a wage that represents but a part, usually a small part, of what his labor produces.

His offer may be accepted or rejected.

Not infrequently the “boss” has been annoyed by so many job-hunters that he has become irritable, and gruffly turns the applicant away.

But admitting that he finds employment, during working hours he is virtually the property of his master.

The bell or the whistle claims him on the stroke of the hour. He is subject to the master’s shop regulations and these, of course, are established solely to conserve his master’s interests. He works, first of all, for his master, who extracts the surplus value from his labor, but for which he would not be allowed to work at all. He has little or no voice in determining any of the conditions of his employment.

Suddenly, without warning, the shop closes down, or he is discharged and his wage, small at best, is cut off. He has to live, the rent must be paid, the wife and children must have clothing and food, fuel must be provided, and yet he has no job, no wages and no prospect of getting any.

Is a worker in that position free?

Is he a citizen?

A man?

No! He is simply a wage-slave, a job-holder, while it lasts, here today and gone tomorrow.

For the great body of wage-workers there is no escape; they cannot rise above the level of their class. The few who do are the exceptions that prove the rule.

And yet there are those who have the effrontery to warn these wage-slaves that if they turn to Socialism they will lose all incentive to work, and their individuality will fade away.

Incentive and individuality forsooth! Where are they now?

Translated into plain terms, this warning means that a slave who is robbed of all he produces, except enough to keep him in producing condition, as in the present system, has great incentive to work and is highly individualized, but if he breaks his fetters and frees himself and becomes his own master and gets all his labor produces, as he will in Socialism, then all incentive to work vanishes, and his individuality, so used to chains and dungeons, unable to stand the air of freedom, withers away and is lost forever.

The capitalists and their emissaries who resort to such crude attempts at deception and imposture betray the low estimate they place on the intelligence of their wage-workers and also show that they fully understand to what depths of ignorance and credulity these slaves have sunk in the wage-system.

In the light of existing conditions there can be no reform that will be of any great or permanent benefit to the working class.

The present system of private ownership must be abolished and the workers themselves made the owners of the tools with which they work, and to accomplish this they must organize their class for political action and this work is already well under way in the Socialist party, which is composed of the working class and stands for the working class on a revolutionary platform, which declares in favor of the collective ownership of the means of production and the democratic management of industry in the interest of the whole people.

What intelligent workingman can hold out against the irresistible claim the Socialist movement has upon him? What reason has he to give? What excuse can he offer?

None! Not one!

The only worker who has an excuse to keep out of the socialist movement is the unfortunate fellow who is ignorant and does not know better. He does not know what Socialism is. That is his misfortune. But that is not all, nor the worst of all. He thinks he knows what it is.

In his ignorance he has taken the word of another for it,whose interest it is to keep him in darkness. So he continues to march with the Republican party or shout with the Democratic party, and he no more knows why he is a Republican or Democrat than he knows why he is not a Socialist.

It is impossible for a workingman to contemplate the situation and the outlook and have any intelligent conception of the trend and meaning of things without becoming a Socialist.

Consider for a moment the beastly debasement to which womanhood is subjected in capitalist society. She is simply the property of man to be governed by him as may suit his convenience. She does not vote, she has no voice and must bear silent witness to her legally ordained inferiority.

She has to compete with man in the factories and workshops and stores, and her inferiority is taken advantage of to make her work at still lower wages than the male slave gets who works at her side.

As an economic dependent, she is compelled to sacrifice the innate refinement, the inherent purity and nobility of her sex, and for a pallet of straw she marries the man she does not love.

The debauching effect of the capitalist system upon womanhood is accurately registered in the divorce court and the house of shame.

In Socialism, woman would stand forth the equal of man—all the avenues would be open to her and she would naturally find her fitting place and rise from the low plane of menial servility to the dignity of ideal womanhood.

Breathing the air of economic freedom, amply able to provide for herself in Socialist society, we may be certain that the cruel injustice that is now perpetrated upon her sex and the degradation that results from it will disappear forever.

Consider again the barren prospect of the average boy who faces the world today. If he is the son of a workingman his father is able to do but little in the way of giving him a start.

He does not get to college, nor even to the high school, but has to be satisfied with what he can get in the lower grades, for as soon as he has physical growth enough to work he must find something to do, so that he may help support the family.

His father has no influence and can get no preferred employmentfor him at the expense of some other boy, so he thankfully accepts any kind of service that he may be allowed to perform.

How hard it is to find a place for that boy of yours!

What shall we do with Johnnie? and Nellie? is the question of the anxious mother long before they are ripe for the labor market.

“The child is weak, you know,” continues the nervous, loving little mother, “and can’t do hard work; and I feel dreadfully worried about him.”

What a picture! Yet so common that the multitude do not see it. This mother, numbered by thousands many times over, instinctively understands the capitalist system, feels its cruelty and dreads its approaching horrors which cast their shadows upon her tender, loving heart.

Nothing can be sadder than to see a mother take the boy she bore by the hand and start to town with him to peddle him off as merchandise to some one who has use for a child-slave.

To know just how that feels one must have had precisely that experience.

The mother looks down so fondly and caressingly upon her boy; and he looks up into her eyes so timidly and appealingly as she explains his good points to the business man or factory boss, who in turn inspects the lad and interrogates him to verify his mother’s claims, and finally informs them that they may call again the following week, but that he does not think he can use the boy.

Well, what finally becomes of the boy? He is now grown, his mother’s worry is long since ended, as the grass grows green where she sleeps—and he, the boy? Why, he’s a factory hand—ahand, mind you, and he gets a dollar and a quarter a day when the factory is running.

That is all he will ever get.

He is an industrial life prisoner—no pardoning power for him in the capitalist system.

No sweet home, no beautiful wife, no happy children, no books, no flowers, no pictures, no comrades, no love, no joy for him.

Just a hand! A human factory hand!

Think of a hand with a soul in it!

In the capitalist system the soul has no business. It cannot produce profit by any process of capitalist calculation.

The working hand is what is needed for the capitalist’s tool and so the human must be reduced to a hand.

No head, no heart, no soul—simply a hand.

A thousand hands to one brain—the hands of workingmen, the brain of a capitalist.

A thousand dumb animals, in human form—a thousand slaves in the fetters of ignorance, their heads having run to hands—all these owned and worked and fleeced by one stock-dealing, profit-mongering capitalist.

This is capitalism!

And this system is supported alternately by the Republican party and the Democratic party.

These two capitalist parties relieve each other in support of the capitalist system, while the capitalist system relieves the working class of what they produce.

A thousand hands to one head is the abnormal development of the capitalist system.

A thousand workingmen turned into hands to develop and gorge and decorate one capitalist paunch!

This brutal order of things must be overthrown. The human race was not born to degeneracy.

A thousand heads have grown for every thousand pairs of hands; a thousand hearts throb in testimony of the unity of heads and hands; and a thousand souls, though crushed and mangled, burn in protest and are pledged to redeem a thousand men.

Heads and hands, hearts and souls, are the heritage of all.

Full opportunity for full development is the unalienable right of all.

He who denies it is a tyrant; he who does not demand it is a coward; he who is indifferent to it is a slave; he who does not desire it is dead.

The earth for all the people! That is the demand.

The machinery of production and distribution for all the people! That is the demand.

The collective ownership and control of industry and its democratic management in the interest of all the people! That is the demand.

The elimination of rent, interest and profit and the production of wealth to satisfy the wants of all the people! That is the demand.

Co-operative industry in which all shall work together in harmony as the basis of a new social order, a higher civilization, a real republic! That is the demand.

The end of class struggles and class rule, of master and slave, of ignorance and vice, of poverty and shame, of cruelty and crime—the birth of freedom, the dawn of brotherhood, the beginning of MAN! That is the demand.

This is Socialism!

Reply to John Mitchell

The fifteenth annual convention of the United Mine Workers of America met at Indianapolis, Ind., January 18 and continued in session to and including January 27, 1904.

The regular convention was followed by a special session (from March 5 to March 7 inclusive), made necessary by the failure of the regular convention to effect a satisfactory renewal of the interstate agreement with the operators, which expired March 31, 1904.

For a time a strike seemed imminent, there being intense opposition to the wage-reduction which the operators declared to be their ultimatum.

The convention rejected the ultimatum of the operators, but the matter was finally referred to the local unions, and the latter, yielding to the importunities of the national officers, voted to accept the terms of the operators, and the threatened strike was averted.

A few days later Eugene V. Debs wrote the following letter in reference to the matter which appeared in theSocial Democratic Heraldof Milwaukee, Wis., in its issue of April 9, 1904:

MR. DEBS.Terre Haute, Ind., March 31, 1904.

MR. DEBS.

Terre Haute, Ind., March 31, 1904.

To the S. D. Herald:

Now that the threatened coal strike has ended in a tame surrender, and a two years’ scale at a reduction of wages has been virtually forced upon the miners by a coalition of their leaders with the operators, a certain small and obscure press dispatch—a mere word to the wise, yet sufficient at the time—takes on immense interest in its prophetic significance.

The delegates to the late Indianapolis convention of miners whom I had occasion to address, will no doubt remember my words, and those who were angered because I told them in plain terms what has since come true almost to the letter, will perhaps be willing to forgive me.

But to the dispatch. Here it is just as it was sent out by the Associated Press from Pittsburg under date of March 6 and just as it appeared in the morning dailies of the same date:

“Pittsburg, Pa., March 6.—The Post tomorrow will say:

“There was by no means a hopeless spirit among the returning coal operators from the Indianapolis convention with the miners which closed Saturday with a disagreement.

“From the best of authority the Post was informed yesterday that the break in the negotiations between the two interests is not a permanent one and that by March 21, another meeting of joint sub-committees will be held quietly. The whole matter will again be discussed among them and a solution to the present difficulty sought. It was further said that there was every reason for believing that the ultimate end of the whole matter would be the acceptance of the lower rate by the miners, or the 85 cents a ton base for pick mining, for the next two years.”

Here we have it that the operators knew in advance that there would be no strike and that the miners would accept the reduction, and this they knew notwithstanding the fact that the convention, by a solid vote of the states, had refused to accept the reduction and virtually declared for a strike.

Let us examine the situation a moment. The joint convention of miners and operators adjourned sine die March 5. No agreement had been reached. All negotiations were ended. A strike, so the papers declared, was inevitable. Only a miracle could prevent it.

The miners and operators returned to their homes. Preparations began for war. It was at this juncture that the above dispatch went out from Pittsburg. It was doubtless intended as a “tip” to the capitalists and stock gamblers of the country, and was issued immediately upon the return of the Pennsylvania operators from the Indianapolis convention.

Pittsburg, be it remembered, is the home of President Robbins of the Pittsburg Coal Co. and floor leader and spokesman of the operators in all joint conventions with the miners. It is quite evident, therefore, that “the best of authority” quotedin the above dispatch was none other than Robbins and it is equally evident that he knew what he was talking about, for his prediction of surrender, made in face of the fact that the national convention had virtually declared for war, was fulfilled to the letter.

The question is, did Robbins, chief of the operators, have an understanding with Mitchell, president of the miners? It must be admitted that it looks that way. Proof may be lacking, but the circumstances combine to make that conclusion almost inevitable.

When the miners first met in convention President Mitchell and the other leaders were quite aggressive. They were going to sweep all opposition before them and get what they wanted, for they had an organization that could and would carry the day.

A set of demands, including increased wages, was at once formulated and the performance began. Mitchell, taking the floor for the miners, proved by the facts and figures that they were asking only what was reasonable, that the financial reports of the coal companies showed large increase in profits over the preceding years, that the operators could well afford to make the concessions and that they, the miners, were “terribly in earnest” and that the United Mine Workers of America would under no possible circumstances “take a backward step.”

As the fight progressed the leaders of the miners made one concession after another until they had finally surrendered everything. But the operators were not satisfied. They had come with love in their hearts and a made-to-order, warranted-to-fit reduction of wages in their grips, just because they were all in the same economic class and their interests were therefore identical, and to prove it they permitted their own leaders to scale down the bulging wages of the opulent coal diggers.

But the delegates, having given up everything, balked at last. Even Mitchell’s “masterful effort” in behalf of the operators fell flat.

The reduction would not go down.

The convention voted to fight and the delegates went home to prepare for hostilities.

Now read the dispatch again in the light of what followed.

As soon as the convention adjourned, the leaders of the miners began to work upon the rank and file, very many of whom are so pitifully ignorant that they look upon a union official as a Chinaman does upon his Joss.

President Mitchell, from being “terribly in earnest” in behalf of the miners, became the special pleader of the operators.

Oh, what a transformation!

Mitchell, the labor leader, and Robbins, the labor exploiter, pooling issues and joining hands to force down the wages of the mine slaves!

Oh, what a spectacle!

With all possible haste the national and state leaders made their rounds among the faithful. The “dangerous” locals and districts were all visited and mass meetings held to save the operators.

The slaves had instinctively rebelled against the wage cut, and the rebellion must be put down by their own leaders if they expected the plaudits of the capitalist exploiters and the “well done” of the pulpit, press and “public.”

Alternate pleas, warnings and threats were turned on until the fires were put out and the day was saved for the operators.

Only a little while ago Gompers warned the capitalists that reduction of wages would not be tolerated and solemnly enjoined his followers to resist them to the last.

Mitchell, Shaffer and other lieutenants of Gompers are the active allies of the capitalists in enforcing reductions.

Watch the developments!

To conclude: The United Mine Workers of America has been struck by lightning.

Eugene V. Debs.

This letter was answered by Mr. John Mitchell and his colleagues in a communication which appeared in the same paper on May 21, 1904, as follows:

MR. MITCHELL AND HIS COLLEAGUES.Indianapolis, Ind., May 7, 1904.

MR. MITCHELL AND HIS COLLEAGUES.

Indianapolis, Ind., May 7, 1904.

Editor Social-Democratic Herald:

In your issue of April 9 you publish an article over the signature of Eugene V. Debs containing a mass of misstatementswith the apparent purpose of making your readers believe that the officials of the United Mine Workers of America, and particularly President Mitchell, have betrayed the trust reposed in them by their constituents by using their official position for the benefit of the employers instead of for the welfare of the employes.

Mr. Debs’ knowledge of mining affairs is limited, by virtue of his lack of time and opportunity for personal investigation, and must of necessity be general and superficial. He has not sufficient knowledge of the mining industry to be a competent critic of our trade politics, and yet, if he had confined himself to a criticism of those policies, they might have passed unchallenged, so far as we are concerned. But when, without investigation of the facts, he takes an Associated Press dispatch, distorts it to suit his own purpose and jumbles it up with a number of other things that never existed except in his own diseased imagination, in order to prove that the officials of the United Mine Workers are dishonest, we believe that justice to ourselves and the organization we represent demands that his statements shall be refuted and his purpose laid bare.

Men of experience in the labor movement usually pass by, unheeded, the insinuations circulated by the paid agents of capital for the purpose of destroying their influence and weakening the power of resistance of their organization, but, when those insinuations are uttered and circulated by a man who for years has leaned upon the sympathies of the wage workers as the crucified martyr of a lost cause, the halo of glory he has painted about himself cannot shield him from the contempt of honest men. What is this wonderful press dispatch around which Mr. Debs’ imagination has built such a magnificent net work? We reproduce it from his own article:

“Pittsburg, Pa., March 6, 1904.

“There was by no means a hopeless spirit among the returning coal operators from the Indianapolis convention which the miners closed Saturday with a disagreement.

“From the best authority the Post was informed yesterday that the break in the negotiations between the two interests is not a permanent one and that by March 21, another meeting of joint sub-committees will be held quietly. The whole matterwill again be discussed among them and a solution to the present difficulty sought. It was further said that there was every reason for believing that the ultimate end of the whole matter would be the acceptance of the lower rate by the miners, or the 85 cents a ton base for pick mining for the next two years.”

“Here,” says Mr. Debs, “we have it that the operators knew in advance that there would be no strike.” That statement is false. The dispatch does not assert that the operators knew there would be no strike and nothing but a warped mind could so construe it. The United Mine Workers’ convention on March 7 passed a resolution submitting the acceptance or rejection of the ultimatum of the operators to a referendum vote of the members affected. The vote was taken on the afternoon of March 15. It was sent by the local tellers in sealed envelopes to national headquarters, and these envelopes were not opened until the national tellers opened them on March 17. It would have been impossible for the Pittsburg correspondent, Frank Robbins, John Mitchell, or even the versatile and prophetic Mr. Debs to have known on March 6 what the result of that vote would be.

That is misstatement No. 1 refuted.

In a subsequent interview in the Terre HauteSunday TribuneMr. Debs dares anyone to put his finger on a single word that is not true or deny a single allegation. There is scarcely a truthful statement in the entire article. Let us be specific. The joint convention of Miners and Operators adjourned sine die March 5. No agreement had been reached, but negotiations were not broken off as asserted by Mr. Debs. When it became apparent that the operators would not move from their final proposition of five and fifty-five one hundredths per cent reduction, and the miners must either accept that proposition or strike, the sub-scale committee, composed of two delegates from each of the four states represented, selected by the representatives from those states, and eight operators selected in a similar manner, publicly withdrew from the conference for a few minutes and held a consultation. As the miners had not yet decided upon their line of policy and might not be able to do so for some time, it was decided that the scale committeeshould re-convene on March 21 at which time the operators would be notified whether the miners had decided to strike or not. Consequently negotiations were continued.

That is misstatement No. 2 refuted.

Mr. Debs says, “The miners and operators returned to their homes. Preparations began for war. It was at this juncture that the above dispatch went out from Pittsburg.”

The dispatch was sent out from Pittsburg March 6. The miners’ convention did not adjourn until March 7 and the delegates could not have been at home preparing for war at the time alleged.

That is misstatement No. 3 refuted.

Again Mr. Debs says, “Pittsburg, be it remembered, is the home of President Robbins of the Pittsburg Coal Co. and the floor leader and spokesman of the operators in all the joint conventions with the miners. It is quite evident, therefore, that ‘the best authority,’ quoted in the above dispatch, was none other than Mr. Robbins.” When the joint convention adjourned on March 5 the miners immediately went into convention to outline their policy. It did not finish its work until the afternoon of March 7. A delegation of operators remained in Indianapolis awaiting the result. Frank Robbins was one of that delegation. He did not leave Indianapolis until the evening of March 7 and could not, therefore, have been the returning coal operator quoted in the dispatch.

That is misstatement No. 4 refuted.

We quote further from Mr. Debs, “The national convention had (on March 5) virtually declared for war,” and further on he says: “The convention voted to fight and the delegates went home to prepare for hostilities.” It had done nothing of the kind. Mr. Debs knows as well as any man that the declaring of a strike does not always mean success to the strikers. His experience in 1894 is conclusive proof of that fact. A repetition of the strike of 1894 would have been as disastrous to the United Mine Workers of America as that strike was to the American Railway Union. Many of the delegates believed that it would be better for the miners to accept the reduction offered than to take the chances of war, especially when the employers had selected the battle ground,but they were bound by instructions and could not violate them. When the officials were approached by these delegates they advised them to obey their instructions. To meet this situation the convention on March 5 selected a committee composed of two members from each district to formulate plans to meet the crisis. The committee reported on March 7 and recommended that the ultimatum of the operators be submitted to the miners affected for their acceptance or rejection, the vote to be taken between the hours of one and six P. M. of March 15, and the mines to be idle that afternoon in order to give every member an opportunity to vote who desired to. The officials supported that proposition and it was agreed to by the convention. It will thus be seen that there was no virtual declaration of war on March 5 and that the convention had not voted to fight.

That is misstatement No. 5 refuted.

These are the alleged truths upon which Mr. Debs builds his flimsy insinuations and attempt to destroy the reputation of honest men. We have refuted them. Every delegate who attended the convention knows our statements are true. There was no secrecy about these actions. If Mr. Debs had wanted to know the truth, a simple investigation would have revealed it to him. It is very evident that he was not seeking for the truth. The innuendoes used by Mr. Debs clearly prove this assertion. Here are some of them:

“The question is, did Robbins, chief of the operators, have an understanding with Mitchell, president of the miners?”

“But the delegates, having given up everything, balked at last. Even Mitchell’s ‘masterful effort’ in behalf of the operators fell flat.”

“As soon as the convention adjourned the leaders of the miners began to work upon the rank and file, many of whom are so pitifully ignorant that they look upon a union official as a Chinaman does upon his Joss.”

“Mitchell, the labor leader, and Robbins, the labor exploiter, pooling issues and joining hands to force down the wages of the mine slaves. Oh, what a transformation!”

There is some more along the same line, but that is the gist of it. Neither Mr. Debs nor any other person ever heard Mr.Mitchell make a “masterful” or any other kind of an effort in behalf of the operators. Every effort he has ever made has been in behalf of the wage workers. The miners have something substantial to show for these efforts in directing their organization. Even after the reduction they have accepted has been taken off they have over seventy per cent higher wages than they had in 1897, from two to four hours per day less labor, improved conditions in the mines, and the privilege of expressing their opinion on all social, political and religious questions without fear of discharge. We doubt very much if Mr. Debs with all his organizing ability, dynamic energy, prophetic vision and brilliant oratory can show results for his labor equivalent to these for the present generation of men. If higher wages, shorter hours, healthier and safer conditions of employment and greater freedom of speech is the result of “pooling issues with Robbins, the labor exploiter,” it would seem to be a very profitable pool for the wage workers. But Debs knows that no such pool exists. He knows, or at least ought to know, that these results have been obtained through a strong organization intelligently directed. If we were disposed to use the same methods as Mr. Debs we could with perfect propriety assert that “Proof may be lacking but the circumstances combine to make the conclusion almost inevitable” that he is being paid by the operators to destroy the United Mine Workers in order that the operators may dominate the miners as they did prior to 1897. We would not be mean enough to even insinuate such a thing. Debs asserts that many of the miners are so “pitifully ignorant that they look upon a union official as a Chinaman does upon his Joss.” He knew that statement was wrong when he made it. There are degrees of intelligence amongst miners as there is amongst all classes of people. Taken as a whole their intelligence will compare favorably with any class of our citizens, rich or poor. They are men that cannot be led about by the whims of anybody. Any proposition presented to them for consideration must appeal to their intelligence before they will support it, and they do not hesitate to take issue with a union official whenever in their judgment the union official is wrong. Some of them undoubtedly love and respect their officials, but notone can be found who looks upon them as a deity or as a Chinaman looks upon his Joss.

The entire expression is an insult to men who are the equals of Mr. Debs physically, morally and intellectually. He speaks about the prophecy made in his speech at Indianapolis during the Mine Workers’ convention. What was that prophecy? He asserted that we had reached the crest of the wave of so-called industrial activity, that the turn of the tide was downward, and no matter how strong our organization might be, we would be compelled to accept reductions in our wages. This prophecy was made while negotiations were pending with the operators and they were still insisting upon a reduction of fifteen per cent. If Mr. Mitchell had made a public utterance of that kind at the time Mr. Debs made it, the miners would have been compelled to accept a fifteen per cent reduction instead of a five and one-half per cent. The public can judge for itself who is the person that betrayed his trust, whether it was Mr. Debs, who announced that the miners must accept a reduction when the operators were clamoring for fifteen per cent off, or Mr. Mitchell, who fought the issue until the last possible penny had been obtained. Mr. Debs apparently assumes that as a friend of the miners it was his duty to inform them of the perfidy of their officials. What a wonderful friendship his must be. The position of Mr. Mitchell and his associates was expressed in the miners’ convention of March 5 and was carried by the afternoon papers of that date. The dispatch which he quotes was published in the morning papers of March 6. On March 7 the mine workers’ convention decided to submit the acceptance or rejection of the proposition to the miners themselves, and instructed the national officials to send a copy of their recommendation to every local union. If Mr. Debs was the friend of the miners that he pretends to be, and if he had any proof of dishonesty on the part of the officials, or of collusion between them and the operators to reduce the wages of the miners, he should have furnished them the evidence of it before the vote was taken. Mr. Debs had no such proof and we know that it did not exist.

When the bituminous miners of Indiana in convention at Terre Haute, knowing the facts, passed a resolution condemningthe action of Mr. Debs, he immediately began to whine. In the interview published in the Terre HauteSunday Tribune, above referred to, he asserts that “Labor may always be relied upon to crucify its friends.” What a woeful wail coming from the lips of a man who started the cry of “crucify them” against Mr. Mitchell and his associates.

Much more might be said in reply to the falsities contained in his article, but enough has been told. Whether he is alone in this attack or is merely carrying out a preconcerted plan to destroy the trade union movement we do not know. He may succeed in injuring us personally, but the trade union movement is based upon eternal principles of evolutionary development and he can no more destroy it or divert it from the fulfillment of its destiny than he can destroy the waters of the Mississippi with a stone or change its channel with a Chinese chopstick.

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