Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches, with a Department of AppreciationsDebs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor)
History
Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches, with a Department of Appreciations
Debs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor)
Socialism -- United States; Socialist Party (U.S.)
No wonder the ex-President is so dear to the iron heart of the railroad
trust and every other trust that uses the government and its officers
and soldiers to further its own sordid ends.
Let us consider for a moment these simple questions:
Who are the more law-abiding, the predatory railroad corporations or the
hard-worked railroad employes?
What railroad corporation in the United States lives up to the law of
the land? Not one.
What body of railroad employes violates it? Not one.
THE BRAZEN DEFIANCE OF LAW BY THE RAILROADS.
The railroad corporations are notorious for their brazen defiance of
every law that is designed to curb their powers or restrain their
rapacity.
The railroad corporations have their lobby at Washington and at every
State capital; they bribe legislators, corrupt courts, debauch politics
and commit countless other legal and moral crimes against the
commonwealth.
The railway employes are a body of honest, useful, self-sacrificing,
peace-loving men, who never have been, and never will be, guilty of the
crimes committed by their corporate masters.
And yet President Cleveland serves the corporate masters and exalts and
glorifies the act while he attempts to absolve the criminals and fasten
the insufferable stigma upon honest men.
Nothing further is required to demonstrate beyond all cavil the
capitalist class character of our present government.
THE STRIKE COMMISSION’S REPORT.
Now for a few facts about the strike. It began May 11, 1894, and was
perfectly peaceable and orderly until the army of “thugs, thieves and
ex-convicts,” as Superintendent of Police Brennan called them in his
official report to the Council of Chicago, were sworn in as deputies by
the United States marshal at the command of Edwin Walker, attorney of
the General Managers’ Association and special counsel to the government.
Let us quote the report of the Strike Commission, consisting of Carroll
D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, who served ex-officio; John D. Kernan,
of New York, and N. E. Worthington, of Illinois, two lawyers, appointed
by President Cleveland.
Let it be noted that the railway employes, that is to say, labor, the
working class, had no representative on this Commission.
From the report they issued we quote as follows:
A. R. U. LEADERS ADVISE AGAINST STRIKE.
“It is undoubtedly true that the officers and directors of the American
Railway Union did not want a strike at Pullman and advised against it. *
* * (P. xxvii.) (Yet the people were told over and over and still
believe that Debs ordered the strike.)
RAILROADS SET THE EXAMPLE.
“It should be noted that until the railroads set the example a general
union of railroad employes was never attempted.” (P. xxxi.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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