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.)
Injunctions by the hundred were issued and served by all the courts
between the Ohio and the Pacific. A half dozen burly ruffians, by order
of the federal authorities—precisely whom could never be learned—backed
up a cart at the union headquarters, forced their way into the offices,
sacked them, taking records, books, private papers and unopened letters,
without warrant of any description, nailing up the headquarters and
hauling the booty to the federal building.
How is this for a specimen of “law and order” the capitalist class and
their brood of hirelings so ceaselessly harp about?
In violation of law and precedent and in defiance of the protest of the
governor of Illinois, the mayor of Chicago and an overwhelming majority
of the people, Grover Cleveland, then President of the United States,
forced the federal troops into the state for the sole purpose of aiding
the corporations to crush the union and defeat the strike, and when
history shall be truthfully written, this crime will make the name of
Cleveland the synonym of infamy forever.
Thousands of falsehoods were coined and circulated by the capitalist
press, shifting the blame of lawlessness and crime from the instigators
to innocent men; the leaders were arrested without charges and jailed
without trial, headquarters were broken up, a special grand jury was
sworn in expressly to indict, a notorious capitalist union-hater being
made foreman, and a hundred other flagrant violations of the law and
outrages upon justice were committed in the name of law to defeat
justice and enthrone corporate rapacity.
The venality of capitalist government never made so bold an exhibition
of itself. It was scandalous beyond expression and shocking to the last
degree. Every department of the federal government was freely placed at
the service of the railroad corporations and Republican and Democratic
officials vied with each other in cheerful and servile obedience to
their masters.
When the government and its capitalist lackeys had completed their
service as corporation scavengers, General Miles, the military satrap,
like a vulture stuffed with carrion, pompously exclaimed at a
plutocratic banquet in honor of his gallant services:
“_I have broken the backbone of this strike._”
Such sublime heroism in such a holy cause, Grover Cleveland, Nelson
Miles, et al., will not be forgotten nor remain unrewarded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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