Labor and Freedom: The Voice and Pen of Eugene V. DebsDebs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor)
History
Labor and Freedom: The Voice and Pen of Eugene V. Debs
Debs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor)
Labor -- United States; Socialism -- United States; Socialist Party (U.S.); Working class -- United States
Comrades, you are face to face with the greatest struggle you have ever
had since the Socialist party was organized. You are now to be tested in
every fiber as to your fitness to hold the ground you have gained and to
press on to greater victories. May you be permeated to the core with the
spirit of the Socialist movement and enter the fray resolved that
victory shall be inscribed upon your banners.
_Ettor and Giovannitti._
I must not fail in the presence of all these workers to speak of Joseph
Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, the leaders of the Lawrence strike, who
are in prison and soon to be tried upon the charge of murder, of which
they are as innocent as if they had never been born.
This infamous charge has been trumped up against them by the defeated
mill owners for no other reason than that they stood up bravely and
fought successfully against great odds, the battles of the wage-slaves
of the mills. Unless the workers unite in support of these two leaders
they may be sent to the electric chair. Should we suffer these brave
comrades to fall victims to such a monstrous crime, it would be a foul
and indelible blot upon the whole labor movement. Let us arouse the
workers of the nation in their behalf and prove to them when their trial
takes place that we are as true to them as they were to the wage-slaves
in the industrial battle at Lawrence.
_Comrades, this is our year!_ Let us rise to our full stature, summon
our united powers, and strike a blow for freedom that will be felt
around the world!
CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM.
Campaign Speech, Lyceum Theatre, Fergus Falls, Minn., August 27, 1912.
Friends and Fellow-Workers: The spirit of our time is revolutionary and
growing, more so every day. A new social order is struggling into
existence. The old economic foundation of society is breaking up and the
social fabric is beginning to totter. The capitalist system is doomed.
The signs of change confront us upon every hand.
Social changes are preceded by agitation and unrest among the masses. We
are today in the transition period between decaying capitalism and
growing Socialism. The old system is being shaken to its foundations by
the forces underlying it and its passing is but a question of time. The
new system that is to succeed the old is developing within the old and
its outline is clearly revealed in its spirit of mutualism and its
co-operative manifestations.
For countless ages the world has been a vast battlefield and the
struggle for existence a perpetual conflict. Primitive peoples were
compelled to fight nature to extort from her the means of livelihood.
Since the forces of nature have been conquered and nations have become
civilized the struggle of men is no longer to overcome nature but with
one another for existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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