Debs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor), 1855-1926; United States. Supreme Court
"William Lloyd Garrison, Garret Smith, Thaddeus Stevens--these leaders
of the abolition movement, who were regarded as monsters of depravity,
were true to the faith and stood their ground. They are all in history.
You are teaching your children to revere their memories, while all of
their detractors are in oblivion.
"Chattel slavery disappeared. We are not yet free. We are engaged in
another mighty agitation today. It is as wide as the world. It is the
rise of the toiling and producing masses who are gradually becoming
conscious of their interest, their power, as a class, who are organizing
industrially and politically, who are slowly but surely developing the
economic and political power that is to set them free. They are still in
the minority, but they have learned how to wait, and to bide their
time.
"It is because I happen to be in this minority that I stand in your
presence today, charged with crime. It is because I believe as the
revolutionary fathers believed in their day, that a change was due in
the interests of the people, that the time had come for a better form of
government, an improved system, a higher social order, a nobler humanity
and a grander civilization. This minority that is so much misunderstood
and so bitterly maligned, is in alliance with the forces of evolution,
and as certain as I stand before you this afternoon, it is but a
question of time until this minority will become the conquering majority
and inaugurate the greatest change in all of the history of the world.
You may hasten the change; you may retard it; you can no more prevent it
than you can prevent the coming of the sunrise on the morrow.
"My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn't like what I had to say in
my speech about internationalism. What is there objectionable to
internationalism? If we had internationalism there would be no war. I
believe in patriotism. I have never uttered a word against the flag. I
love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I object only when that flag is
prostituted to base purposes, to sordid ends, by those who, in the name
of patriotism, would keep the people in subjection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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