Yours fraternally,
EUGENE V. DEBS.
While Mr. Debs was in Woodstock Jail he wrote a series of remarkable
letters which were published in the daily press and these letters seem
now, in the light of industrial development, to have been filled with
prophetic vision. The following are a few quotations from some of his
letters:
“It is time that Organized Labor should learn the power and the
imperative necessity of a united ballot and in this is meant the ballot
of all who work for their daily bread, without regard to color or sex.
It is also high time that allegiance to parties who make laws for the
protection of capitalists and the subjugation of labor should be
abandoned and that men should be found to enact and administer laws for
the equal protection of labor which creates the capital and carries
forward all the industries of the world. In this unification of labor
forces for the amelioration of conditions by constitutional and lawful
methods, as are contemplated in political action, there is no need of
interfering with Trades Unions or any of the numerous social and
industrial organizations or encroaching in the slightest degree upon
their province or functions. On the contrary, labor organizations would
be indefinitely strengthened by such a policy. The proposition is so
self-evident as to require no argument for its elucidation. Until that
time comes, capitalism will be in power and have absolute control.
Capitalism will make the laws and administer them, control the army,
bribe the press, silence the pulpit and workingmen will pay the penalty
of their ignorance and stupidity in abject slavery.”
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