_Written for Appeal to Reason, February 3, 1906_
_FOREWORD_
_At the time this remarkable paper was written and published in the
Appeal to Reason, two years ago, “fool dinner pail” prosperity
flourished like a green bay tree._
_One there was who, wanting an audience for his voice of warning, yet
sounded with his pen a loud alarm. Debs had in the beginning of his
life’s labors allowed the railroad companies to coin his brawn and his
brain in their service, but had since devoted himself, with an
earnestness sublime, to the study of the condition of wage workers in
general and railroad employes in particular. From his hard experience
and many years of study he was in position to know, and he did know.
Whatever else has been said, no detractor has questioned his honesty and
the fine fiber of his magnificent manhood._
_Yet, his warning went unheeded. The so-called “labor press,” as well as
the capitalist papers, decried him as an alarmist and a mischiefmaker._
_How swiftly and how accurately has his forecast been verified! We see
the system he has arraigned trembling and crashing, we hear the hunger
tread of the unemployed, and the tragedy he foretold is in the
“rat-tat-tat” on a million kitchen doors._
_Industry is confounded and labor is confused. By the statement of the
railroad companies themselves a half million railroad workers alone are
out of employment._
_Choked into despair, it is to be hoped that Debs’ mighty appeal to
them, which is here republished, will now be read and assimilated by
railroad men and the way of Socialism learned._