_John Spargo, June, 1908_
To be chosen standard bearer of the Socialist party in three successive
electoral campaigns is to receive a unique tribute. For the candidates
of the Socialist movement are not chosen by a few bosses, free to reward
their favorite servitors with honors, place and pelf: they are chosen by
the nearest approach to ideal democratic methods yet devised by any
political party.
No man who had unworthily borne the Socialist banner in one campaign, or
who had disappointed the hopes of his comrades, could possibly be
nominated a second time. One act of cowardice or dishonor would be
enough to make the renomination of any man impossible, no matter how
gifted he might be.
Demos is a hard taskmaster. Some have said that Demos is ungrateful and
unappreciative of loyal service. The annals of the Socialist movement
certainly furnish some support to the charge. And yet, though its
appreciation is not shouted from housetops, nor symbolized by golden
crowns and hero-worship, those who have served longest and hardest in
the ranks know that service to the Cause of Liberty is not
unappreciated; that love and faithful comradeship are showered upon the
true and brave soldiers in the great army of Labor.
No man in America has done nobler service for the cause of Socialism
than Eugene V. Debs; no man has given more freely of his strength to
keep the altar fires of the Revolution bright. And no man has been more
richly and warmly loved than Debs has been. The love of his comrades has
been his constant reward and inspiration.
And Debs has given love for love. How much the outpouring of his love
upon the hearts of his comrades has meant to the Socialist movement will
never be measured. To many a wearied fighter in the ranks his words of
cheer, vibrant with love and appreciative sympathy, has been as a
cooling draught from the deep fountains of life. To many a comrade
walking in the dark and silent places his strong handclasp has brought
strength and assurance. To many a soul swept from its moorings he has
given the anchorage of a new faith. He has mingled his tears with the
tears of many of his stricken comrades and borne upon his strong
shoulders the burdens which bore too heavily upon them. Debs draws love
from a million hearts as a well draws from showers and springs; and like
a well he gives it back to all who thirst for love as they cross the
desert of life.
Our love for Eugene V. Debs, the greatest lover of us all, entered into
our choice of him as the bearer of our standard, the scarlet banner of
the sacred cause, the symbol of a world-brotherhood to be. But it was
not our love alone. Into our choice there entered another element than
our love for Debs, namely, our consciousness that he was splendidly
equipped for the task, Nature and Destiny seemed to have joined to dower
Debs with the qualities of mind and soul needed for the task we gave
him.
Inscrutable are the ways of Nature’s working, and we may not understand
the fashioning of a human life in her mysterious workshop. Was it a
father’s independence and pride which infused the son’s being with a
rebel spirit? Was it the mother’s passion for beauty and freedom in life
during the long days and nights when her unborn son stirred within her
which caused the boy so soon to seek the companionship of the flowers
and the stars, to envy the freedom of the birds and to shudder at all
the ugly in life?
To such questions Science can give no answer. We only know that there
was such a child, worshipping beauty and loving freedom; hating ugliness
and pain. And this we know only as we know the man. The man must have
been in the boy.
We know that there can be no living Socialist movement in any country
which is not a product of its own life and experience. The Socialist
movement is born anew out of the womb of capitalistic conditions in
every country. And as with the Socialist movement itself, so must it be
with the apostles of it’s faith. The greatest apostles of the
emancipation must likewise be the products of the life and experience
from which the movement springs. No amount of intellectual training can
take the place of that proletarian psychology which is expressed in the
irresistible passion for liberty of that great red army whose tread
onward shakes the world.
The psychology and passion of the proletariat are incarnated in Eugene
V. Debs. Life, Fate, Destiny—call it what you will!—added to Nature’s
contribution the elements which made him the Genius of the Revolution.
The little comrade of the stars and the flowers grew to be the human
embodiment of the Spirit of the revolt of the Disinherited and
Despoiled, the living Voice of the Doomed and Damned.
But first of all he must suffer. To voice the cry of Labor he must first
endure its agony; to speak the protest of the Doomed he must first
endure the doom. Led by Destiny, he went the weary way of toil and
tragedy, the way along which the dumb millions march in pain to their
Golgotha. Each footfall tore his heartstrings; each fallen human wreck
woke in his soul a yearning to speak their curse to the driving Power he
could not see. Each human cry sank into his heart, each tortured curse
he nourished as his own.
He heard voices and saw visions. Voices called him to a service he could
not understand. As Joan of Arc listened to the unseen voices, so he
listened. But he understood not. They cried out to him, bidding him
voice the wrong. “Speak! Speak for the Dumb who cannot speak! Speak
their protest! Speak their curse!”
He saw visions where other men saw only a black void. For him the
blackness was peopled with tragic human shapes. He saw the Victims of
the Centuries. He saw Labor bound to wheels. He saw Hunger rob the
Cradle. He saw Death dance to the cries of Mocked Motherhood. And far
off, like the Prisoner of Patmos, he saw a New Earth in which all human
beings were comrades of the flowers and the stars, and sharers of the
freedom of the birds.
He obeyed the voices. He spoke in the Assembly of the Law-makers—spoke
for Labor and against Labor’s wrongs. He spoke for the Dumb, for the
Doomed and Damned. He spoke their protest and their curse. He spoke for
Childhood and for Motherhood—spoke for the Makers of Laws. And when he
spoke they answered with the howl of the Beast.
But Labor heard him speak its own Protest; heard him hurl at the Makers
of Laws and the Masters of Bread the curse its heart had fashioned and
its lips failed to speak. Labor knew that Debs voiced its own dumb agony
and cheered him on by glad applause and by its love. But while he spoke
there was sadness in his heart, each speech was answered in his own soul
by a sense of sadness and of shame. Perhaps it was vain to speak to the
Makers of Laws and the Masters of Bread! Perhaps it was better to speak
to the Slaves of Bread! Better to speak to Labor and to teach it speech!
But the new speech brought no heartease. Ever the sense of Failure
shamed him and tore his soul. And yet the voices bade him speak. “Speak
of the visions! Speak of the New Earth! Speak and lead the way!” they
cried. And his tortured soul answered in agony: “I cannot show the way,
for I know it not!”
The Masters of Bread knew nothing of the struggle of his soul; they knew
not that his speech which woke their fears was but his whisper! They
could not know that the things their Fear and their Hate bade them do
would loosen his tongue and give it speech like thunder. In their
ignorance they forged a thunderbolt with which the barriers to the
pathway to the land of the vision would be shattered. They cast Debs
into prison. And in his prison cell Debs was to find Freedom—the Freedom
of his Soul.
When they prisoned Debs they unprisoned his soul. When they drew the
bolts that pent his body in Woodstock jail they made Eugene V. Debs a
free man. In the silences of that prison cell his tongue was loosed and
his eyes saw the vision of the Comrade-world and the way by which it
must be reached. In the prison cell the Angel of Freedom touched his
lips with fire from the altar and set him free to proclaim the
Revolution. In their rage the Masters of Bread thought that they could
silence Debs, but instead they broke the only fetter upon his soul and
upon his speech.
Thus was Debs trained to be our standard bearer. Thus did he become the
Voice of the Revolution whose call to Labor was destined to shake the
hemisphere. He bore the people’s banner as one marked for the mission by
Inexorable Destiny. He bore it proudly, nobly, wherever the fight was
fiercest, and when he shouted the battle cry of Socialism it echoed
through the land from sea to sea, from snow-capped mountain and deepest
valley. And Labor heard the battle cry and answered in speech both clear
and strong. And when he took the banner and went forth a second time,
louder and stronger grew the answering cry, so that the Masters of Bread
trembled in their seats of power and privilege.
And now, once more, speeded by the love of fifty thousand comrades in
the organized movement, and by half a million in the larger army, Debs
goes forth bearing the banner and proclaiming the message of Socialism.
Once more he goes forth to voice the cry of the Disinherited, the curse
of the Doomed and Damned. Once more the Incarnate Spirit of the
Revolution goes forth to point men to the Vision of a world rich with
the glory of comradeship, throbbing with the joy of freedom, radiant
with love—the New Earth, resonant with the mingled songs of free and
happy human beings; resplendent with the beauty of unfettered life.
And a million workingmen will answer with their cheers and pledge their
faith with their votes!