In the good old days "when cotton was king", chattel-slavery was a
flourishing institution. Not only the people who profited by the
system, but most others—even those who were the sufferers—thought that
this was really a "law of nature", that it couldn't be otherwise.
Nevertheless, chattel slavery has gone. But while it lasted this was
its essence: Certain human beings were compelled to labor and the
wealth which their labor produced went, not to them, but to certain
other human beings who did not labor at all but lolled in luxury on
the labor of their slaves.
To-day, fellow-sufferers, they tell us that we are free. But are we?
If you will think for a moment you will see that we are not free at
all. We have simply changed one form of slavery for another. Then it
was chattel-slavery, now it is wage-slavery. For that which was the
essence of chattel-slavery is the essence of wage slavery. It is only
a difference in form. The chattel-slave was compelled to work by
physical force; the wage-slave is compelled to work by starvation. The
product of the chattel-slave's labor was taken by his master; the
product of the wage-slave's labor is taken by the employer.
The United States Government has made a study of the wealth producing
power of the wage-slaves, and has shown that the average worker
=produces= $2,451 a year. The government has also made a study of
wages in the U.S. which shows that the average worker gets $437 a
year. This means that the average employer takes away from the average
wage-slave $2,014 a year. In the good old days the master took away
the wealth produced by the slave in the simplest form; today he takes
it away in the form of profits. But in one respect the wage-slave is
worse off than the chattel slave. Under chattel slavery the master
owned the man and the land; he had to feed and clothe the man. Under
wage-slavery the man feeds and clothes himself. Under chattel slavery
it was to the interest of the owner to give the slave work and to keep
him from starving to death. Under wage-slavery, if the man goes out of
work the employer doesn't care; that is no loss to him; and if the man
dies there are millions of others eager to take his place, because, as
I said before, they must either work for him or starve. There is one
very striking parallel between the two cases. To-day there are many
people who say that this system is divinely appointed—is a law of
nature—just as they said the same thing of chattel slavery. Well,
there are millions of workers who say that it is wrong.
Under chattel-slavery black workers were robbed; under wage-slavery
all the workers are robbed. The Socialist Party says that this robbing
shall cease; that no worker black or white shall be exploited for
profit. And it says, further, that there is one sure and certain way
of putting an end to the system and that is by working for the success
of Socialism.
But, before I tell you just how Socialism proposes to do this, let me
say a word about the Civil War which put an end to chattel-slavery.
Now, I know that certain people have taught you to believe that the
Civil War was fought to free the slaves. But it isn't true, at all,
and only very ignorant people hold that opinion nowadays. If you will
read the Emancipation Proclamation carefully you will see that it
wasn't for love of the slave that the slaves were freed. You will see
that this was done, "as a fit and necessary war-measure for
suppressing said rebellion." If you will read Lincoln's letter to
Horrace Greeley (August 22nd 1862) you will find this sentence: "My
paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not
either to save or destroy slavery." Now I will tell you briefly how
"this struggle" came about. I know that my explanation is not the one
which you have been taught. But, no matter; it happens to be true.
This was the way of it: In the South there had grown up one system of
exploiting the laborer. That was chattel-slavery. The money-Kings of
that section whom we will call capitalists, for short, were naturally
fond of their own system. In the North the capitalists had another
system of which they were equally., fond. That was wage-slavery. The
Southern capitalists found that it was necessary to extend their
system; so we had the Mexican War, and they got Texas. Then, as fast
as new territory was opened they would rush to occupy it with their
system and so shut out the Northern system. Of course, the Northern
capitalists would try to get their system into the new territory also;
so we had the long struggle over Kansas and Nebraska. These two
systems were then in open competition and it came to be seen that one
or the her had to give in; that both of them couldn't exist in the
same country; that "a house divided against itself cannot stand"; that
"this nation cannot exist half-slave and half-free." Then people began
to talk of "the impending crisis"; of "the irrepressible conflict."
Then, when Lincoln was elected in 1859, the southern capitalists saw
that their system was doomed. They wished to preserve it; so they
seceded and tried to make of themselves a separate nation in which
their system of robbing the worker should be the only one. But the
Northern capitalists said, "Nix! Our system shall be the only system."
So they went to war "to save the Union"—for their system of robbing
the workers. And that's the gist of the whole story.
"But", you will say, "didn't they go to war on account of John Brown
and Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner?"
Not on your life, they didn't. If you will read the newspapers of that
time you will see that they tried to lynch Garrison in Boston; they
ostracized Wendell Phillips; they sneered at Sumner and damned John
Brown. Why, nice, good, Christian people told them they were
crazy—just as some of them tell Socialists now—and the anti-slavery
orators couldn't get the use of a church in New York either for love
or for money. No, indeed. These men were grand old heroes—but no war
was fought on their account. The older system of chattel-slavery
simply broke down to make way for the present system of wage-slavery,
which pays better. Pays the capitalist, I mean.
Under the old system the capitalist owned the man; today he own the
tools with which the man must work. These tools are the factories, the
mines, and the machines. The system that owns them owns you and me and
all the rest of us, black, white, brown, red, and yellow. We can't
live unless we have access to these tools, and our masters, the
capitalists, see to it that we are separated from what we make by
using these things, except so much as is necessary to keep us alive
that we may be able to make more—for them. This little bit is called
wages. They wouldn't give us even that if they thought that we could
live without it. In the good old days the chattel-slave would be
fastened with a chain if they thought that he might escape. Today no
chain is necessary to bind us to the tools. We are as free as air. Of
course. We are free to starve. And that chain of
the-fear-of-starvation binds us to the tools owned by the capitalist
as firmly as any iron chain ever did. And this system doesn't care
whether the slaves who are bound in this new way are white or black.
To the capitalist system all workers are equal—in so far as they have
a stomach.
Now the one great fact for the Negro in America today is Race
Prejudice. The great labor problem with which all working-people are
faced is made harder for black working-people by the addition of a
race problem. I want to show you how one grows out of the other and
how, at bottom, they are both the same thing. In other words, I want
you to see the economic reason for race-prejudice.
In the first place, do you know that the most rabid, Negro-hating,
southern aristocrat has not the slightest objection to sleeping in the
same house with a Negro—if that Negro sleeps there as his servant? He
doesn't care if his food is prepared by a Negro cook and handled by a
Negro waiter before it gets to him; he will eat it. But if a Negro
comes into the same public restaurant to buy and eat food, then, Oh
my!, he gets all het up about it. But why? What's the difference? I
will tell you. The aristocrat wants the black man to feel that he is
on a lower level. When he is on that level he is "in his place". When
he is "in his place" he is liked. But he must not be allowed to do
anything to make him forget that he is on this lower level; he must be
kept "in his place", which means the place which the aristocrat wants
him to keep. You see, the black man carries the memory of slavery with
him. Everybody knows that the slaves were the exploited working-class
of the South. That put them in a class by themselves, down at the
bottom, downtrodden, despised, "inferior."
Do you begin to see now that Race Prejudice is only another name for
Caste Prejudice? If our people had never been slaves; had never been
exploited workers, and so, at the bottom of the ladder, there would be
no prejudice against them now. In every case where there has been a
downtrodden class of workers at the bottom, that class has been
despised by the class that lived by their labor. Do you doubt it? Then
look at the facts. If you had picked up a daily paper in New York in
1848 you would have found at the end of many an advertisement for
butler, coachman, lady's maid, clerk or book-keeper these words: "No
Irish need apply." There was a race-prejudice against the Irish then,
because most of the manual unskilled laborers were Irish. They were at
the bottom, exploited and despised. But they have changed things
since. Beginning in the seventies when Jewish laborers began to come
here from Russia, Austria and Germany, and lasting even to our own
day, there has been race-prejudice against the Jews. And today when
the Italian has taken the place which the Irish laborer vacated—at the
bottom —he, too, comes in for his share of this prejudice. In every
one of these cases it was the condition of the people—at the bottom as
despised, exploited, wage-slaves—that was responsible for the
race-prejudice. And it is just so in the black man's case, with this
difference: that his color marks what he once was, and even though he
should wear a dress suit every evening and own an automobile or a farm
he can always be picked out and reminded.
Now, under the present system, exploiting the wage-slave is
respectable. I have already shown you that wherever the worker is
exploited he is despised. So you will see that despising the
wage-slave is quite fashionable. You may recall the name of the great
capitalist who said, "the public be damned." He was only a little more
outspoken than the rest of his class. As long as the present system
continues, the workers will be despised; as long as the workers are
despised, the black men will be despised, robbed and murdered, because
they are least able to defend themselves. Now ask yourself whether you
haven't a very special interest in changing the present system.
Of course, you will ask: "But haven't white working people
race-prejudice too?" Sure, they have. Do you know why?
It pays the capitalist to keep the workers divided. So he creates and
keeps alive these prejudices. He gets them to believe that their
interests are different. Then he uses one half of them to club the
other half with. In Russia when the workingmen demand reform the
capitalists sic them on the Jews. In America they sic them on the
Negroes. That makes them forget their own condition: as long as they
can be made to look down upon another class. "But, then", you will
say, the average wage-slave must be a chump." Sure, he is. That's what
the capitalist counts on. And Socialism is working to educate the
workers to see this and to unite them in doing away with the present
system.
Socialism stands for the emancipation of the wage-slaves. Are you a
wage-slave? Do you want to be emancipated? Then join hands with the
Socialists. Hear what they have to say. Read some of their literature.
Get a Socialist leaflet, a pamphlet, or, better still, a book. You
will be convinced of two things: that Socialism is right, and that it
is inevitable. It is right because any order of things in which those
who work have least while those who work them have most, is wrong. It
is inevitable because a system under which the wealth produced by the
labor of human hands amounts to more than two hundred and twenty
billions a year while many millions live on the verge of starvation,
is bound to break down. Therefore, if you wish to join with the other
class—conscious, intelligent wage-earners—in putting an end to such a
system; if you want to better living conditions for black men as well
as for white men; to make this woful world of ours a little better for
your children and your children's children, study Socialism—and think
and work your way out.
Twelve years ago Mark Hanna, the Big Boss of the Republican Party,
made a statement which you would do well to consider. After he had
made McKinley president, he noticed something that you may not have
noticed yourself. He saw that there was no essential difference
between the Republican party and the Democratic party. He knew that
the same big Wall Street companies supplied the campaign funds for
each of them. He knew that the same money power was buying out the men
whom you elected, whether you elected Republicans or Democrats. He saw
that very soon you and I and the rest of us, black as well as white,
would come to see it too. And he opened his mouth and spake these
words: "The next great political battle in this country will be
fought, not between the Republican and the Democratic parties, but
between the Republican party and Socialism." I will tell you later
what that implies. But just now, what I should like you to see is
this: that Senator Hanna realized that Socialism was a serious issue.
He couldn't afford to pooh-pooh it. Neither can any sensible person.
The Socialist party is the third in point of numbers. It is important.
What do you know of this party? Have you ever read its platform? Read
it once, just for the sake of fair play—just to show that you are not
afraid to give it a hearing—and you will realize why Mark Hanna paid
it such a tribute of respect. Don't be a baby any longer and listen to
the stale lies which other people tell you about Socialism. Read the
Socialist platform and you will understand why some politicians have
to tell lies about it just the same as they have to tell lies about
you. They lie about it because they don't want you to know what it
really is, just as they lie about you because they don't want people
to know what you really are. Every year they feed you with the same
soft mush around election time to help them to ride into power on your
votes; then after election they give you Brownsville and lynching
bees. Do you wonder that General Clarkson, a grandson of the great
abolitionist, when he gave up his job as collector of the Port of New
York, said that he was sick of the way in which the Republican party
was selling you out? The Republican party is always engaged in selling
you out—or in selling out the working people of this country. Do you
doubt it? Then ask yourselves why is it that a Republican Congress has
never said a word or done anything about the disfranchisement of
nearly three million Negro voters in the South? Read the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution and you will see
that the Republican party has always had the power to stop it. But
just now I want to get you interested in the one party that strikes at
the very root of your trouble and that of every workingman in the
country—white and black alike. I want you to see what is the attitude
of the Socialist Party toward the American Negro. And for that reason
I am introducing to you the following declarations of the attitude
made by Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate for President, and by
other members of the party. Compare its straight-forward,
uncompromising utterances with what the other two parties have said
and done; then look yourself in the face and say whether it is worth
you while to sell your birthright and your future freedom—yes, and
that of your children and your children's children—for a mess of
political pottage.