INDICTMENT OF PRESIDENT DEBS.
The railroad managers and federal courts were leaving no stone unturned
to secure the indictment and incarceration of Eugene V. Debs. If
successful, it was their intention to dispose of all the officers and
directors of the American Railway Union in the same manner.
Attorney General Olney, acting for the railroads, was hatching a scheme
to incarcerate the officers of the union and refuse them bail. Attorneys
Walker and Milchrist were ready to prove that Debs ordered the boycott,
that he conspired against the lives and liberty of the people, that he
conspired to overthrow the government, in short, they were ready to
prove anything that would further the ends of the corporations which
they represented.
These diabolical plotters never doubted for one instant that the
officers of the American Railway Union were innocent of the charges
preferred against them. They knew very well that they (the officers)
had no authority to order a boycott or strike, and that it was ordered
by a majority vote of the men employed on each system. They also knew
that from the inauguration of the strike, not one word or act of Eugene
V. Debs could be construed into an offense and make him amenable to the
law.
That he counseled moderation and appealed to the men to refrain from
acts of violence from the start, was a well known fact. This was very
clear to them, but the powerful magnetism of his presence in restraining
the men from acts of violence would also have a tendency to keep their
ranks firm and intact. This was also known to them and they must devise
some scheme to shackle him or get him out of the way. With consummate
skill they proceeded with the avowed effort to accomplish this end.
At 3:00 P. M., July 10, the special grand jury summoned by
Judges Wood and Grosscup set the machinery of federal law in motion, and
after one hour and seven minutes--most of which time was occupied in
waiting for advice from the Western Union Telegraph Co., in New York, to
its manager in Chicago--returned indictments against E. V. Debs, G. W.
Howard, L. W. Rogers and Sylvester Kelliher. No sooner were the four
officers of the American Railway Union indicted than they were arrested
and the private papers as well as the documents of the union were
seized.
The four men were admitted to bail and the joint bond of $10,000 was
signed by J. W. Fitzgerald and Wm. Skakel.
The special grand jurors selected by the court for the express purpose
of indicting the officers of the American Railway Union were well
chosen. An elaborate charge from his honor, the judge, a pretense of
examining a lone witness, just a farcical formality, and Debs, Howard,
Rogers and Kelliher were indicted. These men were virtually indicted
before the grand jury went into session. This is a fact that defies
contradiction, Z. E. Holbrook, one of the jurors, was a man who two
years ago went to Homestead, Pa., at the request of H. C. Frick, manager
of the Carnegie Company, and after obtaining a supply of alleged facts
from Mr. Frick, returned to Chicago and made a speech before the Sunset
Club, in which he charged the Homestead strikers with being
conspirators, anarchists and murderers, and he denounced and abused in
no measured terms all labor unions and sympathizers. So bitterly did he
attack labor that he was roundly hissed by members of his own club.
The city directory sets him down as a capitalist, and he is known
throughout the city as a bitter enemy to labor unions. Such is the
character of one of the men who was chosen to indict Eugene V. Debs. Was
ever court of justice so utterly debauched?
What has become of our boasted liberty? Are we freemen? No! in the
burning words of Rienzi, the Roman, we are slaves, the bright sun rises
to its course and sets on a race of slaves. Slaves, not such as
conqueror led to crimson glory and undying fame, but base, ignoble
slaves, slaves to a horde of petty tyrants, feudal despots.
The same conditions that emanated these immortal utterances from the
ancient Roman is absolutely the condition of the working people of
America to-day.
The federal courts had now accomplished a master stroke; they had
indicted the president of the American Railway Union for conspiracy.
When the wires flashed the news to the various local unions throughout
the country, the excitement was intense. The illegal proceeding was
condemned by every good citizen, regardless of vocation or station in
life. Millions of men in every branch of labor threatened to strike, but
were held in check by the assurance of their leaders that all would be
well in the end.
Mr. Debs, fearing the bad effect his arrest would have on the working
people, sent out the following appeal for order:
"To all striking employes and sympathizers:
"In view of the serious phases which the strike has assumed, I deem it
my duty to again admonish you to not only refrain from acts of violence
but to aid in every way in your power to maintain law and order. We have
everything to lose and nothing to gain by participating, even by our
presence in demonstrative gatherings. Almost universal unrest prevails.
Men are excitable and inflammable. The distance from anger to vengeance
is not great. Every precaution against still further aggravating
conditions should be taken. In this supreme hour let workingmen show
themselves to be orderly and law abiding by freely co-operating with the
authorities in suppressing turbulence and preserving the peace. Our
position is secure and the people are with us. We have made every
effort that reason and justice could suggest to obtain redress for our
grievances.
"Our advances have been repelled. The responsibility for the grave
situation that confronts the country is not with us. The indications now
are that the stoppage of work will become general. This in itself will
be a calamity, but if order be maintained it may yet prove to be a
blessing to the country. I appeal to every workingman to entirely keep
away from places where trouble would be likely to occur. What, under
normal conditions, would probably be a peaceable gathering may now
become a demonstrative mob. All good citizens deprecate the loss of life
and the destruction of property. Grave as these complications are, our
civilization is far enough advanced to find and apply a remedy without
resort to violence. We are merely contending for justice for our fellow
workingmen, who have been reduced to want by a power that now defies
public opinion. Strong in the faith that our position is correct, that
our grievances are just, we can afford to await the final verdict, with
patience. The great public may be slow to act, but in the fullness of
time it will act. Then the wrong, wherever found will be rebuked and
cloven down, and the right will be enthroned. However serious the
situation may become, let it not be intensified by lawlessness or
violence.
Eugene V. Debs."
If there is anything tending to conspiracy, any anarchistic sentiment in
the above appeal then it is certain that Debs was guilty as indicted,
but if there is not, then the railroad managers and federal court were
guilty of a greater conspiracy and should be dealt with accordingly. In
all the appeals, instructions or advice given verbally or otherwise by
E. V. Debs, not a solitary one was of a more inflammatory nature than
this, and yet this man was accused of this serious crime.
The Chicago Times in an editorial on the indictment of Debs says in
part: "We can perhaps leave to the lawyers who are so eager to indict
Mr. Debs, determination of the legal position of this rebel Wickes,
declaring that his tottering corporation will brook no interference
national, state, county, or municipal. The times has learned many things
of late showing the power of corporations over the national government
but we still cling to the belief that Uncle Sam is bigger than Duke
George, and if either the national, state, county or municipal
government determines to interfere with the affairs of the Pullman
corporation, Mr. Wickes will have to brook it or take refuge in Canada
with his titled chiefs, embezzlers, boodlers, forgers and other harpies
of society, who from time to time have fled thither."