You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday November 5, 1904
From the Appeal to Reason: Thunderous Applause for Debs & Hanford in Chicago
Today's Appeal offers an account from the Chicago Socialist of the last meeting held by Debs and Hanford before the upcoming Presidential election. On Monday, October 17th, Socialists packed the Auditorium and cheered and applauded as Debs and Hanford spoke before a crowd of 4,000. Representatives from ninety-five unions, with their banners proudly displayed, shared the stage with the two Socialist Party candidates.
From the Appeal to Reason of November 5, 1904:
THE GREAT CHICAGO MEETING.
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The Large Auditorium Filled to the Doors---Old Parties Appalled
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From the Chicago Socialist.
To be a Socialist, to feel one's self part of the coming triumphal struggle for human liberty, to be one of four thousand other Socialists under the same roof, inspired by he same feelings, bound together by the irresistible tie of the social revolution, to feel the heart throb of such a body in your own breast-such is the greatest privilege that capitalism, at its present stage, affords to man or woman.
This is a part of the joy tasted by the Socialists of Chicago last Monday night [October 17th] at the great auditorium mass meeting, the culminating event of the campaign of the Socialist party in Cook county. No more enthusiastic meeting for any cause was ever held in Chicago. It was the largest meeting held during the year by any political party in the city. No other party, it is safe to say, even with all the advantages of advertising which money can buy, could have filled the building.
The Socialists did it-and they charged admission. They filled the great auditorium, the largest of its kind in the city , to overflowing. No other inducement was offered, no other form of entertainment promised than that Debs and Hanford, the party's national standard-bearers, would expound the principles of Socialism. No other inducement was necessary. They came and they paid into the party's campaign fund in order to come.
In this is the real importance of the demonstration. In the fact that in this year of political apathy the Socialists, and the Socialists alone, are able to pack Chicago's largest auditorium with a cheering, earnest crowd, full of vim and enthusiasm-in this is contained a significance which lends inspiration to the Socialist, and which tells the defenders of capitalism that they must needs pause and take the measure of this new force which threatens the foundations of their society.
Four thousand of the most earnest people in Chicago-men not from the effete and stunted classes of society, but men whose veins carried the red, unpolluted blood of the proletariat, full of eagerness for action as nature demands action-these were the people who cheered the expounders of a new liberty, who felt the strains of the Marseillaise, who heard the call of universal solidarity, and who responded in thunderous rounds of applause to the revolutionary sentiments which fell from the lips of Debs and from Hanford.
On the stage with Debs and Hanford sat the representatives of ninety-five of the unions of Chicago, sent there at the behest of their organizations. Over forty of this delegations brought the standards of their unions with them and were proud to display them-proud to lift them on high and join all together in a parade when the band struck up the immortal strains of the Marseillaise.
And such a demonstration as was made by this four thousand earnest people when the party's chief stepped forward. Another wave of applause swept over the vast audience, subsided, grew again, and again, and again-a tribute not to Debs, the man, but to Debs, the Socialist, to Debs, whose ability to speak for the gathering forces of the new order caused the members the working class party to choose him as the guardian of the party's standard.
And the speech that he made-the penchant, forceful, irresistible plea which he made for working class solidarity; the stinging, burning indictment which he drew of capitalism; the injustice and the pathos and the blight of the present and the roseate hope of the future-a speech which no other than Debs, moved by the inspiration of Socialism, could make.
From todays' Labor World of Duluth, Minnesota:
CONNECTICUT HEARS DEBS EXPOUND ISSUES
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Great Socialist Leader Is Given Rousing Welcome to Conservative New Haven.
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New Haven, Conn., Nov. 4-Enthusiasm and applause abounded at the rally held by the socialist party in music hall last evening with Eugene V. Debs, the candidate for president, as the speaker. The spacious hall with its big galleries was thronged to the doors.
A large procession through the center of the city preceded the meeting. Eugene Toomey presided, and introduced the speaker, Mr. Debs. The later was greeted with a great out burst of applause, which lasted several minutes.
Mr. Debs delivered a long and interesting exposition of the aims and principles of socialism. He began, with a review of general economic conditions and an account of social evolution. He made comparison between economic conditions prevailing just before the time of the Revolution and those of today. "Then," said he, "there was not a single millionaire, and not a single tramp; the word tramp had not been coined. When the first millionaire appeared he brought with him the first installment of tramps."
Then he went on to treat of the industrial revolution and the introduction of machinery. The workingman then lost control of the tools with which he worked. Formerly he owned the tools. Not so today. He defined a capitalist as owner of the tool; the user of the tool was the workingman. These are the two classes into which Mr. Debs divides our society of today.
He told his audience that by the increase in productive power a workman of today could produce the equivalent of his wages in a few hours and the rest of the day he was being exploited by the capitalist.
The workingman, he said under the capitalist system, is compelled to sell his labor power which is life itself and so he sells himself into economic bondage. But socialism is inevitable and cannot be prevented. It is the next stage in the economic evolution and is the inevitable successor of the capitalist system. The economic basis of society is undergoing a change. It is becoming co-operative instead of competitive. Capitalism must be abolished in the interest of all humanity.
Socialism is not a dream nor a scheme, stated Mr. Debs, it is a science as exact as mathematics.
He then proceeded to show that neither of the two dominant parties are today the party of the people. The only democratic party in the field is the socialist party. It seeks the economic freedom of all without which freedom is impossible. "Political liberty is rooted in economic freedom."
He discussed child labor, saying that it was the aim of the socialists to entirely eradicate this evil. Regarding women suffrage he said their aim was to make women economically free and to give them the ballot.
He treated the issues of the campaign as presented by the other parties and characterized them as blinds to conceal from the workers their true conditions and interests. The true issue for the workingmen is the ownership by them of the tools of production.
Mr. Debs concluded with an appeal to the people to vote for the socialist party, for its principles; not its men, and he especially emphasized the statement that they must work together.
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[photograph added]
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SOURCES
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Nov 5, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Chicago Daily Tribune
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Oct 18, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota & Superior, Wisconsin)
-Nov 5, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Debs & Hanford, Appeal to Reason, May 21,1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Debs and Hanford Poster, 1904n:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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La Marseillaise - Edith Piaf
(English versification)
O Liberty, can man resign thee
Once having felt thy generous flame?
Can dungeons, bolts or bars confine thee
Or whips thy noble spirit tame? (repeat)
Too long the world has wept, bewailing
That falsehood's dagger tyrants wield,
But freedom is our sword and shield,
And all their arts are unavailing.
To arms, to arms, ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheath,
March on, march on!
All hearts resolv'd
On victory or death!
-Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
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