Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive

Announcement: The Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive in conjunction with Tim Davenport will be publishing a 6 volume collection of Eugene V. Debs writings. Haymarket Books will be the publishers of the 6 volumes. For weekly updates on this valuable historical project, please click here.

The Marxists Internet Archive is proudly mirroring the Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive, started by Socialist Party member John Metz in July of 2001. This year is also the 100th anniversary of the the Socialist Party of America, the party founded by Debs. We’ve reformated the text to meet Marxists Internet Archive standards, but all other attributes have been left the same. Debs wrote for many of the hundreds of socialist newspapers journals and magazines that existed during his life. The collection of all these writings is a life time project, a labor of love for America’s greatest Marxist. We are in debt to John Metz and the Chicago Socialist Party for allowing us to help build the Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive. Beginning in 2006, Robert Bills, the National Secretary of the Socialist Labor Party of the US, started contributing rare texts by Debs from the extensive SLP Archives. We thank Robert for his comradely contributions. Lastly, we have been linking to various E.V. Debs documents that have been placed on the Marxists Internet Archive Early American Marxism archive where many Deb’s documents reside and are in PDF format. The MIA’s EAM is a mirror of Tim Davenport’s Marxist History Archive.

EUGENE VICTOR DEBS (1855-1926) was one of the greatest and most articulate advocates of workers’ power to have ever lived. During the early years of the debs labor movement in the United States, Debs was far ahead of his times, leading the formation of the American Railway Union (ARU) and the American Socialist Party.

Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on November 5, 1855. He left home at 14 to work on the railroad and soon became interested in union activity. As president of the American Railway Union, he led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railroad in 1894. Two months later he was jailed for his role in a strike against the Chicago Pullman Palace Car Company. While in jail, Socialist and future Congressman Victor Berger talked with Debs and introduced him to the ideas of Marx and socialism. When he was released from prison, he announced that he was a Socialist.

He soon formed the Social Democratic Party, which eventually became the Socialist Party in 1901. He became their perennial presidential candidate. He ran on the Socialist ticket in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920 when he received his highest popular vote—about 915,000 (3.4%)—from within a prison cell. He had been arrested once again, this time for “sedition”; because he opposed World War I. Many Socialists were imprisoned during this time because they felt that the war was being fought for the profits of the rich, but with the blood of the poor. Debs was fortunately released in 1921.

Debs died in Elmhurst, Illinois, on October 20, 1926, but he is remembered to this day by countless labor activists from all over the political spectrum. The Eugene V. Debs Foundation works to continue his legacy into the 21st century...

To learn more about Debs and his life, read Stephen Marion Reynolds’ Biography of Eugene V. Debs for a full accounting of his life and times.

A full collection of Biographies, Critiques, and Memiors of Eugine V. Debs is located here: Biographies and Critiques of E.V. Debs

1877–1879 | 1880–1883 | 1884 | 1885–1887 | 1888 | 1889 | 1890 | 1891 | 1892 | 1893–1894 | 1895 | 1896 | 1897 | 1898 | 1899 |1900
1901 |1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913–1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917–1918 | 1919–1920 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924–1927

Special Section on the American Railway Union (ARU)
(Includes some documents not written by E.V.D.)

1877—1879

Letter to the Editor of Locomotive Firemen’s Monthly Magazine in Dayton, Ohio, from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, Indiana (1877)

Our Brotherhood (1877)

To the Friend of My Bosom (1877)

Further Suggestions on Insurance (1877)

Grand Lodge Address to the 4th Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Indianapolis — Sept. 11, 1877 (1877)

Address to the 4th Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Indianapolis — Sept. 12, 1877

1878

Closing Address to the 5th Annual Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen: Buffalo, NY — Sept. 14, 1878

1879

Benevolence (1879)

Sobriety (1879)

Industry (1879)

The Labor Problem (1879)

Temperance (1879)

1880—1884

The Coming Convention (1880)

Our Convention (1880)

Letter to the 7th Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (1880)

Organize! (1880)

1881

The Power of Persistent Effort (1881)

A Gentleman (1881)

United Again (1881)

1882

The Square Man (1882)

Benefit of the BLF (1882)

Lost Time (1882)

United Efforts (1882)

Beginning Life (1882)

Personal Honor (1882)

Masterful Men (1882)

Do Things Well (1882)

Editorial on the B of LF (1882)

Strong Drink (1882)

Sand (1882)

Labor’s Reward (1882)

Editorial Message to the 9th Annual Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (1882)

The Last Ride (1882)

1883

Labor, Genius of Civilization (1883)

Mans Power and God's Power (1883)

Honesty (1883)

The Rights of Labor (1883)

Self-respect (1883)

Old Time Prejudice (1883)

Back Biting Calamity (1883)

Railway Officials (1883)

Our Magazine (1883)

1884

Two Railway Officials (1884)

True Benevolence (1884)

Intoxication (1884)

Mission of Our Brotherhood (1884)

Truth (1884)

Charity versus Malice (1884)

Railroad Managers and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (1884)

Employer and Employed (1884)

What is Success? (1884)

Labor and Law (1884)

Enthusiasm (1884)

1885—1887

Speech to the Indiana Legislature Nominating Daniel W. Voorhees for the United States Senate, Jan. 20, 1885 (1885)

A Day and Its Duties (1885)

Standing Armies (1885)

Capital and Labor (1885)

Lessons of the Elections (1885)

Progress and Poverty (1885)

Attempted Blacklist (1885)

War Clouds (1885)

When a Hundred Years Are Gone (1885)

Speech to the 12th Annual Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen [excerpt] Philadelphia — Sept. 21, 1885 (1885)

Dynamite and Legitimate Warfare (1885)

Railroad Kings (1885)

1886

William H. Vanderbilt (1886)

Employees the Wards of Employers (1886)

Overproduction (1886)

Reformations (1886)

Current Disagreements Between Employers and Employees (1886)

T.V. Powderly and the Knights of Labor (1886)

Boycotting (1886)

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (1886)

More Soldiers by Eugene (1886)

My Jennie [December 1886] (1886)

1887

Legislation, Law, and Free Transportation on Railroads (1887)

The Situation in Europe (1887)

Labor and Station in Life (1887)

Opposites (1887)

The Chicago Anarchists (1887)

Politics (1887)

Pullman (1887)

Abolitionists (1887)

Will Labor Organizations Federate? (1887)

Land, Labor, and Liberty (1887)

The Contemplated Treaty with Russia (1887)

Child Labor (1887)

Cooperation and Arbitration (1887)

1888

Joining Labor Organizations (1888)

Federation, the Lesson of the Great Strike (1888)

The Policy of the Order of Railway Conductors (1888)

The Scab (1888)

The Great Strike (1888)

The Record of the CB&Q Strike (1888)

Federation of Labor Organizations for Mutual Protection (1888)

Invincible Men (1888)

The Common Laborer (1888)

The Situation (1888)

Home Rule in Ireland (1888)

The CB&Q and Pinkerton Conspiracy (1888)

The Pinkertons (1888)

Equality of Conditions (1888)

Federation (1888)

Life of Eugene V. Debs, Grand Secretary and Treasurer (1888)

Speech to the 5th Annual Convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen: Columbus, OH — Oct. 16, 1888 (1888)

General Benjamin Harrison — Relentless Foe of Labor: A Democratic Campaign Speech in Terre Haute, IN — Oct. 27, 1888 (1888)

The Aristocracy of Labor (1888)

B of LF Convention Endorses Federation (1888)

The CB&Q (1888)

Fatal Fallacies (1888)

Speech to the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen: Columbus, OH — Oct. 16, 1888 (1888)

1889

The Knights of Labor (1889)

The Progress of Federation (1889)

The Brotherhood of Railway Conductors (1889)

The Future of the Order of Railway Conductors (1889)

The Strength of All for the Good of All (1889)

The Termination of the Burlington Strike (1889)

Allegiance to Principle (1889)

Labor as a “Commodity” (1889)

The Labor Movement (1889)

Meeting to Perfect Federation (1889)

Prize Fighting (1889)

Nationalism (1889)

The Church and the Workingman (1889)

Unmasking Hypocrisy (1889)

Labor Organizations (1889)

Political Control of Railways (1889)

Truth and Fiction (1889)

The Labor Press (1889)

Federation Inaugurated (1889)

Supreme Council Formed (1889)

The Reading (1889)

“The So-Called Dignity of Labor” (1889)

The Sunday Question (1889)

Time is Money (1889)

Jay Gould (1889)

Pin and Principle (1889)

The Johnstown Horror (1889)

Strikes (1889)

Workingmen in Politics (1889)

Railroad Federation: The Question Considered by the Firemen’s General Secretary (1889)

Labor Day, 1889 (1889)

The Triumph of Federation (1889)

Land (1889)

The Tyranny of Austin Corbin (1889)

Important Lessons (1889)

An Open Letter to P.M. Arthur of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engeneers, Dec. 20, 1889 (1889)

1890

Austin Corbin — Russianizer (1890)

Andrew Carnegie on “Best Fields for Philanthropy” (1890)

Looking Backward, 2000—1887 (1890)

Do We Want Industrial Peace? (1890)

Knights of Labor to Shape Own Destiny (1890)

The Common Laborer (1890)

What Can We Do for Working People? (1890)

What Can We Do For Working People? (1890)

The Brotherhood of Railway Conductors and the Supreme Council of Federation (1890)

The Eight-Hour Movement by Eugene V. Debs (1890)

Mrs. Leonora M. Barry: General Instructor and Director of Woman’s Work, Knights of Labor 1 (1890)

The Buddhists of Burma (1890)

Debs Estimates Membership of United Order of Railway (1890) [scan of article from Chicago Tribune, 1890

Letter to the Editor of Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine from T.P. O’Rourke in Pocatello, Idaho and a Reply (1890)

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Federation (1890)

The Improvement of Railway Management (1890)

ORC Overwhelmingly Endorses Protection (1890)

Eight-Hour Day A Righteous Demand (1890)

The Higher Education of Women vs. Marriage (1890)

Is a Wrong Done to One the Concern of All? (1890)

Supreme Council Declines Aid to NY Central Strike (1890)

Agitation and Agitators (1890)

Labor Day (1890)

The Debate in the Council: Some of the Members in Favor of a General Tie-Up (1890)

Power vs. Power (1890)

Agitation and Agitators (1890)

Strike (1890)

Promiscuous Striking (1890)

The Strike on the New York Central (1890)

The Reason Why (1890)

Powderly and Gompers (1890)

Parties (1890)

The Knights of Labor and the New York Central Railroad (1890)

Locomotive Engineers and Federation (1890)

William P. Daniels, the ORC, and Locomotive Engineers (1890)

William D. Robinson (1890)

Pictures (1890)

Plan of Federation (1890)

1891

A.M. 5894 — A.D. 1891 (1891)

The Seventy Millionaires (1891)

To The Brotherhood [Regarding Future Resignation] (1891)

Protection (1891)

Edward Bellamy Launches The New Nation (1891)

The Canadian Pacific Railway and the Supreme Council (1891)

“Hero Worship” (1891)

Labor Organizations and the Labor Press (1891)

The Farmers’ Alliance (1891)

Dishonest Bankers (1891)

Mankind in a Bad Way (1891)

The Almighty Dollar (1891)

Labor Leaders (1891)

Message to the Federated Orders of Railway Employees (1891)

An American Aristocracy (1891)

Remedies for Wrongs (1891)

The Expulsion of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (1891)

Facts About Federation (1891)

The Union Man, the Non-Union Man, and the Scab (1891)

A Bankrupt World (1891)

The Editor is Responsible [A Disclaimer] (1891)

Living Issues (1891)

The Policy of the Magazine [A Polemic] (1891)

A Question of Veracity (1891)

Free Speech (1891)

Foreign Pauper Immigration (1891)

The ORC and the B of RC (1891)

The New Republic (1891)

Cause and Effect (1891)

Conditions (1891)

A Plutocratic Government (1891)

The Tramp (1891)

Carnegie as a Squeezing Philanthropist (1891)

The People’s Party (1891)

The Unity of Labor (1891)

From Americans to Slavs and from Independence to Slavery (1891)

Persecution Because of Religious Opinions in Labor Organizations (1891)

The Lessons Taught by Labor Day (1891)

Caste (1891)

An Odious Comparison (1891)

Revolution and Rebellion vs. Stagnation (1891)

Something to Think About (1891)

A Crime Against Humanity (1891)

1892

Liberating Convicts (1892)

Letter to E.E. Clark, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from Eugene V. Debs, in Terre Haute, Indiana, Jan. 13, 1892 (1892)

Knowledge is Power! Books for All Railroad Men Advert in the Switchmen's Journal for "Debs Publishing Co." (1892)

Anti-Conspiracy Speech (1892)

Is Legislation Needed? How Shall It Be Obtained? (1892)

Russia (1892)

Why Not? (1892)

Is It Possible? (1892)

Strikes (1892)

Arbitration (1892)

William Lloyd Garrison (1892)

Labor In Politics (1892)

May Day In Europe (1892)

Confederation Essential to Labor’s Prosperity (1892)

Labor Representatives in Legislative Bodies (1892)

The Battle of Homestead (1892)

The Pinkertons at Homestead (1892)

Crimes of Christless Capitalists (1892)

H.C. Frick (1892)

Final Annual Meeting of the Supreme Council (1892)

Public Opinion (1892)

Public Opinion H.C. Frick and Alexander Berkman (1892)

The Homestead Horrors (1892)

The Switchmen’s Strike (1892)

Homestead and Treason (1892)

Editor and Manager’s Report to the 16th Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Sept. 12, 1892 (1892)

My Retirement is Certain: Speech to the 16th Convention of the B of LF, Cincinnati, Ohio (September 19, 1892) (1892)

Homestead and Treason (1892)

The End of the Homestead Strike (1892)

Profit Sharing (1892)

The Grand Secretary and Treasurer of the B of LF (1892)

The End of the Switchmen’s Strike (1892)

Profit Sharing (1892)

1893

Evolution (1893)

The Labor View of the Election (1893)

Evolution (1893)

Robert Ingersoll (1893)

Call It the American Railway Union: The New Organization Will Endeavor to Abandon Strike Methods (1893)

Jay Gould (1893)

Why Great Cities? (1893)

Industrial Peace (1893)

The Interstate Commerce Commission (1893)

Standing Armies (1893)

A Workingman’s Congress (1893)

Carnegie (1893)

Coming Events (1893)

Congress, Pinkertons, and Organized Labor (1893)

The Hawaiian, or Sandwich Islands (1893)

Law, Lawmakers, and Politics (1893)

A Workingman’s Congress (1893)

All Railway Men National Federation Will Embrace Every Branch: Unions to ConsolidateAmerican Railway Union Elects Officers (1893)

American Railway Union Elects Officers (1893)

Self Made Men (1893)

American Railway Union: Its President Defeats the Attempt to Expel Him from the Brotherhood of Firemen (1893)

Labor Deliberation (1893)

Labor Deliberation (1893)

American Railway Union: An Outline of the Proposed Plan of Organization (1894)

Anti-Poverty (1893)

Anti-Poverty (1893)

Labor and Legislation (1893)

Declaration of Principles of the American Railway Union [Adopted June 6, 1893] (1893)

“A Railway Party in Politics” (1893)

Russianizing the United States (1893)

The Organization of Workingmen: Speech to the Chicago World’s Fair Labor Congress (August 30, 1893) (1893)

The Chicago Anarchists (1893)

The Pulpit and Socialism (1893)

The Money Question (1893)

The Pulpit and Socialism (1893)

Defenseless Wage Earners (1893)

Business Depression and Legislation (1893)

Labor and Capital and the Distribution of Property (1893)

The Teaching of Christ (1893)

Who Pays Taxes? (1893)

European Military, Money, and Misery (1893)

“The Commercial and Political Considerations Involved in Sympathetic Railroad Strikes” (1893)

About the Union (1893)

1894

1895

The Solidarity of Labor (1895)

Law of Contempt: Under the Modern Application Every Federal Judge is a Tsar (1895)

Political Lessons of the Pullman Strike (1895)

Lecture Delivered at the Fargo Opera House, Fargo, ND (1895)

Manifesto to the American People Issued from Woodstock Jail [Jan. 8, 1895] (1895)

Proclamation to American Railway Union (1895)

Proclamation to American Railway Union: Issued Upon His Sentence Being Affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States (1895)

Proclamation to Members of the ARU and to All Labor Organizations Respecting the Duties of the Hour (1895)

Circular Letter to Local Units of the American Railway Union (circa June 2, 1895) [excerpt] (1895)

Cooperation not Competition: An Interview with Eugene V. Debs, Woodstock Jail — June 26, 1895 (1895)

(1895)

Our First Great Need: A Letter from Woodstock Jail, January 16, 1895 (1895)

Interview with Eugene V. Debs at Woodstock Jail, January 19, 1895 by Nellie Bly (1895)

To the People [March 1, 1895] (1895)

Statement on the Supreme Court’s Verdict Upholding the Injunction [May 27, 1895] (1895)

Proclamation to Members of the ARU and to All Labor Organizations Respecting the Duties of the Hour (1895)

Cooperation not Competition: An Interview with Eugene V. Debs, Woodstock Jail — June 26, 1895 (1895)

Debs’ Busy Life in Jail: Imprisoned Labor Leader Devotes His Time to Study: Economic Questions Debated By His Associates in Turn Published in Chicago Chronicle, June 19, 1895. (1895)

Liberty’s Anniversary (1895)

Liberty’s Anniversary, July 4, 1895 (1895)

Success and Failure (1895)

pen Letter to William C. Endicott, Jr. in Washington, DC from Eugene V. Debs at Woodstock, Illinois, July 27, 1895 (1895)

Open Letter to the State Convention of the People’s Party of Texas from Eugene V. Debs in Woodstock Jail, July 17, 1895 (1895)

Slaves and Cowards (1895)

The Coming Workingman (1895)

Labor Omnia Vincit (Labor Conquers Everything) (1895)

Term Half Over: An Interview of Eugene V. Debs at Woodstock Jail, Aug. 22, 1895 (1895)

ARU Proclamation from Woodstock Jail [excerpt, circa August 1895] (1895)

Open Letter to the Evansville [IN] Tribune from Eugene V. Debs in Woodstock Jail, Aug. 8, 1895 (1895)

The Situation Facing the People’s Party in 1896 (1895)

Open Letter to Jacob S. Coxey: Excerpts Read at Fountain Grove, Lake View, IL — Aug. 25, 1895 (1895)

The Pullman Strike After One Year (1895)

The Outlook for 1896: A political interview with the St. Louis Chronicle, Sept. 13, 1895 (1895)

Cultural Changes: Bicycles, Bloomers, and the New Woman (1895)

"“In Unity There Is Strength”: Open Letter to the Chicago Evening Press (September 23, 1895) (1895)

Let Labor Be Organized (1895)

Letter to the Editor of Quincy Labor News from Eugene V. Debs in Woodstock Jail, Oct. 5, 1895. (1895)

The Mind’s Workshop (1895)

The Aristocracy of Wealth (1895)

Statement to the Associated Press on the Great Northern Situation [Nov. 4, 1895] (1895)

Official Letter to Directors of the American Railway Union, Dictated from Woodstock Jail, Oct. 29, 1895 (1895)

(1895)

Liberty: Speech at Battery D, Chicago, On Release from Woodstock Jail, November 22, 1895. (1895)

Homecoming Speech in Terre Haute, Indiana, Nov. 23, 1895 (1895)

Shall the Standing Army of the United States Be Increased? Statement in Reply to General Nelson A. Miles (1895)

Labor Omnia Vincits (1895)

Russian Methods: Letter from Woodstock Jail (1895)

The Ways of Justice (1895)

“A Day With Debs in Jail at Woodstock: How the Imprisoned Labor Leader and His Associates Lived in Confinement,” by A.C. Cantley [July 6, 1895] Cantley, a correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, visits jailed American Railway Union leader Eugene V. Debs and his associates at Woodstock Jail and finds a very liberal jail regime under the supervision of the county sheriff, a former grocery. Debs and his associates constituted themselves as the “Cooperative Colony of Liberty Jail,” Cantley reports, and engaged in a regular self-directed program of military drill, economics study, exercise, journalism, and debate. The 7 jailed trade unionists were allowed to take meals inside the sheriff’s private quarters — unlike the other 5 prisoners sitting at the same time at the McHenry County Jail. Despite the structured, studious, communitarian regime, Debs indicates intense displeasure with the situation of he and his associates during a two-hour interview: “We feel that a cruel wrong has been perpetuated upon us in that we have been denied a trial by jury in flagrant disregard of the Constitution.... We committed no crime, we violated no law, we have not been tried, and yet we are sentenced to a term in jail, and the Supreme Court of the United States gives its negative affirmation to this outrageous proceeding by declaring that the court below had final jurisdiction and that its monstrous perversion of justice can not, therefore, be reversed. Every Federal Judge now constitutes a Tsar.” Debs expresses a belief that the ongoing development of machine industry would press increasing numbers out of work, thereby shaking economic foundations. “The competitive system is nearing its close — the death gurgle is in its throat,” Debs declares. “It is dying hard, but it has got to go, for the Eternal Truth is pledged to destroy every system not founded upon its immutable laws.–

1896

Address to the Christian Labor Union, Sherman Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Milwaukee (1896)

"“Better to Buy Books than Beer”: Speech at Music Hall, Buffalo, NY (1896)

Centralization and the Role of the Courts: Speech at Germania Hall, Cleveland, Ohio — Jan. 18, 1896 (1896)

Interview with the Cleveland Leader, Jan. 18, 1896 (1896)

Ready for Another Fight: From an Interview with the Associated Press, April 10, 1896 (1896)

Statement on the Coming Presidential Campaign, Birmingham, AL — May 24, 1896 (1896)

Gold, Silver, and National Banks: Interview with the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, June 18, 1896 (1896)

Open Letter to Alfred S. Edwards in Tennessee City, TN, from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, IN, June 8, 1896 (1896)

Consolidation (1896)

Centralization and the Role of the Courts: Speech at Germania Hall, Cleveland, Ohio — Jan. 18, 1896 (1896)

The American University and the Labor Problem (1896)

Interview with the Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 12, 1896 (1896)

Speech at the Columbia Theater, Atlanta, GA — Feb. 13, 1896 (1896)

What Can the Church Do to Benefit the Condition of the Laboring Man? Speech at the First Baptist Church of Terre Haute — March 22, 1896 (1896)

Letter to George P. Garrison in Chadron, Nebraska from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, Indiana, Aug. 6, 1896 (1896)

“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” (1896)

Speech to the 13th Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen Minneapolis — Sept. 18, 1896 [quoted excerpt] (1896)

Speech in Houston, Texas September 25, 1896 (1896)

The Coming Election: An Address to Railway Employees by Eugene V. Debs & the Board of Directors of the ARU (1896)

An Uprising of the People: Campaign Speech for William Jennings Bryan, Duluth, MN — Oct. 21, 1896 (1896)

For Bryan: Campaign Speech on Behalf of William Jennings Bryan, Cleveland — Oct. 27, 1896 [excerpts (1896)

Debs Hails Socialism: Thinks It Is the Only Cure [Dec. 31, 1896] (1896)

Present Conditions and Future Duties: An Open Letter (Written December 31, 1896, published January 1, 1897) (1896)

1897

The Individual vs. Socialism (January 6, 1897) (1897)

Questions and Answers: Speech to Striking Miners in Leadville, Colorado [excerpt] (1897)

The World is Not Right: Speech in Butte, Montana (February 8, 1897) (1897)

Special Convention Forthcoming: From ARU Circular Letter No. 3 (1897) [excerpt] (1897)

Strike Lessons: A Dispassionate Review of the Great Leadville Struggle (April 5, 1897) (1897)

Harmony and Unity and Its Limits (1897)

The New Commonwealth: Letter to the Editor of the New York Journal (April 16, 1897) (1897)

Solidarity of Western Miners Essential (1897)

The Coronado Mine Attack (April 27, 1897) (1897)

The Degradation of Mine Labor (1897)

Mine Managers Culpable in Leadville Strike (May 10, 1897) (1897)

“The Constitution Says People May Bear Arms”: Statement to the Press in Salt Lake City (1897)

Labor’s New Eden: Interview with the Chicago Chronicle (June 14, 1897) (1897)

Plan to Redeem Toil: Eugene V. Debs and Others Look Toward Establishing a Colony in the West that Finally Will Enfold All Labor (1897)

The Coming Republic (1897)

Lesson of the Great Leadville Strike (1897)

The Great Leadville Strike: Its Lessons for Labor (1897)

The Cooperative Commonwealth (June 1, 1897) (1897)

Address of Eugene V. Debs at the Opening of the Special Convention of the American Railway Union: Handel Hall, Chicago — June 15, 1897 (1897)

“A Happy, Bright Spot in Civilization” : Interview with the Chicago Chronicle (1897)

Letter to the Editor of the New York World (1897)

Opening Address at the Special Convention of the American Railway Union in Chicago (June 15, 1897) (1897)

Opening Address at the Special Convention of the American Railway Union in Chicago (June 15, 1897) (1897)

Perhaps a Change of Name: Statement to the Chicago Inter Ocean (June 16, 1897) (1897)

Interview with James Creelman of the New York Journal (1897)

“Farmers Will Form the Vanguard” : Statement to the Chicago Chronicle (1897)

Open Letter to John D. Rockefeller (1897)

Closing Speech at the Founding Convention of the Social Democracy of America [excerpt] (1897)

Statement on the Colonization of Washington (June 21, 1897) (1897)

Letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune (1897)

Constitution of the Social Democracy of America: Adopted in Chicago on June 21, 1897 [partial] (1897)

Milwaukee Enthused: Debs Speaks to Tremendous Meetings in the Cream City [Report of a July 7, 1897 Speech]

A Political Movement: Statement to the Milwaukee Daily News (1897)

Milwaukee Enthused: Debs Speaks to Tremendous Meetings in the Cream City (1897)

The Coal Miners’ Strike (July 15, 1897) (1897)

Plea for a New Order: Speech at Ferris Wheel Park, Chicago (July 17, 1897) (1897)

The Coronado Mine Attack (1897)

Women in the Movement: Interview with Dorothy Richardson in the Milwaukee Sentinel (circa July 8, 1897) (1897)

The Miners’ Strike (1897)

The Power of Money Rules the Country: Speech at Ferris Wheel Park, Chicago (1897)

“No Hope But Through the Back Door of Suicide”: Speech on the Coal Mining Strike at Wheeling, West Virginia (1897)

Open Letter and Call for Miners’ Day (1897)

“It is Something More Than a Strike” : Speech in Chicago at Kuhn’s Park (1897)

The Social Democracy (1897)

“Reduced to a Walking Hunger Pang” : Speech at the Duquesne Wharf [excerpt] (1897)

“The Hour Has Struck to Call a Halt” : Call for the St. Louis Convention of Coal Miners (1897)

Proclamation Needed to End Coal Strike (1897)

Labor Day is Near at Hand (1897)

Press Release on the Forthcoming St. Louis Convention of Labor Leaders (1897)

To the Hosts of the Social Democracy [An 1897 Labor Day Message]

A Call to the People (1897)

Proclamation Needed to End Coal Strike (1897)

To the Hosts of the Social Democracy of America (Labor Day Message—1897)

“I Plead Guilty to the Charge of Being Radical” : Speech at the St. Louis Conference of Labor Leaders (1897)

To the Hosts of the Social Democracy: A Message for Labor Day (1897)

“I Plead Guilty to the Charge of Being Radical” : Speech to the St. Louis Labor Conference (1897)

St. Louis Convention Rejects Government by Injunction (1897)

The Lattimer Massacre (1897)

The Lattimer Massacre (1897)

“We Cannot Hope to Succeed by Violence” : Speech at the Meeting of Branch 1 SDA, Chicago [excerpt] (1897)

Statement to the Press Regarding the Suspension of Chicago Local Branch No. 2 (September 19, 1897) (1897)

Now for Action! (September 23, 1897) (1897)

Keynote Speech to the Chicago Conference of Labor Leaders (1897)

The Duty of the Hour (1897)

The Approaching Elections (1897)

Workingmen and the Social Democracy (1897)

Telegram to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (1897)

The Indiana Coal Miners (circa November 30, 1897) (1897)

Introduction to Robert Blatchford’s Book, Merrie England (1897)

1898

Speech in Atlanta (1898)

Statement to the Press about Judge Peter S. Grosscup (1898)

The American Movement (1898)

Labor’s Martyred Heroes (1898)

Social Democracy (1898)

Speech at the Third Anniversary Celebration of Myron Reed’s Broadway Temple, Denver (1898)

“I Love Humanity Better Than I Do Gold” : Speech at Coliseum Hall, Denver [excerpt] (1898)

Against Fusion: Debs Reiterates his Declaration for the Benefit of Doubters: He Urges the Importance of the Convention, Where a National Platform Will Be Adoptedt (1898)

Against Fusion (1898)

Letter to Victor L. Berger about the Forthcoming Convention of the SDA (May 27, 1898) (1898)

Edward Bellamy was a Friend of Mine (1898)

The Coming Nation: Speech at the Grand Opera House, Terre Haute (1898)

Comments on the War at the Opening of the First National Convention of the Social Democracy (1898)

Declination of Office in the Social Democracy of America at the First National Convention (1898)

Speech to the First Annual Convention of the Social Democracy of America, June 9, 1898 - excerpt (1898)

To Members of the Social Democracy of America (1898) [Signed by Debs with around 30 others from the leadership of the Social Democracy]

Debs Goes Out: Social Democracy is Split into Two Factions (1898)

Well Done! The Social Democratic Party of America Organized at Last Week’s Convention by G.A. Hoehn (1898)

Manifesto of the Social Democracy of America to the American People (1898)

A Plain Statement by James Hogan Chairman, Social Democracy of America (1898)

The Withdrawal of Debs and What It Means by Joseph R. Buchanan (1898)

“The More I Think of the Outcome”: Excerpt from a Letter to G.A. Hoehn (1898)

The Future (1898)

The Social Democratic Party and Labor Day (1898)

To Our Comrades! (1898)

Social Democracy (1898)

“The Dollar Counts for Everything” : Speech in Springfield, Massachusetts (1898)

“In the West Discontent is Widespread”: Interview with the Manchester Daily Mirror (1898)

An End to War — A Start to Militarism (1898)

“Until We Have Swept the Country”: An Open Letter to Local Branches of the SDP (1898)

“Morally I Mean to Pay Them” : Interview with the Omaha World-Herald (1898)

Territorial Expansion (1898)

1899

The Knights of Labor (1899)

Triumph Through Federation (1899)

Prison Labor Speech (1899)

The March of Socialism (1899)

Labor and Liberty: Speech in Saginaw, Michigan (1899)

Socialism or Capitalism? Open Letter to R.S. Thompson, Chairman of the Union Reform Party (1899)

Prison Labor — Its Effects on Industry and Trade: Address to the Nineteenth Century Club in New York City (1899)

Texas is Coming (1899)

A Year of Growth Presages Success (1899)

Correspondence between Lazarus Abelson, Organizer, Section New York, SLP, and Morris Hillquit (1899)

Correspondence between Lazarus Abelson, Organizer, Section New York, SLP, and Morris Hillquit (1899)

Latter Day History: Important Events and Recent Occurrences in the Socialist Labor Organization of New York City by Henry Slobodin (1899)

Slobodin on the NEC desposed (1899)

Aims and Objects of the Social Democratic Party (1899)

More Than a Municipal Campaign: Speech in Haverhill, Massachusetts (1899)

Prospects of the SDP: Interview with the Haverhill Social Democrat (1899)

Tribute to Robert G. Ingersoll (1899)

Latter Day History: Important Events and Recent Occurrences in the Socialist Labor Organization of New York City (1899)

National Executive Committee Deposed: Statement of the National Executive to the Members of the Socialist Labor Party by Henry Slobodin (1899)

The National Convention (1899)

The Workers and the Trusts (1899)

Scattered Topics (September 2, 1899) (1899)

Current Events, Part 1: False Glory, Repression, and the Future (1899)

Signs of Social Revolution (1899)

The Future is Bright (1899)

Eugene V. Debs: Lecture Season of 1899-1900 by L.W. Rogers , Deb's manager(1899)

The National Labor Party Interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1899)

Labor’s Inning (1899)

New York Fusion Movement a Mistake (1899)

Trusts an Ultimate Blessing (1899)

Aims and Objects of the Social Democratic Party (1899)

“They Fear Its Growing Power” : Interview with the Chicago Chronicle (1899)

“I Will Not Be a Candidate for President” : Interview in LaPorte, Indiana (1899)

Statement about Reestablishing the American Railway Union (1899)

More Than a Municipal Campaign: Speech in Haverhill, Massachusetts (1899)

Prospects of the SDP: Interview with the Haverhill Social Democrat (1899)

1900

Martin Irons, Martyr (1900)

Outlook for Socialism in the United States (1900)

Speech at Canton, Ohio, (1900)

The Vital Issue (1900)

The Social Democracy (1900)

The Hour for Unity Has Not Yet Arrived: Letter to the Editor of the Social Democratic Herald (1900)

The Social Democratic Party: Revolutionary Not Reform (1900)

Declination of Nomination for President of the United States at the Convention of the SDP (1900)

Speech of Acceptance of Nomination for President of the United States (1900)

Eugene V. Debs Accepts (1900)

Unity Achieved at the Social Democratic Convention (1900) by G.B. Benham The Union Conference: Minutes and Commentary by Margaret Haile (1900)

Trade Unions and Politics (1900)

The Issues of Unity (1900)

Protest of the Chicago SDP Unity Committee Majority Against the Manifesto of the NEB (1900)

Speech at the Second Joint Unity Conference (1900)

Socialists Unite! Committees of the SLP and SDP Hold a Second Conference and Adopt Plans to Further Union (1900)

Social Democrats, Stand Pat! (1900)

No Organic Union Has Been Effected (1900)

Letter of Acceptance of the Nomination for President of the United States (1900)

Socialists Are At War: Control of Campaign Funds Causes Split in Debs’ Followers (1900)

Letter to Frederic Heath in Milwaukee (1900)

Declination of Nomination for the National Executive Board of the SDP (1900)

Wilhelm Liebknecht, the People’s Tribune (1900)

The Social Democratic Party (1900)

Eugene V. Debs at Home in Terre Haute: An Interview with the St. Louis Chronicle (1900)

Outlook for Socialism in the United States (1900)

The Essence of Social Democracy (1900)

Working Together in Unison: An Open Letter to J.B. Smiley of Chicago (September 17, 1900)

Warning Notice (1900)

The Downfall of Capitalism (1900)

The Democratic Party Will Not Deceive and Destroy the Social Democratic Party: An Open Letter to L.A. Russell of Cleveland (1900)

Competition vs. Cooperation: Speech at Central Music Hall, Chicago (1900)

Competition vs. Cooperation: Speech delivered at Central Music Hall, Chicago, IL — Sept. 29, 1900 (1900) This speech launched the 1900 candidacy of Eugene Debs for President of the United States under the banner of the Social Democratic Party of America. Debs takes aim at the Republican and Democratic parties, calling the former the party of big capital and the latter the party of petty capital and asserting no fundamental difference between the two, both being for continuation of the wage system of capitalism even if they disagreed on the question of imperialism. To this was opposed the new Socialist organization, representing the working class and “declaring in favor of collective ownership of the means of production” as the only possible solution to unemployment and chronic economic stagnation. Debs holds up radical abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Elijah Lovejoy as role models, noting that in their time they were subjected to severe criticism and physical attack, only to be acknowledged as heroes by a later generation. Debs appeals for support in the voting booth, declaring that “It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” He sees “wage slavery” as a comparable modern evil to the chattel slavery defeated by the abolition movement and argues that only socialism provides an escape, professing “absolute confidence” in achieving a socialist future.

Three Classes, Three Parties: Campaign Speech in Cincinnati, Ohio (1900)

“You Are Doomed to be a Sorely Disappointed Man”: Open Letter to Samuel M. Jones (1900)

A Final Word (1900)

Progress of the Social Revolution (November 26, 1900)

Special Convention: Official Call (1900)

A Word About the “Independent” (December 8, 1900)

Martin Irons, Martyr (December 9, 1900)

Letter to Theodore Debs, National Secretary of the Social Democratic Party in Chicago from William Butscher, National Secretary of the Socialist Democratic Party in Springfield (1900)

1901

The Approaching Convention (1901)

Report of the National Executive Board to the Special Convention of the Social Democratic Party with Headquarters in Chicago (1901)

Convention Statement on Proposed Unity with the Springfield SDP (1901)

Convention Notes by A.S. Edwards (1901)

The Approaching Convention (January 12, 1901))

The January 1901 Special National Convention of the Social Democratic Party of America by A.S. Edwards (1901)

As to “Hissing Snakes”: Letter to the Editor of The People (1901)

Fraud and Imposture at Modern Funerals (1901)

Schwab’s Silly Advice (1901)

Crimes of Carnegie (1901)

Socialists Who Would Emasculate Socialism (1901)

The Climax of Capitalism (1901)

Socialists Who Would Emasculate Socialism (1901)

The July Convention (1901)

Socialists Who Would Emasculate Socialism (1901)

The July Convention (1901) [older version from the Marxist History Library]

The Mission of Socialism is as Big as the World: Speech to a Socialist Picnic, Hoerdt’s Park, Chicago (1901)

The Task of the Convention by Morris Hillquit (1901)

Telegrams to the Joint Unity Convention Founding the Socialist Party of America (1901)

“They May Shelve Me If They Like”: Statement to the Philadelphia Times (1901)

The July Convention (1901)

A United, Harmonious, and Enthusiastic Party: Letter to the Editor of The Worker (August 5, 1901)

The Indianapolis Convention (1901)

The Political Solidarity of Labor (1901)

Statement to the Press on the Shooting of President William McKinley (1901)

Twilight and Dawn (1901)

The War for Freedom (December 11, 1901)

1902

The Western Labor Movement (1902)

Mission of the Socialist Party Speech at Coliseum Hall Arena, Denver, CO — May 26, 1902(1902)

“We Must Gain Possession of the Tools of Trade” Speech at Butte Auditorium, Butte, Montana — June 16, 1902

How I Became a Socialist (1902)

Stopped the Blacklist (1902)

The Western Labor Movement (1902) [PDF version]

What’s the Matter with Chicago? (1902)

Peace, Peace, There Is No Peace! (1902)

Battle Cry of Superstition (1902)

Altgeld, the Liberator (1902)

Prince and Proletaire (1902)

“I Am with You in This”: Speech to the Joint Convention of the Western Federation of Miners and Western Labor Union (1902)

Go Into Politics the Right Way (1903)

Across the Line (1902)

Progressive Trade Unionism (1902)

What’s the Matter With Chicago? (1902)

A Year of Trial for the Western Federation of Miners (1902)

The Socialistic Movement in America 1 (1902)

No Compromise With Slavery: Speech in St. Louis (1902)

The Pennsylvania Coal Strike is On (1902)

“No Masters, No Slaves”: Keynote Speech to the Joint Convention of the Western Federation of Miners and Western Labor Union 1 (1902)

Socialism on Every Tongue: Open Letter to the Social Democratic Herald ( (1902)

Capitalism Has Nearly Reached Its Climax: Speech in Denver Following the Joint Convention of the WFM and the WLU ( (1902)

A Great Western Movement is Coming: Letter to the Social Democratic Herald (1902)

The Inevitable War of the Classes (1902)

The Western Labor Movement (1902)

Politics — Democratic and Republican: Interview with the Spokane Spokesman-Review (1902)

The National Platform Explained (1902)

A Narrow Escape: Letter to the Social Democratic Herald (1902)

A Narrow Escape: A Letter to Julius Wayland in Girard, Kansas (1902)

Progressive Trade Unionism (1902)

How He Stopped the Blacklist (1902)

Jesse Cox: An Appreciation (1902)

The ABC of Socialism (1902)

The Barons at the White House (1902)

The Western Labor Movement (1902)

1903

The Social Crusaders (1903)

Graft vs. The Same Thing (1903)

Auguries for the New Year (1903)

The Arbitration Farce (1903)

Socialism’s Steady Progress (1903)

Frederic O. MacCartney Belongs to the Living (June 1, 1903)

Labor and the Color Question (1903)

Class-Conscious Courts (1903)

Labor and the Color Question (1903)

Labor and the Color Question (1903)

“You Work Only at the Pleasure of Your Masters” : Speech to the Second Annual Monster Picnic, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1903)

Capital and Labor: Parasites and Hosts (1903)

Wayland and the Appeal to Reason: From Obscurity to Fame (1903)

Labor in Politics: Address Delivered at the Socialist Picnic at Gross’s Park, St. Louis (1903)

Crimes of Capitalism (1903)

Teddy’s Stab at Unionism (1903)

It is an Endless Campaign (1903)

A Word to the Young (1903)

The Negro in the Class Struggle (1903)

Reminiscences of Myron W. Reed (1903)

Fixed Conventions and Costly Courts (1903)

As to True Brotherhood: An Open Letter to the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees (1903)

The Great Game of Politics: Speech at Chicago Coliseum (1903)

How Long Will You Stand It? Speech at Chicago Coliseum (1903)

Auguries for the New Year: Notes from the 1902 Lecture Circuit (1903)

On the Color Question (1903)

On the Color Question (1903) Different formatting

Socialism the Trend of the Times (1903)

Socialism and Civilization: Speech at Rochester, New York (1903)

Society Must Reap What It Sows: Interview with the Terre Haute Gazette (1903)

The Growth of Unionism in America (1903)

The Negro and the Class Struggle (1903)

The Negro In The Class Struggle (1903) [PDF version]

Auguries for the New Year: E.V. Debs Writes of His Late Tour (1903)

1904

Mayor Jones and “All the People” (January 1904)

The Negro and His Nemesis (1904)

Why Peabodyism Exists (1904)

The Coal Strike Surrender (1904)

Darrow, Hearst, and the Democrats (April 1, 1904)

Crimes of Capitalism in Colorado (April 9, 1904)

The Spectacle of Transformation (1904)

An Ideal Labor Press (1904)

Speech Accepting the 1904 Nomination of the Socialist Party (1904)

Our First National Campaign: Interview with the Terre Haute Sunday Tribune (1904)

An Era of Bloodhoundism (October 1904)

The Overmastering Passion for Profit (1904)

Stray Leaves from the Notebook of an Agitator (1904)

The Anniversary of Class War in Colorado (1904)

The Independence Depot Bombing: A Case of Capitalist Infernalism (June 25, 1904)

To the Seattle Socialist and Its Readers (1904)

The Class Struggle and Its Impediments (1904)

The American Movement (1904)

Moving Toward Socialism (1904)

Face to Face (September 1904)

The Socialist Party and the Working Class: Opening Campaign Speech in Indianapolis (1904)

The Pressing Need (September 17, 1904)

Use Your Brains!l (1904)

The Tragedy of Toil (1904)

Socialists Making Unprecedented Gains: Telegram to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1904)

The Socialist Party’s Appeal for 1904 (1904)

It Ought Not Be Difficult to Decide: Campaign Speech at Chicago Auditorium (1904)

Advice to First Voters (1904)

Principle Shall Prevail: Campaign Speech in Milwaukee (1904)

The Swing of Victory (1904)

The Lessons of the 1904 Election: Statement to the Press (1904)

“The Democratic Party Has Been Practically Eliminated”: Telegram to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1904)

Known by Its Fruits (1904)

Invitation to a Secret Conference to Plan a New Industrial Labor Union (November 29, 1904)

The Socialist Party & the Working Class (1904)

The Federal Government and the Pullman Strike: Eugene V. Debs’ Reply to Grover Cleveland’s Magazine Article, (1904)

Letter to S.S. McClure in New York from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, July 22, 1904 (1904)

Labor Day Greeting (1904)

The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike: A Reply to Grover Cleveland’s Magazine Article (1904)

To the Seattle Socialist and its Readers by Eugene (1904)

To The Socialist and Its Readers (1904)

Apostrophe to Liberty (1904)

Letter to Clarence Smith Explaining His Forthcoming Absence from the Meeting to Plan the Founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (December 23, 1904)

Unionism and Socialism (1904) [PDF version of original pamphlet here.]

1905

Amsterdam Congress the Year’s Great Achievement (January 1, 1905)

Industrial Union Manifesto (January 4, 1905)

Political Evolution and the Socialist Mission (January 14, 1905)

Women: To Get What is Due You Must Take It (1905) (January 14, 1905)

The Socialist Party and Woman’s Freedom (January 14, 1905)

The Earth for All (January 14, 1905)

The Russian Uprising (January 26, 1905)

The Coming Union (1905) [PDF version]

The Russian Uprising (January 26, 1905)

Childhood (1905)

Revolutionary Unionism (1905) [the full 1909 revised in addition in PDF of the original 1904 pamphlet, click here]

I Can Imagine Nothing To Change My Mind: Letter to Victor L. Berger (April 13, 1905)

Revolt Against the AF of L is Bound to Come: Letter to Frederic Heath (April 22, 1905)

Splits Are Not Always Bad: Letter to Frederic Heath (April 26, 1905)

Class Unionism (1905) [pdf version here and here ]

Berger and His Opponents (1905)

Industrial Unionism Written for Editors’ American Encyclopedia, perhaps never published. Republished as “Industrial Unionism” in Industrial Union Bulletin [Chicago], vol. 1, no. 36 (Nov. 2, 1907), p. 5. Reprinted under the same title in International Socialist Review, vol. 10, no. 6 (Dec. 1908), pp. 505-508.

Industrial Unionism (1905) [PDF version of above title]

Growth of the Injunction Growth of the Injunction

Municipal Ownership, Capitalist vs. Socialist: A Statement to the Press (June 7, 1905)

Speech to the IWW Founding Convention (1905)

Speech to the IWW Founding Convention (1905) [PDF formatted version of the same speech above]

Berger and His Opponents (1905)

New Industrial Union to Be Organized (June 22, 1905)

The New Union (July 22, 1905)

The Chautauqua Platform and Its Opportunities (August 26, 1905)

The Misrepresentation and Lies of the Capitalist Press (Early July 1905)

I Would Share the Prison Cell With You: Letter to Moses Harman (July 20, 1905)

Now for Action (July 27, 1905)

The Industrial Workers of the World: The Convention and Its Work (July 29, 1905)

The Industrial Workers: The Convention and Its Work (1905)

Growth of the Injunction (1905)

The Industrial Convention (1905) [PDF version]

The New Working Class Union [excerpt] (August 5, 1905)

Labor is the Great Power: Speech in Dixon, Illinois [excerpt] (August 8, 1905)

You Have a Higher Mission: Labor Day Speech in Knoxville, Tennessee (September 4, 1905)

Working Class Unity: A Labor Day Message (September 9, 1905)

I Would Consider the Nomination a Command: Interview with the Cherryvale Daily Republican (October 5, 1905)

The Growth of Socialism (October 11, 1905)

Discourse on Liberty: Excerpt from a Speech at Leavenworth, Kansas (October 12, 1905)

The Coming Labor Union (October 26, 1905)

Craft Unionism (1905)

Revolutionary Unionism: Speech Delivered at Chicago (November 25, 1905)

Winning a World (1905)

Winning a World (November 1905)[alternative PDF presentation of above speech]

Graft Unionism and the Progressive Alternative: A Letter to the Chicago Socialist (December 23, 1905)

1906

Industrial Revolutionists (January 1906)

The 1905 Mayoral Election in New York City (January 6, 1906)

Is Man Immortal? Contribution to a Symposium (January 13, 1906)

Socialist Papers and the Labor Unions: Letter to the Chicago Socialist (January 18, 1906)

I Instinctively Want to Pull the Bell Rope: Interview with the Indianapolis Morning Star (January 21, 1906)

Prepare for Action! (February 26, 1906)

In Full Swing: Excerpt from a Speech in Waterloo, Iowa (February 27, 1906)

Arouse, ye slaves! (1906) [ PDF version]

You Have One Prerogative — To Think: Speech in Davenport, Iowa [excerpt](March 2, 1906)

Open Letter to President Roosevelt (1906)

You Railway Men (1906) [PDF version of original pamphlet]

On Farm Workers and Small Farmers: Letter to J.E. Snyder (May 4, 1906)

Resolution for Postponement of the IWW National Convention, by Terre Haute Local Union No. 9 (Late April, 1906)

Evolution of the Anthracite Miner (February 1906)

Railway Employees and the Class Struggle (February 3, 1906)

Railway Employees and the Class Struggle (1906)

Arrest of Moyer and Haywood a Diabolical Plot (February 22, 1906)

A Glimpse into the Future (1906)

Political Action (June 30, 1906)

Labor’s Awakening (April 7, 1906)

A Few Words, Mr. President: An Open Letter to Theodore Roosevelt (April 15, 1906)

To The Rescue! (April 28, 1906)

Where Daisy Sleeps [poem](May 1906)

Moses Harman’s Mission (May 10, 1906)

The Congressional Campaign (July 7, 1906)

The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions: Contribution to a Symposium in The Worker (1906)

Idaho Election Should Prove Historic (July 28, 1906)

Duties of the Hour (July 1906)

1906/Collapse of the Conspiracy (July 7, 1906)

The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions (July 28, 1906)

Man and Mule (August 4, 1906)

Strike for Your Life! (August 16, 1906)

Crumbling Capitalism (September 1, 1906)

Organization for Emancipation (September 1906)

A Square Deal in a Round Place: Election Speech at Brand’s Park, Chicago [excerpt] (October 7, 1906)

The Labor Question and Humanity (October 15, 1906)

1907

A Personal Word (January 5, 1907)

Show Your Hand (January 5, 1907)

The Center of the Fight: Letter to the Appeal to Reason (circa January 17, 1907)

My Case is Obstinate: Letter to Fred Warren of the Appeal to Reason (January 22, 1907)

We Must Fight! (January 26, 1907)

I Have Come to Girard: Open Letter in the Appeal to Reason (February 1, 1907)

First Anniversary of the Kidnapping of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone in the Capitalist Conspiracy to Russianize the United States (February 16, 1907)

John Brown: Americ’s Greatest Hero (1907)

Mother Jones (1907)

The Kidnapping Case in Congress (March 2, 1907)

The Accused Miners (March 16, 1907)

Worker Solidarity and Mouth Revolutionists (March 16, 1907)

Roosevelt’s Labor Letters (1907)

Roosevelt and His Regime (April 20, 1907) [web viewable]

The Date Fixed! (April 6, 1907)

Haywood at the Bar (April 13, 1907)

Calumny and Mendacity: Telegraphic Letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (April 24, 1907)

Roosevelt and His Regime (April 20, 1907) [PDF of speech above]

Roosevelt and His Regime (April 20, 1907) [Different rendition of above speech]

Revolution (1907)

Looking Backward (1907)

December 2, 1859 (1907)

The Red Flag (1907)

Thomas McGrady (1907

A Short History of the Appeal to Reason (April 27, 1907)

The Crimson Standard (April 27, 1907)

Revolution: Written for May Day 1907 (April 27, 1907)

I Shall Soon Be Off for Idaho: Letter to Stephen M. Reynolds in Terre Haute (April 27, 1907)

“Bat” Masterson a Fiction Writer: Letter to the Editor of the New York Telegraph (circa May 10, 1907)

Who Are the Wolves? (May 11, 1907)

Monstrous Falsification: Letter to the Editor of the New York Times (May 16, 1907)

Roosevelt’s Labor Letters (May 18, 1907)

The Coming Climax (May 18, 1907)

The Coming Climax alt version (May 18, 1907)

The Demonstration Was a Great One: Letter to Morris Hillquit (May 21, 1907)

Letter to the Walt Whitman Fellowship (May 31, 1907)

The Trial and Its Meaning (June 8, 1907)

The Drift of Our Times: Lecture to the Fox River Chautauqua, Appleton, Wisconsin [Excerpt] (July 7, 1907)

Statement to the Press on the Haywood Verdict [Excerpt] (July 28, 1907)

Statement to the Appeal to Reason on the Haywood Verdict (July 29, 1907)

Sweep of the Social Revolution (November 9, 1907)

Industrial Unionism Defined (November 2, 1907)

John Brown, History’s Greatest Hero (November 23, 1907)

Thomas McGrady: Eulogy to an Honest Man (December 14, 1907)

Childhood (December 21, 1907)

Panic Philosophy (December 28, 1907)

1908

Railroad Employees and Socialism (1908)

For Joint Action in 1908: Letter to Frank Bohn, National Secretary, Socialist Labor Party of America (January 9, 1908)

Samuel Gompers in Politics (January 18, 1908)

Progress by Prohibition [excerpt] (March 1, 1908)

Shall Warren Be Railroaded? (March 28, 1908)

The Federal Court and Union Labor: The Buck’s Stove and Range Case (April 11, 1908)

Property and Public Welfare (May 1909)

I Had Hoped That My Name Would Not Be Mentioned: Telegram to Seymour Stedman (May 14, 1908)

A Short Speech Amongst Friends: Girard, Kansas (May 21, 1908)

An Evening in Girard: An Informal Speech Among Friends Following the 1908 Socialist Convention (May 21, 1908) [the same as the above talk "A Short Speech..."]

Unity and Victory (1908)

The Issue (1908)

The Socialist Party’s Appeal (1908)

Letter to Frank Bohn, National Secretary, Socialist Labor Party (1908)

We Will Have 5,000 Open Air Speakers: Statement to the Press (June 1, 1908)

The Socialist Conflagration (June 27, 1908)

Vigorous War on the Socialist Press Forthcoming

No Prospects for Hearst’s Independence Party (July 31, 1908)

The Greatest Optimists in the World (August 19, 1908)

Fear Fire on “Red Special”: Underwriters Refuse to Permit Socialist Train to be Decorated in City (August 29, 1908)

Fear Fire on “Red Special”: Underwriters Refuse to Permit Socialist Train to be Decorated in City alt version (August 29, 1908)

Notes of a Labor Agitator

Progress by Prohibition

Labor’s Fight for Freedom (April 11, 1908)

Independence and Liberty (July 3, 1908)

Mastery of the Machine: Campaign Speech in Oklahoma City [excerpt] (July 5, 1908)

Great Achievements

Telegram Accepting the 1908 Nomination for President of the United States (May 15, 1908)

The Issue: Speech at Courthouse Park, Girard, Kansas (May 16, 1908)

Open Letter to the Members of the Socialist Party, May 17, 1908

No Negro Question Outside the Class Question: An Open Letter to J. Milton Waldron, President of the National Negro American Political League (June 30, 1908)

What the Matter Is In America and What to Do About It: An Interview with Debs by Lincoln Steffens (July 12, 1908)

Women Needed in Campaign (August 1908)

The Democratic Injunction Plank (August 8, 1908)

Organized Labor’s New Turn to Politics (August 9, 1908)

Unity and Victory: Speech to the Kansas State Convention of the American Federation of Labor, Pittsburg, Kansas (August 12, 1908)

Unity and Victory: Speech to the Kansas State Convention of the American Federation of Labor, Pittsburg, Kansas (August 12, 1908)

"“Equality of Reward”: Theodore Roosevelt and the Socialist Movement [excerpt] (September 5, 1908)

What A Million Votes For the Socialist Party Will Mean (September 1908)

Campaign Speech in Kansas City, Missouri, September 2, 1908 [extract] (1908)

Statement in Reply to Samuel Gompers: Press Release Distributed September 4, 1908 (1908)

Open Letter to Readers of the Appeal to Reason, September 5, 1908 (1908)

Statement to the Watsonville Pajaronian, September 11, 1908 (1908)

Campaign Speech at Spokane, Washington, September 16, 1908 (1908)

A Million Votes or More: Statement to the Press in Missoula, Montana [excerpt](September 17, 1908)

Said By Debs: Quotations from Speeches Made on the 1908 Campaign Trail (1908)

Said By Debs: Quotations from Speeches Made on the 1908 Campaign Trail (1908)

Statement to the New Ulm Review, Sept. 20, 1908 (1908)

Remarks to Children in Trenton, Ohio, Sept. 29, 1908 (1908)

Railroad Employees and Socialism (October 1908)

The New Emancipation: Campaign Speech at the Hippodrome, New York City (October 4, 1908)

Diaz’s Plot to Murder Our Mexican Comrades Must Be Foiled (October 10, 1908)

The Socialist Party’s Appeal for 1908 (October 15, 1908)

Throwing Away Their Votes (October 26, 1908)

Socialist Ideals (November 1908)

To Our Comrades: Greetings (1908)

The End of a Magnificent Campaign (November 3, 1908)

Big Interests Are the Power That Rules: Letter to the Editor of the Terre Haute Star (circa November 30, 1908)

Socialist Ideals Socialist Party leader Gene Debs completely conflates philosophical and economic materialism in this article for B.O. Flower’s liberal monthly magazine The Arena. As Socialism "pays chief attention to the bread-and-butter problem, [it] has been called materialistic," says Debs. Rather: "it is really the most idealistic movement of the centuries. So idealistic is it in its aims that, while having no specific religious tendency or purpose, it partakes somewhat of the nature of a religious movement and awakens something of a religious enthusiasm among its adherents." Debs calls Socialism "an extension of the ideal of democracy into the economic field" and remarks that unlike the founders of the democratic movement of 1776, "we do not need, like them, to resort to arms, but may use the democracy they bestowed on us as a means for obtaining further democracy." In Debs’ vision, a simple change of ownership of productive machinery from private to public hands would result in productive labor for all wanting it at any time, a banishing of want from the earth, and education, homes, and income for all. Moreover, Debs promises that under Socialism the mind and soul will flourish, as will literature and art, fear of war will vanish, a new divinity will emerge in religion, and domestic bliss will reign triumphant.

“This Plot Must Be Foiled: Conspiracy to Murder Mexican Comrades Now Imprisoned in This Country by Order of Diaz,” by Eugene V. Debs [Oct. 17, 1908] American Socialist icon Gene Debs looks beyond American borders to rise to the defense of Mexican revolutionaries imprisoned by the country’s military strongman, Porfirio Díaz. Debs alleges the existence of a “satanic international conspiracy” between the Roosevelt and Díaz governments to capture and execute Mexican revolutionaries-in-exile Juan Sarabia, Ricardo Flores Magón, Antonio I. Villarreal, Librado Rivera, and L. Gutierrez de Lara. He explicitly likens the situation faced by the Mexican radicals to that recently faced by Big Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners. “These comrades have been engaged in a peaceful agitation in behalf of their wretched and suffering countrymen. Forced into exile by the ruling class, they came to the United States, but they soon found that their dream of security was a delusion and a snare,” declares Debs. Debs calls upon the American working class to “arouse” to stop this “dastardly international conspiracy of capitalists to murder labor leaders who can not be silenced in any other way.”

1909

Susan B. Anthony: A Reminiscence (1909)

The Gompers Contempt of Court Sentence [excerpt] (January 2, 1909)

Gompers and Capitalism (January 23, 1909)

The Gompers Jail Sentence (1909)

Arise, Ye Hosts of Liberty! (March 6, 1909)

Does God or the Church Change?(March 6, 1909)

Secret Agents at Work (March 6, 1909)

Epigrams of Merit (1909)

War is Murder in Uniform (March 27, 1909)

Roosevelt’s Stale and Silly Objections: An Answer to the Articles in The Outlook (May 1, 1909)

Fred Warren Convicted by a Packed Jury (May 15, 1909)

Principle Features of the Fred D. Warren Trial (May 22, 1909)

The Socialist Press (1909)

Industrial Unionism (1909)

Fred Warren Convicted by a Packed Jury (1909)

Trial and Conviction of Fred D. Warren: Summary of the Celebrated Case—Liberty of the Press the Issue—Two Years in the Federal Courts and the Motive Behind It (1909)

You Are of One Class: Speech to Pressed Steel Car Company Strikers, McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania [excerpt] (August 24, 1909)

Statement to the Press on the McKees Rocks Strike (September 1, 1909)

Flag of Freedom (Oct 16, 1909)

Statement of Protest Over the Jailing of Lázaro Gutiérrez de Lara (October 23, 1909)

Women — Comrade and Equal (Nov., 1909)

1910

A Working Man Has No Chance in Federal Court: Speech at Orchestra Hall, Chicago [excerpt] (January 13, 1910)

The Fred D. Warren Case: Speech at Orchestra Hall — Chicago, IL, Jan. 14, 1910, by Eugene V. Debs [excerpt] In this 1600 word excerpt from a speech delivered in support of jailed Appeal to Reason editor Fred Warren, Socialist Party leader Gene Debs takes aim at the judiciary, declaring the jurist in the case, John C. Pollock, to be “infamous and corrupt.” Debs recounts the story of his own jailing in 1895 and the way in which the judge in the case abruptly terminated the case upon discovery that the association of railroad general managers had met with officials of the Pullman Corporation in order to “crush the employees in the Pullman service and to destroy the American Railway Union.” The whole of the 131 member federal bench and the 9 members of the Supreme Court owe their positions to corporate service, Debs contends. Citing the poverty and misery produced by capitalism, Debs calls for his listeners to unite behind the principles of industrial unionism in the shop and joint political action at the ballot box.

On Ben Hanford’s Death: Telegram to the New York Call (January 25, 1910)

The More I Think of It, The Hotter My Blood Becomes: Letter to Fred D. Warren in Girard, Kansas (February 5, 1910)

My First Speaking Tour of 1910 (February 24, 1910)

Fight to the Last! Speech at Philadelphia Labor Lyceum (March 19, 1910)

Prostitution of Religion (April 23, 1910)

Industrial Unionism and the Philadelphia Streetcar Strike [excerpt] (circa May 1, 1910)

Open Letter on the Immigration Question1 (circa May 19, 1910)

Building the Industrial Union: Open Letter to Tom Mann (circa June 1910)

Unionism is the Flower of the Past Century: A Labor Day Message [excerpt](September 3, 1910)

Roosevelt and Prizefighting (July 30, 1910)

Industrial Unionism: A Letter to Tom Mann (1910)PDF version

A Letter from Debs on Immigration (1910)PDF version

The Little Lords of Love (1910)

Working Class Politics: Extracts of a Campaign Speech for Local Cook Co. SPA at Riverview Park, Chicago, Sept. 18, 1910 (1910)

Working Class Politics: Speech at Riverfront Park, Chicago [excerpt](September 18, 1910)

Capitalist Class Rule: Executive, Legislative, Judicial (October 8, 1910)

The Los Angeles Times Bombing — Who Committed That Crime? (October 15, 1910)

Gould Turns Democrat (October 8, 1910)

Berger Victory Heralds New Political Era (November 10, 1910)

A Word About Mexico, Mr. President (December 10, 1910)

A Personal Note (December 31, 1910)

Military Murderers (December 31, 1910)

Woodrow Wilson (December 31, 1910)

1911

The Secret of Efficient Expression (1911)

The Children of the Poor (January 15, 1911)

Help! Help!! Help!!! (1911)

Danger Ahead (1911)PDF version

Labor’s Struggle For Supremacy (1911)

The Eight Hour Work Day (1911)

Mexico (1911)

The Crime Of Craft Unionism (1911)

Crime of Craft Unionism (February, 1911)

Woman’s Day is Dawning (February, 1911)

Lincoln’s Birthday Speech (February 12, 1911)

Another Kidnapping Plot! (April 23, 1911)

Spring to the Rescue (April 25, 1911)

The Secret of Efficient Expression (July 8, 1911)

The Uninitiated May Become Discouraged: Interview with Elias Tobekin (June 19, 1911)

The Failure of Weak and Compromising Tactics in Chicago (August 22, 1911)

Why We Have Outgrown the United States Constitution (September, 1911)

The Chicago Movement [excerpt] (September 8, 1911)

Old Party Political Predictions: Interview with the Terre Haute Star (November 22, 1911)

Despotism, Democracy, and the Trusts (November 23, 1912)

They Are Democrats and Catholics: Statement to the Indianapolis News (December 4, 1911)

Mean and Narrow Fanaticism (December 11, 1911)

1912

The McNamara Case and the Labor Movement (1912)

This is Our Year: But Two Parties And But One Issue (1912)

The Socialist Party’s Appeal (1912)

Political Appeal to American Workers (1912)

Capitalism and Socialism (1912)

A Message to the Children (1912)

A Contrast Presented by Presidential Candidates of the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party (1912)

The Fight for Freedom (1912)

Civilization of the Whipping Post: Delaware’s Imperishable Infamy (February 10, 1912)

The Supreme Tragedy (February 10, 1912)

Capitalism in its Dotage (February 17, 1912)

My Personal Finances ((April 20, 1912)

The Socialist Labor Party (April 20, 1912)

Capitalism and Crime (May 11, 1912)

Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti (May 18, 1912)

Telegram Accepting the 1912 Nomination for President of the United States (May 18, 1912)

When the Hickory Nuts are Falling [poem] (May 22, 1912)

Dare to Think (June 8, 1912)

But Two Parties and But One Issue: Speech at Riverfront Park, Chicago (June 16, 1912)

“A Mistake and An Injustice”: Letter to J. Mahlon Barnes (July 2, 1912)

“The Load Will Be Shifted”: Three Letters to Fred D. Warren About the Barnes Affair (July 2-3, 1912)

Statement of Presidential Candidate on J. Mahlon Barnes as Campaign Manager (July 10, 1912)

We Are Ready for the Battle (July 14, 1912)

“Officialdom is Solidly Pitted Against Me”: Letter to Fred D. Warren (July 31, 1912)

“I Favor a Thorough Housecleaning”: Letter to Representative Victor L. Berger (August 10, 1912)

“It Will Necessitate Our Parting Company”: Letter to Fred D. Warren (August 11, 1912)

“A Good Excuse to Drive a Center Shot at Him”: Letter to Fred D. Warren (August 12, 1912)

The Progressive Party Convention: Letter to the New York Times (August 10, 1912)

Capitalism is the Real Issue (August 17, 1912)

“The Socialist Party’s Appeal” (1912)

Nothing Between You and Complete Emancipation: Campaign Speech at Everett, Washington (September 1, 1912)

Telegram Read at the Funeral of Julius Augustus Wayland: Girard, Kansas—Nov. 13, 1912 (1912)

Pioneer Women in America (1912)

The Results of the 1912 Election: A Statement (1912) Fight for Freedom (July 21, 1912)

War in West Virginia (August 17,1912)

Few Words for the Local Press (August 25, 1912)

Real Party of Progress (August 26, 1912)

We Demand the Earth (August 27, 1912)

Nothing Between You and Complete Emancipation: Campaign Speech at Everett, Washington (September 1, 1912)

Red Sea of Socialism (September 28, 1912)

Message to the Children (October, 1912)

Never a Good Reason (October 12, 1912)

Social Reform (October 22, 1912)

Old Parties Thieves of Ideas: Interview with the St. Louis Star (November 3, 1912)

1913—1914

The Rights of Working Women Socialist Party publicist Eugene Debs takes aim at Cardinal James Gibbons and other members of the conservative Catholic hierarchy for an address in opposition to woman suffrage. Gibbons and his peers are deemed by Debs to be “pious agents of the master class who admonish their subjects to obey their masters and be content with their lot.” Moreover, “Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland, and other high priests have not only declared against the right of women to vote but they have announced their opposition to the initiative and referendum, the recall, and every other measure that has to do with democracy and self-government,” Debs declares. “These gentlemen in gowns speak for Wall Street, for the plutocracy, the ruling class. They traffic in the ignorant reverence of the masses. At heart they hold the common people in contempt. They pretend to be chosen of God and to be his representatives on earth, a pious invention that has served in every age to keep the ignorant masses at their mercy.” Blind obedience “is not religious duty but debasing slavery,” says Debs, and he urges working women to end their passivity and submission and to insist upon their rights. “The day of awakening is at hand,” Debs pronounces. “The workers of all the world are breaking away from kingcraft and priestcraft and swelling the conquering hosts of the international army of emancipation.” (1913)

“An Unqualified and Malicious Falsehood”: Statement to the Press (January 24, 1913)

The Old Umbrella Mender [html] (March, 1913)

The Old Umbrella Mender [pdf] (March 1913)

The Early Days of Unionism in Terre Haute (March 3, 1913)

Ostracized Sisters of the Streets Reflect Our Guilt (July 13, 1913)

1914

The Coppock Brothers: Heroes of Harper’s Ferry (1914)

Jesus, the Supreme Leader (1914)

On the Death of Daniel De Leon (1914)

American Socialist Forerunner of Powerful Revolutionary Press (1914)

The Gunmen and the Miners (1914)

The Butte Affair Reviewed Eugene Debs rushes to the defense of Charles Moyer and the Western Federation of Miners in the wake of the bombing of the Butte Miners’ Union hall in Butte, Montana, ostensibly by dissidents in the union. Debs castigates the bombers as attempted assassins who had participated in a “treasonable, cowardly, and disgraceful plot” in the service of the mine owners who intended to rupture the organized labor movement. Debs notes that the WFM is the most fully democratic of unions and if Moyer was the head of a “self-perpetuating machine,” as some had charged, then “the rank and file have themselves to blame and they but add crime to stupidity when they blow up the union with dynamite to destroy the alleged machine.” To charges that the bombers were associated with the IWW, Debs notes that “it should not be forgotten that the workers at Lawrence and at Akron were most basely betrayed, sold out, and treacherously delivered to their enemies by IWW Judases, who while passing as industrial unionists were at the same time on the payrolls of the detective agencies in the service of the corporations.” Debs predicts a return of the Butte Miners’ Union as a united, militant, progressive union in the aftermath of the bombing and disruption.

What Shall We Think of Ourselves? (January 7, 1914)

To the Readers of the Rip-Saw, Greeting (February 1, 1914)

As Good a City Government as We Deserve: A Letter to the Terre Haute Post (February 24, 1914)

Jesus, the Supreme Leader (March 1914)

Soldiers, Slaves, and Hell (March 14, 1914)

On the Death of Daniel DeLeon (July 11, 1914)

No Time For Fear: Thoughts About Taking a First Flight (July 18, 1914)

The Real Religion of Jesus Christ: Letter to a Michigan Prison Inmate (December 16, 1914)

1915

Industrial and Social Democracy (1915)

Louis Tikas: Ludlow’s Hero and Martyr (1915)

Never Be A Soldier (1915)

Peace on Earth (1915)

Socialist Sunday School (1915)

The Social Spirit (1915)

My Ideal, [April 3 1915] Short piece of Socialist enthusiasm by Indiana SPA publicist Gene Debs. Not a particularly important piece on the face of it, this is most interesting for its opening line ("My ideal is a thinker in overalls.") and for a bit of unconscious reflection on the price paid in his own life for his activism. Debs writes: “Whittier, the Quaker poet, once said that any great cause is bitterly opposed in its incipient stages. This has always been an established fact. It is easy for a person to be a nobody and drift along with the flow of the tide. But it takes a bit of courage to step out and join the despised minority.” Debs notes that “united force” of the working class is “absolutely essential” for its triumph, calls the wage system “the final form of servitude,” and professes a belief in the imminence of the fall of “capitalism and wage slavery.” (1915)

Open Letter on Poverty, [Aug. 7, 1915] The flame of moral indignation burns white and hot in the breast of Terre Haute, Indiana ’s most famous Socialist, four time Presidential candidate Eugene Debs, as he fumes in this letter to his local newspaper. Local ministers, it seems, had advised their parishoners against providing money or sustinance to the so-called “unworthy” poor — a position which Debs found to be hypocritical, morally repugnant, callous, and brutal. Debs asks such “Christian gentlemen” whether “the great Teacher they profess to follow ever made any discrimination between the ‘worthy ’ poor and the ‘unworthy ’ poor.” Rather, Debs declars, Jesus Christ sprang from the poor himself, lived his life with the poor and moreover “when he made any distinction among them it was wholly in favor of the ‘unworthy ’ poor, by forgiving them much because they had suffered much. He did not condemn them to starvation and suicide upon the hypocritical pretext that they were ‘unworthy, ’ but he did apply the lash of scorpions without mercy to those self-righteous and “eminently respectable” gentlemen who robbed the poor and then despised them for their poverty; who made long prayers, where they could be see of men, while they devoured widows’ houses and bound burdens upon the backs of their victims that crushed them to the earth.” Debs declares that if he himself were consigned to misery as were so many “I, too, would probably get drunk as often as I had the chance.” He insists that the poor should no more be blamed for their situation “than if he were the victim of cancer or epilepsy.” In Debs ’ vision, Socialism would bring about a new democracy in which “men will be brothers, war will cease, poverty will be a hideous nightmare of the past, and the sun of a new civilization will light the world.” (1915)

War and Hell or Peace and Starvation, [Aug. 14, 1915] Socialist publicist Gene Debs argues that the options facing the working class under the rule of capitalism are not war and death vs. peace and prosperity — but rather war and death vs. unemployment and starvation. He quotes an AP press report dealing with the dire situation faced by families in Southern Ohio mining country owing to the closure of the mines. Debs bitterly observes that in large measure the suffering miners have nobody but themselves to blame, as the “overwhelming majority” of them have helped perpetuate the broken economic system with their own votes — “belong[ing] to the same capitalist party their masters do and cast[ing] their votes with scrupulous fidelity to perpetuate the boss ownership of the mine in which they work and their own exclusion and starvation at their master’s will.” Debs waxes sarcastic: “Blessed be the private ownership of the mines, for without it the miners and their wives would lose their individuality, their homes would be broken up, their morality destroyed, their religion wiped out, and they would be denied forever the comfort and solace of poverty and starvation!” Workers ’ power is needed to change the situation, in Debs ’ view: “When the miners themselves control the mines, once they have learned how to control themselves, they will not lock themselves out and starve themselves and their loved ones to death.... The bosses lose their power and along with it their jobs when the workers find theirs.” (1915)

My Political Faith, [Aug. 28, 1915] Debs revisits and expands a piece published in 1913 called “Labor, the Life of the Race” to expound his millennial political philosophy.] “The emancipation of labor is essential to the freedom of humanity,” Debs declares. For centuries across many societies, those who have toiled have been exploited and abused by parasitical masters. “There can be no morals in any society based upon the exploitation and consequent misery of the class whose labor supports society,” Debs pronounces, “There can be no freedom while workers are in fetters.” Competition has “engendered the spirit of selfishness, jealousy, and hate,” while the cooperative future will lead to the practice of “mutual kindness and mutual aid,” Debs indicates — poverty, ignorance, disease, and crime will disappear in the new society of universal prosperity. The rulers are few and the workers many, Debs observes: “When the workers realize the power that is inherent in themselves, when they cut loose from capitalist parties and build up their own, when they vote together against the capitalist instead of voting for the capitalist, there will be a change.” He urges the “brawny-armed millions” of workers to “get together in the union of your class and in the party of your class for emancipation!” (1915)

The School for the Masses: The People’s College of Fort Scott, Kansas (1915)

Sinking of Lusitania a Monstrous Massacre (May 11, 1915)

International Patriotism (July 4, 1915)

Expulsion of Half-Educated Socialists a Trap: Letter to the California Social Democrat (July 25, 1915)

So-Called “Preparedness” Invites War: Telegram to the New York Sun (November 29, 1915)

Real Religion and the Hypocrites (December 18, 1915)

1916

On Liquor and Prohibition, by Eugene V. Debs [Feb. 2, 1916] Citing personal experiences gained during his seven years of frequent residency in the dry state of Kansas, Gene Debs offers a pragmatic view of prohibition and the liquor question. This article, originally written for his hometown newspaper, was part of an ongoing debate over the liquor question between Debs and a local Methodist minister. Debs argues forcefully that prohibition leads to the closure of otherwise healthy businesses and the consequent decrease of tax revenues, while at the same time boosting costs of government operation. Moreover, prohibition only leads to an illegal economy, Debs indicates: “There are 19 prohibition states in the country and every one of them swarming with bootleggers; not one of them in which you cannot buy all the whiskey you want if you have the money to pay for it. There is not an actually dry county in all these states and there never will be.” As for the social gains of prohibition, Debs states these are non-existent, there being “not a particle of difference between so-called wet and dry states so far as the workers are concerned.” Debs argues that only the elimination of profit from the liquor trade and its operation by the state would eliminate the ill effects associated with the industry, citing the late temperance leader Frances Willard’s belief that the economic system which causes exploitation and poverty was the root cause of drunkenness and Socialism the solution.

Preparedness Will Crush You, by Eugene V. Debs [April 8, 1916] Accusing steel magnates Charles Schwab and Andrew Carnegie of being the vocal nucleus of the so-called “preparedness” movement, Socialist leader Gene Debs warns his readers of the future effects of militarism in their daily lives. For the industrialists “the more preparedness the more profit,” declares Debs, adding that “If war follows preparedness, as intended, all the better.” But for the working class preparedness was, in Debs’ view, “a fraud and a sham in so far as it means an army and navy controlled by the capitalist state,” which “will respond to the commands of the ruling class and the workers need expect nothing from it except to be crushed by it when they revolt against starvation.” Debs instead calls for an alternative “working class preparedness” based upon education and organization — “preparing the working class, in every way that may be necessary for the class struggle, however it may be fought, and the overthrow, by whatever means, of the capitalistic system that now enslaves and robs them.”

On the Proposed National Platform, by Eugene V. Debs [Aug. 4, 1916] With the Presidential nomination already to be made by referendum vote, in an effort to conserve scarce party funds the 1916 national convention of the Socialist Party was canceled. The job of writing a new party platform was delegated to the staid party veterans of the National Executive Committee. The document which these moderates returned raised a firestorm of protest by the Socialist Party’s center and left, including this impassioned letter to the rank and file from iconic party leader Gene Debs. Debs lists three deficiencies in the platform: a failure to clearly stand for the class struggle, a failure to clearly stand for “the revolutionary industrial union as against the reactionary craft union,” and two passages which indicated the legitimacy of a war of self-defense. “This is putting the party back upon the same ground it occupied in Europe when on that very account it was swept into the hell of slaughter in which our comrades by the millions are now perishing,” Debs observes, adding “Every nation in Europe, taking its own word for it, is fighting a war of defense and resisting invasion.” Debs views this a “deadly peril” for the Socialist Party and urges the planks’ defeat. “If the Socialist Party is true to itself and the working class it will take its stand staunchly in favor of the class war, the only war that can put an end to all war, and quite as staunchly against every war waged by the ruling class to rob and kill and enslave the working class,” Debs insists.

Russell and His War Views: Letter to the Editor of The American Socialist (1916)

Politicians and Preachers (1916)

Social Reform (1916)

Peace (1916)

James Connolly’s Foul Murder (1916)

The Birth of a Nation Inspires Race Prejudice (January 6, 1916)

Ministers and Civic Morals (January 26, 1916)

Prohibition Will Never End the Liquor Trade (February 2, 1916)

Forward to Victory! Open Letter to Seceding West Virginia Miners (February 12, 1916)

What Did the Old Parties Do? Congressional Campaign Speech at Terre Haute (November 4, 1916)

1917—1918

The Majority Report (1917)

Recollections of Ingersoll (1917)

Wendell Phillips: Orator and Abolitionist (Image scan with cover) (1917)

Wendell Phillips: Orator and Abolitionist (1917)

‘Men Shall Marvel That This Could Be’ (1917)

Susan B. Anthony: Pioneer of Freedom (1917)

1918

The IWW Bogey (1918)

Face to Face with Facts (1918)

Towards the Rising Sun (1918)

Views on the Double Attack on Russia (1918)

Indicted, Unashamed and Unafraid (1918)

Marx and Young People (1918)

The Canton, Ohio Anti-War Speech (1918)

The Campaign This Year (1918)

The Strike That Should Have Won (1918)

“Marx and Young People” (1918)

Karl Marx the Man: An Appreciation (1918)

Statement to the Court Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act (1918)

A Convention to Restate, Not Apologize (1918)

1919—1920

Verbal Authorization of David Karsner’s Book (1919) [Spoken work, recorded in David Karsner, Debs: His Authorized Life and Letters. (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919; pp. vii-ix.]

The Day of the People (1919)

The Situation in Ohio (1919)

Letter to Arthur E. Elmgreen in Chicago from Eugene V. Debs in Terre Haute, Jan. 11, 1919. (1919)

1920

The Wall Street Explosion (1920)

Why Are We Not Stronger? (1920)

The Power of the Press, Eugene V. Debs [Feb. 20, 1920] This short and fluffy article by Socialist leader Gene Debs makes for useful blurb material for radical publishers of any ages. The ruling class are “keenly alive to the power of the press in molding public sentiment and in shaping affairs in accordance with their interests” and thus their press is adequately funded, Debs states. The working class press, on the other hand, is underfunded and its newspapers and periodicals quick to starve and die. Particularly in times of labor strife is felt the unbalance between the ruling class and working class press, Debs indicates: “If the working people had a press the slugging methods of corporations in a strike and the activities of their murderous gunmen would not only be impossible but unthinkable.” “The working class can expect nothing from the press of the capitalist class but misrepresentation and injustice in the struggle for its rights,” Debs writes, and he deems the development of a vital working class press essential to the liberation of the proletariat from wage slavery.

PDF of Deb's last call to vote in the 1920 elections (1920) [and in DOC format]

Full issue of Deb’s Freedom Monthly on PDF format. One article by Debs.

1922

Debs Appeals for Prisoners:Leader Requests that All Trade Unions and Societies Work for Release of War Prisoners (1922)

Review and Personal Statement (1922)

Debs Calls the Jury of the People to Try Indiana Governor (1922)

An Appeal for Russian Famine Relief (1922)

The United Front:Shall We Have Solidarity Or Be Slaughtered? (1922)

Sacco-Vanzetti:Socialist Leader Makes Stirring Plea for Two Italian Labor Men (1922)

The New Age Anniversary: The Socialist Leader Says Support Labor Press that Opposed the War (1922)

God’s Masterpiece: Woman (1922)

From Atlanta Prison: A Letter from a Prisoner with a Warning (1922)

Railroad Unions General Strike:Debs Says Concerted Action of Rail Unions Can Bring Victory to All Strikers (1922)

1922 May Day Salutation, by Eugene V. Debs [April 29, 1922] Routine May Day greeting sent out to the labor press by recently freed Federal prisoner and Socialist Party icon Gene Debs. Debs acknowledges that the Socialist movement’s “ranks were shaken” by World War I, but was in the aftermath “readjusting itself” to the new conditions. “Capitalism is bankrupt and in ruins and socialism is mounting to power to rebuild the shattered social fabric and save civilization,” Debs hopefully offers. He additionally indicates that “bitter antagonisms engendered during that tempestuous period are subsiding” and that “before another year we shall have a more thoroughly unified, aggressive, and uncompromisingly revolutionary international than we ever had before.”

Review and Personal Statement (1922)

Embattled Liberators (1922)

1923

A Sheriff I Loved (1923)

Getting Together (1923)

Michigan in the Muck (1923)

A Sheriff I Loved (1923)

1924—1927

Socialist Party Due to Make Greatest Gains in its Entire History, Eugene Debs Declares: National Chairman of the Socialist Party Outlines Political Situation (1924)

1925

As to the Labor Defense Council March (1925)

The American Labor Party (1924)

Allen Cook: A Tribute: A Pioneer of Socialism in Ohio Passes Away — The Spirit of a Spartan [event of July 20, 1925]

The American Labor Party (1925)

Speech at 1925 Conference for Progressive Political Action (1925)

As to the Labor Defense Council (1925)

1926

Black Persecution (1926)

Unknown dates of publication

Flea and Donkey (unknown)

Eye to Eye (unknown)

Prince and Proletaire (unknown)