Political Appeal To American Workers - Eugene V. Debs

Contents:

Puppets of the Ruling Class.
Twin Agencies of Wall Street.
The Two Political Forces?
Corrupt Capitalist Politics.
Political Power.
There Is But One issue.
The National Convention.
Fighting Labor's Battles.
Persecution of Loyal Leaders.
The Campaign Now Opening.
First Socialist Congressman.
The Only Democratic Party.
Wages and Cost of Living.
Industrial Unity.
Socialism Is Inevitable.
Socialist Ideals.
This Is Our Year

***

While there is a lower class I am in it;
While there is a criminal class I am of it;
While there is a soul in prison I am not free.

I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, there are certain limitations placed upon the right of free speech. I must be exceedingly careful, prudent, as to what I say, and even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets.

***

an excerpt from the beginning:

A June 16, 1912 speech at the opening of the National Campaign in Riverview Park, Chicago.

Friends, Comrades and Fellow-Workers: We are today entering upon a national campaign of the profoundest interest to the working class and the country. In this campaign there are but two parties and but one issue. There is no longer even the pretense of difference between the so-called Republican and Democratic parties. They are substantially one in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office.

To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact. They, or rather, it stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery.

Both of these old capitalist class machines are going to pieces. Having outlived their time they have become corrupt and worse than useless and now present a spectacle of political degeneracy never before witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. The evolution of the forces underlying them is tearing them from their foundations and sweeping them to inevitable destruction.

We have before us in this city at this hour an exhibition of capitalist machine politics which lays bare the true inwardness of the situation in the capitalist camp. Nothing that any Socialist has ever charged in the way of corruption is to be compared with what Taft and Roosevelt have charged and proven upon one another. They are both good Republicans, just as Harmon and Bryan are both good Democrats and they are all agreed that Socialism would be the ruination of the country.

DOWNLOAD POLITICAL APPEAL TO AMERICAN WORKERS - EUGENE V. DEBS