You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday September 24, 1904
From the Appeal to Reason: To What Faith Does Eugene V. Debs Cling?
In this week's
Appeal, a correspondent wants to know about the religious beliefs of Eugene V. Debs, Socialist candidate for President of the United States of America:
TO WHAT CHURCH DOES DEBS BELONG?
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A correspondent writes: "What church and what faith does Eugene V. Debs cling to?"
You might as well ask "What church did Christ, Bruno, Luther, Milton, Mazzini, Patrick Henry, Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, Wendell Philips, Victor Hugo, or Abe Lincoln belong to?"
What confidence could be awakened or insured by asking. "What church does Roosevelt and Parker belong to?" even if the answer came: "Baptist," "Methodist" or "Salvation Army." Some years back Debs lectured in Chicago on "Liberty." In that lecture he said:
The people had seen this money power enter the church, touch the robbed priest at the alter, blotch his soul, freeze his heart, and make him a traitor to his consecrated vows, and send him forth a Judas, with a bag containing the price of his treason: or, if true to his convictions, ideas and ideals, to suffer the penalty of ostracism, to be blacklisted and to seek in vain for a sanctuary in which to expound Christ's doctrine of the brotherhood of man.
This sounds good enough for Christians, and non-Christians, too!
Debs' religion is humanity.
In perfect agreement with the abolitionists, he is standard-bearer today of those whose belief, political, economic and ethical, is, that the emancipation of the wage-slaves will eclipse the emancipation of the chattel slaves.
Roosevelt had not time to receive Mother Jones and the deputation of children. Children representing the 1,750,000 of young wage-slaves aged from 5 years to 15 years, working in the factories and mines of this great country. What church and faith goes Roosevelt cling to?
Parker (republican-democrat), the clerk of Wall street and Tammany-what church and faith does he cling to?
Why this anxiety about Debs' church and faith?
Order and read his lecture on "Liberty," his "Unionism and Socialism," his "Prison Labor:" study his life and find out as James Russell Lowell sings:
He's true to God who's trust to man: wherever wrong is done,
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun.
That wrong is also done to us, and they are slaves most base,
Whose love of right is for themselves and not for all their race.
The London (England) Clarion writes:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Christ's chief representative in the British empire, traveled to New York last week in the first-class saloon of an up-to-date liner. He was received on arrival by Bishop Potter, an exceedingly rich man, and Pierpont Morgan, multi-millionaire. On the voyage we learn that the archbishop "visited the steerage." He visited the steerage: he did not stay there. The steerage is reserved for people as poor as Christ. Afterwards Christ's chief representative in the British empire started for Quebec in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's special car, "every comfort and luxury being provided." The archbishop took the chair on board the ship at a concert in aid of charity. Faith, Hope and Charity, but the greatest of these is Charity. Meantime, Harry Langford, a chef, threw himself into the canal, but he hadn't insanity enough to stay in, and saved himself. He had been out of work for five months. He thought if he drowned himself he would not see the troubles of his wife. She was starving. The archbishop is not out of work. He is never out of work. He is doing Christ's work for $15,000 a year.
Say, what church and faith did the archbishop cling to?
Jack Wood.
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And coming in the last issue of the Appeal before the election:
A FINAL WORD
By our presidential candidate will appear in the Appeal No. 465, dated October 29th. As great as are the facilities of the Appeal, this edition just before the curtain falls, will, no doubt, tax them to the utmost. It will be put to press fifteen days before the polls open, but there will be a few days off, necessary to fill your order and give it time to reach you. I figure that we will have ten days and nights of clear sailing for the press work on this monster election edition. Orders for No. 464 will be filled in the order received, and I would suggest that you hand in your orders at once. 50c per 100 copies.
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
of September 24, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Eugene V. Debs
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Debs and Hanford Campaign Poster
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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Solidarity Forever - Angela Kelly & Troy Coman of the UAW
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one
For the Union makes us strong
Chorus
Solidarity forever, solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
For the Union makes us strong
-Ralph Chaplin, 1915
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