Written:1902
First Published: 1902,New York Comrade, April, 1902
Source:Debs, His Life Writings and Speeches, 1908, “The Appeal to Reason,”, Girard, Kansas. [Copyrighted, 1908, by “The Appeal to Reason,”, NOTE: Copyright protection is taken upon this volume for the sole purpose of protecting the work of Comrade Debs from prejudicial misuse by pirate Capitalist publishers, and will not be invoked against Socialist and Labor publication and Comrade publishers, they giving us notice. —Appeal to Reason]
Online Version: E.V. Debs Internet Archive, 2001
Transcribed/HTML Markup: John Metz for the Illinois Socialist Party DebsArchive & David Walters for the Marxists Internet Archive DebsArchive
New York Comrade, April, 1902— As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade” having any curiosityas to “how I became a Socialist” it may be in order to say thatthe subject is the editor’s, not my own; and that what is hereoffered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall nothave cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming aSocialist.
On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhoodof Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A.Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and atonce chosen secretary. “Old Josh Leach,” as he wasaffectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was thefounder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his ruggedhonesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember felling hislarge, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brothersearching my own as he gently said, “My boy, you’re a littleyoung, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in thebrotherhood.” Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. Whathe really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little whenI heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later,and in the course of his remarks said: “I put a tow-headed boy in thebrotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at thehead of it.”
Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “OldJosh” and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and Ipressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the frontthat never melts; and as I think of him now:
“Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.”
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influencefired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filledwith enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night Iworked for the brotherhood. To see its watchfires glow and observe theincrease of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. Toattend the “meeting” was my supreme joy, and for ten years Iwas not once absent when the faithful assembled.
At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editorof the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. Withall the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairlyglitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued tomy desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and nightwere one. Sleep was time wasted and often, when all oblivious of herpresence in the still small hours my mother’s hand turned off thelight, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zealand consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhere—and they were allthe world—were straining:
“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.”
My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To trampthrough a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or tilldaybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an“agitator,” or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more oftenfreight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in theprogram, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinterat Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in asnowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman,who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.
I rode on the engines over mountain and plain, slept in the cabooses andbunks, and was fed from their pails by the swarthy stokers who still nestleclose to my heart, and will until it is cold and still.
Through all these years I was nourished at Fountain Proletaire. I drankdeeply of its waters and every particle of my tissue became saturated withthe spirit of the working class. I had fired an engine and been stung bythe exposure and hardship of the rail. I was with the boys in their wearywatches, at the broken engine’s side and often helped to bear theirbruised and bleeding bodies back to wife and child again. How could I butfeel the burden of their wrongs? How the seed of agitation fail to takedeep root in my heart?
And so I was spurred on in the work of organizing, not the firemanmerely, but the brakemen, switchmen, telegraphers, shopmen, track-hands,all of them in fact, and as I had now become known as an organizer, thecalls came from all sides and there are but few trades I have not helped toorganize and less still in whose strikes I have not at some time had ahand.
In 1894 the American Railway Union was organized and a braver body ofmen never fought the battle of the working class.
Up to this time I had heard but little of Socialism, knew practicallynothing about the movement, and what little I did know was not calculatedto impress me in its favor. I was bent on thorough and completeorganization of the railroad men and ultimately the whole working class,and all my time and energy were given to that end. My supreme convictionwas that if they were only organized in every branch of the service and allacted together in concert they could redress their wrongs and regulate theconditions of their employment. The stockholders of the corporation actedas one, why not the men? It was such a plain proposition—simply tofollow the example set before their eyes by their masters—surely theycould not fail to see it, act as one, and solve the problem.
It is useless to say that I had yet to learn the workings of thecapitalist system, the resources of its masters and the weakness of itsslaves. Indeed, no shadow of a “system” fell athwart mypathway; no thought of ending wage-misery marred my plans. I was too deeplyabsorbed in perfecting wage-servitude and making it a “thing ofbeauty and a joy forever.”
It all seems very strange to me now, taking a backward look, that myvision was so focalized on a single objective point that I utterly failedto see what now appears as clear as the noonday sun—so clear that Imarvel that any workingman, however dull, uncomprehending, can resistit.
But perhaps it was better so. I was to be baptized in Socialism in theroar of conflict and I thank the gods for reserving to this fitful occasionthe fiat, “Let there be light!”—the light that streams insteady radiance upon the broadway to the Socialist republic.
The skirmish lines of the A. R. U. were well advanced. A series of smallbattles were fought and won without the loss of a man. A number ofconcessions were made by the corporations rather than risk an encounter.Then came the fight on the Great Northern, short sharp, and decisive. Thevictory was complete—the only railroad strike of magnitude ever wonby an organization in America.
Next followed the final shock—the Pullman strike—and theAmerican Railway Union again won, clear and complete. The combinedcorporations were paralyzed and helpless. At this juncture there weredelivered, from wholly unexpected quarters, a swift succession of blowsthat blinded me for an instant and then opened wide my eyes—and inthe gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every riflethe classstruggle was revealed. This was my first practical lesson inSocialism, though wholly unaware that it was called by that name.
An army of detectives, thugs and murderers were equipped with badge andbeer and bludgeon and turned loos; old hulks of cars were fired; the alarmbells tolled; the people were terrified; the most startling rumors were setafloat; the press volleyed and thundered, and over all the wires sped thenews that Chicago’s white throat was in the clutch of a red mod;injunctions flew thick and fast, arrests followed, and our office andheadquarters, the heart of the strike, was sacked, torn out and nailed upby the “lawful” authorities of the federal government; and whenin company with my loyal comrades I found myself in Cook county jail atChicago with the whole press screaming conspiracy, treason and murder, andby some fateful coincidence I was given the cell occupied just previous tohis execution by the assassin of Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., overlookingthe spot, a few feet distant, where anarchists were hanged a few yearsbefore, I had another exceedingly practical and impressive lesson inSocialism.
Acting upon the advice of friends we sought to employ John Harlan, sonof the Supreme Justice, to assist in our defense—a defense memorableto me chiefly because of the skill and fidelity of our lawyers, among whomwere the brilliant Clarence Darrow and the venerable Judge Lyman Trubmull,author of the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, abolishing slaveryin the United States.
Mr. Harlan wanted to think of the matter over night; and the nextmorning gravely informed us that he could not afford to be identified withthe case, “for,” said he, “you will be tried upon thesame theory as were the anarchists, with probably the same result.”That day, I remember, the jailer, by way of consolation, I suppose, showedus the blood-stained rope used at the last execution and explained inminutest detail, as he exhibited the gruesome relic, just how the monstrouscrime of lawful murder is committed.
But the tempest gradually subsided and with it the bloodthirstiness ofthe press and “public sentiment.” We were not sentenced to thegallows, nor ever to the penitentiary—though put on trial forconspiracy—for reasons that will make another story.
The Chicago jail sentences were followed by six months at Woodstock andit was here that Socialism gradually laid hold of me in its ownirresistible fashion. Books and pamphlets and letters from socialists cameby every mail and I began to read and think and dissect the anatomy of thesystem in which workingmen, however organized, could be shattered andbattered and splintered at a single stroke. The writings of Bellamy andBlatchford early appealed to me. The “Cooperative Commonwealth”of Gronlund also impressed me, but the writings of Kautsky were so clearand conclusive that I readily grasped, not merely his argument, but alsocaught the spirit of his socialist utterance—and I thank him and allwho helped me out of darkness into light.
It was at this time, when the first glimmerings of Socialism werebeginning to penetrate, that Victor L. Berger—and I have loved himever since—came to Woodstock, as if a providential instrument, anddelivered the first impassioned message of Socialism I had everheard—the very first to set the “wires humming in mysystem.” As a souvenir of that visit there is in my library a volumeof “Capital,” by Karl Marx, inscribed with the compliments ofVictor L. Berger, which I cherish as a token of priceless value.
The American Railway Union was defeated but notconquered—overwhelmed but not destroyed. It lives and pulsates in theSocialist movement, and its defeat but blazed the way to economic freedomand hastened the dawn of human brotherhood.
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