The record-union., 1894-07-30
PLAIN WORDS TO DEBS.
Thrilling Pen Picture Of the Misery
He Has Caused.
Heroic Engineer Clark Dead I'm the
Ooze With His Hand on
the Throttle.
New York Tribune, July 14th.l


So, Debs, it's over. Well, it's sooner by
a few hours than we expected. We
counted too much on the permanence OF
your cure of neurasthenia. 1t was ooVl-
GUS several days ago that the backbone OF
the strike was affected by neurasthenia,
but we did not look so soon for col
lapse of your own. The language you
were engaged in throwing off led great
many persons unfamiliar with the phe-
nomena of your malady to believe that
your spinal column was the stiffest thing
on the continent. Some of them, we pre-
sumo, are disappointed. They were in
hopes that you would continue to assert
your superiority TO the Government OF
the United States until you compelled it
to backdown. They were curious to see
what you would do with it when you
once got it subjected; what limitations
you would place upon it, or whether you
would abolish it altogether. Their conf
dence in your spinal column was in
creased when they observed that you had
been reinforced by Sovereign. For they
know Sovereign as champion of labor
who carries between his nose and chin
the capacity of keeping all the industries
of the country going, when coal, steam,
water power and natural gas fail, by
simple wind. And now some of them
are thinking that, instead of helping you
with his wind, he blew your backbone
over.
But now that it is over, and you are
willing to let the Government OF the
United States continue business at the old
stand for while, at least, the Tribune
would like to ask if when you calmly
review your career, you think it was re-
ally worth while?
You've been very lucky, Deos. They
hanged a man yesterday in Chicago for
committing only one murder. He knew
less than you do. He sinned against less
light. There's a dead engineer, Debs,
lying under his locomotive in the ooze of
river bottom. away yonder on the Pa
cific Coast, who wouldn't have been there
but for you. And he never did you harm.
There was nothing the matter with his
back bone. He was trying TO do his duty
as he understood it, and he didn't weak en-
under threats. So the men whom you
enlisted, whom you guided, and whose
willing obedience you commanded.
stealthily and murderously entrapped
him to his death.
There's good deal of significance, as
well as pathos, Debs, in that dead engi-
neer lying there in the ooze with his hand
on the throttle. Means great deal more.
Debs, for the dignity of labor; for its
honor; for the trust that can be reposed
in it; for its knightly character and he
roic courage-the dead hand on the throt-
tie does-than all the sounding proclama-
tions that have gone out under your hand
during the last fortnight.
Others are lying dead over the whole
stretch of country over which your inf1u-
ence has burned its track who would
have been living but for you. Thousands
are idle who but for you would have been
reaping the fruits of industry in content
ment. Thousands of families are in dis
tress and misery who a fortnight ago
for 4oh h1n md s<rlf
have continued so had you not ordered
the bread winners to throw down their
tools and walk out into vagrancy and
vagabondage.
Through your orders business has been
suspended, trade and commerce brought
to standstill, and all productive in-
dustry discontinued through whole
neighborhoods and over wide extent of
country. No man ever did so much mis-
chief, ever brewed such trouble, spread
about such distress and misery, ever
caused such a sacrifice of life and made
so many families wretched with so little
personal inconvenience or loss and so lit
tie personal peril. For through it all
your salary has gone right on. Gone on
just as though it were not wrung from
your victims.
And what have you got for it, Debs?
Your picture has been printed in great
many newspapers. Your proclamations
and pronunciamentos in q great many
more. You are known by name to-day
wherever the English language is spoken.
It's wide notoriety. Don't mistake it
for fame. Debs. For it isn't. 1t Is an
unwholesome. nauseating notoriety.
You have had a stomachful of it. And
now that you are about to pass out O. it
into the obscurity from which you should
never have emerged we ask you in all
candor, was it worth while2
WHO WROTE THIS?
Can Anyone Guess the Authorship of