The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1895-03-23
Reply to the President Of the
Managers Association.
Mr.. EGAN STARTED THE ROW
The Labor Leader Offers One Thousand
Dollars for "A Joint Debate
with Him

Seattle. March l9.-The simultaneous
appearance in this city of T.. V. Debs
and John Nj. Egan has resulted in their
becoming involved in a wordy war.
While Debs spoke quite kindly of Egan
in an interview on Monday, Egan said
of Debs:
1T is unnecessary for me to discuss
Debs in the newspapers. He has al
ready been discussed. / pity the poor
devils who go and spend so cents to
hear him. The only advice they Will
get is to organize and strike again and
the last great tie-up for which Debs
was responsible plainly shows what a
success he made of it. The American
Railway Union will never flourish again
and the only men who talk of having
another strike are those who figured in
the last one, who lost their positions
and who are now anxious that another
shall occur ia order that thsy- may be
able to secure the positions Of those who
would be foolish enough to go out.
There Rre hundreds of men In the coun-
Try today, some of whom have been in
the railroad business for 20 years. They
had worked along and received good
wages until Debs told them that they
were slaves and that If they were only
strikers, the company would be com
PEELED to raise the wages. They took
his advice and the result they well
know. Many of them will go hungry.
but not so Debs. Debs never went to
bed hungry. He has drawn nice sal
airy and is now travelling about the
country at the expense of the working
men. i do not care to discuss the mat
ter except to say that Debs never won a
strike and l do not believe he ever
will"
DEBS SCcRCHES EGAN.
After reading this interview, Debs adj
dressed a massmeeting this morning,
at which he said: mr.. Egan is a dis
honest man and a ruffian. He is a thief
and he knows that he is and he knows
that l know that he is. He could not
hold a position as flagman on any road
running out of Chicago and he knows
that l know why. He has been con-
nected with many railroads and he has
robbed every road and every corpora
ton that he has ever had anything to
do with. He is a corrupt low, dishonest
man and can not conceive of any man
having sufficient manhood to push aside
brides and remain true to his conVic-
tons. He does not like me because he
could not corrupt me and he has no use
for any man he can not corrupt. ]
could have been in financial clover to-
day if l had cared to become a traitor
TO the interests of the laboring men
and the A. r. u.
81 have sufficient manhood to say
what l think of a man to his face and
that is more than Egan can say. He
would not tell me to my face what
he had to say i'm that interview which
was published in the paper this morn
ing. He will never meet me in private
or in public and discuss who are the
conspirators for he knows who they ar,
and what would be the result. Foul
hundred yolk of oxen could not pull
him on the same platform with me.
Il have friends enough to raise 81, 00l
cash for any charitable organizati or
in the land and ! want here to max,
public challenge. I will agree to Civ,
$1,000 to any charitable organization il
the land if he will meet me on the publ,
platform and discuss the history anC
causes of the late great strike, both t
speak from the record. The record viii
tell and no one knows il better than
Egan. 1t was al the instance of tn,
General Managers Association that tn,
trial came to such a sudden termination
in Chicago a few days ago. They do no
want it tried; they don't want the trutl
to be known and the trial was con
tinued till May 1. and when that dat
comes around they win want it con
tinued again and so on. until the who'll
matter is dropped But we, the ac
cused, are endeavoring TO compel tn
accusers to try us and if found guilty
we want to be punished and if innocent
we want the world to know it,"