The Portland daily press., 1897-11-06
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.
Eugene V. Debs Explains His scheme to
Portland Audience.

MIR. Eugene V. Debs addressed an au-
dience, numbering about 500 last night at
the City hall. He was introduced by
W. p. Goss of Deering and on the plat
form were W. l.. Lyseth, James Kelly,
W. II. Fitzpatrick and F. a. Hatch, repre-
sentatives of the labor unions.
The theme of his discourse was "Social
Democracy" The speaker first of all
presented the results of the commercial
and industrial system under which we
now live and expressed the belief that
widespread decentralization necessarily
resulted from the private ownership of
public utilities.
He proceeded to make an argument in
favor of the cooperative commonwealth,
system which contemplates e higher
civilization founded in economic equality
which can be achieved only when the
people in their collective capacity own
the land and the natural resources as
well AS the machinery of production and
distribution and commerce and industry
are scientifically organized and carried
forward, not for private product, that is
to say for the qualification of the lust for
money and power, but for the use and
happiness of the human family. Under
the present system the almighty dollar is
the supreme ideal of the race. Before
there can be any relief to suffering hui
mainly the dollar must be dethroned,
and humanity must be exalted. So
long as our whole social system is carried
forward upon the basis of money making,
the woes of humanity will increase and
intensity, and if the system lasts long
enough, bankruptcy, idleness, crime and
the enslavement of labor must ensue.
The trend of the age is .irresistibly to-
wards Capitalization, and as centraliza-
ton is fatal to competition. these forces
irrevooably tend towards cooperation.
Every trust is monumental of this prin-
cipal. Competition is destructive and
men are forced above the region of it, by
the instinct of self preservation. Hence
the combine.
They who foolishly talk about restrain
ing the trust are very ignorant of econo-
mic evolution, or as in the case Of many
politicians are deliberately hoodwinking
the people. To talk of abolishing the
trusts. under its pressure of resistlesss
and crushing competition is assfoolish MS
to propose the suspension Of the laws of
gravitation. 1t is either combination or
bankruptcy and ruin.
The same competitive forces which have
reduced labor to merchandise and the
laborers to mendicancy, are.now in opera
tion among the middle classes, and re-
sist it as they may, this class is now in
process of extinction and will disappear
as certainly, as that competitive warfare
cannot last forever.
Under the present system the average
working man receives, according to our
statistics little more than 20 per cent
one-ffth of what he produces. If the
workingman constitutes four-fifths of our
population, they are the consumers as
| well as the producers, and as they only
get back in wages one-ffth OF the pro-
duct of their TOLL they can only bring
back one-fifth, and as one-tfth of our
population cannot absorb the remaining
four dfths of the product we are troubled
with over production, our markets are
glutted, factories and mills shut down,
labor thrown out Of employment, bust
ness laDguishes, panics come at recur-
ring periods with widespread suffering
among our people for the things with
which the land is filed IN overwhelming
abundance.
Politicians will tell the people that this
economic insanity can be cured with
tariff nostrums administered by the tea
spoon full every four years.
We are on the eve of world wide or.
ganio change and notwithstanding the
false gods and the stuffed prophets who
are seeking to keep galvanized issues
alive, and fighting sham battles over
them to deceive the people and keep
them in bondage, while the plutocracy is
rioting in agonies extorted from cru
Gifted and suffering people.
The competitive must give way to the
cooperative. Jefferson said: sWe want a
government under which there shall be
no extremely rich, and no extremely
poor, and under which there shall be an
equitable distribution of property, +"
hence the programme Of the Social Demo-
cracy is entirely Jefersonian.
Only those who create wealth are en-
titled to enjoy it, and when we have a
social system under which this principle
is accepted and carried out, parasites
will disappear and we will then have
economic equality, industrial order and
social peace.
These were the central ideas Of Mr..
Debs's interesting remarks, around which
We're thrown illustrations and incidents
in support of the theories which he
advanc ed.