The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-10-17
BUTTE NEWS,
DEBS ENDORSED TRUSTS
He Calls 1t a Step Towards
Social Democracy.
Observation-Disclosures
A New Social Order Is Evolving From
Present Conditions-The Economic
Revolution-Wor kingman
Is a Wage Slave.
INSTRUMENTATION MAN

Eugene Y. Debs. ex-president of the
American Railway Union and father o.
the social democracy which he is
preaching and organizing in this coun-
try. came to Butte yesterday upon in
vitation of the Silver Bow Trades and
Labor assembly. and last evening he
delivered a lecture at the Auditorium
on socialism and labor problems. Mr.
Debs Endorsed trusts and department
stores as means toward the end for
which he is working. His address was
eagerly listened to by a great audience
composed mostly of worllingmen, who
packed the Auditorium. Mr.. Debs was
introduced by Patrick Kane, vice presi-
dent Of the Silver Bow Trades and La
Dor assembly. as the Wendell Philips of
the labor movement. Mr.. Kane said
Mr.. Debs was man who, for 20 years,
had labored necessarily with pen and
speech for the uplifting of humanity
and the cause of labor; a man whose
ardor could not be dampened by stone
walls and iron bars of prison cells.
Mr. Debs, as he bowed to his audi
ence, was greeted with long-continued
applause and cheers. He spoke for over
an hour and half, and in the course
of his speech. said:
1t is said that a tree is known by the
fruit it bears. The economic conditions
of this country must be known by the
fruit they bear. In our land there are
multiplied victims of mans inhumanity
to man. The man who works the long
est and the hardest has the least and
the man who works the least has the
most. Here is something wrong. I do
not mean to discuss the Individual
He is often creature of circumstance.
am opposed to the social condition
that permits it. To me it is certain that
new social order is evolving from this
condition, which has fostered and main
tains two classes of people. One class
is growing smaller and richer and he
other larger and poorer. There has been
an economic revolution during the pres
ent century and we are right in the
midst of it. In its march, the working
man has been reduced to a walking
pang of hunger. The time was, at the
beginning of this revolution. when the
man worked side by side with his en-
ployer, who was also workngman.
Then there was some sort of equality
between them. They associated to-
gether and called each other by their
first names The 1abor-saving machine.
which leaped from the brain of labor,
was intended to reduce the hours of la
Dor, but that tool of production escaped
from the hands of the laoorer and
passed into the possession of a newly
"a created class. In the former days every
workingman could look forward with
absolute certainty to the time when he
could be an employer himself. He had
B something to look forward TO- Now he
sees nothing in the future and there is
y absolutely no escape for the wage slave
except through the back door of suicide.
His labor is now controlled by the other
class and he must go into the labor
market and seek a purchaser for his
labor. If permission is granted him to
work the deal for his labor is pred-
Gated entirely on the question Of what
it can produce for the purchaser and
the idea that private gain is more valu-
able than human life. The cheapest
commodity on earth is human flesh and
blood. If the man is employed it is on
condition that he surrenders everything
he produces. The object and use Of the
labor-saving machine has been diverte |.
1t is no longer machine of deliverance,
but of enslavement The laboring n,s Il
no longer works for himself as he did
in the days of hand labor. In that time
he produced for use; now he produces
for profit
Mr.. Debs related some instances of
the fruits of this system and referred
especially to the shoe factories # he
East as an example of production for
profit and consequent overproductiol,
resulting in enforced idleness, reduction
in wages, etc. He said ore result #
the system of overproduction and re-
duction in wages has resulted that
1000 900 women in this country had been
forced into employment in competition
with the men and later the children
were forced into competition with beth.
Some years ago the coal miners of Illi-