Virginian-pilot. (Norfolk, Va.) 1898-1911, 1899-03-22
EUGENE DEBS SPEAKS.
ON PRISON LABOR ITS EFFECTS
ON INDUSTRY AND TRADE.
(By Telegraph to virginian-Plot.)

NBy Telegraph to Nirginian-P ilot)
New York, March 2l.-About $50
members of the Nineteenth Gentry
Club gathered at the ballroom OF Del
monico's tonight to listen to an adj
dress to the organization by Eugene V.
Debs. the labor agitator. There were a
number of the substantial business.
professional and scientific men pres
ent, and the interest in Mir. Deb's words
was rather out of the ordinary, and the
speaker was applauded mildly several
times during mis- remarks. Mr. DeDs
spoke on prison labor, it's effects on
Industry and trade"
Among other things Mr.. Debs said:
Here, in this proud city, where
wealth has built its monuments grand
or and more imposing than any of the
seven wonders of the world named In
classic lore, If you will excavate for
facts you will find the remains, the
bones of the toilers, buried and imbed-
ded in the foundations. They lived.
they wrought, they died
IN their time they may have laugh
ed ana sung and danced to the music OF
the clanking chains. They married.
propaGated their species and perpet-
uated conditions which, growing stead
lily worse, are to-day the foulest blots
the imagination can conceive upon our
much Wanted civilization And from
these conditions there flow a thousand
streams of vice and crime which have
broadened and deepened until they con
Sutute perpetual and ever increasing,
menace TO thepeace and societyof So
clety. Jails, warehouses, reformatories
and penitentiaries have been crowded
with the victims. and the question how
10 control these institutions and nm
fortunate inmates is challenging the
most serious thought of the most al
Vanced nations on the globe
The pernlciouS effect Of prison CON
tract labor upon free labor SO called
when brought into competition with II
In the open market is universally con-
ceded but 1t should not be overlooked
that prison labor is itself an effect and
not n cause and that convict labor is
recruited almost wholly from the prom
erty-less, wage working class and that
the 1nhuman system which has reduced
n comparatively few from enforced
idleness to crime has sunk the whole
mass OF labor to the dead level of in
dustrial servitude.
1T Is popular to say that society
must be protected against the crimi-
nails.
II prefer to believe that criminals
should be protected against society. at
least while we live under q system
mat makes the commission OF crime
necessary to secure EMPLOYMENT De-
veioping along this line it would be
only question of time until the State
would be manufacturing all things for
me use of the people. and perhaps the
inquiry would be pertinent: If tho
state can give men steady employment
alter they commit crime, and manu-
lacturing can be carried forward sue
cesstully by their labor. why can Il not
give them employment before they are
driven to that extreme. thereby nra
venting them from becoming criminals
Prison labor is not accountable for
me appalling increase in insanity. in
suicide. in murder and n thousand
otner forms of vice and crime which
pollute every fountain and contominatn
every stream designed to bless the
world Prison labor did not create our
army of the unemployed, but has been
recruited from its ranks and both owe
their existence to the same social and
economic system. These conditions ora
as fruitful of danger to the opulent "a
they are degrading to the poor"