The Washington times., 1920-10-12

won. by hard work and serious con-
cern. a considerable degree OF book
education, his real education comes
from what he had seen In his own
life and this is what he has seen;
standing here this morning i re-
call my boyhood. At fourteen / went
to work In the railroad shops: at
sixteen / was firing a freight engine
on railroad. remember all the
hardships, all the privations of that
earlier day. and from that time until
now my heart has been with the work.
ing class. i could have been In Con-
gress long ago; I have preferred to
go to prison. The choice has been
deliberately made. could not have
done otherwise. have no regret.
"In the struggie-the unceasing
strugglle-between the totlers and
producers and their exploiters,
have tried as best ] might to serve
those among whom / was born, with
whom l expect to share my lot until
the end of my days.
81 am thinking this morning of
the men inSthe mills and factories;
/ am thinking OF the women who,
for paltry wage. are compelled to
work out their lives OF the little
children who, in this system, are
robbed of their childhood, snd, in
their early. tender years. are seized
In the remorseless grasp of Mann
mon and forced into the Industrial
dungeons. there to feed the ma
chimes. while they themselves are
being starved body and soul / can
see them dwarfed. diseased stunted,
their little lives broken and their
hopes blasted. because, in this high
noon OF our twentieth century civil
iZation. money IL still so much more
important than human life Gold is
God and rules in the affairs of men,
"NOT THE ALMIGHTY,s FAULT
"The little girls. and there are
million Of them in this country
this. the most favored land beneath
the bending skies. a land In which
we have vast areas of rich and fer
tile soil. material resources In ink.
haustible abundance, the most mar
velous productive machinery on eartn,
millions OF eager workers ready to
apply their labor TO that machinery
TO produce an abundance for every
man, woman and child-and IL there
are still many millions of our people
who are victims of poverty. whose life
is ceaseless struggle all the way
- ''' S""hh W "SN, ""tit NJ idSN uCdth
comes to their rescue and stills the
aching heart and lulls the victim to
dreamless sleep. it is not the fault of
the Almighty, 1t can't be charged to
nature: 1t is due entirely to an out
grown social system that ought to be
abolished not only in the interest Of
the working class. but in higher
interest-of all humanity"
In very truth, that is why Debs.
with his sixty-five years. his gentle
service. an. his kindly face, wears
a prison garb to-day. And II is why
the other men in his cell. and in
other cells. truly reverence him as
they do.
What does. he think Of this prison
system, as applied not to him but
to the unfortunates for whom it was
designed? He says: "A thief max
ing shoes in penitentiary is en-
gagged in more useful and therefore
more honest labor than a free stone-
mason at work on a palace whose
foundations are laid in the skulls and
bones and cemented in the sweat and
blood of 10000 victims of capitalistic
exploitation. In both cases the labor
Is compulsory. The stonemason would
not work for the trust magnate were
he not compelled to-
HIS FELLOW PRISONERS.
And Debs once said to his friend.
Karsher: "Only my clay is here, and
that might just as well be here as
anywhere else. / can live here with
my soul at peace; / can live on the
increment of the love of my COM
rades and friends in the world out
side these walls. But these men
and / know many of them by their
first names nowhere once work.
men. For the most part they have
been used and exploited. When they
had nothing more to give, had given
their all-soul and body-and strove
at last to make the best of n bad
bargain and erred. society then put
them out OF sight. They were no
good any longer. Put them away!
They are unclean!
Think of the monstrous crime OF
furnishing the brother we have de-
formed for the wrong he has suf-
fered at our hands! Think OF tortur-
ing his body and deforming his soul
for having had the awful misfortune
to be the dehumanized victim OF our
own inhumanity. Is 1t any wonder
that in a perverted, wicked system
the basest passions are aroused, hate
and lust fll the world, and fire and
slaughter ravage the race?
HAND OF THE FATEs.
T belong in prison. belong
where men are made to suffer for
the wrongs committed against them
by brutalizing system. have
talked about this thing and these
social conditions all my life, and
now the fates have given to me the
opportunity to practice what have
preached. I belong to this stratum OF
society.
"T would not harm a hair in the
head of any human being on earth,
but before l pass beyond / would
like to have all the plutocrats. the
profiteers. the esploiters of labor and
their mistresses In their satins and
their tewels-all those who believe
this is a just social system and who
support ito sit In a great grand
stand, and I would then parade be-
fore their seeing eyes this pageant
n misery--the criminals, the sick.