The Republican journal., 1922-01-12
EUGENE v. DEBs

Mr., Debs has been a candidate for
President five successive times, and in
one campaign about one million votes
were cast for him. This shows that he
has had a large following. Intellectually
ne is the peer of them all. His life has
been clean. He is fluent speaker and
has a personal charm and earnestness
which, when speaking, seems to have an
effect on his hearers somewhat akin to
nypnotism. He is now 90 years old and
is in full possession of those powers
which have endeared him in the minds
and hearts of the socialists of the United
~4-.-- He is a socialist through and
sk.-,sg are t at he
/, or the use
af eeGh Saa to ten years
- a ihe al prison in
Atlanta, for opposition to the draft laws.
an opposition which was so strong that it
was reasonable. After confinement for
about three and half years, he was par
doned on Christmas day by President
Harding, but when he was convicted he
o S American citizenship and this has
a en- restored. He has been punished,
er sufficiently, time will disclose.
.... much. however, is already clearly
seen: He is the same Debs as of yore
His alert and somewhat brilliant mind is
still working in the wrong direction. He
4 is saAill voicing agitation and his hate of
the American government. On leaving
the prison he said that all the prisoners
should be released, thus showing his con-
tempt for the courts and for law and or
ader. He walked out defiantly, saying:
~tBrutal governments willlearn that they
cannot break mans spirit" When he
arrived in the Union Station, Washing
ton, he tried to make a speech to the
crowd assembled there, where he knew it
sis against the law to make speech with
G ont q permit. Probably Nj. Debs will
never have another opportunity to assail
rssbis government in time of war, but bis
shatexof law is second only to his hate of
capital which is unlimited and fanatical.
Wsbster's Dictionary defines capital as
eine: 'sThe amount of property owned
by an individual or corporation at spec
flied time as distinct from the income re-
ceived at given time" Debs considers
capital to be just whatlWebster says it is.
1t is property and this is what Mr.. Debs
hates, and his hatred extends to the laws
of the land which protects property and
.restrains the lawless. Up to this point
Mr.. Debs fights in the open. The real
purpose and hope of Mr.. Debs and every
other genuine socialist is, not only to
strip he millionaire of his millions !,
Sat to lay hands on the savings
1deoosits and all other monies in our
banka. to burn lthe records of real
estate holdings in the Offices of Registers
OF Deeds, to drive the owners out of their
factories, to confiscate stocks of NOR
.ehsndise and. in brief. to take everything
and sive nothing. Who would hold the
fAas3 Why. Dsbs and few other fellow
and they would hold brutal
rpewG over thoss whom they had despoil-
. ed'ty N army hired with the money they
lAad stolen. Socialism when reduced to
it, lowest terms is but the G of boil
shevism. Mr.. Debs seems to have come
out Of prison unchastened and unafraid,
ut he can make but few new converts to
Ais faith. The people of the United
Stats have learned some great lcssons
since he went to prison, not the least of