The producers news., 1926-11-05
AMERICA LOSES CHIEF RADICAL

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Lingering almost 10 years after the United
States entered the world war. Eugene V. Debs,
at once the fiery torch and adored incarnation of
prewar American radicalism, died in a Chicago
sanitarium October 20 of a combination of heart
and kidney trouble and old age He would have
been II years old Nov. s. At the time of his death
he chairman of the Socialist party of the
United States and editor of its official weekly
publication, The American Appeal.
For many years before the war; when the So
cialist party was increasing its membership and
vote and taking root in both urban and rural COM
munities, Debs represented the agitational and
revolutionary wing of the party in active but not
hostile contrast to the organizatiOnal and politi-
Unconstitutional wing, represented by such chiefs
as Victor Berger of Milwaukee and Morris Hill
quit of New York.
The war forced the party to make choice be-
tween the two wings. The revolutionary wing
prevailed at the St. Louis special national conven-
tion of 1917, at which Americas entry into the
was denounced on extreme radical lines, but
the conduct of the party remained under the
ganizational and constitutional control.
Debs' speeches against the war became more
and more radical, however, until at Canton, O., the
Woodrow Wilson administration believed it had
sufficient grounds to send him to prison Debs
was sentenced to 10 years, of which he served
two years and eight months, leaving Atlanta fed
eral penitentary on pardon from Pres Harding
President Wilson had refused to act a pardon
recommendation made by his attorney general
and nursed until his own inglorious end the bit
terness Occasioned by Debs opposition to his gran
diOse war scheme. Debs more than any other man
had caused the American people to doubt the
sincerity and purity of the Wilson crusade in the
world war.
The Socialist party, which had been split by the
war into the radical communist groups and the
more conservative and moderate kernal of the
prewar party, waited eagerly on Debs' release to
see whether he would join his old party followers
who had left the party or would stick with the
group that had formerly opposed him in the party
councils. He chose to stick, believing that the uni
ty of American radicals could best be achieved if
ne remained within the old machinery. At the
time of his death this hope had not been realized
and his own old revolutionary position had been
far abandoned by his party comrades that the
Wisconsin unit at its last convention passed res
oution urging the discontinuance of the word Rev.
Oution and its derivatives in party literature and
discussion because it might be taken to mean ex-
Unconstitutional and violent action.
Debs was five times candidate for president of
the party. His health forbade him to run in 1916
and the party had no candidate of its own in 1924
when it endorsed the late Sen. LaFolette. Neither
Berger nor Hillquit are eligible as presidential
candidates, since both are foreigners so that new
timber must be found if a ticket is to be put up
in 1928.
The early fame of Debs in American progressive
movements was industrial rather than political.
He was the leader of the American Railway Union
strike of 1894, in which three types of the old
American imperialism united to send him to pris-
on for six months: President Grover Cleveland,
General Nelson A. Miles, who commanded the
troops sent to Chicago area by Cleveland over the
protest of Governor Altged, and Judge William
Howard Taft who issued the injunction and who
now sits chief justice of the U. S. supreme
court.
OF this supreme court which confirmed the war
time prison sentence on Debs William Ellery Leon
ard, the poet-author of Two Lives has written:
But seated in their ancient nine positions
They sealed the prison sunset-years for Debs. i.
AS indicators of those stern traditions
That tore from black Dred Scott his freemah's
shirt,
And locked free child in factory dark and dirt
So let it be. there's nothing for surprise
The things so old so wearisOmely grim
Nothing for grief :. except the shame
Grieve for the nation, but for him,
For he has but begun his enterprise
And in this silence finds the lips of flame