The Speech That Earned Eugene Debs 10 Years in Prison
Excerpted from a speech by prominent labor organizer and political activist
Eugene Debs delivered at a Socialist Party convention in Canton, Ohio, on 16
June 1918. The speech led to his prosecution under the Sedition Act for
interfering with the draft. He was sentenced to a 10-year prison term and
stripped of his US citizenship. (He ended up serving 2 years and 8 months;
President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence.) Interestingly, Debs ran
for President on the Socialist Party ticket five times. The last time he ran
from prison and received almost one million votes.
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the
Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may
still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to
increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon
one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern
feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war.
The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the
capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought
all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their
masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another,
it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one
another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held
them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always
declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The
master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and all to lose"especially their lives.
They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic
duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But
in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in
declaring war, and no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by
the people.
The working class who fight all the battles, who make the supreme
sacrifices, who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never
had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class
that invariably does both. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die.
That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of
this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have
your lives to lose, you certainly, above all others, have the right to
decide the momentous issue of war or peace....
You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something
better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not
created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle
exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to
develop, and a manhood to sustain....
They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but
your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. Their patriotic duty
never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches. And
now among other things they are urging you to "cultivate" war gardens, while
at the same time a government war report just issued shows that practically
52 percent of the arable, tillable soil is held out of use by the landlords,
speculators and profiteers. They themselves do not cultivate the soil. Nor
do they allow others to cultivate it. They keep it idle to enrich
themselves, to pocket the millions of dollars of unearned increment....
And now for all of us to do our duty! The clarion call is ringing in our
ears and we cannot falter without being convicted of treason to ourselves
and to our great cause.
Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned
about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you
cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Autumn, 2002