Debs' Great Speech

   Owing to a belated train Eugene V. Debs did not arrive to begin his lecture before the Good Government Club -until 9 o'clock last evening. He spoke on "The Laboring Man's Interest in Good Government. ' ' After a brief word as to the cause of his not being on time, he launched at once into his subject. He said all good citizens were interested in good government. He said we possessed a free political government, but a despotic economical government, under which the man who works longest has the least to show for it.

    Economic conditions, he said, were such as to arouse the concern of our citizens as to the future but he had no appeal to passion to make. He quoted the words of the declaration of independence that all men are created equal and added to it the statement that all should be entitled to the opportunity to work. That present economic system deprived many of the opportunity to work. In 1890 he said there were 3,200,000 men who only had work a part of the time and 2,000,000 who had no work at all. Under this system there were multiplied thousands of cases of man's inhumanity to man and they were becoming more numerous. Machinery had wrought a tremendous economic revolution and under the present economic system is concentrating all power in trusts and combinations. Under the old system there were no extremely rich and no abjectly poor. There were no classes. The laborer associated and worked with his employer on terms of equality and could look forward to becoming the proprietor of a small but independent business of his own.

    All this has been largely changed. Now there are two classes of people - the few rich and the many poor. Out of the present economic system, he declared, had been created the tramp. He drew a pathetic picture of the method by which tramps were made and the erstwhile good citizen metamorphosed into a menace to society. The making of tramps has gone on and on until the species has grown into a grand army and become a danger to good government He said there was but a short step from the tramp to crime. That the abject poverty existing among laborers who, under the old economic system, had been happy and contented citizens and the turning of them into tramps by the wholesale was the most melancholy phase of our modern civilization. The present system deprived labor of the dignity which properly belonged to it and deprived the laborer of his self respect. He told of his visit to the coal  mines of West Virginia and the homes of those miners, of the hollow eyes and sunken cheeks of the mothers and children whose husbands and fathers in many instance labored for less than 50 cents a day. They created wealth which they were not permitted to enjoy. They were in reality life convicts and there was no pardoning power. They possess political freedom in a sense, but are economic slaves. They produce sufficient -wealth, if it were properly distributed, to enable them to live in comfort and happiness but they do not receive their share of the fruits of their toil. The result is unhappy and degraded homes, for love and poverty do not dwell together.

    He declared that under this boasted government of equality, John D. Rockefeller with bis uncounted wealth possessed more power than a million of his fellow citizens. Such men, he said, were enslaved by their possessions as working men were by their necessities. He depicted in fervid language the evils resulting from the concentration of wealth and industry, uncontrolled, in the hands of the so-called great captains of industry. Working men, however, must not expect a return to the better conditions of the period of small industries. Machinery has come to stay. A way must be found for a more equitable division of the profits of the production of labor. There is abundance for all if it is properly distributed. But as industry is now organized, profits are more than human life and manufacturing is carried on purely for profits and without regard to the well being of society. The great trusts are organized appetites, they have no heart, soul or conscience. They infuse this sordid spirit into everything they come in contact with. They control the minister at the altar and. even the supreme court of the United States as is illustrated by the Income Tax decision and the words of the dissenting justices, White, Harlan and Brown. If the spirit which controls these organizations could be translated to heaven, he declared it would wreck every avenue in the golden city, which would have its streets torn up for their gold and then the command "Thou shalt not steal' would be declared unconstitutional and all for profit. Should a working man go upon the tracks and steal enough scrap iron to buy a dinner for his starving loved ones, he would be promptly arrested, tried and sent to the penitentiary, but let the man with the money and cunning go into Wall street and seal a whole railroad and he would be commended and sent to the United States senate. The speaker alluded in an incidental way to the great strike in which he figured some years ago, but without bitterness and only to point an argument.

    Great economic power controlled, he said, great political power and he illustrated with the case of George M. Pullman. Mr. Pullman, he said, won bis battle at that time, but immediately thereafter he began to die. He was in conflict with his own conscience and selfishness, he said, is moral suicide.

   Mr. Debs' remedy for the generally recognized evils of the present economic system is co-operation. There must be more heart, and soul and conscience in business. Now there is none. If you would not fail in business under present conditions, you must take no heart into it and any change that is made, he declared, must be for the better. Competition results in centralization, combination and trust. These shut the door upon the well being of the working man. The remedy is co-operation. Under competition the more the laborer produces the sooner he is out of employment. Therefore the more he produces the less he can buy back. The system curtails the consuming capacity of the people. When the purchasing capacity is equal to the producing capacity these evils would disappear. Some method must be found for controlling machinery and the great industrial undertakings for the good of society. There is no social harmony in the present system. There is plenty for all if it is equitably distributed, but as industry is now controlled, the laborer is deprived of his just dues. His rags contrast with the silk he has produced but cannot wear; his meal with the banquet he has prepared but may not taste ; his home with the palace he constructed but may not enter. In turn working men must mix thought with their toil and do all possible for them selves.

    In substituting for competition, cooperation, the speaker argued for the change because it would be better for society and because it was right. There was need of heart, soul and conscience in industry and these principles carried into business would remedy the existing evils and this would be a better way of solving the problems than  through a revolution, which otherwise was a thing to be feared.

    Mr. Debs throughout his talk spoke with no ranting or show of passion, but calmly and with deep feeling which carried conviction as to his honesty of purpose He was witty and rose to the height of eloquence in many places. His closing was a beautiful tribute to labor and what it does. There was much in bis talk, for the thoughtful man to reflect upon.