The Debs Decision
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THE DEBS DECISION
_By_
SCOTT NEARING
Published by
THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
New York City
Copyright
RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
7 East 15th Street
New York
1919
THE DEBS DECISION
_By_
SCOTT NEARING
1. THE SUPREME COURT
The Supreme Court of the United States on March 10, 1919, handed down a
decision on the Debs case. That decision is far-reaching in its
immediate significance and still more far-reaching in its ultimate
implications.
What is the Supreme Court of the United States?
Article III, Section I of the Constitution provides as follows:
"The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme
Court.... The judges shall hold their offices during good behavior."
The judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate
(Article XII, Section II). That is all the constitution provides with
regard to the Supreme Court.
At the present time, there are nine judges on the Supreme bench. It
might interest you to know some facts about the nine. All of the judges
are men. The chief justice is Edward D. White, who was born in 1845 and
admitted to the bar in 1868. He is seventy-three years of age. His
birth-place was Louisiana. He served in the Confederate Army, in the
State Senate, in the State Supreme Court and in the United States
Senate. He has been a member of the Supreme Court for twenty-five years.
Joseph McKenna is the second member in point of seniority. He was born
in 1843. His birth-place is Philadelphia. He was a county District
Attorney, a member of the State Legislature, a member of the national
House of Representatives, attorney-general of the United States and a
United States Circuit Judge. He has been a member of the Supreme Court
for twenty-two years. Oliver W. Holmes, the Justice who read the Debs
decision, was born in Boston in 1841. He is seventy-seven years of age.
He was admitted to the bar in 1866. Justice Holmes served in the Union
Army; he was a member of the Harvard Law School Faculty. He has been a
member of the Supreme Court for seventeen years. Those are the three
oldest men on the Supreme bench. They are the three men who have been on
the bench longest, but their political background is typical of the
political background of the other members of the Supreme Court, with the
single exception of Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who as far as I know,
held no public office at all before he was appointed a justice of the
Supreme Court three years ago.
The nine members of the Supreme Court are all old men. Four of them were
born before 1850; eight of them were born before 1860; one of them was
born since 1861, that is, James C. McReynolds, who was born in 1862.
There is not a single member of the Supreme Court bench born since the
Civil War. The oldest man on the bench is Justice Holmes, seventy-seven;
the youngest man on the bench is Justice McReynolds, fifty-seven; the
average age of the justices of the Supreme Court is sixty-six years.
These men all began practising law while we were children, or before we
were born. Three of them began the practice of law before 1870; six of
them began to practice law before 1880; nine of them before 1884. The
last member of the Supreme bench to be admitted to the practice of law,
Justice McReynolds, was admitted in 1884.
The Supreme Court Justices were educated in the generation preceding the
modern epoch of financial imperialism. They were mature when the
industrial order as we know it today, was established. They are the men
whose word is the word of final authority in all the affairs concerning
the government of the United States.
The Supreme Court, not because the Constitution grants it the power, but
because successive decisions of the Court have established that
precedent, has the right to veto any piece of legislation passed by
Congress and signed by the President. The Supreme Court is the voice of
final authority in the affairs of the government of the United States.
After it has spoken, there is no further authority under the machinery
of this government.
The Debs Case came before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has given
its decision. Eugene Debs goes to jail for ten years. Under the existing
order of government, there is no appeal from this decision, except an
appeal to arbitrary executive clemency.
2. THE CANTON SPEECH
The Debs Case arose over a speech made by Debs in Canton, Ohio, June
16th, 1918. The speech was made before the State Socialist Convention,
where Debs was talking to his comrades in the Socialist movement. The
main parts of this speech, as printed in the indictment under which Debs
was convicted, are as follows:
"I have just returned from a visit from yonder (pointing to workhouse)
were three of our most loyal comrades are paying the penalty for their
devotion to the cause of the working class. They have come to realize,
as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the
constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make
democracy safe for the world. I realize in speaking to you this
afternoon that there are certain limitations placed upon the right of
free speech. I must be extremely careful, prudent, as to what I say, and
even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to
say all I think, but I am not going to say anything I do not think. And
I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than a sycophant
or coward on the streets. They may put those boys in jail and some of
the rest of us in jail, but they cannot put the Socialist movement in
jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their souls
are here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all men
have paid in all of the ages of history for standing erect and seeking
to pave the way for better conditions for mankind.
"If it had not been for the men and women who, in the past, have had the
moral courage to go to jail, we would still be in the jungles.
"Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of the greatest
triumph of all the history of the Socialist movement? It is true that
these are anxious, trying days for us all, testing those who are
upholding the banner of the working class in the greatest struggle the
world has ever known against the exploiters of the world; a time in
which the weak, the cowardly, will falter and fail and desert. They lack
the fibre to endure the revolutionary test. They fall away. They
disappear as if they had never been.
"On the other hand, they who are animated with the unconquerable spirit
of the social revolution, they who have the moral courage to stand
erect, to assert their convictions, to stand by them, to go to jail or
to hell for them--they are writing their names in this crucial hour,
they are writing their names in fadeless letters in the history of
mankind. Those boys over yonder, those comrades of ours--and how I love
them--aye, they are our younger brothers, their names are seared in our
souls.
"I am proud of them. They are there for us and we are here for them.
Their lips, though temporarily mute, are more eloquent than ever before,
and their voices, though silent, are heard around the world.
"Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? Why, we have been fighting it
since the day the Socialistic movement was born and we are going to
continue to fight it today and until it is wiped from the face of the
earth.
"The other day they sent a woman to Wichita Penitentiary for ten years.
Just think of sentencing a woman to the penitentiary for talking. The
United States under the rule of the plutocrats is the only country which
would send a woman to the penitentiary for ten years for exercising the
right to free speech. If this be treason, let them make the most of it.
Let me review another bit of history. I have known this woman for ten
years. Personally I know her as if she were my own younger sister. She
is a woman of absolute integrity. She is a woman of courage. She is a
woman of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist movement. She went out
into Dakota and made her speech, followed by plain-clothes men in the
service of the government, intent upon encompassing her arrest,
prosecuted and convicted. She made a certain speech and that speech was
deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of securing her conviction.
The only testimony was that of a hired witness. And thirty farmers who
went to Bismarck to testify in her favor, the judge refused to allow to
testify. This would seem incredible to me if I had not some experience
of my own with a Federal Court. Who appoints the Federal Courts? The
people? Every solitary one of them holds his position through influence
and power of corporation capital. And when they go to the bench, they go
there not to serve the people, but to serve the interests who sent them.
The other day, by a vote of five to four, they declared the Child Labor
Law unconstitutional; a law secured after twenty years of education and
agitation by all kinds of people, and yet by a majority of one, the
Supreme Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one solitary
exception, wiped it from the Statute books, so that we may still
continue to grind the blood of little children into profit for the
Junkers of Wall Street, and this in a country that is now fighting to
make democracy safe for the world. These are not palatable truths to
them. And they do not want you to hear them and that is why they brand
us as traitors and disloyalists. If we were not traitors to the people,
we would be eminently respectable citizens and ride in limousines. It is
precisely because we are disloyal to the traitors that we are not
disloyal to the people of this country.
"How short-sighted the ruling is. The exploiter cannot see beyond the
end of his nose. He has just been cunning enough to know what graft is
and where it is, but he has no vision. You know this is a great
throbbing world that speaks out in all directions. Look at Rockefeller.
Every move he makes hastens the coming of his doom. Every time the
capitalist class tries to hinder the cause of Socialism they hurt
themselves. Every time they strangle a Socialist newspaper they add a
thousand voices to those which are aiding Socialism. The Socialist has a
great idea. An expanding philosophy. It is spreading over the face of
the earth. It is as useless to resist it as it is to resist the rising
sun. Can you see it? If you cannot you are lacking in vision, in
understanding. What a privilege it is to serve it. I have regretted a
thousand times I can do so little for the movement that has done so much
for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping to be, is due
wholly to the Socialist movement. It gave me my ideas and my ideals, and
I would not exchange one of them for all the Rockefeller blood-stained
dollars. It taught me how to serve; a lesson to me of priceless value.
It taught the ecstasy of the handclasp of the comrade. It made it
possible for me to get in touch with you, to multiply myself over and
over again; to open the avenue, to spread out the glorious vistas; to
know that I am kin with all that throbs; with all who become class
conscious. Every man who toils, everyone of them, is my comrade. To
serve them is the highest duty of my life. And in the service I can feel
myself expanding. I rise to the stature of a man. Yes, my heart is
attuned to yours. All of our hearts are melted into one great heart
which throbs to the response of the people.
"Here I hear your heart beats responsive to the Bolsheviki of Russia.
(Applause) Yes, those heroic men and women, those unconquerable
comrades, who have by their sacrifice added fresh lustre to the
international movement. Those Russian comrades who have made greater
sacrifices, who have suffered more, who have shed more heroic blood than
any like number of men and women anywhere else on earth. They have led
the first real convention of any democracy that ever drew breath. The
first act of that memorable revolution was to proclaim a state of peace
with an appeal not to the kings, not to the rulers, but an appeal to the
people of all nations. They are the very breath of democracy; the
quintessence of freedom. They made their appeal to the people of all
nations, the Allies as well as the Central Powers, to send
representatives to lay down terms of a peace that should be lasting.
Here was a fine opportunity to strike a blow to make democracy safe to
the world. Was there any response to that noble appeal? And here let me
say that appeal will be written in letters of gold in the history of the
world. While it has been charged that the leaders made a traitorous
peace with Germany, let us consider this proposition briefly. At the
time of the revolution, Russia had lost 4,000,000 of her soldiers. She
was absolutely bankrupt. Her soldiers were without arms. This was what
was bequeathed to the revolution by the Czar. For this condition, Leon
Trotsky was not responsible nor was the Bolshevik movement, but the Czar
was.
"When Leon Trotsky came into power, he found the secret treaties made
between the French government and the British government and the Italian
government which was to divide the territory of the Central Powers if
the Allies were victorious, and these secret treaties have not been
repudiated up to this time. Very little has been said about them in the
American newspapers. This shows that the purpose of the Allies is
exactly the purpose of the Central Powers.
"Wars have been waged for conquests, for plunder, and since the feudal
ages, the feudal lords along the Rhine made war upon each other. They
wanted to enlarge their domains, to increase their power and their
wealth and so they declared war upon each other. But they did not go to
war any more than the Wall Street Junkers go to war. Their predecessors
declared the wars, but their miserable serfs fought the wars. The serfs
believed that it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another, to
wage war upon one another. And that is war in a nut shell. The master
class has always brought a war, and the subject class has fought the
battle. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, and
the subject class has had all to lose and nothing to gain. They have
always taught you that it is your patriotic duty to go to war and
slaughter yourselves at their command. You have never had a voice in the
war. The working class who made the sacrifices, who shed the blood, have
never yet had a voice in declaring war. The ruling class has always made
the war and made the peace.
"Yours not to question why,
Yours but to do and die.
"Another bit of history I want to review is that of Rose Pastor Stokes,
another inspiring comrade. She had her millions of dollars. Her devotion
to the cause is without all consideration of a financial or economic
view. She went out to render service to the cause and they sent her to
the penitentiary for ten years. What has she said? Nothing more than I
have said here this afternoon. I want to say that if Rose Pastor Stokes
is guilty, so am I. If she should be sent to the penitentiary for ten
years, so ought I. What did she say? She said that a government could
not serve both the profiteers and the employees of the profiteers.
Roosevelt has said a thousand times more in his paper, the _Kansas City
Star_. He would do everything possible to discredit Wilson's
administration in order to give his party credit. The Republican and
Democratic parties are all patriots this fall and they are going to
combine to prevent the election of any disloyal Socialists. Do you know
of any difference between them? One is in, the other is out. That is all
the difference.
"Rose Pastor Stokes never said a word she did not have a right to utter,
but her message opened the eyes of the people. That must be suppressed.
That voice must be silenced. Her trial in a capitalist court was very
farcical. What chance had she in a corporation court with a put-up jury
and a corporation tool on the bench?
"Every Socialist on the face of the earth is animated by the same
principles. Everywhere they have the same noble idea, everywhere they
are calling one another 'comrade,' the noblest word that springs from
the heart and soul of unity. The word 'comrade' is getting us into
closer touch all along the battle line. They are waging the war of the
working class against the ruling class of the world. They conquer
difficulties; they grow stronger through them all.
"The heart of the international Socialist never beats a retreat. They
are pressing forward here, there, everywhere, in all the zones that
girdle this globe. These workers, these class-conscious workers, these
children of honest toil are wiping out the boundary lines everywhere.
They are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation.
Everywhere they are having their hearts attuned to the sacred cause;
everywhere they are moving toward democracy, moving toward the sunrise,
their faces aglow with the light of coming day. These are the men who
must guide us in the greatest crisis the world has ever known. They are
making history. They are bound upon the emancipation of the human race.
"Few men have the courage to say a decent word in favor of the I. W. W.
I have. (Here several in the crowd yelled, 'So have I.')
"After long investigation by five men who are not Socialists: John
Graham Brooks, Harvard University; Mr. Bruere, Government investigator
(other names not noted), a pamphlet has been issued called 'The Truth
About the I. W. W.'
"These men investigated the I. W. W. They have examined its doings,
beginning at Bisbee, Arizona, where the officers deported five hundred.
It is only necessary to label a man, 'I. W. W.' to lynch him. Just think
of the state of mind for which the capitalist press is responsible.
"When Wall Street yells war, you may rest assured every pulpit in the
land will yell war. The press and the pulpit have in every age and every
nation been on the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class.
That's why the I. W. W. is infamous.
"The I. W. W. in its career has never committed as much violence against
the ruling class as the ruling class has committed against the people.
The trial at Chicago is now on and they have not proven violence in a
single solitary case, and yet, one hundred and twelve have been on trial
for months and months without a shade of evidence. And this is all in
its favor. And for this and many other reasons, the I. W. W. is fighting
the fight of the bottom dog. For the very reason that Gompers is
glorified by Wall Street, Bill Haywood is despised by Wall Street. What
you need is greater organization.
"In the shop is where the industrial union has its beginning. Organize.
Define your capacity. Act together. And when you organize industrially
you will soon learn that you can manage industrially as well as operate
industry. You will find that you do not have to take work from them; you
give them work to do. You can dispense with them. You ought to own your
own tools. Organize industrially. Make the organization complete. Unite
in the Socialist party. Vote as you organize. Stand with your party. See
that that improves the working class, especially this year when the
forces will clash as they have never clashed before. Take your place in
the ranks. Help to inspire the weak and strengthen the faltering. Then,
when we vote together we will develop the supreme power of the one class
that can bring peace in the world. We will transfer the title deeds of
the railroads, of the telegraphs, the mines and the mills. We will
transfer them to the people. We will take possession in the name of the
people. We will have industrial, social and political democracy. This
change will be universal.
"And now for all of us to do our duty. The call is ringing in your ears.
Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be
concerned about the treason that involves yourself. This year we are
going to sweep into power and in this nation we are going to destroy
capitalistic institutions and recreate them.... The world of capital is
collapsing. We need industrial builders. We Socialists are the builders
of the world that is to be. We are inviting you this afternoon. Join and
it will help you.
"In due course of time we will proclaim the emancipation of the
brotherhood of all mankind."
3. THE DAY BEFORE THE TRIAL
These were the essential parts of the speech which Debs made at Canton.
He was indicted. On Monday, September 9th, the case went to trial in
Cleveland.
I happened to be out West at the time, and on Sunday, September 8th, I
had the opportunity of spending the afternoon with Debs and his attorney
and of hearing him review the case. The case was discussed, the
attorneys presenting the various possibilities. Debs made it quite clear
that there was only one thing he could do and that was to repeat his
Canton speech. He said, "I have nothing to take back. All I said I
believe to be true. I have no reason to change my mind. I have no reason
to change my position." His lawyers and he knew on Sunday that the
following week would see him sentenced to the penitentiary.
He spoke of it in his quiet way as his simple opportunity to serve the
cause. He said that he had always felt like a member of the rank and
file, and now he had his chance to travel along the road the ordinary
man had to follow, under ordinary circumstances--to go right on along
the road and ignore the difficulties that were ahead. He was an old man,
broken in health, facing, without flinching, without budging an eyelid,
a possibility of twenty years in jail.
I remember leaving the Hotel that afternoon and walking down to the
station and saying to myself: "If that man can behave as he does, there
is surely no excuse for us younger chaps," and I felt then as I have
felt ever since that I never in my life came in contact with so radiant
a spirit as I did that afternoon when Debs was getting ready to take his
place in the Federal Court and receive a penitentiary sentence.
4. DEBS ADDRESSES THE JURY
When the prosecution had finished with its case, the defense rested, and
Debs addressed the jury in his own behalf. In that speech to the jury he
said again the things that he had said at Canton, and then he added
other things that a jury of old men, who had never heard about
Socialism, should know about the purposes of the Socialist movement.
Here are some of the more important passages as taken from the records
of the court stenographer:
"May it please the Court, and Gentlemen of the Jury:
"For the first time in my life I appear before a jury in a court of law
to answer to an indictment for crime. I am not a lawyer. I know little
about court procedure, about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I
know only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought against
me, that the Court is to instruct you in the law, and that you are then
to determine by your verdict whether I shall be branded with criminal
guilt and be consigned, perhaps to the end of my life, in a felon's
cell.
"Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour of accusation, nor do
I shrink from the consequences of my utterances or my acts. Standing
before you, charged as I am with crime, I can look the Court in the
face, I can look you in the face, I can look the world in the face, for
in my conscience, in my soul, there is festering no accusation of guilt.
"Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June
16th, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant
these charges. I admit having delivered the speech. I admit the accuracy
of the speech in all of its main features as reported in this
proceeding. There were two distinct reports. They vary somewhat, but
they are agreed upon all of the material statements embodied in that
speech.
"In what I had to say there, my purpose was to educate the people to
understand something about the social system in which we live, and to
prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly
means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy.
"From what you heard in the address of counsel for the prosecution, you
might naturally infer that I am an advocate of force and violence. It
is not true. I have never advocated violence in any form. I always
believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment, and I have
always made my appeal to the reason and to the conscience of the people.
"I admit being opposed to the present form of government. I admit being
opposed to the present social system. I am doing what little I can, and
have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away
with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small
class and establish in this country an industrial social democracy.
"In the course of the speech that resulted in this indictment, I am
charged with having expressed sympathy for Kate Richards O'Hare, for
Rose Pastor Stokes, for Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker. I did express
my perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. I have known them for
many years. I have every reason to believe in their integrity, every
reason to look upon them with respect, with confidence, and with
approval.