"Proclamation to the Members of the American Railway Union: Terre Haute, Indiana -- June 1, 1895," by Eugene V. Debs Written statement issued by Gene Debs to the members and supporters of his American Railway Union at the time of the Supreme Court's upholding his 6 month jail term for "contempt of court." The ARU had fought the good fight on behalf of the 4,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Co., Debs declares: "To crush the American Railway Union was the one tie that united them all in the bonds of vengeance; it solidified the enemies of labor into one great association, one organization which, by its fabulous wealth, enabled it to bring into action resources aggregating billions of money and every appliance that money could purchase. But in this supreme hour the American Railway Union, undaunted, put forth its efforts to rescue Pullman's famine-cursed wage slaves from the grasp of an employer as heartless as a stone, as remorseless as a savage and as unpitying as an incarnate fiend." Debs is defiant in the face of the Supreme Court's upholding of his 6 month sentence without trial, likening American lawlessness to that of Tsarist Russia: "In the grasp of despotic power, as infamous and as cruel as ever blackened the records of Russia, I treat with ineffable scorn the power that without trial sends me and my official associates of the American Railway Union to prison. I do not believe, nor will I believe, that my brothers, beloved of our great order, will throw their courage away and join the ranks of the enemy, while their comrades, the victims of worse than Russian vengeance, are suffering in prison."
"'Socialism is the Only Remedy': An Interview with Eugene V. Debs, Woodstock Jail -- June 26, 1895." This interview with imprisoned American Railway Union leader Eugene Debs by a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer reveals Debs as a fully committed socialist by the time he left jailhouse doors: "Socialism is the only remedy. The philosophy of cooperation is rational, humane, and all-embracing, and I subscribe to it without reservation. The trend is toward the cooperative commonwealth. It is the hope of the world." Debs declares his faith in the inevitability of socialism, "as certain as the earth revolves upon its axis," and looks for it "soon after the sunrise of the 20th Century."
JULY 1895
"A Day With Debs in Jail at Woodstock: How the Imprisoned Labor Leader and His Associates Lived in Confinement," by A.C. Cantley [July 6, 1895] Cantley, a correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, visits jailed American Railway Union leader Eugene V. Debs and his associates at Woodstock Jail and finds a very liberal jail regime under the supervision of the county sheriff, a former grocery. Debs and his associates constituted themselves as the "Cooperative Colony of Liberty Jail," Cantley reports, and engaged in a regular self-directed program of military drill, economics study, exercise, journalism, and debate. The 7 jailed trade unionists were allowed to take meals inside the sheriff's private quarters -- unlike the other 5 prisoners sitting at the same time at the McHenry County Jail. Despite the structured, studious, communitarian regime, Debs indicates intense displeasure with the situation of he and his associates during a two-hour interview: "We feel that a cruel wrong has been perpetuated upon us in that we have been denied a trial by jury in flagrant disregard of the Constitution.... We committed no crime, we violated no law, we have not been tried, and yet we are sentenced to a term in jail, and the Supreme Court of the United States gives its negative affirmation to this outrageous proceeding by declaring that the court below had final jurisdiction and that its monstrous perversion of justice can not, therefore, be reversed. Every Federal Judge now constitutes a Tsar." Debs expresses a belief that the ongoing development of machine industry would press increasing numbers out of work, thereby shaking economic foundations. "The competitive system is nearing its close — the death gurgle is in its throat," Debs declares. "It is dying hard, but it has got to go, for the Eternal Truth is pledged to destroy every system not founded upon its immutable laws."
