The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 22, 1928, Page 5

» } Questions of War and Defending Revolution in THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1928. this was not an accident, This “parade” was a big political demonstra- tion because the objective need for such a parade existed and the rev- olutionary forces were really in need of unification. From the view- doint of our general strategy, we must say that the more rallying points here will be along our line cf march in the shape of our sympathizing orces—be it in Europe, Asia, Africa, or any other continent—the more prepared will we be for the moment of catastrophic upheavals, the greater will be the number 0% rea! live organizations in the revolution- ary camp. Why we shonld hold a liquidatory viewpoint on this ques- tion I cannot understand. People sometimes try to throw all blame upon the objective situation, upon forces and events outside of our sphere of influence. This is a grave mistake. We are mostly to blame, because we have given too little aid to that organization. . LINKING UP OF LEGAL WITH ILLEGAL WORK. I will now touch another question—the problem of linking up legal with illegal work. Again, if our analysis of the general situa- tion is correct, then we must immediately commence illegal work, we must immediately undertake the task of linking up our legal activity with illegal activity. We have now gathered considerable experience of illegal work in some countries. We have such experience in Poland, in the Balkan countries, in Italy, and now in Japan. Finally, we have a wealth of experiences in China, etc. Some parties have had no @ such experience. This applies mainly to the west European parties. But, comrades, the attacks upon us will from now on become more severe. Our French Party has already had a taste of what it may expect in the future. There is no doubt that inimediately on the eve of war and even some time before that, a series of extraordinary Jaws will be passed against our Parties. Of this there is no doubt. This must be foreseen. That is why it is necessary now to lay the ‘oundation of our underground organizations, particularly in the army and navy, ete, Otherwise, events will take us by surprise and because of lack of preparation we will suffer great losses, The question of illegal organizations, which includes also the question of legal and illegal connections in the army and navy, is now a very acute one. ‘You can understand why I cannot go into details, give advice and instructions here. But this task must be brought to the forefront of our attention and dealt with thoroughly. We cannot confine ourselves to generalities. We must work out concrete instructions for our daily practical work and these instructions must be registered. If we apply the united front tactics in our trade union work, in the youth organizations and in our sympathizing organizations proper- ly we will be able to remove the notorious discrepancy between the growth of our political influence and its organizational consolidation. SYMPTOMS OF BUREAUCRACY. T want to draw attention to another drawback in our Party work. It seems to me—and I must say this openly—that the symptoms of bureaucracy have lately increased, not only in our Party, the Commu- ist Party of the Soviet Union, but in many other Parties. Now and "hen this finds expression in super-centralised leadership, in the total ack of initiative on the part of local organizations, ete. Of course, centralism is necessary and so is centralized leadership. Central Com- tnittees must be strong, leading bodies. This is an elementary truth. But we find that very often local organizations display no initiative, that the pulse of political life does not always beat fast enough in our nuclei, that many campaigns and questions of trade union struggle play an exceedingly insignificant fole in our nuclei, that minor officials and rank and file members work on a very small scale and that inner Party life consists in very many cases of the activities of a group of officials. This defect is related to other defects. We strongly advo- cate the reanimation of the rank and file, drawing new people into the leadership, attracting new people into the Party, But these new people do not fall from the skies as ready made practical workers. They must receive training in the process of active Party life not only on the part of officials, but also of the rank and file. Unless we suc- ceed in eliminating these shortcomings, we shall run-short of active Party workers. Unless we accelerate the pulse of Party life among the lower ranks of the Party, we shall not be able to provide a reser- voir from which to draw able Party leaders. In surveying the Party Congresses and the Congresses of the Communist International, one is struck by the fact that the percentage of rank and file workers par- ticipating in them has not increased. Here too a tendency is observed to delegate Party officials, professional and paid Party officials to these Congresses exclusively. This tendency is obvious here. Of course, the danger must not be exaggerated, but a warning must be uttered against it. This is only bound up with a whole series of highly complicated problems of internal Party: life, We must draw attention to the inadequate beat of the pulse of inner Party life par- ticularly among the lower ranks of the Party, in the factory nuclei, etc. This must be placed on record so that the situation may be improved, \ THE NEED FOR IMPROVING THE PARTY CADRES. A few more words on the cultural and political level of our Par- ties and our Party cadres—the method of inner Party discussions. Here again there is a discrepancy between the objective requirements of the mass of the membership, and the abilities and qualifications of our Prty cadres. It seems to me that we have ignored a whole series of theoretical tasks, that our Party cadres are devoting too little time to studies, that our literature is weak and does not corre- spond to the present objective requirements; that we do not work out our problem deeply and intelligently enough—and this reflects itself in the methods of our discussion. 1 have already said at a previous Con- gress, or Plenum, that our inner Party discussions largely consist of making strong, sweeping statements and that they reveal an insuf- ficiently serious attitude to the problems under discussion on the part- of those participating in them. We have learned very well to perform operations with various kinds of deviations, this we do splendidly, but as far as a genuine study of the problems is concerned, the presenta- tion of sound arguments instead of merely slogging away at an op- ponent—this we have not yet learned sufficiently. However, every further step our Party takes along the path of development demands that we must deepen our political thinking, and that we must manipulate, maneuvre and react in every gituation in a thoughtful manner. This is one of the extremely important problems that face us. I think we must devote serious attention to raising our theoretical level, to improving our press and to the de- velopment of studies in our Parties, VI. Tendencies in the Communist International. RIGHT TENDENCY, THE GREATEST DANGER. Comrades, I will now say a few words about the various tendencies jn the Communist International. Some time ago, the greatest danger in the Communist International came from the so-called “ultra lefts,” who endeavored to set up an international organization. After the de- feats of the opposition in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, these were frustrated, but the very process of disintegration of the opposition, the culminating point of which was the collapse of the so- called “Lenin Bund,” leads us inevitably to certain conclusions. We arrested that Trotskyism is a social democratic tendency. Some com- rades in their inward mind consider this to be a gross exaggeration. But the history of the Lenin Bund has shown that the core of the opposition has migrated to the Social Democrats. Was this a chance occurrence? Certainly not. We can see distinctly the dialectics of the relationships between the so-called “ultra-Left” and the Right. At present the principal danger comes from the Right tendency, if we take the Communist International as a whole. The period of stabiliza- Tense which I have analyzed, the survival of parliamentarism, the in- fluence of Social Democracy, certain specific peculiarities in trade union activity—are the main elements which keep this danger alive. | This danger assumes various forms in the individual Parties. How did it manifest itself? Firstly by aspiration to legality at any price, by the Parties’ fear to exceed the limits of bourgeois legality, even in cases when it was necessary to go beyond such limits; by excessive fi submission to bourgeois laws. This Right tendency manifested itself also in ignoring the necessity for accentuating the class struggle, for instance, during strikes; necessary strikes were not carried out. This tendency manifested itself also in the adoption of a wrong policy towards Social Democracy and in an insufficient accentuation of the struggle against “Left” Social] Democratic leaders. It manifested itself also in the inadequate internationalism of the Parties. We notice that on the whole even Parties with a correct orientation do not always perform their international duties, as was the case in regard to the Chinese revolution, This certainly is a definitely Right tendency. The same tendency is observed also in the trade union activity, where gen- eral trade union discipline is frequently considered more important than our Party discipline, as well as in various other forms with which I will deal presently. LEFT TENDENCIES. Failure to understand what relations should. be between the Party and the trade unions, results in that the Party sometimes rules over the masses in its capacity of Communist vanguard without endeavoring to convince these masses and without carrying on systematic work. There ig also a general tendency to abandon the tactic of the United Front. é Following on a period of gross right-wing errors, left tendencies jJare also noticeable in China, There they take the form of putschist , moods and tactics, But on the whole deviations from the correct line are at present more to the Right than to the Left. Take France, for example. In our French Party strong parliamentary traditions in the bad sense. of this term are still to be observed. These manifested themselves at the recent elections when a tendency to sabotage our tactical measures was very marked. This, of course, is due to the somewhat exaggerated orientation towards parliamentarism, with some opportunistic deviations from the correct political path. In the French Party these tendencies originate in deeply rooted historical traditions, and it goes. without saying.that our French brother Party must con- tinue systematically to combat this phenomenon and must endeavor first of all to persuade its own members that these methods are now obsolete. This is not a matter of combating individuals. Rather is it a matter of attacking the strong and time honored traditions of public life in France, the practice of the Socialist Party, a considerable sec- tion of which formed the Communist Party. These tendencies were observed also in the French Party when the question of so-called repressions came up for discussion, when a number of French comrades, and the whole Party made mistakes, which they subsequently remedied. We also notice such errors in our Czecho-Slovak brother Party. Our Party in Czechoslovakia is a real mass Party but it is seriously afflicted with the “legality” disease. The Czech Party sometimes cannot make up its mind to go to,the masses to organize protests against anti-Communist laws. If we continually make concessions to the gov- | ernment and do not exert sufficient effort to mobilize the masses for struggle against legislation and government regulations directed against Communists, we will never bevable to pave the way for the preparation of mass actions on a larger scale, which infringe the con- ception of bourgeois legality. Some comrades have not the ghost of* a notion as to how events will dévelop. They, argue somewhat like * this: We will work within legal limits up to such and such a day, for Se arene ie ie ee ee ee ee — tactics. But comrades, we must make preparations beforehand. Ma: actions must be regarded as one of the best means in our struggle. Our tactics must be: to mobilize the masses, to become masters of the streets, to attack again and again the law and order of the bourgeois State and to smash it, to capture the street by revolutionary means, in the strict sense of the word and then to go further. Only on the basis of a whole series of such events and on the basis of the development of these events—mass actions, ete., only through such a process can we prepare ourselves for fiercer and more stubborn mass struggles on larger scale. ; by) Th i regard to the strike movement and the inadequate There ses when certain jnstance, up to the outbreak of war, and then we will change our - | | | | and generally fail to see that In regard to the erroneous attitude towards Social Democracy, we have several striking examples of mistakes made by many Parties, in Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, etc. These erroneous political ten- dencies at times assumed the form of erroneous slogans, mainly in Germany where several comrades issued the slogan: “Control of pro- duction,” when the necessary revolutionary situation for this did not exist: objectively, this was nothing but a step towards the Social Democratic tactics of “economic democracy,” towards adapting our- selves to the system of “industrial peace.” Therefore, a slogan which is correct and revolutionary in itself becomes the very opposite if the necessary revolutionary situation does not exist. In such a case it ceases to be merely an erroneous political line. This Right danger is | assuming considerable proportions just now, and it is but natural that after smashing the Trotskyist opposition, we must adopt a very definite policy: against these Right tendencies and small Right opposi- tional groupings. Now is the time to criticize our other shortcomings, to examine them, so to speak, through the microscope. In regard to some Parties we observe that they soph scope with the newly arisen situation omething new has occurred. This, for instance, was the case in France when Poincare came into power. We have a similar example in Great Britain when the Labor Party and the General Council of the Trade Union Congress made a complete turn. We witnessed another example of this in Great Britain when a new phase ‘in the correlation of social forces was ushered in. Neither did we react with the necessary rapidity in Germany when the so-called “Burger-Bloc” was formed, etc. INADEQUATE APPRECIATION OF THE CONCRETE SITUATION. Thus, in regard to almost everyone of our Parties we must say that it reacts too late to changes in the situation. Eyen when the situation has already changed our Parties fail to react, or react too late: they issue directive slogans much too late, etc. It seems to me that this applies also to the Comintern and its executive: the Comintern does not always react in good time to new circumstances, new events to a newly arisen situation. Directive slogans are not always issued at the right moment, we are not always prepared and ready at the moment whon general fundamental slogans should be issued. It happens sometimes that in one and the same party twenty diverse slogans are brought forward; if twenty slogans are issued simultaneously they lose their significance, the attention of the party is split up in too many direc- | tions. It happens sometimes that the leading party organs are unable to coordinate these slogans properly around the most important ones, This is a great defect in our leader. ship. At times it happens also that slogans, which are in themselves correct, are put into practice without the necessary zest, On the one hand we issue too many slogans without having a single central slogan. On the other nand we sometimes adopt general revolu- to group secondary slogans tionary language, forgetting all about the slogans of every day “routine” | work and struggle. The thesis regarding the accentuation of the strug- gle against social democracy is perfectly correct. The mistake we make is that we do not directly approach the social democratic workers shem- selves. The moré we talk about the-errors of the social democratic party, the more we must try to convince the socia: democratic work- ers of the correctness of our own poliey. We have not yet learned to link up questions of every day work with our chief aims and tasks. We either talk big about world prob- lems and do nothing to solve everv day questions, or we do not get be- yond every day questions and forget that it is essential to link them up with b'g political questions: moreover, in many cases our parties are unable to make a timely and correct appreciation of current events with all their specific implications. Another defect,our parties suffer from is that they do not grasp it quickly enough, do not give a clear enough character‘zation of it and do not always issue an adequate slogan depicting the new situation as a whole. I am dwelling on these defects at length in order that they may be subjected to busigess-like criticism. It seems to me, particularly since so long a time ha’ elapsed since the last congress, that we must lay stress on these defects and weaknesses of ours also in respect to our Commun'st International. Take the question of organizational defects, the fact that the carrying out of decisions is not sufficiently controlled. We send out various cir- culars, open Jetters and other communications but we do not ascertain if all this has been put into practicey We use up a tremendous amount of paper for all this, but our control over the actual carrying out of our decisions is very weak, We have repeatedly resolved in regard to this our executive must be truly international and that individual parties must send to the Exeentive Comm ttee of the Communist International their best representatives for permanent work. Bu up till now this has been merely a pious resolution. AGAINST FRACTIONAL STRIFE. T must also lay stress on something else which is perhaps not directly connected with the present question but which is nevertheless of considerable importance to the existence of the Communist Parties. T mean fractional struggle carvied on without adequate political reasons and without adequate political justification. The main reasons for this are very complicated; they are to a certain extent connected w'th his- torical traditions. In some’parties the danger of fractional strife is, in my opinion, so great that it will he necessary to adopt extraordinary measures to combat it. Allow me to give you two examples. _ __ ‘Take the situation within thc Yugo-Slav Party. Fractional strife one hig scale went on for seven yer*s and did much harm to the party. there was a consensus of opinion that political differences are graduall subsiding. In spite of solemn declarations made that henceforth f: tional strife will be brought to a stop, this strife éontinued, and waxed fiercer and fiercer, The party suffered serious damage not so much as a result of police terrorism as because of internal fractional strife. Reorganization is taking place now on the basis of a complete regroup- ing within the party itself; a new rank and file and new leders have been created. It was a miracle that the party was saved even by these | means. I think we must ponder very deeply over this matter and draw | our lesson from it. The crisis within the Yugo-Slav Party which lasted so long has been more or less overcome by means of the extraordinary meusures I have already mentioned. We are now confronted by another danger which is. threatening a very big party, namely,ethe Polish Communist Party. Up to now I have not spoken about individual parties, I merely summed up the vari- ous shortcomings of our parties and mentioned some of them ag ex- amples. But I consider it my duty to deal separately with the Polish question, In the present situation our Polish Party occupies a very responsible post. Everyone realizes what an important role our brother party in Poland is destined te play in the event of war. The party will become one of the principal forces at the disposal of the Communist International. At the time of the Pilsudski coup d’etat the Polish Party | comniitted a gross and dangerous opportunist error. This error was | nitted by the leaders of all tendencies without exception. Respon- sibility for this fundamental opportunist error cannot by any means be | placed on the shoulders of any one group, as we, the Comintern, have already declared. At the last Congress of the Communist Party of Poland, which lasted over three months—because on every question and in regard to every incident differences and disputes arose between the two fractions—the representatives of the Comintern were unanimous in declaring that political differences within the Polish Party have been practically reduced to nought. And yet after this congress, the only thing that prevented the disruption of the Polish Party was the ex- FORWARD: TO THE STRUGGLE AND TO VICTORY! Comrades, I have not dwelt so much on our shortcomings because I consider the general situation and the general premises for our ac- tivity unsatisfactory or unfavorable. On the contrary. The big poli- tical questions, such as the war danger and the situation arising from the ever-growing contradictions in capitalist stabilization, provide us | with increasingly favorable ground for our work among the whole working class, That ours is the predominating influence in colonial | countries is an indisputable fact, particularly so in China; we are on the eve of it becoming an indisputable fact also in India; our influ- ence is also predominating, beyond dispute, among the working class of west European countries, where we confront them with important questions like the war danger. Therefore, having regard to the ac- centuation of general contradictions, the accentuation of the inherent contradictions of capitalism and the accentuation of the class struggle, i. e., having regard to the conditions as they exist objectively at present everywhere, the ground and the prospects of our work and our success can be said to be favorable. There is not the slightest By EUGENE LYONS. (From First Anniversary Mem- | orial Edition of “The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti. International Publishers, New “I Know the Sentence VII. Favorable udgment Day Arrives in Ded Oppressed and Rich Class”—Vanzetti Page Five U. S. S. R. and China Are Decisive ecutive and hi andir ponsibiiity. ving tremely strong pressure brought to bear upon it by tne e the whole Comintern. Had we not intervened there would two part in the Polish Communist movement, notwiths political di ences—I say this with a full se of rv wer educed toa minimum. We inust consider t hi on recently, in an atmosphere in which the Pilsu preparing for w at a time when it is clear to ev sults hur aim, ete, are not merely the coarse antics of a man who has e of his senses, but a definite Caesarist policy rected first and foremost against the Soviet Union—and I must that this Caesarist policy is an extremely clever and agile one. sudski-ism has really succeeded in splitting several oppositional par e been 1 di- ay it has succeeded in splitting ovr Ukrainian Party, the opposition in the White Russian Hromada, ete. Finally, in international polities, Pilsud ski-ism has carried out successfully a very cunning policy. (A voice from the audience: “It succeeded in innoculating the working class with its policy.”) Yes, it sueceeded in penetrating into the working class. In fact was not our p: y alone that achieved victories in Poland; a considerable number of Warsaw workers voted for Pilsudski. Our party achieved considerable success in the situation which h: arisen; a positively brilliant success. But from the last report received the da before yesterday we learn that there are now two committees in the Warsaw organizations. I do not think that this is a matter that the Communist Party, or the Communist International can be proud of (applause). Comrades, I think—although I did not draw up the draft theses— that the Congress will be unanimous in empowering. the Ex- Committee to adopt measures that will secure unity. (Loud a ause.) It will be far better to have a united party headed py ordinary workers who, in the event of wer. will fight boldly as soldiers of the revolution, than to have an organization of leaders who are continually quarreling and who at the moment of extreme danger will ruin our party, (Applause.) Perspective. ground for saying that technical progress, of the capitalist organism, the process of tapitalist stabiliza break us as the social democrats have prophesised. On the the more acute these contradictions which are the inevit mitant of the present situation become, the wider and the mo: olid becomes the ground under our feet, When we have learned—and we will of course finally do so—to link up our every day work with important political questions, we will succeed in winning over the broad masses of the working class in the west European countries, we will bring under our influence the labor movement in the big capi- talist states and we will be able to link them up with the truly power- ful and great hjstorical movement of the oppressed peoples. And when the hour, wher imperialism will raise its standard of war, approaches, our Communist International, all our Parties, the great phalanx of the world’s workers will be ready to take up the challenge. They will hurl forth the battle-cry of civil war, of a fight to a finish against imperialism. And this battle-ery will be the ery of the Communist International! (Loud and prolonged applause. The delegates rise to their feet and sing the ‘“Internationale.”) ham, Mass. | suffered during these years no hu- man tongue can say, and yet you - the partial consolidation I ion wi contrary coneom- Will Be Between the {see me before you, not trembling, you see me looking you in your eyes straight, not blushing, not changing York). ness of multitudes speaking thru| his voice—who does the judging. Oo a bom . * i$Agce and Vanzetti were brought '™ into the neatly swept court room | at Dedham on April 9, 1927, to hear fhemselves sentenced to die in the eleetric chair. The scene was fully illumined; the press of the entire world was represented, millions who | felt deeply about the case watched | _with bated breath. The sentencing was merely a formality, yet it seemed that something might hap- pen.... read in history anything so cruel as ‘And something did happen. Van.|this court. After seven years’ zetti made a speech to the court, Prosecuting they still consider us For the great epic of the class| Suilty. struggle there is a prologue ready-| “I know the sentence will be be- made: Bartolomeo Vanzetti and|tween two classes, the oppressed Judge Webster Thayer facing each Class and the rvch class, and there other in the illumined court room of | will be always collision between one Dedham. |and the other. We fraternize the “Nicola Sacco,” the clerk asked, “have you anything to say why sen-| tence of death should not be passed upon you?” Sacco replied that his friend Van- | zetti would speak for both. Nevertheless his feelings got the better of him, and he exclaimed: “I never knew, never heard, even * * * color, not ashamed or in fear, arms. Even if I come back there| “...We have proved that there with not a cent in my pocket, my|could not have been another judge father could have given me a posi-| on the face of the earth more pre- tion, not to work but to make busi-| judiced, more cruel and more hos- ness, or to oversee upon the land {tile than you have been against us. that he owns. | We have proven that. Still they “...Well, I want to reach a little| Tefuse the new trial. We know, point farther, and it is this, that) @nd you know in your heart, that not only have I not been trying to| You have been against us from the steal in Bridgewater, not only have! Very beginning, before you see us, I not been in Braintree to steal and| Before you see us you alrea kill and have never stolen or killed| that we were radicals, that we were or spilt blood in all my life, not| underdogs, that we were the enemy only have I struggled hard against |0f the institutions that you can be- crimes, but I have refused myself|lieve in good faith in their good- of what are considered the commo:|ness—I don’t want to discuss that— dity and glories of life, the prides of a life of a good position, because in my consideration it is not right to exploit man. I have refused to go in business because I understand that business is a speculation on and that it was easy at the time of the first trial to get a verdict of guilty. * ore. “We know that you have spoken yourself, and have spoke your hos- Judge Thayer on the rostrum of authority, a narrow figure mum- bling dead words. Words as ‘cold and precise as corpses, Words dis- interred from the morgues of sta- |tute and precedent. Words that ‘evoke a musty ingrown past. And Vanzetti in the prisoner's |eage. Alive, far-seeing, reaching | out for words to express a new vi- | sion, groping for electrie words to | light up new vistas. Finding words court room, Behind Thayer, the dead accumu- lation of precedent and wealth and | privilege, guarded by bayonets. A | narrow world that is organized, rigid and unfeeling. Behind Van- _zetti, the multitudes, as yet unor- | ganized: the amorphous multitudes, | | surging forward and retreating and surging further forward, their live bodies and their live hopes against | the dead past and its bayonets. | Thayer barricaded by statute books and surrounded by bayonets ‘\is yet a weak, shrinking, figure, | frightened by his own black cowl, | by the sinister memories of witch- hangings, by the sting of light on | eyes accustomed to shadow. He | rises to pronounce the dead formula | of death. “The jury did it,” he mumbles, \“the jury, not I. The jury and the ‘law and the court—not I. I am just a small sick man about to die.” . And Vanzetti standing, it seems ‘alone, but erect and unafraid, speaking with the voice of a mil- lion. He, too, pronounces a death verdict. It is directed against the decaying past; not merely against rostrum of authority. He speaks | for the weak, the despised, the in- timidated. Vanzetti does not ex- plain nor apologize. He condemns with words of fire and challenges with the resonance of a million throats. * Thayer—old, worn, dyspeptic, bitter—has come to judge the men in the prisoner’s cage. But he shrinks from their words and their gaze. The skeleton clatter of his formula is lost in the echoes of Vanzetti’s verdict. For it is Van- zetti—calm, eloquent’ in the aware: that touch off the imagination and} explode. the walls of the narrow! the lonely frightened figure on the/ | people with the books, with the lit- erature. You persecute thé people, tyrannize them and kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for hav- ing been of the oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor. “You know it, Judge Thayer— you know all my life, you know why I have been here, and after seven years that you have been persecut- |ing me and my poor wife, and you still today sentence us to death. I would like to tell all my life, but) | what is the use?” “Bartolomeo Vanzetti,” the clerk repeated, “have you anything to! say why sentence of death should not be passed upon you?” | “Yes,” Vanzetti replied, | He talked quietly, with a gentle |smile, as one talks to children. He paused to find a word in the tongue foreign to him—but the simple homely sentiments which are not in law books came without pauses, from somewhere deep within him, . os “What I say,” Vanzetti began, “is that I am innocent, not only of the Braintree crime, but also of the | Bridgewater crime. That I am not only innocent of these two crimes, {but in all my life I have never stolen and I have never killed and I have never spilled blood. That is | what I want to say. And it is not {all. Not only am I innocent of hese two crimes, not only in all my) life I have never stolen, never killed, ‘never spilled blood, but I have ‘struggled all my life, since I began) |to reason, to eliminate crime from the earth, * “Everybody that knows these two arms knows very well that I did not’ need to go into the streets and kill | a man or try te take money. I can live by my two hands and live well. | But besides that, I can live-even, without work with my hands for other people, I have had plenty of chance to live independently and to live what the world conceives to be a higher life than to gain our bread with the sweat of our brow, } “My father in Italy is in a good, condition. I could have come back, in Italy and he would have wel-| comed me every time with open * * profit upon certain people that must tility against us, and your despise- depend upon the business man, and| ment against us with friends of I do not consider that that is right | yours on thetrain, at the Univer- and therefore I refuse to do that. | sity Club of Boston, at the Golf ita, | Club of Worcester. I am sure that w, I should say that I am not if the people who know all what yo only innocent of all these things,| say against us have the civil cour- not only have I never committed a, age to take the stand, maybe Your real crime in my life—though some | Honor—I am sorry to say this be- sins but not crimes—not only have| cause you are an old man, and I I struggled all my life to eliminate | have an old father—but maybe you crimes, the crimes that the official | would be beside us in good justice law and the moral law tondemns, | but also the crime that the moral | law and the official law sanction and sanctify—the exploitation ang the oppression of the man by the man, and if there is a reason why I am here as a guilty man, if there \is a reason why you in a few min- utes can doom me, it is this rea- son and none else. “There is the best man I ever east my eyes upon since I lived, a man that will last and will grow) always more near to and more dear to the heart of the people, so long| as admiration for goodness, for vir-| tues, and for sacrifice will last, 1 mean Eugene Victor Debs. He has said that not even a dog that kills chickens would- have found an American jury disposed to convict! it with the proof that the common-| wealth has produced against us. - * “...He knew, and not only he| knew, but every man of understand-| ing in the world, not only in this| country but also in other countries, | men to whom we have provided a/ certain amount of the records of the| case at times. they all know and) still stick with us, the flower of mankind of Europe, the better writ- | ers, the greatest thinkers of Eur-| ope, have pleaded in our favor, The) greatest scientists, the greatest, statesmen of Europe have pleaded | in our favor, “Is it possible that only a fow, a handful of men of the jury, only two or three other men, who would shame their mother for worldly honor and for earthly fortune; is it possible that they are right against the world? For the whole world has said that it {s wrong and I know that it is wrong, If there fs one that should know it, if it is right or if it is wrong, it ia T and this man, You sen, it is eeven. yearn that we are in jail. What we have at this time. * * * ‘...We were tried whose character has now passed in- to history. I mean by that, a time when there was a hysteria of re- sentment and hate against the peo- ple of our principles, against the during a time. _ | foreigners, against slackers, and it seems to me—rather, I am positive of it, that both you and Mr. Katz- mann have done all what it were” in your power in order to work out in order to agitate still more the passion of the juror, the prejudice * of the juror, against us. “...We believe more now than ever that war is wrong, and we are _ against war more now than ever, and I am glad to be on the doomed scaffold if I can say to mankind, ‘Look out; you are in a catacomb of the flower of mankind, For what? All that they say to you, all that they have promised to you —it was a lie, it was an illusion, it was a cheat, it was a fraud, it was a crime. They promised you lib- erty. Where is liberty? They — promised you prosperity. Where is — : prosperity? They have promised you elevation. Where is the eleva- — tion? * e 8 <a “From the day that I went in — Charlestown, the misfortunate, the _ population of Charlestown, haa doubled tn number, Whore ia the moral good that (he war haa given to the world? Where is the spin itual progress that we have achieved from the war? Where are the pes curity of life, tho security of the things that we possess for our neces esnity? Where ta the respect for human life? Where are the re- spect and the admiration for good characteristies and the good o