Eugene V. Debs Quotes - Page 3

Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.

I would not be a Moses to lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you into it, someone else could lead you out of it.

Thousands of years ago the question was asked: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.

I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets.

The prison, above all others, should be the most human of institutions.

You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.

The protection the government owes you and fails to provide, you are morally bound to provide for yourselves.

It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund that you begin to live.

Labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.

From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.

I do not oppose the insane asylum - but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.

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.

Why should the railroad employees be parceled out among a score of different organizations? They are all employed in the same service. Their interests are mutual. They ought to be able to act together as one. But they divide according to craft and calling, and if you were to propose today to unite them that they might actually do something to advance their collective and individual interests as workers, you would be opposed by every grand officer of these organizations.

The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.

Speaking of myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism the capitalist class have it within their power to keep the workers divided, to use one part of them to conquer and crush another part of them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.

A man should take to himself no discomfort from an opinion expressed or implied by his adversary, but it is difficult, and oftentimes humiliating to attempt to justify the kindness of one's friends.

The general public knows practically nothing about the prison and appears to be little concerned about how it is managed and how prisoners are treated.

Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation.

In all the history of organized labor, from the earliest times to the present day, no body of union workingmen ever served in a more humiliating and debasing role than that in which the railway unions appear at this very hour before the American people and the world.

If the people would but analyze the human equation of a prison they might better account for the crimes that are visited upon them in cities, towns, and hamlets, ofttimes by men who graduated with an education and equipment for just that sort of retributive service from some penal institution.

The people can have anything they want, the only problem is they do not want anything.

A prison is a cross section of society in which every human strain is clearly revealed.

One glance proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these unions (railroad craft unions) are exceedingly useful to the corporations; and to the extent that they serve the economic and political purposes of the corporations, they are the foes – and not the friends – of the working class.

The guns on the walls that surround the prison accurately, though unwittingly, index the true character of the penitentiary in our day.