Labor and Freedom: The Voice and Pen of Eugene V. Debs. Eugene V. Debs
would be able to make an extra bit of money to provide himself with a pair of spectacles, now that favorable weather had set in for his trade.
Poor human soul, I thought to myself, as I looked down upon the weatherbeaten brother at my feet! A vagabond dog among his kind would fare better than this worn-out old umbrella mender in a civilized human community.
The warm clothes I had on made me uncomfortable as I saw him sitting there in rags mending my umbrella. The overcoat I wore made me ashamed of myself. Every time the umbrella mender looked up out of his rags I winced.
What crime had he committed that condemned him to go through the world in tatters to be lashed by the merciless blasts of winter and tormented by hunger-pangs, and of what rare virtue was I possessed that entitled me to wear the best of clothes and eat the choicest food!
Dared I call him brother? And could I call him brother without insulting him?
These were the reflections that agitated my mind and troubled my heart.
"Good morning!" was the cheery greeting of a man who passed on the sidewalk, calling me by name.
The old umbrella mender fairly started at the mention of my name. He had just completed his bit of sewing and the threaded needle fell from his fingers.
"Excuse me!" he said timidly, "is this Mr. Debs?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Eugene V. Debs?"
"Yes, brother."
"Thank God," exclaimed the old umbrella mender as he fairly bounded to his feet and seized my extended hand with both of his. There were tears in his eyes and his face was flushed.
"Of course I know you now," he went on. "This is your home and I have often seen your picture. But this is the first time I have ever seen you and if it hadn't been for your umbrella snapping just as I came along, I would have passed you by and the chances are that I never would have seen you. God must have tipped off your umbrella to give me a stop-signal."
"Say, Gene," he continued, still holding me with both hands, "I am pretty well down, ain't I? About all in and making my last stand before shuffling off."
"But say, Gene, I never scabbed. Look at these hands! I'm an old rail and I followed the business for twenty-seven years. I broke and ran a freight train most of that time. Never got a passenger run because I was too active on grievance committees and called a firebrand by the officials. I wouldn't stand for any of their dirty work. If I'd been like some of 'em I'd had a passenger train years ago and been saved lots of grief. But I'd rather be a broken down old umbrella-fixer without a friend than to be a scab and worth a million."
A gleam of triumph lighted up his seamed and weatherbeaten countenance.
"Did you belong to the A. R. U.?" I asked.
"Did I?" he answered with peculiar and assuring emphasis. "I was the first man on our division to sign the list, and my name was first on the charter. Look it up and you'll find me there. My card I lost in Ohio where I was run in as a vag. The deputy that searched me at the jail took my card from my pocket and I never saw it again. It was all I had left. I raised a row about it and they threatened to lock me up again. I was told afterwards that the deputy had scabbed in the A. R. U. strike."
"Did I belong to the A. R. U.? Well, I should say I did and I am proud of it even if they did put me on the hummer and pull me down to where I am today. But I never scabbed. And when I cross the big divide I can walk straight up to the bar of judgment and look God in the face without a flicker."
"We had the railroads whipped to a standstill," he said, warming up, "but the soldiers, the courts and the army of deputy United States marshals that scabbed our jobs were too much for us. It was the government and not the railroads that put us out, and it was a sorry day for the railroad men of this country. Mark what I tell you, the time will come when they will have to reorganize the A. R. U. It was the only union that all could join and in which all got a square deal, and it was the only union the railroad managers ever feared."
And then he told me the melancholy story of his own persecution and suffering after the strike. His job was gone and his name was on the blacklist. Five jobs he secured under assumed names were lost to him as soon as he was found out. Poverty began to harass him. He picked up odd jobs and when he managed to get a dollar ahead he sent it to his family. His aged mother died of privation and worry and his wife soon followed her to the grave. Two boys were left, but whatever became of them and whether they are now alive or dead, he could never learn.
The old fellow grew serious and a melancholy sigh escaped him. But he was not bitter. He bore no malice toward any one. He had suffered much, but he had kept the faith, and his regrets were at least free from reproach.
He was a broken down old veteran of the industrial army. He had paid the penalties of his protest against privately owned industry and the slavery of his class, and now in his old age he was shuffling along in his rags toward a nameless grave in the pottersfield.
Had he been an obedient corporation lackey; had he scabbed on his fellow-workers; had he been mean and selfish and cold-blooded, he would have been promoted instead of blacklisted by the corporation and honored instead of hounded by society. His manhood and self-respect cost him dearly, but he paid the price to the last farthing. His right to work and live, his home, his family and his friends were all swept away because he refused to scab on his fellowmen.
The old umbrella mender stood before me proud and erect and looked me straight in the eyes as he finished his pathetic story.
The shabby clothes he wore were to him capitalist society's reward of manhood and badge of honor.
There was something peculiarly grand about the scarred old veteran of the industrial battlefield. His shabbiness was all on the outside, and he seemed transfigured to me and clad in garments of glory. He loomed before me like a forest-monarch the tempests had riven and denuded of its foliage but could not lay low.
He had kept the faith and had never scabbed!
THE SECRET OF EFFICIENT EXPRESSION. Coming Nation, July 8, 1911.
The following was written for the Department of Education of the University of Wisconsin, under whose direction there is being conducted an investigation of the subject of "Distinguished Contemporary Orators or Lecturers—With special reference to fertility and efficiency of expression. What is the key to their ability as masters of language? What school subjects, or what kinds of training have entered into their lives that have given them power to express themselves effectively?"
The secret of efficient expression in oratory—if secret it can properly be called—is in having something efficient to express and being so filled with it that it expresses itself. The choice of words is not important since efficient expression, the result of efficient thinking, chooses its own words, moulds and fashions its own sentences, and creates a diction suited to its own purposes.
In my own case the power of expression is not due to education or to training. I had no time for either and have often felt the lack of both. The schools I attended were primitive and when I left them at fourteen to go to work I could hardly write a grammatical sentence; and to be frank I am not quite sure that I can do so now. But I had a retentive memory and was fond of committing and declaiming such orations and poems as appealed to me. Patrick Henry's revolutionary speech had first place. Robert Emmet's immortal oration was a great favorite and moved me deeply. Drake's "American Flag" stirred my blood as did also Schiller's "Burgschaft." Often I felt myself thrilled under the spell of these, recited to myself, inaudibly at times, and at others declaimed boldly and dramatically, when no one else was listening.
Everything that was revolutionary appealed to me and it was this that made Patrick Henry one