Eugene V. Debs Quotes
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Nothing is more humiliating than to have to beg for work, and a system in which any man has to beg for work stands condemned. No man can defend it.
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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.
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I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out.
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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.
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The protection the government owes you and fails to provide, you are morally bound to provide for yourselves.
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Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
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The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.
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No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.
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The most heroic word in all languages is REVOLUTION.
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The prison, above all others, should be the most human of institutions.
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The guns on the walls that surround the prison accurately, though unwittingly, index the true character of the penitentiary in our day.
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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.
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I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets.
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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.
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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.
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A prison is a cross section of society in which every human strain is clearly revealed.
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Capitalism needs and must have the prison to protect itself from the criminals it has created.
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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.
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The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.
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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.