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011 - A Message to the Children · Labor and Freedom

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Speaker 1: A Message to the Children by Eugene V. Debs. This
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain campaign leaflet, National
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Speaker 1: Campaign nineteen twelve. The Socialist Party is the only party
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Speaker 1: that has the children at heart, the only party that
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Speaker 1: takes them into its confidence, the only party that has
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Speaker 1: a message for them in a campaign year. In my
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Speaker 1: travels around the country, I have met many thousands of
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Speaker 1: little children, and their fresh and eager faces have always
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Speaker 1: given me joy, and their merry voices have filled me
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Speaker 1: with delight and made me stronger for my work. These
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Speaker 1: children are not yet old enough to join the Socialist
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Speaker 1: Party and have an active part in its great work,
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Speaker 1: but they are old enough to understand why their parents
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Speaker 1: belong to it, and why they are proud of their
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Speaker 1: card of membership and of the red button they wear
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Speaker 1: to show so that they are socialists, and that as
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Speaker 1: socialists they are working hand in hand with thousands and
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Speaker 1: thousands of others to change things so that this world
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Speaker 1: may be a better, kinder and sweeter world for us
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Speaker 1: all to live in. Now, let me talk directly as
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Speaker 1: I may, to the more than thirty millions of children
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Speaker 1: and young folk in our country who are less than
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Speaker 1: fifteen years of age. I fancy I can see them
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Speaker 1: all spread out in all directions far as the eye
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Speaker 1: can reach, and farther and farther still to the very
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Speaker 1: shores of the seas and lakes and gulf that bound
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Speaker 1: our western continent. What a wonderful audience I am about
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Speaker 1: to address. Not a grown person in it, only children,
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Speaker 1: millions of them, and all eager to hear the message
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Speaker 1: that socialism has to offer to the child world. My
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Speaker 1: dear little children, I am sure you will understand me
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Speaker 1: when I say that, in speaking to you of socialism,
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Speaker 1: I feel very near all of you, and I know
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Speaker 1: you will believe me when I tell you that I
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Speaker 1: would if I could make you all happy and keep
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Speaker 1: you sweet and loving towards each other all your lives.
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Speaker 1: Most of you are the children of the poor, some
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Speaker 1: of the well to do, and a few of the rich.
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Speaker 1: But all of you are the children of the same father,
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Speaker 1: and all of you are sisters and brothers in the
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Speaker 1: same great family of human kind. If any of you
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Speaker 1: feel that you are better than others because you wear
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Speaker 1: better clothes, or go and what you think is better society,
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Speaker 1: it is because your young minds and hearts have been
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Speaker 1: tainted by wrong example and wrong education. It is this
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Speaker 1: wicked feeling that corrupts the conscience and hardens the heart,
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Speaker 1: and begets the envy and hate of our fellow beings
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Speaker 1: instead of their love and good will. When that best
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Speaker 1: friend the children never had on earth, said, suffer little children,
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Speaker 1: and forbid them not to come unto me, for such
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Speaker 1: is the kingdom of heaven. He meant all children, poor
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Speaker 1: and rich, but especially the poor. He loved and pitied
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Speaker 1: them because of their poverty and suffering. He himself had
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Speaker 1: been born in a manger, and when he was grown
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Speaker 1: up he said sorrowfully that he had not where to
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Speaker 1: lay his head. He did not despise little children because
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Speaker 1: they were poor and neglected and shabbily dressed. But he
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Speaker 1: loved them all the more, And as he looked down
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Speaker 1: upon them, his heart melted with compassion, and the tears
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Speaker 1: of tenderness filled his eyes. And then he became grave,
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Speaker 1: and his fair brow grew dark with wrath as he
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Speaker 1: thought of those who sat in rich church pews, and
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Speaker 1: piously thanked the Lord that they were not as other people.
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Speaker 1: He'd announced them as hypocrites for pretending to be religious,
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Speaker 1: while they rob the poor, and turn the little children
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Speaker 1: into the street to suffer hunger and fall into evil ways.
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Speaker 1: Nearly twenty centuries have passed since the suffering poor heard
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Speaker 1: with gladness the message of the lowly Nazarene, and since
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Speaker 1: he was moved to tears by the sight of the
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Speaker 1: little children of the street. But the world does not
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Speaker 1: yet learn the meaning of his tender and touching words.
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Speaker 1: Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me,
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Speaker 1: For of such is the kingdom of Heaven. If he
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Speaker 1: were to walk the streets of New York, or Chicago,
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Speaker 1: or Lawrence, Massachusetts, or any of the cities where the
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Speaker 1: mills and sweatshops are filled with child's slaves, as he
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Speaker 1: once walked the streets of Jerusalem, he would grow sick
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Speaker 1: at heart as he saw the little ones he so loved,
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Speaker 1: pale and wan and worn harnessed to monstrous machines, and
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Speaker 1: slowly put to death to swell the profits of the
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Speaker 1: greedy mill owners who sit in the rich pews of
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Speaker 1: the synagogue. As did the Pharisees he scourged without mercy
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Speaker 1: twenty centuries ago. The children of the working people have
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Speaker 1: always been poor, because the world has never been just
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Speaker 1: for ages and ages. Those who have builded the houses, cultivated,
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Speaker 1: the fields raised, the crops spun, the wool woven, the
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Speaker 1: cloth supplied, the food we eat, and the clothes we
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Speaker 1: wear and furnish the homes we live in, have been
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Speaker 1: the poor and despised, while those who profited by their
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Speaker 1: labor and consumed the good things they produced have been
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Speaker 1: the rich and respectable. Jesus himself was a carpenter's son
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Speaker 1: and suffered the poverty of his class when he grew up.
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Speaker 1: It was not the rich and respectable, but the poor
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Speaker 1: and despised who loved him and opened their arms to
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Speaker 1: receive him, and heard gladly his tender and comforting ministrations.
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Speaker 1: He was one of them, in poverty and suffering, and
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Speaker 1: in all his loving and self denying life, he never
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Speaker 1: forgot them. Had he deserted the poor from whom he sprang,
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Speaker 1: had he gone over to the rich as their preacher
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Speaker 1: or their judges, or their lawyer or teacher or scribe,
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Speaker 1: as so many of his pretended followers have done and
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Speaker 1: are still doing, he never would have been crucified, nor
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Speaker 1: would the world today know that he had ever lived.
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Speaker 1: It was because and only because Jesus loved and served
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Speaker 1: the poor and rebuked the rich who robbed them, and
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Speaker 1: threatened to array them against their rich despoilers, that he
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Speaker 1: was condemned to die, and that the cruel nails were
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Speaker 1: driven into his hands and feet on the cross at Calvary.
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Speaker 1: Jesus taught that the earth and the air, and the
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Speaker 1: sea and sky, and all the beauty and fullness thereof
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Speaker 1: were for all the children of men, that they should
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Speaker 1: all equally enjoy the riches of nature and dwell together
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Speaker 1: in peace, bear one another's burdens, and love one another.
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Speaker 1: And that is what socialism teaches. And why the rich
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Speaker 1: thieves who have laid hold of the earth and its
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Speaker 1: bounties would crucify the Socialists as those other robbers of
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Speaker 1: the poor crucified Jesus two thousand years ago. Now let
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Speaker 1: us see what message the Socialist Party has for the children,
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Speaker 1: and why all children should be socialists and help to
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Speaker 1: speed the day the brotherhood of socialism shall prevail throughout
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Speaker 1: the earth. But first let me say that the Socialist
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Speaker 1: Party has reason to know that the children have great
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Speaker 1: influence when they become interested in a given work and
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Speaker 1: set their hearts undoing that work. The Socialist Party knows
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Speaker 1: better than to ignore the children as if they were
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Speaker 1: china dolls or stuffed teddy bears, as the other parties do,
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Speaker 1: for it knows by what they have already done, that
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Speaker 1: when once they get fairly started, they will make the
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Speaker 1: air hum like swarms of bees with the glad tidings
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Speaker 1: of socialism. The little boys and girls who have already
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Speaker 1: become Socialists are among the busiest workers for our party,
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Speaker 1: and they love so well to work for Socialism that
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Speaker 1: it is play to them and fills their hearts with joy.
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Speaker 1: They wear the red button, and they know why it
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Speaker 1: is red and what its meaning is. They tack up
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Speaker 1: bills and distribute dodgers at advertising our meetings. They sell tickets,
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Speaker 1: take up collections, act as ushers, provide the soap box
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Speaker 1: for the corner speaker, carry chairs for the women so
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Speaker 1: that they may sit in comfort after their day's work,
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Speaker 1: go around among the neighbors and remind them of the
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Speaker 1: meetings and not to forget to attend. Sell Socialist books,
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Speaker 1: papers and pamphlets, and do a score of other things
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Speaker 1: which are just as useful in their way as the
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Speaker 1: speech of the orator that wins the applause of the people. Now,
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Speaker 1: the Socialist Party is the only party in the world
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Speaker 1: that wants to put an end once and forever to
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Speaker 1: all kinds of child labor, and to have it so
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Speaker 1: that all children, black and white, without a single exception,
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Speaker 1: shall be allowed to grow up in the free air,
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Speaker 1: with plenty of time for mirth and play. That they
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Speaker 1: shall all have decent homes to live in, comfortable beds
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Speaker 1: to sleep in, plenty of good food to eat, eat,
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Speaker 1: plenty of good clothes to wear, And that when they
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Speaker 1: have reached the proper age, they shall go to school
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Speaker 1: and college and continue their courses until they have obtained
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Speaker 1: a sound and practical education. Then they will have strong,
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Speaker 1: healthy bodies, trained minds, and skilled hands, and not only
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Speaker 1: enter cheerfully upon the duties of life, but be certain
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Speaker 1: of making it a success. If you listen to the
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Speaker 1: old fogies who still belong to the parties their grandfathers did,
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Speaker 1: and who have not moved an inch from their grandfather's graves,
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Speaker 1: they will tell you that socialists are foolish people, and
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Speaker 1: that what they propose never can be done. That is
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Speaker 1: what the fogies of every age have always said. They
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Speaker 1: are the wise people who do things in the same
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Speaker 1: way that their dead grandparents did before them, who never
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Speaker 1: change their minds, never accept a new idea, never grow,
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Speaker 1: and who are always dead long before they are buried
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Speaker 1: and forgotten the day after the funeral. Whatever you may be,
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Speaker 1: I beg of you not to be a fogy, nor
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Speaker 1: to follow a fogy's solemn advice. His brain has ceased
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Speaker 1: to work, if it ever did work. He is mentally
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Speaker 1: stagnant and moss covered, and votes the same old ticket
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Speaker 1: with no more idea of what he is voting for
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Speaker 1: than a wooden Indian. The Socialist Party says that there
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Speaker 1: have got to be some changes and has set about
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Speaker 1: making them, or at least getting ready to make them.
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Speaker 1: It says that the world is big enough for all
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Speaker 1: the people that are in it, with plenty of room
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Speaker 1: to spare for groves and parks and playgrounds. That there
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Speaker 1: is land enough to go around without crowding. That there
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Speaker 1: are farms enough or can be easily provided to raise
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Speaker 1: all we can eat, so that no child in all
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Speaker 1: the world need to go hungry. That there is plenty
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Speaker 1: of coal and iron, oil and gas, gold and silver
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Speaker 1: and other minerals and metals, stored in the earth, That
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Speaker 1: there are forests and mountains and water courses galore, That
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Speaker 1: there are mills and mines and factories, and ships and
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Speaker 1: railways and telegraphs, and the power supplied free by nature
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Speaker 1: to run them all. That there are millions of men
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Speaker 1: and women ready to do all the work that may
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Speaker 1: be required to build homes, raise crops, bake bread and
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Speaker 1: cake too, weave cloth, make clothes, and everything else that
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Speaker 1: is necessary for everybody, And have time enough besides to
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Speaker 1: build schools and provide playgrounds for every last one of
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Speaker 1: the children, with plenty of toys thrown in, to make
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Speaker 1: this earth the children's paradise. Now, why should not just
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Speaker 1: these things come to pass? And why should not you
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Speaker 1: children help us speed the day when they shall come
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Speaker 1: to pass. Everything you can possibly think of to make
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Speaker 1: this earth sweet and beautiful and to make life a
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Speaker 1: blessed joy for us, all is within your reach. The
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Speaker 1: raw materials are at your feet, the forces to fashion
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Speaker 1: them into forms of beauty and use are at our
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Speaker 1: finger tips. We have but to put ourselves in harmony
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Speaker 1: with nature and with one another, to spread far and
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Speaker 1: wide the gospel of life and love, And once more
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Speaker 1: hear the sons of God shout for joy. Socialists not
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Speaker 1: only dream of the good day coming when the world
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Speaker 1: shall know that men are brothers and that women are
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Speaker 1: sisters to each other, but that they are at work
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Speaker 1: with all their hearts and all their heads and hands
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Speaker 1: to make that dream come true. If you want to
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Speaker 1: know what the plans of the socialists are in detail,
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Speaker 1: read their platform, Attend their lectures, and study their literature.
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Speaker 1: Socialism is the greatest thing in all the world to day,
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Speaker 1: and the boys and girls of this generation who will
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Speaker 1: be remembered in the next are those who are clear
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Speaker 1: eyed enough to see that socialism is coming, and are
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Speaker 1: at the battle front, fighting bravely to overcome the prejudice
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Speaker 1: against it, and to pave the way for it, so
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Speaker 1: that it may come soon and in peace an order.
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Speaker 1: Many of us, who have been long in service will
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Speaker 1: not be here when the bells peel forth the joyous
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Speaker 1: tidings that socialism has triumph and that the people are free.
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Speaker 1: But the children that now are will live to see it,
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Speaker 1: and in the day of their rejoicing, they will not
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Speaker 1: forget those who toiled without recompense that they might live
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Speaker 1: without dread of poverty or fear of want. As we
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Speaker 1: look about us to day, we see that the world
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Speaker 1: is filled with suffering and despair, and when we come
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Speaker 1: to look into the cause of it, we find that
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Speaker 1: it is a reproach to us all. As I write,
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Speaker 1: the news comes out of the fierce battle that is
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Speaker 1: being fought between ten thousand hungry miners in West Virginia
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Speaker 1: and the thugs and ex convicts and murderers armed by
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Speaker 1: the coal corporations to force the strikers back into their
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Speaker 1: dismal and hopeless pits. The battle has already lasted two days.
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Speaker 1: Many on both sides have been killed, but the capitalist
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Speaker 1: papers are doing all they can to hush it up.
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Speaker 1: Long ago the miners were evicted from the company's wretched hovels.
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Speaker 1: They and their wives and children live in tinted fields,
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Speaker 1: and the brutal guards have even drawn the women and
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Speaker 1: children from there into the wilderness to starve. That the
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Speaker 1: strikes may be broken and the miners compelled to go
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Speaker 1: back to work at the terms of their greedy and
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Speaker 1: heartless masters. And why is this awful battle raging and
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Speaker 1: human beings murdering each other as if they were wild
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Speaker 1: beasts because of a few gluttonous slave owners like Henry
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Speaker 1: Gassaway Davis and the Watsons and Elkinses, who dwell in
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Speaker 1: gorgeous palaces on vast estates, occupying whole mountain ranges, privately
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Speaker 1: own the mines and materials which were intended for all.
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Speaker 1: And consequently the thousands of miners and their wives and
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Speaker 1: children are at their mercy. And when they meekly asked
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Speaker 1: for five percent more wages so their families would not
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Speaker 1: suffer for bread, the brutal lords of the mines send
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Speaker 1: out their private army of assassins to hunt them down
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Speaker 1: and kill them as if they were mad dogs. The
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Speaker 1: Socialist Party says that those mines should be owned by
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Speaker 1: all the people, and that is what will come to
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Speaker 1: pass when the Socialists get into power, And then the
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Speaker 1: green hills of West Virginia and other states will no
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Speaker 1: longer echo with the rifle shots of corporation assassins, nor
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Speaker 1: run red with the blood of honest working men slain
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Speaker 1: to appease the greed of their soulless masters. In February
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Speaker 1: last four boys were hanged in Chicago. The oldest was
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Speaker 1: twenty nine, the youngest barely out of his childhood. They
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Speaker 1: had held up and robbed and murdered a poor truck
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Speaker 1: farmer for the little money he had on his person.
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Speaker 1: Not one of these boys ever had a decent home.
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Speaker 1: They were born in poverty, reared in ignorance, and surrounded
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Speaker 1: by vice and filth. This is cultivating crime and reaping
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Speaker 1: the harvest. We socialist weep as we think of the
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Speaker 1: cruel fate of those four poor friendless boys who died
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Speaker 1: in the gallows while they were still in their childhood,
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Speaker 1: because the world has not yet learned that there is
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Speaker 1: greater profit in raising children than there is in raising hogs.
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Speaker 1: The frightful stories of the little children in the mills
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Speaker 1: of Lawrence, and the cruel suffering they endure, is still
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Speaker 1: fresh in the public memory. When the poor and despairing mothers,
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Speaker 1: their hearts wrung with agony and their eyes blinded with tears,
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Speaker 1: attempted to save their children from starvation by placing them
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Speaker 1: in the keeping of sympathizing friends, they were beaten, insulted,
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Speaker 1: and with babies at their breasts, thrown into jail, bleeding
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Speaker 1: and stunned by the brutal police acting under orders from
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Speaker 1: the far more brutal mill owners. The world will never
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Speaker 1: know the suffering and terror of those poor working people,
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Speaker 1: especially the women and children, had to endure for daring
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Speaker 1: to ask the millionaire mill owners for a pittance more
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Speaker 1: in return for their labor to keep the wolf of
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Speaker 1: hunger from their gloomy hovels. When the Socialist Party gets
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Speaker 1: into power, those mills at Lawrence and all others like
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Speaker 1: them will be taken over by the people and operated
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Speaker 1: for the good of all. And then the workers will
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Speaker 1: keep the wealth they produce for themselves instead of turning
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Speaker 1: it over to the greedy mill bosses. They will have
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Speaker 1: decent homes to live in, food and plenty on their tables,
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Speaker 1: and their children will go to school to be properly educated,
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Speaker 1: instead of to the mills to be ground into profits
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Speaker 1: to gorge their idle owners. In March last missus L. F.
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Speaker 1: Jelson of Salem Morrigan, gave poison to each of her
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Speaker 1: four little children, her own offspring, because they were starving
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Speaker 1: and she was poor and had no way to get
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Speaker 1: them bread. She then poisoned herself, and all she asked
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Speaker 1: in the note she left was that she and her
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Speaker 1: darling children be buried together. This poor heart broken soul
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Speaker 1: was driven to destroy herself and her precious babes because
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Speaker 1: the world as it now is would not allow them
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Speaker 1: to live. Think for just a moment of all the
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Speaker 1: food there is in the world, and all there might be,
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Speaker 1: and then tell me if socialists are wrong and foolish
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Speaker 1: and wicked for saying that the self murder of this
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Speaker 1: poor woman and the murder of her children is a
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Speaker 1: terrible crime of which society is guilty, and for which
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Speaker 1: there is no excuse on earth or in heaven. A
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Speaker 1: recent investigation showed that in the city of Saint Louis
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Speaker 1: there was sixteen thousand young women who receive as wage
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Speaker 1: earners less than eight dollars per week, and over three
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Speaker 1: thousand who receive from three dollars to four dollars per week.
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Speaker 1: It is easy to see from this why so many
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Speaker 1: little girls and younger women are forced to enter upon
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Speaker 1: the path which leads them to shame and sorrow, and
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Speaker 1: which seldom bears the impress of returning footsteps. When the
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Speaker 1: giant Titanic met her fate, fifty little bell boys went
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Speaker 1: down with her to the bottom of the sea. They
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Speaker 1: were ordered, according to their account, to their regular posts
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Speaker 1: in the main cabin and warned by their captain not
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Speaker 1: to get into the way of the escaping passengers. James Humphreys,
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Speaker 1: as quartermaster and eye witness, said, throughout the first hour
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Speaker 1: of confusion and terror, these lads sat quietly on their benches.
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Speaker 1: Not one of them attempted to enter a lifeboat. Not
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Speaker 1: one of them was saved. Can you read this without
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Speaker 1: being moved to tears? Brave, noble little lads. I almost
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Speaker 1: feel as if it had been a privilege to go
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Speaker 1: down with these great little souls to their watery grave.
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Speaker 1: The little boys who perished here were poor boys, many
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Speaker 1: of them without fathers, and others obliged to support widowed
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Speaker 1: mothers and little brothers and sisters younger than themselves. What
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Speaker 1: a lesson this touching, deeply pathetic incident teaches, and what
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Speaker 1: a world of meaning there is in the sad circumstances
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Speaker 1: of their tragic death. Had they not been poor children,
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Speaker 1: little waifs, they would not have been locked in the
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Speaker 1: cabin to perish like rats. They would not, in fact
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Speaker 1: have been there at all. And had it not been
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Speaker 1: for the pride and pomp, the greed and luxury that
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Speaker 1: paraded the upper deck, the Titanic never would have gone
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Speaker 1: to the bottom of the sea. And now, my children,
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Speaker 1: I must come to a close. I have taken up
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Speaker 1: much of your time, and I have only been able
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Speaker 1: to trace the barest outline of what the Socialist Party
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Speaker 1: is organized for, what it aims to do and will do,
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Speaker 1: and why the children above all should vie with each
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Speaker 1: other in helping it to grow and speeding the happy
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Speaker 1: day of its success. When that day comes, the rejoicing
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Speaker 1: people will realize that the kingdom of Heaven so long
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Speaker 1: prayed for, has been set up here on earth in
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Speaker 1: the social brotherhood of all mankind. End of a message
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Speaker 1: to the Children