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Eugene V Debs, Part One: Railroad Workers Fight The Power · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
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Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams. HIHIHIHI indeed, Uh they called
0:41
Speaker 1: me ben your nol and nol. I don't know about you, man,
0:45
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1:17
Speaker 1: online or in stores. And there's also an audio book
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Speaker 1: do that we read. But yeah, I'm with you. I'm
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Speaker 1: a little husky myself now, I mean big boned. But
1:28
Speaker 1: we are not going to let uh, We're not gonna
1:32
Speaker 1: let a little bit of scratchy throat nous stop us
1:35
Speaker 1: because you know there's some things that are so important
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Speaker 1: you want to pursue them regardless of your life circumstances.
1:44
Speaker 1: There are people who have even run for the presidency
1:47
Speaker 1: while incarcerated. Uh. Today we are going to dive into
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Speaker 1: the story of an amazing historical figure who may be
1:57
Speaker 1: unfamiliar to a lot of our fellow ridiculous story and
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Speaker 1: it's a guy named Eugene V. Debs, or Gene to
2:05
Speaker 1: his friends. That's right, Gene, that's the that's the familiar. Uh.
2:11
Speaker 1: I like that. So it just sounds like like like
2:13
Speaker 1: a guy you'd meet around the pub gene Um. He was,
2:17
Speaker 1: in fact, early in his career in politics, the leader
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Speaker 1: of something called the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. This is
2:26
Speaker 1: this is a specifically fireman that put out locomotive fires
2:30
Speaker 1: or the fires. Ah. Yes, So that's sort of a
2:33
Speaker 1: fair and high frothty one situation, got it. We'll clarify
2:36
Speaker 1: that somewhere along the way. But he was absolutely instrumental
2:41
Speaker 1: figure and the modern what we know today is kind
2:45
Speaker 1: of the modern labor movement. He went on to help
2:48
Speaker 1: found the American Railway Union and the Socialist Party of America.
2:54
Speaker 1: So or boy Bernie to his friends, would probably also
2:57
Speaker 1: be intimately familiar with this fellow, and I think quite
3:00
Speaker 1: highly of him. He also went on to form the
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Speaker 1: Industrial Workers of the World. He really is an important
3:08
Speaker 1: figure in um, you know, the idea of of fair
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Speaker 1: treatment of of laborers. Uh and you know workers and
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Speaker 1: a proponent of you know, lessening wage disparities and all
3:21
Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff. Um. One of the more
3:23
Speaker 1: important figures of the twentieth century. Uh. In that respect.
3:26
Speaker 1: He also ran for president on the US Socialist Party
3:30
Speaker 1: ticket five times between the years nineteen hundred and nineteen
3:34
Speaker 1: twenty and amassed significant numbers of votes. Uh. Spoiler alert.
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Speaker 1: He never actually, you know, won the presidency, but it's
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Speaker 1: an inspiring case just the same. No, let's learn a
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Speaker 1: little bit about Debs. So Gene is bored in Indiana
3:54
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty five, Tara Haut side note here, seven
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Speaker 1: years after this guy's named Marx and Ingalls published something
4:04
Speaker 1: called the Communist Manifesto. I also, speaking of shout outs,
4:08
Speaker 1: I want to shout out Mr Max Williams again, who's
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Speaker 1: also our research associate for this episode. So thank you backs,
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Speaker 1: big fan. Uh. Yes, so Debs Debs is h kind
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Speaker 1: of a scarecrow looking dude. He's tall, he's lanky, and
4:28
Speaker 1: according to Max, he's lanky like a noodle. He is
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Speaker 1: a big gesticulator. He talks with his hands often, and
4:36
Speaker 1: he is an electric orator. People are into it because
4:40
Speaker 1: his passion is contagious and he actually didn't spend a
4:47
Speaker 1: lot of time in academia, I think now in two
4:50
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty two. There is a stereotype people sometimes
4:54
Speaker 1: have about folks who describe themselves as socialist. You think
4:59
Speaker 1: maybe they are a bit bookish. Do you think maybe
5:01
Speaker 1: they're a bit professorial. Uh, he's none of those things.
5:05
Speaker 1: He actually left school at the age of fourteen to
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Speaker 1: work on the railroads, which would lead him to some
5:12
Speaker 1: of those organizations we mentioned just a moment ago. Uh
5:16
Speaker 1: he got he started scraping off paint and Greece. You know,
5:21
Speaker 1: it's it's an entry level job. And then he eventually
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Speaker 1: was promoted to fireman, which in this case jokes aside,
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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're setting trains on fire. That'd be
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Speaker 1: a weird job for railroad to give people. It meant
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Speaker 1: that you were in the locomotive, your next to the engineer,
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Speaker 1: and you're the guy who shovels coal uh to power
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Speaker 1: the vehicle. So you can imagine quite back breaking labor.
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Speaker 1: I mean, if not breaking, definitely a lot of hunting
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Speaker 1: going on. Not great for your posture. Uh. And um,
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Speaker 1: you know, a position that could easily be exploited, um
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Speaker 1: with you know, low pay, long hours, all of that stuff. Um,
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Speaker 1: this is an individual who would shovel as much as
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Speaker 1: two tons of coal in an hour's time in order
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Speaker 1: to keep that that fire lit in that train a chugen.
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Speaker 1: These were in fact brutal hours, very unforgiving, sixteen hour days,
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Speaker 1: only one day off a week, inhaling lots of you know,
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Speaker 1: gnarly substances, lots of cold dust. Um. You know, eyes
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Speaker 1: and lungs being choked by the smoke coming off of
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Speaker 1: this thing. And also very very very dangerous because these
6:40
Speaker 1: engines could become overheated and there could be you know, explosions,
6:46
Speaker 1: and these were combustion engines also, you know, it was
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Speaker 1: something that had to be continuous ongoing shoveling or else
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Speaker 1: the engine could stall and that could be disastrous for
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Speaker 1: the payload. Uh uh and and and everyone onboard. I
7:01
Speaker 1: mean it could really you know, because cause a crash. Yeah,
7:05
Speaker 1: just so. I mean this is an issue that the
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Speaker 1: the issue of working conditions in the rails is remains
7:13
Speaker 1: a problem in the modern day. You, if you are
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Speaker 1: in the US, you have probably heard a lot of
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Speaker 1: the news about how close the rail industry came to
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Speaker 1: a full strike. Uh And this, like this description is accurate.
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Speaker 1: People are still working very long hours without many opportunities
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Speaker 1: for a day off. We also want to shout out,
7:35
Speaker 1: by the way, an excellent article Max found from the
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Speaker 1: New Yorker Eugene V. Debs and the Endurance of Socialism
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Speaker 1: by Jill Lapour. So thank you so much the poor.
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Speaker 1: This is already a tough job. But it's a job, right.
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Speaker 1: He is being productive, he's making money. Until the depression
7:52
Speaker 1: occurs in eighteen seventy three. This is not the Great Depression.
7:57
Speaker 1: This is another depression. There are a lot of depressions
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Speaker 1: in his three uh. So, Debs has to find a job.
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Speaker 1: He's a regular guy, he's got bills. He gets some
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Speaker 1: work as a clerk at a grocery store. And he
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Speaker 1: never goes back to the railroad as an employee of
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Speaker 1: the rail but his experiences there will go on to
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Speaker 1: shape the rest of his life. He has firsthand experience
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Speaker 1: with railroad work. He supports the cause of railroad workers
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Speaker 1: who want more rights. And because of all this, when
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Speaker 1: the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman start a chapter there in
8:39
Speaker 1: Indiana in eight, he signs up and despite not you know,
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Speaker 1: working for the railroad, he is elected secretary, right, which
8:51
Speaker 1: may seem like a menial task, but it really is
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Speaker 1: someone that's responsible for a lot of the organizational aspects
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Speaker 1: and probably knows the inner work kings of an organization
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Speaker 1: more than just about anybody, wouldn't you say, Ben, I
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Speaker 1: would say that's pretty accurate. And we can already tell
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Speaker 1: he's committed sharp learner. His learning curve must be crazy.
9:12
Speaker 1: So while he is not currently working with the rails now,
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Speaker 1: not too much has changed unfortunately, right, so he is
9:22
Speaker 1: still speaking from a relevant experience. Uh. The first real
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Speaker 1: national strike in U S history occurs with the railroads
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Speaker 1: in eight. By the way, if you're doing the math
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Speaker 1: at home here, folks, Gene is only twenty two when
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Speaker 1: this strike occurs, and he galvanizes the crowd that the
9:48
Speaker 1: Brotherhood's annual convention with this electric speech and he says,
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Speaker 1: you know, the messages primarily that the union is not
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Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. The union is not the enemy that
10:02
Speaker 1: the that the powers of the day want to paint
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Speaker 1: it as. They're not trying to encourage lawlessness. They don't
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Speaker 1: wake up every day excited to hold a strike. They're
10:12
Speaker 1: just trying to get more rights for their workers. This
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Speaker 1: means that after the strike, Deb's remains popular. In fact,
10:19
Speaker 1: he's the only officer in the Indiana Lodge who gets
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Speaker 1: re elected. He also becomes the associate editor of the
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Speaker 1: Locomotive Fireman's Magazine in eighteen seventy eight, and he continues
10:34
Speaker 1: to rise through through the organization. He becomes the Grand
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Speaker 1: Secretary Treasurer and then also editor in chief of the
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Speaker 1: magazine in eighteen eighty. I love this idea. He was
10:46
Speaker 1: already the secretary, now he's the Grand Secretary Treasurer. I
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Speaker 1: wonder if he was just so good at his job
10:52
Speaker 1: they created a new position for him. He was absolutely
10:54
Speaker 1: never heard of that before. Um. But also, obviously, you know,
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Speaker 1: with his input in the magazine, he's kind of starting
11:00
Speaker 1: to help shape the public facing. I mean, you know, again,
11:04
Speaker 1: this isn't exactly something that everyone's gonna grab. This is
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Speaker 1: more for industry folks, and you know, folks that are
11:10
Speaker 1: associated with the with the union, but it is a
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Speaker 1: magazine is going to kind of be a way of
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Speaker 1: crafting policy and sort of like the more public facing,
11:20
Speaker 1: communicative kind of like aspect of an organization. So he
11:23
Speaker 1: obviously was seen as a really really powerful communicator and
11:27
Speaker 1: and that sort of reflected and some of these jobs
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Speaker 1: that he was given at such an early age. Um,
11:31
Speaker 1: he starts to enter into a broader kind of politics
11:36
Speaker 1: during the eighties as he continued to give these speeches
11:41
Speaker 1: just talking about, you know, how important it was for
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Speaker 1: industries to cooperate with one another and to discourage a
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Speaker 1: lot of this in fighting. Um that I think was
11:53
Speaker 1: maybe the kind of thing that the bosses, you know,
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Speaker 1: the big bosses and the you know, corporate big wigs
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Speaker 1: wanted to see happen. It's like, let's pick these folks
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Speaker 1: against each other instead of having them see who the
12:06
Speaker 1: real villains are, which is you know us. I was
12:09
Speaker 1: jumping in real quick. I was just curious when you
12:11
Speaker 1: guys were reading about the look of the mode of
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Speaker 1: Fireman's magazine, and I'm like, I wonder if you can
12:15
Speaker 1: still get a copy of that, and yes you can. Finally, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems like a real page turner,
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Speaker 1: and it seems probably very pernent to the day. Yes, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I love it. This episode is brought to you by
12:29
Speaker 1: The Fireman's Magazine. We're kidding as far as we do.
12:33
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, peek behind our ridiculously expensive podcast curtain. We
12:38
Speaker 1: don't always know what chads are gonna play. We know,
12:47
Speaker 1: like you're saying. All that Deb's is seeing himself as
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Speaker 1: a champion of the common person, right, and he is
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Speaker 1: aware that he has the ability city to shape ideology,
13:03
Speaker 1: and he tries to work within the system for a bit.
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Speaker 1: For quite a long time, he has disavowed socialism, and
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Speaker 1: he's saying, Okay, let's focus on democracy, the franchise or
13:17
Speaker 1: the vote. Let's see what we can do with the
13:20
Speaker 1: two party system. He says, the conflict is not between
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Speaker 1: capital and labor. It is between the man who holds
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Speaker 1: the office and the man who holds the ballot. However,
13:32
Speaker 1: is the eighties grind on. More and more railroad workers
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Speaker 1: are going on strike, or they're getting maimed, or they're
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Speaker 1: dying because it's a dangerous job. Something like two thousand
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Speaker 1: railroad employees a year are killed on the job, another
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Speaker 1: twenty thousand, twenty thousand are injured. And this starts to
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Speaker 1: make him wonder the exact point you brought up, like,
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Speaker 1: maybe these corporations that are backed up by corrupt politicians
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Speaker 1: and armed fighters, maybe they're the real enemy. That's right,
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Speaker 1: And this all kind of coalesced or came to a head,
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Speaker 1: uh during a strike that lasted an entire year beginning
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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighties six UM, that was pitted against the Chicago,
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Speaker 1: Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company. During this time, you know,
14:26
Speaker 1: devs really started to look a little bit closer and
14:29
Speaker 1: started to see that perhaps these corporations weren't truly committed
14:36
Speaker 1: to industrial cooperation and the idea of democracy, um, the
14:41
Speaker 1: idea of you know, the power resting with the people,
14:45
Speaker 1: the employees. He also thought that up to this point,
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Speaker 1: unions is kind of an organized more specifically along trade lines,
14:53
Speaker 1: like you know, you'd have a railroad fireman's union, as
14:58
Speaker 1: we know, the locomotive fireman Union, etcetera, or perhaps the
15:03
Speaker 1: conductors union, you know, whatever it might be. Um. He felt,
15:06
Speaker 1: in order to truly get what we now refer to
15:09
Speaker 1: as things like collective bargaining, you have to have strength
15:13
Speaker 1: and numbers, So you have to organize along broader kind
15:17
Speaker 1: of industrial lines, rather than breaking out all of these
15:20
Speaker 1: best specific unions that maybe in and of themselves weren't
15:25
Speaker 1: going to have enough bargaining power to get the job done.
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Speaker 1: If you have caught our earlier episode on the Luddites
15:34
Speaker 1: or on the emergence of unions in stuff they don't
15:39
Speaker 1: want you to know, then you will see that this
15:41
Speaker 1: problem has existed before. Like it. It's the difference between
15:46
Speaker 1: having one union for milliners, a separate union for lace makers,
15:51
Speaker 1: and a different union for the people who die the
15:54
Speaker 1: fabric Why not just have them all be the Union
15:58
Speaker 1: of fabric workers, right, or the the Union of clothing.
16:03
Speaker 1: So this he's onto something here. You know, a strike
16:08
Speaker 1: requires numbers to work, and he understands that the strike
16:13
Speaker 1: is the weapon of the oppressed. We know he understands
16:16
Speaker 1: that because he wrote that. That's a quote from him
16:18
Speaker 1: in and he still didn't talk about socialism at this point. Now,
16:24
Speaker 1: for some of us in the audience, that may sound like, ah,
16:28
Speaker 1: this guy is uh died in the wool socialist. But
16:32
Speaker 1: to him, he prefers the term Americanism. And he says this,
16:38
Speaker 1: He makes a good point that I don't think a
16:41
Speaker 1: lot of people realize. He says essentially that the American
16:47
Speaker 1: Revolution the United States is kind of founded on something
16:51
Speaker 1: like a strike. It was the lawmakers, the residents of
16:57
Speaker 1: the colonies who said, Okay, we're not gonna work for
17:00
Speaker 1: anymore United Kingdom. H And he starts like adding up,
17:06
Speaker 1: adding up the amounts of money the very wealthy people
17:10
Speaker 1: have versus the amount of money that common people have,
17:13
Speaker 1: and he sees, uh some startling discrepancies. Oh for sure,
17:17
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's unfortunately it's not like this
17:20
Speaker 1: has uh changed too much today. The sums have just
17:23
Speaker 1: gotten bigger and more disparate. But um, this is almost
17:27
Speaker 1: like this this is like the nerdiest joke you could imagine,
17:31
Speaker 1: but also really tells a very stark story. He did
17:34
Speaker 1: some math about how Cornelius Vanderbilt, the grandson rather of
17:39
Speaker 1: Cornelius Vanderbilt, started out with two million bucks, a million
17:43
Speaker 1: from his grandfather and another million from his father. And
17:46
Speaker 1: he went on to say, if a locomotive fireman could
17:52
Speaker 1: work four thousand, four hundred and forty four years, three
17:56
Speaker 1: hundred days each year at a dollar fifty per day,
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Speaker 1: he would be in a position to bet Mr Vanderbilt
18:03
Speaker 1: too fifty that all men are born equal. Boom. Also,
18:09
Speaker 1: I want to point out so this doesn't slip by
18:12
Speaker 1: anybody three hundred days each year. So even in this example,
18:18
Speaker 1: he Debs is saying everybody needs at least two months off.
18:23
Speaker 1: He also acts on this right. He's a man of action.
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Speaker 1: So he resigns from his posh position as Grand Secretary Treasurer,
18:32
Speaker 1: which paid four thousand a year in and he is
18:37
Speaker 1: organizing something else, the American Railway Union. Hey bad, I
18:42
Speaker 1: got a question for you. Yeah, should we inflation calculate
18:46
Speaker 1: that number? Let's do it, Max, Let's make it happen
18:50
Speaker 1: and pope poop people. What a wonderful idea. It's true,
18:59
Speaker 1: folks are running the inflation calculator four thousand dollars a year,
19:04
Speaker 1: and eight three was one hundred thirty one thousand, six
19:10
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty one dollars and fifty six cents, So
19:14
Speaker 1: a pretty healthy sum of money right to live by.
19:17
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people say, this guy's making
19:20
Speaker 1: the equivalent of six figures. He's hopefully not sweating his
19:23
Speaker 1: light bill. But there's something more important than money to him.
19:29
Speaker 1: It's the idea of making a more inclusive labor movement, right,
19:35
Speaker 1: a more inclusive union. So if you want to join
19:38
Speaker 1: the BLF, you have to be a locomotive fireman. So
19:41
Speaker 1: what if you're not that, what if you have another job,
19:45
Speaker 1: another skill, Well, now you can join the American Railway Union.
19:49
Speaker 1: You just have to somehow be employed with the rails.
19:52
Speaker 1: He also uh stepped down from his job as the
19:57
Speaker 1: editor of Locomotive Fireman's magazine. I imagine this, you know,
20:00
Speaker 1: just kind of he was the time thing, but I
20:02
Speaker 1: think he also was more interested in the bigger picture
20:06
Speaker 1: and UH was less concerned with the you know, specificity
20:10
Speaker 1: of that magazine. You know, kind of like again, that
20:13
Speaker 1: was a very kind of exclusionary, you know, specific area
20:18
Speaker 1: of this whole conversation just around Locomotive Fireman. In eighteen
20:22
Speaker 1: nine four, the Pullman Company, which was founded by George Pullman,
20:27
Speaker 1: there's another railroad magnate um they specifically manufactured sleeping cars.
20:33
Speaker 1: There was a strike at that company because the company
20:37
Speaker 1: itself would not negotiate with the American Railway Union officials.
20:44
Speaker 1: UH called for boycott of the specific cars across the
20:49
Speaker 1: industry and asked that other railroad unions and solidarity backed
20:54
Speaker 1: them up with this boycott and refused to work on
20:58
Speaker 1: trains that contained in these sleeping cars. So that really
21:02
Speaker 1: does show the power here, you know, in numbers, and
21:05
Speaker 1: there was widespread support. But it also shows the equal
21:09
Speaker 1: and opposite power, if not at times, you know, greater
21:12
Speaker 1: power of the industry itself, of the magnates themselves. The
21:17
Speaker 1: railroads convinced President Grover Cleveland to send in troops to
21:23
Speaker 1: actually force in an injunction against interfering with the U
21:30
Speaker 1: S mails they figured out like a weird kind of
21:33
Speaker 1: work around. This is all being reported by the a
21:35
Speaker 1: f l c i O website, which has fabulous information
21:39
Speaker 1: on the history of labor movement. So this led to
21:42
Speaker 1: a collapse of of the of the strike. Yeah, it
21:46
Speaker 1: turns out that maybe one of the first unions was
21:51
Speaker 1: the oligarchy, right the very well to do the plutocrats
21:56
Speaker 1: of the world. So not only does the strike collapse,
22:01
Speaker 1: but the leaders of the a r U, including Deb's,
22:06
Speaker 1: get arrested on conspiracy charges and they get sent to
22:12
Speaker 1: jail for around six months. Deb's time in jail. It's
22:19
Speaker 1: gonna sound surprising to a lot of us in the audience. Today,
22:23
Speaker 1: he's not doing bad. He's running the union office out
22:27
Speaker 1: of his jail cell, and if he wants to go
22:31
Speaker 1: out of his jail cell, he's allowed to do so.
22:34
Speaker 1: He can leave the joint on like an honor system.
22:38
Speaker 1: And he is talking to a reporter for The New
22:41
Speaker 1: York World named Nellie Bligh, maybe familiar to some folks,
22:45
Speaker 1: uh amazing journalists at the time. She went to interview
22:48
Speaker 1: him and he said, quote, the other night, I had
22:50
Speaker 1: to lock myself in. There was no end. She goes
22:53
Speaker 1: on to write, there was no sign of the prisoner
22:56
Speaker 1: about Mr Deb's clothes. He wore a well made suit
22:59
Speaker 1: of grades we the coat being a cutaway and a
23:02
Speaker 1: white start shirt with a standing collar, and a small
23:04
Speaker 1: black and white scarf tied in a bow knot. This
23:08
Speaker 1: guy essentially is being um is forced to live in
23:13
Speaker 1: what feels like an apartment building. At this point, For
23:17
Speaker 1: anyone not familiar with the US incarceration system, it is
23:21
Speaker 1: kind of extraordinary that you're able to leave and then
23:25
Speaker 1: come back. The closest thing there is to that in
23:28
Speaker 1: the modern version is a work release program. But he's
23:31
Speaker 1: not on that. He could just come and go if
23:33
Speaker 1: he wants Debs starts kind of a book club thanks
23:38
Speaker 1: to a socialist from Milwaukee named Victor Berger. He brings
23:42
Speaker 1: up a copy of Das Capital by Karl Marx and
23:46
Speaker 1: Debs and his organizers who are also in the joint
23:49
Speaker 1: with him. They spend most of their time reading. If
23:54
Speaker 1: you like books, this sounds like a actually kind of cool.
24:04
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. Man. We talked about doing this
24:06
Speaker 1: a book event for the stuff they Don't want you
24:07
Speaker 1: to KNOWE book. And one of the questions that came
24:09
Speaker 1: up in the audience was about books in prison, was
24:13
Speaker 1: about the popularity specifically of a book called Pale Pale
24:16
Speaker 1: Horse or here comes up, I see what's that book called?
24:19
Speaker 1: Ben Beyond a Pale Horse? Behold a Pale Horse? Correct, Yeah,
24:23
Speaker 1: and just now that that was a very popular book,
24:25
Speaker 1: and just the topic of reading in prison came up.
24:28
Speaker 1: And the idea of kind of being caught in a
24:31
Speaker 1: system like that that is uh, part and parcel of
24:35
Speaker 1: a greater conspiracy to you know, essentially incarcerate people and
24:41
Speaker 1: and and force them into slavery. You know, I mean,
24:45
Speaker 1: there's there's there's no two ways about it. Even to
24:47
Speaker 1: this day. Um, you know, the US Justice ironically named
24:52
Speaker 1: justice system, uh is a form of of enforced slave labor,
24:57
Speaker 1: you know. I mean like license plates are made by
24:59
Speaker 1: prison labor, and a lot of industries outsourced labor to prisons.
25:04
Speaker 1: So to be part of that, especially, you know, you're
25:07
Speaker 1: you're a person like Debs, who is is um righteous
25:11
Speaker 1: person who is supporting a cause, who is not a criminal,
25:16
Speaker 1: you know, who is not out there causing chaos in
25:19
Speaker 1: the streets or or are causing any kind of harm,
25:22
Speaker 1: has been incarcetrated clearly because he is espousing a view
25:27
Speaker 1: that the powers that be do not. Like, what better
25:30
Speaker 1: way to empower someone like that than to have them
25:32
Speaker 1: kind of smack dab in the middle of this system
25:35
Speaker 1: that they're fighting against, seeing all of the injustices, and
25:38
Speaker 1: then arm them with literature. Yeah, I'm glad you bring
25:41
Speaker 1: that up, because when we're asked the question that our
25:44
Speaker 1: book release, I spent a lot of time in the
25:46
Speaker 1: answer I had volunteered in the past. I mean, phrases great.
25:51
Speaker 1: I agree with everything you're saying. It's a lot of
25:53
Speaker 1: what we were saying last night when I volunteered in
25:55
Speaker 1: the past with prison literacy programs or jail literally you
26:00
Speaker 1: programs depending on where you're at, it's very it can
26:03
Speaker 1: be very difficult to get books in if they're not
26:06
Speaker 1: religious works. There are a lot of rules about this
26:09
Speaker 1: because people know that words have power, right, thoughts can
26:14
Speaker 1: be weaponized. There's an alchemy that takes you from the
26:18
Speaker 1: page two actions. It's amazing stuff and there are there
26:24
Speaker 1: are a lot of good things that come from literacy,
26:27
Speaker 1: but sometimes they're not good things for the powers that be,
26:31
Speaker 1: the status quo. Uh So it is uh, it is
26:34
Speaker 1: a little surprising that they were able to get a
26:36
Speaker 1: copy of Thus Capital in in this in this prison.
26:43
Speaker 1: But this, uh, I don't know. Now. It depends on
26:46
Speaker 1: your political perspective. Some people who object to socialism might
26:50
Speaker 1: say that this radicalizes our boy Gene, because he says,
26:56
Speaker 1: I had heard but little of socialism before the Pullman strike,
27:00
Speaker 1: and he says the reading he did in jail is
27:04
Speaker 1: what converted him to become one of the most famous
27:07
Speaker 1: socialists in US history. But yeah, but it's not clear really,
27:15
Speaker 1: um how that how that change of heart happened. Because
27:21
Speaker 1: he was speaking to a commission about the strike earlier
27:24
Speaker 1: that year and he said, I don't call myself a socialist. Also,
27:28
Speaker 1: I want to point out the president and these powerful
27:31
Speaker 1: rail companies. They put them away. They conspired to put
27:36
Speaker 1: Deb's in his crew away on conspiracy charges. I don't know.
27:41
Speaker 1: Feels like a cover up to me. So uh he uh.
27:44
Speaker 1: He also has socialists who are trying to court him,
27:46
Speaker 1: get him further on board with the cause, and he
27:49
Speaker 1: turns them away. I gotta say them, I gotta say
27:54
Speaker 1: well before he gets out in and in Max, I
27:59
Speaker 1: know this is this is like your boy. You actually
28:01
Speaker 1: call him Max's daddy in the outline. Do you do
28:05
Speaker 1: you do? Sir? Uh? Do we think do we think
28:09
Speaker 1: that Deb's is being sincere when he's issuing socialism or
28:14
Speaker 1: do we think he's kind of like trying to be
28:17
Speaker 1: the good kid so he can get out of jail.
28:22
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I mean, I think that
28:24
Speaker 1: his view of socialism is not the same. It's not
28:26
Speaker 1: the same as like he look would look like marks
28:29
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. He's like, I like some of
28:31
Speaker 1: these concepts, but I don't agree with at all. Because
28:33
Speaker 1: you know, at this point of his career and his organizing,
28:37
Speaker 1: he was had been pretty pro capitalistic for most most
28:41
Speaker 1: of the time. I mean, he was against strikes for
28:42
Speaker 1: a long period of time. I think he saw this
28:46
Speaker 1: communist movement. He's like, I like some of these ideas,
28:48
Speaker 1: especially the protection for the workers, but I don't like
28:51
Speaker 1: this all the way. I think he was like very
28:53
Speaker 1: much like I like kind of being in the middle.
28:55
Speaker 1: I don't like being all the way to one side
28:57
Speaker 1: of all the way to the other. Like I think
28:58
Speaker 1: we should use some of these things, and spoiler, I
29:01
Speaker 1: think a lot of a lot of stuff did end
29:03
Speaker 1: up becoming part of this country, like social security. Yeah,
29:06
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of where he was. I
29:09
Speaker 1: don't think he was. I think it's easy excial people
29:12
Speaker 1: who are against his ideas to paint him as like, oh,
29:15
Speaker 1: you're all the way over there. You're just the same
29:16
Speaker 1: as Lenin and Marx and all those guys, which I
29:20
Speaker 1: but I just I don't think he was that. I
29:21
Speaker 1: think he believed in these concepts and he was much
29:24
Speaker 1: more middle of the road than people want to pay
29:26
Speaker 1: him as. Yes, yes, agree can I I want to
29:30
Speaker 1: pull out one of my favorite quotations from Gene It's
29:34
Speaker 1: one that I agree with wholeheartedly. He has this quote
29:37
Speaker 1: where he says, I am for socialism because I am
29:41
Speaker 1: for humanity. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization. That's true.
29:47
Speaker 1: That it's true. It's like it's like you always say
29:49
Speaker 1: been money is a cult or religion in and of itself.
29:53
Speaker 1: And again, so to keep bringing up the stuff that
29:55
Speaker 1: I wants you to know. But we have an episode
29:57
Speaker 1: coming out about the Saluritian a to the idea of
30:01
Speaker 1: like a lost epoch, you know, of interdimensional perhaps or
30:05
Speaker 1: just like at least extra galactic civilizations that may have
30:09
Speaker 1: achieved industrialization before we did. And the idea of economy
30:15
Speaker 1: comes up, and the idea of like what industrialization means
30:19
Speaker 1: comes up, and um, I think we all were kind
30:22
Speaker 1: of on the same page in terms of like the
30:25
Speaker 1: economy is in some ways kind of the nasty byproduct
30:29
Speaker 1: of humanity of civilization, and it causes all of these
30:33
Speaker 1: toxic problems that then beget more problems. You know, Um,
30:37
Speaker 1: there could very well be a civilization that just is
30:40
Speaker 1: adapted to sustain itself and isn't about all this kind
30:44
Speaker 1: of competition and all of this like other ing and
30:47
Speaker 1: things that require forming unions and making sure people aren't exploited. Yeah,
30:53
Speaker 1: and this, uh it just hit me, guys. No, Max
31:00
Speaker 1: Gene would totally have a podcast. He would have been
31:03
Speaker 1: podcasting from jail. It would be such like a low
31:08
Speaker 1: tech podcast to like he might record it on a
31:10
Speaker 1: computer microphone and stuff, and it have a like a
31:14
Speaker 1: million millions of listens. But he would just like scream
31:17
Speaker 1: into a computer microphone for hours on end, unaddited to
31:20
Speaker 1: just these straight to tape. He's one of those guys
31:24
Speaker 1: who gets the veins when he's really in his forehead
31:28
Speaker 1: when he's talking about stuff. Here's actually little Key famous
31:30
Speaker 1: for that. But but he is not spouting gobbledegook. And
31:35
Speaker 1: despite not having a podcast, he decides that he is
31:41
Speaker 1: going to get involved with politics. And as you might
31:45
Speaker 1: be able to tell by a subtle turn in the
31:48
Speaker 1: sound design, this is a two parter. We are only
31:53
Speaker 1: uh we've only gone about halfway, not even halfway through
31:58
Speaker 1: our journey with you, ge V Debs. We're getting to
32:02
Speaker 1: some really startling, exciting stuff and uh no, I gotta say,
32:09
Speaker 1: I know, sometimes we don't want to have a two
32:12
Speaker 1: parter that publishes on Thursday and comes out on Tuesday,
32:15
Speaker 1: but I think this one is gonna be worth the way.
32:17
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, and honestly it's it's it's pretty modular.
32:20
Speaker 1: The guy's gut like a storied career, and a lot
32:22
Speaker 1: of the moments in his life that we're talking about
32:25
Speaker 1: are really just kind of representative of moments in the
32:27
Speaker 1: history of the labor movement. And I think it is
32:30
Speaker 1: appropriate to kind of make it a little more bite size.
32:33
Speaker 1: And you know, you and I have been kind of
32:35
Speaker 1: slamming away over the last few weeks between promoting this
32:39
Speaker 1: book that we talked about in these podcasts out the Door,
32:42
Speaker 1: so I think we owe it to ourselves to make
32:44
Speaker 1: this one too, partter and and let it hit the weekend.
32:47
Speaker 1: But we'll be back on Tuesday with part two of
32:50
Speaker 1: Eugene debs Uh, where also I will I will reference
32:53
Speaker 1: a huge Deb's impersonator on the internet that I learned
32:57
Speaker 1: quite a bit about Deb's is Late or life front.
33:01
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, we'll do the reference in part two.
33:04
Speaker 1: I'll reference the reference in part one and do the
33:06
Speaker 1: actual reference in part two. Correct, there we go. Okay,
33:08
Speaker 1: as long as we have our order of operations reference wise,
33:12
Speaker 1: before we turn into a reference work podcast, we are
33:15
Speaker 1: going to call it a day. Thank you so much
33:18
Speaker 1: to our super producer, the one and only Mr Max Williams.
33:22
Speaker 1: Thank you as well to our research associate Mr Max Williams,
33:26
Speaker 1: and to while we're doing the Williams kick, Alex Williams
33:29
Speaker 1: who could pose this banging track and Zach Williams are
33:33
Speaker 1: one half of our research associate team. Christopher Hastiot is
33:37
Speaker 1: here at Spirit thanks to you. He's Jeff Coates as
33:39
Speaker 1: always out in the world doing amazing things. That Jonathan
33:43
Speaker 1: Strickland the quiz to you, dashing monster. We love and
33:47
Speaker 1: miss you and we'll see you very very soon. Hopefully
33:50
Speaker 1: you're shadow will dock in our doorstep before long or
33:54
Speaker 1: also please never never come again. Uh. He also he
33:58
Speaker 1: got stranded on a cruise ship. He was lost at
34:01
Speaker 1: sea for a little while. That's a true story. He's
34:04
Speaker 1: back now, so if you're hearing this, quister, uh, stay safe.
34:08
Speaker 1: Also big thanks to Jeff Bartlett's recently appeared on the
34:12
Speaker 1: show to tell us about the michelin Man. It's a
34:15
Speaker 1: research associate and friend of ours. Let's see. Thanks to
34:20
Speaker 1: gene V Debs. Why are we saying thank you? There
34:23
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a spoiler in part one,
34:25
Speaker 1: but but you'll see why why in part two. You
34:28
Speaker 1: don't have to agree with him, but there are some
34:30
Speaker 1: things you should thank him for. If you live in
34:32
Speaker 1: the United States, we'll see you next time, folks. For
34:42
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I heart
34:44
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
34:47
Speaker 1: favorite shows.