This article first appeared in the April 1902 issue of The Comrade, a popular
socialist monthly magazine then published in New York City.
The anarchists Debs refers to in this article were the four labor leaders hanged
November 11, 1887, by the State of Illinois. The charge against them was that their ideas
had led to the bombing and death of police in the May 4, 1886, Haymarket Square
demonstration in Chicago against police brutality to strikers.
As I have some doubt about the readers of The Comrade having any curiosity as to
"how I became a socialist" it may be in order to say that the subject is the
editor's, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding— my only
concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead
of becoming a socialist.
On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Indiana, by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and
I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. "Old Josh
Leach," as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was
the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty,
simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my
shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said: "My
boy, you're a little young, but I believe you're in earnest and will make your mark in the
brotherhood." Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really
thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was
attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said:
"I put a towheaded boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day
he will be at the head of it."
Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with "Old Josh" and
the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good right hand, I
observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, Swells at my breast and turns the past to
pain.
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition
and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood
fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its
watchfires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and
shower of my life. To attend the "meeting" was my supreme joy, and for ten years
I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.
At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the
magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I
entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen
hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many
correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often, when all
oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother's hand turned off the light,
I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity!
All the firemen everywhere -- and they were all the world -- were straining:
To catch the beat
On my tramping feet
My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a
railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered
out of the roundhouse for being an "agitator," or put off a train, sometimes
passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in
the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira,
New York, a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered
to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became
my friend.
I rode on the engines over mountain and plain, slept in the cabooses and bunks, and was
fed from their pails by the swarthy stokers who still nestle close to my heart, and will
until it is cold and still.
Through all these years I was nourished at Fountain
Proletaire. I drank deeply of its
waters and every particle of my tissue became saturated with the spirit of the working
class. I had fired an engine and been stung by the exposure and hardship of the rail. I
was with the boys in their weary watches, at the broken engine's side and often helped to
bear their bruised and bleeding bodies back to wife and child again. How could I but feel
the burden of their wrongs? How could the seed of agitation fail to take deep root in my
heart?
And so I was spurred on in the work of organizing, not the firemen merely, but the
brakemen, switchmen, telegraphers, shopmen, backhands, all of them in fact, and as I had
now become known as an organizer, the calls came from all sides and there are but few
trades I have not helped to organize and less still in whose strikes I have not at some
time had a hand.
In 1894 the American Railway Union was organized and a braver body of men never fought
the battle of the working class.
Up to this time I had heard but little of socialism, knew practically nothing about the
movement, and what little I did know was not calculated to impress me in its favor. I was
bent on thorough and complete organization of the railroad men and ultimately the whole
working class, and all my time and energy were given to that end. My supreme conviction
was that if they were only organized in every branch of the service and all acted together
in concert they could redress their wrongs and regulate the conditions of their
employment. The stockholders of the corporation acted as one, why not the men? It was such
a plain proposition to simply to follow the example set before their eyes by their masters
— surely they could not fail to see it, act as one, and solve the problem.
It is useless to say that I had yet to learn the workings of the capitalist system, the
resources of its masters and the weakness of its slaves. Indeed, no shadow of a
"system" fell athwart my pathway; no thought of ending wage misery marred my
plans. I was too deeply absorbed in perfecting wage servitude and making it a "thing
of beauty and a joy forever."
It all seems very strange to me now, taking a backward look, that my vision was so
focalized on a single objective point that I utterly failed to see what now appears as
clear as the noonday sun — so clear that I marvel that any workingman, however dull,
uncomprehending, can resist it.
But perhaps it was better so. I was to be baptized in socialism in the roar of conflict
and I thank the gods for reserving to this fitful occasion the fiat, "Let there be
light! " -- the light that streams in
steady radiance upon the broad way to the socialist republic.
The skirmish lines of the A R.U. were well advanced. A series of small battles was
fought and won without the loss of a man. A number of concessions was made by the
corporations rather than risk an encounter. Then came the fight on the Great Northern,
short, sharp, and decisive. The victory was complete — the only railroad strike of
magnitude ever won by an organization in America.
Next followed the final shock — the Pullman strike — and the American Railway
Union again won, clear and complete. The combined corporations were paralyzed and
helpless. At this juncture there was delivered, from wholly unexpected quarter
This article first appeared in the April 1902 issue of The Comrade, a popular
socialist monthly magazine then published in New York City.
The anarchists Debs refers to in this article were the four labor leaders hanged
November 11, 1887, by the State of Illinois. The charge against them was that their ideas
had led to the bombing and death of police in the May 4, 1886, Haymarket Square
demonstration in Chicago against police brutality to strikers.
As I have some doubt about the readers of The Comrade having any curiosity as to
"how I became a socialist" it may be in order to say that the subject is the
editor's, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding— my only
concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead
of becoming a socialist.
On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Indiana, by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and
I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. "Old Josh
Leach," as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was
the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty,
simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my
shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said: "My
boy, you're a little young, but I believe you're in earnest and will make your mark in the
brotherhood." Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really
thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was
attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said:
"I put a towheaded boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day
he will be at the head of it."
Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with "Old Josh" and
the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good right hand, I
observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, Swells at my breast and turns the past to
pain.
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition
and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood
fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its
watchfires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and
shower of my life. To attend the "meeting" was my supreme joy, and for ten years
I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.
At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the
magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I
entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen
hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many
correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often, when all
oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother's hand turned off the light,
I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity!
All the firemen everywhere -- and they were all the world -- were straining:
To catch the beat
On my tramping feet
My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a
railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered
out of the roundhouse for being an "agitator," or put off a train, sometimes
passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in
the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira,
New York, a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered
to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became
my friend.
I rode on the engines over mountain and plain, slept in the cabooses and bunks, and was
fed from their pails by the swarthy stokers who still nestle close to my heart, and will
until it is cold and still.
Through all these years I was nourished at Fountain
Proletaire. I drank deeply of its
waters and every particle of my tissue became saturated with the spirit of the working
class. I had fired an engine and been stung by the exposure and hardship of the rail. I
was with the boys in their weary watches, at the broken engine's side and often helped to
bear their bruised and bleeding bodies back to wife and child again. How could I but feel
the burden of their wrongs? How could the seed of agitation fail to take deep root in my
heart?
And so I was spurred on in the work of organizing, not the firemen merely, but the
brakemen, switchmen, telegraphers, shopmen, backhands, all of them in fact, and as I had
now become known as an organizer, the calls came from all sides and there are but few
trades I have not helped to organize and less still in whose strikes I have not at some
time had a hand.
In 1894 the American Railway Union was organized and a braver body of men never fought
the battle of the working class.
Up to this time I had heard but little of socialism, knew practically nothing about the
movement, and what little I did know was not calculated to impress me in its favor. I was
bent on thorough and complete organization of the railroad men and ultimately the whole
working class, and all my time and energy were given to that end. My supreme conviction
was that if they were only organized in every branch of the service and all acted together
in concert they could redress their wrongs and regulate the conditions of their
employment. The stockholders of the corporation acted as one, why not the men? It was such
a plain proposition to simply to follow the example set before their eyes by their masters
— surely they could not fail to see it, act as one, and solve the problem.
It is useless to say that I had yet to learn the workings of the capitalist system, the
resources of its masters and the weakness of its slaves. Indeed, no shadow of a
"system" fell athwart my pathway; no thought of ending wage misery marred my
plans. I was too deeply absorbed in perfecting wage servitude and making it a "thing
of beauty and a joy forever."
It all seems very strange to me now, taking a backward look, that my vision was so
focalized on a single objective point that I utterly failed to see what now appears as
clear as the noonday sun — so clear that I marvel that any workingman, however dull,
uncomprehending, can resist it.
But perhaps it was better so. I was to be baptized in socialism in the roar of conflict
and I thank the gods for reserving to this fitful occasion the fiat, "Let there be
light! " -- the light that streams in
steady radiance upon the broad way to the socialist republic.
The skirmish lines of the A R.U. were well advanced. A series of small battles was
fought and won without the loss of a man. A number of concessions was made by the
corporations rather than risk an encounter. Then came the fight on the Great Northern,
short, sharp, and decisive. The victory was complete — the only railroad strike of
magnitude ever won by an organization in America.
Next followed the final shock — the Pullman strike — and the American Railway
Union again won, clear and complete. The combined corporations were paralyzed and
helpless. At this juncture there was delivered, from wholly unexpected quarter
