Michael L. Ross's Blog: Coming soon!, page 17
October 7, 2019
Signers of the Declaration
October 2, 2019
Champ Ferguson, Guerilla
Mrs. Harper, paying it forward
September 30, 2019
Did you know… Thomas McKean (March 19, 1734 – June 24, 1817) ?
September 26, 2019
Did you know… Larry Lapsley (3/7/1840-12/13/1897)?
Did you know… Larry Lapsley(3/7/1840-12/13/1897)?
Black History day
[image error]Map of Larry’s journey on foot
Larry Lapsley was a humble, unassuming man, and lived the life of a Kansas farmer. Few who knew him thought him unusual – but they didn’t know his story.
Larry was born in Danville, Kentucky on the farm of Samuel Lapsley. His mother was a slave, and as the status of the children was determined by the mother, Larry was born into slavery. He remembers a fine summer day when he was about two years old – his mother set him down to attend to her farm work, and while she was busy, he crawled away. Finding the edge of a well, he looked over and saw his reflection. Just as he was about to crawl forward, and fall into the well, his mother came running and grabbed him. He was so frightened by her sudden grab, he set up a wail. We almost lost his story.
Larry was originally owned by Samuel’s mother, a widow with eight slaves. She treated him kindly, and on her deathbed called to him, giving him to her son Samuel when he was eight. Larry’s sister was given to Samuel’s sister – she split her slaves between them without regard to the slave families. Larry’s sister was put to field labor, and used up, dying at eighteen. Samuel was not a wise young man – he loved high living, gambling, and had no business sense. Within a few years, old widow Lapsley’s estate was squandered, except for Larry and his mother.
Samuel lost the farm and moved Larry with his mother and cousins to Independence, Missouri. Being a Mason, Samuel found a fellow Mason to take them in, and within two years was able to buy eighty acres. This farming venture proved no more profitable than the first, as Samuel was not inclined toward hard work. Samuel then operated a livery stable – or rather, he owned it and profited from Larry’s labor running it. Finding himself in debt, he sold Larry to his half-brother, Bunor.
Larry went back to the fields, growing corn and beans until the Union army threatened Missouri in 1861. Fearing the loss of his property, the master moved Larry and the other slaves to Texas. Larry and his cousins cried upon leaving their home and venturing off into the unknown. It took several months of travel in freezing weather with snow and sleet to reach Texas. The owners forced them to be quiet whenever Union troops came near, fearing capture.
They arrived in Bonham, Texas (about seventy miles northeast of Dallas) in February. Being winter, and needing for Larry to generate him some income, Bunor hired him out to a whiskey distillery to learn the trade. Bunor enlisted in the Confederate army and was killed at the Battle of Pea Ridge.
Larry stayed on, working for the owner of the distillery, his status murky, but getting wages. Most of the whites in the area moved further south with their slaves, as Union troops came closer. Larry was ordered south, to work for a man named Jones – but he grew tired of being shuffled about like a steer no one wanted. He took counsel with his cousin Tom.
When he was given a horse to go south, he rode until out of sight into an arroyo, then turned north, meeting up with Tom at the Red River. They lay low during the night in the underbrush, then crossed the next morning into Indian territory. The Union army was using the Indians at the time to guard against Confederate incursions, and promising them $100 a head for any man, white or black, caught trying to go through their territory
Larry and Tom tried traveling the next day, but the wind blew like a freight train, and the sky grew dark with swirling clouds and cracking lightning. A downpour started, and they huddled together under scrub pine. When the storm cleared, they discovered they were near a Choctaw Indian village. They hid and tried to travel again the next night, but again a storm blew in, and they took shelter. This pattern repeated so that after three days they had hardly made five miles from the river. Tom had enough – he resolved to travel in the daylight.
The next day, they walked a short distance, keeping the sun on their left in the morning. Before they had gone two miles, a large Indian wearing a blue army coat stepped out in front of them, with two huge Newfoundland dogs. He had a rifle leveled. They were prisoners. After being searched and giving up their guns, money, and food, they were herded to the Indian camp and put in chains.
[image error]Choctaw Village
Larry was in some despair for a few days. During the day, he wore leg irons and was closely supervised. At night, he was chained to Tom, and then to a log. The Indians worked him, and he’d come no closer to freedom. He was surly with his captors. After a few weeks, he noticed that Tom was given more freedom, because he laughed and talked with his captors, seeming to be content. Larry adopted this method and found that it worked. He was allowed to go more than a hundred yards from the camp without supervision, though still chained.
One night the village was having a celebration. The Indian men were dancing, and someone had found whiskey. A storm blew in that rattled the lodges, pouring rain and occasionally pelting with hail. Larry had managed to secrete an ax in the hollow of an oak, some distance from camp. He obtained permission to go out. With no one following him, he ran as best he could to the oak, got the ax, and chopped the ring on the chain until it burst, setting him free.
One of the other prisoners had told him of a forest to the northwest, so he tried to steer in that direction, but in the dark, he was really lost. He ran as fast as he could after weeks of short rations, until he stumbled into a creek, falling flat. He was going to rise, but a flash of lightning showed him a man on a horse. The two Newfoundlands were at his side. His captor! Only about a hundred yards away. The creek bed made a hiding place, but Larry assumed he would be caught. Surely the dogs would catch his scent. The thunder rolled, and another flash of light showed the dogs running downstream, away from him. “Larry!” called his captor. “Come out!” Larry scrunched in closer to the riverbank. After a time, the Indian rode away.
For the next three days, Larry played tag with his pursuers from the Indian village. Once he stood in the stream, looking right at them, but wasn’t seen. He was weak, starved, and drenched, feeling distinctly miserable.
Finally, coming over a hill, he saw a small village. At first, this threw him into a panic, but then he saw it was deserted. He decided to risk it – at least he’d have relief from the storms that seemed to roll in every night. He took shelter in one of the lodges and slept dry for the first time in a week. He woke in the middle of the night, to the sound of animals moving about the village. Peeking out, he saw large wolves. He froze against the side of the wikiup and waited for them to leave, all the while glancing around for any kind of weapon. By morning, the wolves had gone, leaving him undisturbed. Several wild pigs came in, looking for protection, he supposed, from the wolves. After watching a while, he was able to run up and slam the door to one of the buildings, trapping the pig inside. He rummaged through the camp and found an old ax as well as half of a clasp knife. He also found papers showing that this had been an army camp. There were a couple of old cannonballs. Straining, he picked one up and threw it at the pig, after cracking the door open, hoping to crack its skull. It just made the pig mad. Realizing he had to risk going in with the pig, or starve, he grabbed the old ax and entered. The pig retreated under a board bed. Plucking up his courage, Larry pried back a board, and cracked the pig’s skull with the ax.
He rummaged about the camp again and found three matches. He skinned, quartered, and roasted the pig. The meat settled in his stomach like a rock, it was so tough, but it was the first substantive meal in a week. After all his effort, he was exhausted. Larry lay down, woke the next day, ate, and slept some more. Gradually, he gained strength. He made friends with a large mangy greyhound that came to the village, but after two weeks, when he felt well enough to leave, the dog would not come with him. He concluded that the Choctaw had dropped pursuit. Keeping the sun on the left, traveling in the day, he walked north on the wagon track, ever watchful.
He carried some of the pork with him, having smoked it to keep it edible.
After a few days of walking, he came to the Arkansas River. He could see swarms of Indians along the banks, and a young woman poling a dugout boat across. His supply of pork was almost gone. He had little in the way of weapons. He decided to risk it. As she got out of the boat, he ran and hopped aboard. She saw him and got back in the boat. He tried talking, but it was clear she didn’t understand.
[image error]Creek Indian
Falling back on hand motions, he made her understand that he meant no harm, just wanted to cross. She poled the boat across, right into the middle of a group of armed warriors. Larry found one that spoke a little English. He learned they were Creek, and Union sympathizers. He’d made it! He was behind Union lines.
A black man was a curiosity to the Indians. The old woman he talked to was sure that the Union commander would want to talk to him. After rest and food, the whole village followed him on the walk to Fort Gibson.
[image error]Fort Gibson, Oklahoma Picture from 1932
At the fort, after speaking to the commander, a young soldier named Luke Parsons accosted Larry, and offered him a home and a job, caring for his livestock. He bought clothes for Larry. When Luke mustered out a few weeks later, Larry followed him to north of Salina, KS, and continued to work for him for three years. By the end of that time, he’d saved enough to buy his own claim, where he spent the rest of his days.
Sources:(oral history from Larry, and Kansas Historical Quarterly)
September 17, 2019
Battle of Antietam
On Sept. 17, 1862, America’s bloodiest single day, a small force of Confederates on high ground for three hours defended the critical crossing against troops belonging to Ambrose E. Burnside’s 9th Corps.
[image error]Antietam action at Burnside Bridge
With the wounding of General Joe Johnston at the Battle of Seven Pines, the Confederate army shifted strategy, as Lee assumed command. Lee judged correctly that the South’s inferior supply of men and materials would never outlast the North, and swift aggressive action was the only recourse. MacClellan, the Union commander, was trained in the European school of war, involving trenches and sieges. Often he would entrench, finally attack, and find the enemy had simply evaporated.
Lee drove McClellan back from Richmond – the War Department was so sure the war was almost over, they stopped recruiting officers. Lee drove north, and in a daring move, split his army, sending Stonewall Jackson and his troops west to take Harper’s Ferry, while he drove north. McClellan chased Lee north, but then in one of those accidents of war, two Union soldiers found some papers wrapped around cigars – the Confederate battle plans. Lee realized his plans had been exposed, and quickly moved to reunite his army – at Antietam Creek, in Maryland.
[image error]Location of Antietam Battlefield – north of Harper’s Ferry, west of Frederick, south of Hagerstown
The stage was set for the bloodiest day ever.
[image error]Battle map, Antietam Sept 17, 1862
“Imagine a river… about 500 yards wide, from two to three feet deep, and the water very swift. Now it is just as full of men as it can be for 600 to 700 yards, up and down, yelling and singing all sorts of war and jolly songs, and in this connection, you must find room for eight to twelve regimental bands in the river all the time, the drums beating, the horns a tootin’ and the fifes a screamin’ , possibly every one of them on a different air – Dixie, My Maryland, Yankee Doodle – all the men apparently jolly. I, at least, did not feel jolly, though I imagine some of them contemplated the serious side of the situation. This concourse wading the river, many would never press the soil on the south side of the Potomac again.” – Private John W. Stevens, 5th Texas.
McClellan made sure his army came to the battle resupplied, bringing in 100,000 pairs of shoes, 93,000 pairs of trousers, and 10,000 blankets. By contrast, the Confederates were “the roughest set of creatures I ever saw, features, hair, and clothing matted with filth – tired, hungry, and no uniforms at all – they wore anything you could imagine, that had the least color of butternut to it.”
In the early morning fog of September 16, 1862, an artillery battle began, with the outmatched Confederate batteries soon dropping out – but not before having some effect. One of the 8th Ohio watched as a twelve pound shell arced toward the men surrounding the Union flag, wondering which of the group would survive – all but one did. He “slept the sleep of death, while the wind rustled through the flag’s silken folds, making the old flag droop and sigh for its brave guard, unable to defend it any longer.” The Union cannon were rifled, with superior numbers, range, and power. The Confederates were short on ammunition.
Beginning about 7AM, McClellan fought skirmishers at Middle Bridge, but failed to follow up when they fell back. Another uncoordinated attack on Lee’s right failed to yield results. McClellan exhibited his trademark caution, and delayed further attack until the next day.
On the 17th, the action began at the cornfield (see battle map). Federals under Hooker attack Jackson, pressing hard through the cornfield – Jackson calls up Hood’s Texas regiment. The Federals tried to capture Dunker church, where Jackson had his headquarters. Confederates concealed themselves in the tall corn, just showing “the glint of bayonets”. Hooker began an intense artillery barrage, followed by hand-to-hand. The fighting in the cornfield is so intense, someone later said it looked as though the corn had been cut at knee length with a knife – and the Confederate soldiers lay in rows, where they fell. Hood’s group suffered 80% losses, more than any other – F Company was completely wiped out. It was “…the most deadly fire of the war. Rifles are shot to pieces in the hands of the soldiers, canteens and haversacks are riddled with bullets, the dead and wounded go down in scores.”
In the midst of the cornfield battle, a hero emerged. Johnny Cook joined the 4th US Artillery at age 13, as a bugler. Now 15, and a messenger during the battle, he saw a Federal battery about to be overrun. Abandoning his message carrying duties, he took up the ram and shot, manning the cannon himself, by now 15 years old. General Gibbon, the unit commander, saw what was happening, and jumped from his horse to help Johnny. They fired canister rounds into the advancing Confederates, who were a mere 20 yards away. They maintained firing, and turned the line. Johnny became the youngest Medal of Honor recipient, at age 15.
[image error]Johnny Cook, 4th US Artillery
At the Harry Reel farm, John P. Smith, a civilian boy witnessed the soldiers brought from the battlefield. “I saw a number of Confederate wounded and dead brought into the yard. Some were having limbs amputated, others were horribly mangled and dying. One man I shall never forget – he was mangled by an exploding shell, so that his whole abdomen was open and contents dangling. He uttered piercing, heart rending cries, and begged for someone nearby to for God’s sake kill him. But death came soon and he was buried in a shallow grave.
About 9:30 AM, General William French’s division veered south, and engaged Confederate D.H. Hill at the Sunken Road. French’s troops were mostly green, while the rebels were seasoned veterans – and that made the difference. Even so, the numbers were with the Federals, and the Confederates were so pressed that Hill himself took up a musket to lead a company ahead, and Longstreet and his staff manned a cannon.
The road became known as Bloody Lane. Three thousand Federals fell, and five hundred Confederates in their defense. Some regiments lost more than fifty percent of their men.
[image error]Bloody Lane, after the battle
The third major offensive in the battle was at Burnside Bridge. Earlier in the morning, Lee moved troops away from the bridge leaving only 450 Georgians under Toombs to defend it.
This weakness could have been exploited earlier and more forcefully , smashing the Confederate center, and cutting Lee’s army in two – but McClellan failed to take advantage of it. Federal artillery knocked out most of the Confederate batteries in the area. But Confederate sharpshooters provided a convincing argument against a head-on assault, as the 2nd Maryland learned as one third of them fell.
The Federals persisted, and each time, got a little farther. Toombs men were running out of ammunition. Col. Robert Potter waved his sword, and urged the Federals forward. At the same time, General Isaac Rodman’s division waded the chest high creek, weapons held aloft as shrapnel and cannister whistled over their heads. One man remarked that it sounded like a flock of wild ducks, whining and quacking their destructive wake. Emerging from the creek, Rodman’s men flanked the Georgians, and with few rounds left to fire, it was over. The Federals lost five hundred men taking the bridge. General Rodman was among those killed.
Just as things began to look bleak for the Confederates, A. P. Hill’s men arrived after a forced march of seventeen miles, to shore up the right flank and relieve Tooms. Adding to the confusion, some of Hill’s men were wearing captured Union uniforms from their victory at Harper’s Ferry.
By 5:30PM the fighting ceased, as McClellan failed to press his advantage, and pulled back, in an incredible display of tactical incompetence – it would later cost him his command.
Over 22,000 men died in a single day, and over 3,600 were wounded. In addition, thousands of horses died, leading Lee to remark, “We are without transportation.”
In Fredericksburg, the churches were converted to hospitals, the pews to beds and operating tables. Townsfolk from nearby villages came to the battlefield the following day, to offer food and help with medical care, and burying the dead.
“No other campaign and battle in the war had such momentous, multiple consequences as Antietam. In July 1863 the dual Union triumphs at Gettysburg and Vicksburg struck another blow that blunted a renewed Confederate offensive in the East and cut off the western third of the Confederacy from the rest. In September 1864 Sherman’s capture of Atlanta electrified the North and set the stage for the final drive to Union victory. These also were pivotal moments. But they would never have happened if the triple Confederate offensives in Mississippi, Kentucky, and most of all Maryland had not been defeated in the fall of 1862.“— James M. McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom
If you’d like to know more on the battle, I recommend Ted Alexander’s book “The Battle of Antietam”, and Jim Murfin’s “Gleam of Bayonets”. You may also like the video tour of the battlefield at the link below.
Tour of the lesser known parts of Antietam
September 12, 2019
Socialism in America – Part 5 Did you know… Norman Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968)?
[image error]Logo of American Socialist Party, 1901-1972
Continuing series on the history of Socialism in America
After Eugene Debs began to fade, the reins of socialism in America were picked up by Norman Thomas.
Thomas was born in Marion, Ohio to Emma and Weddington Thomas. Weddington was a Presbyterian minister. He had an uneventful childhood, and the family moved to Pennsylvania. Thomas started at Bucknell University, but inherited wealth from an uncle, and transferred to Princeton, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1905.
His new found wealth allowed him the luxury of a “gap year”, where he traveled around the world, and volunteered working in a “settlement house”, similar to the Hull House in Chicago. Thomas then followed after his father, joining Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and took a pastorate in the Presbyterian Church in 1911, and soon had his own church in East Harlem, an Italian neighborhood. When the church cut funding for social programs, Thomas became disenchanted, and resigned. Thomas was adamantly pacifist, and as the world descended into war in 1914, he denounced the fighting. When Morris Hillquit of the Socialist Party ran for mayor of New York City on a pacifist platform, Thomas wrote to him, and received an invitation to work for Hillquit’s campaign. He joined the Socialist Party, and advocated social programs and relief for the poor. He helped found National Civil Liberties Bureau, a precursor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Thomas increasingly spent time on politics, running for governor of New York, the US Senate, and mayor of New York City, all unsuccessfully. After Debs death in 1926, the Socialist party was desperate – membership was falling, and the main officers of the party were foreign born, therefore ineligible to run for United States President. They turned to Thomas.
In 1928, Thomas became the Socialist Party candidate for president, and he ran in each of the subsequent six presidential elections. The party platform:
“Nationalization of our natural resources, beginning with the coal mines and water sites, particularly at Boulder Dam and Muscle Shoals.” (Boulder Dam, renamed Hoover Dam, and Muscle Shoals are now both federal government projects.) “A publicly owned giant power system under which the federal government shall cooperate with the states and municipalities in the distribution of electrical energy to the people at cost.” (Tennessee Valley Authority.)“National ownership and democratic management of railroads and other means of transportation and communication.” (Railroad passenger service is completely nationalized through Amtrak. Some freight service is nationalized through Conrail. The FCC controls communications by telephone, telegraph, radio, and television.)“Increase of taxation on high income levels, of corporation taxes and inheritance taxes, the proceeds to be used for old age pensions and other forms of social insurance.” (In 1928, highest personal income tax rate, 25 percent; in 1978, 70 percent; in 1928, corporate tax rate, 12 percent; in 1978, 48 percent; in 1928, top federal estate tax rate, 20 percent; in 1978, 70 percent.)
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
“”The Socialist Party will no longer be running a candidate for president. The Democratic Party is leading this country to Socialism much faster than we could ever hope to.” ~ Norman Thomas
In 1934, the Socialist Party split, largely over the 1934 Declaration, which committed the organization to “refuse collectively to sanction or support any international war” and condemned the “bogus democracy of capitalist parliamentarianism” in favor of establishment of a “genuine workers’ democracy.”
In 1937, Thomas returned from Europe determined to restore order in the Socialist Party. He and his followers in the party teamed up with the Clarity majority of the National Executive Committee and gave the green light to the New York Right Wing to expel the Appeal faction from the organization. These expulsions led to the departure of virtually the whole of the party’s youth section, who affiliated to the new Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. Demoralization set in and the Socialist Party withered, its membership level below that of 1928
Upton Sinclair, long time socialist and author of “The Jungle” ran for governor of California on for the Socialist party, barely receiving any votes. The next election, he ran as a Democrat, on a platform of “End Poverty in California” and astonished everyone by winning the nomination, but not the general election.
Thomas opposed the Lend-Lease program that supported Britain as WW 2 broke out, and only reluctantly supported the declaration of war following Pearl Harbor.
Thomas was an early supporter of both birth control and abortion, with ties to Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.
Following WW2, Thomas declined in importance as the Socialist party fell into disfavor among the Red Scare. In 1956, the party morphed into the Democratic Socialist Federation, and in 1972, the Social Democrats.
http://www.marxisthistory.org/personal/721231-sdusa-news.pdf
[image error]Norman Thomas
Thomas died at the age of 84 on December 19, 1968, in Cold Spring Harbor, NY where he had lived for some years. Pursuant to his wishes, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered on Long Island.
September 5, 2019
History of Socialism In America Part 4
Did you know…Eugene Debs((November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) ? Continuing series on socialism in America
Debs was one of the founders of the 19th-century labor movement and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.
Debs was from a wealthy immigrant family from France. His father owned a textile mill and a meat market. Debs grew bored with the school in Terre Haute, Indiana, and dropped out at age 14. He worked on the railroad, then a grocery wholesale business. While on the railroad, he joined Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen union, and eventually became the editor for their magazine. This exposure led Debs to try politics – he was elected city clerk, and then to the state assembly.
Initially, during the early 1880s, Debs’ writing stressed themes of self-upliftment: temperance, hard work, and honesty. Debs also held the view that “labor and capital are friends” and opposed strikes as a means of settling differences. This changed in some unsuccessful dealings with railway management – Debs became convinced of the tyranny of management over workers, and the effectiveness of strikes as a negotiating tool. He founded the American Railway Union to further these ideas, and successfully led a strike against the Great Northern railway in April 1894.
Debs gained national prominence (or vilification?) for his role in the Pullman strike of 1894. It’s difficult for us to imagine now, but in 1894, the railroad was the chief method of moving goods and people over long distances – today our interstate road system and air freight have helped railroads take a back seat. But in 1894, there were no semis winging down the highway – it was ships, rail, or freight wagon drawn by animals. The railroads were some of the largest employers in the country. In 1893, two of the largest US employers, Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and the National Cordage Company( rope company) collapsed. Unemployment soared to over 20%. Banks, railroads, and steel mills especially fell into bankruptcy. Over fifteen thousand businesses closed during the Panic of 1893. There was no unemployment insurance to collect – that started in 1935. Thousands of families suddenly had no income.
The Pullman company, in order to prevent total collapse, cut workers wages by 28%. Though initially opposed to the idea of a strike, Debs came around when the membership of the ARU voted for it. He became passionate in its defense. The disruption in the country was severe enough for federal intervention with troops to break the strike, and Debs was jailed for interfering with the US mail.
While in jail, he read Marx and other socialist thinkers, emerging fully converted to socialism. He founded the American Socialist Party, and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He was the Socialist Party of America candidate for President in 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920 (the final time from prison). In a case that went to the Supreme Court, Debs vs. the United States, Debs was charged with sedition for his statements urging draft resistance. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated that the case barely was worth looking at since the Court had ruled previously in Schenck v. the United States. Democrat Woodrow Wilson called Debs a traitor to his country. Despite his incarceration, Debs polled his highest vote in 1920, largely due to his support of the vote for women – it was the first presidential election in which women could vote. Interestingly, the Socialist party wanted to amend the Constitution to negate Marbury vs. Madison that gave the Supreme Court the right of constitutional review. Debs got just over 3% of the popular vote, but no electoral votes. The Socialist platform also wanted to ditch the electoral college, the Senate, the President’s role as commander in chief, and institute government ownership and control of railroads, telegraphs and telephones, express service, steamboat lines and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all large-scale industries, as well as grain elevators, stockyards, storage warehouses and other distributing agencies. – 1916 Socialist Platform The platform also pushes various environmental measures, and “That all laws and appropriations for the increase of the military and naval forces of the United States shall be immediately repealed.”
Debs got nearly 1 million votes, of 16,144,093. Coolidge won, FDR lost of the major candidates.
Debs health deteriorated in prison. On December 23, 1921, President Warren G. Harding commuted Debs’ sentence to time served, effective Christmas Day. He did not issue a pardon. A White House statement summarized the administration’s view of Debs’ case:
“There is no question of his guilt…He was by no means as rabid and outspoken in his expressions as many others, and but for his prominence and the resulting far-reaching effect of his words, very probably might not have received the sentence he did. He is an old man, not strong physically. He is a man of much personal charm and impressive personality, which qualifications make him a dangerous man calculated to mislead the unthinking and affording excuse for those with criminal intent.”
In late 1926, he was admitted to Lindlahr Sanitarium in Elmhurst, Illinois. He died there of heart failure on October 20, 1926, at the age of 70.
Several books have been written about Debs’ life as an inspirational American socialist. In 1979, Bernie Sanders produced a documentary about Debs which was released as a film and an audio LP record as an audio-visual teaching aid. In the documentary, he described Debs as “probably the most effective and popular leader that the American working class has ever had”. Sanders hung a portrait of Debs in City Hall in Burlington, Vermont when he served as mayor of the city in the 1980s and has a plaque dedicated to Debs in his Congressional office.
[image error]Eugene Debs
[image error]Campaign poster
[image error]Political Cartoon from 1920 campaign
History of Socialism – Part 3
It’s 1848… pandemonium is about to grip Europe.
Continuing series on the history of socialism in the United States.
In France, the Orleans monarchy is overthrown, and the Second Republic under Louis Napoleon begins, succeeded by the Second Empire. Louis is crowned Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. In a period reminiscent of the modern “Arab Spring”, revolution sweeps Europe – the German states, the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Italian states, Denmark, Wallachia, Poland,
all experience unrest and uprisings – mostly unsuccessful.
At the root of most of these was the idea that there was an uneven distribution of wealth, that the poor were trod upon by the rich, and had insufficient political and economic power.
Into this environment, Karl Marx, atheist professor, author, and philosopher publishes his landmark Communist Manifesto, outlining the struggle, he feels, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Marx says: “By Bourgeoisie is meant the Class of Modern Capitalists, owners of the means of production and employers of wage labor. The proletariat is the class of modern wage laborers, who have no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.” Marx claims that modern society is but a holdover from the feudal society of lords and serfs, substituting employers and wage earners. He says, “The discovery of America opened fresh ground for the bourgeoisie… Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America has paved the way.” Marx says the great expansion has served to blur class distinctions temporarily, but still the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Previous revolutions simply reallocated property in favor of the new ruling class. However, by the nature of their class, the members of the proletariat have no way of appropriating property. Therefore, when they obtain control they will have to destroy all ownership of private property, and classes themselves will disappear. Engles calls this “scientific socialism”, a term coined in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his “What is Property?”, to describe Marx’s economic system. The Manifesto argues that this development is inevitable and that capitalism is inherently unstable. The Communists intend to promote this revolution and will promote the parties and associations that are moving history towards its natural conclusion. They argue that the elimination of social classes cannot come about through reforms or changes in government. Rather, a revolution will be required.
These ideas, together with the Fourier philosophy already discussed in the Harmony cities (see last two weeks Thursday posts) swept the world, fueling the fires of discontent and anarchy. Most people today think they know Marx, but have never read him – you can find an English translation of the original German document here on books.google.com, Manifesto of the Communist_Party. It’s instructive to know where socialist ideas are coming from, and how the founders envisioned them working out.
When you’re struggling from paycheck to paycheck for the essentials of life – food, clothing, shelter – grabbing a piece of someone else’s pie sounds pretty good – having them hand it to you because the government makes them sounds even better.
Working conditions in the 19th century in America were often harsh in the cities, where hordes of immigrants flocked for jobs. Upton Sinclair, a socialist, chronicled the Chicago meat packing industry in “The Jungle”. The labor movement, searching for better pay, better hours, shorter work weeks, and generally better treatment of workers became fertile ground for the socialist ideas and movement. And it came to America …
[image error]Karl Marx
[image error]Friedrich Engles
[image error]Eugene Debs
Next week: Labor Day and Eugene Debs
Coming soon!
We'll have a cover reveal, and an opportunity to enter a ...more
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