Document A: Eugene V. Debs Speech (Modified)
Eugene V. Debs was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW), U.S. presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America,
and one of the most famous American socialists. This excerpt is from a
speech he gave across the street from a jail, where he had just visited
three socialists who were in prison for opposing the draft.
Comrades, friends and fellow-workers, . . . three of our most loyal
comrades are paying the penalty for their devotion to the cause of the
working class. They have come to realize, as many of us have, that it is
extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a
country fighting to make democracy safe in the world. . . .
Every one of the aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers
claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being
waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot!
What false pretense! These . . . tyrants, these red-handed robbers and
murderers, [say they’re] the “patriots,” while the men who have the courage
to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited
victims—they are [called] the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want
to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight. . . .
[He] who owns the earth and tells you that we are fighting this war to make
the world safe for democracy—he who profiteers at the expense of the
people who have been slain and mutilated by the thousands, under
pretense of being the great American patriot . . . is in fact the archenemy of
the people; it is he that you need to wipe from power. It is he who is a far
greater menace to your liberty and your well-being than the . . . [Germans]
on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Source: Socialist leader Eugene Debs delivered this speech in June 1918.
Vocabulary
aristocratic: upper-class pretense: attempt to make something that is not
conspirators: criminals the case appear to be true
arch-patriot: great patriot slain: killed in battle
DIGITAL INQUIRY GROUP inquirygroup.org
, Document B: Schenck Pamphlet (Modified)
Charles Schenck was a Socialist who in 1917-1918 printed and distributed
more than 15,000 anti-war pamphlets, including some to drafted American
men. The excerpt below comes from one of his pamphlets.
ASSERT YOUR RIGHTS
The Socialist Party says that any officers of the law entrusted with the
administration of conscription . . . violate the provisions of the United
States Constitution when they refuse to recognize your right to assert your
opposition to the draft. . . .
To draw this country into the horrors of the present war in Europe, to force
the youth of our land into the . . . bloody trenches of war-crazy nations,
would be a crime the magnitude of which defies description. . . .
No specious or plausible . . . pleas about a "war for democracy" can cloud
the issue. Democracy can not be shot into a nation. It must come
spontaneously and purely from within.
To advocate the persecution of other peoples through the fighting of a war
is an insult to every good and wholesome American tradition.
You are responsible. You must do your share to maintain, support, and
uphold the rights of the people of this country.
In this world crisis where do you stand? Are you with the forces of liberty
and light or war and darkness?
Source: “Assert Your Rights,” Charles Schenck, 1917-1918.
Vocabulary
conscription: military draft
magnitude: hugeness
specious: misleading
DIGITAL INQUIRY GROUP inquirygroup.org
Eugene V. Debs was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW), U.S. presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America,
and one of the most famous American socialists. This excerpt is from a
speech he gave across the street from a jail, where he had just visited
three socialists who were in prison for opposing the draft.
Comrades, friends and fellow-workers, . . . three of our most loyal
comrades are paying the penalty for their devotion to the cause of the
working class. They have come to realize, as many of us have, that it is
extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a
country fighting to make democracy safe in the world. . . .
Every one of the aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers
claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being
waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot!
What false pretense! These . . . tyrants, these red-handed robbers and
murderers, [say they’re] the “patriots,” while the men who have the courage
to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited
victims—they are [called] the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want
to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight. . . .
[He] who owns the earth and tells you that we are fighting this war to make
the world safe for democracy—he who profiteers at the expense of the
people who have been slain and mutilated by the thousands, under
pretense of being the great American patriot . . . is in fact the archenemy of
the people; it is he that you need to wipe from power. It is he who is a far
greater menace to your liberty and your well-being than the . . . [Germans]
on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Source: Socialist leader Eugene Debs delivered this speech in June 1918.
Vocabulary
aristocratic: upper-class pretense: attempt to make something that is not
conspirators: criminals the case appear to be true
arch-patriot: great patriot slain: killed in battle
DIGITAL INQUIRY GROUP inquirygroup.org
, Document B: Schenck Pamphlet (Modified)
Charles Schenck was a Socialist who in 1917-1918 printed and distributed
more than 15,000 anti-war pamphlets, including some to drafted American
men. The excerpt below comes from one of his pamphlets.
ASSERT YOUR RIGHTS
The Socialist Party says that any officers of the law entrusted with the
administration of conscription . . . violate the provisions of the United
States Constitution when they refuse to recognize your right to assert your
opposition to the draft. . . .
To draw this country into the horrors of the present war in Europe, to force
the youth of our land into the . . . bloody trenches of war-crazy nations,
would be a crime the magnitude of which defies description. . . .
No specious or plausible . . . pleas about a "war for democracy" can cloud
the issue. Democracy can not be shot into a nation. It must come
spontaneously and purely from within.
To advocate the persecution of other peoples through the fighting of a war
is an insult to every good and wholesome American tradition.
You are responsible. You must do your share to maintain, support, and
uphold the rights of the people of this country.
In this world crisis where do you stand? Are you with the forces of liberty
and light or war and darkness?
Source: “Assert Your Rights,” Charles Schenck, 1917-1918.
Vocabulary
conscription: military draft
magnitude: hugeness
specious: misleading
DIGITAL INQUIRY GROUP inquirygroup.org
