People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1895 — A PATRIOT'S WORDS. [ARTICLE]

A PATRIOT'S WORDS.

The following is taken from a circular issued to the American Railway Union members by Eugene V. Debs before going to jail. They are the words a true patriot, who is unjustly suffering persecution at the bands of a rotten judiciary, which reaches from the trial judge to the highest tribunal, the supreme cutfrt of the United States: “A cruel wrong against our great and beloved order, perpetrated by William A. Woods. United States Circuit Judge, has been approved by the United States supreme court. Our order is still the undaunted friend of the toiling masses, and our battle cry now. as ever, is the emancipation of labor from degrading. starving and enslaving conditions. We have not lost faith in the ultimate triumph of ttuth over perjury, of justice over wrong, however exalted may be the station of those who perpetrate the outrages. I need not remind you. comrades of the American Railway Union, that our order, in pursuit of the right, was confronted with a storm' of opposition such as never before was visited on labor organization. The battle fought in the interests of starving men. women and children stands fo r th in the history of labor struggles as the ‘great Pullman strike.’ It was a battle, oc the part of the American Railway. Union fought for a cause as holy as ever aroused the courage of brave men. “What has been your reward for your splendid courage and manifold sacrifices? Our ene mies say they are summed up in one word: ‘Defeat.’ They point to the battlefield and say, ‘Here is where the host of the American Railway Union went down before confederated enemies of labor.’ Brothers of the American Railway Union, even in the defeat our rewards are grand beyond expression. True it is that the ‘sons of Brilisn force and darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood’ chuckle over the victory. Tney point to the blacklisted heroes of the American Railway Union, idle and poor, and count upon their surrender. Their hope is that our order will disband; that persecution. poverty and prison will do the work. In this supreme juncture I call upon the tnem-

bers of the American Railway Union to stand by their order. In God’s own good time we will make the despots’ prisons where innocent men suffer- monuments.”