Eugene V. Debs in Wheeling
1897
On July 26, 1897, Eugene V. Debs was in town for the Wheeling Labor Conference and spoke to more than 3000 people (the Intelligencer reported 5000) at the B. & O. depot at 17th and Chapline.
From the July 27 News-Register:
“Last evening's mass meeting at Chapline and Seventeenth streets, addressed by...Eugene V. Debs, was a monster. Not less than three thousand people were present...Mr. Debs was received with applause as he came forward. When speaking was possible he said...West Virginians are mining coal and sending it to the Western markets. They might just as well send their miners there and put them to work in place of the strikers. (Applause.) But they say, West Virginia miners ought to be given a fair show, now. But suppose the strike is defeated, and western prices go down, do you think that West Virginia prices will not follow suit? You can't send West Virginia coal there then. (Applause.) But you say. 'The West Virginia operators are paying their men living wages.' How long have they been paying them, and how long will they continue to pay them, if the strike is a failure? (Applause.) Four years ago your wages increased. (A voice: 'Nit.'). You were deceived all along the line. (Applause.) You are enjoying a boom at present, but it will be a short lived one. They are willing to pay big wages now, but they are speculating on the empty stomachs of the miners, and every dollar gotten in that way is blood money, and represents the misery of your fellow citizens. The workingmen of the country are not benefitted. The consumers who buy in small quantities are compelled to pay the price. The real benefit goes to the big men. I declare it to be the duty of the miners of West Virginia to drop his tools until living wages are paid to all. (Applause.) You have become disorganized, and therefore demoralized. The strike is clearly right, and will prevail, but if it shall fail through the West Virginia miners, and after that happens and the men are scourged back, at starvation wages, you here will be helpless and you will not dare to strike, and no one knows that fact better than the operators. The result will be that, you having worked until the other miners were defeated, they will work in turn until you are defeated. The thing to do is to stand together, and see that an uniform scale is made in each district, that will do justice to each, and then all can go back to work in a body, and you will all be earning living wages with no more strikes in sight. (Applause.) But as long as the miners of one State can be used against the miners of another, wages will go down until the bedrock of degradation is reached. (Applause.)”
Photo: Debs (right) with 1912 Socialist ticket presidential running mate Emil Seidel. The pair received 901,551 votes, which was 6.0% of the popular vote at the time.
1919
The Reuthers visit Debs at the Moundsville Penitentiary
“When the U.S. government sent Eugene V. Debs to jail for violation of the Espionage Act during World War I--the Socialist leader had advocated draft resistance--his first stop was the Moundsville penitentiary just south of Wheeling. Debs received scores of visitors there, among them Val Reuther and other local Socialists. On one occasion in the spring of 1919 Walter and Victor Reuther, then aged eleven and six, were taken along, possibly because their father knew that Debs would soon be transported to the less accessible federal prison in Atlanta. It was a melancholy visit that the boys remembered well. Debs, dressed in prison garb, looked quite gaunt; the father was without words to express his strong feelings, and tears rad down his cheeks as they left the prison. ‘How can they imprison so kind and gentle a man?’ Val repeated again and again on the way back to Wheeling.”
From Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit by Nelson Lichtenstein
See other Famous Visitors to Wheeling.
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