Page:The Debs Decision, 1919.djvu/15

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

a Socialist newspaper they add a thousand voices to those which are aiding Socialism. The Socialist has a great idea. An expanding philosophy. It is spreading over the face of the earth. It is as useless to resist it as it is to resist the rising sun. Can you see it? If you cannot you are lacking in vision, in understanding. What a privilege it is to serve it. I have regretted a thousand times I can do so little for the movement that has done so much for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping to be, is due wholly to the Socialist movement. It gave me my ideas and my ideals, and I would not exchange one of them for all the Rockefeller blood-stained dollars. It taught me how to serve; a lesson to me of priceless value. It taught the ecstacy of the handclasp of the comrade. It made it possible for me to get in touch with you, to multiply myself over and over again; to open the avenue; to spread out the glorious vistas; to know that I am kin with all that throbs; with all who become class conscious. Every man who toils, everyone of them, is my comrade. To serve them is the highest duty of my life. And in their service I can feel myself expanding. I rise to the stature of a man. Yes, my heart is attuned to yours. All of our hearts are melted into one great heart which throbs to the response of the people.

"Here I hear your heart beats responsive to the Bolsheviki of Russia. (Applause) Yes, those heroic men and women, those unconquerable comrades, who have by their sacrifice added fresh lustre to the international movement. Those Russian comrades who have made greater sacrifices, who have suffered more, who have shed more heroic blood than any like number of men and women anywhere else on earth. They have led the first real convention of any democracy that ever drew breath. The first act of that memorable revolution was to proclaim a state of peace

9