The centerpiece of Debs’ 1908 presidential run was the Red Special, a train fitted out with a band, press office, and entourage of Socialist notables, including a young Tom Mooney. Here, the Special rolls into San Diego after traveling down the Pacific Coast.

‘The Red Special Arrives in San Diego’ from St. Louis Labor. Vol. 7 No. 398. September 19, 1908.

CROWD OF SEVEN THOUSAND
Applauds Eugene V. Debs at San Diego Red Special Meeting.

Our Old Comrade Anna Ferry Smith, Although Confined to Bed for Over One Year, Is Transported to Meeting Hall and Seated in Ambulance Chair Listens to “Gene’s” Speech.

San Francisco, Sept. 11. The Red Special is stirring up things along the Pacific Coast. Our presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs, addressed crowds numbering from 5,000 to 10,000 in the principal cities of this state.

Here is a short report from San Diego, the home of our beloved Comrade Anna Ferry Smith, who did considerable good work in St. Louis during the critical days of 1898-1899, when the Social Democratic party was first organized.

The San Diego Union of Sept. 10 says:

With flags flying and his brass band playing, Eugene V. Debs, Socialist candidate for president, arrived in San Diego yesterday afternoon at 4:05 o’clock, aboard the “Red Special,” which, to the voiced disappointment of many in the crowd which welcomed him at the depot, was not red at all, but of the regulation passenger coach color. A large number of local Socialists and others were. present when the special arrived, cheering lustily as the train came to a stop.

“Shortly after his arrival in the city Debs left the train to spend the remainder of the afternoon with friends. A.M. Simons, editor of the Chicago Daily Socialist and author of the “American Farmer,” said to be the first economic history of farming in America, in the absence of the presidential candidate, entertained the assembled crowd with an impromptu speech, made from the top of an express truck. Evidently some in the gathering thought he was Debs himself, but during a lull in the speaker’s remarks, when a voice in the crowd asked, “Who are you?” and Simons introduced himself, this fallacy was swept away. Simons was heartily cheered as he concluded his brief address, and the “Red Special band” struck up the national air.

The Tramp Just “Hit it Right.”

Included in the party aboard the Red Special, besides Debs and Simons, are Theodore Debs, brother of the candidate and his secretary; W.W. Buchanan of Texas, a civil war veteran and early abolitionist agitator; A.H. Floaten of Denver, Charles Lapworth of Lon- don, representing the British and continental newspapers; Harry C. Parker, a cigar maker of Chicago and manager of the Special; Stephen M. Reynolds, a lawyer and Socialist speaker of Terre Haute, Ind.; Otto McFeely, a newspaper man of Chicago and press representative of the Special and Prof. Christian Sorensen, leader of the Red Special band, which is composed of musicians from fifteen different states.

Invites Tramp to Ride.

En route here from Riverside, where a brief stop was made after the train left San Bernardino, a tramp was discovered trying to steal a ride on the Special. Instead of being “ditched,” as is usually the case under such circumstances, the knight of the road was invited into the Pullman, “to ride with a presidential candidate on the plush,” as Debs himself laughingly expressed it.

“Of all the workers who are tramping,” Debs told a Union reporter, “we have not seen one of the type usually used for caricatures in the comic sections of the Sunday newspaper editions. All we have encountered since leaving Chicago on this campaign train have been fine young fellows, the same kind that have helped make this country what it is today, but have been thrown out of work by the trend of the times.”

San Diego Socialists Arrange Parade.

At 7 o’clock last night the parade arranged by local Socialists was formed at the depot and led by the Red Special band, marched up D street, stopping in front of the Union building, where two selections were played by the band, then proceeding on to the amphitheater on Seventh street, between B. and C, where the speaking took place.

Seats accommodating 5,000 people had been arranged, every one of which was filled when the parade disbanded at the speakers’ stand, despite the fact that a charge was made for these seats. On the high ground at both sides and back of the seats it is estimated that fully 2,000 more stood.

H. Austin Adams, assistant chairman of the meeting, was the first speaker. Then came the orator of the night, introduced by Mrs. Cora White Simpson, chairman, in a few brief remarks. Debs was heartily cheered as he made his way to the front of the rostrum. He spoke nearly two hours.

“When Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan & Co. have got entirely through with you, you will be ready for us. If the logic of Socialism fails to penetrate your mind, the logic of capitalism will not fail to penetrate your pocketbook. Mr. Taft is frankly the candidate of the capitalist class. But Mr. Bryan pretends to be the candidate of both classes. He is going to ride two horses in opposite directions.

Murphy, Sullivan & Co.

“This friend of labor is now working hand in hand with Charles. Murphy and the prophet of Tammany, which levies tribute on the tenderloin of New York, and receives revenue out of the earnings of unfortunate women. Roger Sullivan, the corporation corruptionist of Illinois, who was said by Mr. Bryan to have gained his election to the convention of 1904 by methods that would disgrace a train robber, has frequently been his personal guest at Fairview, the Bryan home. I would not object to being president of the United States, but I never would consent to pay that price for it.”

Pays Graceful Tribute to Anna Ferry Smith.

Just before Debs concluded he paid a most graceful tribute to Mrs. Anna H. Smith, mother of Sam Ferry Smith of this city. Advancing to one corner of the rostrum, to be as close as possible to the point where Mrs. Smith sat, he asked leave of the women Socialists, who had previously presented him with a large bouquet of geraniums, to turn it over to her, as a mark of respect, he said, for a woman who had consecrated her entire life to the uplifting of humanity. “If you will grant me this,” he said, “I shall feel doubly grateful for your mark of consideration, and bid you all good night and God speed.”

The crowd gave the Socialist orator a final cheer and then dispersed.

A long-running socialist paper begun in 1901 as the Missouri Socialist published by the Labor Publishing Company, this was the paper of the Social Democratic Party of St. Louis and the region’s labor movement. The paper became St. Louis Labor, and the official record of the St. Louis Socialist Party, then simply Labor, running until 1925. The SP in St. Louis was particularly strong, with the socialist and working class radical tradition in the city dating to before the Civil War. The paper holds a wealth of information on the St Louis workers movement, particularly its German working class.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/missouri-socialist/080919-stlouislabor-v06w398.pdf