A letter from Debs to Irish comrades on the struggle in the U.S. of Jim Larkin, Jack Carney, and the recently deceased Con Lehane through William O’Brien, editor of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union’s ‘Voice of Labour’ newspaper.

‘A Word of Greeting to Comrades in Ireland’ by Eugene V. Debs from Truth (Duluth). Vol. 3 No. 10. March 7, 1919.

Editor Voice of Labor, Dublin, Ireland.

Dear Comrade:

In a note just received from Comrade Jack Carney, formerly of Dublin, now editing THE TRUTH, published at Duluth, in this country, he advises me that you would be glad to have a word from me and I send it with pleasure. My only regret is that time is lacking to write a communication more worthy of space in your columns. I am just back from Ohio where I have been addressing some great gatherings of workers and I am having to return there soon to continue the work in that field.

Since the war the ruling class here has done everything in its power to arrest revolutionary agitation and suppress the socialist movement. Meetings have been broken up by the police, sometimes aided by soldiers and sailors, most of the socialist papers have been suppressed, and hundreds of speakers, organizers and agitators have been indicted and arrested, many of them now languishing in jail serving long prison sentences. You see we have here what is called an “espionage law,” enacted since the war began, under which it is quite convenient for our capitalist government and its official mercenaries to find “undesirable citizens” guilty of sedition, pronouncing them guilty by packed juries, and carting them to prison. It was in this cruel manner that they hounded Cornelius Lehane, the brave Irish agitator whom you so well knew and loved, to his untimely death. He was arrested on a trumped-up charge, kept in a foul prison and otherwise maltreated until his health, strong and vigorous as he was, was undermined and he fell, victim to the brutal misrule of the capitalist class. Lehane was in the flower of his youth, a power in the movement, and his tragic death, universally mourned among the workers he so loyally served, is a foul and indelible, blot upon “The Land of the Free. and the Home of the Brave.” The memory of this brave and beloved comrade will be forever kept green in the revolutionary movement for which he freely offered up his life.

Jim Larkin has also been shamefully persecuted but has managed thus far to keep out of the clutches of the enemy. To those of you who know him so well it is needless to say that in his work of agitation here he is as bold and fearless and uncompromising as he was when he led the Irish movement and struck terror to the craven hearts of the profiteering pirates over there.

Jack Carney has been repeatedly indicted but manages by strategy to keep at large. Jack is optimistic and irrepressible. He cannot be silenced or cowed by threats or intimidation. Each issue of THE TRUTH is filled with Jack’s characteristic challenge to capitalism and its apologists and retainers and with stirring appeals to the working-class to rally beneath the banner of the revolutionary movement and fight for industrial, emancipation.

In spite of all the persecution and brutality to which socialists are new being subjected since “the world has been made safe for democracy” the socialist movement here is growing by leaps and bounds, and the membership in good standing in the party is greater than ever before. When the war broke out a few “patriots” deserted and attempted to launch a rival organization, which was still-born, but these have been replaced by scores and hundreds of others who subscribe to the war attitude of the party and who will enlist only to fight the battles of their class in the war for world-wide industrial freedom.

Allow me to tender hearty congratulations to you brave comrades in Ireland who during all this stress and struggle have kept the red flag flying and in the face of the most brutal power and the bitterest persecution have kept inviolate the principles of the international movement. With a hearty hand-clasp and loving greetings to you all, dear comrades, I am until the day of victory, Yours in the cause,

Eugene V. Debs.

Truth emerged from the The Duluth Labor Leader, a weekly English language publication of the Scandinavian local of the Socialist Party in Duluth, Minnesota and began on May Day, 1917 as a Left Wing alternative to the Duluth Labor World. The paper was aligned to both the SP and the I.W.W. leading to the paper being closed down in the first big anti-I.W.W. raids in September, 1917. The paper was reborn as Truth, with the Duluth Scandinavian Socialists joining the Communist Labor Party of America in 1919. Shortly after the editor, Jack Carney, was arrested and convicted of espionage in 1920. Truth continued to publish with a new editor J.O. Bentall until 1923 as an unofficial paper of the C.P.

PDF of full issue: https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn89081142/1919-03-07/ed-1/seq-1