The program for the day, a report on events, and Debs’ speech to the thousands who came to the St. Louis Socialist Party Picnic held Sunday, September 13, 1903 at that city’s Gross Park.

‘Debs at Gross’ Park’ from St. Louis Labor. Vol. 4 No. 137. September 19, 1903.

All Socialists of St. Louis and vicinity, together with their friends and sympathizers in the labor movement, will celebrate in honor of their labor press–LABOR and ARBEITER-ZEITUNG–at Gross’ park, tomorrow, Sunday, September 13.

Thousands of men, women and children will take part in this Socialist demonstration. It will be a day of enjoyment for all, a day that will be remembered for years by all.

Admission tickets 10 cents a person, children free.

PROGRAMME:

1. Gates open at 1 o’clock p.m.
2. Concert music by Prof. Boeck’s band commences at 1:30 o’clock.
3. Dance music at intervals.
4. General raffle, with 1,500 prizes (every ticket wins!) commences at 2 o’clock.
5. Children’s prize games from 3 to 5 o’clock.
6. Bowling alley opens at 2 o’clock; 25 valuable prizes, including articles worth from $12 to $15 a piece.
7. Ladies’ race contests commences at 4:30 o’clock.
8. Socialist songs by the workingmen’s singing societies: Vorwaerts, Herwegh Saengerbund, Freiheit and Arion, during the afternoon and evening.
9. ADDRESS BY EUGENE V. DEBS. AT 7 O’CLOCK P.M.
10. The Marseillaise, Prof. Boeck’s orchestra.
11. Address in German by G.A. Hoehn.
12. Concert music, songs and dance. Lunch stand, kitchen, raffle, etc., are under the management of our comrades from the Women’s Socialist club, assisted by several Socialist Party members.

Refreshments are served under the direct management of the arrangement committee.

Every Socialist must consider himself a member of the festival committee, and it shall be his duty to see that the strictest order prevails throughout the festival. Comrades, let us demonstrate to the people of St. Louis that the Socialist workmen celebrate their festivals with dignity and that they uphold order and decency.

The committees are organized as follows:

Gate–Arnold, Schwarz, Abling, Lambert, Shea and Guibor.
Reception–Brandt, Allan and Hoehn.
Floor–Pauls and Mueller.
Bowling–Crouch, Hillig and Arendf
Refreshment–Eckhoff, Wedel and Kindorf.
Ten-Cent Raffle–Social Democratic Women’s club members, Otto Bitterlich, Jul. Bitterlich and Hildebrand.
Machine Raffle–Kaemmerer, Bernstein and Siroky.
Children’s Games–Mueller, Specht and Allan.
Literature–Baker and Stephens.

HOW TO REACH GROSS’ PARK.

Tower Grove line cars, get off on Arsenal street and Morganford road (4300 Arsenal street, one block west of south-side main entrance to Tower Grove park), then walk two blocks south to Gross’ park, which is situated on Morganford road and Juniata street. All St. Louis Transit lines transfer to the Tower Grove cars.

Remember: Gate opening at one o’clock. Commencement of concert music at 1:30 o’clock.

TO THE C.T. AND L.U. DELEGATES.

All comrades who are delegates to the Central Trades and Labor Union are hereby notified that said central body meets tomorrow, Sunday, after- noon, at Walhalla hall. It is important that all delegates be present at this regular meeting. After the adjournment of the central body’s meeting the Socialist delegates and their friends and sympathizers will leave Walhalla hall in a body for Gross’ park, where they will listen to the address by Eugene V. Debs.

The Day Arrives

Never before in the history of our movement had the Socialists of St. Louis such a grand and successful demonstration as last Sunday at Gross’ park. It was the annual labor press festival, which was attended by about five thousand people. Indeed, the extraordinary success of the affair was a surprise even to the most optimistic members of the arrangement committee. In various respects the arrangements were inadequate to meet the demands of the overflow crowd. The comrades of the various committees were on the grounds at an early hour working all the forenoon to make the final arrangements. Especial care had been taken to make it a thoroughly and strictly union affair, and it is in this connection that we are in duty bound to report an unpleasant incident that caused considerable annoyance to the committee of arrangements and meant a financial loss to our organization of at least $100 or more As a matter of course the committee had engaged union waiters and bartender. The union bartender had been engaged and promised to be at the grounds at 1 o’clock p.m. Immediately after the noon hour the crowds came rushing into the park. The bar committee was anxiously waiting for the union bartender, but the man did not show up, and all efforts to locate him or communicate with the headquarters of the bartenders’ union and find out something about him were in vain, neither could the committee get another union bartender to take his place.

The union waiters arrived on the grounds ready to go to work. As all attempts to secure the services of the engaged bartender, or any other union man in his stead, failed, the committee, after conferring with a number of other union men on the grounds, decided to open the bar until the union bartender would show up and attend to the work he contracted for.

The force of union waiters, not seeing a union bartender behind the bar, at first refused to work until the situation was explained to them. Of course, the arrangement committee will not blame the bartenders’ union for this unpleasant occurrence, but the union should certainly not permit any of its members to accept an engagement for a festival and then fail to report for work without giving any notice to the organization that contracted for his services. The name of the union bartender who caused this trouble is Geo. Hafer.

Aside from this unexpected incident at the opening of the festival everything went on smoothly and pleasantly.

We state the above occurrence introductory to this report because some of our anti-Socialist “friends” and peanut politicians have already circulated a report that scab bartenders were employed at the Socialist picnic.

Prof. Boeck’s union band furnished excellent music for concert and dance from 1:30 o’clock on. The four workingmen’s singing societies, Vorwaerts, Herwegh Saengerbund, Freiheit and Arion, appeared in a body, and sang some of their best songs of labor’s freedom. The raffle stand, the bowling alley, the lunch stand, the ball-pitching stand, the literature stand, etc., were under the management of good comrades, who had all their hands full from noon till midnight. Our brave comrades of the Women’s Socialist club deserve special mention for all the hard work they had to do during the festival. They were so crowded with work that they did not get time to eat a bite or have a minute’s rest.

Although the park was overcrowded everything went on as orderly as could be wished for. All visitors enjoyed themselves to their heart’s content, and they will long remember the pleasant Socialist picnic.

The main feature of the programme was the address of Comrade Eugene V. Debs, who arrived in the city in the forenoon. Not having had much sleep the night before, he remained in his room in one of the small hotels on Market street, near the Union depot, to have a little rest. In the evening the reception committee escorted him to the park, where no time was lost to get him on the stage.

Every raffle ticket was sold and every prize taken out. In the bowling alley not one prize remained. The fine Bebel picture (worth $15) was won by Mr. J.M. Thiele (North Market street), while the big Debs’ picture was secured by Comrade J. Fuhlroth and Albert Arnhold. The sewing machine was won by Comrade W.W. Baker (ticket No. 312). On the lunch and candy stand everything was gone long before the end of the picnic. Twice as much lunch could have been sold.

The Gross park festival was a complete success in every respect. A full report of the receipts and expenditures will soon be published in our papers.

EUGENE V. DEBS ADDRESS AT GROSS PARK.

When Comrade Debs appeared on the platform he was greeted with a storm of applause. Comrade Wm. M. Brandt introduced the speaker. Several thousand people thronged into the summer theater of the park where the speaking took place. Comrade Debs spoke for about an hour and his remarks and arguments were to the point. In substance he said:

“Comrades! Workingmen and Women of St. Louis: I have come here this evening to deliver a political address, to talk politics to working men and women. Not the politics of your old party politicians, but the class-conscious politics of the working class, the revolutionary, the Socialist politics of the proletariat. I am not here to harmonize conflicting class interests, I am not here to appease, but to touch and quiver the revolutionary chord of every man and woman within the hearing of my voice, and right here let me tell you that we are living in the midst of the most tremendous and far-reaching economic and social revolution in the history of mankind. [Great applause and shouts of approval.] You shout, but will you vote?

“Who are you? I can read from your faces that you are hard-working men and women. I ask you: Who are you? Can you answer? Will you answer?

“You are the foundation of society. Your labor makes social life possible. Without your labor there would not be any enjoyment of social life. You are the producers of all values. All the wealth you see around you in this great city and throughout this great country is the result of labor.

“Do you own the wealth which you produce? No, you do not. You have built up an aristocracy of wealth consisting of the parasites of society, and you, the wealth-producers, represent the great mass of people that live in wage slavery, in poverty and misery. You are the fundamental power of society, and you don’t seem to know it. You imagine that you are free, while in fact you are enslaved. The man who owns the tools of labor, the means of production, controls your means of life. You are dependent on your employer for a job, and for you the job means the chance to live. Consequently, the class of men who own the means of production own your very life.

“You have been asleep while the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Hills, Pierpont Morgans, Baers and others have accumulated thousands of millions of dollars of wealth, which represents the stolen products of the American working class.

“You have been shouting for the Democratic and Republican Parties. You have been voting the capitalist party tickets. You elected the same political parties into power whose mission it is today to protect and advance the class interests of capitalism.

“You see the work of your old political parties. The politicians flatter you and pretend to love you before the day of election: after the election they will kick you and despise you, and when your unions go out on strike or declare a boycott the political rulers will show their love for the working class by ordering the powers of the po lice, militia and federal troops to break your strikes and by issuing injunctions against you.

“I challenge any politician to show me any difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Both are the tools of capitalism. The only difference I can find is that the Republican Party is controlled by the big capitalists and the other by the little capitalists who are very anxious to become big ones. Whenever and wherever organized labor is engaged in a serious struggle against the powers of capitalism you will find both the old parties on the capitalist side fighting against the working class.

“And yet we witness the disgraceful spectacle of the great army of union men voting for these capitalist parties, under the pretext of voting for good men. We know from experience that the cause of the Democratic and Republican Parties is a bad cause, a rotten cause, based on the principle of deceiving the working class for the purpose of enabling the ruling classes to continue their system of exploiting and robbing the toiling masses. How can intelligent, good men fight for a bad cause?

“In view of these facts are you not ashamed of ever having voted the Republican or Democratic ticket? It is bad enough to see a poor desperate wage slave scab on his own class by taking the place of his striking fellow workers. In my opinion, however, it is a hundred times worse to see a so-called intelligent union man doing scab work on election day by voting for either of the capitalist parties, thereby injuring the best interests of the working class as represented by the Socialist Party.

“The Republican politicians will parade as Lincoln Republicans. Now, Lincoln was a good man, but Lincoln is dead, and in the Republican Party of today the spirit of Abraham Lincoln is dead and buried. The party is controlled by the spirit of Mark Hanna, Rockefeller, Morgan & Co.

“The Democratic Party poses as the Jefferson democracy, but Jefferson is dead. The Jefferson principles in the Democratic Party are dead, and the principles of boodle and political highway robbery flourish instead.

“There are in your unions many fakirs and heelers who are members of organized labor not to help the cause of the working class, but to gain prestige and influence in order to secure some political job from the capitalist parties. You have them right here in St. Louis, you find them in other cities. As a rule they are attempting to play their miserable role in the central bodies, but their life is a short one, and the quicker these parasites on the body of the labor movement are found out and kicked out the better for the movement.

“Every true union man must admit the justice and truth and necessity of Socialism, and consequently also the necessity of the Socialist Party movement. There is absolutely no excuse for any union man to vote the Democratic or Republican tickets. His proper place is in the Socialist Party, because this is his party, the party of the working class.

“It can no longer be a simple fight for a 15-cent increase in wages: it has become a question whether or not the working class shall take possession of all the wealth created by labor or whether this wealth shall remain the monopoly of the class of social parasites who never do an honest day’s work.

“I want you to think for yourselves. Be men and women who do their own thinking. Under the present system of society you are being robbed whether you receive higher or lower wages, because the wage system is based on legalized robbery. The millions of toilers slave and starve for the idle few who accumulate the stolen products of labor and lead a life of luxury and debauchery, demoralizing to themselves and destructive and death-breathing to the working class.

“I am not addressing you as a Lincoln Republican or as a Jefferson Democrat, but as a union man and Socialist, as a Social-Democrat. I want you to fight for the freedom of your own class and join the working class party, which is the Socialist Party.

“I appeal to the young ladies in this audience to investigate whether the young men who are anxious to become their future companions in life’s great battle are still doing mercenary work for the old parties, and, if they do, our young women friends will do well to place these young gentlemen on the boycott list until they get sense enough to become Socialists and work for the emancipation of the working class. Every young man should remember that by voting for the parties of capitalism he helps to perpetuate wage slavery, he strengthens the fetters of hard toil and misery on his own father and mother, on his own sisters and brothers, on his own sweetheart and on his own future family,

“Let us not be union men 364 days in the year and scab on our own class on election day by voting for either of the capitalist parties.

PRESIDENT GOMPERS CRITICISED.

“Some time ago President Sam Gompers of the American Federation of Labor challenged President Parry of the Manufacturers’ association. Mr. Gompers denounced Mr. Parry in very strong language, and Mr. Parry denounced Mr. Gompers in equally strong terms. Permit me to inform you that Mr. Parry deserves credit for his open stand in favor of his class. He is not a hypocrite. He is fighting the battle of organized capital. He is true to his class, not only on the economic, but also on the political field.

“Indeed, this is more than I can say of Mr. Gompers for the following reason: President Gompers is denouncing Parry and his class of union smashers and pledges his word of honor to fight them, to the bitter end. When election day comes we see Mr. Gompers go to the ballot box and deposit a scab-ballot. On election day President Gompers of the A.F. of L. votes the same capitalist ticket as President Parry of the Manufacturers’ association.

“Is this logical? Is this right? Is this honorable? Is this for the interests of the working class? I assure you that Mr. Parry will not scab on the capitalist class. He will not vote the Socialist Party ticket. You union men are sacrificing your self-respect and your honor by following such political scab and blackleg tactics.

“The political powers of capitalism are organized against you. It is for you to organize under the banner of Socialism and the Socialist Party and fight the battles of your own emancipation.

“We are in the midst of a most serious crisis in the development of modern society. While the ruling powers of America, Europe and Asia are preparing for war, are building warships and forts, are drilling millions of armed mercenaries, ready at a moment’s notice to throw the civilized world into the bloodiest war in the history of mankind, the millions of wage workers all the world over are organizing their forces under the banner of Socialism an economic freedom. “Workingmen of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to gain.” No Bismarck, no kaiser, no czar, no Mark Hanna can check the victorious onward march of labor.

“The great army of labor and Socialism, although many millions strong, has no forts and warships, no more Gatling guns and Winchesters, no lead and powder–in short: we have no machinery of murder and destruction, and yet our army is mightier and powerful than all the armed forces of capitalism throughout the world. We defeat the Bismarks, the kaisers and the czars, and we shall in the near future defeat the Mark Hannas, the Rockefellers, the Morgans and other uncrowned princes, kaisers and czars of America.

“Socialism and science are our most powerful weapons. The rank and file of labor constitute our great army that will use these weapons against the common enemy.

“Dark clouds of storm are gathering over the social horizon. Darker and darker grows our surrounding. Now and then, here and there, we see the flashes of lightning of the coming storm. We hear the rumbling thunder like the subterranean noise of the volcano. In the midst of the darkness we hear the voices of the suffering working men, women and children. Take courage! Look up! Soon the golden rays of the sun of Socialism will be visible. The storm clouds will disappear. Socialism will enlighten the masses and in the daylight of knowledge and science the working class will concentrate their forces, repel the forces of darkness, reaction and slavery, and victoriously march over the battlefield of emancipation and economic freedom.

“Prepare for the great battle of 1904. It will be a severe struggle between the political forces of capitalism as represented by the Democratic and Republican Parties, and the forces of labor and Socialism as represented by the Socialist Party.”

The speaker was repeatedly interrupted by applause, and his concluding remarks were followed by shouts and cheers. Hundreds of people forced their way to the stage to shake hands with “Gene,” and the reception committee had quite a job to get Comrade Debs out of the crowd and to get back to the city in time to catch the last train to Indianapolis, where he was announced to address a mass meeting the following evening.

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/030919-stlouislabor-v04n137.pdf