Debs illuminates the nightmare, populated with vampires and cannibals, that is capitalism for the working class.

‘Tapping Proletarian Veins’ by Eugene V. Debs from American Labor Union Journal. Vol. 1 No. 28. April 16, 1903.

Nothing good is sacred in the capitalist system. Last of all human life. As between a poverty-stricken human and a vagabond dog the latter fares far the better. He may be dispatched with a bullet while his master has to run the gauntlet of hunger, cold and shame, suffering himself to be tortured, mangled and finally slain by the slow and refined processes of what is called Christian civilization, compared with which the cruel practices of cannibals seem as ministerings of mercy.

The poet Gray says:

“Beasts kill for hunger, men for pay.”
“But is not man to man a prey?

Such reflections are suggested by two dispatches which I have clipped from the daily papers. The first is as follows:

New York, March 11. In order to pursue certain scientific research E.E. Smith advertised or men willing to sell part of their blood for $5. He has been OVERWHELMED WITH RESPONSES. One application came from the Waldorf-Astoria, and another came from the Morton House. SEVERAL WERE FROM MEN OF EDUCATION AND STRAITENED CIRCUMSTANCES. THE GREAT MASS OF THE OFFERS TO SELL CAME FROM MEN OUT OF WORK. Dr. Smith says a healthy man might spare a pint of blood, though he would not take so large a quantity. SOME OF THE APPLICANTS, HOWEVER, WERE EMACIATED, HALF STARVED AND UNABLE TO SPARE A DROP OF BLOOD.

And here is the next:

Indianapolis, March 10. Adjutant General Ward said today that the Indiana National Guard will be equipped before the annual camp of instruction with the new Krag Jorgensen rifles, as provided for in the militia bill enacted at the recent session of Congress. The requisition has been made and he expects they will be shipped within a short time by the ordnance branch of the war department.

THE GUARD WILL ALSO BE SUPPLIED WITH THE RECENTLY DEVISED RIOT CARTRIDGE. WHICH THE WAR DEPARTMENT IS PREPARING TO GIVE OUT THIS NEW FORM OF AMMUNITION MAKES THE ARMED SOLDIER TWICE AS POWERFUL AS BEFORE.

General Ward said the range of the Krag-Jorgensen, with the regulation cartridge, is three miles, and, therefore, IT IS NOT FIT FOR QUELLING RIOTS. Inasmuch as people two or three miles away might be killed. The limit of the range of the old Springfield rifles, with which the guard is now equipped, is less than one mile.

THE RIOT CARTRIDGE IS LIKE THE REGULATION KRAG-JORGENSEN IN SIZE. BUT INSTEAD OF BEING PROVIDED WITH THE ORDINARY STEEL JACKETED BULLET. LONG AND FAR IN FLIGHT, IT HAS TWO BULLETS SOMETHING LIKE BUCKSHOT.

There is a world of pathos in these two pictures. Also an eternity of deep damnation.

Think of a shriveled wretch driven to sell the life-blood which has already withered in his veins! See him as he reels, faint from hunger, toward the proletarian blood market, to offer the last ruddy drops for a crust to keep starvation from his child. Note the mute appeal, catch the sigh of despair, hear the agonizing cry as this bloodless soul is pushed aside in the scientific shambles to make room for his younger brother who still has the red current in his veins. The subject is too grewsome for reflection–too abhorrent for comment. The eye grows dim, the brain numb and the heart weary.

Every decent human must blush for his species.

All the sadder that this proletaire supported with vote and musket and otherwise the capitalist system that drains the last drop of his life-current and then dumps his corpse, via the morgue, into the potter’s field.

The second dispatch is the first echo of the army reorganization law enacted y the last Congress under the inspiration of President Roosevelt of the United States and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. The law is one of the President’s favorite measures and was enacted for the special benefit of the working class, especially those organized in unions who will now recognize the wisdom of having made the President of the United States a union man and presenting him with a card of membership so large and costly that it had to be hauled to the white house on a dray under guard.

The ordinary Krag-Jorgensen cartridge will not do for quelling riots. It is entirely too slow, as it only kills workingmen one at a time, whereas the riot cartridge will wipe them out in job lots to the terror and dismay of the lawless strikers and the delight and applause of the patriotic plutocrats.

Trades unionists are to be congratulated upon this great achievement, the fruit of their anti-political policy, of which they will be the sole beneficiaries. The state militia, thanks to the Republican and Democratic members of the late Congress and President Roosevelt of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, is now in the hip-pocket of the capitalist class, loaded with riot cartridges with the union label on them and ready at the word of command to furnish coroners and medical colleges with union corpses.

Every trade-unionist who voted the Republican or Democratic ticket is entitled to his share of credit for this beneficent law. He is getting, or will get–perhaps in the neck–what he voted for. There will be no disappointment for the “pure and simple” trade-unionist. Only the Socialist will have the right to object to the diet of riot cartridges.

Live trades-unionists know that the army was “reorganized,’ that the state militia was converted into a standing army and that it has been equipped with riot guns and riot cartridges PURELY TO OVERAWE STRIKERS AND CRUSH ORGANIZED LABOR in the interest of the capitalist class; they also know that the Republican and Democratic politicians in Congress, who are supposed to represent the people, acted as one in constructing this military machine to tap the veins of union labor and spill proletarian blood enough to reduce the working class to the level of servile submission to their masters.

The most shocking murders were committed in West Virginia only a few days ago. Miners were killed in their homes at the dead hour of night by armed assassins in the name of law and order.

Every trade-unionist who supports the Republican or Democratic party is morally responsible for this and kindred crimes.

These are the parties that support the capitalist system and this is the system that thrives in the robbery, the misery and the murder of workingmen. This system must be overthrown and workingmen set free–and SOCIALISM WILL DO IT.

Terre Haute, Ind., March 18.

American Labor Union Journal was the official paper of the ALU, formed by the Western Federation of Miners and a direct predecessor to the I.W.W. Published every Thursday in Butte, Montana beginning in October, 1902 before moving to Chicago in early 1904. The ALU supported the new Socialist Party of America for its first years, but withdrew by 1904 as the union and paper grew more syndicalist with “No Politics in the Union” appearing on its masthead and going to a monthly. In early 1905, the Journal was renamed Voice of Labor, folding into the Industrial Workers of the World later that year. The Journal covered the Western Federation of Miners and the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, as well as the powerful labor movement in Butte.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/american-labor-union-journal/030416-alujournal-v1n28.pdf