J

1 he jury voted eight to four for acquittal

This is not just a victory for the men on trial, it is a vindication of the right of free press, it is a triumph for international socialism, and it opens up a great future of freedom and power for the Liberator.

Will you celebrate this victory by becoming a stockholder in the Liberator Publishin: : Company?

This is the magazine in which Art Young and John Reed and Max Eastman and Floyd Dell (the indicted editors) and a dozen other leading socialist artists and writers tell the truth as they see it,-it is your magazine,-it is the only popular magazine of revolutionary socialism in America.

Will you help sustain it?

This is our plan. It will cost $20,000 a year for three years to make the Liberator self-sustaining. And we propose by the concentrated efforts of editors, business staff, sub-scribers and news-stand readers to raise that whole Fund ($6o,ooo) in the next three months, so that when we celebrate the Liberator's first birthday, February 12, 1919, we can say goodbye to money-raising forever.

The best and most democratic way to start this fund is for each reader of the Liberator to become a stockholder.

A share of stock costs ten dollars. There are three blanks below,-one for those wh., can afford to send ten dollars or more immediately,-one for those who can afford to send something now and can promise to. make it up to tell dollars within the year,-and one for those who want to become stockholders, but cannot promise to pay up in full until the three year period is over.

We seriously ask every friendly reader of the Liberator to fill out and return one of these blanks before December 1st.

Yours for The Revolution,

The Editors.

THE LIBERATOR

34 Union Square, New York

I hereby subscribe for   shares
of preferred stock in The Liberator Pub. Co., and enclose herewith

$    in payment.

Name    

Address    

THE LIBERATOR

34 Union Square, New York

i hereby subscribe for   shares
of preferred stock in The Liberator

Pub. Co., I enclose $    

now, and promise to send $   
in full payment on or before Oetober J, 1919.

i'birexs    

THE LIBERATOR

34 Union Square, New York

I hereby subscribe for   shares
of stock in The Liberator Pub. Co., and

promise to send $    
in full payment on or before October 1, 1921.

Name    

4 ddres*    

I

Application for entry as second class matter at the post office
at New York City pending.

Rates on Bundle Orders and to Newsdealers on Application.

(Strictly speaking, this is NOT a complete directory of Greenwich Village. It is only a step toward such a directory. In time, and with the help of our friends, we shall make this as complete a directory of the Village as is possible in the advertising columns of a magazine.)-Harry Salpeter.

The Devonshire Lace Shop

60 Washington Square, New York

Laces Designed, Maae and Mended by
Marian Powys of England

PEOPLE'S HOUSE CAFETERIA

7 East Fifteenth Street
GOOD FOOD-POPULAR PRICES

An opportunity to meet everybody worth while in the thinking world.

s

EAT WHERE

The food is good
The prices moderate
The environment pleasant

Cafeteria   Restaurant " Three Steps Down " with service

19 West Eighth Street   upstairs

MASCHA STRUNSKY

THE RUSSIAN INN

57 West 37

LUNCHEON   TEA   DINNER
DELICIOUS RUSSIAN COOKING
Table d'liote and a la Carte

The E. H. & A. C. Friedrichs
Company

MANUrACTOEINa ESTAILEES Or

ARTISTS' MATERIALS
and Picture Frames

169 West 57th Street, New York

DR. MAXIMILIAN COHEN
Surgeon Dentist

(Near Eighth Street) 100 SIXTH AVENUE

If you want to work or loaf in peace, come to the

RED HEN FARM

You'll like It any time of year. Write to Edith Summers Kelley, R. R. 6. Newton, N.J.

MSS. Successfully Placed

CRITICIZED, REVISED, TYPED

Send for Leaflet L   Established 1890 References : Edwin Markham and others

United Literary Press, 128 5th Ave., N. Y.

RED HOT   if you want for ad' or
friend., a paper that combats all religious dogma. send $1 for each

subscriber AGNOSTIC the hottest

and get   paper pub-
lished. Sample., tom different. 10e. Send today.

"THE CRUCIBLE." V..   PAPER
1330 let Ave.. Seattle. Wash.

   ! 11th e''I

   II

THE NEW ART OF

DRESS The "dress problem" has been definitely solved. The Bertha Holley slip, under'tunio and over twiio satisfy every re-

JiNTerk quirement of the modern woman. Write for booklet-the dress problem has been solved for yes. BEB4911A HOLLEY   [
$1 East 49th Street Olt,   i I

THE LIBERATOR BOOK-SHOP
will supply any book you want.
Order through us. 34 Union Square

"The Latin of Democracy"

-Rector Emile Boirac, Dijon University.

A simple, logical secondary language for the common people of all nations, Esperanto can be learned by anyone In a remarkably short time. A delightful and interesting study for spare moments. 81 brings you a dictionary and complete text book. The Esperanto Society, 2633 Creston Avenue, New York
   City.

Plaza 5096   Madison Square 6923

ARTISTS' MATERIALS

and Picture Frames
at HALPERN'S

510 Park Avenue   8 East 80th Street

Bet, 59th & 60th Sta.   Near Fifth Avenue

WALKER'S "PHILOSOPHY OF EGOISM"

Teaches you to see below your emotions, yea, below your convictions (often but prisons); to protect yourself against invasive acts of all constituted but unselected rnl.represeatative.-a veritable gospel for all who believe they can govern, save, or kill themselves cheaper than they can hire it done. 75 eta. and 51.25. Barn-hill, 1532 A St N. E., Washingtor , D. C.

4   The Triumph of American Labor

r   :rz-1   ■■   •-■   N"

Gompers L Granted an Audience by King George

THE LIBERATOR

Vol. 1, No. 9   November, 1918

The Trial of

By Max

AT a Russian Socialist convention held in Stockholm in 1907 it was estimated that the delegates-14o of them-had spent, collectively, one hundred and thirty-eight years, three months and fifteen days in prison. They had been in exile one hundred and forty-eight years, six months

and fifteen days. The length of time the convention whole had been active in Socialist propaganda was years.

" It follows," says Trotsky in a preface to one of his books, " that the time spent in prison and exile is about one-third of the time a Social-Democrat is active." Reading that preface on my way west to attend the trial of Eugene Debs, I was struck by Trotsky's unconscious assertion that the time spent in prison is part of the time that a Socialist is " active." It is often the time that his influence is most active. And though the government may succeed in accelerating the immediate war program by imprisoning Debs, they will also accelerate the effect of his life-long service to the social revolution.

Whatever else he may be, Debs is the spiritual chief and hero of American Socialism, and I find myself in a very real perplexity in trying to report his trial on a charge of obstructing the war program. I believe that the postal authorities will recognize the necessity I am under, as a Socialist editor, of giving this news to the readers of the LIBERATOR. And, of course, I cannot write the news with-out some special appreciation of his life and character and the elevation of his motives. Yet, on the other hand, I recognize the necessity that the postal authorities are under of keeping out of circulation anything designed to obstruct the war program of the government. Therefore I assure the reader in advance, not only that I shall not quote or refer to anything that Debs said about the war, but that I shall not in any indirect way imply any such quotation or reference, or any discussion of what he said. As a Socialist, bidding a kind of temporary hail and farewell to a companion who is dear to the hearts and minds of millions of Americans-whether pro-war or anti-I write the news of his trial for Socialists.

When I slipped into the court-room at Cleveland a pretty

Eugene Debs

Eastman

young man in a pressed suit and a bow tie was reading Debs' speech at Canton to the jury. He was manifestly embarrassed to find so much eloquence in his mouth. Debs was never younger, more spirited, more full of love and irony, than he was in that speech of June 16th.

" It appears," he was saying as I came in-and this bears no relation whatever to the grounds of his indictment-" It appears that the Socialists of Ohio are very much alive this year. The party has been killed recently, which no doubt accounts for its extraordinary activity. (Laughter.) There is nothing that helps the Socialist party so much as receiving an occasional death blow. (Laughter and cheers.) The oftener it is killed, the more boundless, the more active, the more energetic it becomes... .

"Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? (Laughter. Shouts from the crowd of `Yes, Yes.'). Why, we have been fighting it since the day the Socialist movement was born (applause) ; and we are going to continue to fight it, day and night, until it is wiped from the face of the earth. (Thunderous applause and cheers). Between us there is no truce-no compromise.

" In 1869 that grand old warrior of the Socialist revolution, the elder Liebknecht, was arrested and sentenced to prison for three months, because of his war, as a Socialist, on the Kaiser and on the Junkers that rule Germany. In the meantime the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Liebknecht and Bebel were the Socialist members in the Reichstag. They were the only two who had the courage to protest against taking Alsace-Lorraine from France and annexing it to Germany. And for this they were sent two years to a prison fortress charged with high treason; because, even in that early day, almost fifty years ago, these leaders, these forerunners of the international Socialist movement, were fighting the Kaiser and fighting the Junkers of Germany. (Great applause and cheers). They have continued to fight them from that day to this. (Applause). Multiplied thousands of them have languished in the jails of Germany because of their heroic warfare upon the ruling lass of that country. (Applause).

" Let us come down the line a little further. You re-

as a 942

6   THE LIBERATOR

member that at the close of Theodore Roosevelt's second term as President he went over to Africa (laughter) to make war on some of his ancestors. (Laughter-continued shouts, cheers, laughter and applause). You remember that, at the close of his expedition, he visited all of the capitals of Europe, and he was wined and dined, dignified and glorified by all of the Kaisers and Czars and Emperors of the old world. (Applause.) He visited Potsdam while the Kaiser was there; and, according to the accounts published in the American newspapers, he and the Kaiser were soon on the most familiar terms. (Laughter). They were hilariously intimate with each other, and slapped each other on the back. (Laughter). After Roosevelt had reviewed the Kaiser's troops, and, according to the same accounts, he became enthusiastic over the Kaiser's troops, and said: ' If I had that kind of an army I would conquer the world ! (Laughter). He knew the Kaiser then just as well as he knows him now. (Laughter). He knew that he was the Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. And yet he permitted himself to be entertained by the Beast of Berlin (applause) ; had his feet under the mahagony of the Beast of Berlin; was cheek by jowl with the Beast of Berlin. (Applause). And, while Roosevelt was being entertained royally by the German Kaiser, that same Kaiser was putting the leaders of the Socialist party in jail for fighting the Kaiser and the Junkers of Germany. (Applause). Roosevelt was the guest of honor in the white house of the Kaiser, while the Socialists were in the jails of the Kaiser, for fighting the Kaiser. (Applause). Who was fighting for Democracy? Roosevelt? (Shouts of 'No!') Roosevelt, who was honored by the Kaiser, or the Socialists, who were in jail by the order of the Kaiser? (Applause)."

There was no doubt as to the correctness of the young man's report. He had been hired by the Socialist party to take down Debs' speech, but now he was concerned to make it evident that he was respectable and favored the prosecution. He would try to express indignation by looking up with compressed lips at the jury after what he thought must be a particularly traitorous passage in Debs' speech, but the passage would not turn out very traitorous, nor he very indignant. He wore little lobes of hair down in front of his ears, and perfume, I think, on his handkerchief, and the wealth of Debs' personality shone through him as he read, so that he became in the eyes of the jury a very small speck.

Another report of the speech had been taken by an agent of the Department of Justice, but he had been too warmly interested to write down more than about half of it. The two reports were printed in parallel columns, agreeing fairly well where they collided, and they constituted the main evidence of the prosecution. Two or three newspaper reporters -now clad in khaki in spite of what they had heard-were also introduced to corroborate the general impression that Debs had made a speech at Canton, and that he had made it 'to a crowd. Estimates of the crowd varied from 200 to 1,500. At least he had made it out loud, and from a band-stand not decorated with a flag, and just after a reading of the Declaration of Independence. These reporters were re-

spectful of Debs, and they were tlB Z'ery happy on the stand. One of them, recounting an interview, remembered that after answering some questions very emphatically Debs had courteously added : " Now you may be right about this, and I may be wrong. I don't claim to be infallible, but that is the way I see it."

Another courteous person that came into the court-room, with some expectant mystery as to why he came, was C. E. Ruthenberg, who made the sensational run for mayor of Cleveland at the last election. He came from an Ohio work-house, where he is serving a term in prison, and he was introduced by the prosecution for the sole function of identifying the St. Louis platform and proclamation of the Socialist party. His coming there from the prison cell was designed to impress the jury, I suppose, with an idea that all Socialists ought to be in jail; but I doubt if it had that effect. His quietness, his gracious demeanor, his thin, keen, agile face-he is like a smiling hawk-seemed to testify to the absurdity of sending any of them to jail.

One other stranger, a dark young man, a professional, although not very cute, detective was introduced by the prosecution. He recited three sentences that he had heard Debs utter at a conference of Socialist state secretaries in Chicago. After the recitation Seymour Stedman, the chief counsel for Debs, asked him to pull them out of his pocket and see if he had recited them right. He did, and he hadn't. But it didn't matter much.

Nothing matters much in these cases but the indictment. After they have dragged a man into court in the present high state of patriotic tension and announced to a jury that the government believes this man guilty of inciting a mutiny in the United States Army, of stirring up disloyalty in his countrymen, of obstructing the enlistment of soldiers, of encouraging resistance to the United States of America, and promoting the cause of the enemy-it is about all done but the verdict. If the man is in every respect a perfect crystal of conventional Americanism, and can prove it, he may get away with his liberty. But if he ever had an opinion that diverged the hair's breadth from those of his regular Republican or Democratic ancestors, all of whom fought in the Civil War, and the War of the Revolution, and the French and Indian War, his chances are small. You might think that this would make the government hesitate to sling these slanderous accusations around among thoughtful people.

In one point of view, of course, Debs' trial was but an incident in the general subordination of social impulses to military expediency. And yet this was not his first trial; the scene had been enacted before, and in times of inter-national peace. And I could not but feel that something else was symbolized here in the contrast between this man and his judges. There was symbolized the conflict of the main trends of two ages in the world's history-the age of industrial despotism and the political apparition of democracy, and the age in which industrial despotism is over-thrown and democracy exists.

The chamber of contemporary justice in Cleveland is of

7

Drawn by Art Young

"Are you a Socialist?" "Certainly."

"Show your indictment."

a   THE LIBERATOR

oak and marble, with windows two stories high and a ceiling of gold; the judge sits high up and his desk is as wide as a counter; and behind and above him the full width of the wall is filled with a splendorous painting. It is a painting of angels with beautiful bodies, and stern faces and swords of flame, guarding the tablets of stone upon which are in-scribed the ten commandments of Israel-guarding them against the approach, as it seemed to me, of a lawyer, a man on the model of Elihu Root, in a business suit and a black gown, trying to read something clever out of a book. . . . A kind of flamboyant solemnity of space in all that end of the room, and at the other end, a solid crowd of poor people, standing up, eager, their eyes shining like children's on every-thing that happens. . . .

I always want to like the judge when I go into a court-room. It is such an opportunity for human nature to be beautiful. Anyone to whom life is a sacred art must envy a judge his opportunities. But those to whom life is sacred-even their own lives-are not so frequently elevated into that position as they used to be. Judge Westenhaver has the broad jowl and tightly gripped mouth of the dominant, magisterial man of affairs. His lips are so well clamped down at the corners that they remain taut when he speaks, keeping his aspect as stern as though he were silent. And yet his words come rather courteous-softly, and with a precise lilt that trails off through long sentences into silence and grammatical uncertainty. I do not think he is quite,so magisterial as he looks. If one could break through a certain declivitous front that he has built out before his character one might discover the soul of a small-town lawyer, still privately nursing the dread that he may not prove equal to the dignity of his place. Thus, at least, I explain the hysterical violence with which he defends the externals of that dignity.

The prosecution, in opening their case with a little flavor of the Scriptures, had declared that Debs should be " judged by his own words, by his own words condemned," and Stedman at the conclusion of his opening accepted that challenge with passion. " Yes," he declared, " ye shall judge him by his own words, and not by his words only, but by his works-the works of his whole life!" A motion of applause followed---a few spontaneous hands forgetting. It was inevitable, and as a relief it was delightful. But the relief was short-lived. Rising to the stature of Caesar Augustus, His Honor extended a frightful, accusing arm, and shouted : "Arrest that man! " conveying the impression that the man was armed with a bomb and waiting five seconds while the fuse burned -" and that woman!   and arrest everybody else that you saw clapping their hands!"

It was a terrible moment, and everybody felt a little foolishly sick, the way you feel in school when some dreadful sinner is hauled up before the teacher. Especially this, be-cause one of the sinners was Rose Pastor Stokes, who has just the steady mischievous twinkle in her eyes that is characteristic of an absolutely unregenerate pupil. The teacher was livid. I don't know but the whole court-room would have been sentenced to go to jail, or stay in at recess, or some-

thing, if it hadn't been for the tact of one Irishman, Cunnea, of counsel for the defense, who stepped forward and began to remind His Honor of the very wide distribution of the frailties of human nature.

" Are you representing these defendants? " said His Honor with asperity.

" I never decline to represent anybody who needs me," said Cunnea. And I don't know why it is that the Irish are always permitted to say what nobody else can hint at without getting his head bit off, but he added that he didn't want to see the judge sit up there and " play God to his fellow men," and the judge accepted the rebuke and postponed the hearing until the next day, when he might be a little less " unduly vexed." The next day he fined a few of them a little, and admonished the rest of the roomful as to the well-known in-compatibility between human appreciation and the processes that prevail in a court of law.

There is a special interest in the personality of this judge, because he was compelled to listen to some remarks about himself which, if true, must have caused him some effort to resist their penetrating into his mind.

" Who appoints the Federal judges?" Debs was quoted as saying at Canton; " the people? In all of the history of the country the working class have never named a Federal judge. There are one hundred and twenty-one, and every solitary one of them holds his position, his tenure, through the influence and power of corporate capital. The corporations and trusts dictate their appointment. And when they go to the bench, they go, not to serve the people, but to serve the interests that placed them where they are."

Now that statement is not historically true of judge Westenhaver, and of others it is not historically true-and to him it must have seemed, I suppose, merely a wanton gibe. And yet it was anything but that-it was a careless way of stating something that is quite accurately true, I think, even of judge Westenhaver-namely, that he will in a broad way behave as a representative of corporate capital in a land in which corporate capital is the thing of supreme power and prestige.

Judge Westenhaver was a young lawyer in the farmer-town of Martinsburg, West Virginia. He was Newton Baker's partner there, and probably owes his appointment to the Secretary of War. He could not go to college, but he aspired to be educated, to be citified, to be " correct," to pass in any company as a " man of culture and attainment "-in short, to get away as far as possible from the small-town lawyer that he was. So he came to Cleveland, came-so it happened-as a member of the law firm that defended Tom Johnson in his fight for democracy in that city against the big corporate interests. For five or six years Westenhaver conducted this anti-trust litigation, and conducted it well. But it never satisfied his aspiration-which is only the normal human aspiration to sit high. He didn't like Tom Johnson's economic interpretation of the motives of prominent men, and he didn't like Tom Johnson's lawless democratism. His heart wasn't in the job with his head. His heart was still

November, 1918   9

trying to get away from that uncollege-bred Martinsburg lawyer, reading omnivorously the " best " literature, learning assiduously the " correct " thing, striving in the childlike way that men strive for contemporary distinction.

And with that striving still central in him-still uncertain and unsatisfied-Judge Westenhaver arrived at the Federal bench-and at the one more-than-contemporary distinction that will fall to him, the distinction of sitting at the trial of Eugene Debs. And while Debs expounded the economic interpretation both of him and of all the kind of prestige that he aspires to, while Debs gave the picture of contemporary life that is not intellectual, or cultivated, or " correct," but true, he sat there wagging his head a little with an amused, attentive, patronizing smile, sure of his superior position-the one thing he has always determined to make sure of. And that very smile, and that attitude, revealed the intimate truth of the blunt thing that Debs had said about him. He will <