This favorite leader of the radicals of America was convicted by jury of violation of the Espionage Law on September 12, 1918, and two days later sentenced to serve ten years in the penitentiary. The case was appealed on the ground that the Espionage Act was an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of free speech. The decision of the United States Supreme Court was handed down on March 10, 1919. In the words of a Socialist work, Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 102, "The Court held that the law was not contrary to the Constitution and affirmed the sentence imposed upon Debs by the lower court. The decision was unanimous that the nature and intended effect of his speech was to obstruct recruiting and enlistment in the army."

Yet this same Year Book, in its account of "The Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party" at Chicago in August-September, 1919, says, page 409: "The Convention went on record offering the presidential nomination of the party to Eugene V. Debs, the nomination to be ratified at the 1920 Convention."

On March 5, 1920, at Albany, in the final argument for the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen, according to the "New York Times" of March 6, 1920, Seymour Stedman said of Debs: "He represents in a sense the Socialist movement. Perhaps he represents it more completely than any other man in this country."

In order that the reader may understand the extreme way in which lawbreakers like Debs and Victor L. Berger were justified by those defending the five suspended Socialists at Albany, we give an extract from the testimony of Morris Hillquit on February 19, 1920, as reported in the "New York Times" of the next day:

"The testimony leading up to Mr. Hillquit's admissions was given after Martin Conboy of counsel for the Judiciary Committee had read into the record a speech and a signed article by Victor L. Berger. In the speech, delivered at the Socialist National Convention in 1908, Mr. Berger said:

"'I have no doubt that in the last analysis we must shoot, and when it comes to shooting, Wisconsin will be there.'

"In the signed article which appeared in a Socialist newspaper published in Milwaukee the following year, he wrote:

"'Socialists and workingmen should ... have rifles and the necessary rounds of ammunition ... and be prepared to back up their ballots with their bullets.'"

In reply, according to the "New York Times" of February 20, 1920, putting his own far-fetched construction on Victor L. Berger's words, Morris Hillquit himself advanced the doctrine of "a little shooting" in the following statement:

"'History ... has shown that when the privileged minority is about to lose its privileges ... it tries to destroy reform or lawful revolutionary movements by force, ... and in a case of this kind it may come to shooting.

"'It is not at all impossible that, even in this country, when the majority of the people will be ready to introduce substantial reform and take away the privileges of the profiteering class by constitutional, legal methods, these self-same profiteering interests will take offense and try to play some trick upon the people, and in that case it is possible--as a matter of prophecy, not as a matter of program, so far as we are concerned--that the people of this country will be compelled to supplement their political action by a little shooting.'"

Testifying the same day, Hillquit endorsed Debs as follows, according to the "New York Times" of February 20, 1920:

"When asked if Debs is a candidate of the Socialist Party for President, Mr. Hillquit replied:

"'If any voice or influence of mine could accomplish anything, he certainly will be nominated at the next convention.'

"'The Supreme Court has passed upon the conviction of Debs and affirmed it,' said ex-Judge Sutherland, of counsel. 'Notwithstanding this judgment, you still declare that Mr. Debs represents and personifies the attitude of the Socialist Party on the subject of loyalty to the United States Government?'

"'I do not say that he represents the attitude of the Socialist Party. I think I said that he represents the highest and noblest sentiments of United States citizenship and American loyalty.... Debs was convicted only for saying things, not for doing things. I do not for a moment doubt he said the things he is charged with having said.' ...

"'Do you uphold and approve of, as a leader of the Socialist Party, the words that Mr. Debs pronounced, and for which he was convicted?'

"'I haven't got his complete speech before me. I do not want to commit the Party in this general way to every statement. I will say, as a whole, I read his speech at the time and my impression was that it was a perfectly innocent, honest expression of opposition to war for very good and patriotic motives.' ...

"'Have you any respect at all for the decision of the tribunal to the contrary?'

"'I have respect to this effect: that I know that it is final and binding and in practice will go. I do not have respect in the sense of believing that it is just, impartial, and well-reasoned out.' ...

"'Mr. Hillquit, do you wish to be understood as saying that you approve of the words spoken by Mr. Debs for which he was convicted?'

"'Are you trying to get me a little conviction, also, Judge?' asked the witness.

"'I am not in a position to indorse every word and every phrase because I have not the speech before me,' he continued. 'As a rule, I fully indorsed his statements on the subject of the war, expressed, I suppose, in that speech and in other speeches.... I share with all my comrades the greatest respect for Debs, and cannot think any compliment too high for him.'

"'And you think it was that largeness of view, do you, that led Mr. Debs to say the things which brought him into conflict with the law of the United States?'

"'Absolutely, just in the same way as it once happened to one Jesus of Nazareth.'"

"'And you say that notwithstanding the highest judicial authority known under the Constitution has declared him guilty of doing that, and in contempt of that authority, notwithstanding that authority, you say that he is the man that should be placed in the President's chair by the votes of the Socialist Party?'

"'I do.'

"'If Mr. Debs were elected in 1920, how would you proceed to inaugurate[12] him, as he is serving a twenty-year sentence?' asked Assemblyman Jenks.

"'The chances are that prior to the time he would be called upon to occupy the chair the powers that be would sober up enough to know that the present conviction is an improper and inhuman act and liberate him.'"

On several occasions at the trial, in spite of Hillquit's studied effort to cast an air of innocency over his party, menacing words escaped from this crafty leader. He could not restrain them even at the end, on March 3, 1920, when summing up the case for the Socialist defendants at Albany, according to the following account in the "Sun and New York Herald" of March 4, 1920: