The special grand jurors selected by the court for the express purpose of indicting the officers of the American Railway Union were well chosen. An elaborate charge from his honor, the judge, a pretense of examining a lone witness, just a farcical formality, and Debs, Howard, Rogers and Kelliher were indicted. These men were virtually indicted before the grand jury went into session. This is a fact that defies contradiction, Z. E. Holbrook, one of the jurors, was a man who two years ago went to Homestead, Pa., at the request of H. C. Frick, manager of the Carnegie Company, and after obtaining a supply of alleged facts from Mr. Frick, returned to Chicago and made a speech before the Sunset Club, in which he charged the Homestead strikers with being conspirators, anarchists and murderers, and he denounced and abused in no measured terms all labor unions and sympathizers. So bitterly did he attack labor that he was roundly hissed by members of his own club.
The city directory sets him down as a capitalist, and he is known throughout the city as a bitter enemy to labor unions. Such is the character of one of the men who was chosen to indict Eugene V. Debs. Was ever court of justice so utterly debauched?
What has become of our boasted liberty? Are we freemen? No! in the burning words of Rienzi, the Roman, we are slaves, the bright sun rises to its course and sets on a race of slaves. Slaves, not such as conqueror led to crimson glory and undying fame, but base, ignoble slaves, slaves to a horde of petty tyrants, feudal despots.
The same conditions that emanated these immortal utterances from the ancient Roman is absolutely the condition of the working people of America to-day.
The federal courts had now accomplished a master stroke; they had indicted the president of the American Railway Union for conspiracy.
When the wires flashed the news to the various local unions throughout the country, the excitement was intense. The illegal proceeding was condemned by every good citizen, regardless of vocation or station in life. Millions of men in every branch of labor threatened to strike, but were held in check by the assurance of their leaders that all would be well in the end.
Mr. Debs, fearing the bad effect his arrest would have on the working people, sent out the following appeal for order:
"To all striking employes and sympathizers:
"In view of the serious phases which the strike has assumed, I deem it my duty to again admonish you to not only refrain from acts of violence but to aid in every way in your power to maintain law and order. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain by participating, even by our presence in demonstrative gatherings. Almost universal unrest prevails. Men are excitable and inflammable. The distance from anger to vengeance is not great. Every precaution against still further aggravating conditions should be taken. In this supreme hour let workingmen show themselves to be orderly and law abiding by freely co-operating with the authorities in suppressing turbulence and preserving the peace. Our position is secure and the people are with us. We have made every effort that reason and justice could suggest to obtain redress for our grievances.
"Our advances have been repelled. The responsibility for the grave situation that confronts the country is not with us. The indications now are that the stoppage of work will become general. This in itself will be a calamity, but if order be maintained it may yet prove to be a blessing to the country. I appeal to every workingman to entirely keep away from places where trouble would be likely to occur. What, under normal conditions, would probably be a peaceable gathering may now become a demonstrative mob. All good citizens deprecate the loss of life and the destruction of property. Grave as these complications are, our civilization is far enough advanced to find and apply a remedy without resort to violence. We are merely contending for justice for our fellow workingmen, who have been reduced to want by a power that now defies public opinion. Strong in the faith that our position is correct, that our grievances are just, we can afford to await the final verdict, with patience. The great public may be slow to act, but in the fullness of time it will act. Then the wrong, wherever found will be rebuked and cloven down, and the right will be enthroned. However serious the situation may become, let it not be intensified by lawlessness or violence.