Channels, Spring 2017

Channels • 2017 • Volume 1 • Number 2 Page 67 schisms in 1912 and 1920. Unfortunately, for most of his time as the main figure in the Socialist Party of America, Debs did not accept the responsibility to unify and cement the Party as a political organization in order to enable its growth. He wrote, “For myself, I have no stomach for factional quarreling” and “If it has to be done others will have to do it.” 78 Neither the stubborn, prickly Berger nor the arrogant, boisterous Haywood had the ability or desire to bring the Party together broadly. Only Debs could have, but he refused to do so, neglecting to attend any Party convention after 1900 and thus failing to ensure the survival of the Socialist Party as an impactful American political entity after his death. It could be argued that Deb’s would have failed even if he fought within the Party for its existence as a united entity behind his particular, less divisive ideology. The body blows that resulted from the Espionage Act, the Russian Revolution coupled with the entrenched opposition of many workers to Socialism, made the death of the Socialist Party of America inevitable. After all, in later years when Debs did begin to appeal for unity, he was unsuccessful. When in 1914 he publicly wrote “I appeal to all Socialist comrades and all industrial unionists to join in harmonizing the various elements of the revolutionary movement,” the IWW and Berger’s conservatives did not respond to renew their former, productive association. 79 Nevertheless, even in this “Plea for Solidarity” as Debs titled the article, he inserted the divisive terminology of industrial unionism, indicating as he said earlier, “We must go forward in our own lines & those who don’t choose to fall in need not do so.” 80 In September, 1895, while Debs was in Woodstock Jail, Thomas J. Morgan, a leading American labor activist, brought Keir Hardie, the leading British Socialist, to Debs cell and offered to form an “International Bureau of Correspondence and Agitation” with Debs as President, Hardie as Vice-President, and Morgan himself as secretary. 81 If Debs accepted, he would have had international influence and funding, the opportunity to spread his message farther than before, and a chance to articulate his ideology on a scale broad enough to unify disparate Socialist factions. He refused. This deferred opportunity is simply another example of Debs’ passivity in effective, internal leadership, which cost Socialism generally. When Debs was faced with another chance to join an international grouping of Socialists, it was in 1920 with Moscow exercising authority over the gathering. Debs was a greater figure with a stronger ideology than Berger, Haywood, or any other American Socialist of his day. Unfortunately, his willingness to allow them to set Party positions and strategies also permitted them to determine the fate of American Socialism, just as Moscow determined the fate of International Socialism, all to the fundamental detriment of that movement. 78 Morgan, H. Wayne. 1962. Eugene V. Debs; socialist for President. n.p.: Syracuse, University Press, 1962., 185. 79 Eugene V. Debs, “A Plea for Solidarity” in Eugene V. Debs Speaks , ed. Jean Tussey (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970), 214. 80 Salvatore, Nick. 1982. Eugene V. Debs : citizen and socialist . n.p.: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, ©1982., 188. 81 Ibid, 152-153.