NAWSA SUBJECT FILE Debs, Eugene V. SOCIALIST PARTY NEW ENGLAND DISTRICT 21 Essex st., Boston, Mass. March 8, 1927 Dear Miss Blackwell, A national committee has been created to raise a fund and get a national radio broadcasting station as a memorial to Eugene V. Debs, the station to be, like Debs himself, dedicated to the cause of Labor, Peace and Socialism. A meeting to form a local committee for Greater Boston to help in this work will be held at the office of Roewer & Bearak, 7th floor, 20 Pemberton sq. on Monday, March 14th, at 8 o'clock P.M. I most earnestly urge you to be present. The plans of the national committee will be explained there and you can then decide if you want to join the committee or not. The national committee includes of course not only Socialists but progressive representatives of organized labor such as Jas. H. Maurer, Albert F. Coyle, Sidney Hillman and Abraham Baroff; persons interested primarily in Civil Liberties, such as Roger Baldwin, Robt. Morse Lovett, and Harriet Stanton Blatch; and representatives of the church peace groups, such as John Haynes Holmes, Elizabeth Oilman, and Harry P. Ward. If you cannot be present, please at least write and let us know if you will join such a committee, or want to be notified of future meetings of the committee. Fraternally, ALFRED BAKER LEWIS SBA&OEU 14965 Alfred Baker Lewis Debs Memorial Alfred B Lewis KATE RICHARD O'HARE FRANK P. O'HARE THE NATIONAL RIP-SAW. OUR MOTTO BLIND AS A BAT TO EVERYTHING BUT RIGHT. 1049A NORTH GRAND AVENUE ST. LOUIS, MO., October 5, 1921 Dear Friend: Funds have been raised galore for publicity, and lawyers, and appeals for the freedom of Eugene Debs. Thousands of letters have gone to Gene in his prison cell, and newspapers, books, and magazines have been filled with contributions from lovers of liberty for his defense. But in all this time we have neglected one very important matter. We have not inquired in regard to the financial situation of the Debs family. We have neglected to send to Eugene Debs' beloved wife our messages of love and comradeship. The Rip-Saw army of friends is going to remedy this omission, through the The Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition of the Rip-Saw The Katherine Debs Testimonial Fund and The Katherine Debs Testimonial Album. The November issue of the National Rip-Saw will be the Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition. The Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition will be the finest, sweetest and most powerful appeal to the American people on behalf of our imprisoned comrade. It will be a thing of joy to every Socialist, and so prepared as to reach the heart and conscience of our fellow citizens who do not accept in full our economic and political theories, yet who will respond when the facts of Debs' life and his imprisonment for a simple expression of opinion are brought to their attention. In order to get material for this special edition Kate Richards O'Hare went to Terre Haute and visited Katherine Debs at the old Debs home. As result of this visit we have decided to make the Debs Edition something more than we had at first planned. We have decided to make it the means of creating The Katherine Debs Testimonial Fund. All along we have been taking it for granted that the Debs family were getting along all right financially. Thousands and thousands of dollars have been raised by various institutions and organizations for various Debs funds, but none of this money has reached Katherine Debs personally. There has been no fund to replace the earnings of the imprisoned husband and bread winner. The income of the Debs family for the past two and a half years that Gene has been in prison amounts to exactly NOTHING. After forty years of service to the working class Gene Debs went to prison practically penniless. When his freedom stopped Gene Debs' income stopped. No organization seems to have inquired into this matter or done anything about it. Katherine Debs and her ninety-year old mother have been living in the big house in Terre Haute alone. While neither of these loved ones have suffered from the want of the necessities of life this has been due to the loyal and splendid generosity of Katherine Debs' brother. But Eugene and Katherine Debs spent their life for all of us. And we know that you feel that we should take upon ourselves at least part of the responsibility for the material welfare of Eugene Debs' family while he is in prison. The Katherine Debs Testimonial Album. Another thing Kate O'Hare found in her visit to Katherine Debs. During all these long thirty months we have been neglectful of Katherine Debs. Not intentionally--I believe we have all thought of her often and often. But we did not visualize the situation. For thirty-six years Katherine Debs has been the patient, loyal, faithful comrade and fellow worker with Eugene Debs. During all these long years she has shared fully in the work of her husband and lover. They have been one. Without Katherine Debs' loving minstrations, support and inspiration, Gene Debs' work might have been impossible. The last time Kate O'Hare was at the Debs home, before the war came, Katherine Debs was a beautiful woman, glowing with health and vivid interests, expressing the full glory of fully ripened womanhood. Today Katherine Debs is only a shadow of herself, desperately ill, ravished by sorrow and suspense, childless and lonely. Living with her is only her dear old mother, now ninety years of age, her once brilliant mind clouded by the tragedy of losing "her Grace." As Kate O'Hare sat in the deathly silence of the house which once glowed with service and peace and love, a band passed down a nearby street. Leaning forward, with her transparent hands clasped, her sightless eyes straining into the darkness, Grandma Bauer whispered--"Hush ! Hark ! Don't you hear the music? They are bringing my Gene back home !" Few indeed have been the comrades who have crossed the threshold of the Debs home--few indeed have been the comrades who have written to Katherine Debs to express their love and sympathy and thus help her bear the endless agonizing days. The Rip-Saw army of friends is going to make amends for this seeming neglect. We are going to send Katherine Debs letters signed by A HUNDRED THOUSAND FRIENDS AND LOVERS OF HER AND GENE. THE PLAN. Here, briefly, is the plan. The Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition of the Rip-Saw (November issue) will sell at ten cents per copy. Enclosed is a blank for you to circulate to get orders for copies of this edition from your friends. The Post Office department permits us to give a commission of fifty percent to agents--that is five cents out of each dime. We are going to put your commission in the Katherine Debs Testimonial Fund. Have each friend sign his own name, then write his address very carefully, and show how many copies of the Debs edition he orders. You collect ten cents for each copy ordered and send the order and the total amount collected to us. We will send half of the money received to Katherine Debs, and you will get a receipt back DIRECT FROM KATHERINE DEBS so that you can show all of your friends that Katherine Debs has received her share of the money you sent. After we have copied off the addresses for the orders for extra copies of the Katherine Debs Edition, we shall bind all the order blanks into a beautiful album and will present it to Katherine Debs on Armistice Day. We are sending a ten-line blank to each of the ten thousand members of the Rip-Saw Army of friends. But don't stop with ten names. Pin or paste extra sheets of paper to the blank and fill them up with autographs and addresses. Let us make the Testimonial Album an enormous one. We should not stop at less than a hundred thousand names. Any one may order a single copy of the special edition, at ten cents, but do not stop at single orders. Many friends will want five, ten, fifty or a hundred copies of the Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition. Let us try to circulate hundreds of thousands of copies of the Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition. The Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition of the Rip-Saw will be a powerful appeal to the American people for the release of Eugene V. Debs. It will give every friend and well-wisher of Katherine and Eugene Debs an opportunity to share in the creating of the Katherine Debs Testimonial Fund. One-half of all the money received from the sale of extra copies of the Debs Edition goes to Katherine Debs. It will give every friend and well-wisher of Katherine and Eugene Debs an opportunity to send a greeting of love and comradeship to the lonely Debs home in Terre Haute. The order blanks, with all the signatures, will be bound into the beautiful Katherine Debs Testimonial Album. Your name will be in it. And while it costs one only ten cents to write his name in this album, it will be worth a million dollars to Katherine Debs to receive such a truly royal greeting. And further, each one who sends in a list of orders and remittance for the Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition of the National Rip-Saw will receive directly from Katherine Debs her autograph receipt in acknowledgment. Here then is our task: To circulate the largest possible number of copies of the November Rip-Saw, the Katherine Debs Testimonial Edition, to burn into the consciousness of the American people the facts regarding Debs' imprisonment for the crime of EXPRESSING AN OPINION. To create the largest possible fund, the Katherine Debs Testimonial Fund, to be given directly to Katherine Debs and to be used by her in the manner that will bring her the most comfort and happiness. To send to Katherine Debs the autographs of a hundred thousand lovers of Katherine and Eugene Debs with their greetings, in the beautiful Katherine Debs Testimonial Album. Here is an effort worthy of the ten thousand members of the Rip-Saw army of friends. Rush in your lists at once, with the largest number of signatures, and the largest possible number of orders for copies of the Debs Edition. Fraternally, The National Rip-Saw Pub. Co. (signed) F P O'Hare The Debs edition will go to press about October 24, so let us have your orders on or before that date so we will know how many copies to print. In Case of Debs' Release. We hope that Gene Debs will not spend another day in prison. If he should be released before the Katherine Debs edition goes to press, we will make it the DEBS JUBILEE EDITION. Go right ahead with getting orders, and let it be then a glorious expression of our joy at tardy justice done. It will be a tribute of joy from the Rip-Saw army to the gladness of that day. And the Katherine Debs Testimonial Fund will provide the money for the most glorious vacation Gene and Katherine have ever enjoyed. The Rip-Saw. About Katherine Debs Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.