A LETTER FROM DEBS TO KAUTSKY
A Letter from Debs to Kautsky THE following characteristic letter from the late and unforgettable Eugene V. Debs to Karl Kautsky is an interesting contrfbtftion to Socialist history,...
...In Woodstock Debs was visited by Keir Hardie, then on a trip to this country—following his refusal of an invitation to dine at the White House with President Cleveland because he would not meet the man who sent troops to crush a strike: and there also Victor L. Berger visited him, bringing him books by Kautsky, a study of which made Debs a Socialist...
...Each kind, comradely word you have written touches me, and coming from no other source could such a generous expression of greeting and congratulations give me greater satisfaction...
...On November 5th, 1925, the whole Socialist world world celebrated the 70th birthday of Comrade Debs, and among the messages received by the revered hero of the proletarian struggle was a warm congratulatory letter from Karl Kautsky and Luise Kautsky, his wife...
...I only regret that I am as sadly deficient in my German as you are proficient In your 'English or I should with pride and pleasure return the compliment of making this acknowledgement in your native tongue...
...It is a great joy therefore and an honor I esteem beyond words, in which my beloved wife Katherine shares gladly, to receive from Karl and Luise Kautsky such a flattering testimonial of regard on the occasion of the anniversary of my natal day...
...It to happens that these lines in regard to your flattering recognition of my birthday are written on the one hundred and fifth anniversary of the birth of my revered father who ia life, to his latest breath, with my brave and beautiful mother, stood staunch and sane In the service of the Socialist movement...
...In his letter 'Gene Debs refers to his imprisonment in Woodstock Jail in Illinois in 1895, following the historic Pullman strike which he had led...
...I note with special interest what you say about the movement in America and feel confident that you are right in what you say of the situation and the outlook, and that in time your words will prove to have been, as they have so often in the past, prophetic...
...Mr...
...And now thanking you both with a full heart and wishing you length of years and increasing fulfillment of your highest hopes and aspirations, in which Katherine and my brother Theodore and his wife and all of our household join heartily, I am always "Faithfully your friend and comrade, "EUGENE V. DEBS...
...A Letter from Debs to Kautsky THE following characteristic letter from the late and unforgettable Eugene V. Debs to Karl Kautsky is an interesting contrfbtftion to Socialist history, particularly valuable to a younger Socialist element today that is not acquainted with the pas* history of Socialism...
...I went to prison a trade unionist," he " declared later, "and came out a Socialist...
...Karl Kautsky, "Wisu, Austria...
...My dear Comrade Kautsky: "It was well worth while to have a birthday just to receive so fine and cheering and complimentary a message as the one from yon and dear Mrs...
...I was in jail, one of the innumerable victims of capitalism, sitting in darkness as it were, when your pamphlets first came into my hands and your influence first made itself felt in my life, and I have since wondered often how anyone, however feeble and benighted mentally, could read your crystal-dear Marxian expositions and interpretations without becoming and remaining a Socialist...
...Comrade Debs replied to the Kautaky's as follows: December 4th, 1925...
...It was from you, dear comrade, that I learned some of my earliest and most precious lessons in Socialism, and I have always felt myself in debt, gratefully and with a deep sense of appreciation, to your gifted pen for having opened my eyes to the light which guided me into the Socialist movement...
...Kantaky which I now hold in my hands and which fills my heart and dims my eyes...
Vol. 18 • December 1935 • No. 70
