The American Socialists have been thoroughly unpatriotic. "To hell with the American flag!" "Down with the Stars and Stripes!" "I would spit upon your flag!" These are a few of their expressions of contempt. The United States uniform and the soldiers alike are scorned and ridiculed. The article in "The Call," "Rows and Rows and Rows of 'em march," which has been quoted in a previous chapter, shows the reader the real spirit and intention of Debs' gang, who have been so zealous in stirring up strikes with a view to the final ruin of our present form of government.
Debs, four times the standard-bearer of the Socialists in presidential campaigns, has revealed himself, as we have shown, in such utterances as these:
"As a revolutionist, I have no respect for capitalist property laws, nor the least scruple about violating them.... I am law abiding under protest--not from scruple--and bide my time." "Let the sturdy toilers of the Pacific Coast raise the Red standard of revolt." "All hail to the revolution." "I enter the prison doors a flaming revolutionist, my head erect, my spirit untamed, and my soul unconquered." "In Russia and Germany our valiant comrades are leading the proletarian revolution.... They are setting the heroic example for world-wide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudiate the cowardly compromisers within our ranks, challenge and defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to victory or death."
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