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 The term “Pullman,” has become at last the synonym of almost anything odious that heartless, crushing, degrading monopoly sug- gests to the minds of honorable men. “Pullman” means “purple and fine linen, sumptuous living — silks, satins, diamonds, palaces, and a herd of cringing, fawning, lickspittles, who do the bidding of King Pullman, submit to kicks, cuffs, and such other degradations as are known and practiced in dominions of tsar, sultan, shah, or khedive. In Pullman’s realm, there is no independence for workingmen. The decrees of the ruler are as autocratic as are known in benighted lands where men prostrate them- selves, then heralds shout, “The King is Coming.” King Pullman owns towns, he owns houses, highways, parka, ponds, churches, school houses, rinks; he has under his sway morals, education, religion, and amusements: he is all powerful in his little seven by nine territory up in Illinois, the land of Lincoln and Doug- lass. Talk about dukedoms and earldoms, and principalities, Pullman, the car-builder, whose real name is as wide as sleep, and whose palace cars outnumber all the equipages of all the potentates of Europe and Asia combined, to say nothing of American codfish, coal oil, and bucket shop snobs, whose appearance excite ineffable contempt. We say Pullman, the palace car nabob, enjoys a dictatorial power, which lays them all in the shade. But it is not so much of Pullman in his little principality in northern Illinois that we write, or care, as it is of Pullman, on all the iron highways of the country. Highways chartered by states and built with money of the people, and supported by the money of the peo- ple, and protected by the laws enacted by the people. It is on these public highways where Pullmanism reaches the extreme limit of all that is infamous in the industrial enterprises of the country. The Pullman “sleepers” have conductors and porters. These men, half-paid, are subjected to ceaseless surveillance. Spotters are forever on their track, and it is charged that porters and conductors combine, to filch in some way from passengers, enough to make up the differ- ence between fair wages and starvation pay which Pullman allows his overworked men. The New York Times, in a recent issue, exposes the unspeakable infamy of the Pullman policy by which he increases his wealth, re- gardless of right and justice, and in a way the legitimate fruits of which are fraud and wide spread demoralization. The article referred to, based upon information from one who knows, bristles all through and all over with such atrocities as must excite universal indignation. Men are overworked and underpaid. Pullman, the conscienceless employer, by his policy, says in effect, “I know I am an unjust man, I am pursuing a course well calculated to make my employees thieves, and to guard my coffers I will put spot- ters, always scoundrels upon their track. I will employ men innately villains, to watch men who in my employment and by virtue of their meanness, are liable to become thieves.” The public has a right to know all about the Pullman iniquities practiced on men who attend to the “sleepers.” A conductor on a Pullman car receives $70 a month and pays 75 cents a day for his meals when on the road. He is requested to purchase not less than two full uniform suits a year at a cost of $44. On each train the con- ductor is held responsible for the three cars on his train and the por- ters under him. If the porters divide their “tips” with the conductors as waiters do with head-waiters in several New York restaurants, the company is presumed to know nothing of it. A conductor’s salary is supposed to be sufficient for all his personal needs and his expenses in the service of the company. Allowing $20 a month for meals bought on the road, and $4 a month for his uniform, a conductor does well if he can get $50 a month for his family out of his salary. But owing to the system of inspection and fines to which the Pullman men must submit, the chances are that the conductor will not get anything like that sum. The conductors and porters are under the constant surveillance of “spotters,” as the train hands call them, or “special agents,” as they call themselves and are called on the company's payroll, who report at division headquarters the slightest infringement on the rules of the company. As a general thing, the Pullman conductor can no more tell a spotter from an ordinary passenger than the horse-car conductors in the city can single out the company spies who are sent around to see that they do not knock down on registered fares. Is it possible to con- ceive of a more humiliating position than that of a conductor or por- ter on a Pullman car? Everything is in the line of degradation. Suspi- cions of scoundrelism begin with the beginning and are never relaxed. To make matters still worse, to reduce pay, and increase temptations to steal, Pullman instructs his spotters to be ceaselessly on the alert for mistakes, called in all cases “misdemeanors.” These can be multiplied at the will of the spotter, being himself a villain and ready and willing to lie to maintain his place since the more he can reduce the pay of conductors and porters, the better it is for him. “A conductor,” says the Times article, “considers himself lucky if he gets off with $6 in fines in ten months out of twelve. This makes a big hole in his salary. He has no chance to explain or to contradict the charges. The spotter is believed and the conductor must submit, or leave the service. In addition to this, says the Times, “on nearly any full train with three or more Pullman cars that run over the trunk lines between New York and Chicago a special detective is employed to watch for graver misdemeanors, which may be considered outside the bailiwick of spotters.” Conductors handle some money and the detectives are on the alert to see that stealing does not occur, and if there is no theft perpetrated, a mis- take answers the purpose, as, “if a conductor makes an error in his diagram, a thing likely to occur at any time when passengers are dissatisfied with berths selected and desire trans- fers, he is fined for it, and if the offense becomes too frequent he is liable to suspension.” Such is the history of the Pullman reign on the road, and if any- thing can be brought to light more detestable, it has yet to occur. It is such detestable practices that breed the unrest and vindictive spirit abroad in the lands that furnish anarchists and socialists with the raw material for their diatribes against law and social order and keep alive the cry that there is an irrepressible conflict between capital and labor, when the conflict is between right and wrong. The press of the coun- try, if true to its high privileges, will follow the lead of the New York Times and expose such hateful practices as are expressed by Pullman. 
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Sep 3, 2018 19:06
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stay safe socialism ghost
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Sep 3, 2018 19:09
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Lastgirl posted:stay safe socialism ghost
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Sep 3, 2018 19:09
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 Eugene V. Debs Closeup by yama951
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Sep 3, 2018 19:20
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https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/997126988979556352
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Sep 3, 2018 19:21
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In a 5-4 decision
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Sep 3, 2018 19:24
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Lastgirl posted:stay safe socialism ghost
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Sep 3, 2018 19:24
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Eugene V. Dabs
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Sep 3, 2018 19:31
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goddamn it
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Sep 3, 2018 19:34
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When is he getting a musical instead of that hack Hamilton?
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Sep 3, 2018 19:37
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https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ... I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men. In this country—the most favored beneath the bending skies—we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity … I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation ought to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all … I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. ... When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.
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Sep 3, 2018 19:38
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Captain Billy Pissboy posted:
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Sep 3, 2018 19:38
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Sep 3, 2018 19:39
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I'd vote for convict 69420
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Sep 3, 2018 19:42
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The pride of Terre Haute
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Sep 3, 2018 19:43
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ecks v sever
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Sep 3, 2018 19:46
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Eugene V. Dabs 
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Sep 3, 2018 19:59
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stay safe socialism ghost.
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Sep 3, 2018 20:14
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Sep 4, 2018 12:19
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lmao
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Sep 4, 2018 16:36
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Lol pullman loving sucksCaptain Billy Pissboy posted:https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm This one owns tho
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Sep 4, 2018 16:41
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Eugene V. Jeb!s
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Sep 4, 2018 16:48
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reignonyourparade posted:Lol pullman loving sucks that speech was the first socialist work i ever read and it is still the most convincing piece of socialist rhetoric i know of
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Sep 4, 2018 21:12
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