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Friday's Labor Folklore

Do not be discouraged for a single instant. If you have the courage of your convictions you can face the universe. So far as I am concerned, if there were a million, I would be one of the million. If they should be reduced to a thousand, I would be one of a thousand. If reduced to a hundred, I would be one of the hundred. If a single one survived, I would be that one against the world. I want every one of you to be that one and if you find that you are not so constituted that you can be that one against the world, you have no place in the socialist movement. 

Eugene Victor Debs (1855-1926) helped found the American Railway Union, the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World. He ran for U.S. president on the Socialist Party ticket five times between 1900 and 1920, winning millions of votes. In 1918 he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for urging resistance to the draft during World War 1. In 1921, on Christmas Day, President Harding commuted Debs' sentence and ordered him released from prison.

. Debs in Tears at Sight of Breaker Boys

Great socialist visits coal mine in Shamokin, Pa.


Sept. 21, 1906

The Scranton Times


Moved to pity at the site of so many little boys working in and around the mines, Eugene V. Debs, the noted socialist, labor leader, and one- time candidate for president of the United States, broke into tears as he viewed the scene in and around the Camron breaker yesterday.


It was the great socialist's first visit to the hard coal region, and he was taken to the Cameron breaker. His heart went out in sympathy to the smudgy face breaker boys of tender years as he watched them, stooping over chutes. His voice trembled when he spoke and big tears, the tears of a strong man, coursed down his cheeks as he placed his hand upon the boys' shoulders, and asked them to be good until they grew up and would be relieved of the toil that is now sapping their bodies of its strength and vitality. It was a dramatic incident and Mr. Debs' escorts were visibly affected. 


After coming out of the mine and breaker, Mr. Debs felt that the trip was a great lesson in more ways than one, but he declared, he had visited factories and mills, and other places where child labor almost approaching slavery existed, but the breaker he said is worse than any of these. He left last night for the western end of the state.

Shamokin - from the Lanape Indian language for "place of eels" - is located in Northumberland County in the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania. In the recent presidential election Trump won Pennsylvania with 50.39 percent of the vote. He took Northumberland County by 69.48 percent.

Shamokin, Pennsylvania Facts


  • In 1906 - at the time of Debs' visit - its population was around 19,000. By 2022 it had dropped to 6,915.
  • The median household income in Shamokin is $32,753. (2022)
  • About 36% of town residents live below the poverty line.
  • The percentage of residents who have earned a college degree is 14.1%.
  • Median value of an owner-occupied housing unit is $52,300.


Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2022. Photo: Sibley Breaker in Old Forge, Pa. built in 1873.

Across the Great Divide

by

Nancy Griffith

(video: 3.53 min)

Lyrics by Kate Wolf

Friday's Labor Folklore

Saul Schniderman, Editor


Corrections Department: Sisters You Keep Me Fighting - performed by Muse and featured in a former issue of FLF - was written by Patty Huntington and arranged by Diana Porter.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) issued a press release supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders' Joint Resolution of Disapproval to Block Sale of Offensive Weapons to Israel. Seventeen senators voted with Bernie in support of his legislation which was defeated on November 20th. Out of a population of 2.2 million, over 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and 102,000 injured, sixty percent of whom are women, children, or elderly people.

Photo: North Capitol St., Washington, DC