[Rarebooks] Eugene Debs

[Edward Ripley-Duggan]

All prices are discounted, and are nett to all.

(SOCIALISM). Le Prade, Ruth, editor. Debs and the Poets. Pasadena, Upton 
Sinclair, n.d. [1920]. First edition, one of  500 copies of the special 
"Penitentiary" edition, signed by Debs. This has inserted (on the rear 
paste-down) a plate reading as follows: " This is a special edition of five 
hundred copies, of which the present copy is number 228 [stamped], This 
edition was prepared in order that lovers and friends of Eugene V. Debs 
might assist in advertising the book, and thus further the cause of amnesty 
for political prisoners. By permission of the warden, the book was sent to 
the Atlanta Penitentiary, in order that Convict 9653 might autograph it and 
express his gratitude to those who have rendered this assistance

While there is a lower class, I am in it.
While there is a criminal element, I am of it.
While there is a soul in jail, I am not free.

Debs' signature is below.
18.5 cm, publisher's maroon cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Spine a bit 
faded, but overall a very nice copy of a rather rare little book. 99 pp., 
plus 4 ff. ads, primarily for Upton Sinclair's books.

Debs (1855-1926) was a great American radical, unionist and socialist, 
imprisoned for ten years in 1918 for his great speech in Canton, Ohio, 
which inveighed against World War I. He repeatedly ran for President on the 
Socialist ticket -- five times -- the last from prison. He was released in 
1921 under a pardon from Warren G. Harding. An extraordinarily charismatic 
speaker, his imprisonment arguably further marginalized American socialism 
and certainly cast a chilling effect on political expression.
The major poets contained in this volume include Witter Binner, James 
Whitcomb Riley, Louis Untermeyer, John Cowper-Powys, and Sara Bard Field, 
among others; prose contributors include Carl Sandburg,  Helen Keller, 
Israel Zangwill &c, &c. An extraordinary compilation, certainly rather 
"fugitive" (the printing is distinctly funky), this work is an 
extraordinary testament to the man.  $225
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