Debs’s Defense Tour Reaches Seattle as the Railroad Union Fights On

James Hogan, one of the nine indicted and sentenced officials of the once-famous American Railway Union — probably known more widely as the “A.R.U.” — who led the striking forces at Butte, Mont., during the great railroad tie-up last summer, arrived in this city late Friday night. Yesterday he announced that Eugene V. Debs, president of the union, would deliver a lecture on March 19 on the subject “Who Are the Conspirators?” The railroad companies say that Debs and his followers are the conspirators, and they have been indicted for being such; but Debs, it is announced, will endeavor to show that he is innocent and that the representatives of the General Managers’ Association are the conspirators.

Hogan, a young man of fine physique, with a good-shaped head on his shoulders and a little sandy mustache on his lip, makes his home in Ogden, Utah. He is married and has a family, and before he became a director of the A.R.U. was a conductor for the Union Pacific. There is a man named William Hogan back in Butte who figured prominently in the Coxey army, and some newspapers published the announcement that this Hogan was the man who led the strikers. Mr. Hogan thinks the American people are a little peculiar because they get together and pass resolutions condemning the Turkish outrages in Armenia while at the same time their own people are starving to death.

Mr. Hogan expects to go to Tacoma today and will later continue his journey southward, stopping along the route at Portland and the leading cities of Southern California. Then he will continue through the Southern states and return to Denver. Wherever he goes he expects to arrange with the local union of the order to have Debs deliver his lecture. Debs is delivering lectures in all the prominent cities of the United States, hoping in that way to earn sufficient to pay the expenses incurred by himself and the other officials of the order during their recent trials on the charge of contempt. It may be that the tour of Debs will be brought suddenly to an end, for prison cells are waiting for him. At the time of their conviction before Judge Woods in Chicago, Debs and his comrades were sentenced to six months, and the other eight officials, including Hogan, were given three months. Later they were placed on trial for conspiracy to stop the United States mail, but one of the jurors was taken ill and the case was continued. The contempt cases were appealed, and pending the decision in the United States Supreme Court the convicted men are out on bail in the sum of $5,000 each.

“Mr. Debs,” said Mr. Hogan yesterday, “is meeting with great success on his present lecturing tour. He appeared for the first time before an audience of several thousand people in the Auditorium, Chicago, on February 28, and at other places in the East he has met with much encouragement. His lecture is not only of interest to the laboring man but to the middle and better classes as well. Mr. Debs covers the entire causes leading to the strike. He tells of the interference on the part of the government and gives away the vile methods used by the General Managers’ Association, showing that before the railway union came into existence they really conspired to reduce wages. Pullman was bad enough, but there had been a great deal said of him for which he was not altogether responsible. The Managers’ Association was back of him. They had him by the throat and made him do as they said. Had he disobeyed they would have refused to handle his cars. I believe that there was a time when Pullman would have consented to allow the matter to be arbitrated, but the Managers’ Association would not let him give in an inch.

“I believe that before many months go by the A.R.U. will be stronger than ever, and those who imagine that because the men went back to work before the order will soon be a thing of the past will see that they are very seriously mistaken. The order is not dead; on the other hand, it is very much alive. New members are coming into it every day, and the great reduction of wages on the Southern Pacific and other big lines lately has only tended to increase our membership. And why shouldn’t the order flourish? The railroad companies intend to grind their men down to the smallest possible wages, and the result will be that for their own protection and as their only salvation they will come into the union.

“So far as the outcome of our cases in the Supreme Court is concerned, we are every one of us satisfied that the decision of the lower court will be reversed. There is every reason why it should be. The court ordered us not to in any way confer with the employees either by word, letter or telegram relative to the strike. Denying us the right to speak was contrary to the Constitution, and we have taken the cases to the higher court, believing that we will surely win. If the court should say that the lower court was right, then there remains but one thing for us to do, and that will be to go to jail and serve out our term, which we will certainly do.”