Eugene Victor Debs made a statement to the court on his judgment day advocating the social regime as the solution to American woes. In his speech, he emphasized to the people of America that the social regime provided the social order for the poor and the rich alike. He started by criticizing the espionage law under which he was charged as a despotic enactment that conflicts the principles and statement of free institutions. His first imprisonment followed accusations that he failed to obey the United States government to stop a strike when he was the leader of the American Railway Union. The strike affected the national mail system. In his second imprisonment, which took place in 1917, Debs was charged of publicly taking an opposition side to the draft system rendering him a traitor in accordance with the Espionage Act of 1917, which prohibited movements against the actions of the military.
In his statement he declares top the charge that he is opposed to the current social system and that he was advocating for a fundamental change in a peaceful and orderly manner.
Debs is the author of the Statement to the court and the audience is the people of America. The purpose of this speech was to ensure that the people of America understood that the past social system was unfavorable and that a change to socialism was needed to revolutionize America.
In his formative age, Debs related how his poor background forced him to drop out of school in order to work in the railway industry. At a tender age of fourteen, he experienced all the hardships that the industry could accord him because the social system is discriminatory in favor of the rich. Recalling how he was firing a freight engine on a railroad at the age of 16 empowered him to work with the social class and advocate for real changes to the American system. Once he became a profound democrat, Debs established the Socialist Party of America. He was imprisoned in two occasions.
Appeals
In his appeal to logos, he asserts that the current social system in America has been outgrown and therefore need to adopt the new socialism that conforms to the time that he lived. He say “ 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 tolling masses, but also in the higher interest of all humanity”. In this statement he attributes the toiling of millions of men, women and children not to the Almighty or nature but to the social system that allocates vast resources to the abundant and neglects the majority poor who suffer until death rescue them to hapless sleep. America is blessed with inexhaustible abundance in form of land and manpower. However, the system segregates this will and power of the people to be self sufficient into poverty and death. (Debs, para.7)
Debs appeals to ethos in two capacities. First, he speaks as a common low class citizen devoted in the industry for survival, as a formal leader. Debs recalls his poor childhood in his speech as well as his poor and hard living conditions. Second, establishes that several others are in America are enduring the same life as he did, especially the men in factories, mills and mines; the women working out their barren lives, and children robbed of their childhood into forced labor.
His appeal to pathos is several people are emotionally and physically struggling and working in industries without tangible rewards, which he explains brings the need for socialism. It is not through the works of nature or Almighty that several million people are born, raised and even die in poverty and deplorable conditions in America. According to him, the social system is too mean to serve majority of its peopled.
The statement of the court presents a problem/solution structure where the author explains the cause of the problems and tries to find a solution to those same problems. The people of America can find a solution to their problems if they adopt a new social system. In conclusion, the author presents a resolution to the government that the people of America are watching and feeling the effects and with time, in spite of the challenges of opposition and persecution, they will rise, ascend into power and finally inaugurate the greatest social and economic change of all timed. He pleads for no mercy or immunity but remains optimistic that even if he faces imprisonment, the people are rising up for freedom and social justice and that they will and must take wake belongs to them. He equates his suffering to the mariner sailing over tropic seas during the night. Even if the tidings are strong, there is hope that the night is ending and good things are coming with the morning.
Works Cited
Debs, Eugene. Statement of the Court . Cleveland Ohio: American Rhetoric, Delivered 14/18 September 1918.
Dijk, Van. Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction. New York: Sage, 2011.
Fairclough, Norman, Jane Mulderrig and Ruth Wodak. Critical discourse analysis. New York: Sage, 2011.
Koskela, Lauri Jaakko and Ballard Glenn . The two pillars of design theory: Method of analysis and rhetoric. New York: The Design Society, 2013.
