under ordinary circumstances--to go right on along
the road and ignore the difficulties that were ahead. He was an old man,
broken in health, facing, without flinching, without budging an eyelid,
a possibility of twenty years in jail.

I remember leaving the Hotel that afternoon and walking down to the
station and saying to myself: "If that man can behave as he does, there
is surely no excuse for us younger chaps," and I felt then as I have
felt ever since that I never in my life came in contact with so radiant
a spirit as I did that afternoon when Debs was getting ready to take his
place in the Federal Court and receive a penitentiary sentence.

4. DEBS ADDRESSES THE JURY

When the prosecution had finished with its case, the defense rested, and
Debs addressed the jury in his own behalf. In that speech to the jury he
said again the things that he had said at Canton, and then he added
other things that a jury of old men, who had never heard about
Socialism, should know about the purposes of the Socialist movement.
Here are some of the more important passages as taken from the records
of the court stenographer:

"May it please the Court, and Gentlemen of the Jury:

"For the first time in my life I appear before a jury in a court of law
to answer to an indictment for crime. I am not a lawyer. I know little
about court procedure, about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I
know only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought against
me, that the Court is to instruct you in the law, and that you are then
to determine by your verdict whether I shall be branded with criminal
guilt and be consigned, perhaps to the end of my life, in a felon's
cell.

"Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour of accusation, nor do
I shrink from the consequences of my utterances or my acts. Standing
before you, charged as I am with crime, I can look the Court in the
face, I can look you in the face, I can look the world in the face, for
in my conscience, in my soul, there is festering no accusation of guilt.

"Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June
16th, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant
these charges. I admit having delivered the speech. I admit the accuracy
of the speech in all of its main features as reported in this
proceeding. There were two distinct reports. They vary somewhat, but
they are agreed upon all of the material statements embodied in that