Yes I Am My Brother's Keeper By Eugene Debs

Our morals define who we are and how we live, but more importantly, they dictate how we act. In his speech, “Yes, I am my brother’s Keeper,” Eugene Debs, a socialist from the progressive era, establishes what he believes to be another aspect of human morality: Our morals obligate us to help those facing hardship and those in need. He furthers his claim by stating that he could not enjoy the luxuries he has without giving to those in despair and desperate for aid. His ideas remain sound when referencing those experiencing the urban poverty epidemic of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Good, optimistic people were thrown into an almost inescapable cycle of poverty that, without assistance, easily lead to alcoholism, sickness, and abuse. Only one
issue remains with Debs’ argument, and that is simply due to word choice. As a human, we are not morally obligated to do anything for a fellow “brother.” Instead, we are morally inclined to assist those we connect to and deem worthy, and because of this inclination, we reach out to the less fortunate in order to provide for them the luxuries of life in replacement of their building struggles to simply survive.
Imagine being one of the one of the 9 million arriving from Europe in the early 1900s, fleeing the depression riddled and crippled Europe of the 1890s (“Immigration of the Early 1900s”).
Stepping off the boat, you are optimistic and filled with awe as you stare at the towering skyscrapers, speeding automobiles, and mass crowds of people, and as the fresh new smells of the modern city fill your nostrils, how can you not help but think, this really is the land of opportunities (“City Life”). This is the illusion each immigrant experienced until they too joined the mass of impoverished, and this is the illusion that begins to erode as your awe fades and your optimism ceases to cloud your senses. The smells are not fresh. They are of must and rot. The crowds are massive, but each person is caked in grime and bustling towards the nearest bar. The skyscrapers, well their sights are covered by the rows of apartments connected to each other by laundry lines and the wretched smells that seep from their crevasses. You move into one of these apartments, called tenements, where you live alongside two, three, four, maybe even five families. Unprotected from the elements, your children become sick from the mildew and the cold. Unable to find work, your children starve and are forced to steal. Unable to live, your husband drinks and abuses. Unable to survive, your family slowly dies and your children become orphans
(Blanck).
This was your fate, a cruel one with little chance of escape and little chance to receive help. Put in their shoes, you cannot comprehend the lack of help they received. Yet, some individuals believe that humans have an innate duty to take care of others. They even argue that humans have an obligation to increase the total amount happiness in society based off the notion that we are all morally equal (“Moral Obligation”). If all this were true, you would likely question why so many people did nothing to help those facing this clearly harsh reality? If we truly are “Our Brother’s Keeper,” then how come so little was done for those who lived in such horrendous conditions? The answer is simple but harsh:
Survival does not allow for such duties, duties that jeopardize our own livelihood and restrict our free will (“Moral Obligation”). And yet, despite this, there are some who do feel the selfless desire to help those in need. These types of people are exemplified by those of the Settlement Houses who, without any direction, went out of their way to create a refuge from the struggles of the poor’s daily life and provide an escape from their onerous world. They gave the poor the necessities for survival, recreation for enjoyment, and outlets for betterment (Addams). No obligation existed for them, only a drive governed by free will and guided by their moral compasses that impelled them to assist (“Moral Obligation”). What makes this so complex to understand is the inquiry: If no obligation exists, why does anybody help anyone?
The key to this answer is the individual.
Unique beliefs, morals, and backgrounds dictate why one helps, how much one helps, and who one deems worthy of their help. Will a person who witnessed abuse when they were a child be more likely to help the abuser or the child covered in bruises? On the other hand, would someone who was previously an alcoholic be more likely to reach out to the drunken abuser than the person who was once abused? Both of these cases demonstrate that despite the differences of individuals, the inclination to help those in need derives from some sort of emotional connection of an individual to a person in need. Often this connection occurs out of empathy, as the individual can relate to the hardship of the individual in despair. Other times this connection is derived from the sympathy of the individual and the pity one feels when he or she observes a person’s hardships, exactly what prompted progressives to become reformers. Empathy, sympathy, and pity all reveal how emotions have the power to create this false sense of obligation. They evoke this need for action by constructing the thought of I should which many times transforms into I must. The “Moral Debate” summarizes this phenomenon when the individual states, “Essentially, if one understands another and their pain, a moral obligation is thus created.” Later, the individual adds, “Some could create a meaning or create an understanding that compels them to assist
another.”
This compulsion is what Debs misinterpreted as obligation, as he felt this desire to aid, which turned to a need to aid, which finally turned into an obligation to aid. His background as a once impoverished individual, his beliefs as a socialist, and his compassionate morals governed his outcry that we have a duty to help those in need. Emotions drove him to help those facing adversity, just like emotions lead all other types of progressives to acquire this sense of duty to repair society’s faults and ills. From women suffragists to temperance workers to union lobbyist to black rights advocates, each reformer was intrinsically motivated to work for change due to the connection with and emotions elicited by those they deemed in need of change. And like Debs and the reformers of this era establish, mankind’s compunction, not obligation, to help others derives from these same origins: emotion and connection.