Question

Use the excerpt from Eugene Debs's "How I Became a Socialist" to answer the question.

Answer 1

This excerpt shows how Debs has endured and shared the harsh working conditions of laborers (D.).

Many verbal groups indicate his physical involvement in the working people's daily life and how it affected him emotionally:

• "I had ... been stung by the exposure ... of the rail;"
• "I was with the boys ... at the broken engine's side;"
• "helped to bear;"
• "feel the burden."

As for the harsh working conditions, they are described by the following nouns and adjectives:

• "hardship;"
• "weary;"
• "bruised and bleeding bodies;"
• "burden."

We know that they are laborers and not, for example, business owners, because their work is very manual. Besides, the term "working class" appears in the text, as well as "Proletaire" which is borrowed from French and means "belonging to the lower social classes."