Who was Eugene V. Debs?
Eugene V. Debs was born in 1855 in Terre Haute, Indiana, and started out working on the railroads. In 1893 he formed the American Railway Union, which signed up workers from every trade in the industry. He led the 1894 Pullman boycott and spent six months in jail for defying a court order. In prison he turned to socialism. He helped launch the Socialist Party of America in 1901 and was its candidate for president in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920. His best result came in 1912, when he took about 6 percent of the vote. A speech against the war in 1918 led to a conviction under the Sedition Act.
Political views
- He wanted the main industries owned and run by the working people for everyone's benefit, not by private owners competing for profit.Source: marxists.org
- He pushed industrial unions that brought every worker in an industry into one body, not separate craft unions. He also helped found the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- In his 1918 speech in Canton, Ohio, he said that the ruling class starts wars and working people fight and die in them.Source: marxists.org
- He spoke out against racism, including inside the socialist movement, and saw the fight of Black workers as part of the wider class struggle.Source: marxists.org
- In 1910 he opposed a Socialist Party move to keep some immigrants out. He called it unsocialist and said the oppressed had a right to come.Source: marxists.org
- He ran for president in 1920 from a federal prison cell and still won over 900,000 votes.Source: en.wikipedia.org
Legacy
Debs is still a hero to many socialists, union members and free speech campaigners. They admire his work for industrial workers, his stand against war and his readiness to go to jail for his beliefs. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction, and the case is still cited in arguments over speech in wartime. President Harding cut his sentence short in 1921. Critics in his own day, including business leaders and political rivals, saw his attacks on the draft as illegal interference with the war effort and his plan for public ownership as a danger to property and growth. He never won more than about 6 percent of the national vote.
In their own words
“While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”