Eugene V. Debs

Eugene V. Debs was born on November 5, 1855, in Terre Haute, IndianaIndianaIndiana is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. It was admitted to the Union on December 11, 1816, as the 19th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,785,528.Open the full entry, to French immigrant parents. He attended the Terre Haute public schools, left high school at 14 to work as a painter in the railroad yards, became a locomotive fireman in 1870 and took night classes at a local business college.⁠[1][2][3]

In September 1874, at his mother’s urging, he gave up firing to become a billing clerk at the wholesale grocers Hulman & Cox. On February 27, 1875, he became a charter member and secretary of the Vigo Lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and that year he became president of the Occidental Literary Club, which brought speakers such as Robert Ingersoll and Susan B. Anthony to Terre Haute.⁠[1]

In 1878 he became assistant editor of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine, and in 1880 he was elected the union’s national secretary and treasurer and editor of its magazine.⁠[1][3]

In 1879 he was elected city clerk of Terre Haute as a Democrat, serving two terms through 1883. In 1884 he was elected to the Indiana General Assembly as a Democrat and served in 1885.⁠[1][3]

In 1891 he announced his retirement as national secretary of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, though a convention in 1892 persuaded him to stay on as editor of its magazine. In 1893 he left the brotherhood and in June of that year organized the American Railway Union in Chicago, becoming its president. The union brought railway workers of different crafts together in one industrial union, which the Debs Foundation describes as the first in the United States.⁠[1][2][3]

In April 1894 the American Railway Union struck the Great Northern Railway for higher wages; after 18 days the railway granted the union’s demands.⁠[1][3]

On May 11, 1894, the Pullman boycott and strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company began in Chicago, and he led the strike. On July 23, 1894, he and other leaders of the American Railway Union were jailed. Clarence DarrowClarence DarrowClarence Darrow (1857–1938) was an American lawyer, public speaker and writer who practiced for nearly six decades and took on labor and criminal cases including the Pullman Strike prosecutions, the Leopold and Loeb case, the Scopes trial and the Sweet trials.Open the full entry defended them on the federal contempt charge, but they were convicted, and the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the decision.⁠[1][3][4]

He was sentenced to six months in jail and served the term from May to November 1895 at Woodstock, IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry, where he read widely, including the works of Karl Marx, and grew critical of capitalism. On November 22, 1895, after leaving the Woodstock jail, he received a large welcome in Chicago.⁠[3][2][1]

In 1896 he campaigned for William Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) was an American politician and orator who represented Nebraska in the U.S. House, won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896, 1900 and 1908 but lost each election, served as U.S. Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915, and was a prosecutor in the 1925 Scopes trial.Open the full entry, the Democratic-Populist presidential candidate. In 1897 he announced his conversion to socialism. In 1900 he made his first run for president as the standard-bearer of the newly formed Social Democratic Party, a precursor of the Socialist Party of America, and received about 96,000 votes.⁠[3][2]

He ran for president as the Socialist Party candidate in 1904, 1908 and 1912. In 1904 he received about 400,000 votes; in 1908 his campaign toured on the “Red Special” train; and in 1912 he won 900,370 popular votes, or 6.0%, and no electoral votes.⁠[2][3][1][5]

In 1905 he was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, breaking with it in 1908. From 1907 to 1912 he was associate editor of the Appeal to Reason in Girard, KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry, at $100 a week. In 1916 he declined the Socialist Party’s presidential nomination and instead ran for Congress in his Terre Haute district on the Socialist ticket, losing the race.⁠[2][1][3]

On June 16, 1918, he gave a speech in Canton, OhioOhioOhio is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital is Columbus. It joined the Union in 1803 as the 17th state, the first carved from the Northwest Territory, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 11,799,448.Open the full entry, opposing U.S. involvement in World War I; he was then arrested and tried in federal court in Cleveland under the Espionage Act of 1917. Acting as his own attorney, he was convicted and, at 63, sentenced to ten years in federal prison.⁠[2][1]

On March 10, 1919, in Debs v. United States (249 U.S. 211), the Supreme Court of the United States, in an opinion by Justice Holmes, affirmed the judgment, sustaining the verdict on the fourth count, which charged obstruction of the federal recruiting and enlistment service. On April 12, 1919, he began serving his sentence at the state prison in Moundsville, West VirginiaWest VirginiaWest Virginia is a U.S. state formed from the western counties of Virginia during the Civil War; its capital and largest city is Charleston. It became the 35th state on June 20, 1863. Its population was 1,793,716 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, and about two months later he was transferred to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.⁠[6][1]

In 1920, while imprisoned at the Atlanta federal penitentiary, he ran for president for the fifth time as the Socialist Party candidate and received about 915,000 votes, about 3.5% of the total and his highest vote count; the Republican candidate Warren G. Harding won the election.⁠[3][2][1]

On December 25, 1921, President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence to time served, and he was released. On December 28, 1921, he returned to Terre Haute to a large welcome.⁠[2][1]

After his release he continued to speak and publish for the Socialist Party and related causes, including the campaign to free Sacco and Vanzetti.⁠[2]

In 1926 he entered the Lindlahr Sanitarium near Chicago, and he died there, in Elmhurst, Illinois, on October 20, 1926, at the age of 70. His body lay in state at the Central Labor Temple in Terre Haute, and Norman Thomas conducted the funeral from the front porch of his home. He was cremated and his ashes were interred under a simple marker at Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute; his wife, Kate, was buried beside him about ten years later. His book Walls and Bars was published posthumously in 1927.⁠[1][2][3]

He married Kate Metzel on June 9, 1885; they had no children. In 1890 he built his home at 451 North Eighth Street in Terre Haute, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and is now the Debs Museum. In 1992 the Indiana Historical Bureau and the Eugene V. Debs Foundation erected a state historical marker there.⁠[1][7]

Eugene V. Debs Foundation: Official website: https://debsfoundation.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]