# Eugene V. Debs **Eugene Victor Debs** (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was the railroad union leader who led the 1894 Pullman boycott, became the country's best-known socialist, ran for president five times, and was sent to federal prison for an antiwar speech. His career runs through three KB mechanisms: the strikebreaking injunction ([[In re Debs]]), wartime prosecution of dissent under the [[Espionage Act]], and the first [[Red Scare]]. ## The American Railway Union and Pullman A Terre Haute, Indiana railroad unionist, Debs founded the American Railway Union in 1893 and became its president; it organized railroad workers across crafts rather than one craft at a time. In 1894 the ARU refused to handle Pullman cars in support of striking Pullman workers, and the boycott spread nationwide ([[Pullman Strike]]). On July 2, 1894 a federal court enjoined Debs and the ARU leadership, reasoning that the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]] reached labor combinations; [[Grover Cleveland]] sent federal troops. Debs was held in contempt and served six months in the Woodstock, Illinois jail. The Supreme Court upheld the injunction unanimously in 1895 on broader grounds of inherent federal power over commerce and the mails. Debs came out a socialist. The strike also produced the federal [[Labor Day]] holiday, passed while it was under way. ## Five presidential runs | Year | Ticket | Votes | Share | |---|---|---|---| | 1900 | Social Democratic Party | 87,945 | 0.6% | | 1904 | Socialist Party of America | 402,810 | 3.0% | | 1908 | Socialist Party of America | 420,852 | 2.8% | | 1912 | Socialist Party of America | 901,551 | 6.0% | | 1920 | Socialist Party of America, from prison | 913,693–914,191 (sources differ) | 3.4% | The [[1912 Presidential Election]] was the high-water mark: 6.0% in a four-way race, the largest share any socialist has won for president, at the [[Socialist Party of America]]'s membership peak of about 113,000. Debs was also a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World in Chicago in 1905. ## The Canton speech and prison On June 16, 1918, in Canton, Ohio, Debs gave a speech against [[World War I]] and in praise of jailed draft resisters. He was arrested on June 30, convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917 as amended by the 1918 Sedition Act, and sentenced to ten years. At trial he told the jury, "I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war." At sentencing he said: "While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." In [[Debs v. United States]] (March 10, 1919), a unanimous Court led by [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr]] upheld the conviction, calling the case essentially the same as Schenck v. United States, decided a week earlier. Debs ran in 1920 as federal prisoner No. 9653 in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and won about 3.4% of the vote. [[Warren G. Harding]] commuted his sentence on December 23, 1921, effective Christmas Day, and received him at the White House. He died in 1926. ## Why it matters to the KB Debs is the clearest case of the federal government imprisoning a nationally known presidential candidate for a political speech, and the Court upheld it unanimously. The Espionage Act that convicted him remains in force and in use. ## See Also - [[Pullman Strike]] · [[In re Debs]] · [[Labor Day]] · [[Labor Movement]] · [[Socialism]] · [[Socialist Party of America]] - [[Espionage Act]] · [[Espionage Act of 1917]] · [[Debs v. United States]] · [[Red Scare]] · [[World War I]] - [[Woodrow Wilson]] · [[Warren G. Harding]] · [[Grover Cleveland]] · [[1912 Presidential Election]] · [[1920 Presidential Election]]