![]() ![]() It was a battle between the ruling classes of the warring nations, he argued – and in fact, an economic critique of the war, which notes that the U.S. Although many Americans agreed with Debs on the merits, fewer aligned with his socialist critique of entering the war. Early in the war, most of the nation, from conservative isolationists in the Midwest to liberals in the East, wanted to stay out of Europe’s war. When World War I broke out in Europe in August 1914, Debs joined the movement to preserve American neutrality. “Men and women loved Debs even when they hated his doctrine.” Debs had a “profoundly intuitive understanding of the American people,” wrote historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. He shocked the political system by winning 900,000 votes, or 6 percent of the vote, in the 1912 presidential election, more than Ralph Nader in 200 or Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in 2016. Yet Debs presented socialism in ways that appealed to Americans’ cultural and religious values. Theodore Roosevelt called Debs one of the nation’s most “undesirable citizens” and accused him of fomenting “bloodshed, anarchy, and riot.” Debs’ argument that workers should own the products of their labor was too radical for most Americans. ![]() president on Socialist tickets in four straight elections, starting in 1900.Īn inspiring speaker, he drew thousands of fervent supporters to rallies in major cities, while inspiring equally fervent denunciations by mainstream politicians and newspapers. He declared himself a socialist in 1897, helped found the Socialist Party of America in 1901, and ran for U.S. Sentenced to jail for helping to lead the 1894 Pullman railroad strike, he spent six months behind bars educating himself with the works of Karl Marx, among others. After years in the labor movement, he became president of the new American Railway Union in 1893. “From my very boyhood I was made to feel the wrongs of labor,” he wrote in the New York Comrade in 1904: the dangers, uncertainty of work, and scant wages common to working men. Debs’ Canton speech, delivered 100 years ago this week, became the era’s most infamous example of how dissent can become a casualty of war.ĭebs’ journey to that stage in Canton began in 1870, when he left his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana, at age 14 to work in train factories. After the war, Americans debated whether he was a traitor or a martyr for free expression. His trial and incarceration would captivate the tense, conflicted nation. Soon Debs would be in jail for his speech that day. “Debs Invites Arrest,” the Washington Post declared. ![]() May Get Him,” a Chicago Tribune headline announced the next day. And Debs, 62 years old and recovering from illness, had emerged from near-seclusion to rejoin the fight against the war. government, armed with repressive new laws, had jailed anti-war protesters across the country. World War I was nearing its climax, with American soldiers fighting their first major battles, resisting Germany’s all-out drive toward Paris. “If war is right, let it be declared by the people – you, who have your lives to lose.” “The working class have never yet had a voice in declaring war,” Debs declared. Sweat dripped down Debs’ face, and his arms reached over the bandstand’s rail toward the crowd. As Debs spoke, a stenographer hired by a federal prosecutor took frantic notes of the lines that struck him as especially subversive. Justice Department agents sifted through the audience, asking to see men’s draft cards. Nearly bald, he wore a tweed jacket and buttoned vest despite the summer swelter. Eugene Debs had led historic strikes and run for president four times on the Socialist Party ticket, But the renowned orator had never given a speech so risky or consequential as the one he delivered in a Canton, Ohio, park on June 16, 1918.Īs 1,200 people watched, Debs stepped to the front of a wooden bandstand. ![]()
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