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Eugene Victor Debs
After a hard day's work of giving speeches to inform the people of Cleveland, Ohio of the injustices involved with the recruitment of World War I, Debs was visited by a newspaper reported who was interested in his work. Eugene was more than happy to share his vast, well thought out opinions of Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war, and so he gave up a restful evening to speak with the reported in his hotel room. Little did Debs know that once his views were voiced and recorded by the critic, he would end up in jail. Who knew that in a country celebrated for its freedom a man could be locked in a cage for peacefully advertising his ideas to a group of people. The first chance the reporter got, he called upon the District Attorney of Cleveland to hear his recorded beliefs of the war and almost immediately, Eugene Debs was charged for "attempting to cause insubordination, mutiny, disloyalty, and refusal of duty within the military forces of the United States, and the utterance of words intended to procure and incite resistance to the United States, and to promote the cause of the Imperial German Government" (Brommel, 1978, page 152). What could have allowed for such hypocrisy to occur after the adoption of the freedom of speech? Only a law passed by the very same government which is bound to a constitution that they themselves have forced upon the people has the power to change our unstable morals. Eugene Debs is another example on the long list of oppressed victims living in this wonderful country called America.
On November 5, 1855 Marguerite Debs gave birth of Eugene Victor Debs in Terre Haute, Indiana. Eugene's father, Jean Daniel Debs, decided to name his first son after his favorite authors, Eugene Sue and Victor Hugo (Salvatore, 1982, page 3). As a boy, Eugene studied a strict routine of mathematics and literature in school until he was 14 years old when he left education to pursue a career at a local railroad yard crew in 1870. He wasn't striving to become a professional railroad worker; his main goal was simply to help his family with financially complications. Few students actually completed their high school careers in areas like Terre Haute because of the need for money. Eugene only earned fifty cents a day scraping paint and grease off locomotives; in fact he had to work two days before he could afford to buy a scraper (Brommel, 1978, page 19). After two years, he was promoted to the rails where his wage doubled, money which was used to pay for evening classes at a local college. An early sign of Eugene's generosity arouse when he worked as a store clerk for a short period of time, but was discouraged by the owner after allowing many of the customers to use credit; this forced him to re-enter the railroad profession. These early positions gave Eugene his first glimpses of social injustices in the working world, not only difficult conditions for himself, but also the many people he served.
In 1873 Eugene was laid off from the railroads, so he ran off to St. Louis where he observed an even lower economic class than his own. Hundreds of starving families crowded the streets desperately in search of nutrients. For a year, he worked for another railroad company, but returned home after witnessing a friend get brutally crushed by a locomotive. After returning to Terre Haute, he found employment at a warehouse loading and packing orders for customers. Although he had left the railroad profession, he maintained an interest in the workers and continued to attend local train workers' meetings in efforts to improve conditions.
At this point in his life, Debs began to dream of being an public speaker after being introduced to such controversial orators as Robert Ingersoll. In the Occidental Literary Club, which Eugene led and co-founded, he took the opportunity to give speeches, but felt a sense of failure from a meager response of the audience (Brommel, 1978, page 21). While practicing his speaking abilities, Debs was fortunate to meet with other famous orators such as Wendell Phillips and Susan B. Anthony. Becoming more aware of the political, economic, and social issues of the times, he decided to join his first labor union in 1875. In the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen Eugene worked to attain members and spread their causes (Salvatore, 1982, page 20). In 1879, Eugene won an election for the democrat position of Terre Haute City Clerk where he served two terms. At age 25, he accepted the task of editing a new periodical called the Firemen's Magazine which reported on the lives of railroad workers and union members. Determined to go further in politics, Eugene won a seat on the Indiana House of Representatives in 1885, but refused a second term after failing to influence the government as he had hoped. (Brommel, 1978, page 26).
Shortly after his political advancement, Debs married Katherine Metzel who he had met through his sister. In 1886, Eugene Debs was elected national secretary-treasurer and manager of the Firemen's Magazine. He began to hear of problems in labor which opened his eyes to a need for organization to fight corruption. "The number of wage earners in manufacturing increased from 2,750,000 in 1880 to 5,880,000 in 1890. The railway mileage of the United States expanded from 93,239 miles to 163,579 in the decade 1880-1890" (Brommel, 1978, page 27). These dilemmas combined with Eugene's prior experience in politics and the work force are what made Eugene to be the hero he grew to become. When the Progressive Era hit, Eugene hit back; he is surely one of the prime reasons for the better working conditions that people are given today.
The Progressive Era began around 1900 and lasted 16 years. More than anything, it was the introduction of industrialization; farms became less common and big businesses, such as those owned by Rockafeller and Carnegie, dominated the American culture. Hundreds of new inventions and factory methods helped technology grow, but with this advancement came many hardships as well. Working conditions for most citizens became unbearable; people would work brutally long hours for less than a dollar a day, so that they could pay their increasing debt owed to landlords. America had grown to a nation of slaves where one could be seriously injured or even killed while operating a machine, and the family would receive no compensation for their loss. In order to save the working class from these monstrosities, people like Eugene Debs, who held the gift of anger, invoked revolt against the unfair system.
After meeting with delegates of various railroad unions in Chicago, Eugene reasoned that if they were all to combine into a single union, the management would have to follow through with their demands of fall. In 1893, he formed the American Railway Union, receiving $75 a month. From here Debs began touring the nation to use his growing talent of giving speeches; he would speak of the ARU and its efforts to improve working conditions. (Ginger, 1949, page 92). A year after formation, the ARU already performed its first strike against James J Hill and his Great Northern Company. Hill obtained an injunction which forbade the halt of work, but it was repealed in an Omaha court hearing. Debs took charge of the strike demanding that wages be increased and freight rates decrease. Finally, after many mills along the railway were forced to close down, James Hill agreed to restore higher wages and the strike ended. With the success of the Great Northern strike, Debs' popularity rose along with the membership in the ARU. Many other unions were influenced to strike and soon the ARU faced a new challenge; one which Debs was uneasy about.
On June 26, 1894, the Pullman strike began against the rich owner of the Palace Car Company, George Pullman. 465 unions and 150,000 employees voted to strike against Pullman's fascist ways (Brommel, 1978, page 35). George had built a village for his employees to live in, but he controlled their lives as well as the community. He bought out the utilities from the city of Chicago and then sold them to his workers for huge profits and even though he had more money than he would ever need, very little would be returned to the hard workers who paid for his king-like class. To persuade workers to strike, Debs actually gave them money to survive on from funds earned by the union as well as out of his own pocket. In Cleveland, mail service had slowed due to violence supposedly brought on by the strikers causing the Federal Court in Chicago to issue an injunction against the ARU. Debs, who had told his men to avoid violence, denied the allegations and continued the strike. Soon, he was thrown in jail for 6 months(Brommel, 1978, page 38). Even though the strike failed, it fed Eugene's anger and gave him yet another example of an injustice to portray during his demonstrations.
In 1895, after being released from prison, Debs continued to tour the nation to speak about the ARU. He felt that a new political party, the People's Party, needed to accomplish what the Republicans and Democrats could not. He strongly desired to amend the horrifying lives of the working class. As Debs says, they are the people "who produce the wealth, but are not permitted to enjoy it" (Brommel, 1978, page 42). He also began reading literature on socialism and while speaking, met several members of the Socialist Labor Party, such as Daniel De Leon who led the party in the 1890's. Eventually, after becoming increasingly interested with Socialism, Debs resigned from the People's Party and became a socialist.
Socialism in America had never been too popular, but there were definitely many supports during Eugene's lifetime. Most socialists supported Debs. The ultimate goal of most socialists is to form a classless commonwealth in which the government takes control over big business to maintain low prices and fair wages for workers, yet small businesses are still run by private ownership (Fried, 1970, page 430). Since there are no classes, there are no greedy, rich people or starving, poor people. Ideally, everyone may live a well balanced life cooperatively.
As a socialist Debs hoped to build a utopia for workers where people could form a colony, build and run factories, and equally distribute wealth to the laborers. He wished to set up a colony in a western state in hopes that if he was successful with a small group, many other socialist workers could migrate to and take over the state forming their own government with a new constitution (Salvatore, 1982, page 163). Debs would use a famous quote by Henry David Thoreau in his speeches: "That government is best which governs least." (Brommel, 1978, page 47). The group that met to discuss the utopia became known as the Social Democracy of America and Debs was elected chairman. In order to gain members, all the people who made up the ARU were simply transferred to this new organization. Eugene continued to tour the nation to earn money for the colony. Women, he said, would be politically equal in the colony (Ginger, 1949, page 224). Slowly, the colony idea seemed less and less possible and Debs began to shift his energy towards union organizing. However, before he gave up hope with the colony, land was found in Washington State and money was quickly raised to support the 400 families who would be sent to two separate colonies. Still, after careful consideration, Eugene realized that if he were to concentrate only on the colonies, he wouldn't have the time or energy to fulfill his dream of spreading socialism throughout the entire nation. Thus, he resigned from the Social Democracy of America to spend his time with the Social Democratic Political Party which later united with other parties to form the Socialist Party of America (Fried, 1970, page 386). While touring the nation with his political speeches for the Socialist Party, Eugene was nominated to run for president in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912. He never won, but in his forth election, he received over 900,000 votes while running against Theodore Roosevelt (Salvatore, 1982, page 264). In 1916, Debs declined another presidential nomination because his thoughts had been occupied by the threat of World War I. Instead, he edited a magazine called Rip-Saw to publish anti-war articles. Also, to put out a stronger message, he decided to run for Congress, but lost to a Republican candidate. So Debs began speaking out against the war on his own including powerful remarks against Woodrow Wilson. He objected to the fact that the government would declare the war, but the people would have to fight.
When war was finally declared, Eugene urged workers not to purchase war bonds or support the war in any way. He hoped they would use their freedom of speech to spread his ideas on how closely capitalism and war were related. In 1917, to avoid Eugene's and others' discouragement of the war, the United States Legislature passed the Espionage Act which forbade the interference with the recruitment or loyalty of the armed forces. During the next few years, about 1500 trials and prison sentences were given out for disobeying this unjust act, and Eugene received one them (Brommel, 1978, page 149). Debs would speak out on how the working class would kill or be killed, but has no say in declaring the war or making peace. After accusing the government of making slaves out of the working class, he was visited by the reporter who was responsible for Eugene's 10 year imprisonment sentence for defying the Espionage Act.
Debs' trail was held in Cleveland on September 9, 1918 with supporters and spectators packing the courtroom (Ginger, 1949, page 362). The government lawyers were determined to prove that Debs had spoke out against the draft; young men who were present at his speeches were used to testify. Eugene, however, had no one on his defense. He was forced to use his own speaking abilities to prove the Espionage Act to be unconstitutional according to the first amendment. His efforts at justice failed and Debs was sent to prison on April 13, 1919 (7 months after the end of WWI).
Even though Eugene was behind bars, the Socialist Party clearly felt that he was the perfect presidential candidate. On May 13, 1920, for the fifth time, the socialists nominated Eugene Debs, Convict 9653, for president (Brommel, 1978, page 157). In order to campaign, Debs was allowed to write a weekly newsletter of 500 words to be published and sent to his supporters. Debs wished he could have spoken to the workers personally, for he knew he would lose the election. He did manage to receive 919,302 votes which is an incredible amount for a socialist in prison (Brommel, 1978, page 158). A little over a year later, after countless requests and complaints by Debs, his brother Theodore, and his supporters, Eugene and 23 political prisoners, put in jail because of the Espionage Act, were released in 1921 (Ginger, 1949, page 413).
Life after prison for Eugene slowed; he would still give occasional speaking tours to earn money to support the Socialist Party, but was not as politically active as in his younger years. Slowly, Debs lost his strength and entered a hospital for extra care during the last months of his life. On October 16, 1926, he went into a coma and died 4 days later. Doctors say he died from chronic myocardites (Brommel, 1978, page 195).
Eugene Victor Debs dedicated numerous hours of his life to help the lives of millions of hard working people. He helped the people to see the government not as a god, but as themselves, the people, who have the power to revolt if they wish. Only a man with the strength that Eugene held could come so close to achieving a dream of national socialism and maintain hard work even when success seemed impossible. Eugene fought against a power that most people fear and would not back down until he made sure the working class life was manageable. Thanks to rebels like Eugene Debs, the labor force today is much stronger and able to live a prosperous life.
Bibliography
Brommel, Bernard J. Eugene V. Debs: Spokesman for Labor and Socialism. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1978.
Fried, Albert, ed. Socialism In America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Ginger, Ray. The Bending Cross. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1949.
May, Ernest R. The Progressive Era. Time Inc., 1964.
Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1982.
