This year is also the 100th anniversary of the Socialist Party of America, the party founded by Debs. Eugene Victor. “The Life of Eugene Debs” opens with
“The life of Eugene Victor Debs is so complicated and entwined with the dominant thought and action of his time, and he has so persistently, with conscious purpose, touched and impressed it with primal vigor, integrity and energy as will make a distinct and lasting work, not merely upon the institutions of this country, but upon the future welfare and development of all the peoples of the whole world.
Debs (1855-1926) was one of the greatest and most articulate advocates of workers’ power to have ever lived. During the early years of the labor movement in the
United States, Debs was far ahead of his times, leading the formation of the
American Railway Union (ARU) and the
American Socialist Party.
Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on November 5, 1855. He left home at 14 to work on the railroad and soon became interested in union activity. As president of the American Railway Union, he led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railroad in 1894. Two months later he was jailed for his role in a strike against the Chicago Pullman Palace Car Company. While in jail, Socialist and future Congressman Victor Berger talked with Debs and introduced him to the ideas of Marx and Socialism. When he was released from prison, he announced that he was a Socialist.
He soon formed the Social Democratic Party, which eventually became the Socialist Party in 1901. He became their perennial presidential candidate. He ran on the Socialist ticket in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920 when he received his highest popular vote—about 915,000 (6%)—from within a prison cell. He had been arrested once again, this time for “sedition” because he opposed World War I. Many Socialists were imprisoned during this time because they felt that the war was being fought for the profits of the rich, but with the blood of the poor. Debs was finally released in 1921.
Eugene Victor Debs is quoted for his speech on the creation of an American Labor Party, to help out workers and their needs,
“This does not mean that a labor party shall consist exclusively of workers but it does mean that all who enter its ranks do so with the understanding that it is a labor party, not a middle class party, not a reform party, nor a progressive party (of which the Republican and Democratic parties are shining examples) but an open-and-above-board labor party, standing squarely on a labor platform, and marshalling its forces to fight labor’s political battles for industrial freedom. He reasoned for his recommendation as, “A 'third party' of such a nature would at best align the dwindling 'little interests' against the 'big interests,' seek to patch up and prolong the present corrupt and collapsing capitalist system, and failing utterly to effect any material change or achieve any substantial benefit would finally fizzle out and add one more to the list of 'third party' fiascoes.
His belief in the Labor party would be followed with many virtues, including: Freedom from the “paralyzing putridities of the parties of their silk-hatted, wealth-inflated, job-owning and labor-exploiting masters—a party with a backbone and the courage to stand up without apology and proclaim itself a Labor Party, clean, confident of its own inherent powers, bearing proudly the union label in token of its fundamental conquering principle of industrial and political solidarity, and challenging the whole world of capitalism to contest the right of this nation to own its own industries, to control its own economic and social life, and the right of the toiling and producing masses to own their own jobs, to enjoy the fruits of their own labor, and to be the masters of their own lives.
Eugene V. Debs was involved in the Pullman Strike. In June, 1894, the great Pullman strike was fought and won, but victory was turned into defeat by the Federal administration using the courts and the soldiers to imprison the leaders and crush the strike. The railroad corporations then resolved to annihilate the A. R. U. Debs was indicted for various crimes, the railroad corporations demanding that he be prosecuted for conspiracy, treason, and murder. Many predicted that he would be hanged. He was imprisoned several times and served six months in Woodstock jail for contempt of court. While serving at Woodstock, he was taken daily to Chicago, a distance of 55 miles, under escort of two deputy sheriffs, where he was being tried for conspiracy and other crimes, but when the prosecution learned that Debs and his attorneys were in possession of the secret proceedings of the Railroads’ General Managers’ Association and that they had a number of witnesses to testify as to who had committed the crimes charged to the strikers, the trial was abruptly ended on the plea that a juror had suddenly been taken sick. No effort has ever been made to impanel another jury and so far as the records show, the juror never got better, and the cases ended by evasion and subterfuge on the part of the Railroad Corporations. 36 lawyers live in my neighborhood of about 140, and among those 36 more than a couple work with railroad industries. By all means I am not calling the Railroad Corporations fraudulent in present day.
Debs was kept 18 months in the jurisdiction of the court by postponements and various pretexts, calculated to prevent him from re-organizing the A. R. U., and when finally released, the railroad corporations put detectives on his track and for two years they followed him, and whenever he organized the men they were discharged, as were many who even recognized him or who were suspected of having any sympathy with his work or for him personally. He saw that it was vain and hopeless to reorganize the A. R. U. and that all the influence the corporations could combine were opposing it.
While in Jail he did many things including pondering life, “In prison my life was a busy one and the time for meditation and to give the imagination free reign was when the daily task was over and Night’s sable curtains enveloped the world in darkness, relieved only by the sentinel stars and the Earth’s silver satellite ‘walking in lovely beauty to her midnight throne.’ It was at such times that the reverend stones of the prison walls preached sermons, sometimes rising in grandeur to the Sermon on the Mount. It might be a question in the minds of some if this occasion warrants the indulgence of the fancy. It will be remembered that Aesop taught the world by fables and Christ by parables, but my recollection is that the old stone preachers were as epigrammatic as an unabridged dictionary. I remember one old divine stone who one night selected for his text ‘George M. Pullman,’ and said ‘George is a bad egg; handle him with care. If you crack his shell the odor would depopulate Chicago in an hour.’ All the rest of the stones said ‘Amen’ and the services closed.
Eugene Victor Debs was more than a founder in socialism for the American mind, he was a Christian man who taught his beliefs for the common good. He spent a life of dedication and went through a lot of turmoil for his beliefs that were before their time in America. Even though his beliefs are not a main political body or party nowadays, they still had effects on what people expect and think or believe could happen. Debs was a Marxist, a writer, and a great man.
Sources, used mainly for quotations:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/bio/bio.htm
Life of Eugene V. Debs
http://www.eugenevdebs.com/pages/histry.html
Personal History of Eugene V. Debs