Debs, Eugene Victor
While in prison, Debs read widely, including socialist works, and he later became a Socialist. In 1898, he helped form the Social Democratic party (renamed the Socialist party in 1901; again renamed Social Democratic in 1972) and was its presidential candidate in 1900, with 96,000 votes nationally, and in 1904, with 402,000 votes. He became editor of the Socialist weekly Appeal to Reason and lectured widely. After 1900, he grew more bitter in his attacks on trade unionism and more vehement in advocating the organization of labor by industries. He helped to found (1905) the Industrial Workers of the World, but soon withdrew from the movement. Debs was again the Socialist candidate for president in 1908 and 1912.
During World War I, the Socialist party refused to take part in the government war effort and in 1918 Debs, a leading pacifist, was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for publicly denouncing the government's prosecution of persons charged with sedition under the Espionage Act of 1917. Although still in a federal penitentiary, he was Socialist candidate for President in 1920 and gathered nearly 920,000 votes. He was released (1921) by order of President Harding. But his health was broken, and he accomplished little in his last years, although he was widely revered as a martyr for his principles.
See selected works ed. by T. Davenport and D. Walters (2 vol., 2019–); studies by H. W. Morgan (1962, repr. 1973), H. W. Currie (1976), N. Salvatore (1982), A. M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed. (1989), M. Young (ed. by C. Ruas, 1999), and E. Freeberg (2008); N. Van Sciver et al., Eugene V. Debs: A Graphic Biography (2019).
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