Eugene V. Debs

Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American labor and political leader and five-time Socialist Party candidate for President of the United States.

Return to Prison

On June 16, 1918 Debs made an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I, and was arrested under the

Related Topics:
June 16 - 1918 - Canton, Ohio - World War I - Espionage Act of 1917 - Sedition Act of 1918

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Debs made his best-remembered statement at his sentencing hearing:

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:Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

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Debs appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. In its ruling on Debs v. United States, the Court examined several statements Debs had made regarding WWI. While Debs had carefully guarded his speeches in an attempt to comply with the Espionage Act, the Court found he still had the intention and effect of obstructing the draft and recruitment for the war. Among other things, the Court cited Debs's praise for those imprisoned for obstructing the draft. Sadly (for his own posterity), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in his opinion that little attention was needed since Debs' case was essentially the same as that of Schenck v. United States, where the Court upheld a similar conviction.

Related Topics:
Supreme Court - Debs v. United States - WWI - Oliver Wendell Holmes - Schenck v. United States

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He went to prison on April 13, 1919. While in prison in Atlanta, Georgia, he ran for president in the 1920 election. He received 913,664 votes (3.4%), the most ever for a Socialist Party presidential candidate in the U.S. and slightly more than he had won in 1912, when he obtained six percent of the vote. This stint in prison also inspired Debs to write a column deeply critical of the prison system, which appeared in sanitized form in the Bell Syndicate and was collected into his only book, Walls and Bars, with several added chapters (published posthumously).

Related Topics:
April 13 - 1919 - Atlanta, Georgia - 1912

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On December 25, 1921, President Warren G. Harding released Debs from prison, commuting his sentence to time served. Debs, however, never recovered his health from that time in prison and died 5 years later at the age of 70 in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Related Topics:
December 25 - 1921 - Warren G. Harding - Elmhurst, Illinois

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In 1976 Debs's citizenship was restored posthumously.

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