Outspoken
Socialist firebrand, political activist and labour organiser Eugene
Victor Debs was born on November 5, 1855, in Terre Haute,
Indiana, to Marguerite Bettrich and Jean Daniel Debs, two immigrants
from Alsace, France. They came to the U.S. in 1849 and worked in the grocery business.
At the age of14. Eugene dropped out of High school and took a job as
a paint scraper at Vandalia Railroad, where he earned just $.50 a day.
He soon moved up to become a railroad fireman, shoveling piles of coal
into the locomotive’s firebox for more than $1 each night . This was at a time when workers toiled for 16 hours a day, six days a week.
In the waning
years of the 20th century Debs emerged as a working class leader, a hero
of the railroad workers of the U.S and Canada. After working for the
railroad, Debs went
on to lead the Fireman's union, and assist in the organising of other rail
unions and ultimately organise the nations first industrial union - the
American Railway Union ( ART).
By the turn of the 20th century, Debs
became the leader of the Socialist party, and from there went on to
assist in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
aka the Wobblies, helping to pioneer a fighting union politics that
organized all workers, regardless of skill, craft, or occupation, with Debs becoming the beloved figurehead of American
radicalism. Debs story is the story of labor battles in industrialising
America, of a working class politics grown directly of the Midwestern
heartland, and of a distinct American vision of Socialism.
The wobbly
motto is ' An injury to all is an injury to all.' They were noted for their use of poetry and song to promote their
radical ideas, publicise strikes and other protests and generally
present the case that still holds up today,
that there can be no solution to industrial warfare, no end
to injustice and want, until the profit system itself is
abolished.In striving to unite labor as a class in one big union.
The
IWW also seeks to build the structure of a new and better
social order within the shell of the old system which fails
to provide for the needs of all.Combined with a commitment to
workers solidarity which they have a rich history off, along with their
militant tactics.
The wobblies are still going strong , still organising, still
resisting.In these divided times,of economic despair, they continue to
be a strong radical voice that stands defiantly, on
behalf of the people, following an old tradition of solidarity that does
not seperate along lines of nationality, race or gender, speaking too
to the unemployed, the sick, and the marginalised spreading messages
of hope among the carnage that is currently being unveiled.
In
1875 Debs was elected secretary of the Terre Haute lodge of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. His intelligence and commitment,
coupled with his conservative outlook (he argued against participation
in the nationwide railroad strikes of 1877), attracted the attention of
the brotherhood’s leaders. By 1881, he was national secretary of the
brotherhood, increasingly its spokesman on labor issues, and its most
tireless organizer. Simultaneously, Debs entered politics as a
Democratic candidate for city clerk in 1879 when only 23. First elected over
Republican and Greenback-Labor party candidates, Debs was overwhelmingly
reelected in 1881. Four years later, he was elected to the Indiana
State Assembly with broad support from the wards of Terre Haute’s
workers and businessmen. Debs organized the American Railway Union, which waged a
strike against the Pullman Company of Chicago in 1894
During the 1880s Debs’s ideas began to change. At first a firm proponent
of organization of workers by their separate crafts, he resisted the
industrial organization implicit in the efforts of the Knights of Labor
and ordered his members to report to work during the Knights’ 1885
strike against the southwestern railroads. But his year-long involvement
(1888-1889) in the strike against the Chicago,
Burlington, and Quincy Railroad altered these views. He now thought
craft organization divisive, a hindrance to working people’s efforts to
secure fair wages and working conditions. And concentrated corporate
power, he argued, had a debilitating effect on the political rights and
economic opportunity of the majority of Americans. By 1893 he had
resigned his position as secretary of the brotherhood and begun
organizing an industrial union of railroad workers, the American Railway
Union (aru).
The 1894 strike
against the Pullman Company of Chicago marked a
second turning point in Debs’s thinking. Pullman Palace Car Company,
was the largest railway car company in the United States at the time,
George Pullman the owner had a business plan that was, if nothing else,
creative. He
built a company town around his factory in Illinois, named it after
himself and made it a requirement that the workers live there (and pay
rent to their employer, guess who?). Some historians have said of the
town of Pullman (now a suburb of Chicago), that it was "a version of the
Indian reservation system.
The ARU, even before its first convention, was besieged with reports
from Pullman as to the unfairnesses of the company towards its employees
including a unilateral; 25% cut in wages in 1893, while all of the
world reeled from a great economic depression. This, in spite of a
discreet increase in the annual dividend payment Pullman sent to his
stockholders.
The
workers at Pullman contacted the ARU and Debs paid the town a visit.
With Debs in command, the ARU agreed with the suggestion made by Pullman
workers, and called for a boycott of all trains in America pulling
Pullman cars. It was a risky move but the ARU fell behind its new
members from Pullman. Train traffic in and out of Chicago collapsed almost immediately. The
press, owned by smaller tycoons, came out in Pullman's side calling
Debs a "dictator" and "King Debs". The New York Times called Debs "an enemy of the human race".
The cover of the popular magazine, Harper's Weekly had an image of Debs
sitting on an idle Chicago railway yard, wearing a crown.
Railroad owners hired security firms to break the strike and violence
broke out. US President Grover Cleveland sent in the federal militia,
railway cars were set on fire and inevitably, gun fire broke out. The
courts helped out in issuing an injunction on this basis:
"… (that) the interstate transportation of persons and property, as
well as the carriage of the mails, is forcibly obstructed, and that a
combination and conspiracy exists to subject the control of such
transportation to the will of the conspirators."
This led to Debs being arrested with other boycott leaders on July
17, 1894, and jailed. This broke the union as Debs later described:
"Once we were taken from the scene of action, and restrained from
sending telegrams or issuing orders or answering questions, then the
minions of the corporations would be put to work..
"Our headquarters were temporarily demoralized and abandoned, and we
could not answer any messages. The men went back to work, and the ranks
were broken, and the strike was broken up, … not by the army, and not by
any other power, but simply and solely by the action of the United
States courts in restraining us from discharging our duties as officers
and representatives of our employees."
Clarence Darrow signed up as Debs' lawyer and argued the case before the Supreme Court
of the United States in March of 1895, to release Debs and his union
brethren from their prison cells. The decision went against the union, with Justice David Josiah Brewer writing:
"A most earnest and eloquent appeal was made to us in eulogy of the
heroic spirit of those who threw up their employment, and gave up their
means of earning a livelihood, not in defence of their own rights, but
in sympathy for and to assist others whom they believed to be wronged.
We yield to none in our admiration of any act of heroism or
self-sacrifice, but we may be permitted to add that it is a lesson which
cannot be learned too soon or too thoroughly that under this government
of and by the people the means of redress of all wrongs are through the
courts and at the ballot-box, and that no wrong, real or fancied,
carries with it legal warrant to invite as a means of redress the
cooperation of a mob, with its accompanying acts of violence."
The
unified power of railroad
management working intimately with federal authorities ultimately broke
the strike but Debs emerged from this experience as an avowed and
committed socialist and dedicated himself to the start-up of a number of
institutions now prominent in the American politics and international
labor law such as Social Democracy of America, the Social Democratic
Party of the United States, the Socialist Party of America and the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Debs questioned the ultimate
ability of trade unions to
combat successfully capital’s economic power and, after the 1896
elections, looked upon socialism as the answer to working people’s
problems.
As an organizer he traveled the nation defending workers in their strikes and industrial
disputes. Although many workers enthusiastically applauded Debs’s
vision, sadly relatively few actually endorsed his political program.
On June 16,1918 Debs made his famous anti-war speech in
Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I which was raging in Europe.
". I am
for that war with heart and soul, and that is thee world-wide war of
the social revolution. In that war I am prepared to fight in any way the
ruling class may make necessary, even to the barricades."
For
this speech he was arrested and convicted in federal court in Cleveland,
Ohio under the war-time espionage law. He was his own attorney and his
appeal to the jury and his statement to the court before sentencing, are
regarded as two of the great classic statements ever made in a court of
law. He was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison.also disenfranchised for life meaning he
could never again vote again in America. At his sentencing he told the
court:
"Your honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no immunity. I realize that
finally the right must prevail. I never more fully comprehended than now
the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon
the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better
day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they
will come into their own."
His conviction was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States
who, again, ruled against him and upheld both the conviction and
sentence.
Debs began serving his sentence in Moundsville, W. Va. State prison and
was transferred to Atlanta, Ga. Federal prison two months later. His
humility and friendliness and his assistance to all won him the respect
and admiration of the most hardened convicts.
Over time, calls went out that Debs be pardoned bringing this remark this from President Woodrow Wilson:
"This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration."
Debs
conducted his
last campaign for president as prisoner 9653 in the Atlanta Federal
Penitentiary and received nearly a million votes, though he had been
stripped of his citizenship. In his five campaigns as the Socialist
Party candidate for president of
the United States, Debs excoriated the economic exploitation of workers,
including the then rampant abuses of child labor, with rare oratorical
skill. He advocated for unions in all major industries and promoted a
vision of socialism as grassroots economic democracy. In a deeply
racist, patriarchal society, he was also staunchly anti-racist and
pro-women’s rights.
Refusing to ask
for or accept special treatment, he was confined to his cell for
fourteen hours a day and was allotted twenty minutes a day in the prison
yard. He wore a rough denim uniform. He ate food barely fit to eat. He
grew gaunt and weak. He became an American folk hero, a principled
advocate of free speech, and even as he grew sicker Convict No. 9653
refused to ask for a pardon.
While he was accustomed to campaigning by train and speaking in front of
thousands, in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Debs was allowed
to give one political statement every week, which was then handed over
to news wires. Supporters did the campaigning for him on the ground,
making posters featuring the slogan “From Atlanta Prison to the White
House, 1920” and campaign buttons
that showed Debs in a prison jumpsuit with the words “For President:
Convict No. 9653” splashed across them. It wasn't so much a campaign as
it was a protest against what many thought was Debs's unconstitutional imprisonment.
On
Christmas Day 1921 he was released without a pardon but with a commuted
sentence. He was 66.
But with the war over, President Harding pardoned Debs and invited him to
the White House. “I have heard so damned much about you, Mr. Debs, that I
am now very glad to meet you personally,”Harding said
upon meeting him. Indeed, Debs had left prison almost as a mythic
figure to his followers—50,000 of whom lined up to watch his train pull
in upon his return to Terra Haute.
Though
the meeting with Harding was as close as he ever got to the White
House, Debs proved he didn't need to win an election to make his voice
heard.
Sadly Debs never recovered from his time in prison
and lived most of of what remained of his life in a sanatorium. He
died on October 20, 1926, at the age of 70 in Elmhurst.
Throughout his lifetime Debs was the nation’s most widely known and eloquent
exponent of a socialist alternative to American capitalism. Unlike many
other American and European socialist leaders, Debs sought to avoid
complex and often divisive ideological debates over the pace and purity
of a theoretical socialist revolution and sought instead to connect the
idea of socialized control over the industrial economy to indigenous
American traditions of political democracy, utopian individualism, and
radical reform.
He is
remembered as an opponent to big corporations and World War One.
American socialists, communists, and anarchists honor his compassion for
the labor movement and motivation to have the average workingman build
socialism without large state involvement. He motivated the left in
America and continues to this day. In the legacy of Eugene Debs there is much more than a speech here, a
prison term there, and nor did he push the plow of labor rights by
himself. But on countless occasions he said what had to be said, urged
on his nervous union leaderships to do what was right in spite of the
overwhelming force and might of the wealthy in America of his
generation. In this, he always put himself on front lines and paid the
prices that were collateral to his duties as a social justice crusader:
jail, fines, ridicule in the press, but also the heavy personal cost of
not just those personal injuries but also of being necessarily loud and
alone at the front of a still unawares and very suspicious population
as slowly, the American citizen became aware of the importance of unions
and of worker rights.
Ten years after his death later his beloved wife, Kate, was buried beside him.
Debs was cremated and his ashes were interred in Highland Lawn cemetery,
Terre Haute, with only a simple marker. Today, his home in Terre Haute, Indiana has the designation of a
National Historic Landmark, and a website http://debsfoundation.org/ dedicated
to him Debs citizenship was finally restored in 1976, fifty years after
his death and in 1990, the U.S. Department of Labor named Debs a member
of its Labor Hall of Honor.
As a socialist, Debs denounced as irrational and unjust a capitalist
system that created extravagant wealth for a few at the top, while
millions of ordinary working people struggled to get by. Most important,
he thought it was possible to build a new, cooperative society, to
transcend the irrationality, waste, and greed of the capitalist economic
system, and to end wage slavery and all forms of social oppression. He
called this socialism.
The life and legacy of Eugene V. Debs stands as a rich and vibrant
testament to one man’s dedication to a liberated future. Indeed, Debs
was an individual for whom solidarity with his fellow humans was in his
blood. who used his voice in defense of the common man, his legacy can best summed up in his own words.:
"Yes, I am my brother's keeper,"
he wrote. "I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not
by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself."
As a principled left-wing socialist, Debs was cut from a different cloth
than most mainstream politicians, then and now. How many career
politicians today would be willing to go to prison for their views and
ideals. In short Debs is a socialist icon that we so need in our present times.
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