The Selected Works of Eugene V. Debs, Vol. III The Path to a Socialist Party, 1897–1904

The Selected Works of Eugene V. Debs #3

by Eugene V. Debs (Editor)

Eugene V. Debs exploded upon the national scene in 1894 as the leader of a sensational strike by his American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Parlor Car Company―a job stoppage which paralyzed the country's transportation network for nearly two weeks. On January 1, 1897, the polarizing public figure Debs declared his allegiance to international socialism, emerging as the most widely recognized socialist in America. He would thereafter tour the country relentlessly, speaking to large audiences and writing hundreds of articles on political and economic themes over the ensuing three decades. Debs almost singlehandedly established a new political party, the Social Democracy of America, in the summer of 1897, building upon the remnants of the depleted ARU. The organization advanced a double agenda, seeking to promote both electoral politics and the construction of socialist colonies on the frontier―a dual focus which led to internal tensions and a bitter split. In 1898 Debs cast his lot with Milwaukee publisher Victor L. Berger in a new organization dedicated to political action, the Social Democratic Party of America. After a split of the older and larger Socialist Labor Party of America in 1899, protracted unity discussions between the Debs group and an organized body of former SLP dissidents ensued. This unity effort was marked by Debs's first run for president of the United States on a joint Social Democratic ticket in November 1900. After heated on-again off-again negotiation between the two groups, a marriage was finally brokered in the summer of 1901 and the Socialist Party of America was launched. The party would soon grow to become the third biggest in American politics, with Debs enthusiastically heading the Socialist ticket in 1904 in the second of his five runs for the presidency.

700 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2020

About the author

Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, a founding member of the International Labor Union & the Industrial Workers of the World, as well as candidate for President as a member of the Social Democratic Party in 1900.

In 1855, labor leader, reformer and socialist Eugene V. Debs was born in Terre Haute, Ind. He was not baptized by his formerly Catholic mother. The family living room contained busts of Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. When a teacher gave Debs a bible as an academic award, inscribing it, "Read and obey," Debs later called, "I never did either." (New York Call interviews with David Karsner). He dropped out of high school at age 14 to work. By 1870 he had become a fireman on the railroad, attending evening classes at a business college. His labor activism began in 1875. As president of the Occidental Literary Club of Terre Haute, Debs brought "the Great Agnostic" Col. Robert Ingersoll, whom he always revered despite political differences, Susan B. Anthony and other famous speakers to town. He was elected state representative to the Indiana General Assembly as a Democrat in 1884, while continuing his labor activities. As editor of the Locomotive Firemen's journal for many years, Debs routinely attacked the church, promoted women's and racial equality, and promoted justice for the poor. "If I were hungry and friendless today, I would rather take my chances with a saloon-keeper than with the average preacher," Debs once said (cited in Eugene V. Debs: A Man Unafraid, 1930, by McAlister Coleman). He saved his strongest denunciations for the Roman Catholic Church, for being an anti-democratic, anti-family, authoritarian "political machine."

In June 1893, Debs organized the first industrial union in the United States, the American Railway Union in Chicago, which held a successful 18-day strike against Great Northern Railway the next year. Debs and leaders of the union were arrested during the Pullman Boycott and Strike of 1894, and were sent to jail for contempt of court for 6 months in 1895. An inspired campaigner, Debs ran for president as a candidate of the Socialist Party in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920, employing the "Red Special" train to visit America during his 1908 campaign. The irreligious Debs was beloved by many. He was associate editor from 1907-1912 of the Appeal to Reason, a popular weekly published by freethinker E. Haldeman-Julius in Girard, Kansas. In 1918, Debs delivered his famed anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, in protest of WWI, and was arrested and convicted in federal court under the wartime espionage law. His appeals to the jury and to the court before sentencing went into legal history. Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison and was disenfranchised for life, losing citizenship. While in prison, he was nominated to run for president and conducted his last campaign, winning nearly a million votes. His opponent, Warren G. Harding, commuted Debs' sentence and released him on Dec. 25, 1921. Debs was welcomed by 1,000 fellow Terre Hauteans upon his return. His health broken by his imprisonment, he died at a sanitarium. The Terre Haute home he built with his wife in 1890 is today a National Historic Landmark of the National Parks Department and a museum. D. 1926.

More: http://debsfoundation.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://www.biography.com/people/eugen...

http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/p...

http://www.ushistory.org/us/37e.asp

http://www.history.com/topics/eugene-...