He ran as the Socialist Party's candidate for the presidency in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920, the last time from a prison cell.ĭebs was noted for his oratory, and his speech denouncing American participation in World War I led to his second arrest in 1918. Upon his release, he launched his career as the nation's most prominent Socialist in the first decades of the 20th century. In prison, Debs read the works of Karl Kautsky, a chief expositor of Karl Marx, and learned about socialism. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. To keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. He called a boycott of the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars, in what became the nationwide Pullman Strike, affecting most lines west of Detroit, and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. After workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company organized a wildcat strike over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. After working with several smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the nation's first industrial unions. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. Through his presidential candidacies, as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.Įarly in his political career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party. Eugene Victor ' Gene' Debs (Novem– October 20, 1926) was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies), and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.

Eugene v debs speaks