The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs

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Narrator

Christmas 1921, Americans have come through a World War. The gilded age is over, and the middle-class is rising. On this day at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, 66-year-old Eugene Victor Debs, a champion of American working people is going home after serving almost three years of a 10-year sentence. -

Reader

"I felt myself overwhelmed "with pain and saddening and emotions. "The impulse seized me to turn back. "I had no right to leave." -

Narrator

From inside the inmates call his name in a booming farewell heard a half a mile away. This is one place where they can let everyone outside of those walls know how they feel about that man and his perspective on their world. -

Narrator

Debs was no ordinary prisoner, socialist, labor agitated, charismatic speaker. It was Debs' speech against U.S. involvement in World War I that landed him in prison, where he even ran for president from behind bars earning almost a million votes. He believed in the promise of American life.

He believed in the fact that people could do well, and that was the promise of the American Democratic creed. -

Narrator

Debs stood for economic justice and challenged the social order of the Industrial Revolution. He says, "Wait a minute there's a better way. "There's a different way to organize our economy, "to organize our government. "Governments should do more to help the people.

"Our economy is cruel to workers, "and it doesn't need to be that way." (gentle piano music) -

Announcer

"The Revolutionist Eugene V. Debs" was made possible through the generous support of The William Craig and Teneen Dobbs Charitable Foundation, Amalgamated Bank, Amalgamated Life Insurance Company, SMART International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers' Local Union Number 20 Indianapolis, The Michael and Amy Sullivan Family Foundation, and Ullico Incorporated, additional funding was provided by AFL-CIO, Indiana IBEW Construction Conference, and Indiana State Conference of IBEW, James and Lisa Schrader, Laborers International Union of North America State of Indiana District Council, IBEW Local Union 725 Quality Connection of the Greater of Wabash Valley, and by the following. (train whistle blowing) (engine puffing) -

Narrator

Eugene V. Debs lived at a time when the Industrial Revolution was taking hold in the United States. (dramatic music) I think he was part of the spirit of his age. The Civil War was something real to him.

We're done with killing each other. We're done with exploration and going out West. The world is settled. Now let's make it better.

The late 19th century is a period of immense wealth for a few. Men like Rockefeller and Carnegie and others who become very, very wealthy, and they're honored and they're respected. Many Americans think they lifted themselves up by their bootstraps. They deserved their money, and those who didn't make money got what they deserve too.

But at the same time there was no social safety network that we're used to today. Very little regulation of capitalist expansion as it was going on, and so many, many people were extremely vulnerable. The rich not only were getting much richer, but they also were using that power in order to disenfranchise and to essentially control the political system. Increasingly people came to worry that this concentration of wealth was undermining American democracy.

That citizens should be equal regardless of their social status, which was sort of the basis of American democracy. It was no longer true and no longer possible. (upbeat music) -

Narrator

Immigrants, nevertheless, flooded America seeking opportunity. Daniel Debs left his home in Colmar, France in 1851. Marguerite Daisy Debs later joined him, and together they settled in Terre Haute, Indiana, still a frontier town. In this little house Eugene Victor Debs was born in 1855, and named for his parent's favorite French authors, Victor Hugo and Eugene Sue.

Debs was closest to his five siblings, perhaps closest to his younger brother Theodore. The Debs children were not baptized. Eugene's church would always be one without walls, and his home forever Terre Haute. He's born in Terre Haute.

He grows up in that town. He lives in Terre Haute all his life. I think the people of Terre Haute respected, most of them, respected Debs all his days. -

Narrator

By 1870, the railroads push west connecting towns and markets easily seducing young Debs. He quit school to scrape paint from the cars of the Vandalia Railroad for 50 cents a day. I love that photograph. On the left in the front sits this 14-year-old youngster.

We can only imagine what this experience meant for Debs working with men in an adult environment, in an adult job at the age of 14. -

Narrator

Debs spent his first two days wages on a paint scraper, which he kept until he died. Within a year Debs was promoted to fireman when a coworker got too drunk to come to work. Usually the fellows who shovel the coal from the tender to the boiler, and it is nasty work, and Debs is a fireman, doing at a very young age, one of the most dangerous jobs in America. -

Narrator

Young Debs found work in St. Louis during the Depression brought on by speculative railroad investments. But increasingly railroad profits came before safety. Worried, Debs mother begs her son to come home.

At age 19 he returned a changed man. (train engine puffing) -

Reader

"As a locomotive fireman, "I learned of the hardships of the rail "in snow, sleet, and hail, of the ceaseless danger "that lurks along the iron highway, "the uncertainty of employment, scant wages, "and altogether the trying lot of the working man. "So that from my very boyhood, "I was made to feel the wrongs of labor." -

Narrator

Debs took a job as a billing clerk for the Wholesale Grocery firm owned by his father's friend, Herman Hulman, head of one of Terre Haute's leading families. On one hand, we have the person who would go onto become the most prominent anticapitalist in America, really, but especially in Terre Haute. On the other hand, we have the most prominent capitalist family in Terre Haute, but perhaps a sign of Debs' really remarkable ability to reach across different political or social lines and forge friendships in unexpected places. -

Narrator

Debs worked by day, (gentle music) educated himself by night. He became a co-founder of the Occidental Literary Club where he first heard the orations of abolitionist, Wendell Phillips, the agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, and social reformer, Susan B. Anthony. The Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley made regular visits, and became Debs lifelong friend.

Debs continued to work at Hulman's keeping track of everything in the grocery warehouse, and he hated it. So when the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen formed a lodge in Terre Haute, Gene volunteered in his spare time to recruit members. Eugene wasn't even working as a fireman at that point. He had just missed maybe the comradery of working on the rails with his fellow workers.

The Brotherhood was a way for him to stay connected. (gentle piano music) -

Narrator

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was a craft union similar to European guilds. Membership was generally white and exclusive to those with specific skills. All through the 19th century, labor was trying to make the case that they were just as respectable as their bosses, and so they were looking for ways to demonstrate that they were committed to the sort of Victorian values of temperance and sobriety, and they were not dangerous radicals. Employers had expectations of workers.

I mean above all, they needed the sweat of their brow. They needed their labor, but they also expected that they behaved in appropriate ways. "We want godly young men to work for us." -

Narrator

Being godly meant following the rules, and as Debs moved into full-time union leadership, he stood firmly against strikes. -

Reader

"Does the Brotherhood encourage strikers? "To this question we must emphatically answer no brothers. "To disregard the laws which govern our land "to destroy the last vestige of order "to stain our hands with the crimson blood "of our fellow human beings, we again say, "no, a thousand times, no!" Debs was formally against striking, but in practice there was no alternative to strike. If an employer wouldn't listen to you, you could only bring your labor power to bear.

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Narrator

Railroad speculating and recession brought deep wage cuts to rail workers in 1877. The Great Train Strike lasted 45 days, and even united white and black working men, but in the end attempts to break the strike resulted in rioting and mass destruction. More rail strikes would follow with the same results. He sees that the workers who are on strike are not asking for something that's ridiculous or outlandish.

They're really being treated badly. That begins to put the seed in his mind that maybe it's time to start looking a little more broadly. -

Narrator

Debs began to think that a fair system might only come through government. So he decided to run for office. Some would start calling him the Blue-Eyed Boy of Destiny because he was on a fast boat to respectability, and he was not particularly upset about that. -

Narrator

Debs served as Terre Haute City Clerk. Voters sent him to the Indiana general assembly where he supported equality for women and minorities. He sponsored a workers' compensation bill. All failed and Eugene Debs came home appalled by the chicanery and vote treaty.

There's a certain innocence about Debs. In part, that assembly experience was a bit of a disillusionment. He comes back from that one term and decides he's not gonna run for office again. He's gonna find another way.

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Narrator

At 30 Eugene Debs was considered a catch on the way up, maybe on his way to Congress. He was handsome, articulate, and always polite, more interested in ideas than dating. Then he met 28-year-old Katherine Metzel. I always have the impression she was the smartest girl in class.

I'm sure they both had opportunities to marry earlier, but they wanted that intellectual equal. (gentle music) -

Narrator

Gene and Kate married at dawn June 9, 1885. Immediately Debs was on the road working full-time organizing and recruiting for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman. Kate wanted a home, so they saved money to build an eight-room house. His critics in the capitalist press like to say that he lived in this giant mansion.

That it had been built by scab labor, and if workers only knew what a rich lifestyle Debs was leading that they would think differently about the whole thing, trying to paint this as a fraud. -

Narrator

Kate and Gene intended to fill the house with children, but never had them. Gene would spend most of his time on the road, and the house would become Kate's domain. (train whistle blowing) In the decade before 1890, industrial growth nearly doubled. New steam-powered ocean-going ships brought record numbers of immigrants to fill the labor pool.

(dramatic music) By the 1880s we have the most immigrant workforce, people speaking different languages, and they're being recruited. At this time Debs is thinking negatively about that. This is employers using their power to bring over immigrants to undercut his fellow workers, but along the way he begins to have this idea of embracing them. -

Narrator

Workers generated the wealth, but lived and labored in terrible conditions with little hope of escaping poverty. More than 35,000 were killed each year on the job, another half million we injured. Legally workers had no rights. It wasn't even the matter of whether you had a right to strike.

It was whether you had a right to form a union, whether you had a right to have any negotiation with your employer after you had accepted that job. You were essentially binding yourself to that employer with no rights at all. (gentle music) -

Narrator

But workers did strike. From the deadly Haymarket Bombing to the massive Homestead Strike against Carnegie's steel, there were hundreds of other walkouts, spontaneous riots, and violent confrontation. Unlike the small craft unions, the new industrial unions were inclusive. More members meant more leverage for better wages, working conditions, and an eight-hour workday.

It involves all kinds of people. It is a way of in fact incorporating, and if you will, integrating African American workers with white and European immigrant workers into a single interest group that debates and contests capitalist power. -

Narrator

In 1893, after 17 years of service, Eugene Debs resigned from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and formed the American Railway Union, an industrialized union for all rail workers. As its new leader, he was now in favor of strikes. He also called for the inclusion of African Americans a motion which lost by only two votes. So when the vote is lost about integrating, he has to move on anyway.

Doesn't change his attitude. Doesn't change his ideology. Simply says, "Okay, that's the will of this group of people. "How do we maneuver and at least keep open the notion "of African Americans in these future unions?" -

Narrator

Debs American Railway Union was tested immediately when railroaders walked off the job in Minnesota over wage cuts. He has this amazing moment when he takes on a major railroad and wins. I mean it looks like this hopeful moment where industrial unionism might just be the ticket. He had barely enough time to savor it when another major strike came up a few months later, and that was of course The Pullman Strike of 1894.

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Narrator

Pullman town is about 15 miles south of Chicago. Here in 1880 George Pullman bought two square miles of private land and built what he called a capitalist's utopia, a state-of-the-art factory that produced the famous Pullman Palace luxury rail cars. (gentle music) Harper's magazine featured the town praising in its modern amenities, brick houses, a school, market, and hotel. While the view from the street looked perfect, nothing was free, and Harper's ultimately compared Pullman to a futile manner.

He managed to offer the lowest wages possible. He managed to charge the rent that would break their back, and he worked them like dogs. -

Narrator

When the economic Depression hit in 1893, Pullman cut wages 40%, but rent and store prices stayed the same. Workers became trapped. They have to fight. They have to fight collectively.

They have to figure out another thing besides trade unionism in order to gain anything to be able to live. -

Narrator

A majority of their employees joined Debs new American Railway Union, and in the spring of 1894, members went to the opulent office under the main clock tower and begged management to restore wages. Eugene Debs cautioned against a strike. He was afraid that this would break the ARU because I mean he understood that the ARU in its infant stage was not gonna be able to take on George Pullman. -

Narrator

Debs and his brother Theo rushed to the site went door-to-door hearing complaints by the hundreds. Meanwhile, Pullman, who's net worth topped $25 million, refused workers' demands. Capitalist are organizing themselves too. This is all survival of the fittest, and whoever wins out by whatever means they do it deserve to be there.

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Narrator

On May 11th Pullman workers walked off the job. From coast-to-coast, line-by-line, the strike would eventually involve upwards to 250,000 workers. Virtually all traffic in the western United States was shutdown. Food could not leave farms.

Coal remained in the mines. Goods did not move from factories. (gentle dramatic music) Newspapers dubbed the strike "Debs Rebellion". As its leader, Debs daily received and sent telegrams urging workers to stay strong and refrain from violence.

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Reader

"The paternalism of Pullman "is the same as the self interest of a slave holder "in his human chattels. "You are striking to avert slavery and degradation." Debs is feeling pretty optimistic at this point. Even given his doubts and the doubts of others at first, Debs is beginning to feel that maybe this is gonna happen. (footsteps marching) (gentle dramatic music) -

Narrator

On July 4, 1894 not two weeks into the strike, Debs woke up to the sound of military marching in the streets. These were not locomotive ships. President Grover Cleveland ordered in three regiments of regular Army soldiers. (somber music) The same forces that are fighting Native Americans in the West are being brought to the cities and being told to think of them as these immigrant savages who don't deserve respect.

Not many people think this is very fair at least at the early part. The only way that they pull it off is when violence starts to occur, and the newspapers can blame the unions for that violence unilaterally. -

Narrator

Debs had ordered workers to keep away from the yards. Still there were bloody collisions as the troops penetrated ARU blockades. There were countless injuries, and at least 30 were killed nationwide. (dramatic music) "It's King Debs.

"You know, Debs is the kingpin behind this. "He's the anarchist who is spurring people on. "He's the one that are taking this immigrant group "and having them derail train trestles "in the name of their version of justice. "Better to have Pullman in charge than such a man.

"You know this guy who might make "democracy threatening to the rest of us." -

Narrator

United States Attorney General, Richard Olney would effectively end the strike by invoking the new Sherman Antitrust Act for the first time. The Act was meant to breakup big monopolies. But Olney claimed strikers had obstructed the mail, and he was granted an injunction declaring the strike illegal and prohibiting Debs from helping them. With that, the Pullman strike was over.

(somber music) The leaders of the Pullman organization obliterate a chance of having any discussion of what the strike was about and why it occurred, so that basic right of Democratic expression, just got wiped off the boards by the force of the federal government. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

Pullman won the strike, but lost his town. A presidential commission declared it un-American. The Illinois Supreme Court ordered Pullman to divest. Workers never got a raise and most were blacklisted.

To calm the unrest, Congress designated a new federal holiday Labor Day. Meanwhile, Debs and seven others were convicted of conspiracy. At the trial a young Clarence Darrow representing Debs, contended the railway owners had actually done the scheming. Darrow lost the argument.

Debs was sentenced to six months in Woodstock jail in Northern Illinois. The Pullman strike seemed to be a turning point. Debs felt as if he had followed the rules, so when the strike was smashed by federal troops, I think he looked at that and said that the two-party system was working against working people, and that wouldn't be the effective avenue for change. That there had to be a third party.

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Narrator

Today Woodstock, Illinois remains an idyllic rural community. The county seat next to the courthouse in the back of what was Sheriff George Eckert's home. The jail still is intact. -

Reader

"I'm in the very best of health and spirit. "We are in the best jail in the state, "and we eat with the sheriff's family, "sleep in clean, comfortable beds, lots of room "and everything we care for. "Can you believe it?" -

Narrator

Daily Debs received visitors in the sheriff's living room, including Nellie Bly, a soft spoken New York reporter famous for her trip around the world in 72 days. -

Reader

"The cells are small with two cots to each cell "and two men to each cell. "I took a glance at their books. "There was not a light work of fiction among them. "It gives some idea of the style "of reading enjoyed by these men "who were fighting for working men's rights." Well, the story goes that Victor Berger, the socialist from Wisconsin, snuck a copy of "Das Kapital" into the jail cell and left that with him, and that Debs spent the time reading this and this opened his eyes.

Not everybody thinks that actually happened. He was really not as interested in Karl Marx or in European theory about socialism as he was about socialism as a political tradition in the American grain. He never jettisons that fundamental commitment to that small democratic world that he sees being destroyed, not only by the corporations' actions, but indeed by their collusion with the federal government. -

Narrator

On November 22, 1895 Eugene Debs packed his books and said his goodbyes. Debs comes out of jail refreshed, his mind filled with ideas, his heart filled with hope. He comes out of jail after the Pullman strike and begins to move toward an active leadership position in labor unions, in politics, and in socialism. -

Narrator

In Chicago near what is now the Art Institute, Debs found himself suddenly in the national spotlight. 100,000 supporters jammed the station hoping to hear the man which stood up against the powerful railroads. He shares some of his deepest beliefs about the nature of democracy, about the promise of American life, and the failure of our leaders to work towards those goals. He certainly learned from the Pullman strike that he needs to find a way to incorporate that wider human body in a party, in a political party.

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Narrator

The new century was coming, and America was ripe for socialism. Economic booms and busts had devastated workers. Most no longer worked the land. Rather for the first time the majority of workers were entirely dependent on employment.

As people that believed in American democracy with every fiber of their being, they had seen the rise of the industrial barons. They'd seen the rise of cities that were terribly ugly, terribly dirty, and they felt their America was being taken away from them. -

Narrator

Eugene Debs made it official in 1897. He was a socialist. -

Reader

"I am for socialism "because I am for humanity. "We have been cursed with the rain of gold long enough." (crowd applauding) -

Narrator

In a time before radio and television, people thirsty for hope rushed to hear the tall and lanky Hoosier who spoke with his hands and from his heart. He did have an enormous power to make this socialist vision seem real to thousands and thousands of people. Many of them were converted by his message. -

Narrator

In theaters and train stations across the country, Debs denounced child labor, racist Jim Crow laws, and wage slavery. -

Reader

"I am not a labor leader. "I do not want you to follow me or anyone else. "If you are looking for a Moses to lead you "out of this capitalists wilderness, "you will stay right where you are. "I would not lead you into the promised land "if I could because if I led you in, "someone else would lead you out." -

Narrator

At the turn of the 20th century, America hosted a daunting range of socialists beliefs. From the German labor activists, to anarchists, to Christian community builders, theirs was a crusade against corrupt political bosses and robber barons. One of the things that Debs always maintained was, as he grew but even earlier on, I would maintain his sense of moral fiber, having a moral code. He was always able to maintain that and convince others or show others that they could trust him.

Christian socialists had invented a catchy phrase, "What would Jesus do?" They changed it too, "What would Debs do," in an effort to persuade Debs to run for president. Leading up to the 1900 election, Debs had refused a nomination unless faction groups agreed to a common platform. Because to him there was that form of socialism. That form of socialism and syndicalism and IWW wobbly stuff.

It's all socialism to him. It's all the vision of a better world. -

Narrator

Debs united the party and won the nomination. Immersion with a purely American platform, they called it Debsian Socialism. If you look at Debs' platforms for his presidential campaigns, most of that stuff that they saw there that was socialist is stuff that we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, child labor laws, the right to unionize.

Many of his policies are directed towards solutions, toward methods that today seem almost no-brainers. (gentle piano music) -

Narrator

Debs received just over 80,000 votes. He never expected to win just to raise American's consciousness. After 1901-1902, he starts talking about who was left out of the Constitution? He points out, because in a socialist belief, you remember who wasn't there?

African Americans didn't get a seat at that table. Workers didn't get a seat at that table. Women didn't get a seat at that table. What Debs continues to come back to, as he evolves into a much broader vision of humanity, of the broad humanness of individuals, and their absolute quality at that level, and the necessity defined social ways of implementing that vision.

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Narrator

In 1903, Debs published an iconic statement about race and gender, calling for one nation united only by class. (gentle piano music) One thing that's really interesting about the essay in 1903 is he repeatedly says, "It's actually black people "who are stronger than white people. "If it weren't for black workers, "the south would be dying right now." So he's saying, "These people don't need our help. "They actually need solidarity." That's the thing that I think often gets misinterpreted with that statement.

He says to people, "You can't help that you were raised with this doctrine, "but socialism should force you to confront it. "You will see that everybody is equal, "and we have to believe in their potential." He was willing to be open about how tactically the Socialist party at that stage in their development had to operate. Because remember had he come out directly and said at that point, "We want to encompass all Americans," he would have lost an immense amount of support from white workers. That is the unpleasant truth.

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Narrator

These were years of great labor walkouts from the textile workers on the East Coast to the coal miners in Colorado. Labor leaders such as Mother Jones and Big Bill Hayward supported Debs and the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World. IWW was open to all workers regardless of skills, race, or gender. -

Reader

"I'm opposing a social order "in which it is possible for one man "who does absolutely nothing that is useful "to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars. "Well, millions of men and women "who work all the days of their lives "secure barely enough for a wretched existence." -

Narrator

When Debs ran again for president in 1904, his votes quadrupled. The socialists reform movements also attracted some of the most notable figures in America. These were the people who were the rebels against the system in a lot of different ways. They were the greatest artists and writers and painters of the day.

People like Jack London or Upton Sinclair, or Carl Sandburg, Max Eastman, and all of the artists behind great magazine, "The Masses" out of Greenwich Village, Helen Keller was dyed-in-the-wool socialist. Many, many intellectuals and thinkers at the time were drawn to this movement. -

Narrator

Over a million people read socialist newspapers which were granted second-class manning rates on the grounds that they spread knowledge. In Little Girard, Kansas, Debs edited the "Appeal to Reason" the nation's largest weekly socialist paper, in which Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" first debuted as a serial. Readers formed the appeal army. They got subscribers, and they got votes.

I mean that was a central part of his life. That was part of building a political framework for the base, and it was part of getting the vote out. -

Narrator

In 1908, states were beginning to pass laws to improve working conditions, and Debs ran for president again this time aboard the red special. For 65 days Debs spoke sometimes a dozen times a day. That election socialists won over 400,000 votes. He said, "Look if the socialists "ever get close to electing a president, "it won't be me cause I'd be terrible at it.

"We'll make sure that somebody else gets to do that. "I'm really here as an agitator." -

Narrator

Debs frequently worked himself into exhaustion recovering his health at the Lindlahr Sanitarium near Chicago. He also gained strength from going home to Kate in Terre Haute, usually penniless. He was known to leave on his tours, and as soon as he ran into an old unemployed railroad worker, he would give him his overcoat and whatever money he had in his pocket, He would just come home so exhausted, and just can't put one foot in front of the other, and he would have to go to bed, and she would have to man the door. So this makes her the bad guy because people love Gene Debs.

People wanna see Gene Debs. The working-class people of this town, they wanna go see the great Debs. -

Narrator

Despite his popularity, Debs had a temper. He enjoyed drinking, and in matters of policy, could be dismissive to those who crossed him. By 1912, Debs was also more radical. He called on workers to rise up, and demand the surrender of the capitalist class.

And rise up they did. (crowd applauding) A sold out overflowing crowd at Madison Square Garden gave Debs a 17-minute standing ovation as he accepted the socialists nomination for president. (lively trumpet music) (crowd applauding) He grows in a variety of ways over these years, including to having a pretty healthy respect for himself. He's not a wallflower anymore.

His forte is being up in front of that crowd. -

Narrator

Debs faced three and imposing candidates during the presidential election, the incumbent Republican William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, a democrat, and rebellious Teddy Roosevelt, who had bolted from the GOP to run in the Progressive Bull Moose Party. All wanted to silence the socialists, but Roosevelt actually co-opted some of the Debs' platform. Teddy Roosevelt said that, "Debs was a dangerous bloody "anarchist who was gonna drive the country off the edge." But that the proper way to handle that was to take the good parts of the socialists' platform and adopt them into what became progressive reforms. Why do they bring about child labor reform in that period?

Because there's a Socialist party. As lame as its results may seem to people, it didn't seem that way to Woodrow Wilson, and it didn't seem that way to Teddy Roosevelt, and it brings reform. -

Narrator

Woodrow Wilson won the election, but the Socialist party scored their best year yet. Debs received nearly a million votes. More than a thousand socialists were elected to offices, including over 300 mayors. (bomb exploding) Over there Over there -

Narrator

Across the Atlantic, political tensions exploded into war in 1914. World War I would be the most technologically advanced war to date. Fraught with weapons created for mass casualties in an industrial age, many Americans, especially socialists and new immigrants were against joining the fight. We're traveling over And we won't come back till it's over over there What made the socialists dangerous was that they were the best organized.

They had an elaborate press. They had this very charismatic speaker in Eugene Debs. They understood how to get out the vote. As soon as the war broke out, two days after the war declaration, the socialists gathered in St.

Louis and said, "We are devoted to doing everything we possibly can "to protesting this war and to protesting the draft." -

Reader

"The working men of America "have but to stand up like men, "and in the commanding voice of their class "in the eternal glory of their cause proclaim "the fiat of civilization and humanity let there be peace!" -

Narrator

President Wilson had pledged neutrality, but Germans were now sinking ships in the Atlantic. There was a mounting fear that the Bolshevik Revolution in America was imminent, Woodrow Wilson aimed to silence all protesters and get the troops to the front. The United States was deeply unprepared for war, even though they saw it coming, and there was some effort at preparedness. Suddenly the United States needed to recruit, train, and equip ultimately four million men, build the ships in order to get them across the Atlantic, and they had to do it very quickly because the war was clearly at a crisis point.

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Narrator

A week after declaring war, Wilson created the Committee on Public Information. George Creel a progressive journalists went out and hired the very best historians, artists, writers he could find and put them all to work churning out propaganda really the first mass orchestrated propaganda campaign in the United States in order to whip up hatred of the Germans and also enthusiasm for the allies. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

In 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act, which made it a felony to do anything to resist the war effort. Questioning that war was a very, very risky thing to do, and lots of people were reprimanded, chastised, lost jobs because they did not appear to be 100% behind this war. -

Narrator

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his 24-year-old assistant J. Edgar Hoover used the new laws to shut down newspapers and deport immigrants tied to agitation. In what became known as the Palmer Raids, thousands of American citizens were arrested without warrants.

(dramatic music) In the first few months at least 900 people went to prison for speaking against the war. Perhaps driven by guilt and despite doctors' warnings, Debs returned to the speaking circuit. The Socialist party was being destroyed around him. So everything Debs had worked for his entire life was sort of on the line at this point.

He knew that there were government agents following him and writing down every word he said, and that this was gonna be used against him if he crossed the line. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

June 16, 1918 on a sweltering hot day, Eugene Debs stood on a modest platform and looked out on a crowd of about a thousand socialists gathered in Canton, Ohio. With great power, Debs began. -

Reader

"I may not be able to say all that I think, "but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. "I would rather a thousand times to be a free soul in jail "than to be a sycophant and a coward in the streets" He was just simply looking to get back in the fray and to be back in the public eye again and to give a speech again, and he's talking very clearly against the administration and all of that. But he's also doing it as a way of trying to uphold some sense of who we are as a people. -

Narrator

Debs never criticized the government directly. Only once Debs spoke about the war. -

Reader

"They're continually talking about "your patriotic duty. "It is not their but your patriotic duty "that they are concerned about. "There is a decided difference. "Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line "or chucks them into the trenches.

"Yours is not the reason why, yours but to do and die." -

Narrator

Debs' speech lasted two hours. The next day headlines across the country declared, "Debs Wakes Up". Within a week he was arrested in Cleveland, charged with 10 counts of violating the Espionage Act. Newspapers called him the most dangerous man in America.

He didn't mind seeming dangerous to people, I think. That was part of his sense of himself. He wanted to be dangerous. I mean, he felt like the system needed drastic change, and if people thought he was dangerous so be it.

(gentle music) -

Narrator

A few months later on September 9, 1918 Debs was tried in what is now the Howard Metzenbaum U.S. Federal Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. The trial is happening really at the most crucial moment for American involvement in the culmination of the war. So there's battlefield news every single day.

Young boys of Cleveland dying on the fields of France. So it's that environment that Debs is coming into. They promised to be fair, but Debs clearly recognized that the jury was gonna be against him. -

Narrator

The government called only a dozen witnesses. After two days, the prosecution rested, and defense presented no evidence, called no witnesses, instead Debs chose to make the closing argument. -

Reader

"Your Honor, "Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings. "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. "While there is a criminal element, I am of it.

"While there is a soul in prison, I am not free." He made a powerful speech that included an argument, basically said, "I shouldn't be on trial here. "We actually should be putting the government on trial. "The Espionage Act is a violation "of basic First Amendment rights, "and that's what this trial really shouldn't be about." -

Narrator

The jury found Debs guilty on three counts ruling he had tried to obstruct the draft. He was sentenced to 10 years. The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court where Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the opinion that sent Debs to prison. His argument was that context matters.

That the First Amendment means one thing in times of peace and another thing in times of war. That when the country feels like it's faced with a national crisis, people have to give up their free speech rights on behalf of the majority. There were many who said he got exactly what he deserves. He's a traitor.

He's not patriotic, etcetera, and others supported him very strongly. (gentle dramatic music) -

Narrator

The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary was home to some of the most notorious criminals in the country. Here Debs became known as prisoner 9653. What he observes is this class system that incarcerates marginalized people, and holds them, if you will, with no opportunity for that experience to be of any value, even as punishment because it's so divorced from whatever their crimes would be. Some people spread the word about this, this gaunt old man who seemed to give people some sense of hope in this rather desolate place that they all were in.

It's very touching. It's very moving. He tried to simply be with them as people and to recognize their humanity. -

Narrator

Debs' many visitors included Lucy Robins. Robins led national amnesty campaign. The war was over, and thousands signed petitions calling for Debs release and that others incarcerated for speaking against the war. Many of those workers are not sympathetic to Debs at the start, but Lucy Robins pushes them to consider, "If they're doing this to Eugene Debs now, "if they're doing this to socialists now, "what's the stop the government "from putting you in prison next time "you say something that the government doesn't want." -

Narrator

The amnesty campaign got support from Samuel Gompers, Helen Keller, and Clarence Darrow. Upton Sinclair tried to reason with President Wilson, but Wilson refused to issue the pardon. From prison Debs watched as discord between socialists and the now violent Bolsheviks divided the American Socialist party. When it was time to pick a presidential candidate, once again the party looked to Debs for unification, nominating him again to run for president from prison.

Usually you put somebody away in prison for three years, they disappear from public view by being in prison. He actually raised an incredible national conversation about free speech in the war time. It struck me that this was one of those moments in American history that are so exciting when the jail cell becomes kind of the moral high ground. -

Narrator

They called it, "The Jailhouse to the White House campaign". Prisoner 9653 commanded the country's attention. Debs could not give speeches. But what was allowed a weekly press release.

On election day Debs received almost a million votes, but his fate and the election belonged to Warren G. Harding. Increasingly, there was pressure to let Debs out on one side. On the other hand on the other side, there was pushback because of the clan and the American Legion and a number of conservative groups considered this to be evidence of being soft on Bolshevism.

So Harding was caught in a tough spot. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

A few days before Christmas in 1921, Harding commuted Debs' sentence. The movie cameras are rolling to capture this moment. Everybody knew this was something that the whole country had been embroiled in for two and a half years. The warden had let the prisoners essentially out of their cells, so that they could press against the front windows to watch Debs leave, and they gave him this roaring ovation that apparently could be heard a half a mile away.

Debs hears this. He turns, tears streaming down his face, he raises his hat and waves to them, and he describes this later as the greatest moment of his long political career. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

Debs met briefly with President Harding at the White House before going home. He had served less than three years. There were about 25,000 people who greeted him at the railroad station when he came back to Terre Haute from prison. He came home late at night.

Torchlight parade brought him up to the steps where he got to greet his wife after those many years. -

Reader

"My heart is full of gratitude. (dramatic music) "I'm glad there are so many in Terre Haute "who have not forgotten the principles for which I stand." -

Narrator

Debs returned to a different world with his life's work in turmoil. The American Socialist party was splintered. The mainstream socialists had turned their backs on the industrial unionism and class consciousness. (dramatic music) Decaying physically, Debs is seen one last time.

There had been news reports that those convicted of sedition and espionage had lost their citizenship. Debs was unsure of his status, and he did the one simple thing that would lay all doubts to rest. He registered to vote. (gentle music) He believed right till the end of his life that revolution for Americans at least could come at the ballot box.

He was an American. His whole effort here was not to transform America into some other entity, but to have it live up to its own professed reality. -

Narrator

Debs was never seen in public again. He was taken to Lindlahr Sanitarium where family members held vigil. On October 20, 1926 at age 70 Eugene V. Debs' heart simply stopped, and America mourned.

(gentle piano music) At least 8,000 gathered outside Debs' home in Terre Haute. His neighbors and fellow citizens may have disagreed with his politics, but they abundantly honored his life. I want people to know that this man existed in this little town of Terre Haute. You can be born in a regular town, and you can make the difference in millions of people's lives because millions of people were touched by Gene Debs and his message still resonates today.

-

Narrator

Even in defeat Debs achieved much. For many Americans Debs embodied their own experiences, their own social protests. (gentle piano music) - The people of Indiana, the people of America have largely ignored Gene Debs until very recently. Just in recent decades have we begun to understand the significance of this man, the importance of this man in presenting an alternative view of America.

-

Narrator

Debs thought for himself, Debs evolved, and he never stopped believing in the promise of America. His was an enduring struggle for economic justice, a vision for equal rights, a hope for peace and the future. I think he's particularly relevant for us now. As we live in a country that continues to be plagued by intense economic inequality and intense racial inequality and really a lack of a vocabulary for understanding the relationship between them.

I think Debs as the resister who thought something out and said this is wrong and this is why, and this is the consequences of what happens is the lesson that might be useful for us, but in our time. We have to think about it in our time. So Riley wrote this poem about his good friend Gene Debs, "And there is Gene Debs, a man that stands "and just holds out in his two hands "as warm a heart as ever beat "betwixt here and the judgment seat." (gentle music) -

Announcer

"The Revolutionist Eugene V. Debs" was made possible through the generous support of The William Craig and Teneen Dobbs Charitable Foundation, Amalgamated Bank, Amalgamated Life Insurance Company, SMART International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers Local Union Number 20 Indianapolis, The Michael and Amy Sullivan Family Foundation, and Ullico Incorporated, additional funding was provided by AFL-CIO, Indiana IBEW Construction Conference, and Indiana State Conference of IBEW, James and Lisa Schrader, Laborers International Union of North America, State of Indiana District Council, IBEW Local Union 725 Quality Connection of the Greater of Wabash Valley, and by the following. (gentle music)