peteseeger:

“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

Eugene Victor Debs was born on November 5, 1855, in Terre Haute, Indiana. Hailing from a working class background, Debs became a locomotive fireman at 16 years of age, and for the rest of his life identified unwaveringly with the workers of the world. He joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in 1875 and quickly rose through the union’s ranks. Active in the community, Debs was elected to the Indiana Senate as a Democrat in 1884, but served only one term, jaded after his bill to provide railroad workers with benefits was gutted. This ended a promising career in Democratic politics.

An early pioneer of industrial unionism, Debs wrote constantly about the need for what he called “federation” of the disparate railroad brotherhoods, and his efforts bore fruit with the establishment of the American Railway Union in 1893, one of the largest unions of its day and one of the first industrial unions in America. Despite a promising start, with a decisive victory in the Great Northern Railroad strike, the ARU was crushed in the Pullman Strike of 1894. Debs was imprisoned for contempt (he had violated a federal injunction to keep the strike and boycott going), and in prison he was exposed to the writings of Karl Marx, emerging a committed socialist.

Debs was a founding member of the Socialist Party of America (as well as the Industrial Workers of the World), and served as its presidential candidate five times. The last of these campaigns, in 1920, was conducted from behind bars, as Debs had been imprisoned once again, this time for violating the Espionage Act through a speech he had given in 1918 opposing the United States’ entry into World War I. Despite being imprisoned, Debs received nearly one million votes.

Equal parts beloved and reviled by the American public, Debs was variously referred to as “America’s Conscience” and “the most dangerous man in America.” He was a talented orator, a compassionate soul, and a committed radical, and his legacy of dedication to the working class is an inspiration to leftists into the present day.

Happy 162nd birthday, Eugene Debs!