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Eugene Victor Debs
Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 - 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...view moreEugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 - 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. Through his presidential candidacies, as well as his work with labor movements, Debs became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.
Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, he became instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the nation’s first industrial unions. 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. 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. President Grover Cleveland used the U.S. Army to break the strike. 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.
In jail, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged as a committed adherent of the international socialist movement. He was a founding member of the Social Democracy of America (1897), the Social Democratic Party of America (1898), and the Socialist Party of America (1901).
He ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920, the last time from a prison cell. He was also a candidate for U.S. Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.
In 1924, Debs was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Finnish Socialist Karl H. Wiik.
Debs died of heart failure in 1926, at the age of 70.view less