His return home to terre haute, indiana, following his release from prison by Warren Harding from charges stemming from those war protests. Tonight, we are in terre haute at his home and museum. Let me introduce you to our two guests. Ernest freebergs book is called democracys prisoner. It has been 85 years since debs died. Why do we care about him . He was one of our most important labor leaders at a crucial time of the conflict between labor and capital. More importantly, he was the central figure in the socialist movement at a time it was a viable growing part of the american political culture. Does he have a Lasting Legacy . I think like many thirdparty candidates, he and his fellow socialists moved the conversation in very important directions. In that regard, he is of his time but he has also made a Lasting Impact on us as well. We will have time to delve into some of the elections later on. Of the five bids he made, are any particularly significant . The 1912 bid is the high mark of socialism where he got 6 of the votes. A different election was 1920 where he was imprisoned in the atlanta penitentiary and got 1 million votes while running from prison. In our 90 minute program, the contenders, we look at people who made an attempt at the white house and failed, but they had an effect on political and american history. We are live tonight from the debs home in terre haute. It is on the campus of indiana state university. He lived here in this house, he and his wife kate, who lived here for years after he died. We will show you more of the house as we continue here. The top floor of the house has an interesting mural. The mural depicts the years of his public life. Throughout our program we will be showing you aspects of the artwork to help illustrate eugene debs story. Let me introduce you to our second guest. She is joining us from what was his bedroom, now is a museum room with a lot of artifacts. Lisa phillips she is a specialist in labor history. Lisa phillips, thank you for being with us. Your thoughts on his significance to the american story. I think the significance has to do with this activity in labor unions the American Railway union and the socialist party as well. He has had a lasting effect on many of the laws that were passed during the progressive era as a result of his activism, some of which we still enjoy. He can tell us a lot about his time period through running for president and through all of his labor Union Activity as well. Lisa phillips will be showing us some of the artifacts through the house. She is part of the Debs Foundation. Tell us a little bit about the Debs Foundation. It seeks to keep his legacy alive. It hopes to promote not only the museum, but the policies that eugene debs promoted such as the social justice and equality and the rights of workers. We try to live through the spirit of his mission. As we turn to your expertise, this house and what you showcase here, can you tell me a little bit about how the house is financed and functions . Who pays for it . Who takes care of it . It is paid for by the Debs Foundation and is cared for by dr. Charles king and karen brown. Both of them are here in terre haute and run tours of the museum on a daily basis. For our viewers, in 10 minutes or so, we will open up phone lines and invite you into the discussion. Very interested to hear the questions and discussion about eugene debs and the turn of the 20th century and that period that he represents. Let me ask you a little bit about what made him a success. Many people remember him most of all as a dynamic speaker. This is an era of wonderful stump speakers that can fill two or three hours with a speech. He was really the best in that genre. In fact, so good he could charge admission for his audience and that is how they funded the socialist campaign in many cases. He was very charismatic and had the ability i think he began as a staid victorian speaker but became much more comfortable over the years. He developed a more modern impromptu style that later made an impact on his audience. Over your shoulder is debs library. My understanding is that eugene debs dropped out of school at age 14. I am curious about his Extensive Library and how he educated himself. He was very much selftaught. He worked very hard at that. He began working in the Railroad Union and was interested in literature there. He worked for a while as a grocery clerk in town. He always wanted more education but had to rely on his own. How did terre haute shape eugene debs . In many ways. Mostly through his upbringing here when he was a younger man. A boy and a young man. He always harkened back to terre haute, and he invoked it all the time in terms of the harmonious relationships that he said developed in old terre haute where everybody could aspire to do something good in their lives, whether it be a business owner, whether you are a worker. Everybody had the chance. He always said, in the old terre haute, everybody had the chance to do something and to improve their lives. That is what he held in the most regard. When you walk around the house, you can see he was interested in politics from an early age. He made a bid for clerk in his town and made a successful bid for the Indiana Legislature on the democratic ticket. His early roots were in two party systems. Can you talk about that . I can say a little bit which is to say he ran on the Democratic Party ticket when he believed that he could form a relationship between multiple groups of people whether they be Business Owners, workers, and he believed the party system in that regard. It was not until later in the 1880s and 1890s that he felt the party system through the democrats and republicans were not working for the best interests of all the people combined. When he sought the white house, what was his intention . Did he ever really think that he could win . He said very clearly he had no intention of ever winning. He was interviewed in 1908 and they said what would it be like for you to be president. He said if the party ever becomes close to winning, i would be the last person who would want the job or that they would put into the job. He really thought of himself more as an evangelist for the cause. He believed in democracy. I think he was more interested in using the campaigns to generate interest among workers and develop class consciousness to deliver his message very powerfully every four years. Give us a snapshot of the america he was dissatisfied with. There was an enormous concentration of capital. That was the big problem of the time. Many people were worried about the labor problem. Many workers felt in the face of the rapid industrialization that their skills were less soluble, their wages were being fitted into the International Market where they were getting declining wages and a more difficult work environment. There was an enormous sense that labor was deeply unhappy. Eugene debs turned it around and said the problem is not labor, the problem is capital. It is not that the workers are unhappy, the root problem is that these enormous concentrations of capital are undermining american democracy. Socialism was on the rise in europe. How was eugene debs doing here different from over there . It was similar at first. They considered themselves internationalists. Socialism needed to be a worldwide movement. They expected it would be. They felt there were distinctive challenges in america to convince workers to do that. There was a stronger sense of a working class in europe on which to draw for socialist organizing there. One of the struggles for eugene debs throughout his career was to convince workers they should think of themselves not as democrats or republicans, not on the basis of their religious affiliations, but of members of the working class. How successful were he and his fellow thinkers in convincing the public . At the height of his popularity, how much ground that they make . It depends on how you measure that. If you measure it on his success, the High Water Mark was 1912. He got 6 of the vote. Never any Electoral College . No. There was a much broader period socialists were much more successful on the local level. There were many socialist mayors. City officials of various kinds. There was a vibrant International Socialist society for College Students started by jack london. A lot of College Campus ferment about socialism. There was a lively press, some of our best in journalism from that time period comes out of the socialist press journals. Socialism was much bigger than counting the votes. Today in congress, the United States senator Bernie Sanders from vermont is a socialist. We talked to him about eugene debs legacy. Lets listen to what he had to say. A lot of big ideas that he advocated. He talked about when people get old, there should be social insurance for them. There should be Retirement Benefits for them. That is what we call Social Security today. Amazingly, in 2011 there are those same people that want to destroy Social Security. He believed health care was the right of all people. That battle continues today. I think it is fair to say that many of the huge advances made during the 1930s under president roosevelt, the Great Society under lyndon johnson, and throughout, those were ideas that people liked eugene debs probably brought to the attention. The first person to bring to the attention of millions of working people. Let me ask you to add your perspective to the america that he saw and was dissatisfied with. Ultimately, whether or not he saw himself as antiamerican or wanting to change america. I do not think he saw himself as antiamerican at all. I think he thought he was advocating through his socialist Party Activity a kind of america that he harkened back to again in the old days of terre haute, one that was more community centered, one that was less big business. In his early days, he was not anticapitalist at all in his early days. It was not until the advent of big business and corporate capitalism that he felt there had to be a Movement Toward that profit motive that continued to bring everyday workers wages down. Let me ask you you have something to add to that . I agree with lisa. One of the things that made him so powerful is his ability to cast socialism as an american movement. It was this is a revolutionary country in the first place, we fought a revolution for democracy. In his lifetime he experienced the civil war as a revolution. Some of his greatest idols were the abolitionists. His argument was the country had fought a battle to overthrow chattel slavery. The next step is to overthrow wage slavery. A question for you who were his workers . Did he include women in his view of it . Did he include people other than whites . Did he include immigrants . What was his definition, lisa . He was one of the First Industrial union leaders. He was mounting a movement on behalf of the working class which he believed everybody who was a worker who earned wages, which were twothirds of americans by 1890 was a part, whether they be an immigrant, black, a woman. So he saw them as all members of a working class that needed to be uplifted in some way, shape, or form. There is controversy to this day about whether he did enough on behalf of women and africanamericans. He had some trouble seeing immigrants who came over, especially chinese and italian immigrants, who came over temporarily and worked for a very low wages and brought them back to their home countries as part of the same american working class that was trying to fight for higher wages. He had some trouble over the course of his career reconciling that. As an industrial movement, his was one that recognized the rights of all workers regardless of their backgrounds. I understand you have one of the artifact copies of the jungle. Upton sinclair. What is the significance . It is a huge significance. Sinclair published it in 1905. He was a member of the socialist party himself. He highlighted all the horrible conditions that meatpackers worked in and the conditions. What really riled up the country were not only the conditions, but also the quality of the meat that was coming out of the plants. He was the one who wrote about rats and peoples fingers being caught in the processed meat and how horrible that was. He and eugene debs were supporters of each other. Upton sinclair was able to, like debs, demonstrate the problems with the growing of big business. That lead to the revolution of the food and drug administration, the fda. The book actually ends with a scene where he wanders into a socialist meeting and heres a character that is supposed to be eugene debs making a socialist speech. For upton sinclair, that was not food regulations but socialism was the bigger answer. Eugene debs is actually right in the book. Can you tell the story of his first imprisonment and how he got connected with the concept of socialism at that time . He was the head of the American Railway union which mounted a successful strike against the Great NorthernRailroad Company in 1893. The aru gained thousands of members with eugene debs as its head. Many of those members were part of the Palace Car Company in 1894. The petition for support when they decided to walk out against George Pullman who dropped their wages by 28 . They wanted to walk out and they asked for support. Eugene debs was reluctant at first. He thought it was too risky. But the pullman workers had a lot of support not only within the town of pullman which is outside of chicago, but also had a lot of support from Railway Workers all the way to st. Louis. They staged some of the first boycotts or sympathetic strikes along the railway. It became national in scope. As a result of that, president Grover Cleveland and the clerks got involved and issued an injunction to stop them from stopping the transport of goods, especially the u. S. Mail, along that corridor. Grover cleveland got involved. He sent u. S. Troops to open up the Railway Depots that had been shut down as a result of the strike that had been called by the aru. Eugene debs ultimately did not call the striking workers off and was found in contempt of court for not following the injunction. He spent three months in prison for being in contempt of court. It was then in prison after the pullman strike that he was introduced to socialist Party Literature and became a socialist party member and staunch advocate. I read a description that he entered prison a changed man for the first time. Do you know more about that . I think he did come to the realization that when the federal troops came in and smashed the strike when he ended up in prison for defending the rights of workers that he made it as clear as could be that the two parties were both working against labor and there needed to be an alternative. He did not go right away to socialism. He was involved in the populist party. He was very active initially. When that failed, the socialist party emerged after that. Our two guests are going to begin bringing your telephone calls into the mix. We will put the phone numbers on the screen. We will mix calls in throughout our 90 minutes here. As we take our first call, we want to give you a sense of where the house in terre haute is and on the campus. We will show you that via google maps as we listen to our first caller from north carolina. Hi, steve. Please compare eugene debs to William Jennings bryan. It seems like they are appealing or trying to appeal to somewhat the same constituency. Thank you very much. William Jennings Bryan was a earlier profile. In the election of 1912, how did they compare . Eugene debs was initially an admirer of him. I think they shared some concerns about reform. I think the crucial difference is eugene debs was really a revolutionary. He not only was interested in reform, reform was necessary but they felt something much greater was needed. There needed to be an anticapitalism and Public Ownership of the means of production. That was a position that clearly distinguished him from bryans campaign. The election was his first try in 1900. William mckinley, William Jennings bryan. He got 0. 6 of the popular vote that year. Do you know what his early appeals were as a candidate and how they changed over his many bids . The real challenge for eugene debs was to try to knit together socialists coming from very different positions. One of the strongest hotbeds of socialism was oklahoma. People who had been populous started to develop these socialist camp meetings where they would gather together to hear socialist speeches. Eugene debs was a real hero there. They also needed to speak to trade unionists in chicago and milwaukee to radical bohemians in san francisco, to jewish garment workers on the lower east side. It was a real challenge to find a way to knit together people who all agree on some level that capitalism needed to change fundamentally. They were coming at this from very different positions. It took a while to build the apparatus. Another election in 1908 which involved William Jennings bryan. He began to understand some early marketing. He had some Campaign Tactics like the red train special and the red special ban. Can you tell us a little more about that . 1908 was a critical year because of the ascendance of the popularity of the labor party the socialist party and the federation of labor and ot