Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Contenders Eugene V. Debs 2024071

CSPAN3 The Contenders Eugene V. Debs July 12, 2024

His return to his hometown of terre haute, indiana following his release from prison by president harding after a federal conviction stemming from the war protests. And tonight were in terre haute in the debs home and museum. Let me introduce you to our guests. Earnest freebuerg. Why do we care about him . Debs was one of the most important labor leaders at a crucial time of conflict between labor and capital. But more importantly, he was the central figure in the socialist movement at a time when it was a viable growing and important part of the american political call chu v culture. Does he have a Lasting Legacy . Like many third party candidates, they managed to move the conversation in very important directions that have affected the development of american democracy. So in that car, he is of his time but also at a long impact on us as well. And well have time to delve into some of the elections more deeply later on, but of the fire bids he made for the white house, any particularly significant . Two for very different reasons. The 1912 bid represents the High Water Mark of socialism where he got about 6 of the vote. Quite different election is 1920 where he was imprisoned in the atlanta penitentiary and got 1 million skroet votes also. And so this is on our look at people who made an attempt at the white house and failed but had an effect on preliminary and American History. Were live tonight from the debs house of museum here in terre haute, indiana, on the campus of indiana state university. And eugene v. Debs lived in this house with his wife kate, and she lived here for years after she died. Well show you more of house as we continue here. The top floor of this house is an interesting mural. And the mural throughout the entire top floor depicts the years of debs could you about e and wieell show you aspects of that art work poworkartwork. Our second guest is joining us from the second floor which is now a museum room with a lot of artifacts. Lisa phillips, a specialist in labor history. Thanks so much for being with us. Your thoughts on debs significance. And i think that his significant ca significance with the American Railway union and the socialist party as well. And he has had a lasting effect on many of the laws that were passed during the progressive year that were a result of his activism, some of which we still enjoy and he can tell us a lot about his time period through his running for president and through all his Labor Union Activities as well. And Lisa Phillips will be showing us some of the artifacts. Tell me about the work of the Debs Foundation and why you are involved in it. Did tthe Debs Foundation see keeps debs legacy alive and it seeks to promote not only the museum but the policies that debs promoted which had is stoes stoes social justice and rights of workers. So as we turn to your expertise, can you tell me a little bit about how this house is financed and functions, who pays for it and whose care it is under . It is paid for by the Debs Foundation and it is cared if by dr. K45ir dr. Charles containing aking ann who are here in terre haute and run tours on a daily basis. And so well open up the phone lines and involve you. They are interested to hear your comments or questions about debs apartments t and the period in American History that he represents. Let me ask you about what made Hurricane Irma him a success. Many remember him as a dynamic speaker. This is an era of wonderful stump speakers who could fill two are and three others with a speech. And denies was the best in that genre. And in fact so good that he could afford to charge a modest admission for his audience and that is how they funded the socialist campaigns in many cases. And he was just a very charismatic and h i think he began as a victorian speaker but then he developed a sort of modern impromptu stirl that made a tremendous impact on his audience. And over your shoulders is debs library. And my understanding is that debs dropped out of school at age 4 and i age 14 and im curious how he educated himself. He was very self taught. He worked very hard at that. He began as working in the railroad union, was very interested in the literature there, workeds for as a grocery clerk, really had to really to getting education on his own. And how did terre haute shape eugene debs . Mostly through his upbringing when he was a young man. And he always harkened back to the tara hoerre haute of his yod invoked it in terms of theships developed in old terre haute. He said even courybody could as to doing something in your good, but everybody had a chance to inspire to improve their lives and that is what he held in the most regard in terms of his up bringing. And you see that he was interested in politics from what it looked like an early age. He made bid for clerk and also made a successful bid for the Indiana Legislature on the democratic ticket. His early roots then were in two party system. You can talk about that . I can say a little bit which is to say that he ran on Democratic Party ticket when he believed that he could form a relationship between multiple groups of people, whether groups, whether they be Business Owners, workers. He believed in the party system in that regard. It wasnt until later in the 1880s, 1890s that he felt like the party system through the democrats and republicans werent working for the best interests of all the time combined. When he sought the white house, what was his intention . Did he ever really think that he could win . He said clearly that he had no intention of ever winning. Lincoln stefans interviewed him in 1908 and said what would it like for you to be president. He said if the party gets close to winning, id be the last person whod want the job or that they would put into the job. He thought of himself more as an evangelist for the cause. He believed in democracy, but i think he was more interested in using the campaigns in order to generate interest among workers, to develop class consciousness, to sort of deliver his message very powerfully every four years. Give us a snapshot of the america that he was dissatisfied with. Well, it was enormous concentration of capital. That was the big struggle at the time. You know, many people were worried about the labor problem. Many workers felt in the face of this rapid industrialization that their skills were less valuable, that their wages were being pitted in the international and National Market where they were getting declining wages and a more difficult work environment. And there was an enormous sense that labor was deeply unhappy. And for debs, debs turned it around and said the problem is not labor, the problem is capital. That the real problem here is not that workers are unhappy and going on strike. The problem the root problem is that these enormous concentrations of capital are undermining american democracy. Socialism was of course on the rise in europe. How was what the socialists and debs were trying to do here different from what was happening there . Well. It was similar at first. They considered themselves internationalists, that socialism needed to be a worldwide movement, and they felt it would be. There were distinctive challenges in america in order to convince workers to do that. There was a stronger sense of a working class in europe on which to draw for socialists organizing there. One of the struggles for debs throughout his career was to try to convince workers that they ought to think of themselves not as democrats or republicans, not on the basis of their religious affiliation, but to think of themselves as members of a working class. And how successful was what he and his fellow thinkers in convincing the public . I mean, at the height of its popularity, how much ground did they make . It depends on how you measure that. I think if you measure it by debs success, his High Water Mark was 1912. He got 6 of the vote. About a million votes. Never any Electoral College votes, though, right . No. But there was a broader socialists were much more successful at the local level. There were quite a number of socialist mayors, city officials of various kind. There was a very vibrant International Socialist society for College Students started by jack london. So a lot of College Campus ferment about socialism. There was an enormously lively press, some of our best journalism from that time period comes out of the socialist press, journals like the masses out of grants village. So socialism was much bigger than counting the votes, i think. And today in congress, the United States senator Bernie Sanders of vermont is a socialist. And we talked to him about debs legacy. Lets listen to a bit of what he had to say. A lot of the ideas that he advocated, talked about when people get old there should be social insurance for them, there should be Retirement Benefits for them. Well, thats what we call Social Security today. And amazingly enough in the year 2011, there are those same people who hate debs when he was alive who now want to destroy Social Security. He believed that health care was a right of all people. That battle continues today. I think it is fair to say that many of the huge advances made during the 30s under president roosevelt, the Great Society under lyndon johnson, and throughout, those were ideas that people like debs probably brought to the attention it was the first person to bring to the attention of millions of working people. And Lisa Phillips, let me ask you to add your perspectives to the america that he saw and was dissatisfied with, and ultimately whether or not he saw himself as antiamerican or wanting to change america. No, i dont think he saw himself as antiamerican at all. In fact, i think he thought that he was advocating through his socialist party and labor Union Activity a kind of america that he harkened back to again in the old days of terre haute of one that was more Community Centered and less driven by big business. He wasnt in his early days, he wasnt even anticapitalist at all and worked with the railroad companies. But it wasnt until the advent of corporate capitalism or big business that he really felt as if there had to be a movement against that the forprofit motive that continued to bring everyday workers wages down. Let me ask you you have something to add to that . I agree with lisa. I think one of the things that made debs so powerful was his ability to cast socialism as an american movement. His argument wasnt this is a revolutionary country in the first place, fought a revolution for democracy, and in his lifetime he experienced the civil war as a revolution. And so some of his greatest idols were the abolitionists. His argument was that the country had fought a battle to overthrow slavery and the next step is to overthrow wage flavory as he called it. A question for 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 . Well, he as one of the First Industrial union leaders, he was mounting a movement on behalf of the working class which he believed everyone who was a worker who earned wages, which were twothirds of americans by 1890, was a part of. Whether they be an immigrant, whether they be black, whether they be women. He certainly saw them as all members of a working class that needed to be just of uplifted in some way, shape, or form. Theres controversy still to this day among historians about whether he did enough on behalf of women and africanamericans, and he had some trouble seeing immigrants especially chinese immigrants and italian immigrants who came over temporarily and worked for 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. So he had some trouble over the course of his career reconciling that. But certainly his as an Industrial Movement was one that recognized the rights of all workers, whether regardless of their backgrounds. I understand that youve got one of the artifacts, a copy of the jungle, Upton Sinclair. Whats the significance . Well, its of huge significance. Upton sinclair wrote the jungle and published it in 1905. He was a member of the socialist party and highlighted the horrible conditions that meat packers worked in in chicago, the conditions what riled up the country was not only the conditions of the workers who were making working in the meat packing industry, but also the quality of the meat, the processed meat that was coming out of the plant. So he was the one who wrote about rats and peoples fingers being caught in the processed meat and how horrible that was. So he worked he and debs were supporters of one another, and Upton Sinclair was able to, like debs, demonstrate the problems with the growing growth of big business. And it was Upton Sinclairs work that led to the creation of the regulation of the food and meat industries, the precursors to the fda. So very much of the same mindset in terms of demonstrating the negative consequences of big business. The book ends with a scene where yurgis wanders into a socialist meeting and hears a character whos clearly supposed to be eugene debs making a socialist speech. For Upton Sinclair, that was supposed to be enough food and drug regulations, although he supported those, but socialism was the bigger answer. So debs is actually right in the book. Would you tell us the story of his first imprisonment and how he got connected with the whole concept and thinking of socialism at that time . Yes. He was he was headed the American Railway union which had mounted a successful strike against the Great Northern Railroad Company based in minneapolis. And in 1893. So the aru, as a result of that strike, gained thousands and thousands of members with debs as its head. And not many of those members were part of the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894. So they petitioned, they asked the aru for support when they decided to walk out against George Pullman who had dropped their wages as a result of the 1893 depression by 28 . Once the wages were dropped, they wanted to walk out and asked the aru headed by debs at that point for support. And debs was reluctant at first. He thought it was too risky. But the pullman workers had a lot of support, not only within pullman, the town of pullman, outside of chicago, but also had a lot of support from Railway Workers all the way from there to st. Louis. So they staged what were some of the first boycott or sympathetic strikes along the railway lines. And it became national in scope. And as a result of that, president Grover Cleveland and the courts got involved and wanted to issue an injunction to stop the the power of the aru and stopping the transport of good the and especially the u. S. Mail along the railways through that corridor. And so Grover Cleveland got involved in the u. S. 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. And then debs was ultimately didnt call the striking workers off and was found in contempt of court for not following the injunction. So he served three months in prison as a result of being convicted of being in contempt of court. And so then, it was then when he was in prison after the pullman strike that he was introduced to socialist Party Literature and became a socialist party member and then staunch advocate. I read a description that he entered left prison a changed man the first time. Do you know more about that . Well, i think he did come to the realization, he felt that when the federal troops came in and smashed the strike when he ended up in prison for defending the rights of workers, that it made it as clear as it could be that the two parties were both working against labor. And that there needed to be an alternative. He didnt go right away to socialism. He was involved in the populist party, very actively initially. And then when that failed, then the socialist party emerged after that. For our two guests, were going to begin bringing your telephone calls into the mix. Weve got the phone numbers, and well put them on the screen. They are 202 highprofile 7370001 in the each or central time zones, if youre in the mountain or pacific time 2027370002. And well mix call in throughout the 9 0 minutes here. We want to give a sense of where the house is in terre haute and on the campus of indiana state university. Were going to show you that via great google map as we listen to our first caller from bath, north carolina. This is steve. Hi, steve. Youre on the air. Caller please compare debs with William Jennings bryant in 1912. And for that matter, over their careers. It seems like they are appealing or trying to appeal to similar constituency. Thanks very much. The election of 1912, William Jennings bryant was an earlier profile. How did they compare . Debs was initially an admirer of bryant. And i think that they shared some concerns about reform. I think the crucial difference is that debs was really a revolutionary. He was not only interested in reform. Reform was necessar

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