At the turn of the 20th century, a fivetime candidate for president on the socialist ticket and the nations most celebrated world war i protester. This december, 1921 footage captures debs on his return to his hometown of terre haute, indiana following his release from prison by president Warren Harding after a federal conviction stemming from those war protests. Tonight we are in terre haute in the debs home and museum. Let me introduce you to one of our two guests, Ernest Freeberg, a debs biographer, whose book is called, dempseys prisoner. It has been 85 years since debs died, why do we care about him . He was one of the most important labor leaders at a crucial time of conflict between labor and capital. More importantly, he was the central figure in a socialist movement at a time when it was a viable, growing, and important part of the american political culture. Is he interesting as a snapshot in time or does he have a Lasting Legacy . Like many thirdparty candidates, he and his fellow socialists managed to move the conversation in important directions that have affected the development of american democracy ever since. In that regard, he is of his time, but hes also had a long impact on us as well. We will have time to delve into some of the elections more deeply later on. Of the five bids he made for the white house, are 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. The more or quite different election is 1920 where he was imprisoned in the atlanta penitentiary and got a million votes also while running in if prison. We will learn more about both of those as our 90minute program, the contenders, our look at people who made an attempt at the white house and failed but had an effect on political and American History. We are live tonight from the debs house of museum in terre haute, indiana. Its on the campus of Indiana State University. Eugene v. Debs lived in this house with his wife kate. She lived here for years after he died. Well show you more of the house as we continue here. The top floor of this house is an interesting mural. The mural throughout the entire top floor depicts the years of debs public life and throughout our program we will be showing you aspects of that artwork to help illustrate eugene v. Debs story. Let me introduce you to our second guest joining us from the second floor in what was debs bedroom. Now it is a museum room with a lot of artifacts in it. Lisa phillips is a history professor at Indiana State University and a specialist in labor history. Thank you so much for being with us. Your thoughts on debs significance to the american story. Like ernest said, i think his significance has to do with his activity in the labor unions, the American Railway union, and the socialist party as well. He has had a lasting effect on many much of the laws that were passed during the progressive year were as a result of his activist, some of which we still enjoy and he certainly can tell us a lot about his time period through his running for president and through all of his Labor Union Activities as well. Lisa philips will be showing us some of the artifacts from time to time in the house here. She is also part of the Debs Foundation. Tell me about the work of the Debs Foundation and why you are involved in it. The Debs Foundation seeks to keep the debs legacy alive and what it hopes to do is promote not only the museum but the policies that debs promoted, which is social justice and equality and the rights of workers generally. So it continues to try to live through the spirit of his mission. As we turn to your expertise in understanding this house and what you showcase here, can you tell me a little bit about how this house is financed and functions, who pays for it, and whose care its under . It is paid for by the debs . It is paid for by the Debs Foundation and cared for by dr. Charles king and by karen brown, both of whom are here in terre haute and who run tours of the museum on a daily basis. To our viewers, in about ten minutes or so, as we always do with these contenders programs, we are going to open up our phone lines and involve you in the discussion. Very interested to hear your questions or comments about eugene v. Debs and the turn of the 20th century and that period in American History he represents. Let me ask you a little bit about what made him a success at what he did. Well, many people remember him most of all as a dynamic speaker. This is an era of wonderful stump speakers. Who could fill two and three hours with a speech. Debs, many said, was really the best in that genre. In fact, so good that he could afford to charge a modest admission for his audience. Thats how they funded the socialist campaigns in many cases. He was just a very charismatic and had the ability. I think he began as a stayed, victorian speaker. As he became more comfortable over the years, he developed a more modern, impromptu style that made a tremendous impact on his audience. Over your shoulders is debs library. My understanding is that 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, very interested in the literature there. He worked for a while as a grocery clerk in town, always wanted to get more education but had to rely on doing it on his own. Lisa phillips, how did terre haute shape eugene debs . In many ways, mostly through his upbringing here when he was a younger man and a boy and a young man. He always hearkened back to the terre haute of his youth. He thought and invoked it all the time in terms of the harmonious relationships that he said developed in old terre haute between everybody he said could aspire to do something good in their lives, whether you be a business owner, whether you are a worker. But everybody always had a chance, in old terre haute, he always said, and to aspire to improve their lives. Thats what he held in the most regard in terms of his upbringing. When you walk around the house, you see he was interested in politics from what looked like an early age. He made bid for clerk in the town and made a successful bid for the Indiana Legislature on the democratic ticket. Yes. His early roots, then, were in twoparty system. Can you talk about that . I can say a little bit, which is to say that 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. 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 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 that he had no intention of ever winning. Lincoln stefans interviewed him in 1908 and said, what would it be like for you to be president . He said that if the party ever gets close to winning, id be the last person who would want the job or that they would put into the job. He thought of himself more as an evangelist for the cause. He believed very much 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. An enormous concentration of capital. That was the big struggle at the time. 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 national and International Market where they were getting declining wages and a more difficult work environment. There was an enormous sense that labor was deeply unhappy. For debs, debs turned it around and said, the problem is not labor. The problem is capital. The real problem here is not that workers are unhappy and going on strike. The root problem is that these enormous concentrations of capital are undermining american democracy. Socialism was on the rise in europe. How was what the socialists and what debs was trying to do here different from what happens there . It was similar at first. They considered themselves to be internationalists. Essentially, socialism needed to be a Worldwide Movement and they expected it would be. They felt there were distinctive challenges in america in order to convince workers to do that. There was a stronger sense of the working class in europe on which to draw for socialists organizing there. One of the struggles for debs throughout his career was trying 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. How successful were he and his fellow thinkers in convincing the public at the height of its popularity . How much ground do they make . It depends on how you measure that. I think if you measure it by debs success as i said, his High Water Mark was about 6 . That was in 1912. Never any Electoral College votes, right . No. But there was a much broader socialists were much more successful at the local level. There were quite a number of socialist mayors and city officials of various kinds. There was a very vibrant International Socialist society for College Students started by jack london. 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 greenwich village. Socialism was much bigger than counting the votes, i think. Today in congress, United States senator Bernie Sanders of vermont is a socialist. We talked to him about debs legacy. Lets listen to a bit of what he had to say. A lot of ideas that he advocated, talked about when people get old, there should be a social insurance for them. There should be Retirement Benefits for them. Thats what we call Social Security today. Amazingly enough, in the year 2011, there are those same people who hated 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 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, the first person to bring to the attention of millions of working people. 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. I think he thought that he was soaking through his socialist party and labor Union Activity a kind of america that he hearkened back to, again in the old days of terre haute, of one that was more Community Centered and one less driven by big business. In his early days, he wasnt even anticapitalist and worked with the railroad companies. It wasnt until the advent of corporate capitalism or big business that he felt as if there had to be a movement against 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. In his lifetime, he experienced the civil war as a revolution. Some of his greatest idols were the abolitionists. His argument was that the country had fought a battle to chattel slavery and the next step to overthrow wage lav slav as he called it. 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 . Well, 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 twothirndz otwothirds of 1890, was a part of, whether they be immigrant, black, whether they be women. He certainly saw them as all members of a working class that needed to be uplifted in some way, shape, or form. There is controversy still to this day among historians about whether he did enough on behalf of women and africanamericans. He had some trouble seeing immigrants, especially chinese immigrants and italian immigrants who came over temporarily and worked for very low wages and then 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. Certainly, his, as an industrial movement, was one that recognized the rights of all workers, regardless of their backgrounds. I understand you have one of the artifacts copies of the jungle Upton Sinclair. Whats the significance . Its of huge significance. Upton sinclair wrote the jungle then published it in 1905. He was a member of the socialist party himself. He highlighted the horrible conditions that meat packers worked in this chicago and the conditions what really riled up the country was not only the conditions of the workers who were making work, in the meat packing industry, but also the quality of the processed meat that was coming out of the plant. So he was the one that 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. It was Upton Sinclairs work that led to the creation of the regulation of the food and meat industries, the precursors to the fda. Very much of the same mindset in terms of demonstrating the negative consequences of big business. The book actually ends with a scene where he wanders into a socialist meeting and hearsay a character whos clearly supposed to be eugene debs making a socialist speech. For Upton Sinclair, that was supposed to be not food and drug regulations, neglect sart although he supported those, but socialism was the bigger answer. 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 headed the American Railway union, which had mounded a successful strike against the a successful strike against tyed a successful strike against the Great NorthernRailroad Company based in minneapolis in 1893. So the aru, as a result of that strike, gained thousands and thousands of members with debs as its head. Many of those members were part of the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894. They petitioned, they asked the aru for support when they decided to walk out against George Pullman who had dropped their wages as a results of the 1893 depression by 28 . Once their wages were dropped, they wanted to walk out and asked the aru, headed by debs at that point for support. 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, which is outside of chicago but also had a lot of support from Railway Workers all the way from there to st. Louis. They staged what were some of the first boycott or sympathetic strikes along the railway lines. It became national in scope. As a result of that, president Grover Cleveland and the courts got involved and wanted to issue an injunction to stop the power of the aru and stopping the transport of goods and especially the u. S. Mail along the railways through that corridor. Grover cleveland got involved and 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. 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. 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 staunch advocate. I read a description that he left prison a changed man the first time. Do you know more about that . Well, i think he did come to the realization that 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 a