Education
Debs attended public school, dropping out of high school at age 14.
Debs attended public school, dropping out of high school at age 14.
Early in his career Debs gained recognition as an effective labor organizer.
They included the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen, the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, and the Order of Railway Telegraphers.
Against Debs's advice the new union participated in the Pullman Strike of 1894 in sympathy with Pullman Palace Car workers.
Eugene Victor Debs became convinced that no single union could protect the rights of workers.
In the presidential election of 1896 he campaigned for the Democratic-Populist candidate William Jennings Bryan, but a year later Debs announced his conversion to socialism. For the next 30 years Debs was the leading spokesmen for democratic socialism to millions of U. S. citizens.
Though he failed to win a large percentage of the vote on election day, the number of people who voted for him was substantial, ranging from 96, 000 in 1900 to 915, 000 in 1920.
Debs's writings and speeches spread his ideas far beyond the confines of a relatively minor political party.
In 1912 he ran for president against future president Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), former president Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), and incumbent president William Howard Taft (1909–1913).
At the time Debs found that both Wilson and Roosevelt were advocating many of the ideas he had introduced in earlier campaigns.
In 1920 he ran for president as a Socialist candidate for the last time.
He campaigned from a prison cell where he was serving a 10-year sentence for sedition under the 1917 Espionage Act. His case became a rallying point for those who believed he should be freed as a matter of freedom of speech.
Eugene Victor Debs also became interested in the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists accused of murder. This case involved heightened public attention towards labor and political radicals. In the summer of 1926 Debs returned to a sanitarium where he had spent extended periods in 1922 and 1924.
Eugene Victor Debs helped form the Socialist Party of America in 1898 and was its presidential candidate in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. His speeches also raised much-needed funds for the Socialist Party. Although many of his followers had joined the Communist Party, Debs refused to do so because he opposed the Soviet system and its suppression of free speech. In his final years he concentrated on prison reform, since he had firsthand experience about prison conditions.
his proposals were radical in the early twentieth century, but later became standard public policy for both major political parties.
Eugene Debs was married to Kate Metzel. They did not have any children.