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Eugene V. Debs: Leader Of The Labor Movement

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Eugene V. Debs, leader of the labor movement and, later, an outspoken founding socialist, mobilized the working class toward fighting for greater wages, safe conditions, and the 8-hour-day. Initially, entering the workforce as a railroad laborer, he rose to prominence by organizing the American Railway Union, the Socialist Party, and the International Industrial Workers of the World. Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana to French-German immigrants, and dropping high school, he ended up stoking fires for the railroad. There, he rose to prominence as editor for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen’s magazine from 1880 to 1894. As editor, he actually pursued a conservative, friendly relationship between laborers and owners, even condemning the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. However, he soon decided that all laborers ought to band together against big business, who he viewed as suppressing the people. Looking …show more content…

Despairing over the futility of union action, he found his answer to labor’s problems in socialist ideology, announcing his adoption of it after leaving. He founded the Socialist Party and established himself as the leader. For president under the Socialist banner he ran in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920—then from prison for violating the WWI Espionage Act, garnering almost a million votes in 1920. His platform demanded sweeping reform for working conditions, establishing social welfare, and expanding the electorate. Under the Socialist Party he founded the International Workers of the World, a union beyond representing just a craft, but for all laborers. The long-established American Federation of Laborers condemned it as radical, and Debs himself resigned later, also citing its transition to radicalism. When his sentence was commuted by President Harding after the War, he continued to lead the Socialists, weakened by the Red Scare in 1919, until his death in

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