Retro Indy: Meet Indiana's Socialist presidential candidate who ran from a prison cell

The first man to run for president from prison was a Hoosier known for his radical views and support for workers' rights.

In 1920, Indiana native Eugene Debs led a Socialist Party campaign for the presidency from a Georgia prison cell, garnering nearly a million votes. Jailed for speaking out against World War I, Debs had been a worker’s advocate throughout his life. He was admired by men like Lenin and Trotsky and good friends with Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley.

“And there’s ‘Gene Debs—a man ‘at stands / And jes’ holds out in his two hands / As warm a heart as ever beat / Betwixt here and the Judgement Seat,” Riley wrote in “Regardin’ Terry Hut,” an 1899 poem.

Those who knew Debs described him as respectful, self-effacing and generous, said Allison Duerk, director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum in Terre Haute, which is housed in the three-story home where Debs and wife Katherine Metzel lived for most of their married lives.

“He would leave with two bags and a suit and come home with the shirt on his back, basically, because he was just constantly giving away more than he could afford to,” Duerk said.

Debs is known for his labor work and Duerk said his Hoosier roots played a critical role in shaping his values.

“A visitor recently asked me if Debs was ahead of this time, and I think in many ways that's fair to say,” Duerk said. “But at the same time, Debs is a product of his time, and place too.”

Debs was born in 1855 in Terre Haute to Daniel and Daisy Debs, French immigrants who preferred music and poetry recitation to weekly church services. At age 14, he left school to work as a railroad employee, despite the fact that his parents' grocery store was a stable business.

In Debs’ time, railway workers faced brutal and life-threatening working conditions with no financial safety net. The first union Debs joined existed to help pay for its members’ funerals. Even after Debs left the railroad, he continued supporting the local union and eventually served as grand secretary for several years.

In 1893, Debs played a key role in organizing the first modern industrial-scale union, the American Railway Union, where different workers within one industry came together across jobs and skill levels. The union first struck Great Northern Railway in April 1894 and saw their demands granted in 18 days. In May, though, the Pullman boycott in Chicago failed and Debs and other union leaders went to jail, in what would be his first time locked up.

Debs ran for president as the Socialist Party's candidate every year from 1900 to 1912. In 1918, he gave an antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio that got him convicted under the country’s wartime espionage law. Sentenced to 10 years in prison in Atlanta, he began serving his sentence in 1919.

“Law is a mass of technicalities; it is humbug,” Debs was quoted saying in March 1919. “There is not a word in the Canton speech for which I was convicted that I would take back. I simply exercised my constitutional rights.”

But regardless, he took on one final campaign for the presidency.

Debs was released early, on Christmas Day, 1921. He was welcomed home to Terre Haute three days later, but prison took a toll on his health. Debs died Oct. 20, 1926.

Debs had a then-radical platform. He supported social security, child labor laws and equality for women and people of color. He also campaigned for nationwide health insurance, which still has never been implemented in the United States.

“I don't think there's a person alive who works for a living, at least, like around us, who hasn't directly benefited from the movements that Debs was a part of,” Duerk said.

Towards the end of his life, Debs shared the philosophy that had driven him for decades.

“It is the enlightened man who will give his life to his dream, and ask no further compensation,” Debs was quoted as saying in a July 1926 article. “Nothing makes any difference to him except that he is satisfying his inner self, the God within even the lowest form of human being. That urge will make him work for a better day.”

Contact IndyStar politics Pulliam fellow Nadia Scharf at nscharf@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @nadiaascharf.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Retro Indy: Meet Indiana's Socialist presidential candidate who ran from a prison cell