ABSTRACT
Eugene Victor Debs was bone and flesh of Middlewestern America. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on November 5, 1855, the eldest son of a poor Alsatian grocer who loved good books and cherished the ideals of American liberty. Debs was elected City Clerk of Terre Haute in 1879 and was able to give up his job with the grocery firm. In the course of the 1880’s Debs learned from painful experience as a labor official that craft unions divided workmen against one another and thus weakened their bargaining powers with their employers. Debs and his lieutenants managed not only to keep the workers away from their jobs but also to gain the sympathy of the general public. In preaching socialism to American workers Debs affirmed that its basic aim was not to reform evils but to abolish the system that produced them—to make social revolution.
