ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the economic and political forces and events that led to the federal government's suppression of American labor radicalism during First World War. The mass strike came to industrial America in 1877. The strikes of that summer were upheavals of protest and rebellion involving large numbers of dissatisfied workers who were unorganized, without overall leadership and without a program of action. The strike was a failure and six months later the workers were back at work without a union organization. One of the nation's giant corporations, using strikebreakers and backed by the courts and state government, had destroyed one of the early industrial unions. The strike was broken by the combination of corporations, courts, and federal government, Debs was jailed, and the union disintegrated. But Debs emerged from prison a convinced socialist, led in organizing the Socialist and became the foremost socialist leader of his time.
