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Eugene V. Debs. (credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Nov. 5, 1855, Terre Haute, Ind., U.S. — died Oct. 20, 1926, Elmhurst, Ill.) U.S. labour organizer. Debs left home at age 14 to work in the railroad shops. As a locomotive fireman, he became an early advocate of industrial unionism, and he became president of the American Railway Union in 1893. His involvement in the Pullman Strike led to a six-month prison term in 1895. In 1898 he helped found the U.S. Socialist Party; he would run as its presidential candidate five times (1900 – 20). In 1905 he helped found the Industrial Workers of the World. Debs was charged with sedition in 1918 after denouncing the 1917 Espionage Act; he conducted his last presidential campaign from prison, winning 915,000 votes before being released by presidential order in 1921.

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