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#TrumpMugShot: Remembering Eugene V. Debs, who fought US presidential election from prison
Eugene V. Debs was a US politician and a member of the Socialist Party and ran for President five times since 1900.
Donald Trump became the first former US President to get a mugshot after being arrested. While the historic moment has made headlines across the globe, a late politician's name is doing the rounds on social media.
Eugene V. Debs was a US politician and a member of the Socialist Party and ran for President five times since 1900. He fought the presidential election in 1920 while being imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
“I thank the capitalist masters for putting me here. They know where I belong under their criminal and corrupting system. It is the only compliment they could pay me,” Debs wrote in a statement.
Debs opposed America's participation in World War I as he believed that it was only for the advantage of arms manufactures and similar business people.
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Why was Debs put on trial and imprisoned?
In July 1918, he held a gathering in Canton, Ohio city park, where he criticised the government for participation in the war and muzzling the voice of antiwar activists. Debs was put on trial for allegedly speaking against the draft system which required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service, in the wake of World War I.
“They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people,” said Debs in his speech as quoted by The Washington Post.
“The working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace,” added Debs.
Debs was charged under the Sedition Act of 1918 for his anti-war speech. Interestingly, during the hearing the prosecutors failed to prove that he discouraged registration for the war in his speech. But Debs voluntarily admitted his guilt in court before the Judge. Debs was sentenced to three concurrent 10-year sentences.
