we feature eugene debs, a five-time presidential candidate for the socialist party. this 90-minute program was recorded at debs' home and museum in terre haute, indiana. each sunday, through labor day weekend, you can watch the contend ders here on american history tv on c-span3. >> our featured nten is eugene v. debs, a five-time candidate for president on the socialist ticket and the nation's most celebrated world war i protester. this december, 1921 footage captures him after his return from indiana after a federal conviction stemmingomhe protests. tonight, we are in terre haute and the debs home and museum. let me introduce you to earnest

free berg, whose book is called "democracy's prisoner." itas been 85 years since debs died, why do we care about him? >> he was one of the most important laborads aa crial tiof conflict between labor and capital. he was the central figure in the socialist movement at a time when it was a viable, growing, and important part of the american political culture. >> is he interesting as a snapshot in time or does he have a lasting legacy? , a hi fellow yat socits managed to move conversation in portanreions ffha amican democracy ever ince. in that regard, he is f h ti but hes aso had a l impact on us as w >> h we w eto s e of the morelections later on. of the five bids he made for the white house, are any particularly significant? >> two for very different

reasons. the 1912 represents the h watermark of socialism where he got about 6% of the vote. in 1920, imprisoned in the atlanta penitentiary and got 1 million votes while in prison. >> we will learn more as our 90-minute program, e contenders, our look at people that made an attempt at the white house but failed and had an effect on political and american history. we are live tonight from the debs house of museum in terre haute, indiana. eugene v. debs l in this house with his wife kate. she lived here for years after he died. weill show you more of the house as we continue here. the top floor of this house is an interesting mural. the mural throughout the entire top floor depicts the years of debs' public life and throughout

our program we will be showing you aspects of that artwork to help illustrate eugene v. debs story. let me introduce you to our second guest joining us from the second floor in what was debs' bedroom. now, it is a museum room with a lot of artifacts in it. lisa phillips is a history professor at indiana university. your thoughtsdebs' significance to thamerican story? >> l earnt said, i think his significance has to do with his activity in labor unions, the american railway union and in the socialist party as well. he has had a lasting effect on many of the law that is were passed during the progressive year were as a result of his activist, some of which we still enjoy and he certainly can tell us a lot about his time period through his running for president and through all of his labor union activities as well. >> lisa philips will be showing us some of the artifacts from

time to time in the house here. she is also part of the debs' foundation. tell me about the work of the debs' foundation an you are involved in it. >> the debs' foundation seeks to keep the debs' legacy alive and what it hopeso do is pro ly the policies that debs promoted, which is social justice and equality and theghts of workers generally. continues to try to live through the spirit of his mission. >> as we turn to your expertise in understanding this house and what you showcase here. can you tell me how this house is financed and who is paid for it and whose care it is under? >> it is paid for by the debs foundation and cared for by dr. charles king and by karen brown, both of whom are here in terre haute and who run tours of the museum on a daily basis. >> to our viewers, in about ten

minutes or so, as we always do with these contenders programs, we are going to open up our phone lines and involve you in the discussion. very interested to hear your questions or comments about eugene v. debs and the turn of the 20th century and that period in american history he represents. let me ask you a little bit about what made him a success at what he did. >> well, many people remember him most of all as a dynamic speaker. this is an era of wonderful stump speakers. he was really the best in that genre. so good he could afford to charge a modest admission for his audience. that's how they funded the socialist campaigns in many cases. he was just a very charismatic and had the ability. i think he began as a stayed, victorian speaker. as he became more comfortable over the years, he developed a

more modern, impromtu style that made a tremendous impact on his audience. >> over your shoulders is debs' library. my understanding is that debs dropped out of school at age 14. i am curious about his extensive library and how he educated himself. >> he was very much self-taught. he worked very hard at that. he began working in the railroad union, very interested in the literature there. he worked for a while as a grocery clerk in town, always wanted to get more education but had to rely on doing it on his own. miss phillips, how did terre haute shape eugene debs? >> in many ways, mostly through his upbringing here when he was a younger man and a boy and a young man. he always hearkened back to terre haute of his youth. he thought and invoked it all the time in terms of the rmusatps that he said developed in old tre

haute between everybody he said could aspir toething good in their lives, whether you be a business owner, whether you e a worker but everydy the chance. he always said in old terre haute to do something and to aspire to improve their lives. that's what he held in the most regard in terms of his upbringing. >> you see that he was interested in politics from what looked like an early age in politics in his house. he made bid for clerk in the town and made a successful bid for the indiana legislature on the democratic ticket. >> yes. >> his early roots, then, were in two-party system. can you talk about that? >> i can say a little bit, which is to say that he ran on the democratic party ticket when he latireship between multiple a groups of people, whether they be business owners, workers. belie the party system in thatregard. it wasn't until later in the

1880s, 1890s that he felt like the party systemhroughhe democrats and republicans weren't working for the best interest of all the combined. >> wh he sght the white house,hat wasis intention? did he ever really think that he could win? h very clearly that he had no intention of ever nning. lincoln stefans interviewed him in 1908. he said, what would it beike for you to be president? he said, if the party ever gets close to winning, i would be the last person that would want the job or they would put into the job. he thought of himself more as an evangelist for the cause. democracy but was more terested in using the rest among workers anderate velocliousness and deliver his message very powerfully every power years. >>us a snapshot of the america that he was dissatisfied with. >> an enormous concentration of capital. that was the big struggle at the

time. many people were worried about the labor problem. many workers felt in the face of this rapid industrialization, that their skills were less valuable, that their wages were being pitted in the national and international market where they wereetting declining wages and a more difficult work environment. there was an enormous see that labor was deeply unhappy. for debs, debs turneit and said, the problem is not labor. the problem is capital. the real problem here that workers are unhappy and going onstrike. theo problem is that these enormous concentrions capi are undermining american democracy. >> socialism was on the rise in europe. how was what the socialists and what debs was trying to do here different? >> it was similar at first. they considered themselves to be internationalists. essentially, socialism needed to

be a worldwide movement and they expected it would be. they felt there were distinctive challenges in america in order to convince workers is to do that, a stronger sense of a working class in europe on which to draw for socialists organizing there. one of the struggles for debs throughout his career was trying to convince workers that they ought to think of themselves not as democrats or republicans, not on the basis of their religious affiliation but to think of themselves as members of a working class. >> how successful were he and his fellow thinkers in convincing the public at the height of its popularity? how much ground do they make? >> it depends on how you measure that. >> his high watermark was 1912. he got 6%, about 1 million votes. >> never any electoral college votes, right? >> no. but there was a much broader. socialists were much more

successful at the lotionle level. there were quite a number of socialist mayors and city officials. there was a very vibrant international socialist society for college students started by jack london. a lot of college campuses about socialism. there was a lively press, some of our best journalism from that time period comes out of the socialist press journals like the masses out of greenwich village. socialism was much bigger than counting the votes, i think. >> today in congress, united states sen for bernie sanders of vermont a socialist. we talked to him abo debs' legacy. let's listen to a bit of wat he had to say. >> a lot of the ideas he of voe kated, talking about, when people get old, there should be social insurance and retirement benefits for them. that's what we call social security today. amazingly enough, in the year

2011, there are those same people that hated debs when he was alive that now want to destroy social security. he believed that health care was a right of all people. that battle continues today. i think it is fair to say many of the huge advances made during the '30s under president roosevelt, the great society under lyndon johnson and throughout, those were ideas that people like debs probably brought to the attention, the first person to bring to the attention of millions of working people. >> lisa phillips, let me ask you to add your perspectives to the america that he saw and weigh dissatisfied with and ultimately whether or not he saw him testify as anti-american or wanting to change america. >> no, i don't think he saw himself as anti-american at all. i think he saw himself as

advocating through his socialist party and labor activity as a kind of american that was more community centered and less driven by big business. in his early days, he wasn't even anti-capitalist and worked with the railroad companies itn't unl the advent of corporate capitalism or big there had to be a movement against the for-profit motive that continued to bring everyday workers wages down. >> let me ask yo you have sometng to ad to that? >> iagree with lisa. i think one of the things that made deb so powerful was his ability to cast socialism as an american movement. his argument wasn't, this is a revolutionary country in the first place, fought a revolution for democracy. in his lifetime, he experienced the civil war as a revolution. f his greatest idols were the abolitionists. his argument was that the

country had fought battle t overthrow wage labor. >> who were his workers? did he include women in his view of it? did he include people other than whites? did he include immigrants? what was his definition, sell, industrial union leaders, hes wa mounting a movement on behalf oe believed everyone who was a worker, who earned wages, whic was two-thirds of americans by 1890, was a part of, whether they be an immigrant, black, whether they be women. he certainly saw them as all members of a working class that needed to be uplifted in some way, shape, or form. there is controversy still to this day among historians about whether he did enough on behalf of women and african-americans. he had some trouble seeing immigrants, specially chinese and italian immigrants that came over temporarily and worked for

very low wages and brought them back to their home countries as part of the same american working class that was driving, trying to fight for higher wages. we had some trouble over the course of his career reconciling that. certainly, his, as an industrial movement was one that recognized the rights of all workers regardless of their backgrounds. >> i understand you have one of the artifacts copies of "the jungle" upton sinclair. what's the significance? >> upton sinclair was a member of the socialist part himself and he highlighted in "the jungle" the horrible conditions that meat packers worked in in chicago. what really riled up the country was not only the conditions of the workers that were working in the meat packing industry but also the quality of the processed meat that was coming out of the plant. so he was the one that wrote

about rats and people's fingers being caught in the processed meat and how horrible that was. so he worked. he and debs were supporters of one another. upton sinclair was able to, like debs, demonstrate the problems with the growing growth of big business. it was upton sinclair's work that led to the creation of the regulation of the food and meat industries, the precursor to the fda. ry much of the same mind-set in terms of demonstrating the ne consequences of big business. >> the book actually ends with a scene where hers into a socialist meeting and hears a characwho is supposed to be debs and making the socialist speech. for upton sinclair, that was supposed to be not food and drug regulations, although he supported those but socialism was the bigger answer. debs is actually right in the book. >> would you tell us the story

of his first imprisonment and how he got connected with the whole concept and thinking of socialism at that time? >> yes. he was headed the american railway union whicha mounted a successful strike against the great northern railroad company based in minnli 1893. so the aru, as a result of that strike gdai thousands and thousands of members with debs as its head. many of those members were part of the pullm palace car company in 1894. they petitionedeyed the a.r.u.or decided to walk out against george pullman who had dro their wages by 28%. once their wages were dropped, they wanted to walk out and asked the a.r.u., headed b deb at that point for support. debs was reluctant at first. he thought it too risky. but the pullman workers had a lot of support, not only within

pullman, the town of pullman, which is outside of chicago but also had a lot of support from railway workers all the way from there to st. louis. they staged what were some of the first boycott or sympathetic strike a theng railway lines. it became national in scope. and the courts hat, president got involved and wanted to issue an injunction to stop theow of the a.r.u. and stopping the transport of goods and espeally the u.s. mail along the railways through that corridor. grover cleveland got involved and sent u.s. troops to open up the railway depos that had been shut down as ault of the strike that had been called by the a.r.u. then, debs was ultimately didn't call the striking workers off and was found in contempt of

court for not following the injunction. so he served three months in prison as a result of being convicted in contempt of court. so then it was then when he was in prison after the pullman strike that he was introduced his socialist party literter yu and socialism party member and staunch advocate. >> i read a description that he left prison a changed man the first time. do you know more about that? >> well,hk he did come to the realization that he felt came in and smashed the strike, when he ended up in priso for defending the rights of workers, that it made it as clear as it can be that the two parties were working against labor and there needed to be an alternative. he didn't go right away to socialism. he was involved in the populist party very actively initially. when that failed, then the socialist party emerged after

that. >> for our two guests, we are going to begin bringing your telephone calls into the mix. we have the phone numbers. they are 202737-0001 in eastern and central. if you are in the mountain or pacific, 202-737-0002. we will mix calls in throughout our 90 minutes here. as we take our first call, we want to give you a sense of where the house is in terre haute and on the campus of indiana state university. we are going to show you that via a great google map as we listen to our first ll from bath, north carolina, steve. >> please compare debs with williams jenngsryant in 1912 and r that matter over their careers. it seems like they are appeaor constituency. >> thanks veuch. in the election of 1912, william

ingsjennryant was our earlier h profile. how do they compare? >> debs was initially an admirer of ryan. i think that theyed some concerns about reform. i think the crucial difference is that debs was really a revolutionary. he was not only interested in reform. reform was necessary but he felt that something much greater was needed. there needed to be an end to capitalism and public ownership of the means of production. that was a position that clearly distinguished him from brian's campaign. >> in 1900, william mckinley, william jegs brian and hegot .6t year. do you know what his early appeals were as a candidate and how they changed over his many the real challenge for debs was to t to knit together alist

very different positions. one of the strongest hot beds of socialism was oklahoma. people who had been populists started to develop these socialism camp meetings where they would gather together to hear socialist speeches. debs was a real hero there. the socialists needed to also speak to trade unionists in chicago and milwaukee, to radical bohemians in san francisco and greenwich village, to jewish garmet workers. they needed to knit together that capitalism needed to change fundamentally. we are coming at this from very different positions. so it took a while to build the apparatus. >> in another election in 1908 which involved william jennings bryan, it looked like debs was

beginning to understand some early marketing. he had campaign tactics like the red train special and the red special ban. can you tell us more about that? >> 1908 was a critical year because of the popularity of the socialist party and the strength of labor unions and the american in period.f labor unions and his message as earnest was just saying, appealed to more people from a diverse amount of backgrounds. the red special would have been a good unifying kind of symbol to use to unite what were very disparite groups of people. it meant to his supporters challenge to big business and that's what red would have indited he 1908 election.

it was a good way to unify peoph le wituse of t red special. >> nextel phone call from los vary knows, california, a caller named randy. hi, randy. welcome. >> caller: thank you. yes. i just wanted to give a little bit of background. my grandfather actually voted for eugene v. debs in the election. the other thing that i have, as i went through school, through the primary grades through high school, we never heard of eugene v. debs. it seems like one of the things that is really lacking in our education system is labor history. the fact that when people talk about social security, unemployment insurance and many people, even older people are surprised that people died for those benefits. they were not gifts. they were fought for. people literally were killed and beaten and jailed for the right. with the neofascists that are now running one republican party trying to push it farther

tolt, it seems that eugene v. ds, historically, to reestablish that message. we are in c history. if we are not careful, with he could be going towards fam. >> randy, a question? a question for you, randy, before you go? >> the question is- >> did you talk about debs with your grandfather? >> i am asking you, did you talk with your grandfather about debs? >> yes, i did. >> which election did he vote for him in? >> the 1916 election, i believe. >> 1920. >> 916 was the year he sat out, as a matter of fact. >>u, randy. appreciate it. why did h sit out in 1916? >> he was in ill health. i think he only ran in 1920, because of the unusual circumstances. he felt that it wa time to pass

on the baton of the movement to somebody else. he did run for congress here in indiana in 1916. he didn't feel up to the red special. when he was on that red special train, he wasgiving5 speeches a day. he would come back exhausd to terre haute and collapse, i guess, in one of the bedrooms upstairs and spend weeks trying to recover. so in 1916, he decided to sit out. >> lisa phillips, an's comments were probably music to your ears about the lack of teaching of labor history in teach at the llege level. i am wondering what you are thinking about teaching of labor history to aman stents today? >> of course, i would say it should be taught more an it is. i think that there is so much we can learn about working people, awe of us that work every day an try to make ends meet and to value them by teaching their history is very important. it gives us a different

perspective on what it means to fight for some of the rights that the caller was mentioning and not take them for granted and realize as hard fought as they were fought for they can be easily taken away and fought for again. we need to really teach those struggles and how difficult it was so that we don't simply take for granted the benefits we received a result. >> in the early part of the 20th century, was there a middle class in the united states? >> sure. a large part of corporate capitalism actually generated a much larger middle class. >> the people he represented, would they have been part of the middle class? >> there were a large number of middle class supporters, people who went to debs' meetings, expecting to see them be working class people. they were often surprised to find that there were actually many of the most important writers and political thinkers

that we can think of from that time period were either members of the socialist party or at least very sympathetic to their agenda. he considered it a working class movement. it had a very strong leadership component that formed the middle class. >> the period, 00, to mid 1915 or so, would it have been dangerous to call yourself a socialist in the united states. were the authorities watching you in any srt of way? >> well, no. i would say it was not. there are particular incidents. to be involved as a socialist in particular strike environments was a problem. there was some conflict over the rights of soap box speakers. the socialists were big believers in bringing their message to the street through soap box or atorey and sometimes there were clashes with the police. they were very much a part of

the political conversation in this period. >> when did that ange, did the public at-large begin to get more suspicious about intentions? >> when socialists starto get a lot of votes. that are the sta that started the co 1908 and1912, teddy roosevelt called debs one of our most undesirable citizens. there was a sense that the forces of modern opinion needed to push back against socialism rhetorically. it wasn't until world war i that the gloves came off and socialism was physically and legally consulted. >> next is a c named cal in mid-town manhattan. >> i am loving this series. thank you for the series. fascinating history. thank you. just off the bat, there are a couple of things that just strike me. hopefully, your guests can comment ne