now, the contenders. our 14-week series on key political figures who ran for president and lost, but who changed political history. 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 contenders here on american history tv on c pan -- c-span 3. >> our featured contender is eugene v.debs, the nation's most celebrated world war i protester. this december, 1921 footage captures him after his return from indiana after a federal conviction stemming from the war protests.

tonight, we are in terre haute and the debs home and museum. let me introduce you to one of our two guests, ernest freeberg, whose book is called "democracy's prisoner." it has been 85 years since debs died, why do we care about him? >> he was one of the most important labor leaders at a crucial time of conflict between labor and capital. more importantly, he was the central figure in a 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? >> like many third-party candidates, he and his fellow socialists managed to move the conversation in important directions that have affected the development of american democracy ever since. in that regard, he is of his time, but he's also had a long

impact on us as well. >> we will have time to delve into some of the more elections later on. of the five bids he made for the white house, are any particularly significant? >> two for very different reasons. the 1912 bid represents the high water mark of socialism where he got about 6% of the vote. quite different election is 1920, where he was imprisoned in the atlanta penitentiary and got a million votes also while running in prison. >> we will learn more about both of those as our 90-minute program, the contendser, our look at people who made an attempt at the white house and failed but 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 lived in this house with his wife kate. she lived here for years after he died. we'll 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 state university and a specialist in labor history. thank you so much for being with us. your thoughts on debs' significance to the american story? >> like ernest said, i think his cig kansz has to do with his activity in the labor unions, the american railway union, and 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 and why you are involved in it. >> the debs' foundation seeks to keep the debs' legacy alive and what it hopes to do is promote not only the museum but the policies that debs promoted, which is social justice and equality and the rights of workers generally. so it 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 a little bit about how this house is financed and functions, who pays for it, and whose care its 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. who could fill two and three hours with a speech. many said he was really the best in that genre. in fact, so good that 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. >> lisa 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 the terre haute of his youth. he thought and invoked it all the time in terms of the harmonious relationships that he said developed in old terre haute between everybody he said could aspire to do something good in their lives, whether you be a business owner, whether you are a worker but everybody had 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. >> when you walk around the house, you see he was interested in politics from what looked like an early age. 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

believed that he could form a relationship between multiple groups of people, whether they be business owners, workers. he believed in the party system in that regard. it wasn't until later in the 1880s, 1890s that he felt like the party system through the democrats and republicans weren't working for the best interest of all the people combined. >> when he sought the white house, what was his intention? did he ever really think that he could win? >> he said very clearly that he had no intention of ever winning. lincoln stefans interviewed him in 1908 and said, what would it be like for you to be president? he said f the party ever gets close to winning, i'd be the last person who would want the job. he thought of himself more as an evangelist for the cause. he believed very much in democracy, but i think he was more interested in using the campaigns in order to generate interest among workers to

develop class consciousness, to sort of deliver his message very powerfully every four years. >> give 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 were getting declining wages and a more difficult work environment. there was an enormous sense that labor was deeply unhappy. for debs, debs turned it around and said, the problem is not labor. the problem is capital. the real problem here is not that workers are unhappy and going on strike. the root problem is that these enormous concentrations of capital 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 from what happens happening there? >> 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 to do that. there was a stronger sense of the 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. i think if you measure is by

debs' success -- as i said, his high water mark was about 6%. >> never any electoral college votes, right? >> no. but there was a much broader -- socialists were much more successful at that 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 campus ferment 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 senator bernie sanders of vermont is a socialist. we talked to him about debs' legacy. let's listen to a bit of what he had to say.

>> a lot of ideas that he advocates talked about when people get old, there should be social insurance for them. there should be 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 was

dissatisfied with and whether or not he saw himself 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. it wasn't until the advent of corporate capitalism or big business that he felt as if there had to be a movement against the for-profit motive that continued to bring everyday workers' wages down. >> let me ask you. you have something to add to that? >> i agree with lisa. i think one of the things that made debs 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. some of his greatest idols were the abolitionists. his argument was that the country had fought a battle to overthrow wage labor. >> a question for you. 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, lisa? >> well, as one of the first industrial union leaders, he was mounting a movement on behalf of the working class, which he believed everyone who was a worker, who earned wages, which 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. so he had some trouble over the course of his career reconciling that. certainly, his, as an industrial movement, was one that recogn e 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? >> it's of huge significance. upton sinclair wrote "the jungle" in 1965 and was part of the socialist movement himself. he highlighted the horrible conditions that meat packers

worked 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 precursors to the fda. very much of the same mind-set in terms of demonstrating the negative consequences of big business. >> the book actually ends with a scene where he wonders into a socialist meeting and hears a character who 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, which had mounded a successful strike against the great northern railroad company based in minneapolis in 1893. so the aru, as a result of that strike, gained thousands and thousands of members with debs as the head. many of those members were part of the pullman palace car company in 1894. they petitioned, they asked the a.r.u. for support when they decided to walk out against george pullman who had dropped their wages as a result of the

depression by 28%. once their wages were dropped, they wanted to walk out and asked the a.r.u., headed by debs at that point for support. debs was reluctant at first. he thought it was 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 strikes along the railway lines. it became national in scope. as a result of that, president grover cleveland and the courts got involved and wanted to issue an injunction to stop the power of the a.r.u. and stopping the transport of goods and especially 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 a result 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 to socialist party literature and became a socialist 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, i think he did come to the realization that he felt that when the federal troops came in and smashed the strike, when he ended up in prison 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. 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 caller from bath, north carolina, steve. >> please compare debs with william jennings bryan in 1912 and for that matter over their

careers. it seems like they are appealing or trying to appeal to similar constituency. >> thanks very much. in the election of 1912, william jennings bryan was our earlier profile. how do they compare? >> debs was initially an admirer of bryan. i think that they shared 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 bryan's campaign. >> his first try, 1900, mckinley, william jennings bryan, and he got 6% of the

popular vote that year. do you know what his early appeals were as a candidate and how they changed over his many bids? >> the real challenge for debs was to try to knit together socialists coming from very, 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 garment workers on the lower east side. the real challenge for debs and for the party was to find a way to knit together people who all agreed on some level 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 looks like debs was beginning to understand some early marketing because he had some campaign tactics like the red train special and the red special band. 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 federation of labor unions and other unions in this period. 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 disparate groups of people who were working on farms or who were in urban areas so it meant to his supporters a kind of a

challenge to big business, a challenge to capitalism. they would have called it big business a monopoly in that period. that's what red would have indicated in the 1908 election. it was a good way to unify people with the use of the red special. >> next telephone carandy. >> 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 on the republican party trying to push it farther to the right, it seems like eugene v. debs historically, but to reestablish that message now more than ever. we are in a critical part of history. if we are not careful, with he could be going towards fascism. i think that message now is more important than ever. >> 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. >> 1916 was the year he sat out, as a matter of fact. >> thank you, randy. appreciate it. why did he 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 was 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 was giving 15 speeches a day. he would come back exhausted 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, randy's comments were probably music to your ears about the lack of teaching of labor history in schools. you teach at the college level. i am wondering what you are thinking about teaching of labor history to american's students today? >> of course, i would say it should be taught more than it is. i think that there is so much we can learn about working people,

all of us who work every day and 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, 1900, 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 sort of way? >> no, i would say it was not. there are particularly incidents, to be involved as a socialist in a particular strike environment or was a problem, it 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 oratory, and sometimes there were clashes with the police. as far as in terms of persecution of socialists, they were part of the conversation. >> which did that change and when did the public at large start to get more suspicious about intentions? >> the socialists started to get votes and that started the conversation, 1908 and 1912, teddy rosevelt called t ed debs of our most undesirable citizens. there was a sense that the forces of moderate opinion needed to push back against socialism rhetorically at first. it wasn't really until world war i that the gloves really came off and socialism was sort of physically and legally assaulted. >> you're on.