Eugene Debs: Lock Him Up (1919)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s April 14th. This day in 1919, Socialist leader Eugene V Debs is sent to prison for violating the Espionage Act in his opposition to WWI. It wasn’t the first time Debs had been imprisoned — but a year later he would run for president and earn almost 4% of the vote from inside his jail cell.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss Deb’s imprisoned candidacy, and the history of jailing political opponents in the United States.

Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com

And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avagin.
0:09.0	This day, April 14th, 1919, Eugene V. Debs, prominent socialist activist, labor leader,
0:20.0	one of the founding members of the industrial workers of the World, the Wobbly's, and a several
0:24.2	time candidate for president is sent to prison.
0:27.6	Now we'll talk about why he goes to prison, but he stays in prison through 1920 until
0:31.8	President Warren G. Harding commutes his
0:33.7	sentence in December of 1921. So you have this period, early 1919 through
0:39.6	1921 where he's imprisoned. What happens in the interim? Well he earns millions of votes for
0:46.6	president as a candidate in the 1920 election. So that is a notable fact, something we will talk about with Eugene Debs, both his imprisonment
0:55.0	and I actually didn't look this up, but I think the only presidential candidate who's earned a couple
0:59.8	percentage of the vote from prison, I think it's safe to say that, right?
1:03.0	Yeah, I'm certainly the most significant one.
1:05.0	Certainly the most significant. But anyway, here to discuss that as always are,
1:09.1	Nicole Hemer of Columbia and Kelly Cardi Jackson of Wesley. Hello there. Hello Jody. Hey there.
1:15.2	Mickey Debs as we're saying this is the moment where he is imprisoned. The
1:21.1	government is no fan of Eugene Debs. The Wobblies are always clashing with the government.
1:24.8	There are strikes and clashes and arrests and setups and so forth.
1:29.2	What is it that finally gets Debs behind bars in this moment?
1:33.0	Well, 1919 when he has finally arrested and put in prison is in the middle of World War
1:40.8	1 and one of the things that Debbs had been doing as a socialist and as a pacifist was speaking out against the war.
1:48.0	Not only speaking out against the war but telling people that the draft was bad and they shouldn't enroll.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.