(New York) Indicted for violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to a ten-year prison term, the colorful politician raises his supporters by leading his presidential campaign behind the bars of a Georgia penitentiary. THE New York Times does not hide his displeasure.
“Under the influence of this unreasonable mob psychology, the convicted criminal is applauded nightly as loudly as many presidential candidates who have earned their eminence by rendering great and tireless service to the American people,” thunders the editorial page of the daily collared.
Think again: this is not a prediction about Donald Trump. The above sentences relate to the campaign of the first and last major candidate to run for the US presidency from a prison cell. His name was Eugene Debs and, as the Timeshis presidential candidacy in 1920 had been acclaimed by a not insignificant part of the spectators of the cinemas which presented newsreels.
PHOTO FROM WIKIPEDIA
Eugene Debs
One of these silent films showed a delegation arriving at Atlanta Penitentiary to inform Debs of his nomination as the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, of which he was the founder. According to a text scrolling to the big screen, these images depicted “the most unusual scene in the political history of America – Debs, who is serving a ten-year sentence for sedition activities, accepts the socialist nomination for president”. .
Thomas Doherty, professor of American studies at Brandeis University, recalled some of these facts in a text published after Donald Trump was charged in New York in connection with the Stormy Daniels case. The former president’s indictment in Florida for unlawfully withholding state secrets and obstructing an investigation was yet to come.
The story of Eugene Debs is instructive. It demonstrates not only that Donald Trump can continue his presidential campaign as a defendant, but also as a convicted person, if he is ever sent to prison after being found guilty by a jury of his peers.
The chances of such a scenario occurring are not great, especially given the efforts that the former president’s lawyers will no doubt make to delay any eventual trial.
A previous
But the precedent set by Eugene Debs cannot be ignored. Especially since it presents an outcome likely to inspire the winner of the presidential election of 2024, if that person is not called Donald Trump.
But first, who is Eugene Debs? Born into a family of merchants from Terre Haute, Indiana, this exceptional tribune helped found one of the first major industrial unions in the United States, the American Railway Union, in 1893. The following year, he was sentenced to six months in prison for his support of the Pullman railcar strike in Chicago. He took advantage of this first stay behind bars to read The capital by Karl Marx.
In 1912, during his fourth presidential campaign, he won almost 1 million votes, or 6%. In June 1918, he gave the speech that was to send him back to prison. A month earlier, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson had signed into law the Sedition Act, which amended the Espionage Act of 1917.
Under this measure, which Vladimir Putin would not repudiate today, any false or malicious statement against the federal government became illegal, as well as any speech against the controversial introduction of conscription to support the military effort of the United States. during the First World War.
Eugene Debs was in Canton, Ohio when he denounced the “princes of Wall Street” and criticized his country’s government for its arrests of anti-war activists.
“They always taught and trained you to believe that it was your patriotic duty to go to war and be slaughtered on their orders,” Debs told the crowd.
But in all the history of the world, you the people have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it may seem, no war waged by any nation, at any time, was ever declared by the people.
Eugene Debs, during a speech in Canton, Ohio
At his trial, Debs did not deny any of the government’s charges. The jury found him guilty on November 18, 1918, a week after Armistice Day.
Number 9653
During the 1920 presidential campaign, supporters of Eugene Debs wore buttons in their lapels that read: “For President, Convict No. 9653”, inmate number 9653 for the presidency.
On election night of November 2, 1920, after winning 913,693 votes, or 3.4% of the vote, Eugene Debs was able to send his supporters a written statement, failing to be able to make his voice heard.
I thank the master capitalists for placing me here. They know what my place is in their criminal and corrupt system. That’s the only compliment they can give me.
Eugene Debs, in a written statement
After the inauguration of Republican President Warren Harding in January 1921, socialists demonstrated outside the White House and delivered a petition demanding a presidential pardon for Eugene Debs. Actress Mae West was among the personalities who made the same request to the man who had promised to bring the United States “back to normality” after the war.
In December 1921, President Harding finally ended Eugene Debs’ imprisonment by commuting his sentence. What to inspire the American president if Donald Trump found himself behind bars before or after the 2024 election?