Eugene Debs was the Socialist Party nominee for the Presidency
The White Court (1916-1921). Seated, from left to right: Justices William R. Day, Joseph McKenna, and Chief Justice Edward D. White, and Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Willis Van Devanter. Standing, from left to right: Louis D. Brandeis, Mahlon Pitney, James C. McReynolds, and John H. Clarke.
Eugene Debs
Eugene Debs
Eugene Debs
Political Cartoon: Eugene Debs running for the Presidency from Prison
Eugene Debs
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Debs’s purpose was to “oppose not only war in general but this war, and that the opposition was so expressed that its natural and intended effect would be to obstruct recruiting.”
Eugene Debs ran for President of the United States five times on the Socialist Party ticket. In 1918, Debs gave a speech to a crowd in Canton, Ohio. He advocated for socialism and argued that the war against Germany was unjustified. The Wilson administration prosecuted Debs for violating the Espionage Act.
Once again, Justice Holmes wrote the majority opinion that upheld the conviction.