Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent [Hardcover]

Dr. Ernest Freeberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2008

In 1920, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs ran for president while serving a ten-year jail term for speaking against America’s role in World War I. Though many called Debs a traitor, others praised him as a prisoner of conscience, a martyr to the cause of free speech. Nearly a million Americans agreed, voting for a man whom the government had branded an enemy to his country.

In a beautifully crafted narrative, Ernest Freeberg shows that the campaign to send Debs from an Atlanta jailhouse to the White House was part of a wider national debate over the right to free speech in wartime. Debs was one of thousands of Americans arrested for speaking his mind during the war, while government censors were silencing dozens of newspapers and magazines. When peace was restored, however, a nationwide protest was unleashed against the government’s repression, demanding amnesty for Debs and his fellow political prisoners. Led by a coalition of the country’s most important intellectuals, writers, and labor leaders, this protest not only liberated Debs, but also launched the American Civil Liberties Union and changed the course of free speech in wartime.

The Debs case illuminates our own struggle to define the boundaries of permissible dissent as we continue to balance the right of free speech with the demands of national security. In this memorable story of democracy on trial, Freeberg excavates an extraordinary episode in the history of one of America’s most prized ideals.

(20080303)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This account of the trial and jailing of Eugene V. Debs for sedition in opposing WWI will be read by many as a warning for our times, yet it stands on its own as solid history. Remarkably, in 1920 Debs ran—from prison—a clever presidential campaign that gained him almost one million votes. Freeberg, associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee, relates this tale in a fast-paced narrative that underplays the irony. Debs—a firebrand orator and radical Socialist Party chieftain whom Woodrow Wilson and others considered a security threat—became a model federal prisoner who worked to alleviate the situations of fellow inmates. He also issued biting criticisms of American policy and never left off denouncing capitalists for having caused WWI. Not surprisingly, Debs's stance long delayed his pardon, first by Wilson, then by Warren Harding, who eventually commuted his sentence in 1921. But it gained Debs the wide hearing he sought. The most enduring consequence of this whole affair is the fuel it contributed to the growth of civil liberties consciousness and organization in the United States. Not for the first time, administrations brought about the very results they most opposed. 17 b&w photos. (May)
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Review

This account of the trial and jailing of Eugene V. Debs for sedition in opposing WWI will be read by many as a warning for our times, yet it stands on its own as solid history...Freeberg relates this tale in a fast-paced narrative...The most enduring consequence of this whole affair is the fuel it contributed to the growth of civil liberties consciousness and organization in the United States. Not for the first time, administrations brought about the very results they most opposed. (Publishers Weekly 20090419)

Freeberg argues that Debs's case illustrates the problems associated with silencing public discourse, most especially during a time of war. Debs was never a threat to national security; instead, he was a principled individual expressing his political beliefs. This excellent introduction to Debs and the Socialist Party is also an engaging examination of an issue that still tensely engages us today. (Michael LaMagna Library Journal 20090702)

The Eugene V. Debs story is a moving, albeit instructive one, though he likely will never be given his due as one of the great figures of American history. Jailed for speaking out against the so-called “war to end all wars,” Socialist Debs ran for president in 1920, garnering a million votes. By the way, when he was finally released from that same Atlanta penitentiary, the whole of the prison’s population--guards and prisoners--cheered him. (Robert Birnbaum The Morning News 20090601)

If history is what the present wants to know about the past, Democracy’s Prisoner is teeming with lessons. But above all, it’s the story of one extraordinary man’s showdown with the establishment--and how that confrontation turned into a complex political struggle whose outcome was up for grabs. Carefully researched and expertly told, Debs’ story also brings a fascinating era into sharp, vivid focus. (Peter Richardson Los Angeles Times Book Review 20090501)

Freeberg's Democracy's Prisoner explores the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs and the subsequent campaign to free him from a federal penitentiary. America's best-known socialist, Debs was loved by the party faithful and despised by conservatives as a traitor. For speaking out against the war, he became one of some 2,000 people arrested, and 1,200 convicted, for challenging the Wilson administration's war policy. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Debs immediately became a cause célèbre to socialists, trade unionists, and civil libertarians...In [his] timely, readable, and engaging book, Freeberg reminds us of the fragility of rights in the context of fear, providing us with cautionary tales about what is lost when unquestioned political obligations trump the preservation of liberty. (Eric Arnesen Boston Globe )

Freeberg has written an exhaustive account of the three-year campaign to free Debs from federal custody while the nation struggled over civil rights and government power in the last days of the Wilson administration, which included the notorious "Palmer Raids" on suspected dissidents. (Bob Hoover Pittsburgh Post-Gazette )

Eugene Debs is a largely forgotten man today, an odd footnote in American history of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this fascinating book about his climactic last years makes clear that he really mattered. In both political and legal ways he played a significant part in reducing intolerance of dissent in this country, and bringing to life the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. (Anthony Lewis New York Review of Books )

Sending Debs to prison made him the center of a campaign for freedom of speech for dissenters and antiwar activists. And when the courts eventually recognized a constitutional right to dissent, they were following a broad public debate spurred by talented organizers and activists who came from places ranging from Debs's own Socialist Party to the new American Civil Liberties Union to the rank-and-file locals of the American Federation of Labor. Freeberg's beautifully written book combines a political biography of Debs in his years of crisis with a broader argument about the unintended consequences of the campaign to win his release. (Jon Wiener Dissent )

An important contribution for those interested in Eugene Debs and the early days of the American Socialist Party. (R. J. Goldstein Choice )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; 1 edition (May 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674027922
• ISBN-13: 978-0674027923
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #635,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No one like Debs since, July 8, 2008

By 

J. Grattan "Ideas can move the world" (Lawrenceville, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent (Hardcover)

This book is a somewhat detailed look at the conviction in 1918 of Eugene Debs, labor leader and socialist, on trumped-up sedition charges under the Espionage Act of 1917, his subsequent incarceration, the three-year effort to free him, and the commutation of his sentence on Christmas Day, 1921. More broadly, the overall climate for and general reactions from various quarters to political dissent both during WWI and in subsequent years is covered. Though not emphasized by the author, this entire scenario was played out while the US was supposedly making the world safe for democracy.

The book is not a treatise on the history of the First Amendment, but it is clear that rights under that amendment had not been well articulated by the time of WWI. The US government helped to create a climate, with the creation of the Committee on Public Information in 1917, just after declaring war on Germany, where any perceived disloyalty to the American cause would not be tolerated. The Postmaster General did not allow so-called radical publications to be mailed. The nation's press did its part by casting those speaking against the war as traitors. Convictions of disloyalty were obtained usually only on a vague sense that a speaker might be disloyal. Such was the case with Debs; the climate of hysteria was such that his anti-capitalism and anti-war beliefs were viewed as having the potential to incite others to refuse military service, though not one example could be pointed to.

Many, at the time, felt, with WWI ending on Nov 11, 1918, that convicted dissenters, such as Debs, would be granted amnesty. The author repeatedly looks at the rationalizations of Pres. Woodrow Wilson and Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in their refusals to do so. The Supreme Court demonstrated a most limited view of the First Amendment by upholding Debs' conviction in March, 1919, allowing his imprisonment. The unconscionable roundup of 6000 so-called radicals in Jan, 1920, by Palmer may have been the low point of the assault on the political rights of Americans. Virtually all were released - falsely accused in a temper branded as the "Red Scare." The rise of vigilante groups after the war, including the formation of the American Legion, and their repeated physical assaults of socialists, communists, amnesty advocates, etc are also described.

There is a certain amount of busyness and repetitiveness about the book as any number of relevant developments outside of the trial are covered, such as the breakup of the Socialist Party into pro- and anti-war factions, including Bolshevik versus reformist wings, and numerous marches, petitions, meetings, letter writing campaigns, etc, and the efforts of numerous individuals to free Debs and to grant general amnesty for all political prisoners jailed for their opposition to the war. The work of anarchist Lucy Robins in orchestrating support for Debs from ordinary persons to AFL head Samuel Gompers to high-ranking gov officials was quite remarkable.

While the book is not intended to be a biography, much is learned about Debs' character, beliefs, associations, and his standing among working- and middle-class supporters. By the time Debs was freed from prison, the socialists and the radical labor movement had been irrevocably broken. Yet, ironically, the American public had come to accept a broader interpretation of free speech. It was the Harding administration that granted amnesty to all political prisoners and rescinded all restrictions on the mailing of radical publications. This was also the time that the ACLU was established.

It seems like the free speech/dissent lesson has to be relearned again and again in this nation: witness the McCarthy hearings in the early 1950s, which was another Red Scare. Nonetheless, it is clear that the suffering that Debs and other dissenters/radicals endured during the aftermath of WWI did help in furthering the cause of free speech.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Story for Our Time, June 13, 2008

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Peter Richardson (San Francisco Bay Area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent (Hardcover)

This is a superb book about an extraordinary figure--labor organizer, Socialist Party leader, and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs--during an intensely controversial period of his life. At age 63 and in poor health, Debs was convicted under the new and deeply flawed Espionage Act for criticizing the U.S. entry into World War I. University of Tennessee historian Ernest Freeberg shows how a fascinating cross-section of Americans pushed for or resisted amnesty for the charismatic radical. The historical parallels with the present are uncanny, and the differences are instructive, too. If you like American history or just well crafted general nonfiction, give this one a look.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Progress for the First Amendment, July 13, 2010

By 

MZ (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent (Hardcover)

A good account of the Socialist career of Eugene Debs, the beloved leader who was jailed under the Woodrow Wilson Administration because of his opposition to the US entry in World War I, as well as his outspoken opposition to capitalist abuse. The corporate malfeasance he railed against sounds very much like what's going on today; how discouraging.
It's interesting to read about other famous contemporary progressives--Upton Sinclair, Samuel Gompers (not so progressive), Helen Keller, Max Eastman, and the founder of the Nation magazine, Oswald Garrison Villard.
The book does a good job of describing how the rallying for Debs's release from prison caused more division than unity among Progressives; some felt that it was counterproductive to push too hard against the Wilson Administration and subsequently the Harding Administration, and back them into a corner; while others felt that Debs's case had to be kept front and center. Communists, labor leaders, socialists, and other activists differed on what direction to take. Just like liberals today!
The dilemma was whether to try to free the ailing socialist leader on humanitarian grounds, since he was nearing the end of his life and was much respected by the wardens, fellow prisoners, and even his political opponents in power, all of whom acknowledged his gentlemanly manners and virtue--or keep him imprisoned in light of his principled refusal to apologize or admit wrongdoing, and his insistence on the release of all political prisoners.
The book is an in-depth treatise on the history of the First Amendment in the early part of the twentieth century, and the formation of the modern-day ACLU. In this regard, at least, the United States has made some progress.
The one fault I found with this book is it gets a bit monotonous toward the end: Debs is about to be released, then somebody stalls; then it happens again, over and over. A briefer summary of the final contest would have made it more readable and no less informative.