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Debs Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison

Back in the day on September 14th, 1918, socialist Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison. The day before, the perennial presidential candidate had been found guilty on three counts of violating the Espionage Act. The trial that led to his conviction and lengthy prison sentence centered on a speech Debs had delivered in Canton, Ohio earlier that summer. The district attorney deemed the words spoken by the socialist that day to be sufficiently anti-war to merit arrest under the Espionage Act. In fact, Debs, though thoroughly a pacifist and vehemently opposed to World War I, did not make his opposition to the war a main focus of his address. Nevertheless, Debs was pronounced guilty of, among other things, uttering language encouraging resistance to the United State and promoting the cause of the enemy. The outspoken leader served his time in prison before President Harding commuted Debs’ sentence in 1921.

In his speech in Canton, Debs presaged the ordeal that awaited him when he said “Don’t worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.”

For Uprising, this is your truth professa’ saying it’s no mystery why they conceal our people’s history