Eugene V. Debs

Eugene Victor Debs (1855–1926) was a locomotive fireman who united 150,000 rail workers across skilled and unskilled crafts into the industrial American Railway Union in 1893. In 1894, Debs led the massive Pullman Strike shutting down rail traffic across twenty-seven states in solidarity with exploited sleeping-car workers.

Debs campaigned for President five times between 1900 and 1920. In June 1918 in Canton, Ohio, Debs delivered an anti-war speech denouncing militarism, resulting in a ten-year federal prison sentence under the Espionage Act. In 1920, campaigning as Federal Prisoner 9653 at Atlanta Penitentiary, Debs polled 913,693 votes; President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence on Christmas 1921.