Eugene V. Debs ran for President of the United States as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America. The last campaign was conducted from a federal prison cell. How many times in total did he run?
Five campaigns over twenty years. His peak was 1912, when he polled 901,551 votes (6.0% of the national total) against Wilson, Taft, and Roosevelt. The last campaign was 1920, conducted entirely from his cell at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he was serving ten years for opposing American participation in the First World War. He still got 919,799 votes. President Warren Harding commuted his sentence to time served on Christmas Eve 1921.
Read the full story →Eugene V. Debs ran the American Railway Union into the Pullman strike of 1894, lost, went to prison for six months, read Karl Marx in his cell, and came out a socialist. He ran for president five times. The last campaign was conducted from a federal penitentiary, where he was serving ten years for opposing the First World War.
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