Changes

[[Image:Debs20.jpg|thumb|250px|Debs in 1920]]

[[Image:Debs20.jpg|thumb|250px|Debs in 1920]]

==Pullman Strike, 1894==

==Pullman Strike, 1894==

A persistent critic of the organization of labor by crafts (such as locomotive firemen), Debs in 1893 left his old union and created the [[American Railway Union]] to include all workers, even those belonging to other unions.  Established unions denounced it as "dual unionism," but with the severe [[Panic of 1893|Depression of 1893]] underway, workers were angry and wanted an aggressive union. Its main success came in April 1894 when it won a strike against the Great Northern Railroad. When the Pullman factory strike erupted in Chicago in late spring 1894, the ARU organized the workers, but Pullman refused to negotiate with them. The ARU then ordered its members to refuse passage to trains using Pullman cars, even though the ARU had no grievances against the railroads.  The result was a nationwide strike that shut down nearly all local and long-distance traffic west of Detroit; violence broke out in many cities. President [[Grover Cleveland]] intervened and obtained a court order to end the strike (because it was disrupting the mails). Debs and the ARU refused to obey. Debs was held in contempt of court for violating the federal injunction and served six months in jail.  The strike and the ARU collapsed.

A persistent critic of the organization of labor by crafts (such as locomotive firemen), Debs in 1893 left his old union and created the [[American Railway Union]] to include all workers, even those belonging to other unions.  Established unions denounced it as "dual unionism," but with the severe [[Panic of 1893|Depression of 1893]] underway, workers were angry and wanted an aggressive union. Its main success came in April 1894 when it won a strike against the Great Northern Railroad. When the Pullman factory strike erupted in Chicago in late spring 1894, the ARU organized the workers, but Pullman refused to negotiate with them. The ARU then ordered its members to refuse passage to trains using Pullman cars, even though the ARU had no grievances against the railroads.  The result was a nationwide strike that shut down nearly all local and long-distance traffic west of Detroit; violence broke out in many cities. President [[Grover Cleveland]] intervened and obtained a court order to end the strike (because it was disrupting the mails). Debs and the ARU refused to obey. Debs was held in contempt of court for violating the federal injunction and served six months in jail.  The strike and the ARU collapsed.

[[Image:1904SO.JPG|thumb|400px|Debs for President poster, 1904]]

[[Image:1904SO.JPG|thumb|400px|Debs for President poster, 1904]]

==Socialist Party leader==

==Socialist Party leader==

Long interested in socialism in the abstract, Debs read up on the subject while in prison, and in 1897 he transformed the remnants of the ARU into the Social Democratic Party of America, later called the [[Socialist Party of America]].  He never again engaged in union work.  He served as associate editor of the Socialist weekly, the ''Appeal to Reason,'' (based in the coal mining town of  of Girard, Kansas) and for years was a highly successful lecturer on behalf of socialism. In 1905, he helped found the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], but soon quit because of its extreme radicalism and proclivity to violence. The Socialist Party was splintered and Debs was one of the few leaders with an appeal to the intellectuals, the "gas-and-water" activists (who accepted capitalism but wanted cities to own the water and gas systems), the immigrant Germans and Jews, the militant coal miners, the ex-Populists from Kansas and Oklahoma, and the radicals who wanted to peacefully destroy capitalism.   

Long interested in socialism in the abstract, Debs read up on the subject while in prison, and in 1897 he transformed the remnants of the ARU into the Social Democratic Party of America, later called the [[Socialist Party of America]].  He never again engaged in union work.  He served as associate editor of the Socialist weekly, the ''Appeal to Reason,'' (based in the coal mining town of  of Girard, Kansas) and for years was a highly successful lecturer on behalf of socialism. In 1905, he helped found the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], but soon quit because of its extreme radicalism and proclivity to violence. The Socialist Party was splintered and Debs was one of the few leaders with an appeal to the intellectuals, the "gas-and-water" activists (who accepted capitalism but wanted cities to own the water and gas systems), the immigrant Germans and Jews, the militant coal miners, the ex-Populists from Kansas and Oklahoma, and the radicals who wanted to peacefully destroy capitalism.