2025 Reading 93

 For a really lone time I've had a historical/political man-crush on Eugene V. Debs, and I've often portrayed myself as "that other Hoosier socialist." To this day, I think that arguing for anyone other than Debs for greatest Hoosier or all-time is just a stupid argument. Anyway, I finally got around to reading Nick Salvatore's Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist, the award-winning (and justifiably so) biography of the Indiana socialist. It's strange to think of a time when Indiana was not a radical right wing hellscape (not that it was a bastion of liberal thought at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but at least it could produce someone like Debs) and when America still believed that it could be a better place and actually thought about the plight of the working class. There were many fascinating and moving moments in the book (and not simply that his long-time mistress was Mabel Curry from Franklin), but one of the most emotionally uplifting/draining was the description of the day Debs was released from prison after serving three years for speaking out against America's entry into World War I:

     On Christmas afternoon Theodore and a group of Socialist comrades met Debs at the gates of Atlanta Penitentiary. As they joyfully and tearfully embraced and fervently kissed one another, a low rumbling in the background intensified. Warden Fred Zerbst, in violation of every prison regulation, had opened each cell block to allow the more than 2,300 inmates to throng to the front of the main jail building to bid a final goodbye to their friend. Turning away from the prison, Gene started down the long walkway to the parked car. As he did, a roar of pain and love welled up from the prison behind him. With tears streaming down his face, he turned and, hat in hand, stretched out his arms. Twice more, as he walked to the car, the prisoners demanded his attention. Twice more he reached to embrace them. At the car, a terribly thin and drained Debs offered one final good-bye and quickly entered.

     Union men might have smoothed his journey to jail, but Debs remained the only American who could evoke such love and admiration from this primarily working-class prison population. One of his first actions upon release again suggested why Debs was so loved. On the way to the train that would take him to Washington and an interview with the president, Debs removed from his wallet the five dollar bill prison regulations provided each released prisoner. With a short note, he sent it to the committee working for the release of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, two working-class Italian immigrant anarchists accused of murder by a Massachusetts court. There would not be another American radical like him for some time.

It's hard to imagine that there ever way another American radical like him, ever, before or after. One of my few regrets, probably the only one, from my trip west with my great friend Sanford was our failure to make the Eugene V. Debs Museum in Terre Haute in time (we arrived too late in the afternoon) for a visit. I could imagine a world wherein the only time I make it back to Indiana would be to visit the museum.