From Tim Davenport's Debs Project blog: "Debs seems to have taken most of January 1899 off from touring, concentrating instead on the launch of his new “magazine” — or more properly, series of pamphlets with a common name — Progressive Thought. These pamphlets, bearing the imprint of “E.V. Debs & Co.,” would initially begin to appear monthly in January 1899, moving to a quarterly frequency in 1900 and terminating in the third quarter of 1901. Included among them were the first pamphlet editions of the 1895 speech Liberty and the 1899 presentation to the New York elite at a special session of the 19th Century Club at Delmonico’s restaurant, Prison Labor."

The Spring 2018 Edition of the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Newsletter is now available on our website! http://debsfoundation.org/index.php/landing/about/newsletters/

A discussion of Debs' speaking style, voice and presence in this installment of Tim Davenport's Debs blog: "Debs was not an explosive, dramatic orator, the consensus indicates. He was rather a skilled craftsman in the art of public speaking. Debs was nimble tongued and eloquent, intelligent and entertaining, with a strong and steady voice that was able to fill a room and hold the close interest of hundreds of spectators for speeches that ran for two hours or more."

"¡Sí se puede!" 1993 Eugene V. Debs Award Winner Dolores Huerta, one of the most defiant activists and feminists of the 20th century — and she continues the fight to this day, at 87. Tune in on Tuesday, March 27 at 9pm on Independent Lens | PBS!

Another installment of Debsiana from the Debs Project: “If there has been a public functionary who has been the potent factor of the money power in the reduction of the common people to helpless and hopeless slavery, it is Judge Grosscup,” Debs charged.

A host of scholars reflect on the life and work of Debs in this 2011 episode of CSPAN's "The Contenders"

"I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society."

"After thirty years of hard work the owner of a company employing approximately eighty workers sells the business to a larger firm. Once merged, there is sufficient capital to upgrade the accounting software to accommodate the increases in revenue, types and size of clients and subsequent reports. In the course of making the changes to the system the Comptroller and his assistant are deemed expendable. After a dozen years on the job, at ages 55 and 51 respectively, they are laid off. "The new owners are not heartless. They give the dismissed workers generous severance pay. For the corporation, for the owners, the decision has been made and concluded. For the unemployed, middle-aged employees, life has changed irredeemably. "This is not a polemic about Capitalism per se, but the reference to Debs and Sanders is a notice that their soaring rhetoric is edging closer to home and it’s time, as Debs wrote, to “dissect the anatomy of the system in which workingmen, however organized, could be shattered and battered and splintered at a single stroke.”

A new (March 3rd 2018) from on Tim Davenport's Debs Blog: "Debs was in the news constantly in 1897. At the start of the year, he boldly and loudly declared himself a socialist, announcing to all and sundry that he was finished forever with the People’s Party. That was news. Then he spent nearly two months touring the West in support of the strike of the Colorado hard rock miners — and that was news. Then he held his regularly scheduled convention of the American Railway Union and switched up the organizational name and focus to the Social Democracy of America, complete with a sensational scheme to colonize and take over the government of an unnamed Western state. That was also news. Then he went East to Pennsylvania and West Virginia to agitate in support of the strike of coal miners, earning yet another judicial injunction for his efforts — and that, too, was news."

"Still, the Supreme Court held to the old view that the First Amendment prohibited only “prior restraints.” Government was not allowed to prevent speech in advance, but could punish it after the fact—as Eugene Debs discovered. Long’s advertising tax was not a prior restraint and did not stop the newspapers from publishing anything. Both First Amendment law and the newspapers’ status as corporations created significant hurdles for Capital City and the other companies’ lawsuit."

"Building upon that idea, Shermer said many people in the early 20th century feared unions were simply a means of importing European radicalism into the United States. However, Shermer argued unions often espoused American values and used perennial socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, as an example."

Metro Washington AFL-CIO quote of the day: “The truth has always been dangerous to the rule of the rogue, the exploiter, the robber. So the truth must be suppressed.” — Eugene V. Debs