“Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
- Eugene Debs, five time Socialist Candidate for President, on 11/18/18, after being sentenced to ten years in prison.
Debs also played a key role in organizing the nation’s first industrial union (American Railway Union) in 1893, which led to The Pullman Strike in 1894, which was largely responsible for the eventual creation of Labor Day. The United States Congress unanimously voted to approve rush legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday just six days after the end of the strike.
