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How Did Eugene Debs Impact Society

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Eugene’s Impact
Eugene Debs was probably one of the most effective progressives recognized throughout history due to his ability to be an effective leader and union organizer. Eugene Debs was born in 1855 within the boundary of the small midwestern city of Terre Haute, Indiana. Debs started by holding local political office then moved to found the socialist party and run for president. Debs spent a lot of time founding workers unions to better the lives of the working class in the United States.
Eugene Debs is clearly an effective progressive seeing as he received close to a million votes while occupying a cell in Atlanta Penitentiary. Debs was sent to prison for opposing America's participation in World War 1 under a violation of the sedition …show more content…

The socialist party was founded on June 15, 1897, by Eugene Debs. The American Railway Union and the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth were combined to form the original Socialist party. The party's core purpose was “to work and helped build the notion of social ownership of productive capital”. The party originally sought to form a cooperative community but later diverted to other endeavors. Soon after formation, “there emerged a “political action wing,” which sought to achieve socialism through political organization and the electoral process”. Eugene Debs was nominated as the candidate from the socialist party in 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920. Although he lost all four races Debs attracted positive attention from the media and the general public for the Socialist …show more content…

Eugene Debs observed that “Society has been mainly divided into two economic classes – a small class of capitalists who own the tools with which work is done and wealth is produced, and a great mass of workers compelled to use these tools”. Debs wanted wealth to be distributed to everyone and class levels abolished. He recognized that the county was run by corporations, not the government. The corporation’s owned the capital and influenced all the politicians in the to represent their agendas. Debs wanted to free “The twenty-five million wage-workers in the united states” because they “are twenty-five millions of twentieth-century slaves”. Eugene Debs concluded that the lower class is trapped in its economic state and had to be freed to make financial

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