Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent | 
 enlarge | Author: Ernest Freeberg
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 51515
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 392
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0674027922
Dewey Decimal Number: 335.3092
EAN: 9780674027923
ASIN: 0674027922
Publication Date: May 31, 2008
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Product Description
In 1920, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs ran for president while serving a ten-year jail term for speaking against America’s role in World War I. Though many called Debs a traitor, others praised him as a prisoner of conscience, a martyr to the cause of free speech. Nearly a million Americans agreed, voting for a man whom the government had branded an enemy to his country. In a beautifully crafted narrative, Ernest Freeberg shows that the campaign to send Debs from an Atlanta jailhouse to the White House was part of a wider national debate over the right to free speech in wartime. Debs was one of thousands of Americans arrested for speaking his mind during the war, while government censors were silencing dozens of newspapers and magazines. When peace was restored, however, a nationwide protest was unleashed against the government’s repression, demanding amnesty for Debs and his fellow political prisoners. Led by a coalition of the country’s most important intellectuals, writers, and labor leaders, this protest not only liberated Debs, but also launched the American Civil Liberties Union and changed the course of free speech in wartime. The Debs case illuminates our own struggle to define the boundaries of permissible dissent as we continue to balance the right of free speech with the demands of national security. In this memorable story of democracy on trial, Freeberg excavates an extraordinary episode in the history of one of America’s most prized ideals. (20080303)
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 The Wrong Imprisonment of One Imprisons All September 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Eugene V. Debs was one of my earliest--and continuing--heroes. I've read other books about him, and this one compares well with the rest. While not a biography of Debs, the author does a good job of conveying the character of the man, as well as the tenor of his beliefs. Debs was five times the standard bearer in the Socialist Party's campaigns for the Presidency, the final effort conducted while he was imprisoned.
The author uses this case to illustrate the tension between freedom of speech and the desire for public order, and at the end of the book he relates the event of that time to our present situation. While this is only a small portion of the work, and he merely sketches the parallel, his point is clear.
It was the Debs case, the "Red Scare" initiated by Attorney General Palmer, and the vigilante violence carried out by the American Legion, Ku Klux Klan, and allied organizations, that prompted concerned citizens to form what we now know as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). It is useful to recall the kind of intolerance and repression that gave rise to this well-known fixture on the American scene, for it reminds us that what has been gained can be lost...and vice versa.
This is a timely, well-written, factually scrupulous text. It is informative and worth reading.
 history professor does it again July 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A second book from U of Tenn. History professor Ernest Freeberg takes us back to a turbulent period in our history, the early 20th century.
Eugene Debs was a shadowy name to me before I read this book as were the details of the U.S. involvement in the "war to end all wars" WW1.
Freedom of speech is the issue and all sides of the issue were thoroughly explored by Prof. Freeberg.
A thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read.
No one like Debs since July 8, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is a somewhat detailed look at the conviction in 1918 of Eugene Debs, labor leader and socialist, on trumped-up sedition charges under the Espionage Act of 1917, his subsequent incarceration, the three-year effort to free him, and the commutation of his sentence on Christmas Day, 1921. More broadly, the overall climate for and general reactions from various quarters to political dissent both during WWI and in subsequent years is covered. Though not emphasized by the author, this entire scenario was played out while the US was supposedly making the world safe for democracy.
The book is not a treatise on the history of the First Amendment, but it is clear that rights under that amendment had not been well articulated by the time of WWI. The US government helped to create a climate, with the creation of the Committee on Public Information in 1917, just after declaring war on Germany, where any perceived disloyalty to the American cause would not be tolerated. The Postmaster General did not allow so-called radical publications to be mailed. The nation's press did its part by casting those speaking against the war as traitors. Convictions of disloyalty were obtained usually only on a vague sense that a speaker might be disloyal. Such was the case with Debs; the climate of hysteria was such that his anti-capitalism and anti-war beliefs were viewed as having the potential to incite others to refuse military service, though not one example could be pointed to.
Many, at the time, felt, with WWI ending on Nov 11, 1918, that convicted dissenters, such as Debs, would be granted amnesty. The author repeatedly looks at the rationalizations of Pres. Woodrow Wilson and Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in their refusals to do so. The Supreme Court demonstrated a most limited view of the First Amendment by upholding Debs' conviction in March, 1919, allowing his imprisonment. The unconscionable roundup of 6000 so-called radicals in Jan, 1920, by Palmer may have been the low point of the assault on the political rights of Americans. Virtually all were released - falsely accused in a temper branded as the "Red Scare." The rise of vigilante groups after the war, including the formation of the American Legion, and their repeated physical assaults of socialists, communists, amnesty advocates, etc are also described.
There is a certain amount of busyness and repetitiveness about the book as any number of relevant developments outside of the trial are covered, such as the breakup of the Socialist Party into pro- and anti-war factions, including Bolshevik versus reformist wings, and numerous marches, petitions, meetings, letter writing campaigns, etc, and the efforts of numerous individuals to free Debs and to grant general amnesty for all political prisoners jailed for their opposition to the war. The work of anarchist Lucy Robins in orchestrating support for Debs from ordinary persons to AFL head Samuel Gompers to high-ranking gov officials was quite remarkable.
While the book is not intended to be a biography, much is learned about Debs' character, beliefs, associations, and his standing among working- and middle-class supporters. By the time Debs was freed from prison, the socialists and the radical labor movement had been irrevocably broken. Yet, ironically, the American public had come to accept a broader interpretation of free speech. It was the Harding administration that granted amnesty to all political prisoners and rescinded all restrictions on the mailing of radical publications. This was also the time that the ACLU was established.
It seems like the free speech/dissent lesson has to be relearned again and again in this nation: witness the McCarthy hearings in the early 1950s, which was another Red Scare. Nonetheless, it is clear that the suffering that Debs and other dissenters/radicals endured during the aftermath of WWI did help in furthering the cause of free speech.
A Great Story for Our Time June 14, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a superb book about an extraordinary figure--labor organizer, Socialist Party leader, and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs--during an intensely controversial period of his life. At age 63 and in poor health, Debs was convicted under the new and deeply flawed Espionage Act for criticizing the U.S. entry into World War I. University of Tennessee historian Ernest Freeberg shows how a fascinating cross-section of Americans pushed for or resisted amnesty for the charismatic radical. The historical parallels with the present are uncanny, and the differences are instructive, too. If you like American history or just well crafted general nonfiction, give this one a look.
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