Eugene V. Debs quoted in the Wall Street Journal
One hundred years ago today … The Wall Street Journal picked an odd time to prominently feature a quotation by Eugene V. Debs: “Life isn’t a thing of years, it’s an expression of all that is in you, wherever you happen to be.”
Wall Street Journal, 29 October 1920, p. 2. Chronicling America.
Debs was running for president as the Socialist Party candidate.
He was doing so from his Atlanta jail cell. He had been imprisoned in 1919, convicted of violating the Espionage Act.
Daily News, 8 October 1920, p. 20. Chronicling America.
A few days after the odd Wall Street Journal moment, on Election Day, (November 2), Debs would be quoted in the NYC newspapers again. As he voted from jail, Debs said he would not be disappointed by the results. "Americans will get the president they think they want, insofar as they think at all."
The Sun and New York Herald, 3 November 1920, p. 3. Chronicling America.
Debs would receive 3.4 million votes from jail in 1920. His 131,856 votes from NYC voters were one third the total of Democratic candidate James M. Cox.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, OCTOBER 29, 2020.
TAGS: politics, elections, socialism