Eugene Debs’s Statement to the Court
Before being sent to prison for speaking out against World War I, Eugene Debs delivered a defiant speech to the court that decried the ills of capitalism, held out the democratic promise of socialism, and declared, “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.” We reprint it here in full.
