Labor unions across the country are marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Eugene Victor Debs with resolutions to commemorate the occasion.
The effort is part of an educational program to introduce a new generation of union members to his history as a groundbreaking labor movement, anti-war, and socialist leader.
“You know he belongs to us”
When Debs passed away on October 26, 1926 in the Lindlahr sanitarium, Illinois, at the age of 70, his health had been broken by the years spent unjustly incarcerated as a political prisoner for opposing the mass slaughter of the First World War.
When his body was returned to his native Indiana, escorted by his brother, Theodore and his sister, Emma, Percy Head, president of the Terre Haute Central Labor Union, reportedly said “You will have to give him to us for a while, Theodore. You know he belongs to us.”
He laid in state at the Terre Haute labor temple and then at the family home before his funeral. Thousands of mourners bid him farewell.
As relevant today as 100 years ago
“The life and work of Eugene Debs is as relevant today as it was in his day,” said Mark Dimondstein, President of the Eugene V. Debs Foundation and past president of the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO.
“This effort is about much more than passing resolutions. It gives us an opportunity to reintroduce a true working-class hero to a new generation of young workers. During his lifetime, he stood for independent working class politics, militant industrial unionism and was persecuted for standing up for working people and for opposing a senseless, bloody war. He stood strong and received over a million votes when he ran for president from his jail cell.
“As we face deepening authoritarianism and political violence from our own government, a dangerous, unpopular war a weakened union movement and working class that is being impoverished by inequality unseen since the robber barons of Debs’s era, it is vital that we take the lessons and apply them to the struggles today.
The Debs family residence, visited by so many mourners in 1926, was purchased 36 years later and converted into The Eugene V. Debs Museum, highlights his life and work.
Your union or organization can pass a resolution
Please contact us if you would like more information on this resolution campaign. Below is a template for you to adapt for your organization. You can download a PDF version here and a Word version here.
Commemorating the Life and Work of Eugene V. Debs on the 100th Anniversary of his Death.
Whereas, October 2026 is the 100th anniversary of Indiana native Eugene V. Debs death and
Whereas, Eugene Debs was one of the great pioneer leaders of the U.S. Labor movement including leading the formation of the industrial union the American Railway Union (ARU), led early successful strikes against the economically powerful and politically connected railroad barons, and helped found the Industrial Worker of the World (the Wobblies), and
Whereas, based on experience in the working-class struggle, most notably in the historic ARU-led Pullman strike of 1894 that was crushed by the Federal courts and U.S. Army, Eugene Debs concluded that the working class needed to combine economic struggle with independent politics to win power, ran as a third-party Socialist Party presidential candidate in 1912 garnering 6% of the national vote on a program of union rights, women suffrage, abolishment of child labor and sharing of the wealth created by labor, and
Whereas, Debs courageously opposed WWI when the ruling classes of various countries sent workers to slaughter other workers over competing capitalist interests and control over world resources, markets, and labor, and
Whereas, for this just stance, Debs was prosecuted under the Espionage Act by the Woodrow Wilson administration and sentenced to 10 years in prison, and
Whereas, running for president from prison in 1920, Debs received 1 million working class votes, and
Whereas, Debs always stood with the workers, known for his approach, “When I rise it will be with the ranks, not from the ranks, and
Whereas, in 1962, funded primarily by unions, his residence in Terre Haute, IN was purchased and turned into a Museum highlighting the life and work of Eugene Debs, and
Whereas, preserving and sharing Labor’s rich history to help guide us in the current struggles is up to the union movement, and
Whereas, the life and work of Eugene Debs, with his passionate and steadfast leadership of militant industrial unionism, opposing unjust imperialist war and building independent working-class political parties, is as relevant today as during his lifetime, there be it
Resolved, that the (Name of Local, Branch, Lodge) goes on record commemorating the life and work of Eugene V. Debs on the 100th Anniversary of his death, and be it further
Resolved, to help inspire and guide new generations of labor activists, share with our members the historic role of Eugene Debs, the Debs Foundation website (debsfoundation.org) consider donating to the Deb’s Building Fund to carry out needed repairs on the House.
(Please send a copy of adopted resolutions to info@debsfoundation.org or Debs Foundation, PO Box 9454 Terre Haute, IN 47808)
