Channels, Spring 2017

Channels • 2017 • Volume 1 • Number 2 Page 63 congestion, and physical exhaustion” required “large doses of morphine” just to endure. 62 In this condition, Debs was in no way a contender for the presidential nomination of 1916 and made it clear that he did not want the nomination. As a result, writer and editor Allan Benson received the nomination to follow in Debs footsteps. With both major parties now taking fairly progressive policy stances, some voters were naturally drawn away from Socialism. And without Debs’ speaking power, Benson’s ability to draw votes declined. Nevertheless, the demographics of the decline reveal the outcome of the expulsion of radicals from the Party. Oklahoma remained the strongest state for Socialism, giving Benson almost 16 percent of its votes. But other western states like California, Arizona, and Washington, which had come out in strength for Debs at double-digit vote percentages, fell under 6 percent for Benson; some fell even further. These western areas had been strongholds of the more radical brand of Socialism and were energized by the IWW. When Haywood was forced out of the Party, no doubt the local and state organizations in these areas withered. By contrast, Berger’s Wisconsin remained strong over 6 percent. Unfortunately, without the support of radicals and the extensive connections of radical organizations, Benson collected less than 600,000 votes, a significant decrease, signaling a halt to the positive, upward spiral, and threatening a downward crash for the political relevance of the Socialist Party. The dependence on Debs as a figurehead and leader instead of on a diverse but united and well-organized political base hurt the Party severely in Debs’ absence. Despite his health problems in 1916, Debs managed the strength to run for Congress in the 5 th district of Indiana, the location of his home town of Terre Haute. A shorter travelling distance would be easier for Debs and provide him, he and the party hoped, with a national office as a platform for his powerful message. The Great War in Europe provided Debs with a new line of attack on the capitalist establishment. Many socialist movements in Europe had essentially suspended their mutual attacks on conventional governments in support of their respective war efforts, much to the horror of American Socialists. Debs stood firm against this impulse, proclaiming, “Permanent peace, however, peace based upon social justice, will never prevail until national industrial despotism has been supplanted by international industrial democracy. The end of the profit and plunder among nations will also mean the end of war.” 63 Nevertheless, even in this message, Debs miscalculated the political conscience of the American worker. While peace sounds better than war, especially in an isolationistic period of American history, this hard anti-war stance distinguished Socialism too much from the other parties. No realistic American expected their political candidates to seek an end to all war but merely to keep them out of the war currently raging overseas. Debs’ value-based appeal was strong but out of touch with the practical considerations American voters sought. As a result, one prominent Socialist noted that “the capitalist press…will most effectively close the public mind completely for many months” to Socialism because the conventional newspapers could brand Socialism as 62 Salvatore, Nick. 1982. Eugene V. Debs : citizen and socialist . n.p.: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, ©1982., 275. 63 Morgan, H. Wayne. 1962. Eugene V. Debs; socialist for President . n.p.: Syracuse, University Press, 1962., 153.