In June 1918, Eugene V. Debs gave a fiery antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio, that would land him in prison. He criticized the U.S. entry into World War I and the jailing of antiwar activists, asserting that the real enemy was not abroad, but in the boardrooms and banks at home. “The master class has always declared the wars,” he said, “the subject class has always fought the battles.” Debs was arrested under the Espionage Act just weeks later.
This speech marked the final public address of his career as a free man, but it remains one of the most important in U.S. radical history. It demonstrated Debs’s unshakable commitment to socialism, labor solidarity, and civil liberties, even under threat of imprisonment. His words—delivered in a public park to a working-class audience—still echo as a bold act of conscience.
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