The presidential election of 1920 had a very strange format: One candidate was running from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Eugene Debs was running on the Socialist Party ticket, in spite of the fact that two years prior, he had been found guilty on charges of sedition and sentenced to three concurrent, 10-year sentences. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in prison, either; years earlier, he had done time for his part in a massive strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company. His later actions were seen as even more dangerous.
Debs was a vocal opponent of World War I, and in the summer of 1918, he was speaking at an anti-war rally in Ohio. He delivered a message that included (via The Washington Post), “The working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both.” When election time rolled around, it became clear that Debs wasn’t alone in his thoughts, and he ended up getting 913,693 votes. As he expected, though, he got no electoral votes: He viewed his candidacy as a symbolic one that he hoped would encourage a prominent third party and raise awareness of the need for more workers’ rights.
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He was ultimately released by Warren G. Harding in 1921, and died five years later of complications from a heart condition. Interestingly, although he was released early, he was never pardoned in spite of protests, petitions, and support from stars like Mae West.
