The origins of the Socialist Party of America

Summary

Throughline Podcast Summary

Episode: The Origins of the Socialist Party of America
Hosts: Rund Abdelfattah and Ramtin Arablouei (NPR)
Date: May 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Throughline (America In Pursuit series) explores the origin story of the Socialist Party of America by focusing on the life and evolving beliefs of Eugene V. Debs. Through historical storytelling, interviews with historians, and dramatizations, the podcast examines the period’s harsh labor conditions, Debs’s pivotal role in labor movements—including the Pullman Strike—and how his disappointments with mainstream politics led to the founding of the Socialist Party. The episode also traces how once-radical ideas from the early socialist movement became mainstream pillars of the American social safety net.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Rise of Industrial America and Labor Hardships

• Rapid Industrialization: In the mid-1800s, as corporations grew, workers lost autonomy and were subjected to long hours and unsafe conditions ([00:16]–[00:53]).
• Eugene Debs’s Early Life: As a teenager in Indiana, Debs witnessed his father’s struggles and worked in grocery stores and railroads to support his family ([00:57]–[01:23]).
• Railroad Dangers: Unsafe equipment and frequent accidents, such as boiler explosions and derailments, were commonplace ([01:23]–[01:41]).
• Transformation of Identity: Early on, Debs believed workers should see themselves as a united class with shared interests, not as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” or middle class aspirants ([01:49], [16:15]).

Debs's Entry into Politics and Early Disillusionment

• Motivation for Change: After a coworker’s death on the job and concerns from his mother, Debs left railroad work to improve conditions through public office ([04:17]–[04:51]).
• Political Career: As city clerk and later as a state representative, he tried to pass safety laws but became disillusioned when the railroad lobby watered down his proposals ([05:00]–[06:05]).
• Initial Beliefs: Debs originally believed in reforming capitalism rather than overturning it ([06:05]–[06:27]).

“He was not a socialist. He was a small d Democrat.” — Nick Salvatore, historian ([06:31])

Labor Organizing and the American Railway Union

• Exclusive Unions: AFL under Samuel Gompers excluded women and people of color. Debs thought broader, more inclusive organization was necessary ([06:31]–[07:21]).
• Founding the ARU: Debs created the American Railway Union to unite diverse railroad workers. He pushed for racial inclusion, which narrowly failed in a vote ([07:21]–[08:03]).

“Twelve votes…could have changed the course of history.” — Narrator ([08:03])

The Pullman Strike of 1894

• Company Town Dynamics: Pullman workers lived in a so-called benevolent company town but suffered under exploitative economic downturns ([08:51]–[09:32]).
• Strike Catalyst: Pullman lowered wages without lowering rent or goods, leading workers to faint on the job and forcing the strike ([09:32]–[10:07]).
• The Strike: Debs and the ARU led a massive strike, with up to 250,000 participants, which paralyzed much of the national railroad system ([10:07]–[12:08]).

“Every railroad employee…should take his stand against the corporations in this fight…or all employees will be reduced… to a condition scarcely removed…above chattel slavery.” — Eugene Debs ([10:39])

• Government Response: President Grover Cleveland sent troops to break the strike, resulting in violence and fatalities, the jailing of union leaders, and blacklisting of workers ([12:19]–[14:10]).
• Debs’s Disillusionment: Imprisoned for his role, Debs concluded both Republicans and Democrats served capitalist interests ([14:10]–[14:27]).

“The Republicans are the big capitalists and the Democrats are the small capitalists… both the pro capitalist parties.” — Narrator ([14:19])

Founding of the Socialist Party of America

• Emergence from Defeat: After his release, Debs gave a rousing liberty speech and shifted focus to creating a party for the working class ([14:33]–[15:05]).

“The fires of liberty and noble aspirations are not yet extinguished… as despisers of despotism.” — Eugene Debs ([14:43]) “Agitation, organization, and unification are to be the future battle cries of men who will not part with their birthrights.” — Eugene Debs ([15:05])

• The Socialist Party (1901): Debs united fragmented socialist groups, aiming to raise class consciousness and provide real political representation for workers ([15:57]–[16:25]).

Socialist Party Legacy and Mainstreaming of Ideas

• Presidential Campaigns: Debs ran for President five times, peaking at 6% of the vote in 1912—then an astonishing result for a third party ([16:25]–[16:56]).
• Socialist Innovations Become Law: Ideas such as the 40-hour workweek, old age pensions, and worker safety—pioneered by socialists—were later adopted by mainstream parties through the New Deal and Great Society programs ([16:56]–[18:13]).

“Socialism, as a third party, succeeded in accomplishing many of the things that we now take for granted…” — Ernest Freeberg, historian ([17:22])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What is more American to Debs than standing up against oppression and standing up against injustice? This is the American tradition.” — Narrator ([14:54])
• “He joked around… don’t run me, I would make a bad president.” — Narrator on Debs’s reluctance about office ([15:46])
• “The labor powers have spoken, and the most tremendous strike known to history will be inaugurated…” — New York Times ([11:05])
• “I am perfectly confident of success. We cannot fail.” — Eugene Debs during Pullman Strike optimism ([12:08])
• “During the Depression, I was so broke, quite often I was with no money in my pocket. The most I ever had is maybe one or two dollars.” — Teaser for next episode ([18:31])

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Timeline of Key Events

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 00:16–01:41 | Setting the stage: Industrial conditions and Debs’s early years | | 04:17–06:05 | Debs’s political entry and disillusionment | | 06:31–07:21 | Birth of American Railway Union (ARU) | | 08:51–10:07 | Lead-up to Pullman Strike | | 10:39 | Debs’s rallying cry for the strike | | 11:05–12:08 | National impact of the Pullman Strike | | 12:19–14:10 | Federal crackdown and aftermath | | 14:43–15:05 | Debs’s post-prison liberty speech | | 15:57–16:25 | Founding the Socialist Party | | 16:56–18:13 | Mainstream legacy of socialist policies |

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Legacy & Takeaways

• Eugene Debs’s transition from reform-minded Democrat to socialist leader encapsulates the frustration and hope of millions of workers at the turn of the century.
• The episode underscores how innovations from America’s socialist movement—originally dismissed as radical—became foundational parts of 20th-century American society.
• Debs’s legacy is reframed as quintessentially American: fighting for democracy, equality, and justice in the face of entrenched power.

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Listen Further

For a deeper dive, the hosts encourage listening to their extended episode “American Socialist” and tease the next episode on the lived experiences of the Great Depression.

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Transcript

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

this is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from Throughline and npr. I'm Rund Abdelfattah. Each week we bring you stories about life, living, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the U.S. that began 250 years ago in the U.S. in the mid-1800s, rapid industrialization was transforming cities across the U.S. and as businesses were getting

[Narrator/Storyteller]

bigger and bigger, your relationship with your employer is getting a lot smaller.

[Historian/Expert]

People were being tied to their jobs. They were denied a democratic voice in the way they made a living working

[Narrator/Storyteller]

like 14, 16 hour days, 6, 7 days a week.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

People were struggling all across the United States. In Indiana, a teenager watched his father get caught up in this system, unable to keep up with a demanding job.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

The work broke his health, as it would for so many workers.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

So he jumped into action to help his father. At 14, he started working first in the grocery business and then in the growing world of railroads, where abuses were rampant.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This is a time when there are no safety standards to speak of. Employers are skimping on cheap equipment to save money, even as railroads are expanding so rapidly, causing boiler explosions and derailments and collisions, making hazards like this not uncommon at all.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

What he saw on the railroads transformed him and what he believed the people actually building the U.S. deserved.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He wants workers to see themselves as workers, not middle class, not as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, but as workers with more in common than we have.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Different his name was Eugene Debs, and he didn't know it then, but he was about to alter the course of labor rights in the US Today on the show the Life and Times of Eugene Debs and the Birth of American Socialism. That's coming up after a quick break.

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

One day in 1874, while Eugene Debs was working on the railroad tracks, he saw something terrible happen.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Debs watched in horror as a backing locomotive crushed a friend to death.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This wasn't a freak accident on the job. Injuries happened a lot, just considered part of the occupation. This is Allison Dirk, director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

And according to Debs, this death, plus his mother's continuing concern for his safety prompted him to quit the railroad.

[Expert/Professor]

Debs became determined to improve working conditions for rail workers and decided the way to do that was to get involved in government.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

So he runs for city clerk of Terre Haute and wins per pretty handily. And while he was working as city clerk, kind of got a reputation for refusing to assess fines against sex workers because he didn't think it was fair that they would be punished while the people who bought their services were not. So he serves actually two terms as city clerk and then gets elected as a state rep in the Indiana General Assembly.

[Expert/Professor]

And the story here goes, Debs went to the statehouse and introduced legislation to

[Narrator/Storyteller]

hold railroads liable for deaths and injuries of their employees. The House passes the one particular bill, the state Senate takes the teeth out through amendments, so the bill could not be enforced even if it was passed. And Eugene was absolutely humiliated, lost his faith in the political process because he thought the whole state house was effectively bought up by the railroads. And this is where he decided to step back from politics to focus on labor organizing.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

It's important to keep in mind that Deb still believed that labor and capitalism could coexist that it was just a matter of fixing the system, not overhauling it.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He's at this point, you know, not radical in any sense, really thinks that working within these existing systems might stand a chance at improving workers lives.

[Eugene V. Debs (voice or quoted)]

And he was very, very traditional.

[Expert/Professor]

He was not a socialist. He was a small d Democrat. This is Nick Salvatore, and I wrote a book entitled Eugene V. Debs, Citizen and Socialist. While Debs started out with pretty traditional democratic views, as he got more involved in labor organizing, he started to become disillusioned. There were half a dozen different organizations which often competed rather than collaborated with one another. The largest, the American Federation of Labor, was run by famed union leader Samuel Gompers. And he was picky about who he let in. Workers were admitted based on specific skills and women and people of color were mostly excluded. Debs thought this was a losing strategy, that there was more strength in unity and inclusivity.

[Historian/Expert]

So that's when he moved toward getting involved in founding the American Railway Union, which was an attempt to organize workers across, you know, lots of different positions, working together and cooperating together. Suddenly you have a tool that it's much harder for the railroad owners to ignore.

[Expert/Professor]

This is Ernest Freeberg. He's a history professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

[Historian/Expert]

And I'm the author of Democracy's Prisoner, Eugene Debs, the Great War and the Right to Dissent.

[Expert/Professor]

Debs also tried to get the rail workers union to include people of color. He brought it to a vote at one of their first conventions and their proposal nearly passed, losing by just 2 votes.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

So effectively 12 votes. I don't want to exaggerate here, but could have changed the course of history.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Despite the setback, Eugene Debs stayed committed to the fight. And in 1894, when he was 38 years old, he got his chance to do something big. He went toe to toe with the Pullman Palace Car Company. The Pullman Palace Car Company transformed rail travel in the late 19th century. They were responsible for building the luxury rail cars that everyone who could afford it wanted to travel in. And the thing is, a lot of workers dreamed of making those cars and getting to work at Pullman because Pullman workers got to live in the company town and the living standards there were better than average.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Basically, factory workers who built the cars had to rent their homes from the company, buy their groceries from company stores, send their kids to company schools, there's even a company church. And George Pullman, the guy had justified the community as an experiment in benevolent capitalism.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But it wasn't. All great workers had no room to speak out if something was wrong for fear of getting fired. And when the country faced a big economic downturn in the 1890s, this turned into a big problem. Pullman slashed wages, but didn't lower the rent or the cost of groceries or utilities. Pullman workers couldn't make ends meet.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Workers had been fainting on the job. There's a famous political cartoon of George Pullman pushing the crank that is squeezing a worker between these two massive stones, and it's his low wages and his high housing costs.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

As the Pullman workers grew more and more frustrated, many decided to join the American railway union, the aru, the powerful industrial union founded and run by Eugene Debs. And that set in motion the most

[Historian/Expert]

important labor conflict of the 19th century in the United States.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In May 1894, 3,000 Pullman workers, after

[Narrator/Storyteller]

months of being fed up, lay down their tools, walk out of the shops, say, pullman, we can't go back to our jobs until you reinstate our wages and cut our rents so we can afford to live and feed our children. Pullman wouldn't budge, insisting that there was nothing to arbitrate. That's the quote. After this refusal to negotiate, the workers,

[Rund Abdelfattah]

with depp's support, called for a massive strike.

[Eugene V. Debs (voice or quoted)]

Every railroad employee of the country should take his stand against the corporations in this fight. For if it should be lost, corporations will have despotic sway and all employees will be reduced to a condition scarcely removed, of above chattel slavery.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This is the event that transformed debs into a symbol of national discontent.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The New York Times reported, quote, the labor powers have spoken, and the most tremendous strike known to history will be inaugurated tomorrow when the evening whistles blow and 10,000 men abandon their work not to return, it is said, until the Pullman boycott is. Is settled.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This is huge. This is huge. Debs is in practically every major paper at this point lambasting him as dictator Debs, but also as the anarchists. And it's like, pick one. You can't be an anarchist and a dictator.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The next day, the strike began.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

And that effectively is a shutdown of

[Historian/Expert]

the railroads from Chicago west for some days and really paralyzed the American economy.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

If this happened today, or if something like it happened today, it would look like unions shutting down half the airports and interstates in this country, because that's the level of activity happening on the railroads by then. So it's just wild.

[Eugene V. Debs (voice or quoted)]

I am perfectly confident of success. We cannot fail.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Debs urged the strikers to remain calm and united.

[Expert/Professor]

I, Grover Cleveland, president of the United

[Historian/Expert]

States Grover Cleveland announced that he was not going to let this happen.

[Expert/Professor]

Do hereby command all persons engaged in or in any way connected with such unlawful obstructions, combinations and assemblages to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes on or before 3 o' clock in the afternoon of the 10th day of July. Instant.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But the workers didn't back down. So then the federal courts issued an

[Narrator/Storyteller]

injunction saying that the AARU is not allowed to strike like that.

[Historian/Expert]

Ordered Debs to essentially stop the strike which he refused to do.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

The next day Grover Cleveland, for whom Debs campaigned as a pro labor Democratic

[Historian/Expert]

president, he sent in troops

[Rund Abdelfattah]

to get the strikers away from the trains so that scab workers can operate the engines and get the trains moving again. It was chaos. Approximately 30 workers were killed. A majority of them were killed in Chicago and hundreds were arrested in skirmishes throughout the nation. The strike had failed. It's estimated that nearly 250,000 workers took

[Expert/Professor]

part in the strike and afterwards many of them were left jobless.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Essentially thousands of these workers were blacklisted.

[Expert/Professor]

The Pullman company continued on business as usual. And some say the strike pushed Grover Cleveland to create a holiday in honor of workers called Labor Day. As for Debs union, this was a

[Narrator/Storyteller]

well, the gutting defeat for the American railway union. It never recovered. The whole leadership of the ARU was jailed on contempt of court.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Debs went to prison for six months. And as he sat in his cell he came to the conclusion that the American political system was broken.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

The Republicans are the big capitalists and the Democrats are the small capitalists. But at the end of the day they are both the pro capitalist parties.

[Historian/Expert]

And what was really needed was a party that represented the workers.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

On the day he was released from prison he was greeted by 100,000 people. Looking onto the crowd he gave a rousing speech.

[Eugene V. Debs (voice or quoted)]

The fires of liberty and noble aspirations are not yet extinguished. I greet you tonight as lovers of liberty and and as despisers of despotism.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

What is more American to Debs than standing up against oppression and standing up against injustice? This is the American tradition. That's what we're doing.

[Eugene V. Debs (voice or quoted)]

The people are aroused in view of impending perils and that agitation, organization and unification are to be the future battle cries of men who will not part with their birthrights and and like Patrick Henry will have the courage to exclaim give me liberty or give me death.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Eugene Deb's role in the Pullman strike and the liberty speech in Chicago made many see him as the champion of the working person in America. He was a fiery populist who was unafraid to challenge big business. And this fame gave him a path into national politics, a path he, he initially didn't want to take.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He joked around a lot about how, like, if we ever stood a chance of electing a president, don't run me, I would make a bad president.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

More critical.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

For Debs was raising class consciousness.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But he couldn't stop thinking about his realization that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats really represented workers. And so in 1901, he founded a political party, the Socialist Party of America, uniting all the socialist groups that already existed under one banner.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He wants workers to see themselves as workers, not middle class, not as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, but as workers with more in common than we have.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Different. Over the next 20 years, Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party ran multiple campaigns for presidency. In 1912, Eugene Debs got the closest he would ever get to the presidency, winning 6% of the popular vote, which was a staggering number at that time. The Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson won the election. But over time, many of the ideas Debs and the American Socialists fought for were adopted by mainstream politicians.

[Historian/Expert]

Things like more support for early childhood education, the 40 hour workweek, old age pensions, welfare programs for the poor, or worker safety protections. These are things that were radical third party innovations when they were first proposed by the Socialists.

[Expert/Professor]

He understood that he could use his celebrity to be a presidential nominee that would raise the profile of all of these ideas.

[Historian/Expert]

Socialism, you know, as a third party succeeded in accomplishing many of the things that we now take for granted as just part of the liberal state. You know, the social safety network, the government oversight of health and welfare, some controls over the financial system. Those are all part of the socialist program that were adopted first by the progressives in the early 20th century, and then many of them by the New Deal and some of them ultimately by the Great Society programs in the 60s. So there is this long legacy of socialist ideas at a very important moment when America was facing the beginnings of this ongoing industrial revolution.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

That's it for this week's episode of America in Pursuit. If you want to hear the full length episode, check out American Socialist. And be sure to join us next week as we learn about one of the worst economic disasters in history from people who experienced it firsthand.

[Expert/Professor]

During the Depression, I was so broke, quite often I was with no money in my pocket. The most I ever had is maybe one or two dollars.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Stories from the Great Depression. That's next week. Don't miss it. This episode was produced by Kiana Moghadam and edited by Christina Kim with help from the Throughline production team. Music by Ramtin Adablouei and his band Drop Electric. Special thanks to Julie Cain, Irene Noguchi, Beth Donovan, Casey minor and Lindsey McKenna. I'm your host, Rund Abdel Fattah. Thanks for listening. Foreign.

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

Hey Lulu here.

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Whether we are romping through science, music, politics, technology or feelings, we seek to leave you seeing the world anew.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

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