Clarence Darrow & Eugene V Debs
Clarence S. Darrow rose to prominence as a lawyer for his defense of suspects accused of murder during the Haymarket Riot (1886) as well as his defense of American Railway Union President Eugene V. Debs after the Pullman Strike (1894).
Darrow is often most associated with his defense of a Tennessee teacher who was accused of violating The Butler Act of 1925. The trial The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, often referred to in the media as the "The Monkey Trial," would go on to cement his legacy as a prolific defense lawyer. Even after Darrow's death in 1938, the case lives on in cultural memory through the popular play, Inherit the Wind, and its subsequent film release and novelization. Darrow spent his law career defending a wide variety of defendants, activists, and labor organizers.
McHenry County Connection: A graduate of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor law school, Darrow moved to Harvard, Illinois after completing his degree sometime in 1879. In Harvard, he set up his first law office at 28 N Ayer Street. Darrow successfully defended one of his first cases at the McHenry County Courthouse in January 1880. By mid-1880 he returned to Ohio but often returned to the county.
Learn more about Darrow's time in McHenry County: Click here for more information.
Eugene V Debs 1855-1926
Eugene Victor Debs was a famous labor organizer and politician whose work captured national attention. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Debs began working in the Terre Haute railyards when he was 14 years old while attending school at night. In 1875 he became a founding member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He entered the political arena when he was elected, as a Democrat, to be the Terre Haure City Clerk in 1879 and elected to the Indiana General Assembly as a State Representative in 1884.
A catalyzing moment for Debs' future as a prominent public figure took place in 1893 when he was elected as the President of the American Railway Union (ARU). While in this position, Debs successfully organized a strike against the Great Northern Railway securing higher wages for the railway's employees.
By mid-1894, Debs again found himself at the center of a conflict between labor and the labor barons. The conflict began when workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company attempted to petition the company's owner, George Pullman, in response to reduced wages. However, Pullman refused to greet them and ordered the assembled employees to be fired, leading directly to a company-wide strike.
In support of the striking Pullman workers the ARU workers, under the leadership of Debs, refused to handle trains with Pullman cars resulting in a halt of most rail services west of Detroit and ultimately involved more than striking 250,000 workers in 27 states. The frustration caused by the company's unwillingness to negotiate with the strikers boiled over to an outbreak of property damage and disruptive violence across Chicago.
President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike and Debs and other ARU leaders were arrested and convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and sentenced to serve six months in prison. Clarence Darrow defended him at his trial. Although convicted in federal court Debs and six other ARU leaders were sent to serve out their sentences at the McHenry County jail in Woodstock Illinois due to overcrowding in the Chicago jails.
George Eckert was the McHenry County sheriff during the time of Debs imprisonment. Although there were initial fears voiced in Woodstock about the presence of Debs and his fellow prisoners in the jail, the two men formed a lifelong friendship with Debs often joining the Eckert family for dinner. The two men stayed in contact and in 1922, with Debs' health failing, Eckert, himself over eighty years old, and his daughter, visited Debs in Indiana to pay their respects to him.
Famed journalist Nellie Bly, visited Debs soon after his imprisonment in Woodstock and described the congenial relationship of the Debs and the Eckert family, with Debs even carving the roast for the family and his fellow prisoners.
At 1 o’clock Mrs. Eckert told us dinner was served and Mr. Debs and I went into the dining-room, where I was introduced to his seven comrades—William Burns, Sylvester Kellher, G. W. Howard, L. W. Rogers, R. M. Goodwin, James Hogan and M. J. Elliot.
The table was neatly spread and a bowl of soup stood at every plate. After the soup we had roast beef and boiled potatoes, Mr. Debs carving, and after that lemon pie for dessert. Everybody had a large cup of coffee.
The hour spent at dinner was most enjoyable. Everybody was in a good humor and everybody had a healthy appetite.
Then we went out into the sunlit corridor of the jail, where these men, if not admitted to bail, will spend most of their six months.
The corridor is long and narrow, with huge bars on one side and three large barred windows on the other. There were two tables strewn with books and papers, a shelf around the windows, also covered with books, and eight chairs, one of which was a barber’s chair.
Other well known people to visit Debs in the Woodstock jail included Victor Berger, a Milwaukee socialist and Keir Hardie, the first Labour Member of the British Parliament. In his 1926 autobiography Berger claims to have left a copy of Karl Marx's Das Kapital. Debs used his time in Woodstock to study political economics and the needs of the working class in America and to outline what would become the platform for the foundation of the Socialist Party.
On November 22, 1895, Debs completed his sentence in Woodstock and after enjoying a last meal with the Eckert family, the Woodstock Sentinel reported he was greeted to a large crowd of over 300 well wishers with a 20 piece band that marched around the Square playing "Hail Columbia" and "Annie Laurie". Sheriff Eckert presented Debs with the keys to his jail cell as a parting gift from the townpeople of Woodstock.
In 2018, the Eugene V Debs Foundation sent representives to Woodstock for the Woodstock Celebrates' Villains or Heroes: Pullman Vs Debs Fest. They brought with the keys to the Debs jail cell to be a part of the weekend and unveiling of the Eugene V Debs marker on the north side of the Sheriff's House.
Sources:
Deb Goes to Jail: He is accompanied by his six fellow officers American Railway Union Leaders and Managers of the July Strike Are Now in McHenry County's Prison at Woodstock. Chicago Daily Tribune January 9, 1895
Debs Now a Free Man : Release comes to him in his cell in Woodstock Jail Spends the Last Night in the Prison--Dinner with the Sheriff to Be a Farewell Banquet. Chicago Daily Tribune November 22, 1895
Interview with Eugene V Debs by Nellie Bly. Originally published as “Nellie Bly in Jail: Chat with Eugene Victor Debs,
the Imprisoned Labor Leader” in New York World, Jan. 20, 1895.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1895/950119-bly-debsatwoodstock.pdf
The Sheriff I Loved by Eugene V. Debs Originally published in the Miami Valley Socialist [Dayton, OH], v. 10, whole no. 570 (Feb. 9, 1923), pg. 2 https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1923/0209-debs-sheriffiloved.pdf
A Day With Debs in Jail at Woodstock: How the Imprisoned Labor Leader and His Associates Lived in Confinement... by A.C. Cantley Published in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 7, 1895. Reprinted in St. Louis Labor, vol. 6, whole no. 404 (Oct. 31, 1908), pp. 5-6. https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1895/0706-cantley-daywithdebsatwoodstock.pdf
Radicals: Eugene V Debs. Time Magazine, November 1, 1926.
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,722648,00.html
Correspondence: Eugene V Debs to Theodore Debs, January 8, 1895.
https://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/evdc/id/2911/rec/4
Correspondence: Georgie Eckert to Gertrude Debs, October 31, 1908
https://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/evdc/id/2016/rec/1
Delve deeper into Debs' connection to Woodstock: Click here for more information.