By Eugene Debs
Eugene Debs was born in Indiana in 1855. A militant trade unionist, he became the leader of the Socialist Party. He is best known for his working-class and internationalist opposition to World War I.
After the U.S. entered the World War, Debs continued to speak out opposing the war. In 1918 he was sentenced to ten years in prison under the Sedition Act. He ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket from his jail cell in 1920 and received nearly a million votes.
His article was published in 1915, titled “When I Shall Fight.”
“I refuse to obey any command to fight from the ruling class, but I will not wait to be commanded to fight for the working class. I am opposed to every war but one; I am for that war with heart and soul, and that is the world-wide war of social revolution.