Judge David C. Westenhaver

Eugene V. Debs Sentenced to Ten Years for Antiwar Speech, Runs for President from Prison

| Importance: 8/10

Federal Judge David C. Westenhaver sentenced five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs to ten years in federal prison for violating the Espionage Act by delivering an antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio on June 16, 1918. Before sentencing, Debs delivered his famous statement: …

Eugene V. Debs Socialist Party of America President Woodrow Wilson Judge David C. Westenhaver free-speech state-repression labor-movement progressive-era espionage-act
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