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Currently reading up on this labor leader and minor party Presidential candidate from the WWI era. While most of his history really doesn't greatly fascinate me, I'm willing to read the whole thing just to find the answer to something that has bugged me for years. I have Googled to very limited results, checked here and there, etc. No firm conclusion yet emerges to this question:
Was Debs an alcoholic, and if so, to what degree was his declining health attributable to alcohol abuse?
Here's the historiographic problem. Debs is a fully polarizing figure. For a certain percentage of observers, the secret word is 'socialist' and is enough to make him into a Devil Incarnate even if he spent all his spare time volunteering to mop the floors in juvenile TB sanitaria. But for the other observers (there seem to be very, very few balanced folk in the middle on this, so we just need two groups), he is a Working Class Hero, a brave fighter, noble, great, sacrificed all, etc.
Therefore, one side has every motive to make him look as bad as possible. Whether he was or wasn't a drunkard, that side may very well have tossed the term about to make him look bad. In Debs's era, the time leading up to and just beginning Prohibition, alcohol abstinence was a pretty major cause. It can be argued that temperance was the first issue on which American women in large numbers asserted their moral right to a seat at the national debating table. Rumors of alcoholism, quietly bandied, might have been just the thing to try and damage Debs's public standing. The other side had and has every motive to simply dodge the alcoholism issue by omission, because it tarnishes the golden image of the Workers' Friend. That is what has me suspicious. It is very abnormal to read about ten bios of someone where he clearly went downhill with illness over a period of years, yet that illness is not identified. What the heck was it? Cirrhosis? Hog cholera? Diabetes? Lupus? Rosacea? Usually we get to hear what people die from. If we don't get the cause we at least get some symptoms. In Debs's case we just hear he got sicker and weaker. That ain't enough information.
It's like when I was writing about Amway and discovered vague hints about a third founder--yet the company, when asked, not only denied any third founder but seemed unconcerned that anyone was suggesting one. When I asked why they weren't concerned, they stopped talking to me. That's very suspicious.
On Debs, both extremes almost have to be bull bagels. I don't believe in perfect saints or perfect demons. My own experience with charismatic leaders is that the process of becoming such a person tends to amplify and even mutate both strengths and weaknesses. The s-word doesn't bother me, but just because he was a union guy doesn't make me moon over him.
So I'm open to whatever the historical record may reveal. I'm definitely going to read this whole book, without looking ahead to even see whether it'll give me an answer (it better, or I will raise blisters on it at Amazon), because I don't think I can evaluate the author's credibility without covering the full body of what he has to say. But I'm also interested in the opinions of any of you who have delved into Eugene Debs. Do you believe he was an alcoholic? More importantly, what source material convinces you of your conclusion?
I think his declining health might have had more to do with other issues, rather than alcohol abuse. Being in and out of jail and prison, traveling around the country to support and advise workers, even being involved in actual confrontations with police, strikebreakers, and so on didn't exactly promote good health practices. His lifestyle was pretty stressful. He lived to be in his 70's, didn't he? That was a ripe old age back then.
I think his declining health might have had more to do with other issues, rather than alcohol abuse. Being in and out of jail and prison, traveling around the country to support and advise workers, even being involved in actual confrontations with police, strikebreakers, and so on didn't exactly promote good health practices. His lifestyle was pretty stressful. He lived to be in his 70's, didn't he? That was a ripe old age back then.
Quite possible. But before his multi-year time in the klink for inciting draft evasion--which all evidence suggests made his health rather worse--his health was already weakening. No one will say what exactly was the problem. Heart trouble? Nausea? Chronic constipation? Reasons to believe it was some illness not yet identified, and if so, have we diagnosed it in hindsight? Even in old age, everyone dies of something: heart failure, renal failure, whatever.
And while the early 70s (to be precise, Debs died a couple weeks shy of 71) were a good long life back then (and aren't too shabby even now), one should consider that average lifespans have expanded in large part by decreasing the percentage of people who die young giving birth, at birth or before age 5, in disease epidemics, in industrial accidents (Debs's own greatest risk factor in his railroading youth), etc. In other words, even then, if nothing killed you young, living into your seventies was not rare provided you didn't get nailed by the hazards of life in the day. I acknowledge your point that he lived to a reasonable age for his era, which is one reason I am not predisposed to conclude he partly drank himself to death. For all I know now he might have been abstemious. I'm sure as hell going to find out, though, if the information is there to find.
I'm curious as to why you're so interested in Debs' drinking habits.
I've always assumed that he drank since most people of the time did (Carrie Nation notwithstanding). Alcohol was probably more healthful than some of the water supplies at the time, particularly considering the people Debs spent so much time with. People fighting for workers' rights, particularly in urban settings, lived in what can only be termed squalor. Sanitation services were inadequate at best.
There seem to me to a lot of factors that could have impacted Debs' health. Even little personal things, like poor dental hygiene can lead to less than ideal health later in life. Once Debs hit fifty, in his times he was an old man.
I'm curious as to why you're so interested in Debs' drinking habits.
I've always assumed that he drank since most people of the time did (Carrie Nation notwithstanding). Alcohol was probably more healthful than some of the water supplies at the time, particularly considering the people Debs spent so much time with. People fighting for workers' rights, particularly in urban settings, lived in what can only be termed squalor. Sanitation services were inadequate at best.
There seem to me to a lot of factors that could have impacted Debs' health. Even little personal things, like poor dental hygiene can lead to less than ideal health later in life. Once Debs hit fifty, in his times he was an old man.
I'm interested in them because they're history, and also because I'd like to have an accurate and fair opinion of the man. If he comes up in discussion (and since my wife is a union rep, I travel in circles where he well might), and someone pops off about him being a drunk, I want to either confirm or refute it from an educated standpoint. And finally, I'm interested because it's information people seem to be omitting in his bios. My curiosity is always piqued any time I think most of someone's hagiographers are dodging an issue that might detract from a halo, just as it is any time I think someone's professional rep-trashers have cooked up or embellished that person's flaws.
There is no doubt that a lot of conditions of the time could have affected Debs's health. The question is which ones did affect it, or at least, what effects resulted from them. It might be as simple as protracted hypertension due to stress.
I'm interested in them because they're history, and also because I'd like to have an accurate and fair opinion of the man. If he comes up in discussion (and since my wife is a union rep, I travel in circles where he well might), and someone pops off about him being a drunk, I want to either confirm or refute it from an educated standpoint. And finally, I'm interested because it's information people seem to be omitting in his bios. My curiosity is always piqued any time I think most of someone's hagiographers are dodging an issue that might detract from a halo, just as it is any time I think someone's professional rep-trashers have cooked up or embellished that person's flaws.
There is no doubt that a lot of conditions of the time could have affected Debs's health. The question is which ones did affect it, or at least, what effects resulted from them. It might be as simple as protracted hypertension due to stress.
Do people really pop off that he was a drunk????
I've never heard that. I've read a couple of biographies on Debs and alcoholism never came up, so I wasn't aware of any alcohol abuse on his part.
(You know, it might not come up because he just wasn't an alcoholic. It's not like the biographies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning ever say solidly that she wasn't an alcoholic. Just because they are silent on the topic, doesn't mean that we should think history is hiding something.)
I've never heard that. I've read a couple of biographies on Debs and alcoholism never came up, so I wasn't aware of any alcohol abuse on his part.
(You know, it might not come up because he just wasn't an alcoholic. It's not like the biographies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning ever say solidly that she wasn't an alcoholic. Just because they are silent on the topic, doesn't mean that we should think history is hiding something.)
It may not come up. There may be nothing there to find. I will clarify again that I'm open to whatever conclusion the historical record supports. But if he wasn't an alcoholic, he did indubitably sicken and die, and I'm going to try and find out how.
As for people who called him a drunk, I cannot find the quote right now, but Upton Sinclair was one of them. I haven't investigated Sinclair's cred on the matter, but his social views in general would not make him a natural Debs detractor. Another quote I remember from some time back but don't remember the attribution.
It may not come up. There may be nothing there to find. I will clarify again that I'm open to whatever conclusion the historical record supports. But if he wasn't an alcoholic, he did indubitably sicken and die, and I'm going to try and find out how.
As for people who called him a drunk, I cannot find the quote right now, but Upton Sinclair was one of them. I haven't investigated Sinclair's cred on the matter, but his social views in general would not make him a natural Debs detractor. Another quote I remember from some time back but don't remember the attribution.
Let me know what you discover. I'm genuinely curious.
As asked, I'll provide what I've found so far, which I don't by any means consider the last word on the subject.
The bio I just finished was written just after WWII, with plenty of hindsight as to where a full-on attempt at socialism might tend to lead, but before the McCarthy business ran amuck. On a scale of 0-100 in its friendliness to Debs (0 being he needed to be shot in his teens, 100 being he out-ranks George Washington), I'd say this book is a 65: moderately favorable but not so much as to soft-pedal all failings.
It was written by a qualified professor of history, Ray Ginger. The latter was a member of the Communist Party at the time he wrote the book, though he hardly places the young USSR in a favorable light, nor does he make the Debs-era US Reds look like a shedful of sharp tools. While this does not automatically mean a bias for Debs, it isn't exactly the most glowing background quality for objectivity, either. In any case, the book (The Bending Cross) has long enjoyed general acclaim. Not too many knowledgeable people seem to dismiss it as hagiographic. While good reviews do not make me accept a treatment as rock-solid, they give me more reason to respect the book than if it were panned all around.
It seems Debs suffered from a lot of minor to medium physical ailments through the last half of his life. Many of them may be connected to his workaholism and inability to say 'no' to a request for help or support until near the end of his days, when his dreams had mostly fallen apart and he had little energy to give to anything. Lumbago (lower back pain) is repeatedly cited, as are severe headaches probably brought on by hypertension/stress/both. In later years he had a frail heart. He also drank, but according to Ginger, was more of an occasional binge drinker rather than a steady consumer of liquor. He seems to have turned to it when the stress or depression or frustration got to him, or when his many labor cronies got him to drinking. I can easily see Debs's many admirers eager to buy him libations, and him tending not to refuse simply because anything that might smack of snobbery toward a working man was far outside his basic character.
Ginger cites no evidence of protracted alcoholism's more serious consequences in Debs's later life; no DTs, no cirrhosis symptoms. He's a little shaky blaming Debs's later health decline on prison food while simultaneously describing the prison regime for Debs as being anything but harsh--especially considering that when Debs was out on the trail, he often endured pretty rough conditions probably more grueling than the liberal treatment he got in jail. If anything I'd imagine he found jail rather restful. If there is any point in time when Debs became a heavy drinker that was glossed over, it would be after he got out of jail and was in his final decade, when the author mostly describes 'numerous ailments' and when Debs was in consistent pain, being bothered all the time by well-meaning comrades, and gazing back on the many ways in which both organized labor and socialism had fallen far short of their ostensible aims.
The first brickbats about alcoholism seem to come about around the time Debs became enough of a labor organizer to be worth smearing. Ginger mentions a few drinking episodes from that era but doesn't describe a pattern. I think it's quite possible that these were a slander/libel job meant to take a little smoke and fan it into the kind of fire that would alienate a segment of Debs's support base. Certainly enough labor moguls were tipplers that it would be easy to toss out as grey propaganda: throw it at the wall and see if it sticks. Debs had a reputation for being a genuinely nice guy with a strong common touch, and that made him a hard (if easily spotted) target for plutocratic smear machines.
One can't be satisfied, of course, with one treatment of a controversial subject. I'll keep pursuing the matter as time and interest allow. At this point I tend to doubt he was an alcoholic, most notably because of the lack of evidence for conventional symptoms of same later in life. Given his generally shaky health and frequent bouts of stress-related exhaustion, it's fair to flip the question: could he have reached 70 had he compounded these health problems with regular drunkenness? I know of no evidence that protracted heavy alcoholism lengthens life, and much that it shortens it.
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