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On this day in 1918, Eugene Debs gave the anti-war speech that would soon send him to prison.

18h 37m ago by lemmy.world/u/K1nsey6 in latestagecapitalism

His arrest sparked a nationwide movement to secure his release — and forced the government to finally recognize the free speech rights of wartime dissenters. "I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets. They may put those boys in jail — and some of the rest of us in jail — but they cannot put the Socialist movement in jail."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm