The legend of Eugene debs: Prophetic ethos as radical argument

Abstract

Eugene Debs, widely acknowledged as one of America's foremost radical figures, spoke at a time when the agrarian “ethos of responsibility” was eroding under the pressures of industrialization. In response, Debs fostered a legend that was heavily ethical and called for a renewal of American virtue. Though his radicalism, viewed from the Graeco‐Roman tradition of Quintilian's “good man speaking well,” seems perversely calculated to ensure defeat and to alienate, a less unidimensional and more sympathetic view of Debs's relationship to his time and of his legacy is achieved by looking at him against the fudeo‐Christian tradition of Old Testament prophecy. Such a perspective at least partially reconciles our modern positive evaluation of Debs with his apparent rhetorical failings in his day.