Why did Warren Harding pardon Eugene Debs?

President Warren G. Harding on this day pardoned Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs who had been sentenced to ten years in prison for his antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio, on June 16, 1918. In that speech, Debs made no reference to the war or President Woodrow Wilson's conduct of the war. read more

President Warren G. Harding on this day pardoned Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs who had been sentenced to ten years in prison for his antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio, on June 16, 1918. In that speech, Debs made no reference to the war or President Woodrow Wilson’s conduct of the war. read more

Almost 92 years ago, Harding, an unlikely and undistinguished American president who had just succeeded Woodrow Wilson, an unpopular and increasingly spiteful president, commuted the prison sentence of Eugene V. Debs, the antiwar, anti-draft socialist who had spent three years of his 10-year sentence in Atlanta Penitentiary for opposing America's entry into World War I. read more