Here's Some Video Footage of Eugene Debs That I Didn't Even Know Existed

I’ve always found it tragic that we don’t have any audio of Eugene Debs’s voice. What was so resonant, so stirring to audiences — its timbre, its pitch, its syncopation? How, with the simple emission of sound waves, could Debs evoke such feelings of ardor and emotion? We have plenty of secondhand accounts, but no way to judge for ourselves. Nor do we have any footage of his addresses, so punctuated by forceful gestures and bodily contortions.

Until this week, I thought this was the only existing tape of Eugene Debs:

I was wrong. While searching around I came across some additional footage, also from the early 1920s. The video, which doesn't contain any audio, features clips directly before and after Debs was let out of prison in December 1921. (Apologies for the crude hyperlink — CSPAN doesn’t make it easy to embed a video.)

The initial footage is from Debs’s hometown of Terre Haute, outside the drug store owned by his wife’s family. The booth depicted — “IRELAND IS FREE — Why Not DEBS,” “HELP BRING DEBS HOME FOR XMAS” — was collecting signatures calling for Debs’s release. The second string of shots appears to be at a railroad depot, likely also in Terre Haute. And the third portion is at Debs’s house, where the freed prisoner appears alongside his wife, Kate.

Maybe somewhere, in some attic, squirreled away among yellowing photos and moldering books, there’s a phonograph recording of Debs. I’m still holding out hope. But this was a sweet find regardless.