In the election of 1920, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, polled nearly a million votes without ever hitting the campaign trail. Debs had defiantly disobeyed a law he deemed unjust, the Sedition Act of 1918. On May 21, 1918, wary of a small but energized and eloquent anti-war movement, Wilson signed the Sedition Act into law. On May 13, 1920, at its national convention in New York, the Socialist Party unanimously nominated “Convict 2253” as its standard bearer for the presidency. Debs was later given new digits, so the campaign buttons read “For President, Convict No.

Source: New York Times April 20, 2023 01:58 UTC