Send a Quote Enter a brief message. SendOk2 “They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.” ~ Eugene Debs (1855-1926) American labor and political leader, five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for US PresidentSource: in a speech made June 16, 1918 in Canton, Ohio in opposition to World War I. Debs was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917. He was convicted, sentenced to 10 years in prison and disenfranchised for life. President Harding commuted his sentence in 1921.