Workers and Populists thumb|Eugene V. Debs speaking in Canton, Ohio, in 1918, being arrested for sedition shortly thereafter. The Midwest saw labor unrest and rebellion against the capitalist economic order, with strikes in Chicago in 1887 and 1894. Labor leaders organized a protest meeting at Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886, where a bomb was thrown among police and eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy for murder, an event known as the Haymarket affair. The Pullman Strike of 1894 was a shutdown of most rail traffic in the Midwest and West. It turned violent and was broken by federal troops. Eugene V. Debs, leader of the striking American Railway Union, went to prison where he converted to Socialism. His version of socialism appealed to some immigrant groups but was too radical for most Midwesterners.Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: citizen and socialist (U of Illinois Press, 1982).
Workers and Populists thumb|Eugene V. Debs speaking in Canton, Ohio, in 1918, being arrested for sedition shortly thereafter. The Midwest saw labor unrest and rebellion against the capitalist economic order, with strikes in Chicago in 1887 and 1894. Labor leaders organized a protest meeting at Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886, where a bomb was thrown among police and eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy for murder, an event known as the Haymarket affair. The Pullman Strike of 1894 was a shutdown of most rail traffic in the Midwest and West. It turned violent and was broken by federal troops. Eugene V. Debs, leader of the striking American Railway Union, went to prison where he converted to Socialism. His version of socialism appealed to some immigrant groups but was too radical for most Midwesterners.Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: citizen and socialist (U of Illinois Press, 1982)