VACCINE NEWS CHINA/OXFORD

Chinese COVID-19 vaccine said to show promise in early clinical trials

A COVID-19 vaccine in China produces an immune response in early clinical trials, according to research published Tuesday. Photo by huntlh/Pixabay

Nov. 17 (UPI) -- A vaccine against COVID-19 developed in China safely produces antibodies against the virus in 92% of the people who receive it, according to a study published Tuesday by The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Still, antibody levels among participants receiving the shot, called CoronaVac, were lower than those seen in patients who have recovered following infection, the researchers said.

The trial was not designed to assess the effectiveness of the vaccine, however, and those studies are ongoing, they said.

"Our findings show that CoronaVac is capable of inducing a quick antibody response within four weeks of immunization by giving two doses of the vaccine at a 14-day interval," study co-author Fengcai Zhu said in a statement.

"We believe that this makes the vaccine suitable for emergency use during the pandemic," said Zhu, a researcher with the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Nanjing, China.

The findings are the latest to fuel hopes that a viable vaccine against COVID-19 will become available in the short-term.

In recent days, both Pfizer and Moderna have released positive, preliminary results with their respective vaccines. More than 120 potential vaccines are being evaluated, and 48 are in clinical trials.

CoronaVac is a chemically inactivated whole virus vaccine based on a strain of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, originally was isolated from a patient in China.

In this phase 1/2, two-part clinical trial -- the first stage of the evaluation process -- researchers administered CoronaVac to more than 700 healthy volunteers ages 18 to 59 in China between April 16 and May 5.

No participant had a history of COVID-19 infection, had not traveled to areas with high incidence of the disease and did not have signs of fever at the time the vaccine was administered, the researchers said.

In both parts of the trial, participants were split into two groups to receive one of two vaccination schedules -- either two injections 14 days apart or two injections 28 days apart.

Within each of the two groups, participants were randomly assigned to receive either a low dose of the vaccine -- 3 micrograms -- or a high dose -- 6 mcg.

Antibody responses -- proteins produced by the immune system to fight off viruses -- could be induced within 28 days of the first immunization by giving two doses of the vaccine at the lower dose 14 days apart, the data showed.

In the phase 1 portion of the study, the vaccine produced an immune response in 46% of participants, a figure that more than doubled to just over 92% during the second phase.

The vaccine used in the second phase of the study was produced using a different manufacturing process that may have enabled it to produce a stronger immune response, researchers said.

Participants in all dosing schedules and levels reported similar side effects, with pain at the injection site the most common.

Most of the reported side effects were mild and participants recovered within 48 hours.

CoronaVac can be stored in a standard refrigerator at 36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit, which is "typical for many existing vaccines including flu," and can remain in storage for up to three years, according to study co-author Dr. Gang Zeng, of China-based Sinovac Biotech, which makes the vaccine.

upi.com/7055828


'Oxford' COVID-19 vaccine found to be safe in clinical trials

A new study has found the "Oxford" COVID-19 vaccine is safe, particularly in older adults. Photo by marcolohpsoares/Pixabay

Nov. 18 (UPI) -- A COVID-19 vaccine under development in England safely promotes an immune response against the virus, particularly in elderly recipients, a study published Thursday by The Lancet found.

The study's 560 healthy adult participants included 240 people over age 70, according to the researchers.

That the vaccine was found to be safer in older adults than in younger people is significant, given they are at increased risk for severe illness from the new coronavirus, the researchers said.

"The robust ... responses seen in older people in our study are encouraging [because] the populations at greatest risk of serious COVID-19 disease include people with existing health conditions and older adults," study co-author Dr Maheshi Ramasamy said in a press release.

"We hope that this means our vaccine will help to protect some of the most vulnerable people in society, but further research will be needed before we can be sure," said Ramasamy, a professor at the University of Oxford, which is leading the research.

The so-called "Oxford vaccine," formally known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and developed in conjunction with drugmaker AstraZeneca, is one of more than 120 being evaluated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To date, 48 of these vaccines have gotten into in clinical trials to assess their safety and effectiveness.

The study published Thursday is a Phase 2, which is the second stage of research and development for a drug or vaccine. Phase 2 trials evaluate the safety of a product, but not necessarily the effectiveness.

Phase 3 trials are ongoing to confirm the new results -- as well as how effective the vaccine is in protecting against infection with COVID-19 -- in a broader range of people, including older adults with underlying health conditions, according to Oxford.

For the current study, researchers enrolled 560 participants -- 160 ages 18 to 55, 160 ages 56 to 69 and 240 ages 70 and older.

Study participants received either the vaccine at a low or standard dose or a placebo, the researchers said.

In addition, participants age 55 and older were given either a single dose of vaccine or two doses 28 days apart.

The vaccine induced antibodies against the new coronavirus 28 days after a single low or standard dose across all age groups, the researchers said.

After the booster dose of the vaccine, antibody levels increased at day 56 of the trial, irrespective of dose or participant age.

By 14 days after the booster dose, 208 of the 209 participants who received it had neutralizing antibody responses, which means their immune systems were producing cells called antibodies to fight off the virus, according to the researchers.

Side effects to the vaccine were less common in older adults than in younger adults. Symptoms such as temporary pain, tenderness, redness and swelling at the site of the injection occurred in 88% of participants ages 18 to 55 and 66% of those ages 56 and older, the data showed.

Within seven days of injection, 86% of 18-to-55-year-olds developed systemic symptoms, such as temporary fatigue, headache, malaise, fever and muscle aches, as opposed 70% in those over age 56.

Participants will continue to be monitored for any serious adverse events for one year following final vaccination, the researchers said.

Other COVID-19 vaccines have also been shown to generate immune responses in older adults -- including the Moderna mRNA vaccine -- while others have yielded lower responses in older adults, the Oxford researchers said.

This latter group of vaccines includes the CanSino single dose adenovirus-vector vaccine, the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine and the SinoPharm/Beijing Institute of Biological Products inactivated viral vaccine, they said.

"The World Health Organization has outlined a number of critical factors for COVID-19 vaccines, including that they must be targeted at the most at-risk groups, including older adults. They must also be safe ... and provide at least six months of protection," study co-author Sarah Gilbert said in a statement.

"Our new study answers some of these questions about protecting older adults, but questions remain about effectiveness and length of protection," said Gilbert, a professor at the University of Oxford.

The Lancet: Phase 2 trial of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine in healthy older adults finds it is safe and provokes immune response

Older adults are at a disproportionate risk of severe COVID-19 disease, so it is essential that any vaccine adopted for use against SARS-CoV-2 is effective in this group

THE LANCET

Research News

 

Peer-reviewed / Randomised Controlled Trial / People

**There will be a UK Science Media Centre briefing at 10.15am UK time on Thursday 19th November about this study. Please see details in notes to editors**

• Older adults are at a disproportionate risk of severe COVID-19 disease, so it is essential that any vaccine adopted for use against SARS-CoV-2 is effective in this group
• Study of 560 healthy adults - including 240 over the age of 70 years - presents preliminary findings on safety and immune responses of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine
• Results show that the vaccine is better tolerated in older people compared to younger adults, and produces a similar immune response in old and young adults
• Authors note that their new findings could be encouraging if the immune responses found in their study are associated with protection against infection with SARS-CoV-2, but this study did not assess efficacy and phase 3 trials are ongoing to confirm this.

The UK's vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 shows similar safety and immunogenicity results in healthy older adults (aged 56 years and over) to those seen in adults aged 18-55 years. The promising early stage results are published in The Lancet.

The phase 2 trial finds that the vaccine causes few side effects, and induces immune responses in both parts of the immune system in all age groups and at low and standard dose - provoking a T cell response within 14 days of the first dose of vaccination (ie, a cellular immune response, it could find and attack cells infected with the virus), and an antibody response within 28 days of the booster dose of vaccination (ie, humoral immune response, it could find and attack the virus when it was circulating in the blood or lymphatic system). Phase 3 trials are ongoing to confirm these results - as well as how effective the vaccine is in protecting against infection with SARS-CoV-2 - in a broader range of people, including older adults with underlying health conditions.

Study lead author Professor Andrew Pollard, University of Oxford, UK, says: "Immune responses from vaccines are often lessened in older adults because the immune system gradually deteriorates with age, which also leaves older adults more susceptible to infections. As a result, it is crucial that COVID-19 vaccines are tested in this group who are also a priority group for immunisation." [1]

Co-author Dr Maheshi Ramasamy, University of Oxford, UK, adds: "The robust antibody and T-cell responses seen in older people in our study are encouraging. The populations at greatest risk of serious COVID-19 disease include people with existing health conditions and older adults. We hope that this means our vaccine will help to protect some of the most vulnerable people in society, but further research will be needed before we can be sure." [1]

The new study is the fifth published clinical trial of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 tested in an older adult population. Other COVID-19 vaccines have also been shown to generate immune responses in older adults, but it can be difficult to compare results between different studies. One study has shown similar immune responses in young and old adults (Moderna mRNA vaccine), while other trials have suggested lower measured responses in older adults, compared to younger adults receiving the same vaccine (CanSino single dose adenovirus-vector vaccine, Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine, and SinoPharm/Beijing Institute of Biological Products inactivated viral vaccine).

In the phase 2 trial published today, 560 participants (160 aged 18-55 years, 160 aged 56-69 years, and 240 aged 70 or over) were split into 10 groups [2] where they received either the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine at a low or standard dose, or a control vaccine (the meningococcal conjugate vaccine). Participants aged over 55 years were also split into groups and either given a single dose of vaccine, or two doses 28 days apart.

Study recruitment occurred during a national lockdown in the UK when vulnerable individuals were advised to self-isolate. For this reason, the study includes only healthy participants and not those with co-morbidities or who are frail. Before receiving the vaccine, all participants had a blood test to determine if they had previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2. Those who had antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 were excluded, except for 18-55-year-olds in the standard dose double vaccine groups.

Following vaccination, participants were observed for a minimum of 15 minutes in case of any immediate adverse events, and participants recorded any adverse events for seven days afterwards. Participants will continue to be monitored for any serious adverse events for one year following final vaccination (the year long data are not yet available).

Participants aged 18-55 years who received two standard doses of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine and all participants aged 56 years or over had their immune responses assessed on the day of vaccination, then 1, 2 and 4 weeks after their first and second vaccination.

Adverse reactions to the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine were mild (the most common effects were injection-site pain and tenderness, fatigue, headache, feverishness and muscle pain), but more common than seen with the control vaccine. Thirteen serious adverse events occurred in the six months since the first dose was given, none of which were related to either study vaccine.

Adverse effects were less common in older adults than in younger adults (within seven days of one standard dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, local symptoms such as temporary pain, tenderness, redness, and swelling at the site of the injection occurred in 88%, 43/49 18-55 year olds, 73%, 22/30 56-69 year olds, and 61%, 30/49 people aged 70 or over. Within 7 days of injection, systemic symptoms such as temporary fatigue, headache, malaise, feverishness, and muscle aches occurred in 86%, 42/49 18-55 year olds, 77%, 23/30 56-69 year olds, and 65%, 32/49 people aged 70 or over), and similar levels of local symptoms were seen after the first and booster doses of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine in older adults, while there were few systemic symptoms following the booster dose.

The COVID-19 vaccine had similar immunogenicity across all age groups after a boost dose.

The ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine induced antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and receptor binding domain 28 days after a single low or standard dose across all age groups. Following the booster dose of the vaccine, antibody levels increased at day 56 of the trial, irrespective of dose or participant age. The same was seen with levels of neutralising antibodies at day 42, two weeks after the booster vaccine dose. By 14 days after the boost dose, 208 of 209 (more than 99%) participants (selected from participants of all ages and doses) had neutralising antibody responses.

T cell responses against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein peaked 14 days after first vaccination, regardless of age and low or standard vaccine dose.

Co-author, Professor Sarah Gilbert, University of Oxford, UK, says: "The WHO has outlined a number of critical factors for COVID-19 vaccines, including that they must be targeted at the most at-risk groups including older adults. They must also be safe, effective in preventing disease and/or transmission, and provide at least six months of protection for people frequently exposed to the virus - such as healthcare workers. Our new study answers some of these questions about protecting older adults, but questions remain about effectiveness and length of protection, and we need to confirm our results in older adults with underlying conditions to ensure that our vaccine protects those most at risk of severe COVID-19 disease." [1]

The authors note some limitations to their study, including that the participants in the oldest age group had an average age of 73-74 years and few underlying health conditions, so may not be representative of the general older population, including those living in residential care settings or over 80 years of age. Larger studies are now underway to evaluate immunogenicity, safety and efficacy in older adults with a wider range of comorbidities. Lastly, the authors note that almost all participants of all ages were white and non-smokers, and may not be representative of the general population, but people from a range of backgrounds, countries and ethnicities are being included in the phase 3 trial of this vaccine.

Writing in a linked Comment, lead author Dr Melissa Andrew, Dalhousie University, Canada, who was not involved in the study, says: "It is encouraging that more studies in older adult populations are underway and will hopefully bring opportunities to implement nuanced analyses of how underlying health status and frailty affect vaccine safety, reactogenicity, immunogenicity, and efficacy in older adults in real-world settings. Older adults (across the full spectrum of frailty) and those who care about them are eagerly awaiting this progress towards safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines."

###

NOTES TO EDITORS

This study was funded by UK Research and Innovation, National Institutes for Health Research (NIHR), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Thames Valley and South Midlands NIHR Clinical Research Network, and AstraZeneca. A full list of the authors and their institutions is available in the paper.

The labels have been added to this press release as part of a project run by the Academy of Medical Sciences seeking to improve the communication of evidence. For more information, please see: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AMS-press-release-labelling-system-GUIDANCE.pdf if you have any questions or feedback, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com

[1] Quote direct from author and cannot be found in the text of the Article.

[2] See figure 1 for full detail. 300 participants were enrolled to the low-dose cohort, and 260 to the standard-dose cohort.

In the low-dose cohort, there were 100 18-55 year olds (50 in the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, and 50 in the two-dose control group), 80 56-69 year olds (30 in the one-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, 10 in the one-dose control group, 30 in the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, and 10 in the two-dose control group), and 120 people aged over 70 (50 in the one-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, 10 in the one-dose control group, 50 in the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, and 10 in the two-dose control group).

In the standard-dose cohort, there were 60 18-55 year olds (50 in the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, and 10 in the two-dose control group), 80 56-69 year olds (30 in the one-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, 10 in the one-dose control group, 30 in the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, and 10 in the two-dose control group), and 120 people aged over 70 (50 in the one-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, 10 in the one-dose control group, 50 in the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine group, and 10 in the two-dose control group).

For interviews with the Article author, please contact the University of Oxford press office: E) news.office@admin.ox.ac.uk T) +44 (0) 1865 280528

Please be aware, due to limited availability, the authors are not available for comment prior to the embargo lifting. They will be available for further questions at a UK Science Media Centre briefing at 10.15am UK time on Thursday 19th November. To register to attend, please contact Fiona Lethbridge: lethbridge@sciencemediacentre.org

UN launches fund to support global sanitation and hygiene

Jonathan Pasley turns on the water to wash his hands with cold water and no soap at a station hooked up to a fire hydrant for those on the street during the COVID-19 pandemic. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 17 (UPI) -- A U.N.-backed fund launched Tuesday aims to address the need for basic hand-washing and hygiene facilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, a U.N.-hosted organization to improve global sanitation, hygiene and menstrual health, launched the fund in a Twitter video message.

Launch event moderator and international broadcaster Zeinab Badawi, who introduced U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed during the video said that The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund is a "fundamental, social and human right."

The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund is especially needed "as we are in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic," Badawi added.

More than 4 billion people around the world lack access to basic sanitation and hygiene facilities and menstrual health services, including over 3 billion who lack access to hand-washing facilities with water and soap at home to control the coronavirus, according to the United Nations.

The WSSCC has launched the fund as part of its sustainable development goals as "many of the world's most serious diseases stem from poor sanitation and hygiene," a U.N. statement said.

Mohammed said in the video message sustainability development goals, such as water and sanitation, were already falling short before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the pandemic has exacerbated the problem.

Water and sanitation services are "critical to the response that we want to see, first, because it is about human dignity; second it is a health issue," Mohammed said in regard to pandemic recovery.

The U.N. Office for Project Services hosts the fund, which is designed as a global financing mechanism to provide accelerated funding to countries in the most need. Expanding access to sanitation and hygiene facilities in the household, school and healthcare facilities, and ensuring menstrual health services are among the key goals of the fund, which aims to raise $2 billion over the next five years to support its efforts.

U.N. Children's Fund Executive Director Henrietta Fore called sanitation and hygiene "a great equalizer for children," in a U.N. statement.

"During a lockdown, how do you cope with the fact that your household does not have a toilet? This is particularly difficult for girls and women. If everyone had access to sanitation and hygiene in households, in their school, in their health facilities and communities, it would make an enormous difference in our world," Fore said.

"Good sanitation has to be a public good," Fore added. "Governments have to own the fact that sanitation is their problem to solve, and that they have ways to solve it."


upi.com/7055800

Overt bias, systemic racism may explain elevated COVID-19 risk in parts of U.S.


Overt and systemic racism have contributed to higher COVID-19 case rates in Black communities in the U.S. than White ones, according to new research.

 File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Overt and systemic racism may explain at least some of the elevated COVID-19 case counts in parts of the United States, according to an analysis published Wednesday by PLOS ONE.

Researchers at Texas A&M University used data from Project Implicit, a Harvard University-led reporting system for bias incidents worldwide, areas with high levels of explicit and implicit racism were more likely to have higher case numbers than others, the data showed.

The reason for this apparent relationship is that bias likely serves as a barrier preventing racial and ethnic minorities from getting access to quality healthcare, the researchers said.

As a result, many people of color and other minorities have underlying health conditions that place them at increased risk for infection and severe disease from COVID-19.

RELATED Study: Black patients get worse care after cardiac arrest


"There is a growing body of evidence that suggests racial and ethnic minorities are more affected by severe illness from COVID-19 compared to White Americans," study co-author George B. Cunningham told UPI.

"Even when taking into account the demographics and health of the county residents, we found that implicit and explicit racism contributed to COVID-19 cases ... even beyond demographic and other health measures," said Cunningham, a professor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

Black and Hispanic people in the United States are up to twice as likely as White people to experience severe COVID-19, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RELATED Black Hispanics at especially high risk for severe COVID-19

In addition, studies suggest that Black people and other racial and ethnic minorities are at increased risk for infection.

That people in these communities are more likely to be "essential workers," based on recent data -- meaning they still had to commute to and be at work during the pandemic -- explains some of these disparities.

People of color also are more likely to have underlying health conditions -- diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure -- that raise their risk for severe COVID-19, according to Cunningham and his colleagues.

RELATED Black children twice as likely to die after surgery than White children

However, these trends do not tell the full story, they said.

"When we look at racial attitudes ... we are tapping into systemic forms of racism that give rise to racially biased structures and processes," Cunningham said. "These biases affect many outcomes, including religion, business, criminal justice and, in this case, health and well-being."

For the study, the researchers reviewed data on COVID-19 cases and deaths between Jan. 22 and Aug. 31 -- and information on racial attitudes reported to Project Impact -- for 817 counties across the United States.

These counties represent about 25% of all counties nationally, the researchers said.

The higher the Black population in a county, the more COVID-19 cases and deaths there, the data showed.

In addition, counties with more explicit and implicit racial attitudes had more cases of the disease, according to the researchers.

Explicit racial attitudes are "those of which people are aware and that they consciously, deliberately maintain," while implicit racial attitudes are "automatic" responses to racial and ethnic differences, the researchers said.

"Our findings contribute to the growing research base showing that racism and racial inequalities can and do affect health, and the first step is to acknowledge this reality and then, take steps to address it," Cunningham said.

"An easy place to start is for healthcare providers and professionals to participate in training and awareness programs, [while] structurally, there is a need to address access to care, quality of care and other systemic conditions that contribute to health disparities," he said.

Lake ice destabilized by climate change linked to increase in youth drownings


Freeze-thaw events caused by warm spells during winter can increase the risk of drowning. Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Wintertime drownings among children and young adults are on the rise in many parts of the world, and new research suggests climate change and the destabilization of ice in frozen lakes and ponds are to blame.

For the study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, researchers compared temperature and precipitation patterns with the timing of 4,000 drownings in 10 different countries, including Canada, Russia, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the United States.

The data showed warming winter air temperatures accurately predicted increases in wintertime drownings.

"We used statistical models to relate the winter drownings per capita to mean winter air temperature," lead study author Sapna Sharma told UPI in an email.

RELATED Wintertime ice growth in the Arctic is accelerating, slowing historic decline

"An exponential model was the best fit when analyzing all of the countries and years together, as we found that there were five-fold more winter drownings as mean winter air temperatures approached zero degrees Celsius," said Sharma, a professor in the biology department at York University in Toronto.

The data showed Canada, where many residents use frozen lakes for hunting, fishing, skating and other recreational activities, was home to the highest number of wintertime drownings.

A close examination of the link between weather patterns and the risk of wintertime drownings in the Canadian territories showed drownings were most likely when air temperatures were between negative five and zero degrees Celsius.

RELATED Summers less smoggy now, but winter air hasn't improved


When temperatures began climbing north of zero, researchers found the rate of drownings declines, most likely because ice instability became more obvious to users.

While air temperatures have the greatest influence on ice-on, ice-off, freeze-thaw events and ice thickness, Sharma said rain and heavy snows can also destabilize the ice on lakes and ponds, increasing the risk of wintertime drownings.

The research showed that winters have become milder over the last 30 years, increasing the risk of wintertime drownings in many parts of the world.

RELATED U.S. may see 30-fold rise in extreme heat exposure by 2100


Sharma said the increase in the risk of wintertime drowning is greatest "in regions where ice is used a lot for recreation and subsistence, where winters are warming the fastest, and there aren't strong local regulations letting people know whether the ice is safe to use" -- places like Canada, the United States, Latvia, Estonia and Sweden.

Despite the warming effects of climate change, most places where people use ice for recreation and subsistence remain cold enough to host thick and stable ice throughout the heart of winter. During winter's shoulder months, in December or March, however, the risk of drowning increases.

Even as cold weather persists into the early spring, global warming has increased the odds of warm spells arriving earlier than usual. It's this variability, the mix of cold and warm weather, that can prove dangerous for ice-users.

"A warm spell in the middle of winter weakens the structural integrity of the ice," Sharma said. "Warm temperatures and bright sunny days or rain events will even further decrease the stability of the ice."

Researchers hope policy makers will take note of their findings and take steps to inform citizens about the risks of wintertime drownings.

"Understanding that climate change has had a large influence on ice through later ice-on, earlier ice-off, freeze-thaw events and thinner ice will hopefully help individuals when deciding whether the ice is safe for use," Sharma said. "Winter safety components in swimming lessons for children and teens could help mitigate the risk."

#TRUMPTV
Trump-friendly Newsmax seeks to cut into Fox’s viewership
By DAVID BAUDER

1 of 6
This 2018 photo shows Chris Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax. The network's rise in popularity has been astonishingly swift and could indicate the first serious threat to Fox News Channel's iron grip on conservative viewers in two decades. (Newsmax via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Now that his largely invisible network has suddenly been flooded by fans of President Donald Trump, Newsmax television personality Grant Stinchfield is puffing out his chest.

“They don’t know what to do with all of us,” Stinchfield said on the air Monday night. “We’re killing it here on Newsmax with a tactic they’ve never tried. It’s called the truth, the stone-cold truth, and once you get a taste of it, you will never tolerate being lied to again.”

The conservative network’s critics suggest the opposite is true, that Newsmax’s viewers are being presented discredited stories such as a voting system that changed or deleted votes, questions about how closely Republicans were able to monitor vote-counting and the volume of absentee ballots being accepted.

There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In fact, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.

Newsmax’s burst, whether or not it lasts, has been astonishingly swift and could foreshadow significant competition to Fox News Channel’s dominance with conservative viewers in two decades.

This image released by Newsmax shows Greg Kelly, a former personality at Fox's New York affiliate who is Newsmax's most polished broadcaster. (Newsmax via AP)

“We’ve really cornered Fox from the right,” said Chris Ruddy, Newsmax founder and friend of Trump. “They’ve never had that.”

From the beginning of July to the week before Election Day, Newsmax averaged 58,000 viewers from 7 to 10 p.m. on weekdays. That jumped to 568,000 the week after the election, the Nielsen company said. In the same period, daytime viewership increased from 46,000 to 450,000.

For the same dates, Fox News averaged 3.6 million viewers in the evening, Nielsen said. Fox’s prime-time viewership during the two weeks after the election was up 50 percent over last year.

“We love competition. We have always thrived on competition,” Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on an Election Day earnings call.

Ruddy traced much of Newsmax’s increase to Trump supporters angered by Fox’s election night call that Democrat Joe Biden had won Arizona — ahead of any other news organization. While that call proved correct, for the president’s backers it was an ill-timed sign of insufficient loyalty from their favorite network.

Trump, who criticized Fox throughout the campaign, has driven the point home with repeated tweets suggesting his followers check out Newsmax or a smaller rival that also presses a conservative viewpoint, One America News Network.


 - One America News Network reporter Chanel Rion asks a question of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on May 22, 2020. President Donald Trump, who criticized Fox throughout the campaign, has driven the point home by suggesting his followers check out Newsmax or a smaller rival, One America News Network. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)


“There’s a large part of the country that wants to have a voice, the same people who gave birth to what turned into a very robust Fox News,” said Michael Clemente, Newsmax’s CEO until last April and a former Fox News executive. “Now, more than ever, they want to be heard, and have influence equal to their peers on the coasts. Their loyalty is to that voice and not to any place or another.”

Newsmax says it has an editorial staff of 70, including those attached to its website, which at midday Wednesday led with stories about Trump’s press secretary calling restrictions on Thanksgiving gatherings “Orwellian,” and the president’s latest false tweet claiming an election victory.

The television network is running a clever ad telling conservative viewers not to be “out-foxed,” but it was telling on Monday that both Newsmax and OANN spent considerable time discussing an interview that was conducted on Fox, where a Trump lawyer predicted her client would win by millions of votes.

Programming generally consists of news talk shows, and it’s not difficult to see where the loyalty lies.

“Donald Trump is the most powerful person in the world,” said Greg Kelly, a former personality at Fox’s New York affiliate who is Newsmax’s most polished broadcaster. “Not because he’s president, but because he’s loved by so many people.”

In this image released by Newsmax, co-hosts Sean Spicer and Lyndsay Keith pose for a photo on the set of "Spicer & Co." The network's rise in popularity has been astonishingly swift and could indicate the first serious threat to Fox News Channel's iron grip on conservative viewers in two decades. (Newsmax via AP)


When Newsmax’s Chris Salcedo asked a question about Biden during an interview Monday with Trump aide Peter Navarro, he was quickly brushed off.

“As far as I’m concerned, President Trump is going to have a second term,” Navarro said.

Newsmax hasn’t declared Biden the president-elect, unlike other news organizations, including Fox and The Associated Press. They say they are waiting for final certification of the vote before doing so.

Even though Ruddy conceded in an interview that Trump has an extremely narrow chance of overturning the results, he said it’s up to the states, not media organizations, to declare a winner. When that process is done, Newsmax will accept the winner, he said.

This image shows Newsmax television personality Grant Stinchfield. The network's rise in popularity has been astonishingly swift and could indicate the first serious threat to Fox News Channel's iron grip on conservative viewers in two decades. (Newsmax via AP)


But if Trump’s chances of overturning the results are so small, why should a discussion about them dominate Newsmax’s airtime?

“I think that people that are not pro-Trump or don’t like him think we should get past it or they are tired of it,” he said. “But conservatives are quite anxious to hear about developments.”

He said he differs from Trump in believing the administration should be cooperating in a transition, even if the president holds out hope that the results could somehow be overturned.

“I would tell him if I speak to him that I think they should engage in a transition,” he said.

The spotlight on smaller rivals comes at an extraordinarily tumultuous time at Fox. There’s always been a tension between the news and opinion sides of the network, but this time it’s reflected in the ultimate “unspinnable” story of election results, said Nicole Hemmer, a Columbia University professor and author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.”

In some respects, the surge in Newsmax’s viewership represents a temper tantrum by some Fox viewers, she said.

For Newsmax, a big question is whether its programming is compelling enough to hold viewers who are clearly sampling. Besides Kelly, former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer is Newsmax’s best-known personality. Both their shows are aired twice a night; Ruddy said a new prime-time show will start next month and another is in the works.

“It’s going to be a challenge for (Newsmax) to grow their numbers in the way that Fox did because of the lack of a news operation,” Hemmer said.

___

Associated Press Television Writer Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Report finds Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghans
By NICK PERRY

1 of 6


WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A shocking Australian military report into war crimes has found evidence that elite Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians.

Australian Defence Force Chief Gen. Angus Campbell said Thursday the shameful record included alleged instances in which new patrol members would shoot a prisoner in order to achieve their first kill in a practice known as “blooding.” He said the soldiers would then plant weapons and radios to support false claims the prisoners were enemies killed in action.

Campbell told reporters in Canberra the illegal killings began in 2009, with the majority occurring in 2012 and 2013. He said some members of the elite Special Air Service encouraged “a self-centered, warrior culture.”

The chief was announcing the findings of a four-year investigation by Maj. Gen. Paul Brereton, a judge and Army reservist who was asked to look into the allegations and interviewed more than 400 witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of documents. Brereton recommended 19 soldiers be investigated by police for possible charges, including murder.

“To the people of Afghanistan, on behalf of the Australian Defence Force, I sincerely and unreservedly apologize for any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers,” Campbell said.

He said he’d spoken directly to his Afghan military counterpart to express his remorse.

“Such alleged behavior profoundly disrespected the trust placed in us by the Afghan people who had asked us to their country to help them,” Campbell said. “It would have devastated the lives of Afghan families and communities, causing immeasurable pain and suffering. And it would have put in jeopardy our mission and the safety of our Afghan and coalition partners.”

As well as the 39 killings, the report outlines two allegations of cruel treatment. It says that none of the alleged crimes were committed during the heat of battle.

Only parts of the report have been made public. Many details, including the names of alleged killers, remain redacted.

The report said a total of 25 current or former troops were involved as perpetrators or accessories in 23 separate incidents, with some involved just once and a few multiple times.

It said some Australian troops would regularly carry “throw downs” — things like foreign pistols, radios and grenades that they could plant on those they killed so the Afghan civilians would appear like combatants in photographs.

The report said most of the alleged crimes were committed and concealed at a patrol commander level by corporals and sergeants, and that while higher-level troop and squadron commanders had to take some responsibility for the events that happened on their watch, they weren’t primarily to blame.

The report paints a picture of a toxic culture in which soldiers were competing against those from other squadrons, accounts of deaths were sanitized or embellished, and many procedures to ensure safety and integrity had broken down.

“Those who wished to speak up were allegedly discouraged, intimidated and discredited,” Campbell said.

The report recommended 19 soldiers be referred to federal police for criminal investigation. Campbell said he’s accepting all the report’s recommendations.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already announced a special investigator will help pursue possible prosecutions because the workload would overwhelm existing police resources.

Many troops are also likely to be stripped of their medals and the defense force will undergo significant structural changes. The report says that where there is credible evidence of unlawful killings, Afghan families should be compensated immediately by Australia without waiting for the criminal cases to proceed.

“This will be an important step in rehabilitating Australia’s international reputation, in particular with Afghanistan, and it is simply the right thing to do,” the report states.

Dolly Parton adds pandemic hero to list of accomplishments

FILE - In this Nov. 13, 2019 file photo, Dolly Parton performs at the 53rd annual CMA Awards in Nashville, Tenn. Parton's $1 million gift to Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped researchers develop Moderna's experimental coronavirus vaccine, announced this week. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)


BOSTON (AP) — Dolly Parton is being celebrated in song — a rewritten version of her own “Jolene” — for her contribution to an experimental coronavirus vaccine.

Northeastern University associate English professor Ryan Cordell posted a video on Twitter of himself performing a tweaked version of Parton’s signature song, renamed “Vaccine,” that has drawn tens of thousands of views.

The lyrics, “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine / I’m begging of you, please go in my arm / Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine / Please just keep me safe from COVID harm,” were written by linguist and author Gretchen McCulloch, who posted them online and invited people to record them.

“I love that song. I love Dolly Parton. And I don’t know — I was inspired,” Cordell told The Boston Globe on Tuesday. “So I went and grabbed my guitar.”

Parton’s $1 million gift to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped researchers develop Moderna’s experimental coronavirus vaccine, announced this week.

Cordell grew up with Parton’s music, thanks to his parents and grandparents, and he called Parton’s appearance at the 2019 Newport Folk Festival as one of his “favorite musical memories.”

“So I was just thrilled to see this news that she had contributed to COVID vaccine research — I thought that was amazing,” he said.

The positive reaction to his video from doctors, nurses and other medical professionals is particularly gratifying, he said.

“And that’s really amazing because those folks are under so much pressure and stress, and especially right now as hospitals are getting overwhelmed,” Cordell said. “And so if they watched the video, and it made them happy for a minute, that’s all I need.”

America’s bellwethers crumbled in aligning with Trump in ’20

HOME OF EUGENE DEBS SOCIALIST PARTY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT 1912 SEE FOOTNOTES

By CLAIRE GALOFARO

1 of 10

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A glass case in the history museum on the main street through this city celebrates its curious place in American lore: There’s a photo of John F. Kennedy Jr. on the courthouse steps, and Richard Nixon at Terre Haute’s little airport. A newsreel playing on a loop describes it as “magic town.”

Vigo County, with about 107,000 people on the western edge of Indiana, long had some mysterious mix of quirky politics, demographics, geography, religion, labor and luck so that it had become America’s most reliable presidential bellwether.

Since 1888, this exhibit boasts, the county voted in line with the nation in every presidential election but two. It missed in 1908 and 1952, then remained a perfect predictor of the U.S. mood, a rare place to toggle between Republicans and Democrats in harmony with America.

“That’s wrong now. We’re going to have to change that poster,” said Susan Tingley, the executive director of the museum, which is in an old overalls factory that closed long ago, like most of the local factories.

Vigo County’s most recent winning streak ended this year, as it did for nearly all the country’s reliable bellwethers, most of them blue-collar, overwhelmingly white communities in the Rust Belt. Of the 19 counties that had a perfect record between 1980 and 2016, all but one voted to reelect President Donald Trump, who lost to Joe Biden in both the national popular vote and in nearly every battleground state.

The country’s tribalized politics seem to have finally reached these places that used to routinely swing from one party to the other. The only county that maintained its place as a bellwether is Clallam County, in Washington state.

The ones in the middle all crumbled, leaving many here wondering whether this was merely a Trump-fueled fluke or whether the country has cleaved itself so firmly into two opposing camps that these old political standard-bearers are obsolete. Is Vigo County just one more reliably red square in the red middle of America?

“It speaks to an evolution in American politics,” said David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati who analyzed the state of Ohio’s fall from bellwether status this year.

Niven notes these bellwethers were born when political battle lines tended to be drawn more cleanly along economic lines. These middle-class communities were in the center and up for grabs. But as national politics become less about economics and more about culture wars and identity, Democrats have lost their grip in places such as Vigo County that are overwhelmingly white, he said.

Now the places emerging as possible new bellwethers have more racially diverse populations. Delaware’s Kent County last missed in 1992. Its population is 60% white and 27% Black. Blaine County in Montana, which last missed in 1988, is more than 50% Native American.

Vigo County doesn’t look much like America, and its place as its foremost presidential predictor relied on a certain degree of luck, said Matt Bergbower, a political scientist at Indiana State University. It is not as diverse as the nation, with a population that is 85% white. It is not as wealthy or highly educated, either.

But for generations its conservative tilt on social issues was balanced by left-leaning idiosyncrasies. There are four colleges in Terre Haute, a remarkable number for a city its size. It is the birthplace of Eugene V. Debs, a champion for workers’ rights who ran for president as a socialist five times in the early 20th century. The county’s blue-collar workforce was heavily organized and union halls dotted the city.

Terre Haute was once so defined by its factories it even smelled of them. Big industrial plants lined the banks of the Wabash River, and the odor of fermentation and chemicals was in the air. People are happy that the smell is gone now. But it drifted away as the plants closed down, and with it went countless good-paying jobs.

The Democratic-leaning ingredients in town diminished, too. Many young people now leave, seeking better jobs in bigger cities. As industry crumbled, union membership declined.

Trump won in Terre Haute by 15 percentage points, holding his margin of victory in 2016. But local political observers on both sides of the aisle marveled at the dramatic spike in straight-ticket Republican ballots: 11,744, more than one-quarter of all the presidential votes cast. The county government, for the first time anyone can remember, will now be controlled almost entirely by Republicans.

“If you would have told me 10 years ago we would have more straight-ticket Republicans in this county than Democrats, I’d have said you’re a liar,” said Frank Rush, a Republican radio talk show host who voted for Trump.

Rush said Vigo County might be saying goodbye to its bellwether history, but it remains a barometer for the worries and values of the geographic middle of America. People in growing big cities just can’t understand life in a place like this, where it feels like the country is moving on without them.

“And Trump, love him or hate him, approve or disapprove, he at least gave the impression that he really cared about these folks that thought they were left behind and ignored,” Rush said. “That’s why they rallied to his side.”

Todd Thacker, business manager of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said he’s willing to take part of the blame for the way this election turned out. He tried mightily to persuade his members to “vote your paycheck” and elect Democrats who support organized labor. But he watched as many instead aligned themselves based on polarizing wedge issues — “God, guns and gays,” he derides it.

Thacker is an avid hunter, he has a concealed carry permit and owns many guns. But the polarized political landscape today has, he said, “brainwashed people to think that if you’re a Democrat, you can’t be a patriotic gun-owning flag-waving American.”

Trump managed to stoke that fear and people listened, fueled by misinformation on social media and pundits bellowing all day about how the other side will destroy democracy.

“He’s not a politician, he’s a scam artist,” said Thacker, who tried to remind people that President Barack Obama didn’t come take people’s guns, President Bill Clinton didn’t, either.

His union supported a program called “Unity in the Community,” that as a response to the national reckoning on racism tried to bring together the police and the Black community. One of his members accused him of supporting a “Marxist” movement.

Thacker says typically about 35% of his members vote Republican. This year, he thinks it increased.

The Trump supporters in the union include Craig Rudisel, who spent 23 years in the military before joining the electricians’ local and has a Trump sign as big as a bathtub on his front lawn.

“I’ve had conversation with people I work with and they say ‘you need to support your brotherhood, you need to support your paycheck,”’ said Rudisel, 50. “And I say ‘I have to support my conscience.’”

Rudisel is drawn to Trump’s position on guns, abortion and taxes. He wears a Make America Great Again cap every day, and was unfazed to receive an anonymous typewritten letter in the mail from someone who described in vulgar terms how much they disapprove of his Trump sign. He likes that Trump upsets people, and he doesn’t mind doing it, either.

“He wants to make America great again, and that’s what we want,” he said. “We are tired of liberal progressive ideals. That’s not what our country was founded on and that’s not how this county should be going in the future. I want the country that I grew up in for my grandson and granddaughter.”

Rudisel is proud of Vigo County’s bellwether history. Like many here, he can off the top of his head rattle off the details of the few elections it missed and that is part of why he has clung to the hope that Trump hasn’t lost. Trump has claimed there was widespread voter fraud, despite offering no evidence to support that charge.

Rudisel thinks what happened here is proof. Vigo County and the rest of the bellwethers always get it right and opted for Trump, so he must be the rightful winner, Rudisel thinks.

Other Trump supporters also pointed to Vigo’s past performance as a sign that the election fight might not be over.

Ken Warner, a stockbroker, said he will accept a Biden presidency but he wonders how so many bellwethers could get it wrong, all at once.

Warner, 64, has toggled between Republicans and Democrats, and wasn’t terribly excited about Trump in the 2016 primary. Warner remains uneasy about the president’s personality. He cringed when Trump antagonized governors during the pandemic and hurled childish insults at people such as the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

But he grew more enthusiastic about Trump throughout his presidency. He cheered for Trump’s economic policies. He supported the tax cuts, the tariffs and his tough stance on China.

The Trump era hasn’t been a boon for Indiana’s factory towns. The sector was recovering from the Great Recession when Trump took office, but that began to stall in 2019. Then the coronavirus caused a plunge in factory jobs in the state, which are now down by almost 40,000 from a year ago.

Warner believes if Trump had gotten a second term, things might have improved. He worries the economy will stagnate under a Democratic administration.

“I think his tweets were part of his downfall,” Warner said. “But the people that voted for Trump didn’t vote for him for his personality. They voted for results.”

Joe Etling was certain that the people of Vigo County would punish Trump for his temperament. Every four years, Etling, who has run the county’s Democratic Party for 24 years, is asked by pundits and politicians to guess who will win the presidential election. This year he said Biden.

“People in this county are good, decent people. They treat people with respect, they’re polite and if you’re out and about, people on the streets are going to welcome you. Well, when you hear some of the things that the president says publicly, they’re not real friendly, they’re not real polite, they’re not real courteous,” he said. “My sense is if you had Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a room with people in Vigo County, they would have substantially more in common with Joe Biden than they ever would have Donald Trump. And yet.”

Etling refuses to accept that his county is fully Republican now.

In 2008, he saw how excited this community was about Obama. When Obama came to town, people packed a school gymnasium and screamed like he was a rock star. The county had from 1960 to 2004 voted within 3 percentage points of the national vote, but it broke that streak to vote overwhelmingly for Obama, who won this county by 16 percentage points. That margin narrowed considerably in 2012, when Obama won Vigo County by just a few hundred votes.

Then it swung wildly rightward, awarding Trump huge margins of victory, twice.

“And you would have to agree that those two gentlemen are about as diametrically opposed as anybody that you could think about. And yet people still did that,” Etling said, and so he thinks they can turn it around again.

There was a bright spot for him in 2020. One of the few Democrats elected was Dr. Janie Myers, the new coroner and the first Black woman in history to win countywide office here.

So Etling is already starting to recruit Democratic candidates to run in local races in 2022, and he thinks it can reclaim its bellwether status.

But Tingley, at the county history museum, isn’t sure this place or any place can be a bellwether these days.

“It is all politics of fear and passion. It’s not about voting for who’s right for you. It’s about avoiding the candidate that scares you the most,” she said. “If it gets back to what’s best for the country, what’s best for individuals, what’s best for communities, I think that’s when the bellwether counties all across the country can hit it again.”

In the meantime, the city is trying rebrand itself.

The signs leading into town welcome visitors to the birthplace of the Coca-Cola bottle. A glass company here invented Coke’s iconic contoured container in 1915.

There’s a mural of the bottle painted on the side of the history museum, and around the town are 39 6-foot-tall brightly-painted bottle sculptures. The goal is to promote Terre Haute as a cultural destination, steeped in Americana history.

Tingley would be happy if the city became known for that. It probably would be more reliable than predicting the president every four years.

___

Associated Press writer Josh Boak and Associated Press data journalist Angeliki Kastanis contributed to this report.

Eugene V. Debs and the Endurance of Socialism | The New ...

www.newyorker.com › magazine › 2019/02/18 › euge...

Feb 18, 2019 — Eugene Victor Debs left school at the age of fourteen, to scrape paint and grease off ... turned that into the Social Democratic Party, and ran for President of the United ... “I was walking by the house where I was born,” he wrote.

Left Americana in Trumpland - Jacobin

jacobinmag.com › eugene-debs-socialism-indiana

Jan 21, 2018 — ... footnote in presidential history, as the birthplace and lifelong home of the American socialist movement's most iconic figure, Eugene V. Debs.

Eugene V. Debs - Definition, 1912 Election & S

ocialism ...

   

Dec 2, 2009 — Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) was a labor organizer and socialist leader. In 1885 he ... After embracing socialism, he became the Socialist party's ... Upon his death he was buried in Terre Haute, his home throughout his life.

Eugene Debs | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

www.pbs.org › wgbh › features › wilson-eugene-debs

An outspoken leader of the labor movement, Eugene Debs opposed Woodrow Wilson as the Socialist Party candidate in the 1912 presidential election.

Convict 9653 at 100
POSTED SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 ALLISON DUERK


Update: The recorded and captioned program is now available to stream at this link.

100 years ago, Eugene V. Debs made his fifth and final bid for the presidency as Convict No. 9653. Imprisoned for condemning war, Debs campaigned from his Atlanta prison cell on issues that still resonate today: “real democracy and self-government and the essential rights and liberties of the people.”

“Convict 9653 at 100” will stream live on our Facebook page on October 11th at 3 pm Eastern.


Political Activist


Debs’ first experience in politics was as a young man in Terre Haute, where he served two terms as City Clerk beginning in 1879. In 1884, he ran successfully as a Democrat to represent Terre Haute in the Indiana General Assembly. History considers the 1885 State Assembly a productive legislature, but Debs did not see it that way and chose not to run for another term. By this time his official duties in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen were demanding much of his time and energy, and the labor movement seemed to Debs to be a promising way to the achievement of his reformist goals

1904 Debs/Hanford Presidential Campaign Poster

The experience of the Pullman Strike taught Debs that major changes were necessary in our laws if workers’ rights were to be advanced, so after his release from Woodstock his efforts were turned more to the political arena. He eventually aligned with the American Socialist Party and ran five times as the party’s Presidential candidate.

Debs progressive idealism showed itself in his political activities. As City Clerk he shocked the morality of citizens by refusing to assess fines on prostitutes since the police were not bringing in the pimps or the business men customers of the women of this illicit trade. In the Socialist Party, Debs was not one for the intra-party squabbles and personal rivalries which often split the party. Debs was the idea man and the great communicator, the never-tiring campaigner and spell-binding orator. He was great at mixing and touching, or in setting down and persuading on a one to one basis. Through the first two decades of the 20th century, the Socialist Party was split over power struggles and differences of opinions, but always united in supporting Debs as its presidential candidate and leading symbol.

During these campaigns the Socialist Party put a number of issues on the national agenda and advanced perhaps by decades the legislation which achieved a number of objectives for working class America. The list includes women’s suffrage (large numbers of Debs supporters were women). It includes legislation restricting child labor, and protecting workers’ rights to join unions and when necessary to strike. It would also include workplace safety, on the railroads and in the mines and factories.

Debs was a tireless campaigner, but the pshysical demands of a presidential campaign were excessive. With no radio and television spots, and with little sympathetic coverage of Progressive, Third Party causes, there was no alternative but to travel incessantly, one city or whistle-stop at a time, in searing heat or numbing cold, before crowds large or small, in whatever hall, park or train station where a crowd could be assembled.

Different from the fury of the campaign trail during these years was his guest editorials for Appeal to Reason. Published in Girard, Kansas, Debs forceful journalism worked wonders for this progressive weekly as it had done earlier for Locomotive Firemens Magazine. Debs’ popularity built the readership of Appeal to as much as a million readers, and spread progressive, Socialist ideas to a readership coming from all walks of life and all social strata.

Debs of course wanted a good vote count, but he saw his presidential campaigns also as educational and his real concern was to spread awareness of his vision of a better society, where justice, fraternity and equality would prevail. Debs ran in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920, the last race from Atlanta Prison. The slogan on a campaign poster in 1920 read: “From Atlanta Prison to the White House, 1920,” and a popular campaign button showed Debs in prison garb, standing outside the prison gates, with the caption: “For President Convict No. 9653. “Debs received nearly one million votes that year!



Perhaps the most colorful campaign was in 1908, when Debs used the Red Special Train to whistle-stop the country. There also was a Red Special Band. Debs spoke from the train to enthusiastic crowds dozens of times a day as he toured the country. Political campaigns before television generated interesting and sometimes novel memorabilia. A 1912 almanac (calendar) printed by the Socialist Party has the months of the year bordered by quotes from Debs such as “I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than for what I don’t want and get it.”

The measure of Debs and the Socialist Party is not in vote counts alone. A cartoon from the same 1912 campaign portrays the competition for progressive ideas by the parties, ideas such as voting rights for women, restrictions on child labor, and workers’ right to organize unions. It is highly doubtful if the Republicans and Democratics would have been giving at least lip service to such progressive ideas as early as 1912 had not the Socialists been popularizing these ideas since 1900. In the cartoon just mentioned, Debs is shown skinny dipping, and sees Teddy Roosevelt making off with his cloths. Another candidate is watching from behind bushes, minus his clothes, and says: “Don’t be too upset, Gene, he’s already taken ours.”

In recorded history and in popular imagination Debs is portrayed in extremes either positive or negative. The negative image portrays a radical labor baron, “King Debs,” trying to take over the railroads and destroy property rights, as unpatriotic anti-war extremist who failed miserably five times in tries for the presidency, or less negatively perhaps as a kind, great-hearted idealist who simply did not grasp the realities of economic life and human nature. The positive image shows a highly effective union leader of turn-of-the-century America, a kind, big hearted and deeply loved man, respected even by prominent Terre Haute business men who chose to overlook his radical leanings. Debs case is often cited as an example of the failure of our legal system to protect his constitutional right of freedom of speech. In organized labor there is enduring respect for Debs as one of the giants among the pioneers of the American labor movement. His kiosk stands in the Labor Hall of Fame, Department of Labor, Washington, DC as a tribute to his contributions to American labor. Labor Unions are among the most active supporters of the Eugene V. Debs Foundation and union members from across Indiana and the Midwest are in regular attendance each fall when an annual award banquet is held in Terre Haute.

Search for:
Foundation News
Convict 9653 at 100
Academic Conference Postponed
Debs in Our Voices Recording Now Available
Debs in Our Voices: Walls & Bars
Watch The Revolutionist with Senator Bernie Sanders
Sister Organizations

The New York Labor History Association