Eugene Victor Debs, 1855-1926, was a socialist leader and labor organizer. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and left home at 14 to work in the railroad industry as a locomotive fireman. He married Kate Metzel on June 9, 1885, and they made their permanent home in Terre Haute. A strong proponent of organized labor, Debs became the president of the American Railway Union in 1893, and his first imprisonment came as a result of his prominent role in the 1894 Pullman Palace Car Company strike. He discovered the works of Karl Marx while in prison and became a Socialist in 1897. He ran for president as the Socialist Party candidate in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920, the latter election occurring, famously, while Debs was in prison again for criticizing the government's enforcement of the 1917 Espionage Act. His time in jail negatively affected his health, and he spent the remaining years of his life at Lindlahr Sanitarium in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Fred D. Warren, 1872-1959, was an American author and journalist. He was born on March 24, 1872 in Arcola, Illinois. He worked several jobs in Kansas and Missouri before entering the printing trade. In 1890 he started a Republican newspaper in Rich Hill, Missouri, but by 1898 he had "converted" to socialism and started his own socialist newspaper called the "Bates County Critic." He then moved to Girard, Kansas to begin working for the Appeal to Reason, first as a printer, then as assistant editor. In 1904, he was made managing editor, and he would work at the Appeal until 1913. During his tenure as editor, Warren interacted with many famous socialists of his day, including Eugene V. Debs and Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's most famous work, The Jungle (1906), was originally commissioned by Warren and first published as a serial in the Appeal to Reason. After World War I, Warren worked as a stock broker in Chicago until the Stock Market Crash of 1929. He then moved back to Girard, Kansas, returned to publishing, and became more politically conservative. He died on March 25, 1959.