People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1895 — A RETROSPECT. [ARTICLE]

A RETROSPECT.

D*ta’ Speak lac Compared With That of Abraham Lin cola. When Eugene Victor Debs came to New York from Chicago, last year, as a representative of the American Railway Union, then engaged in its memorable struggle, he made a speech in Cooper Union, which I heard. I sat near a spot at which I had sat at another meeting held in the same place, thirty-four years previously, which was addressed by another speaker who had come to New York from Chicago. The western speaker who stood before me on that platform in August, 1894, was to me a reminder of the other western speaker who stood there in February, 1860. Both men were tall and spare of figure the complexion of each was rather dark —darker in the one than the other; the face of each was rather gaunt, that of the earlier speaker much more gaunt than that of the latter; both were men of good and strong features; there was something intense about the facial expression of each; both were men of commanding and impressive manners. I recalled the somewhat peculiar and shrill voice of the speaker of 1860; I heard ano er voice in 1894 that resembled it. As they spoke, it was easy for’ a New Yorker to discern that they were both from the west.

The man to whose speech I listened in Cooper Union in February of 1860 was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois—born in Kentucky. The man who spoke from the same platform within my hearing last year was Eugene Victor' Debs of Illinois, born in Indiana. I recalled the appearance, the manner, the voice and the speech of Lin coin as Debs stood there before me thirty-four years afterwards. It seemed to me that both men wer< imbued with the same spirit. BotH seemed to me as men of Judgment, reason, earnestness, and power. Both seemed to me as men of free, high, genine, generous manhood. 1 "took" to Lincoln in my earlier life as I took to Debs a third of a century later. In the speeches of both westerners there was cogent argument; there were apt illustrations; there were especially emphatic passages; there were movements of lightning; there were touches of humor; there were other qualities which produce conviction or impel to action. Each speaker was as free as the other from gross eloquence. I confess that I was as much impressed with the closing words of Debs’ speech as I was with those of Lincoln, when he exclaimed: "Let us have faith that right makes right; and in that faith, let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.” As Lincoln stands in my memory, while looking far back, Debs stands in it as I saw him in Cooper Union a yeaif ago. Lincoln spoke for man; so spakd Debs. Lincoln spoke for right and progress; so spake Debs. Lincoln spoke for freedom of labor, bo, Debs. Lincoln was the foe of human slavery so is Debs. I was in the deepest sympathy with Lincoln when he came here as I wa* also with Debs when he came here. 1 had striven for Fremont in my youth as I have striven in later years for prin ciples that are the logical sequence oi those of Lincoln and are represented by Debs.—The Railway Times.