Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-03-13
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
"reminiscences of the 'sLittle Giant" OF
the West. I.5E5.*S

hc11lulSCClCCS VI EA1ASOAO N1AsSAAS ~
the West. I 1.5l5..S
From Forneys Progress srr.ss..~s
Not longer than cOmmon-slzed Wom'
an in mems clothes was Stephen A. Doug
las when first shook him by the hand.
in the rotunda of the old capitol SO years
age. He was just 80 years old, aad do
not think he was bigger than my attenu-
ated old friend, Alexander a. Stephens
of Georgia, who in his 9th year, is not
much larger than the celebrated Tom
Thumb. And yet, in 1843. when ] first
met Stephen A. Douglas, he had gone
through. adventures enough to float
novel by Charles Reade, or to put to blush
some of the London stories by Charles
Dickens. Born at Brandon, Vermont, he
lost his father while an infant, and be-
came an apprentice to village cabinet
maker, to support his destitute mother.
People who talk about the miseries Of
the mechanics in these days have no idea
what Yankee, or even u PENNSYLVANIA
apprentice, 80 or 40 years ago, or even an
ordinary house servant had to undergo.
Up at dawn in winter, eating breakfast
by candlclight, doing all sorts of chores
in the cold, the same now not even done
by the paupers in our benevolent institu-
tons, under the overfed policy which
coddles the inmates and en-
riches matrons and directors;
the old.tlme apprentice was as bad
off as the Southern slave. But when
Stephen A.. Douglas was learning how to
make primitive furniture in Vermont he
was in training for a greater vocation.
BE could not have been more than thir-
teen, and he worked so hard at his trade
that he lost his health, and he was sever
al years student of law in Canandaigua,
New York, where his mother removed;
and then he could not have peen eighteen,
for find that while he was still student
he ''emigrated' to Cleveland, Ohio, in
1881, when he was only nineteen. Cleve-
land, which is now lovely metropolis,
was then miserable hamlet on Lake
Erie. and the little STRIPPING, evidently
disguised, pushed on to sill smaller
town in still smaller state. Jacksonville,
Illinois. Here he kept school, clerked for
an auctioneer, and still read law. At
twenty one he was admitted to the bar,
leaped at once into good practice, and
was elected attorney-generalo of the state.
Honors crowded on the precocious boy.
In 1910 he was elected secretary of state,
and in 1941, judge of the supreme court
OF the state, when he was only twenty
seven! III health forced him to decline
this last office, but in 1843 he was chosen
to the national house of representatives,
in bis thirtietb year. There we're seven
members of the house from Illinois, there
are nineteen now. Douglas passed
Il o1j kf1 3D. 1ks.<o
could give him, rose to the senate of the
United States in 1947, and served till
1861. On the Sd of June of that year. be
died in his forty eighth year at Chicago.
call that putting long experience
into short space, OF, to use an old smile,
forcing a quart into pint. 1t is worth
while, at the present time, to pause and
make note how much this one brief and
busy life has nodded and mastered the
destinies OF empires. He was the abso-
lutte creator of school. There was eth
ers who appointed and cultivated the fu-
ture of Western America; but there Was
no one man who so fully understood it as
Douglas. Benton, Allen, Linn and few
more did much, especially Benton, whose
great picture and prophecy of the future
of Oregon il 1910. seemed to indicate
that he he had caught the inspiration of
the coming time. Douglas alone had the
good sense to grasp the political or party
issue when Kansas proffered the opportu-
nifty. Of all his contemporaries of any
distinction one only survives--W William
Allen Of Ohio. He was born in 1905, in
North Carolina, and is still living near
Chillicothe, Ohio; but although Douglas
hes been dead over seventeen years, his
name far outweighs the fame OF his
old colleague. The secret is easily traced.
Slavery and the prejudices that grow out
of slavery, have dwarfed sections and
statesmen. The experience is exception
less, and Douglas and Allen both prove it.
The present condition of the South proves
t. All history proves it, and it stands
among the unresolved miracles OF our
own time, that the South should have so
long and stubbornly closed its eyes to
fact plainly seen and boldly acted on by
most other people. AS Douglas grew in
years lie grew in size; he broadened, but
did not heighten, and when he rose to
speak the first impression was not agree
able, but he soon won his way, and
never lost what he won. He had
great following. Older and ADLER
men willingly yielded to his influence.
In making friends he was always ready
to sacrifice himself. Leading in all great
movments, bold to rashness, far-sighted
and prophetic, one weakness was insep-
arabic from such methods. He cared too
little for the practical objects of life. He
enriched thousands, and never stopped
to provide ways and means for bis own
welfare; anil it must be said, if he had,
his boundless influence would have been
sborn. It was his utter disregard of self
that made even selfish men trust him.
and naturally attracted to him the en-
thusias+ic and patriotic elements of the
country, North and South. He died in
Chicago in the flush Of his heroic sacri-
fees, and I spoke his eulogy in July of
1861, at the Smithsonian institute, Wash
ington, D. G, in the presence of Mr..
Lincoln and his cabinet and great audi
ence, the illustricus Prof. Joseph penry
in the chair.
The civil war had just begun Most of
the great actors on the government size
were present. Stevens, Stanton, Chase,
Ben Wade, Cameron, Sumner, Fessenden
were present, all gone but Cameron.
Lincoln mourned his old adversary With
honest grief, not simply because they
bad become friends, but because he
looked to Douglas to sustain his admin
istration, and because he knew that with
his aid the Democracy, North and South,
would be favorably affected in the same
direction. 1t was on the book that the
great tribune would have been called
into the army bad he lived. In that event
he might have been today formidable
rival for the presidency. He would now
be sc, about the age of Tilden (65), or
Thurman $780,, who are hungering for
the Democratic nomination in 1880.
A German PhilOpena.
The German method of ranagin, the
pleasant play of philopena is as follows:
When a couple meets after eating
philopena together, no ADVANTAGE is taken