Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-03-09

Does this young soldier heed the snow that
fills
His mouth and open eyes? or mind, in truth
Tonight, his mothers parting syllables?
Ills coat is red-but what Of that? Keep ruth
For others: this is but an Afghan youth
Shot, by the stranger on his native hills.
--FTase,'s Naqazine.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
"reminiscences of the little Giant of
the West.
From Forney's Progress
Not longer than a common sized wom-
an in mems clothes was Stephen A. Doug
.las when I first shook him by the hand
in the rotunda of the old capitol 3G years
age. He was Just 80 years old, and I do
not think he was bigger than my attenu-
ated old friend, Alexander H. Stephens
of Georgia, who in his 9th year, is NOT
much larger than the celebrated Tom
Thumb. And yet, in 1S43. 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 a 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 PENNSYLVANIA
apprentice, so or 40 years ago, or even an
ordinary house. servant, had to undergo.
Up at dawn in winter, eating breakfast
by candlelight, 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 greater vocation.
He 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 been eighteen,
for find that while he was still student
he "emigrated" to Cleveland, Ohio, in
1881, when he was ouly 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 aucticneer, and still read law. At
twenty one he was admitted to the bar,
!eaped at once into good practice, and
was elected Encouragement of the state.
Honors crowded on the precccious boy.
In 1910 he was elected secretary Of state,
and in 1871, 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 thirtieth year. There were seven
members of the house from Illinois, there
are nineteen now. Douglas passed
through all the honors his adopted state
could give him, rose to the senate of the
United States in 1S47, and served till
1861. On the Sd of June Of that year, he
died in his forty eighth year at Chicago.
call that putting long experience
into short space, or, 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 9th
ers who appointed and cultivated the fu-
ture of Western America but there was
no one man who 50 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 profered the opportu-
nifty. Of all his contemporaries of any
distinction one only survives 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
it. All history proves it, and it stands
among the unresolyed miracles OF our
own time, that the South should have so
long and stubbornly closed its eyes to a
fact plainly seen and boldly acted on by
most other people. As Douglas grew in
years ne 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
a great following. Older and ADLER
men willingly yielded to his influence.
Ia 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 his own
welfare; anil it must be said, if he had,
his boundless influence would have been
shorn. 1t was his utter disregard of self
| that made even selfish men trust him,
and naturally attracted to him the en-
thusiastic 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
1851, at the Smithsonian institute, Wash
ington, D. c., in the presence Of Mr..
Lincoln and his cabinet and great audi
ence. the illustriLus Prof. joseph Henry
in the chair.
The civil war had just begun Most of
the great actors on the government side