The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1881-12-03
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
His Coming Lecture on John
Brown and the AutObiOgra-
ply He is Writing.

10 SU ulilNclS Ill tllC puUllC lllllu dUOuI
his early slave life and its humiliations,
and his latter free life so full of labors
and honors. 1t is familiar story to
me. | know all about it. 1t has more
romance in its reality than any other
life that can be written. You and /,
years before the war, read his book
called "My Bondage and My Freedom"
and read it with tears ON every page.
Truly Frederick Douglass is a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief His
heart-strings have felt the sweep of the
whole scale of human misery and hui
man ecstacy, from woe and despair to
JOY and exaltation. What book such
a man can give us. l see that he is
again to lecture this winter. He told
me he was tired of it, and thought he
would quit it. But now for the first
time he is to tell us all he knows of
"JoHN BROWN, OF ossAwATToMIE."
How the people will crowd to hear
for the first time the only true story of
John Brown. That story has never yet
been told as friedrich Douglass will give
it in a mastery way in his lectures this
winter. John Brown, he told me once
staid at his house at Rochester, n. Y,
some weeks and tried to induce him to
embark in that mad adventure which
cost Brown his life. He left the origi-
nal draft of his Constitution of Repub-
lie he was to set up in the mountains
after ne had freed the slaves at Doug
lass house, and Douglass keeps it yet.
That visit of Brown liked to have cost
Douglass his life. Douglass was then
editing his paper at Rochester, and do
ing well. As soon as the news came of
the Harper's Ferry insurrection in 1859
Douglass friends were uneasy for his
personal safety. He laughed at them
and said there was no danger-he had
nothing to do with John Brown or his
raid on Harper's Ferry. "Surely," he
said, chad as the slave power hates me
it will not dare to touch me for shelter
ing the poor old man in my house."
But his friends were wiser than he.
One morning early friend rushed to
Douglass house and told him to flee to
Europe at once, the authorities, Demo-
cratic of course, were on his track, and
a United States Marshal was even then
HUNTING FOR HIM IN ROCHESTER.
There was not a moment to lose, not a
moment even to bid his family good-by,
and he was hustled into wagon, driven
OFT at a rapid pace, passed over the I'M
foreground railroad and in due time set
down safely in Canada, and thence sent
to England, where he remained until
Virginia was glad to nolle the indict-
ment, for he had been indicted for MUIR
der, and would have been hanged if
they could have caught him. He told
me it was one of the most thrilling ad-
ventures of his life, that escape from
Rochester. l see Douglass is about to
publish his autobiography. 1t will be
more thrilling than any romance, and
command wide sale. His Bondage
and Freedom sold almost equal to
"Uncle Toms Cabin" for time, but of
late the sale has fallen off greatly.
The work was incomplete. Douglass
was then only young man, aud the
public wanted the story of his rounded
out life of three-score years and ten.
Douglass is
SEVENTY YEARS OLD, OR WHEREABOUTS.
| tell you how l know. When he and
were campaigning together in Indiana
last fall frequently some one in the vast
crowd before him would interrupt the
venerable orator by asking: "Mr,
Doug lass, some of us here have curl
osity to know how old you are" "Well,"
he would softly reply, with smile,
IN that quiet manner of which he is such |
4 consummate master, 81 have the same
my friend. That is what l |
want to know, too. But, really, don't
know. When was born men of my CO..
'r were not born on days of the week,
n weeks of the month, or months of |
he year, but in complaining, in buck
cherry time, conveniently as they |
night be-" AT this there would be a
general laughter all over the crowd at the
expense of the inquisitive person who
lad put the question. As soon as order
vas resumed, Douglass said: "Oh that
all right. lam always glad to an
wer any question put to me when l can
10 SO. | suppose lam about sixtyseven
ears DID,"
'oUGLAss Is WONDERFUL sTUMP-sPEAKER
lie had the largest crowds of any man
Who spoke in Indiana. He and L were
'illed together, and spoke at Fountain
lily, Richmond, indianapolis, Pendle-
on, Muncie, Plainfeld, and many
Their principal cities and towns of the
tate in the Garfield campaign. He is
pleasant travelling companion, full of
necdote, always in good humor, and
ever thrown off his balance. He told
lie the whole story of his life. The
ubllc will soon have it for the first
me in full, and would not anticipate
If l could. He is a devoted Repub-
can. Let me tell your readers how
Enthusiastic the great orator, or as Sir 4
ebert Peel called him, "the O'Connell t;
America" was for Garfield and Ar /
lur They were going to have great |
If at Kansas City about the middle of
eptember 1880, and wanted Douglass {
speak there
AND DRAW THE CROWD.
e wrote them that his engagements
it'll me in Indiana rendered. it imposs- e
lie. Still they kept writing, and f. $
lily the day we were at Richmond,
3D., he showed me a telegram, saying: v
, ! gu must come. We will pay you n n