The Northwestern recorder., 1893-03-01
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
One of the Most Remarkable of all Liv-
ing Men.-A Nice Tribute.

or Frederick douglass, the crlIIc lor
the Inter Ocean has the following to
say of the greatest of Afro-Ameri-
cans:
"To say that Frederick Douglass
is one of the most remarkable living
men is to state the truth mildly.
For forty five years he has been be-
fore the American people, and today
an old, gray-headed man, full of
honor, sums up the events of his
life in volume of 752 pages, and
every chapter more profoundly inter.
esting than the best romance. For
twenty-three years a slave; then
a fugitive, protected by no law, and
member of hated and despised
race, shut out by public opinion from
every personal right. Life indeed
seems hopeless to such wanderer,
yet Fred Douglass was man, and
he overcame all his besetments, and
year by year arose, until to-day he
stands as the peer of the best
among the Nations grand men. By
nature, and not by the refnements
of education, did Douglass reach out
for honors. The writer of this knew
him more than forty years ago and
listened to his impassioned appeals
for his down -trodden race; upon one
occasion, in 1852, at a meeting in
one of the great halls in Philadelphia,
Douglass spoke for two hours to an
audience which filled every seat and
packed the aisles. Ten o'clock came
and he stopped amid the cries 60
on! go on!" He stopped and said;
Il don't often have a chance to
talk to such an audience of friends.
You who are standing are certainly
wearied. We will take a fve-min-
ute recess and allow any to retire.
The time was up and he spoke for
another hour and a quarter, and not
man or woman left the audience.
We mention the incident as illustrat-
ing the power of the man who then
had but recently purchased his own
freedom, and had comparatively be-
gun the education which has fitted
him for the high posts of honor to
which he has since been called, and
to be the counselor and adviser of
the wisest statesmen of his time. AS
a biography none ever before written
has in it more OF inspiration for
every young man, whether his skin
be white or black. Last week we
noticed DIR. Venable's book, First be
Man" and it was just that maxim
that made Frederick Douglass. That
motherless boy (slave children were
often not honored with a father,
driven to the fields of Tuckahoe, and
worked from daylight to dark, does
not give out any large hope of man
hood. But nevertheless the man.
hood was there, and brutality and
persecution and starvation could not |
obliterate it. The story of slavery
he recites to multitude of younger
readers will be revelation, and will
serve to awaken a new interest in
this poor, despised race, which for
generations has been the unpaid
chattels of the white man. That the
pictures of slavery are as true as if
drawn by camera none can doubt,
and in keeping with the forgiving
spirit of the black man-no spirit of
revenge crops out In any line. No
race so long misused and abused ever
so fullv demonstrated in their arts
the prayer of Christ" Forgive them,
they know not what they do"-as
the black race during the late war.
Had their places been filed by Ital-
ians, or Chinese, or Frenchmen or
Englishmen, or even Americans,