St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-11-23
CHICAGO ADMIRERS CARRY HIM
A MILE ON THEIR SHOUL-
DERS.
A CHARACTERISTIC SPEECH
llGIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE
ME DEATH,H HE
CRIES. TX
INNOCENT OF ANY CRIME.
He Demands Fair Trial by q
Jury of His Peers on the
Conspiracy Charge.

CHICAGO, Nov. %. = Eugene V.
Debs spoke in Central Music hall to-
night to an audience that taxed the
seating and standing capacity of the
hall. Most of the leading labor or
ganiZationS were represented and the
reception accorded to the leader OF
the American Railway union was en-
thusiastic in the extreme. Eight car
loads of DebS' friends went down to
Woodstock to greet him on his re-
lease from Jail today, and several
thousand men were at the station
of the Northwestern road when the
train bearing Debs and his friends
arrived at 7:3O o'clock. The reception
as Debs stepped from the train bor-
dered on the frantic. Hundreds OF
men pushed and struggled to get a
grasp of his hand; many of them
hugged him, and some went to the.
length of kissing him. Finally he
was tossed up to the shoulders OF
four men, and, followed by a dense
throng, that never for one instant
stopped it's shouts and cheers, he
was escorted to the hall about one
mile distant. The warmth of the
reception accorded him at the depot
was repeated when he entered the
hall, with the exception that the
men were unable to get close to him
and contented themselves with
cheering and waving their hats. The,
speech delivered by Debs was re-.
ceived with great applause by his
| audience.
Debs commenced by saying that
in the light of recent judicial pro-
ceedings he stood stripped of his
constitutional rights as a free man
| and shorn of the most sacred prerog-
atiye of American citizenship, and
that was true of every other citizen
who had the temerity to protest
against corporation rule or question
the absolute sway of the money
power. 1t was not the law, nor the
administration of the law, Of which
he complained. 1t was the fragrant
violation of the constitution, the to-
tai abrogation of law and the usur-
patton of judicial and despotic power,
by virtue of which he and his coli
| leagues were committed to jail,
against which he entered his protest,
and any honest analysis of the pro-
| ceedings must sustain the haggard
| truth of the Indictment. He had been
denied a trial. He was charged with
| conspiracy, and if guilty should go
| to the penitentiary. He wanted to
be tried by a jury of his peers, and
all he asked was fair trial and no
favor. (The conspiracy case is still
undisposed of in the United States
court.)
LOVERS OF LIBERTY.
Debs then spoke at great length
of personal liberty" and in de-
fense of the American Railway
union, saying it would have tri-
umphed but for the interference of
the federal authorities, which he
characterized as "an exhibition OF
| the debauching power of money"
| Tonight's demonstration, he said,
meant that the American lovers OF
| liberty were setting in operation
forces to rescue their constitutional
| liberties from the grasp of monopoly
| and it's mercenary hirelings; that the
| people were aroused in view of i'm
| pending peri1s, and that agitation,
| organization and unif1cation were to
be future battle cries Of men who
would not part with their birthright,
and who, like Patrick Henry, had
| tn avo1aiTr HCjUa
| liberty or give me DEATH" Were he
criminal, guilty Of crimes merit
ing a prison cell; had he ever lifted
his hand against the life or liberty
of his fellow men; had he ever
sought to filch their good name, he
would not be on the platform. He
would have fled from the haunts OF
civilization and lived in g. cave,
where the voice of his kindred was
never heard. But he was standing
before his hearers without a self
accusation Of crime or criminal in
tent fostering in his conscience, in
the sunlight once more, contributing
as best he could to make this Glib
Grafton day" a memorable dayG1hfy
GRAFTON day. memorial day, reliz-
ing, as Lowell sang:
"He's true to God whose true to man;
wherever wrong is done,
To the humblest and the weakest,
meath the all-beholding sun;
That wrong is also done to us, and
they are slaves most base
Whose love Of right is for themselves
| and not for all their race"