The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-08-06

than one thousand electors in the state
 at the time, We had the ague, and
 while We were sick our crops routed.
 We lived in the midst of hostile neigh
 bors and were amenable to bad laws,
 The murder of freesoil men began in
 lS55, Six months later these assassina-
 tions were avenged by the hanging of
 SIX pro-slavery men at Pottawattomie,
 Any one who had heard him. as have
 hundred times, would have known
 that my father was an instrument pro-
 duced by the exigencies of the time that
 required him. I do not believe any vo-
 lition of his own could have prevented
 the march of events or hls part in them.
 His failure was victory; his cause tri-
 umphed over his death. He headed no
 party, changed no law, won no battle
 and suffered an ignominious death, but
 he left principle that animated twen-
 ty-five million people into action, lifted
 the burden of slavery from the south
 and brought civilization forward one
 hundred years at single stride. And
 his soul goes marching on. I cannot
 tell you how my heart leaped the first
 time heard that song. l never heard
 how 1t originated, but all at once half
 million soldiers were marching to victo- ry inspired by the soul of martyred John Brown. The nation had caught up with him who five years before had been swung off to immortality and inn
 mortal fame from the end of rope. "Harper's Ferry? I was not there.
 was in Canada, getting supplies to SUD- port the fighters. I missed the hemp necklace, but I wear slavery bracelets yet" He rolled his sleeve above his elbow, and showed a ring scar that sunk deep and encircled the arm. That ring of skin came off with some ropes in a Kansas prison. After the massacre of the six men at Pottawatto- | mic. Owen, Jason and myself were cap- | tured. My arms were tied back with a heavy rope, and I was forced to run be- 1 fore cavalry escort all the way to Os- l sawattomie in the hot sun. l went in sane, and did mot know when the ropes were removed, but I had torn the flesh | of my swollen and bleeding arms in my agony, and there are the brace let's. I was in prison for months, vast l ed with fever and violently insane, so 1 that if had not been chained to the floor, should have killed myself, prob- ably. They did not attempt to put any of us to death, because they were | afraid of my father, who had his band of free soldiers in the swamp, but who | rode in and out of the town unmolested. l So terrible had his name become, that I the border ruffians were afraid to come I to vote in 1856, and the state was car l ried for free soil. Our work in Kan | sas was done, but Brother Frederick I was murdered, my wife's hair was snow white, I was slowly recovering mind | and strength, and my infant boy ut l tered only senseless babblings."
 l The boy" man of thirty-two then, | was sitting on the opposite side of the l fireplace, smiling with imbecile amia- | bility upon the visitor. John Brown, l jr., swept his shock of gray hair back I with his hand, and resumed his story. "No, my fathea was not large man, 1 or robust, like me. He was only five | feet ten inches, and weighed but 140 pounds; yet such was his aspect that l he carried the impression of massive l build He had a military look and bearing, like the God-fearing Puritans. l His eyes were a keen blue, under shag- gy brows, and he rarely smiled, but was serious and meditative--not sad, be- 1 cause never discouraged. He always appeared to his followers, and even to l his enemies, to be in the foremost ranks of men. Emerson once said that Crom- well was the only other man in history l who would have justified violent act l on his own part as a special commits sion. But of his personal appear l ance? Like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. Only once in the last l four years of his life did he wear a suit that was not ragged, and that was on the scaffold. His hair grew long and | wild in Kansas; his face was unshaven I - | L4